Half Way Home

• 19 • The Slaughter

Jorge and Karl led one of the vinnies aside. The remaining six marched in a circle, the lead vinnie having been guided around until his nose met the last one’s rump. The entire column writhed, their brown and black thistles waving over and over down the length of each body. I was as hungry as the rest, but for some reason I didn’t like the idea of eating something alive. I could find nothing in my training so different from the other colonists to justify my lone revolt, but nobody else seemed to be bothered by the idea.

I tried talking to Kelvin about it, but Jorge and Karl began mocking me, and I could see confusion on Kelvin’s face as well. After being called a “sissy” several times, I gave up my protests. Jorge guided the chosen creature away, patting it on the rump with his machete as he walked beside it. I grabbed the other blade and went back to chopping wood, which allowed me to keep my back turned to the ordeal.

My eyes may have been averted, but nothing shielded me from the cries of the animal as it was slaughtered.

I froze, and over the shrieking and squeals—eerily humanlike—I heard some of the others in our group expressing their own disgust. Several of the boys began yelling at Jorge to finish the job and I heard him yell, “I’m trying!”

Someone—I didn’t see who—ran over and snatched my machete out of my hand and presumably used it to help out.

I cupped my hands over my ears and knelt in the moss wondering—and not for the first time—what was wrong with me. Why I felt like throwing up.

Tarsi came over and joined me; she wrapped an arm around my waist as we both knelt amid the scattered chips and splinters of wood. She held me until the sounds stopped, stroking my head and kissing my cheek.

Much of my initial shock came from pity for the poor animal—as frightening as the thing had seemed to me mere moments before. But it was my own shame at having such a strong reaction that left me suddenly feeling as if I weren’t a part of the group.

Later, while the smell of the animal roasting over the fire drifted around our camp, I moved to a low spot in the tree’s tunnel and ate raw bombfruit, feeling as sorry for myself as I did the dead vinnie.

“You sure you don’t want some?” Kelvin asked when he came over to check on me.

“I’m positive,” I said, thankful he was considerate enough to not come bearing a portion of the animal on a stick.

“You want to talk about it?”

I laughed at him and scooted over, leaving room in the tunnel for him to sit and swing his legs. “That’s my line,” I said.

Kelvin grunted. “Maybe we’re the ones that’re messed up.” He nodded back toward the campfire.

I didn’t accept his diagnosis, but it did make me feel better. I had a sudden impulse to rest my head on his shoulder, to let his strength prop me up similar to the way Tarsi often sank into mine. But I restrained myself.

“You and Tarsi have fun while we were gone?” he asked.

I looked over at him and saw his jaw muscles flexing as he clenched and unclenched it over and over. “Look, Kelvin—”

He reached his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “Hey, it’s no big deal. It should be her choice, right?”

“No, listen to me—”

“I’m serious, Porter, it’s fine. I’d rather her choose you than half these other guys.”

“Only half?” I asked, smirking at him.

“Well, Karl is quite a bit better looking than you—”

I punched his knee. “Seriously, though, I need to tell you something. I’m—it’s stuff I’m just sorting out on my own. I don’t even know how to say it without freaking you out—”

“Hey,” he said, standing up and backing away, his hands held high. “I’m cool with you guys being together, but I don’t wanna hear specifics, okay? And I don’t know enough to give you advice, anyway.”

“No, listen—”

But it was too late. Not just because Kelvin had backed toward the campfire, but because I could feel the impulse to spill my guts had passed.

Besides, there’d been quite enough of that for one day.

Even as I abstained from the meat, I had to admit the smell was oddly intoxicating. My mouth watered at the odor of the roasting flesh, even as my brain rejected the idea of eating something dead. It was as if I’d skipped another training program. All I’d been prepared to eat was cultivated crops and protein mixes, but the other boys seemed to know without learning it that moving things were to be chopped up and cooked. And they also seemed to understand the best methods for doing both.

I finally rejoined the group as they finished eating, wary of ostracizing myself any further. Jorge made one probing jab at my manhood, but a look from Kelvin put a quick end to that. The other boys burped contentedly while the vinnies marched in a circle and my stomach continued to growl.

Eventually, we began considering our options aloud.

“Well, we certainly won’t starve to death,” Karl pointed out. “As long as the rains are steady, we’ll be better off than those inside.”

“The goal has to be more than that,” I pointed out. When everyone turned to me, I clarified: “Beyond just not starving.”

“You mean long-term,” Britny said. “Like I was saying the other day.”

“Exactly. I mean building things. And finding a regular source of water, something to irrigate with.”

“We discussed that on the way down,” Kelvin said. “Vincent was thinking we could hack away some of the canopy up top and rig up tarps to the tunnel. Most of the rain doesn’t even make it to the bottom. It’s all puddled up there on top. We could create a massive flow of it down here, like a river spiraling down.”

“That still relies on the rains,” I said. “We’ve been awake for almost a month and Colony’s told us very little of the planet—”

“Are you thinking of the snow on the mountains?” Tarsi asked.

I nodded. “There must be streams from the runoff. Maybe we should think about—”

“Who made you the boss?” Jorge asked, leveling his machete at me from the other side of the fire.

“Nobody,” I said. “I’m just asking questions—”

“Sounds like you’re making plans,” he said, then made a show of tearing off a bite from a cold piece of meat.

“Jorge, give it a rest,” Tarsi said.

“Porter’s right,” Kelvin said. “Peter was trained as a farmer, like me. He may have been thinking the same thing.”

“I don’t want to go chasing after Peter and Mica on a hunch,” Jorge said. “Besides, who needs farming when we can corral a bunch of vinnies. Right, Vinnie?”

“We can’t keep calling them that if we’re gonna live off them,” Vincent said, frowning.

“Agreed,” Britny said, putting her arm around Vincent. Several of us nodded as well.

“Making any decision is gonna to be impossible like this,” Samson said. “Who here is ranked the highest?”

“I don’t wanna get that kind of hierarchy going out here,” I told the group.

Karl pointed at me. “Guess we know who’s ranked the lowest,” he said.

Everyone laughed, and I had to join in. He smiled to let me know no harm was meant.

“I’m actually the lowest,” Samson admitted. Several of us already knew that, as he was open with the fact that he’d been in the vat right next to the exit on our birthday, and consequently the first one out. “And I don’t think she’s gonna say anything, but Mindy is probably the highest. Her vat was by Myra’s.”

We all turned to her, and I saw her face grow redder than any of the sunburned boys.

“I refuse to lead this rabble,” she said, smiling. “I’m just happy enough not to be mixing propellant for that rocket.”

“Speaking of which,” Tarsi said, “does anybody have a clue about why we were building that thing?”

Nobody answered.

“Should we care?” Britny asked.

“I think we should care about why this planet was deemed inhospitable,” she said.

“Lack of metal,” Leila said. “Besides gold,” she added.

“That’s the rumor,” said Kelvin, “but you sound like you know something.”

“I know who started the rumor,” Leila said. “Mica told me about it. She’s a geologist, so it could be her bias, but I think she knew what she was talking about. Anyway, everything else about this place is perfect for life—just not good for building more colony ships and sending them off to other planets.”

“That can’t be it,” Karl said. “They wouldn’t abort us just because it’s nice here but not profitable.”

“You sure about that?” Leila asked.

Jorge sneered at me. “What do you think, Porter?”

I felt my body flush with heat as a wave of faces turned my way. I took a deep breath and peered into the fire.

“I think the lack of metals makes this a pretty poor planet for colonization. I lean toward Leila and Mica on this. But I also think we need to keep our minds open to something else. There could be seasonal weather we don’t know about, or larger predators. And even though none of us signed anything, our births within the colony make us implicitly a part of a legal structure we’ve now turned our backs on. If the colony does do well, we’re always gonna be outlaws. Besides—and I don’t mean to be crass—but if we don’t have three kids per couple, none of this really means anything beyond our temporary happiness, right?”

“I call Britny,” Jorge said.

Several of the boys laughed, but not Vincent.

“Fuck you, Jorge,” Britny spat.

“You heard that, right?” he said. “That’s a verbal agreement.”

Everyone laughed even harder, except for Britny and me. Vincent glowered at Jorge and Tarsi reached her hand through my arms and intertwined her fingers with mine. I looked over and saw she wasn’t laughing either.

“So, have we all agreed to pair off and go roll around in the moss tonight?” Samson asked.

Mindy was closest to him, so it was left to her to slap his arm.

“I say we forget about the colony by putting some distance between us and it,” Tarsi offered. “Let’s pretend the day we squeezed through the perimeter fence was our real day of birth and the horrors beforehand were some final training we shared together.”

The joking fell silent as we mulled that over. I really loved the beauty of the analogy, the ability to pretend the worst of my life had been as unreal as all before it. It reminded me of Myra’s method of coping with the loss of Stevens.

“I also think we should try and find Mica and Peter,” she said. “If they went toward the mountains, that also works for finding fresh water and getting away from the colony. It’s the best of everything.”

“I second that,” Britny said.

A chorus of agreement followed. I squeezed Tarsi to let her know how much I supported the plan, and also how much I appreciated her deflecting the burden of leadership away from me.

“Well, then,” Vincent said, “I have an idea on how we should get there.”

“Besides walking?” Mindy asked.

“Now that you mention it… yeah, maybe. I was thinking we should hike back up to the canopy and walk across in a straight shot. It’ll take forever to work our way around the trees.”

“No way,” Leila said. “And risk falling to our death?”

“It’s not like that,” Samson said. “The leaves are so packed and stiff, it’s like walking on solid ground.”

“Except it’s two thousand feet above solid ground,” one of the girls complained. “And it’s a long way up to hike.”

“Once the rest of you see the sky up there, you’ll understand.”

“Yeah,” Jorge said. “Besides, I think Mindy had a good idea.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. About not walking. Maybe we can ride the vinnies up!”

We all turned to look at the large creatures; they continued to worm their way around the small circle—an unending column of dark, shivering fur.

“We really gotta call them something different,” Vincent said. “It’s creeping me out.”