1 - Finding a New Home

1

“...it is far safer to be feared than loved.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

The winter air was still as Henin and his father Dohai lay sprawled over the damp balding grass. The pond water reflected the crescent moon, illuminating the undersides of the trees like a black light on white paper.  In daylight the pond looked disgusting, formed from pollutants that seeped from the larger cities on Mars.  Behind it stretched a vast expanse of swamp, equally disgusting, but shielded from view by the drooping willow trees surrounding it.  The smell was almost unbearable, but Henin, or Hen, as he preferred to be called, didn’t notice, for it was rare for him to spend time with his father like tonight.  Besides, it wasn’t as if the rest of San Ahciliz smelled much better.

Hen spread both arms out forming a ‘T’ with his body.  His hands faced palms down and he clasped chunks of wet clay between his fingers.  They felt cold, like rigid ice chewed up and refrozen together.  Al squeezed the earth in his hands, and noticed something strange,  as if the mud was struggling to release itself from his grasp.

“Ah!” he jumped.

“What’s wrong, Henin?”

Just then, a small salamander jumped onto Hen’s chest from the mud clump.  Scared, it  fell onto its back and struggled to right itself.  Hen noticed its tail was missing as it began to scurry off.

“Come back little guy, you can’t go without your tail!” Hen said sitting up and searching through the dirt he let fall to the ground.  Had I hurt him? he wondered.  Oh no little lizard, I didn’t mean it, I really didn’t!

“No Hen, it’s fine.  His tail will grow back”, his father warned.

“But he’s hurt dad!  We need to help him!”

Dohai grabbed his son’s shoulder and turned his attention towards him, “He’s fine Henin.  I promise”, he laughing to himself, “He will be alright, alright?”

“What do you mean his tail will grow back dad?”

Then Dohai released his grip from Henin’s shoulder and leaned back, looking at the stars, he could see them so clearly here away from the city, he never got to see them since he was constantly away for work patrolling the far sides of the planet as a continuing terraformer, “They’re special like that buddy, like magic.”

“A m

agic lizard?”

“Yup, it’s like a ‘wizard’ lizard.”

Hen laughed, and his father joined in.  And as they laughed, Hen turned to his father, and in an instant he saw his face jerk.  A wet circle of mud showed on his cheek.  They turned to see Eliha, Hen’s seventeen year old sister, her right hand brown and mucky.

“Hey losers”, she joked, “what’s so funny, huh?”

Dohai stood up slowly and sternly, as if waking from a long refreshing nap.  Once upright, he bent his back forward and let both his hands disappear into the ground.  From it he seized a basketball-sized heap of mud.

“No, don’t you dare”, Eliha threatened, knowing his intentions, “I swear, I will destroy you dad if you even think about it.”

Dohai looked down at his son Henin with a smirk.

“It only seems fair right Hen?  I mean, she did get me first.”

“Ha, you’re dead, El!” Hen taunted, sticking his tongue out at her.  He knew he would regret it later. He thought his sister to be crazy, yet somehow felt closer to her than his mother or father, mostly because she was usually the only one home all the time.  She looked after him for most of his life.  Henin also found her short-tempered, yet sweet somehow. She reminded him of a gingersnap cookie, which he didn’t really like to begin with.  She had blonde hair tangled around her neck, with an artificial red tinge to it that she had made from her friend’s dye kit.  It gave him all the more reason to call her a ‘ginger.’