The landscape sped by unnoticed. The hollow warehouse was far behind them, and there was nothing but sand, vast valleys and never ending hills of gray meeting gray.
John was silent. Frequently he glanced behind. His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly turning his knuckles white, making the veins in his hands pop out.
Jane felt compelled to say something... anything. But every thought that came into her mind was wrong. There was always some great reason not to say it, and Jane endlessly searched for some way to reach out to John knowing she was not good enough. Common ground, wasn't that what her parents and all her many teachers had taught her, connection starts with common ground. And Jane sighed as she looked around her, all the ground was gray. She had to admit it, she was afraid to say anything, afraid of being wrong—still afraid of failing. Jane felt her old anger rise: what is wrong with that? What is wrong with being afraid of failing? Fear is not the enemy here.
It was time to fail.
Jane turned to John. "We survived. You survived. You have seen the face of death and lived."
John didn't say anything. His knuckles remained white, his veins still popped out.
Failing didn't feel that bad, it actually felt good. Aggressive and rebellious, Jane reasoned, like driving.
"I have never seen one that big before."
Jane's words seemed to make John uncomfortable. He looked out over the gray, then looked at the steering mechanism before him, looking at it, yet looking past it. Finally he spoke, "I saw hate, deep endless hate in his eyes... And that is exactly what he saw in mine."
John's word seemed to open a deep pit of icy air. Jane felt cold.
"Now I know." John crumbled, his words tumbling out with a shaking voice. "Now I know what she saw, her last sight before death. Blackness and hate. Hate and cruel rigidity. And I wonder, did she hold out her hands to him." John turned and looked directly at Jane. "Did she beg for her life?"
"Even if she did, can you blame her? This is our right, it is the right of all living things."
"To beg?"
"No, to value what we have."
John's shoulders softened, he looked down and closed his eyes: softly, briefly.
"To try to communicate that value to others."
"And what can he see?" John's jaw was tense. "Nothing but twisted, black hatred."
"I wish I knew what to say to help you. You've helped me so much. John, look at all you know, even though you have never seen him. He may beat you down, but you always come back. You are strong, and clever, and kind. John, today, he let you live. Think of what you can do now!"
John looked at Jane and she held his gaze. "I asked her to stay. Eva. I knew he was coming—No—already here. He was there, right on top of us, and I asked her to stay. I knew there was risk—great risk. I knew what the outcome was going to be, but I hoped. I hoped in that tiny spot of light that maybe he wouldn't kill her. And in that moment that bright spot overshadowed every truth. Truths that were solid. Truths I had always known. I knew he was going to kill her. I knew that she was just a distraction." John shook the memories from his mind. "Look at this land, look at my world. Light doesn't shine here, it's not meant to be here!" John took a despairing breath. "Hope has killed me. And I know what comes next."
Jane recognized that kind of sarcasm.
"I've heard it a hundred times. She died, but the rest of us lived. One sacrificed for the many, the math is easy. But do they know how hard it digs, how deep it cuts."
"We're going to get off this planet." Jane said.
"I can hear it in your words; the weapon that shoots in all directions, a beam of light shot straight into the brain: hope. Hope doesn't know responsibility, and responsibility has never seen hope. Hope will kill us all."
Jane shook her head, not in argument, but in disappointed acceptance, "Hope is the true mental illness—to believe in something when there is so much evidence against it. I have often thought of this. But even though what we want, what we hope for, doesn't always come true, hope is still necessary, hope is still good. And John, I am not going to die."
"You will. We all will. We can't win. Not against him. Maybe we had a fighting chance, when he would ignore us. But not any more. He's searching now. I can see it, he has already shown his pattern. We are next. He is looking for us. He is searching us out. The eyes, I know what they mean. He can finally see us."
Jane stared ahead in horror, unable to say anything.
John clutched the steering mechanism again. "I am sorry. I... The Stealer is with me. This is the future he has me see. I know how he can lie; I know how he can twist, but I have learned to not entirely distrust this state of being. The Stealer can feed you a thousand lies, but he will mingle it with truth. Truth comes under the wheels, caught in the dust and gray. All you have to do is look there. Hope tells me to keep believing we will survive, but the truth is Seehoiah will find us. I can see this truth, and it gives me every opportunity to prepare against it."
Jane actually felt excited. "You are a natural leader John."
John looked down, his shoulders sagged, and Jane understood that weight: heavy and constant, the burden of responsibility.
"Whether you like it or not—I believe in you." Jane's conviction made her turn to face John. "And sometimes the choices are bad, bad, and worse, but you have to make those choices. To do nothing is far worse. All anyone can do is the best in the situation they are in, and sometimes the best is not that great. You keep going, you keep trying, you keep living. You taught me that, and today we are here together. Neither of us are alone." Jane felt like she was lecturing and for a moment she felt remorse, like she had overstepped her bounds, but then she saw the look in John's eye, the smile on his face—he liked the fight.
"And somehow, you are connected to Seehoiah. I cannot deny it Jane, he recognized you. I saw it with my own eyes. We must tell Kill."
"Tell everyone. I'm tired of hiding."
John was silent for a time before he said: "Seehoiah takes everyone. This is the easiest sign to discern. He kills and then takes the bodies, but he did not take hers. He did not take Eva's. Why? Sometimes I feel like he was warning me. Did he leave her there for me to find? I was afraid to move her because then he would know I was there and he could follow me. I felt like he was watching me, taunting me, waiting for my return. He did not give her proper burial rites, she had no rights, she belonged to nothing then. I hate him for that, for the torment, for the blatant slap in the face. I felt like he was laughing at me. What if he came back, what if she was some kind of bait? I had to leave her. Do you know what the planet did to her?" This was said with more tortured passion than all the rest. "But it is nothing. She belongs to Kata'ahohpi now. This is my home, but sometimes," John gripped the steering wheel hard, "it feels more like my prison."
"I understand. Because that is exactly how I felt about Earth. I ran, but now that I'm gone I can see it was a mistake. I have to go back. We are powerful, the power is in us to change our prison into our home." Jane didn't know what else to say. She tried to think of something that would support John, but her thoughts kept straying to thinking about how much she wanted to get off this planet. It was wrong to be here, she had known that the moment she landed. But things were changing. "I hate being trapped." She looked up, not at John, but at nothing. Staring wide eyed, surprised by the words that came from her own mouth.
"I hate being unable to protect the ones I love." John replied.
The journey passed by in silence for a time. Each of them lost in their own thoughts. Jane tried to sleep, but was unable to. She faked it, and her stillness seemed to trick John.
He began to talk to himself, the same words, over and over. "I try and there is nothing I can do, I give everything. I keep the danger away and he walks into it. And where he goes - I cannot - and there is nothing I can do. Nothing I can do." John was silent, rolling in his own thoughts, getting dizzy, becoming sick with them. "Keep talking..." he muttered, "to stay awake... to stay sane."
Time slowly ticked on unaltered, the landscape sped by as familiar as ever. John was still John, and Jane was still Jane. But things had changed.
Given clear directions, Jane eventually took over driving, and John slept. Driving through the gray brought a different internal landscape to Jane's mind. She thought about her parents, wondering what they were doing. Were they carrying on with their lives? Jane wondered what they did when they heard of the crash and read the list of passengers and found both their children gone. In an instant. Final.
Thinking about her old life brought on a severe exhaustion. In an effort to stay awake, Jane began to quietly talk to herself. "She was hiding something. She wanted to please them. She messed up. And she knew she was responsible." Jane shook her head. "A piece of this puzzle is still missing." Jane felt the fatigue. "Three profiles, one of them mine." Jane wanted to close her eyes, but she knew she couldn't, knew it was better to watch. The truth was out there, Jane had to find it.
John shifted positions in his sleep, turning so his back was towards Jane. He was still for several minutes before Jane sighed, staring at the road ahead. Everywhere she looked she saw those black, beady eyes—peering at her, searching for something, just like her parents, and just like her parents Jane had no idea what it was.
"Don't fall asleep. She was hiding something. I'm tired. I feel heavy. A door you can't open..." Jane's words fell from her mouth down to the gray dirt, through the wheels which churned them back up into the sleeping air, floating lazily up to John's face as he stared at the landscape quickly passing by, listening to Jane. "...Don't fall asleep."
Fire burst all around them. Jane had no idea where the entrance to the cave was. John took out a drone from the back of the buggy.
"They'll know it's from us?" Jane asked. "Couldn't the Anders steal this?"
"They have. But, there is more to it than just sending it through the fire and the Anders have no gift for satire." John hastily input some text and the drone was sent through.
"How long will we wait?" Jane asked
"Not long." John said as he ran his hands through his hair. He shook his head violently. "I need to get through decontamination."
The pipe was put down. The fire suddenly disappeared, then reappeared bursting twenty metres above at the top of the pipe. John drove the dune buggy into the cave.
Soon came running. "Where are the others?"
"Dead." John answered. "We need to get through decontamination." He wiped the back of his neck with his hand.
"What happened?" Michael asked.
A shiver went up John causing him to violently slap his shoulder, then with the hand firmly pressed on his suit, he wiped it away. "I need to get through decontamination!"
"Dead? John what do you mean?" Soon stepped in front of the dune buggy. "Where are the supplies? You came back with nothing."
"You're lucky we came back at all." John said coldly.
Soon narrowed her eyes, and a heavy silence fell over the area. Jane had to act before the weight sparked. "I can explain." Jane said. "You must let John go ahead." In the short silence that followed Jane thought of more. "Tell Kill to meet him in decontamination."
John's hands were in his hair, pulling. "Oosa. I need to talk to Oosa as well."
"Tell Oosa too." Jane added, moving out of the dune buggy. "Let John go through to decontamination. I will explain."
Soon stepped back, appeased. Michael ran to the machine, contacting the main cave. John sped away in the dune buggy and Soon watched until he disappeared.
Kill and Oosa glanced at one another as John paced violently across decontamination. Kill's eyes quickly darted to the light—still nothing.
"John, for ten years I have watched over you. I know when you are troubled, and something is troubling you."
"What happened?" Kill asked.
John continued to pace. "How many do you see Kill?"
Kill looked at the light again. "There is nothing. None."
Oosa spoke gently. "Water will force its way through rock eventually."
John stopped and gazed at Oosa, who did not shrink under his intense stare. "Seehoiah. I saw him. I saw Seehoiah." Once the words were out, John continued pacing.
Oosa gasped. "You saw the face of death! Tell me now! What did he look like?"
"Long arms that you feel before he touches you. Black eyes that breath hatred. Teeth that are wet with anticipation to torture. He looks nothing like a man. The picture is wrong."
"You saw him!" Kill stared at John with his mouth open. "And he let you live?!"
"He would have killed me. I saw it in his eyes: pure hatred. He wanted to kill me. But when he saw Jane..."
"He let her live? Again!"
"He did more than let her live." John put his hands in his hair, scratching and shaking.
"Do you think it was the same one?" Oosa asked. "The same one that saw her before? Do you think he is following her."
"No. It was not. Jane told me herself. 'I have never seen one that big before.' Those were her exact words." John met Oosa's eyes. "The first time she met Seehoiah, she told me she had her eyes closed. She told me he was trying to see her. She was alone, those she was with already killed. He has never heard her name, yet when I said it, he was surprised. He searched the room and when he saw her..." John was distraught. "...he fell back, not in anger, but in shock. He recognized her." John found Kill's eyes. "He knew her."