Previously: Marie has been living with the family of aliens that took her in, trying to learn their language and helping them take care of their home. Taru, one of the children, has made it his personal mission to teach her his language. The previous evening, Ghara told Marie they would be going into town the next morning.
I was the first to wake up the next morning - quite a feat considering that this family rose with the sun and not a moment later. Unable to fall back asleep I sat at the entrance of Ghara's home and watched the sky turn from dark to a murky green. Then, once everyone else had begun to stir, I got up and started to build a fire to cook breakfast.
I had been here for weeks now, and although I had seen many animals, Ghara and her family were the only intelligent beings I had met. The thought of going into town - of there being a town - brought to the forefront the hope I'd been trying not to feed: What if there were beings nearby that had developed space travel?
It was possible that Ghara and her family were not the dominant species on this planet. It was possible that there were space travelers on a nearby planet, who visited this one.
Of course, there was still the trouble of getting across the galaxy. A ship that could get me from this rock to the one orbiting it was all well and good, but to get home I'd need more than that. I'd need a portal, a wormhole. I had no idea where I even was in relation to my solar system. But despite this, the thought of being just one step closer to home, even if it was nothing compared to the lightyears long journey I was faced with, filled my brain to the point that I probably shouldn't have been put in charge of cooking breakfast, for fear I'd set my own clothing on fire.
I did not, thankfully, set my own clothing on fire that morning. Or anyone else's, for that matter.
"When do we go to town?" I asked Ghara.
"You are like my children." She shook her head. "They say the same thing. We go when the cart is -----."
As soon as we finished eating, we begun to prepare the wagon. The kids rushed around, clearly excited. I think I moved at the same pace as I normally would have. It was hard to tell. I watched my hands move as if they didn't quite belong to me. They shook.
Ghara pulled the cart. The kids and I did some pushing, some navigating around particularly rough patches, but otherwise the five of us were fairly unhelpful. Before long we came across a worn path, which quickly shifted to gravel, and our pace quickened.
The road curved often, and my breath caught at every turn as I waited to see another person just around the bend.
Finally it happened. There was a creature similar to Ghara walking in the opposite direction. He had a large basket strapped to his back and a series of plates across his head and neck, resembling either a stegosaurus or a loaded dishwasher. He nodded at Ghara, then at me, then did a double take. He said something I didn't understand, looking at me but not speaking to me. Ghara responded, with a quick glance back at me, then continued past him. He seemed to shrug, and didn't say any more.
I became aware of the fact that while Ghara and her family may have come to the conclusion that I was not food, no one else on this planet had made a judgement on that matter yet.
I turned to Taru. "Tell me more words. Words used in towns." He taught me things until we arrived at the town. I tried to remember more than half of it.
We passed over a hill and there it was. Dozen of buildings, a main road, lots of carts and people moving them. There were no automobiles or engines as far as I could see. I let out a long breath, and decided I would process that later.
The main road was dotted with people. Many looked like Ghara and her family. A few of them were flanked by creatures that I could only assume were livestock - animals on four legs with hooves and saddles. There were a few people that looked nothing like Ghara. A pair of dark blue humanoid figures sat outside of a small building, with large antler-like growths coming from the tops of their bald heads.
Then I spotted what appeared to be a blonde human about my age just a few yards away.
We were already heading in his direction. I stared at the back of his head. No one here looked like any extraterrestrial I'd ever seen in a book; If Earth was aware of this planet, something here would have been familiar. I knew this, and I knew it was nearly impossible that another human had ended up out here by mistake. It was the word 'nearly' that had woken me up before dawn this morning.
He turned around as we passed, and was clearly inhuman. He was so close, and I was sure my face showed my disappointment. His eyes were all dark, like that of a dog. He had quite an underbite, with large fangs protruding from his lower jaw, more like tusks than teeth. I stared at his face a moment too long, as if I was just seeing it in the wrong light and any moment now it would shift into a human face. It didn't.
Ghara set her cart up next to his and began setting out the things we had brought. Before long people were coming up to us and offering money and items in exchange for what we had. The kids sat nearby and I sat with them. There wasn't much we could do to help.
After a few moments of sitting and watching customers, the blonde alien came over to me and said something in a language I didn't understand. It wasn't Ghara's language. I blinked. "Sorry?" He switched to Ghara’s language and I felt relieved, until I realized I still couldn't understand. He was talking way too fast. I turned to Taru for help.
"He said 'Where are you ----?'"
I nodded. "I'm Marie. I...." I pointed towards the sky. "My home is far. Very Far. I can’t go home now. It’s too far."
"I'm Bahr." He spoke much slower this time. "Are you a ----?"
"I don't know ----." I tried to repeat the word he'd used, but it sounded odd, like it didn't quite belong to the language we were speaking. He understood that I didn't understand.
He thought for a moment. "Have you seen the ----?" I turned to Taru.
"He said the place with all the ----.... all the ----. Very ----."
"Taru, what is ----?"
"---- is a place with lots of ----. The things with all the words."
Ghara turned around, having heard part of the conversation. She and Bahr spoke in his language, then she turned to me. "Go with Bahr to ----. ---- can help."
I nodded and followed Bahr into the center of town. He took me to one of the larger buildings. It was one of the few here that was two stories tall. There was a sign across the front with symbols I couldn't read. He opened the door for me and I stepped inside. I let out a small gasp when I realized what I was standing in.
Shelves of books and paper split the room into long slivers. There were signs posted on each shelf, with little arrows under the words. We were in a library.
"Things with words. Books."
"Books, and also ----." Bahr led me upstairs. The second floor had fewer shelves. There was a large table in the center of the room and cabinets across two of the walls. The other walls were covered in paintings and drawings. I went to the table first. Spread across the entire slab of wood was a solar system chart. One planet was drawn larger than the rest, with continents labeled in a language I couldn't read.
"Where are you ---- ? Where is home? Are you from ----?" He pointed to the moon around the labelled planet. "The ---- come from here often. Did you ---- ---- your people?"
I stared down at the dots and lines and labels. It was beautiful. It was entirely useless to me. I had the strange desire to start laughing. Even if Earth was on this map, I wouldn't be able to find it. I had no idea how to read their maps, their languages.
"My home is Earth. Earth isn't on this. How far do these other people go?" I pointed to the moon.
He shook his head. "This is everything. No one goes further than this. I'm sorry." I nodded. Someone nearby had developed space travel, but only enough to move through this solar system.
"Thank you." I replied. He had tried. It had been a good idea, to come here.
He tilted his head and said something I didn't understand. I wasn't listening anyway. I’d noticed one of the drawing behind him. I ran around the table and towards it.
It was a portrait of a man in a uniform, military by the looks of it. A human man. "Who is this?"
"I don't know." Bahr looked very confused.
"He's..." I looked back and the drawing. It was clearly a drawing of a human, but one different from me in every way. The man in the drawing had a dark complexion and a grey beard and no hair at the top of his head. I was pale, young, and had long black hair. It wasn’t surprising that Bahr, who had never seen a human before today, wasn't making the connection. "He's like me. I'm like him. He... Earth..."
Bahr nodded slowly. "Okay." Then he walked back down the stairs. I stared around at the other drawings. There were many creatures, but no other humans. There were many inscriptions, but no human languages.
For a brief moment, I wanted to take a picture of the drawing, before I remembered that the only technology I had available to me at the moment was a gun and a water filter.
I sat down in front of the drawing like I was about to pray to it. "How did you get here?"
A moment later Bahr returned, and I didn't notice until he put his hand on my shoulder.
"I talked to the ----. She says that he is ----. Come with me."
"He's here?" I followed Bahr outside, feeling as though I was going to fall forward onto my face with every step. We walked to another building, then around that building to an open field. The field was littered with stones, some in piles, some standing by themselves.
We stopped in the middle of the field. Bahr knelt down in front of one of the stones, and I all but fell down next to him. I read the inscription through blurry eyes. It wasn't in English, but I understood enough. My knowledge of Latin languages had come in use here after all.
"Descanse em paz. Henrique de Matos."