Weekly Drabble #83: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Patreon)

This week's prompt is 'my side', from EBB. We're returning to Geode and this time, checking back in with George. The Long Night has come, and for the next three weeks, the world has been plunged into darkness. The colonists retreat behind walls and lights, aware that they are no longer the masters of this planet. Now, it belongs to someone else...

~ 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year:

George was at his compound when night began to fall. It wasn’t a true night; that had already begun an hour and forty-three minutes ago, when 51 Pegasi had set. This was the beginning of the Long Night as Geode’s unusual orbit carried it behind Dimidium and into the hot Jupiter’s shadow, where the Earth-sized moon would remain for the next 21 days. The only lights would come from the stars above, and the bioluminescence of the native life.

Security within and around the colony had been improved since the last Long Night. The animal paddocks had reinforced doors, more sections of fence had been electrified, fence-shakers, motion sensors, tripwire lights and cameras had been set up. Individual compounds had been bolstered as well. Windows were barred, entrances were secured and panic rooms ready for use. When Verendrye had arrived, no one had thought this kind of protection would be necessary. Now, the city was a fortress, and every homestead a castle, men and women sheltering behind walls and fences, carrying weapons they never thought they’d need.

The first Long Night had been a bloody one. Mbenge had lost count of how many families had ended in blood and screams as doors broke, windows shattered and the night found its way inside their homes... how many people just going about their business disappeared, never to be seen again… or only found by the tattered traces of their clothes and gnawed, broken bones. Geode was not kind to intruders.

George took a sip of tea from a steaming cup as he looked out the glittering treeline. He was sitting on his porch at a small table with three chairs, his mug set alongside a pair of bowls of meaty stew.

Mbenge had a pistol on his hip and – possibly even more useful – the remote for his compound’s lighting arrays. Due to his circumstances, he’d passed on the offer of fences. He had a number of light posts installed, able to change their brightness from a dim twilight glow to something painfully bright even for human eyes. He had them set to the former now, casting his compound in a soft bluish miasma. Enough that he could see, but not enough to hamper the glimmers of the local plants and animals in his yard, nor be seen as unwelcome.

Geode was never more beautiful than it was during the Long Night, but it was also never more dangerous. The biologist took another small drink. Something had happened earlier today. He hadn’t heard what, but there’d been an emergency evac from the ECDF expedition. There were casualties, but that was all he knew. That was unusual. Even for a population as big as this one, news travelled fast – especially when it came to events on Geode. But of this incident? Nothing.

He sighed. Other than Earth, was first world found to be habitable for humans. The first with extrasolar life. The first colony outside the safe borders of Sol. A world of secrets. A world red in tooth and claw. A world where the setting sun decreed the end of man’s stewardship, returning dominion to the inhabitants.

Speaking of which, George thought as he looked out towards the end of his driveway and saw a pair of familiar constellations there, one larger than the other. He waved.

A brightly-speckled arm waved back, describing a glowing arc. Samantha approached, Liang holding onto his mother’s tail as he followed her towards George’s porch. She’d become at ease enough around Mbenge that she would bring her son onto the biologist’s compound. George set his tea down on the table and passed two bowls of stew to the Lucifers. 

Samantha lifted her son onto one of the chairs provided, stroking his head. He was still a little anxious around the human, but began to eat, his small baby teeth slicing through beef and vegetables. Lucifer children could eat solid foods much earlier and easier than human toddlers. As Liang enjoyed his meal, Samantha started in on hers, all but inhaling it. Lucifers were pack hunters. On her own, Samantha was at a disadvantage. Without George’s help, she likely would have starved to death by now or met another unpleasant end. Some of the injuries she’d accumulated weren’t hunting. Whatever she’d done to be driven from her tribe, it seemed like there were still some hard feelings about it. Or maybe the rest of her kin didn’t care for her friends. Given that Samantha hadn’t yet disemboweled George, she didn’t give one whit about that. 

My food, her words came back to Mbenge. He took a drink to quell the sudden, brief chill they evoked.

She might just be using him for free meals – but if that were the case, George couldn’t see her standing up to McNeely like she had. A starving, exiled Lucifer and an overly curious biologist. Mbenge couldn’t have said how it would all end, but he hoped that they were making the first steps to stopping the bloodshed. There was the light and the dark and right now, no one could say how it would turn out.

Looking away from Samantha and her son, something caught George’s attention. He froze, rising to his feet. Samantha looked over her shoulder. Her pointed ears flattened and she let out a hiss, baring her teeth, her claws unsheathing.

There at the end of the driveway, were more constellations.