New World
Chapter 1
I flew, high above the ground, floating on a warm billow of air. I could
see the people below. Like little
ants.
I tumbled forward. Someone was shaking me!
The ground rushed up at me. I had to pull up! There was no time! No time.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" I woke up.
"You okay, Rachel?" Tobias痴 hand was on my shoulder.
"Yeah. Bad dream."
"About what?"
"Earth."
"Oh."
I nodded. "So what痴 the plan for the day?"
"Break into groups. Get some food, build a shelter, the usual."
"What痴 so usual about being sent to an alien planet?"
"I feel like we池e lost at sea."
"Except there痴 no Coast Guard. No rescue helicopters." I jumped up. "So, what team are we on?"
"Exploration. Scout the place out. Look for food. Just the two of us. Birds?"
"You still have all your morphs?"
"Every last one of them."
"Then let痴 do it."
A bald eagle is one of those morph I致e done so many times I can稚 keep
count. It痴 almost natural. But I
値l never get used to morphing. It痴 not one of those things you can
get used too.
Within minutes, we took to the sky. It was a cloudless day, perfect of flying.
I banked left. <Tobias, you see that waterfall over there?>
<Of course I see it. What do you think I am, blind?>
I laughed. With eyes like these, we were anything but blind. <Let痴
fly over and check out the forest
around it.>
<Fine by me.>
The flight took longer than I thought. An hour. In the clear, non-polluted
air, the waterfall seemed closer
than it was.
We circled over the vegetation, checking for edible plants.
<Tobias! Look!> I swooped down and landed on a branch.
Tobias followed. <Oh my God! Is that panda?>
<I never met one, but it sure looks like it.>
<What痴 a panda doing here?>
I remembered what the Ellimist said when we first met him. "As well
as a few non-human Earth species
that are of special interest to us." <He brought them here. They池e
endangered, just like humans.>
<If pandas are here, there must be other species also.>
I nodded my bird head. <What do pandas eat, Tobias?>
<Eat? Um, bamboo, I think.>
<People can eat bamboo, right?>
<Yeah. What are you thinking?>
I gazed at the short stick the panda was happily munching on. <I think we found ourselves a meal.>
Chapter 2
I returned to camp carrying one bamboo each. They weren稚 for eating, but for planting.
Some progress had been made while we were gone. A geologist had found
some rock and proceeded to
make some stone tools, including a sharp knife that would come in very
handy. A bunch of people had
gotten together and woven some mats for sleeping on.
Ax had chopped down a bunch of trees, and dozens of people were building log houses.
I walked up to Jake, who was bent over a slab of rock with a few others.
"Hey."
"Oh. Hi, Rachel. We池e trying to figure out some way to organize this."
I smiled. "You池e not the leader anymore, are you?"
Jake laughed. "I知 not losing any sleep over it."
A man seated beside Jake offered his hand. "Bonjour, mademoiselle."
I was glad I had taken two years of French. "Bonjour. J知appelle Rachel."
Hi, my name is Rachel. I shook
his hand.
"Parles-tu francias?" You speak French?
"Un peu." A little.
"Take." A woman sitting next to Jake passed me a piece of a fishhook
earring. I looked at the small metal
wire in my hand. A point had been sharpened on one end.
"What痴 it for?"
"Fish. To eat." She smiled proudly. "I speak little English."
I looked helplessly at Jake. "Don稚 we need a rod? And wire?"
Jake waved his hand around. "Plenty of sticks around. As for wire?se
your hair. That痴 what people have
been doing all morning."
I sighed. "Morphing is so much easier."
I winced as I yanked out a few blond hairs from my head. I quickly braided
them into a short rope. After
tying one end to the hook and the other to a small branch, I headed
for the edge of the river.
I could see the silvery fish swimming through the current. I stuck a
red berry on as bait and tossed the
hook in.
A fish swallowed the hook within seconds. I yanked it out.
"Gullible, aren稚 they?"
A girl walked up beside me. "They致e never know predators like that. But they will learn."
"I知 Rachel."
"Michelle." She paused. "Are you one of the Animorphs?"
"Yeah."
"Many people here don稚 understand this, but they don稚 care. It痴 better
than what they had before."
She gestured around. "Food, land, no war, no death. To some, it痴 the
best thing that has ever happened
to them."
"And you? How do you feel?"
She shrugged. "I didn稚 have a family, and I still don稚. I suppose I don稚 care."
"Where are you from?"
"Toronto, Canada."
"I went there once. It痴 a beautiful city."
She nodded. "That it is." Then she cocked a smile. "When will we be getting cable?"
I laughed. "First, you help me with this fish."
Chapter 3
At the end of the day, I sat at the edge of the river, staring at the
sunset. Thoughts coursed through my
mind. There was so much we needed to do to survive, and yet, no one
was hurried. We were all so calm,
so at peace.
"Rachel." Jake sat down beside me. "Hey."
"Hey. Taking a break?"
"Not much you can do in the dark." He laughed. "What are you doing out
here? Everyone else is having
dinner."
I shrugged. "Wanted some time to think."
"About what?"
I waved my arm around. "This."
"Oh. Penny for your thoughts?"
"You don稚 even have a penny. But I値l tell you for free."
"Then spill."
"I think, I think this is okay. I think we made the right choice by coming here."
Jake nodded. "I do to."
"Do you still miss Earth?"
"I always will. It痴 home. It always will be."
"Then this is?"
Jake shook his head. "I don稚 know, Rachel. This place is...it feels
right, but wrong at the same time.
Maybe, next time you ask me, I値l have an answer."
"This place, what do we call it? We need a name. Like Earth."
Jake thought about that. "Maybe...Gaia. It means Earth in Greek."
"New Gaia." I whispered. "This ain稚 Earth, but it痴 close."
"New Gaia." Jake tried it out. "I like it. I like it a lot."
The End