Chapter 12 Children of the Moon

Chapter 12

Children of the Moon

  Kia had a nasty surprise waiting for her when she returned to Wayferra.  Kress’s parents, all the other Sprites and many of the citizens of the treehouse town had gathered on the Common. She saw not one smiling face as she drew near.

  Kia fought the urge to flee. Still, she knew they had every right to be upset. She had to face them. Fluttering down she soon realized she could not even land on the deck, for the crush of people, so she hovered in front of the Common just above the crowd as the sky darkened behind her.   

   Kress’ parents flew right up to Kia and perched on her right ear.

  “What happened to Kress,” Peter demanded.

  Great drops of tears swelled up and rolled Kia’s cheeks. “They took her Peter, I’m so sorry, I never meant for this to happen.”

  “You never meant,” Kress’ Mother yelled, “what do you mean by that?”

  Just then, thunder shook the forest as a dark curtain of storm clouds climbed over the horizon creeping toward Wayferra like a great beast. A heavy gust of wind whipped though Kia’s hair as she struggled to hover in place.

  “Tell me what you mean by that,” Peter yelled into her.

  “Kian did not want to come here,” She yelled, “I did, I talked him into flying down through the clouds. I just had to see what lay below. This is my fault. Kian listened to me. He came down to please me. If we had just stayed above the clouds none this would have ever happened. This is all my fault. I’m so sorry!”

   An updraft suddenly pushed her away from the railing. It knocked Kress’ parents from Kia’s ear as she looked down and saw a sea of accusation staring up at her. “I should never have come here, I can’t stay here another second! I’m sorry, so sorry.” She pleaded as she leaned back and let the wind take away.

  Natty buried her face in Lucius’ chest as she watched Kia beautiful white wings shrink to nothing in the gathering storm.

  “Alexander find Kia, keep her safe until she’s ready to return,” Said Lucius as he stroked Natty’s fur.

  “Of course,” Alexander replied just before he hurled his body skyward unfurled his great wings and sailed off over the crashing sea…

  Kian did not know what to expect when they reached their destination. He could tell that tube car was spiraling upward toward what Miles called General Quarters, one of many scattered all over the moon. These ‘towns’ were where the ‘little people’, Camelot Crater’s working class, lived and earned time credits.

   It was essentially a company town, made up of apartments, shops, a school, an infirmary, an entertainment hub, warehouses, workshops, and airlocks.

  Camelot Community as Kian soon discovered sat on the Moon’s surface, and was by no means as futuristic as Technocrat’s lavish underground domain.

    The first thing Kian saw when the tube car stopped was a panel door that slid open on what was a typical small Earth town, typical except for the huge clear dome shielding it from the Moon’s airless black sky. Clearly, its builders had purposed to replicate an ancient piece of Earth on the face of the Moon, but why, Kian was about to learn that and much more…

   Confusion clouded Kress’ mind as Tech Maria’s strange words failed to take root. “Cleanse,” she asked Tech Maria, “I was not dirty, neither was Penny.”

  Tech Maria snickered, “Oh yes, you were, all that animal and artificial DNA polluting you, making you something other than human, was disgusting. Chimeras are confusion, perverse whimsy that serves no practical purpose. Restoring your humanity was a monumental break through. Now we know we came rid Earth of the Chimeran plague our foolish ancestors so thoughtlessly infected it with so many centuries ago. No more talking animals, no more Lion men or bird people, no more childish experimentation with the human genome.”

  Kress shook her head, more confused than ever. “When can I see Penny, the Captain and his crew?”

  Tech Maria took Kress’ hand and led her to the bare beige wall facing her bed. “I’ll wheel Penny out momentarily, as for your so called Captain; well he’s no longer with us. His crew is in cages, we stripped them of any human attributes, unfortunately our attempts to regrow them as humans failed.  Fortunately, for you and Penelope our failure with them taught us how regrow you and her as true pure humans. Penny was relatively easy, you on the other hand being so small and your artificial inhuman DNA so stubborn proved a far more difficult challenge, but one we eventually met and overcame.” With that, she pressed her hand against the wall it instantly became transparent.

   Kress gasped, “The sky is black the sun is blue and Chimera is gray and dead, no trees no grass just dust!”

  “Kress that is not the sun it is the world you call Chimera. It is Earth. Silly child you are on the Moon."