Read the First Chapter of The Moon Children

EARTH 2051

The Jovian Universe

Chapter One — The Gulf of Alaska

Dana Peterman had spent the past four months worrying about the whales.

As she led her team of scientists across the hard-packed beach, with her husband, John, two steps behind her, she gazed over placid Glacier Bay, thinking, “Where are you? What’s happened to you?”

The wind fluttered over her ears. It was a gentle June day, a warm fifty-five degrees with blue-gray afternoon skies that promised an uneventful evening as far as the weather was concerned. They’d lucked out on the sunshine, which was nice because it wasn’t every day she and John organized a picnic-slash-party for their team of hardworking biologists, cetologists, earth scientists, social scientists, and others.

It was the least she could do for the dozen who came to work each day dressed in navy-blue cargo pants and matching sweaters only to spend hours listening to a glugging hydrophone or mete out multiple hypotheses to explain where thousands of whales could be hiding—and why.

There were other things to do, of course. So far they’d spent a lot of time climbing into wet suits and checking various parts of the bay for the whales’ food sources—which were still there—and any new or overpopulated predators—which were not.

And now that it was June, peak whale-feeding season, the team had been uttering the words “nothing to see here” for so long that their growing boredom had turned into frustration.

As their leader, or “Chief,” as they’d taken to calling her, it was Dana’s responsibility to look out for the team’s mental health and happiness. And this group of four humans, three Jovian hybrids, three clones, and two Jovian royals (herself and John) showed signs of losing heart.

“Where are we headed, again?”

The words floated up and over Dana’s head, failing to break through her internal musings. She’d only realized Mandi had directed the question to her when John responded with, “Almost there. No worries.”

“This way,” Dana said as she continued to stare over the deep-blue enormity of the bay, walking at a slow pace upon the sand as the others followed behind.

The whales should have been there. They should have been feeding and breaching and peck-slapping their fins. The waters were ripe with krill and schooling fish, everything the fifty-ton mammals needed to bulk up for the three thousand–mile migration they’d take in the fall, and yet not one whale feasted in these waters. Not one sang a sad humpback song, spy-hopped its huge gray whale-head out of the water, or breathed out giant plumes of vapor.

The whales had been doing all these things each spring for as long as records had been kept. For all Dana knew, they’d been coming to Glacier Bay for millennia. So, why not now? What had changed?

She made a mental note to reach out to Caroline and ask if indeed the whales had been feeding in the Alaskan Gulf for millennia. Maybe long ago they’d fed somewhere else. If anyone would know, Queen Jovian—as the rest of the world had taken to calling Caroline—would.

Caroline’s self-inflicted moniker emerged soon after she’d shown her true enormous-alien self in public—some‐ thing Jovian royalty vowed never to do—and the fact that she’d done it only gave Dana a daily reason to shake her head. She and John weren’t always proud to be Jovian. But the family generally did good work for the planet and, to a lesser extent, its inhabitants. Most important, Caroline allowed Dana and John to partake in their many humanitarian efforts, though Dana often disagreed with her when it came to beliefs, morals, and how to treat the population at large.

Dana cared about the human race—she cared for all creatures large and small. Empathy came naturally to her. If not in a human way, then in an alien way. That’s why years ago Dana and John had been chosen to parent their adopted human daughter, Svetlana. None of the other Jovian royalty could have raised a human, let alone a teenager, and none of them wanted to. Dana had embraced the role and came to love Svetlana the same way any human mother loved her own child.

It made sense that she and John traveled to the Alaskan archipelago—this raw windy seaside environment that she adored—with plans to grow a village of five to ten thousand self-regulating individuals. She and John had been there for the humans throughout the global warming catastrophe, and now that the Earth functioned healthfully again—the air clean, the weather calm, the fresh water running and plentiful, the ocean (mostly) restored to its natural condition—she wanted to lead by example in a different way. She wanted all of Earth’s inhabitants to see that life in its countless forms—human, Jovian, plant, and animal—could live compatibly in a natural balance.

The settlement prototype for living mindfully and peacefully on Earth with minimal disturbance to the community’s natural surroundings would be an example the rest of the world and the soon-to-be-established colonies on Mars could follow. Life would no longer be the pursuit of riches and popularity, but health and wellness, and dare she say, happiness?

That is, if it worked out the way Dana and John hoped it would. Now they might never know. They had been about to take the first step on this journey when the mystery of the whales put the project on pause.

Dana stared over the water once again and worried about the lack of activity. Aside from a couple of gliding seabirds, no animals could be found whatsoever. It just wasn’t right.

A year before they were supposed to break ground on the settlement, the three Federal Glacier Bay marine biologists who monitored the area reported an extremely odd occurrence: the whales had failed to arrive at Glacier Bay. Spring came and went, and the whales did not. Satellite imagery sighted them migrating in the Pacific Ocean, as was the norm, and then suddenly the pods had disappeared.

One theory for why they hadn’t shown up involved an underwater earthquake that possibly scattered the whales or damaged their echolocation. The seismographs around the world had picked up on an event occurring within the same time frame the whales had disappeared but categorized it as “minor” in magnitude. Scientists hypothesized the event may have been more severe than the record showed.

Another theory claimed the whales followed larger-than-usual schools of fish in various directions due to healthier ocean temperatures. Perhaps they’d found new locations in which to feed.

Whatever had happened, the marine biologists in Alaska speculated the whales would be back on track the following year. The occurrence was an outlier, they’d hoped, a strange unexplained event.

Only here it was, the middle of June the following year, without even one whale to observe. The sea lion population, in addition, had stayed away as well as most of the other large sea mammals.

Because Dana, John, and their group had already planned to be in the locale, the job of examining what had happened to the whales dropped into their laps. Caroline’s orders. Instead of building homes, a school, a medical clinic, along with the gathering places, gardens, and meditative parks that would surround them, the team would tend to the bay: observing, listening, and waiting. They would form hypotheses and puzzle out the mystery.

“You okay?” John asked. “Dana?”

Dana hadn’t realized she’d stopped in the middle of the empty beach. With a look around, she greeted the silent concern of her team. The group had spread out, each member hovering in a bubble of personal space while waiting for her to lead them to . . . wherever it was she was leading them. A few of them gazed soundlessly at the bay, searching for whatever she might have been searching for.

Finally Vander, the only Evander clone in the group, said: “Beautiful day. So, what’s on the agenda, Chief, and why all the secrecy?”

Dana had been stuck in her thoughts again. Perhaps she needed this day off even more than her young team did.

“I’m sorry,” she said through a soft chuckle. “You’ve all been working so hard since we arrived, and I wanted to do something special for you. A surprise . . . because surprises are fun, right?” She laughed before shaking her head to clear out the cobwebs. “I guess I’ve already done a good job of piquing your curiosity.”

“Yes, you have.” Vander smiled at her, his air of casual confidence good for smoothing over the team’s stress of not knowing what to expect.

Lena, one of the more stringent humans on the team, turned and said, “I hope you don’t expect us to go in the water today because we didn’t bring our wet suits.”

“Oh, no worries about that, Lena,” John was quick to answer. “There will be no seafaring expeditions today.”

That was true, though Dana wished she’d brought her own wet suit. She’d spend entire days in the water, if she thought it would solve the mystery of the whales. But no, this was a day of restoration for the team. Her busy, hardworking team, whom she cared for as if they were her own family. They needed to have some fun, as simple as that was. An evening to let go of the hypotheses and dead-end theories.

“Well?” Anton, one of two Andrew clones, crossed his arms over his chest and stepped side to side. He and his “brother,” Dru, never strayed far from one another. At the moment they stood ten feet apart, looking like impatient mirrored images. “What would you like us to do?”

“I want you all to relax,” Dana said. “And I mean that in the most literal way possible.”

The three humans in the group made screwed-up faces; humans hated confusion. The others waited without expression for her to explain.

“Look north,” Dana said, pointing in the direction of the horizon. “Around that bend, just beyond those tall

grasses. Can you see? We’re heading to that army-green tent beyond the scrub brush.”

“I see it,” Mandi shouted. “Right there. Wait, is that a ping-pong table?”

Movement and muttering reverberated through the group.

“It’s a party,” Dana said. “Try not to look so serious.”

“A party?” Vander’s face lit up. “If I’d known we were having a party, I would have worn my best . . .” He gazed down at his sweater, before muttering, “uniform.”

Dana smiled at this bit of humor. She and Vander “clicked,” as humans liked to say, and uniforms were all the clothing any of the team had to wear. Vander was a clone of her grandson, and Dana did little to hide the fact that she favored him over the other members on her team. He shared the DNA of Svetlana’s only child, the marvelous President Evander Peterman. The world’s first human-Jovian hybrid who’d grown up to become the only twenty-first-century three-term commander in chief the United States had ever seen. A beloved leader, at least for a time.

Vander was a chip off the original block: charming, easy to get along with, handsome, a good person through and through. Dana hated that the human population assumed former President Peterman had abandoned Earth during its hour of need. Thanks to Caroline’s public reveal of her alien form, the whole world expected a forthcoming alien attack and then former President Evander Peterman had disappeared.

The human race preferred to hate him and all of the clones that looked like him rather than to trust in the sensible explanation for his desertion: Evander had gone away to search for his eldest child, Natasha, who had been abducted and most likely taken to another planet. Hating their once-beloved president somehow gave humanity a right to scowl at every Evander clone in existence. Prejudice. That’s all it was.

The hybrid named Sylvie twisted her long brown braid into a knot on top of her head. “It’s been so long, remind me, what’s a party?”

Dorian, a human, and at twenty-one the youngest individual in the crew took on a baffled expression. “Really? We’re getting an afternoon off. Are you serious?”

“Yes,” John said. “Come on, guys, let’s have some fun.”

Dorian’s brow remained furrowed. “With, like, drinks and food and music and stuff?”

“I can see that we should have done this sooner,” John mumbled to himself. And then in a louder voice, he rallied the group: “Follow me, everyone, and I’ll show you around the site.”

The scent of smoked vegetables greeted them, and if Dana wasn’t mistaken, Jackson’s shiitake and portobello mushroom burgers wafted deliciousness from the grill. His mother’s recipe could not be beat, not by Dana or anyone else on this team of twelve, and that’s why Jackson had volunteered to man the grill in addition to taking care of the entertainment. He came from a large family that he reminisced about often, and in the past, he’d claimed to know how to “put on a barbecue.” Bryce had volunteered to be his helper and assisted him now.

The group rushed ahead. Anton found a huge inflatable ball and threw it to Dru. Vander chased after them while Mandi, Sylvie, and Dorian fell into a freestanding hammock set up for the occasion.

Jackson himself, a thirty-five-year-old human as large as one of Caroline’s Leonard clones (and much warmer hearted) came from the Southern region of the country. He emerged from the tent holding a spatula and wearing an apron and a baseball cap with “CHEF” in big white letters.

Where did he get that hat? Dana wondered.

“Welcome to the party tent,” he said with a wave. “Let the fun begin.”

THE TEAM HAD EATEN their veggie burgers and coleslaw and sublime potato salad of the sort Dana had never before tasted. Afterward, they indulged in cake that was red in the middle and white on top, and too good to be true. And now Vander and Margot lingered in the tent, mixing drinks, while Anton and Dru, headed for the water with the intention of skipping stones. Mandi and Jackson—who may or may not have been falling in love—followed them. And Dorian, with his huge crush on Mandi, followed close behind. If the new couple had hoped for privacy, they wouldn’t get it from Dorian. Dana smiled to herself as she thought, He’s too young to know when to butt out. Bryce, Sylvie, and Lena grabbed the beach ball and tossed it back and forth, well behind the others.

Like the parents of the group, Dana and John remained at the picnic table. Dana sat with her back to the bay while John faced it full on. They both sipped a beer more for appearances than for any other reason. Alcohol did nothing to Jovians, and Dana never liked the taste. But she wanted the others to feel comfortable having a drink, so she made sure to be the first to take one.

“Remember years ago, when we were all about fresh water in the dessert and farming in regions ravaged by the throes of war?” Dana mused.

John smiled. “Those were not the good old days. Another reason to be happy Evander came along and set the planet straight.”

Dana raised her eyes toward the darkening sky. “How quickly humanity forgets.”

“That’s the truth,” he said.

The flames of a few tiki torches fluttered yards away. Bryce and Jackson had planted them here and there in preparation for the darkness to come. Where they’d found the torches, she had no idea, but she was glad that they had. It added a festive touch to the party, and in an hour or so, the sun would be down.

“I should be glad all we have to deal with are some missing mammals,” she said in a pathetic way because that’s how she felt in spite of how nicely the party was going.

“Hey,” John said, “I’m as concerned as you are. But the whales are out there somewhere. Feeding somewhere. We just don’t know where that is.” His gaze hovered over the bay. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

He was right. Years ago, when the Earth choked on an abundance of carbon dioxide, they’d found ways to rejuvenate rainforests in Brazil and ecosystems in the jungle in Ecuador. They had built homes with nothing but reclaimed materials and settled grievances that stopped gangs from warring. They would figure this out too.

Dana lifted a crumb from the tablecloth and tossed it onto one of the dirty plates. “I just can’t shake the feeling that something is off. I mean, really off this time.”

“I can see that,” he said. “You’ve been pretty quiet the past few days.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Mm. Do you think there’s some deviousness behind the whales’ disappearance?”

“Do you mean human interference of some kind, or—”

“I don’t know. It could be human. Or maybe not.” She held his gaze, as steadfast as ever.

“I really don’t think the Jovians would—”

“No, you’re right. It’s not Jovian.”

“Maybe it’s a new disease,” he offered. “The ocean still isn’t 100 percent. We know that much.”

“But if it was a disease, dead whales would be washing up on beaches. We’d find their bodies, their skeletons. And the less-affected ones would still be here. Some would make it through.”

John nodded in that way he did when deep in thought. “Maybe something turned them off about this bay,” he said, staring into the distance. “Maybe something frightened them.”

“I thought of that too. But the team has been diving daily. No one has seen anything suspicious under the water.”

“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.” He brought his hands up in a “Who knows?” way. “The truth will come out in the end.”

“I guess so.” Frustration pulled her mouth into a frown. “In the meantime, I’m upset that our plans for the settlement continue to be stalled. I suppose we could work on it on the side?” She raised her brow in question. “I don’t want to put it off too long. Every day the world tends toward disorder.”

She reminded herself that as long as she was helping, doing good work, and moving projects forward, she would be making a difference. Because that’s what she did. She helped. Still, the settlement project was different, imperative. Every species on Earth, whether human or animal, needed to learn how to coexist. Without a goal of harmony, humanity could easily revert to its old, destructive ways.

“We can do that,” John said with a nod.

“Okay. That makes me feel a little better.” She turned around to observe the team members dallying at the edge of the gentle surf. Lena hurled the beach ball in Dorian’s direction, but instead of him catching it, it skidded across the water with a sizable splash. He shouted at the shock of it and kicked a wide spray into the air. Lena took the brunt of it, and howled, “That’s cold, you little shit!”

The others paused from skipping stones to watch them, smiles brightening their faces.

John placed a hand upon Dana’s shoulder, and she turned around to find him pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You still seem down.”

He knew her well, as he should, playing the role of her husband for most of the last century. They were the only two Jovians who truly loved each other like husband and wife. Why the others never learned to love, she didn’t know. Perhaps she and John had absorbed some of Svetlana’s humanity over the years. Or maybe it was in their genetics. DNA was a twisty riddle; all one had to do was take a close look at Uncle Jimmy, the family outlier and most unusual of Jovians, to know that.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but every instinct I have prevents me from letting my guard down,” she told him. “It’s like a woodpecker tapping on my skull, reminding me something is wrong.”

“Ouch,” he said, “sounds painful.”

One of the team was coughing, and Dana hoped whoever it was wasn’t coming down with a cold the rest of them would catch. Dorian came to mind, but when she turned around it was Anton who covered his mouth and hacked. Then Dru did too.

Maybe something really was going around.

She turned back to John, her shoulders slumped. “You know me. I can’t relax until the puzzle is solved.”

He took her hand. “Try not to overthink. Sometimes it’s more about fear than—”

One of the team barked another cough in such a forceful manner that Dana turned around again.

The alarm in Mandi’s voice carried across the beach. “Anton, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Anton had doubled over and now raised his hand. “Just something . . . in my throat,” he said. His complexion flushed as if a fever burned inside him.

Then Sylvie, a few feet away from the others, shouted, “What’s going on with the water? Are you guys seeing this? It looks so steamy.”

Dana refocused on the bay. Sylvie was right. A swath of fog stretched across as far as she could see. When had it formed? Fog didn’t just show up without a drastic change in temperature.

“Back away from the water a few steps, guys,” Jackson said, gesturing with a wave of his hand. “Till we know what this is.”

“Maybe it’s the Orcas,” Dru said before he coughed again.

Jackson said, “What’s with you two? Anton, your face is red. How much did you drink?”

“I had a soda,” he said before doubling over into another coughing fit.

“Do you need water, or something?”

Anton hacked so brutally he gagged. When he stopped a few seconds later, he wheezed the word yes.

“Bryce, run to the tent and get a couple bottles of water,” Jackson said.

Bryce, who’d continued to toss the ball with Sylvie, looked up and scowled. “Why me?”

“Just do it,” Jackson snapped. Bryce took off.

Small, crested waves formed on the surface of the bay. The last bits of evening light danced lightly on top—yet there was no noticeable breeze or gust of wind to speak of. A sound like water droplets hitting a stove ring fizzled through the air, and the fog continued to thicken.

The bay seemed to be simmering.

Dana fought a horrible cold swell of fear. She gave John a steely look. “This can’t be what it looks like, can it?” Down the beach, Jackson turned to face Dana and John, and shouted, “Are you seeing this?”
Then Dru said, “Anton just got sick. Something’s seriously wrong.”

John stared into Dana’s eyes and said, “You think it’s—but it can’t be them. Can it?”

He leaped from the bench and ran down the beach toward the team. “Get away from the water,” he shouted. “Dru, grab Anton, and come away.” He waved his arms overhead and continued to shout orders as he traversed the lengthy beach.

In her hurry to get up and go, Dana’s toe caught the top of the seat of the picnic bench, and she slammed hands-and-chest into the packed sand, knocking the wind from her lungs. She scrambled up, coughing as her diaphragm returned to working order. Then she ran as fast as she could. “Sylvie, come away. Lena, to me. Hurry! Jackson, help the twins.”

Dorian grabbed Mandi’s hand and tugged her along at a jog before they both broke into a sprint. Sylvie and Lena followed, shouting, “Where should we go?” as they crossed paths with Dana running toward the danger.

“Get back to the tent, or farther even. Just keep going!”

John had entered the simmering bay, the haze wrapping itself around him. He bent over, touched the surface with the palms of his hands, and began to mutter something indecipherable.

Anton had fainted to the ground, and his body tremored upon the sand. Dru hovered over his clone brother, his own complexion sickly and red, and his cough coming in harsh grating hacks. Blood spattered like fat raindrops upon the ground. Jackson stood beside Dru, one hand on his back, at a loss for what to do.

As Dana reached them, Dru’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out upon his unconscious brother.

“What the hell is happening?” Jackson said. “Why does it smell like ammonia out here?”

What Dana believed to be the answer didn’t make sense. There was no possible way and yet everything pointed to it. She held Anton’s wrist in search of a pulse and eyed Jackson pointedly. “Roll Dru onto his side and try not to take deep breaths. Small sips of air. You’re human. You’ll be all right.”

Jackson nodded, then maneuvered Dru onto his side. “His lips are blue. Fingernails, too.”

Dru’s cheeks darkened from flushed to deep red, brilliant blotches of cerise spread over his raw complexion. The same was happening to Anton. Their chests rose and fell erratically, the air through their lungs rattling like dried grasses subject to harsh wind.

Jackson pulled back and shook his head in muted horror.

“Can you carry Anton?” Dana asked. “We need to get them as far from here as possible.”

“Is it safe to move them?”

Before Dana could answer, the skin across Anton’s cheek began to bubble, blisters forming like cheese under a broiler. “It’s ammonia poisoning, and it’s only going to get worse. Take him as far away as you can. Hurry!”

Jackson bent to one knee and lifted Anton’s long, lean body over his shoulder, rising with some difficulty before he took off, wobbly at first, then straighter and stronger as he achieved a quick clip.

“John, come out of there,” Dana shouted. “We have to get Dru away, and I can’t do it alone.”

John stood knee-deep in the roiling water, still bent at the waist and touching the surface with the palms of his hands. The bay bubbled for as far as Dana could see. Plumes of steam unfurled like subtle slow-motion foun‐ tains, the scent of ammonia strengthening with every second that passed. Dana withstood a coughing fit so fierce she worried about breaking capillaries in her eyes. John continued to speak the strange language she had never learned, had never needed to learn considering the Moon Children had been banned to Europa and she would be an Earth dweller for life. But his whisperings didn’t do any good. Whatever was happening had already begun. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

“John, please,” she shouted. “We’re losing him.”

John closed his mouth and stood straight, waking himself from his trance-like state. Finally he started out of the water.

The cloud blanket that had unfurled over the stewing bay began to creep onto the land.

Dana held Dru’s upper body, her arms wedged under his armpits, and when John joined her, he reached for Dru’s legs, ready to carry him away. But the fog was upon them.

“We’re too late,” Dana shouted. “Get down! Hold your breath for as long as you can.”

Dana lay Dru down, then fell onto her stomach and watched John do the same a few feet away. She pressed her cheek into the packed sand as she squeezed her eyes closed. Holding her breath, she clenched her fists, and used her arms to cover her head. John grasped her right ankle; it gave her some comfort to know he was there.

The thick vapor crept over them, like sunburn over Dana’s exposed parts—her hands, the back of her neck, her semi-exposed cheek. She continued to hold her breath while the wheezes from Dru grew fewer and further between. Even without breathing, she somehow experienced the awful smell, the taste of ammonia settling upon her tongue. It must have penetrated the walls of her skin. Or maybe she only imagined the taste.

Her eyes squeezed tight, and tears emerged from their corners. While she waited for the cloud to pass, counting every long second—two, maybe three, minutes total—her body ached for oxygen. Finally the last of it had passed over them, and she let out her breath and heaved the subsequent inhale, the horrible odor leaving her dizzy. She fought for air, retching in between breaths, and listened to John do the same while Dru lay still and silent beside them. The last bit of the fog traveled through the party tent as it spread into the scrub brush beyond, heading for the forest after that. A destination they can retreat to, she thought. She continued to watch. To see if she was correct. To see if it really was the Moon Children.

The fog reached the forest’s edge and stalled. The cloud thickened, deepening in hue, condensing to a darker gray color with silver glints. No longer spread out, it piled up, became a tower three or four stories high, much closer to opaque now, much less like mist and more like a solid wall.

The column began to quiver, as if its insides were reproducing, its exterior vibrating. She could make out a jumble of legs and feet, arms and elbows. Torsos and backsides, shoulders, knees. An occasional full-body silhouette.

Small bodies with circular heads.

The different parts organized. It wasn’t long before a sudden clap of thunder broke, and all the creatures within dropped to the ground like pieces of a shattered puzzle. Bodies gave way to gravity, and their feet connected with a drum procession of earthy thuds. They stood for a moment, getting their bearings. Their forms nondescript, a silvery-gray blur like the cloud they had floated in on. Reams of small individuals in their solidified state. Mobile and swift. They ran for cover like a herd of gazelles fleeing an enemy, seeking shelter in the shadows of the forest beyond.

DANA CRAWLED TO JOHN, who lay prone. She touched his cheek and jaw, and he opened his eyes and gasped a whiny breath before raising his head and scanning the surroundings. “Are they gone?” The whole of his body clenched for a moment. He coughed and then turned his head and spat.

“For now,” she said.

John rolled onto his side, his eyelids twitching at the destruction that was Dru’s physical form. It was as if the young man had drunk poison and showered in acid. What was left of his skin was burned and peeled. His hair was all but missing, a few tufts here and there, the skull exposed. Dana looked away, unshed tears hindering her sight. It had been a long time since she’d witnessed such horror.

Feeling like she’d forgotten to do something, she stood, regretting that choice as she wavered, off balance and dizzy. A ripple of nausea rose from her middle, and she waited for it to pass.

A scream in the distance reminded her of the rest of the team. Dru was dead, and she needed to help the others, needed to see if any of them could be helped.

Though she ran, it took forever to cross the beach.

She reached Bryce first, pale but standing, grabbing his forehead as he moved about nervously in hunched-over shock. Clearly alive. Then she came upon Dorian, sitting with his back against a tent pole, shaking and crying just a few feet from Jackson, who kneeled upon the ground. The body beside him was Anton’s—even more deteriorated than Dru’s had been. Clearly the Andrew clones had not stood a chance against the Moon Children’s ammonia cloud. She wondered how the Evanders would fare, considering Evander was the son of Andrew.

“Vander,” she whispered, gripped with sudden panic. “Where’s Vander? Has anyone seen him?”

No one answered at first. Jackson gazed up at her with dull, watery eyes. “I don’t know where he went.”

Dana called to Vander as she moved out of the tent and toward the ping-pong table. He had not been near the water’s edge. He had opted to stay behind with Margot. The memory of his voice flashed through her mind: “I’m too full to skip stones,” he’d said.

Dana moved faster, the horrid air burning her throat. She came across Sylvie and Lena, both on all fours, gagging and spitting. “Are you okay?” she said when she reached them.

Lena looked like she wanted to kill someone. “What is that horrible fucking smell? It’s disgusting and I can barely breathe.”

“You’re a scientist,” Sylvie said. “What does it smell like to you?”

“I know it’s ammonia. But why would the beach smell like ammonia?”

“I’ll explain later,” Dana said. “Have you seen Vander?"

“No,” they both answered at the same time.

“Over here,” Mandi shouted from the dunes in the near distance. “Vander fell face-first in the scrub brush.”

Dana followed the sound of Mandi’s voice but didn’t see her. The tall grass and scrub brush were two-to-four feet high, and Mandi likely crouched on the ground beside Vander.

Suddenly she popped up and waved Dana over.

Dana raced in her direction. She would never forgive herself if something happened to Vander. “Is he all right?” Her chest vibrated with thudding beats.

“I’m not sure,” Mandi said. “He’s breathing, and his pulse is good.”

Dana would do everything in her power to save him. Mandi had rolled him onto his back. He was unconscious, a thin line of blood oozing from a narrow triangular cut at the top of his head. Probably from when he’d fainted. His lips appeared pasty and dry, but he wasn’t coughing, and his chest moved up and down without a hitch. Skin still covered his handsome face. No blisters, just a bit of rose in his cheeks.

“He’s not waking up,” Mandi said.

Dana lifted his hand and patted it. “Vander, come on, now, wake up.”

He lay as if in the midst of a dream. His expression unperturbed. At peace.

Dana met Mandi’s questioning eyes, then began jiggling his shoulder. “Vander, please wake up.”

He twitched and uttered a small cry before his eyelashes fluttered open. He stared at the sky. “Is he gone?” he said.

“Is who gone?” Dana asked.

Vander sat up quickly and scanned the area around them. “The old guy with the messy hair. Uncle Jimmy, I’m pretty sure it was.”

Dana laughed with relief as the urge to hug him came over her. He appeared healthy. Normal.

“He was here, at the party with us,” Vander said. “He ate a huge plate of potato salad.”

“That sounds like something he’d do,” Dana said. “But he’s not here. How do you feel? Is your throat burned? Are you breathing all right?”

“Nothing hurts.” Vander gazed at her with clear, blue-green eyes just like the original Evander’s. “Uncle Jimmy said it’s begun. He said they’re here, and we have to get ready.” Vander scratched the tender scruff of his chin, then rubbed his forehead.

Dana already knew the Moon Children were here. Perhaps the real message was how to prepare.

Vander said, “I don’t know what he means by that.”

Dana pressed her lips together before she spoke: “It’s the Moon Children. Did he say what we should do?”

“All he said was the Jovians can’t do it alone. It has to be all of us—humans, clones, hybrids, everyone. He spoke very seriously for a funny old guy.”

“Okay,” Dana said. “We will prepare as best we can.”

“I don’t get it,” Mandi said. “I didn’t see any old man. I didn’t see anyone at all. All I saw was fog. A chemical cloud. I don’t know how you prepare for something like that.”

“You’re right. It was a chemical cloud. Of sorts,” Dana said. “And it’s the reason the whales don’t come here anymore. But I’ll explain more later.”

“But we entered the water about a hundred times,” Mandi said. “There was nothing unusual there.”

“I think they probably were there. I think they’ve been here for quite some time. We just couldn’t see them,” Dana said, then paused to study Vander again. “You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked, drawing him in for a hug.

“I’m great,” he said.

“Okay.” She let him go and got back on her feet. “You two stay here. I’ll return in a minute. I have to inform the others.”

She moved deeper into the dunes and gazed into the forest beyond. The sun had all but set and an eerie dusk darkened the sky. What was left of the Moon Children’s haze prevented her from seeing the stars. She came to a cleared area and sat, then attempted to enter a place of calm in her mind.

Vander had weathered the poison much better than the others. She and John had survived, the humans and hybrids fared well. Dru and Anton had died horrible deaths. She worried for the Andrew clones of the world.

She opened her mind to the oneness, in all its patchy imperfection.

“Caroline,” she said. “We need to talk.”

She hated to report to Caroline as if she were a soldier in the field, but today that’s exactly what she was.

The attack on Earth had begun.