MARCH 19
9:33 A.M. PACIFIC TIME
As the government jet zoomed down the runway across Groom Lake, Hender waved good-bye at the silver dome below. He cupped his eye as he gripped his armrests with three other hands, and one of his fingers accidentally pushed the button that reclined his seat.
He exclaimed musically in a rising scale as the plane lifted off the airstrip.
“Get that!”
Cynthea Leeds whispered to Zero Monroe, who was capturing the moment on film. “Are you getting that?”
Zero opened one eye at her. “Yes, darlin’,” he said dryly.
Cynthea and her chief cameraman, Zero, who was now her business partner and boyfriend, met while documenting their journey to Henders Island. They were here at the invitation of Hender, who was unaware of how lucrative an exclusive he had given them. All that mattered to Hender was that he was surrounded by humans he knew. Now, as he was about to “fly” to an island called “England” to meet more humans than he could ever imagine, he was even more grateful to have the company of humans he knew.
Hender watched the plane’s shadow shrink over the scoured desert mountains below. “I hope we don’t drop!” he shouted. Hender’s fur bristled with effervescent colors as he looked out the window.
Andy laughed. “It’s OK, Hender. This is normal,” he reassured him. “Humans do this all the time.”
“Humans are crazy.”
The first time Hender flew in a plane was inside the cargo hold of a military aircraft from Pearl Harbor directly to Nevada. None of the sels had understood what was happening during that flight, since there had been no windows. It was terrifying, but it would have probably been more terrifying if they had known they were soaring through the air.
As the G-V now pierced a cloud under the stratosphere, the windows turned white and Hender looked around from his seat at Andy and Cynthea, whose seats were in front of his.
Andy smiled back at him. “It’s OK, Hender. This is normal, too.”
“So cool!” Hender said. “Can I watch a movie?”
“Absolutely,” Andy said. “And I’m sure we can make popcorn, too.”
“Good!”
“Push the buttons on the arm of your chair.” Andy showed him.
Hender pulled up a menu on the screen above him that showed movie selections. “Ooh, Jurassic Park!”
Andy reclined his chair and stretched back. “Well, Hender’s happy,” he remarked to Cynthea, who sat beside him.
“He’ll knock ’em dead,” Cynthea said. “Can you imagine what this must be like for him?”
“I think so,” Andy said. “Maybe a little.”
“Maybe that’s why they like you so much,” Cynthea said.
Andy was rankled by Cynthea’s probing. “Maybe so!”
Zero pointed the camera back at them and Cynthea winked, which Zero always hated. “I’m not here, honey, remember?”
She winked again. “I know!”
Hender flipped through the new SkyMall magazine. He used the in-flight phone and his credit card information to order a few more things. Then he watched two movies simultaneously—Beverly Hills Chihuahua and, on his MacBook, a Buster Keaton movie.
He couldn’t understand what humans meant by “black-and-white” movies. Hender saw lots of colors in them. He loved Buster Keaton movies because he thought, at first, that Buster Keaton was Zero Monroe. When Hender found out Buster Keaton had died decades ago at the age of seventy-one, he was shocked by the news. That such a young creature could reach legendary status amazed him. That he could die so young and still leave such a legacy astounded him. That so wonderful a creature could perish so soon troubled him. That his spirit could still live on on television amazed him. What brief and yet immortal animals were his human friends.
Hender pondered the differences between humans and sels as he looked at Zero with one eye and Buster Keaton with the other. Humans lived such a short time, and there were such a staggering number of them, that sometimes they could look quite similar to one another, he realized. He marveled at how many humans there were, and how much each of them did in so very little time. Hender waved with five hands at Zero, who videoed him from his seat.
“Hi, Hender,” Zero said. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“OK, Zero!” He waved at Cynthea instead.
Cynthea laughed. “Hello, Hender!”
12:31 P.M. ZULU TIME
After the long flight, they deplaned directly into a waiting motorcade of armored limousines.
Hundreds had gathered behind rope lines to wave, yell, and clap as cameras flashed. Hender, Andy, and Cynthea moved past quickly, as Zero filmed them, when Hender stood high on his two bottom legs and stretched them almost their full five-foot height as he looked out over the crowd and clapped four hands above the people. A great shock went through the crowd, and they answered with a wild cheer.
Hender descended and climbed ahead of the others into a hulking Rolls-Royce Phantom, which left ahead of a thirty-five-car motorcade that moved together off Heathrow’s tarmac like a black millipede.
Hender looked out the window at miles of roads, bridges, and buildings of every variety in every direction as far as his eyes could see.
Such giant, permanent spaces these short-lived humans created for themselves, he thought. The secret of human progress was that they teamed up and worked together with common cause over generations. It excited and terrified him, for it reminded him of disk-ants or drill-worms that worked together to build hives many times their size—unlike sels, who lived long, solitary lives.
Blinking cars charged in front of and behind them as they snaked through the city named London. The motorcade sped over precleared roads, which were all lined with crowds of waving people, some of them thrusting curious signs at them along the way.
The streets were like the corridors inside the jungle of Henders Island, with lampposts and power lines substituting for the trees and vines. Unlike the tunnels at home, however, traffic here moved in both directions sometimes, he noticed.
Hender’s probing hands bumped a button, rolling down the tinted window. A certain percentage of those lining the street for a glimpse of him fainted as he stretched out and waved back.
“Hender, let’s roll that back up, OK?” Andy said urgently.
“Yes, Andy. Sorry!”
“No problem. Most humans are nice. But there are some wackos, too.”
“Oh, yes. I understand.”
1:41 P.M.
Amidst an electrical storm of camera flashes from banks of paparazzi twenty paces to either side of the hotel entrance, Hender, Andy, and Cynthea charged from the limousine with Zero filming the moment.
An entourage of Secret Service, MI5 agents, diplomatic ministers, and attachés—who had already disgorged from the motorcade—surrounded them in a flying wedge as they entered the Dorchester Hotel.
Hender took video shots with his phone, uploading the clips to his YouTube and Flickr accounts and putting links on his Facebook page and Twitter feed simultaneously. As soon as they got Internet access, Hender had taken advantage of every way to contact the greatest number of humans possible, and they had responded.
Hender, Andy, and Cynthea went directly to an elevator that took them to one of two floors that had been reserved. They were quickly shown to their connecting suites, which were secret and decided by a coin toss moments before their arrival for security purposes. Andy and Cynthea were scheduled for fittings at 2:35 P.M. for a tuxedo and a formal gown. At 4 P.M. they were to attend a series of press meetings in a heavily guarded still-to-be-determined suite somewhere inside the hotel.
Cynthea, Zero, Andy, and Hender entered Hender’s suite and were dazzled beyond their wildest expectations. Hender cartwheeled onto the blue bed and, as he bounced under its flowing canopy, he shouted, “Beautiful!”
“Wow,” Cynthea agreed.
“I’ll have to travel with you more often, Hender,” Andy agreed, too.
Silk wallpaper and brocaded window dressings out of a magazine or a painting appointed the opulent suite. The adjoining room, they soon found, was even more lavish, decorated red and orange with flowing curtains of gold. “OK, this is our room,” Cynthea said to Zero. “Andy, you’ll have to take the suite on the other side. Sorry! Hender, do you mind if we shut the door so Zero and I can have some privacy?”
“Just knock if you need something, OK?” Zero said.
“Don’t worry, Zero. I saw porno on the Internet. I was going to ask if I could shut the door.” Hender smiled wide at him. “OK?”
Andy laughed. “I’ll be across the hall in the Imperial Suite, Hender.”
“OK, Andy! Sweet dreams!”
They all said good night, and Hender closed his door.
3:59 P.M.
Sitting behind a table in the press suite, Hender, Andy, and Cynthea faced journalists from newspapers, magazines, television networks, and webzines from around the world. They had each been cleared by heavy screening and given five minutes to ask him questions.
Hender was ably backed up by Andy and Cynthea, who were seated at his side as the feed from the press conference was broadcast around the world. Commentators remarked that not since man had landed on the moon had such a global sensation monopolized all human communications in such a simultaneous event. Hender treated it as practice for the event scheduled for tonight: a formal gala in his honor at the London Natural History Museum.
There might never have been a more desirable party to attend in London. Hender was told that everyone would be there.
8:47 P.M.
Hender took a long shower with six showerheads in his amazing bathroom. He was able to blast the water pressure to get between the tendrils of his fur, which, after drying off with his four blow-dryers, left him refreshed and agreeable for the night’s festivities as his skin breathed freely again, enriching his blood with oxygen. Without their symbiants, a thorough shower was the only way sels could exfoliate.
Andy smelled the pleasant copper penny and cilantro odor exuding from his sel friend and knew that Hender was nervous as they neared their destination. Hender’s fur began displaying fireworks of anticipation as they arrived, and he squeezed Andy’s hand with one of his hands.
The small motorcade that had conveyed them from the hotel came to a stop near the cascade of steps in front of a vast and beautiful building carved in stone. It reminded Hender of the cliff of Henders Island, though it was artfully sculpted into windows, pillars, and arches. With three hands, the sel nervously fingered the invitation he had received in a gold-lined envelope, spindling the paper in three directions as he climbed to the entrance of the “museum.”
Flanked by dozens of guards in dark suits, Hender moved nimbly up the steps on four legs like a centaur between Cynthea and Andy, his fur sparkling bursts of color as he held up his rumpled invitation with one of his upper hands.
“How do you feel, Hender?” Andy asked.
“Awesome,” Hender shivered.
They passed under the arched doorway that was like a cave entrance between two towers of rock, and Hender pulled back as he saw inside: the place was filled with humans, on the ground below and along a giant stone ramp to a ledge above where more of them were crowded and looking down at him all around. They all wore “tuxedos” like Andy’s that were nearly all the same or else they wore gowns as varied as flowers in the humans’ gardens. Females wore the gowns.
In the center of the room, Hender suddenly noticed a huge creature with a soaring neck, and he reached four arms back to protect Andy and Cynthea. The humans around him gasped as he disappeared, using his light-sensitive fur to hide himself.
“That’s a skeleton,” Andy said, realizing that the bones of the Diplodocus arching like a roller coaster inside the museum’s foyer had startled the sel. “It’s a fossil of an animal that died millions of years ago!”
“A fossil? That’s a fossil?” Hender withdrew his arms and folded them as he reappeared, staring in awe at the sauropod skeleton.
The people all turned to him like petals of Henders clover turning toward the sun. One person called for everyone’s silence, and Hender was formally introduced by an important human, to deafening applause that lasted five full minutes, much to Hender’s amazement.
At Andy’s suggestion, Hender waved four arms above his head in greeting, to an even louder ovation.
The crowd quickly quieted when a microphone was handed to Hender.
“Speak into it,” Andy urged him. “Like a microphone. Say hello!”
“Hello, everyone.”
A swoon swept over all who heard his voice speak English. Then there was a profound and sustained moment of applause that rocked the building like an earthquake.
“Thank you!” Hender finally said, overcome by the thunderous response. “You are amazing! This place is great. I love my hotel room! Congratulations! Let’s party! OK?”
Everything he said exhorted more applause as a massive cheer swelled to a global roar through the cameras that broadcast the event to the world, live.
A series of people introduced themselves and posed for pictures with him in front of the giant sauropod skeleton while clasping one of his hands. The great nature documentarian, Sir Nigel Holscomb, who had narrowly survived Henders Island, introduced himself to Hender then, and when he noticed Hender had a BlackBerry, he insisted, to a round of cheers, that they exchange tweets, which Hender happily did, bestowing forty-five million followers on him in an hour.
A bewhiskered and bespectacled man who Cynthea claimed was a noted scientist came forward now and called Hender’s attention to a display case containing hendro artifacts.
“Oh, cool!” Hender said. He noticed replicas of some of Kuzu’s weapons, which were made from human flotsam fused with native materials.
“I was admiring sel craftwork,” said the gray-haired man. “You sels are quite ingenious!”
“I am not all sels and all sels are not me. My friend, Kuzu, made these.”
“Ah … Of course.”
Hender met a woman who seemed to be wearing flowing gold. He flushed striped waves of purple and pink on his fur coat to see what the reflection would look like on her gown. “I love your clothes,” he said.
She nodded, awestruck. “Thank you!”
“You must miss your island,” said one guest, a movie star quite well known to Cynthea and Andy.
“You have never been there,” Hender replied, triggering a round of laughter. He shrugged. “This is much better. Much safer.”
Hender was captivated by the setting for the party, which featured a collection of amazing things. As a collector himself, his attention was taken away from one point of interest to another as he wandered up the stairs to the next level of the museum. Cynthea, Andy, and Zero struggled to stay close as he drew a growing train of humans with him. A couple of eminent scientists managed to keep up, along with a huffing and puffing Sir Nigel.
Hender ran up to the museum’s wall. “Oooh! What’s up here? This is nice!” He pointed at a light sconce between exhibits.
“Yes,” said one man. “That is one of our better inventions.”
“You invented it?”
“Oh, no, no.”
“Why do you say our, then?”
“Well, you’re right, Hender. Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb.”
“I like Thomas Edison.”
“Yes, Hender.”
Hender smelled food now and moved forward on four feet, gracefully parting the guests as he found a table where shrimp and other hors d’oeuvres were spread over a bank of ice. “Yum!” he said, feeling his hunger. He attacked the shrimp and deviled eggs with four hands. As he reached for another prawn, Hender noticed marks on the wrist of a very old human. He pointed with one iridescent finger. “Color!”
“Tattoo.”
“Numbers?”
“Yes.”
Hender noticed the man was bald and had a white goatee. Human hair changed color, too, he thought, but only over a long period of time. “Why?”
“It was given to me when I was a child.” The man’s eyes seemed very wet. “When I was a prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” Hender asked.
“Yes. Because my people, my tribe, were different, they put us in a place where we could not escape, a prison, so they could kill us.”
“Oh. I’m a prisoner, too.” Hender held the man’s hand.
Another man chimed in. “Yes, Hender, I’m afraid we are capable of awful things.”
“You did this?” Hender drew back, afraid.
“No, no!” said the man. “Other humans did. A long time ago. Not me.”
“Oh,” Hender was relieved, the color returning to his coat. “Don’t say we!”
“OK, Hender.”
“A lot of humans say we too much,” Hender said.
11:02 P.M.
Hender waved good-bye to the gathering at the entrance of the museum, his coat turning magenta, and the crowds gave him a deafening send-off after an evening that was already being breathlessly reported as a triumph around the world.
On the ride back to the hotel in the motorcade, Hender opened some of the small gifts he had been given, which had been cleared through the security people who intercepted them. He now had a handsome gold magnifying glass, a fantastic pen encrusted with jewels that dazzled his eyes, and a beautiful lighter for creating fire with a click of the finger, an invention Hender regarded as miraculous. On Henders Island, he had collected some disposable plastic lighters on the beach below his house, and Kuzu had figured out how to strike sparks with them; but none of these devices had ever made a flame by themselves.
It started to rain. Hender rolled down the window and smelled the scents that were as varied, noxious, sweet, and pungent as the scents of his native island. Their Phantom rushed through the night as the rain made the endless streets and cars and buildings glisten. The enormous car deposited Hender and his entourage in front of the hotel, where shoulder-to-shoulder police held back the bursting crowd.
Andy noticed that the packed onlookers seemed unruly. As Hender stood waving among the sea of people, they converged on him with dangerous pressure. Despite Andy’s apprehension, Hender was at ease now, waving four hands and rising on two legs over the police line, which incited an eruption of applause and cheers. To the horror of those guarding him, Hender contracted and disappeared, rising on the other side of the barrier. Amid an explosion of flashing cameras, he reappeared in vivid color and shook the people’s hands four at a time, deciding that he liked humans very much.
A tall man with a shaved, tattooed head shoved his way through the others in front of Hender. Hender noticed that three of the bald man’s upper teeth were made of gold. Rushing behind, his bodyguards saw the man raise one muscular arm. A butcher knife flashed in his pale fist. “Piss off, ya grotty devil!” he screamed, and he leaped at the sel, the blade flashing as he plunged it down at Hender’s chest.
Before any of the bodyguards could intervene, Hender moved four hands in a blur of motions, removing the knife from the yob’s hand with two hands and slamming him on his back on the sidewalk with two more, pinning him with five hands. Red waves of light rippled across Hender’s fur as blood pooled under the groaning man’s head on the pavement.
The crowd clapped but then backed away, stunned at the lethal display Hender had unleashed on his attacker. Dozens of phones and cameras had recorded the assault from every angle.
Immediately, Hender was surrounded by uniformed humans, who shouted as they gently put themselves between him and his assailant and quickly extricated him from the crowd. Hender gave the police the man’s knife as they cuffed and carried the man away on a stretcher.
Hender’s security detail rushed him into the hotel, and Andy trotted along with him. “Awesome kung fu, Hender,” Zero said.
“Yeah, good work, man!” Andy said.
“Thank you, Andy. I’m sorry I hurt the man.”
“It’s OK, Hender,” Cynthea said.
“He was trying to kill you!” Andy said angrily.
“I hope nobody’s mad.”
“He was an a*shole,” Zero growled.
As they entered a private elevator, Andy gave Cynthea and Zero a worried look.
“I want to sleep now, guys,” Hender said. “For four hours. OK?”
“OK,” Andy said.
“See you in a while, Hender. You were great tonight!” Cynthea said. “Don’t worry!”
“Thank you, Cynthea.” As he stood inside his door, his fur washed out and grayed suddenly. “Good night.” Hender closed the door to his room softly.
Andy’s cell phone rang. “Yes? Oh. Really. That’s a shame. I see. No, thanks, I think it sucks, but, yeah … because it sucks! It wasn’t his fault! Right, bye.” He looked devastated.
“What?” Zero asked.
“They canceled the audience with the Queen tomorrow.”
“Why?” Zero asked.
“Security reasons.”
“Oh, shit!” Cynthea said.
“What did they say?” asked Zero.
“They said it would be better to postpone the Royal visit until further review.”
“Give me that schmuck’s phone number, Andy,” Cynthea said.
Andy shook his head. “It’s no use, Cynthea. They’ve made up their minds.”
11:59 P.M.
Nestled in the blue whirlpool of blankets on his giant bed, Hender worked quietly on the next bit of his book, working off his nervousness so he could go to sleep:
The 2nd Darkness
According to the Books, 64,985,121 years ago. There were only eight petals on Henderica, and eight tribes, which kept to themselves when they weren’t fighting before the second darkness came.
There were over a million sels then, and they built great things like humans do today. Some dreamed of things that could carry them across the poison sea. But when the waves came they carried two petals and two tribes away as the sky turned black.
Sels found the tunnels made by treno trees, whose roots had lived and died and melted away. The tunnels twisted hundreds of miles under the ground. While all other plants died above, the warring tribes came together to save the trenos. For four years, the six tribes fed the trees underground. And they wrote the first Books, to remember.
All of your “dinosaurs” died then. I’m glad. I don’t think I would have met humans if they had lived. But maybe I would have met something else, instead.