wandered over from where he had been in deep conversation with the Space Patrol Captain. Tugging once on his sleeve to indicate he should join them, Lissa took her own seat and turned to watch him remove his fur-lined red silk cap and sit beside her. Lollipop hopped happily onto her lap, eyestalks darting about in intense curiosity.
Stephanie casually leaned against the forecastle to listen in, and Mr. Piff leaned closer as well to watch with interest this first meeting of the crew.
Lissa glanced from one sibling to the other, “How did you both get here?” she asked at last.
Shika settled into a cross-legged seat on the floor beside her brother. Her hands moved expressively as the bot translated her words into melodious English. Lissa was amused to note that her tale sounded much like an epic ballad told around a campfire, but then, oral traditions were still strong in places such as northern Ethiopia where the Mursi twins hailed.
Shika began:
“On the day I was born the gods cursed me with a beautiful face.
Or so the Elders say. They condemned me for denouncing the Old Ways, for refusing the plate lip and the tattoos that scar the faces of the other women of our tribe.
Yet I am fifteen years old—a woman grown, and I will choose my own fate.
Our people live a simple existence—the land gives us life just as it did when our ancestors laid paths here a thousand-thousand years ago. We raise our cows and supplement the milk they give with crops of corn and wild honey.
But the beauty of the land is a stark contrast to the appearance of my people.
It is said in legend that years ago, as the dry summer winds blew across the ripening gold of our fields, the devils blew in as well. Borne upon the hot winds in their chariots of fire they butchered our people and searched our faces for the Curse. Any woman not cured of beauty by a plate lip or scars was taken away across the deserts to slavery and death.
Or so the Elders tell us.
No one in living memory had ever seen a devil. Why should I scar my face and cut my lip for a phantom? I did not think they really existed. Nor did Akira, my younger sister.
For us the world was vast, the honey milk sweet, and the warriors of the tribe looked admiringly on our dark faces—unmarred like many of the more traditional girls—and my sister and I planned to marry the best of them.
We were in the hut; Akira was smearing white chalk paint on my face, her own skin bare as she waited for me to do the same for her. She drew stripes across my cheek bones and painted around my eyes as we prepared for a celebration. It was dawn, and the air was cool—I had reeds wrapped around my lap to keep the chill off. The only light in the hut was the dawn coming in, which she was using to draw lines of white down my face. As we sat there I heard a whirring sound from far off. I remember Akira’s dark eyes meeting mine, questioning. No beast in Africa makes such a noise. It grew louder quickly.
We are too young to recognize the devils’ chariots but there are others in the village with longer memories and their cries erupted around us.
It was a horror. I ducked out of the hut leaving Akira to clean up the chalk, and my eyes were met by an awful sight—one of the Elders had Sishi’s daughter in his hand and was slashing her cheeks with his belt knife, a grim look on his face as she screamed and tried to twist away.
“What is this madness!” I cried, running to her side and trying desperately to loosen his iron grip. He turned to look at me. His eyes were impassive until they lit with fury at the sight of my unmarked face. Quick as an adder he slashed my left cheek, leaving a shallow cut—a scar I wear to this day.
Crying out I dropped the child’s arm, my hand going to my cheek and coming away smeared with blood.
“The devils are coming,” he snapped at me, “It is your Curse that tempts them—only blood will keep you safe now!”
Dropping Sishi’s girl, he strode off across the village and as my gaze followed I saw that he was not alone—all the Elders of our tribe were stalking the space between the huts, entering inside to drag out the inhabitants. Only those with plate lips or other disfigurements were spared.
To my horror, the worst was yet to come. The whirring sound from above turned into a large bird on the horizon. It grew and grew until it was a monstrosity hovering over the village, its drone so loud it drowned out the wails of the injured women and children below.
Akira was behind me, crouched in the doorway. The way she held her face in shadows made the Elders skip over her, and I, believing them touched by cow-disease or madness, hid her partially from view—my cut face obvious and dripping, blood mixed with chalk-paint so they could clearly see I was “cured”.
The monster came to land beside our hut, on the outskirts of the village, and from within emerged demons bearing spears that shot evil magic at our people. The warriors of our village shot at them with rifles and Sishi’s husband came running at one with a knife but the demon laughed with a loud gargling noise and brushed him aside.
They struck down many and then took those they wanted the most into their bird-creature. Ash was one of the chosen—he fought but they captured him and placed him, spear and all, inside.
That is when I made my move—I snuck up behind one of them, and with a cry of anguish for my brother, I pierced the back of the demon’s scull with my knife. The leader of them, this Captain Nask, he did not like this. He stopped laughing when I killed the demon and instead began to gather his slaves together and back up into the ship. I waited an instant after they disappeared and then leapt up as the bird began to rise in the air—determined to follow and rescue my brother.”
When she finished speaking, the deck was silent for a moment. Lissa wondered if she would have had the gumption to do that—grab the landing skid of a moving space ship and climb aboard an alien vessel after someone she loved. Primitives they might be, but they were no cowards, these Mursi people.
“But…the ship that landed and picked you up—that wasn’t the Forty-Five,” Stephanie said, confused, “This boat can’t land, except on water. And you said it made a whirring sound?”
“It was a helicopter,” Ash told them, “Shika has never seen one before, but I had. It was an Earth machine, and it had a human pilot. Once we were aboard, the pirates used some kind of magic to bring us here.”
“The same gold glowy thingy that got us,” Lissa said to Stephanie, who nodded, but she looked troubled at the idea of humans helping Nask catch slaves on Earth.
“Now what do you want to do?” Lissa asked at last. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Mr. Piff still stood close by. He must have heard the tale Shika told. She wondered briefly what he thought so far of the Earthlings he had helped to set free.
“You plan to travel out there?” Ash asked her, his black eyes large and intent.
“If I can, yes,” Lissa nodded.
“We will come with you,”
