Gob's Arc

Chapter 9 of 11

The tear closed behind them. Real air moved over the hills. Potbelly carried Gob up the slope in one careful jaw. Fluroess floated beside them. Hoola climbed with her hoop spinning at her waist. PomPom walked last, watching the sky, still reading it for threats. But the sky stayed empty. The fleet was gone. At the top of the hill sat something Gob knew by feel before his light could name it. A smooth domed hull. Round windows that once glowed. His home. The UFO his family had left behind when the world began to end. "There," said one of Potbelly's heads. "It waited." Gob opened his mouth. Only a thin flicker came out. The cone barely reached the hull. He could not see the door. He could not see his parents' faces. His light was almost gone, and without it he could not feel his way home. Hoola stopped spinning. "You did the whole thing on empty," she said. "You. Empty. And you still blew that machine apart." She dropped down beside him. "So you rest now. That's the trick. You rest." PomPom crossed her arms. "Light comes back. Give it time." She said it flat, like a fact she had checked twice. Fluroess drifted close. Their glow brightened. "Watch," Fluroess said. They flashed once, soft and warm, and held it steady. The light spread across the hull. The round windows caught it and gave it back. For one moment the whole ship glowed. Gob felt the warmth on his small face. He could not see it, but he felt where it landed. The door. The steps. The path home. Fluroess pushed their light toward Gob's open mouth. Not much. Just a thread. It slipped inside him and settled. Gob's flicker steadied. It did not blaze. It did not need to. It only had to reach the door. "Try," Fluroess said. Gob opened his mouth wider. The cone stretched. It touched the hull, the windows, the steps. He felt the whole shape of home at last. He was not carried now. He held his own light again. Potbelly set him down on the grass. Gob stood on his own. His glow was small and steady and his. "Inside," said Potbelly's other head. "We rest. Then we decide." Gob moved toward the door on his own light. But at the threshold he stopped. Hoola stood behind him. PomPom stood behind her. They had carried him here. They were not from these hills. Their homes lay somewhere in the ruined town below. Gob turned his small cone back on them. It was weak, but it reached. It asked a question he had no words for. PomPom answered it. "We got you home," she said. "Now we find ours."