The Moons of Zebulon

Chapter 1
The Field

    When life is discovered beyond Earth, will it want to eat us? Or will it be so incredibly different that we—and it—don’t recognize each other?
    Rubbish, thought Dr. Jocelyn Roswell.
    She had just listened to four days of such prattle at the 36th International Conference on Extraterrestrial Life. Four summer days wasted in a convention hall. One speaker after another had talked on and on about theories of life on other planets, oceans under the ice on Jupiter’s moon Europa and bacteria imbedded in asteroids drifting through space.
    Life had never been discovered beyond the Earth. Period. End of sentence, end of science. The rest was just speculation and fantasy. Dr. Roswell was a serious scientist and a serious woman. She had no patience for exobiologists and genetic theorists. Except for Earth, conditions were too harsh for life in this solar system. It had been thoroughly explored and even colonized. Until some means of propulsion faster than the LS Drive were discovered, the stars were just too far away.
    She was driving, on her way home from the conference in Chicago. Near a small sign, she pulled over to the side of the road and got out. The sign pointed to the right and read “Raub.” There was no road, just a sign pointing into the cornfield that stretched to the horizon. Dr. Roswell pulled out her phone. She pressed the buttons and spoke.
    “Hello, Herman,” she said. “I’m on my way to the lab, but I’m near my home town, so I’m going to stop. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back to Indiana. I’ll see you at the lab tomorrow.” She pressed a button to send the message.
    The sky was perfectly clear. The August air was hot and humid. She stood there, with her phone in her hand. It was a beautiful day, full of intense colors—green plants, blue sky, black earth. The tall corn rustled in the breeze.
    Then Dr. Roswell saw another color. A flash of blinding green struck in the cornfield, like fuzzy lightning. She blinked.
    A pool of green light swelled and flowed from the impact, as if a giant drop of water had fallen. It swirled as it spread in a huge circle along the ground. Its edges were wispy vapor, and it boiled off as it rolled over the rows of corn. It was upon her in less than a second.
    The world flashed green as the tidal wave of light swept over her and through her. Her body soaked it up, like a sponge. Through the light, she thought she saw something in the sky—an enormous planet, banded in blue and green. Then it was gone.
    Her eyes stung as if she were coming out of water. The humid August breeze felt bone dry. She drew a breath.
    It was like the first breath she had ever taken. Her lungs felt small and wet. Her breathing muscles labored, and it was hard to get enough air.
    As she exhaled, the entire field started to rustle. The corn stalks quivered and then shook as the rustle built to an explosion of flapping wings. Every ear of corn on every stalk burst open. A hoard of flying yellow bat-creatures screeched and swarmed upward from the field. In a horrible scramble of noise, they filled the air and blotted out the sun. They rose high and scattered into hundreds of smaller groups, fluttering off in all directions.
    She stood before the transformed cornfield, trying hard to breathe. The stalks were quiet. There was no one else around. The sun beat down, and the sky was blue. She collected herself and thought to call the lab.
    Dr. Jocelyn Roswell raised her phone to place the call. She moved to dial with her finger. The phone was not in her hand, because she had no hand. She had no fingers. She had no arms. She held her phone in one of six orange-red tentacles. Each was attached around her upper body at the shoulders, where her arms should be. Each was longer than she was tall. They had suction cups on one side. She could have dialed easily with her raised tentacle, but she dropped the phone instead. It fell next to her, alone in the cornfield.
    Her tentacles stiffened and shook when she screamed.