"Double full moons?" I frown. I haven't noticed the moon, or moons in this case. And now that I think about it, I don't think I've even looked for the sun. Are there two of those too?
Wen answers. "Strafor has two moons and a single sun. This impacts the tides, and with the lake being so close to our den, I'd advise you to stay close to the house until you've grown more accustomed to things around here. Ideally, I'd like you to stay near me and Olo while you're outside until we can get you up to speed on everything. The rising tides aren't the only dangers on this planet."
I shudder and bite my lip nervously. "I don't have plans to venture anywhere for a long while."
And it's true. I've always been more of a homebody anyway, and my forays outside this house over the last few cycles have not been… ideal. The incident in the village still weighs on me, and I have no desire to tempt fate again. I'd much rather stay here with Olo and Wen and keep to myself.
Shaking off the morose thoughts, I change subjects. "How long have you guys all been settled here?"
I see the glint in their eyes that tells me they notice the abrupt subject change, but thankfully they don't say anything about it. I'm not ready to talk about what's bothering me. In fact, I'm pretending like it never happened most of the time. It's not the healthiest plan, but I can dissociate like a boss when I need to in order to function.
"We've been here for thirty-seven… no, thirty-eight years now," Wen grunts. I can't tell whether it's a happy one.
I nod. "And you two have been together for seventeen years, right?"
"Yeah," Wen shares a smile with Olo that makes me want to melt, and it's not even directed at me.
He looks over and laughs at what's no doubt a completely baffled expression on my face.
"As we said, we age slowly. It's due to the allagi virus, though I think the atmosphere and environment on Strafor may have something to do with it too."
"How slow? You don't look a day over twenty-five," I say with a shake of my head.
"Well," Wen starts, "the oldest beta is eighty-eight, yet tests estimate he’s actually in his thirties. Who knows just how long our lifespan really is now? We also don't know what complications the allagi’s mutation will cause regarding our lifespans. We've only seen the benefits so far, but there's no telling what the future holds without proper equipment and scientists able to study us."
I gape, completely shocked. "That's scary. Not the beta’s age," I quickly backtrack. "I meant the whole complications-thing and not knowing what the future looks like."
"It is, but we try not to think about it. There's no point stressing about the what-ifs, and truthfully, it helps that everyone is in the same boat." Olo's response makes it obvious that he's come to grips with his reality over time, because he appears unfazed by all the terrifying possibilities he could potentially face.
Silently I consider this new information. It applies to me now too, I guess, seeing as I've also been mutated by the virus. That means I'll likely outlive my parents and siblings, not that I'll be around to see it. They're probably already headed to Remora, since I was in a coma for a nearly a full lunar cycle. I'll probably never see them again, and that kills me.
"We knew you’d have to be over twenty-eight yourself, at the very least." Olo's voice cuts through my depressing thoughts.
"How did you know that?"
Wen smiles. "An omega’s heat doesn't hit until their twenty-eighth year. We don't know why that's the case, but we think it's the age of maturity in the eyes of the allagi virus."
I hesitate with my next words, not wanting to offend them. "There doesn't seem to be a whole lot understood about this virus."
Wen sighs and frowns at Olo. "There isn't. We're limited here, and the scientists we do have aren't necessarily equipped to handle all the things thrown at us, nor do we have the necessary equipment to run all these tests. We all knew going into this journey that we would spend the rest of our lives setting things up for future generations; we just didn't expect the allagi on top of everything else. The government assured us all was well on Strafor, and we were fitted mostly with laborers, scholars, doctors, and engineers. The few scientists who joined our expedition specialize in astronomy and other space travel-related sciences. And since we've been abandoned by Earth, there isn't a damn thing we can do about it."
I stare at them, horrified by what I’ve heard. "What do you mean you were abandoned by Earth?”
Surely they sent a follow-up ship after they landed. That's the standard protocol. You send one team filled with the majority of the scholars, laborers, engineers, and doctors. The second team has a different set of scientists with a wide range of specialties to help with the adjustment to life on a new planet. Not to mention they send more doctors, laborers, mechanics, and blacksmiths. The whole process is designed to ensure new colonies have enough people who specialize in a wide variety of trades that can contribute to the colonization efforts in preparation for sending more civilians years later.
The alpha growls and spits. "Once the first mutations revealed themselves, the supply drops stopped coming, and the second team never left Earth. It only took a couple months before the mutations become prevalent, and at the time, the second ship wasn't due to head out until the fifth month. Once they heard what happened, they immediately cut contact and left us for dead."
I gasp. "They wouldn't do that."
There's no way.
"Wouldn't they?" Olo asks without heat. "We started mutating, and while still mostly human, we couldn't really say we were fully human anymore. They didn't want to waste resources on what they no doubt considered a loss."
"They wouldn't be that heartless. You're still citizens!" I cry out.
"Not technically. It was a one-way trip to Strafor, and we essentially renounced our citizenship the moment we boarded the ship. We are technically Straforians now, not Americans."
My eyes burn with unshed tears. "That's so cruel," I whisper.