Love, war and the fate of humanity rest in Neanderthal hands.

The Children Of Earth Return

Neanderthals disappeared 35,000 years ago, saved by benevolent aliens from a blood thirsty human race, and then returned one hundred years ago to see if humanity was worth saving from itself.  Our problem is that they aren’t sure.

By Josef Zaitsev © 2024

The large, broad faced man with the big and bent nose smelled the coffee and smiled with even bigger lips.  “I think I’ll miss this most when we leave,” he said in a language not known on Earth, handing the cup to the equally large and broad woman in the king sized bed before getting under the many layers of covers with her. 

“You’re not wrong.”  She smiled even bigger, savoring a sip and squinting through the large window at the world outside the large bedroom of their large house.  “But it’s not enough to keep me here, Lawimh.”

“Is anything, Tes?”  He looked right at her, still smiling, but shrugged.

She looked down and brushed the hair away from his eyes.  “I’m still surprised that no one has figured out that we’re not quite human.”  She grabbed his giant right ear, pulling him close, and kissed him.  “Or that…”

“Why would they think otherwise?” he said, looking right at her.  “I mean…”

“I know.”  She shrugged too, tugging on his beard, and chuckled to herself.  “I don’t have antenna or tentacles.”

“No.”  He pulled her hands off her beard and smiled again.  “And I can shave when we leave.”

“No.”  She waved him away, easing back, and snuggled into him.  “Keep the beard if you like.”

“I thought you hated it.”  He gave her a squeeze and kept smiling.

“It’s grown on me.”  She smiled too.

“Like a fungus?”  He looked down at her.

“Pretty much,” she said and laughed out loud, drinking more coffee and gave him the cup.

Lawimh finished it as a low buzz and tremble swept through the bedroom.

“The Japanese started early today,” Tes said and sat up, seeing the empty cup, and frowned.  “I think we’re done here, Lawimh.”

“I’m not so sure.”  He handed her the cup and stared at the rattling lights hanging from the ceiling.

“I thought we had decided.”  She frowned.

“I thought we were still talking about it.”  He turned to her with a finger raised to the outside window.  “And I think we can do more.”

“We haven’t done enough?”  She made a face and frowned more.

The sky flashed and they both counted the seconds until they heard the explosions.

“Did you even ready my report?”  Tes said and sat up straighter.  “The Japanese plan to…”

“I did and I know.”  Lawimh nodded and slipped out of bed, walking to his dresser, and then turned back with a look.  “But it’s not the whole story, Tes.”

“How can say that?”  She shook her head, pushing back the blankets, and stood up with a deep breath.  “We saw when …”

“The report focuses only on recent events, Tes.”  Lawimh looked past her and started dressing with the clothes already laid out for him from the night before.  “And while they are some of the worst in human history you missed…”

“I reported on the most advanced parts of human society, Lawimh: just as you requested.”  Tes turned, letting her out her breath, and opened her wardrobe.  “And it shows that too few humans have too much power.”  She slipped on a brassiere.  “We know where the Nuremberg laws will go, we saw the mass starvation in the Ukraine and the Japanese are literally bleeding Nanjing to death as we get dressed.”  She slipped a dress over her large head and broad shoulders and turned to face him head on.  “How can you say we haven’t seen enough?”

Lawimh buttoned his shirt, not saying anything.

“Japanese soldiers are competing right now to see who can cut off the most Chinese heads, Lawimh.”  She kept dressing.  “Their newspapers are reporting on it like it’s a football match, with the public cheering the winners, and that’s just the beginning.  The Germans, Soviets and Japanese plan to tear down this world’s order while its guarantors do nothing but pray for a miracle.”  She threw up a hand.  “The British and French Empires have barely functioned since their Great War, and America, your shining hope, has shut its eyes to all of it.”  She shook her head with a deeper frown.  “The forecasts are dire, and humanity is going to destroy itself within a generation.”

“I agree that the world war halted humanity’s development, Tes, but you’re ignoring the advances they made in the last hundred years.”  Lawimh sighed and knotted his tie.  “They ended slavery, feed the destitute and give females increasing rights that we couldn’t dream of at home.”

“You can’t compare them to us.”  Her eyes narrowed on him.

“They have so much potential, Tes.”  He looked right back at her.  “Humanity will…”

“You see more than is there, Lawimh.”  Tes spat out, cinching her dress, and then turned away.  “They’re literally killing themselves to get ahead.” 

“They’re the only species to have settled the entire planet, Tes.”  He took a step toward her and then stopped.  “Something we so called Neanderthals never came close to doing.”

“We would’ve never killed each other to do so, Lawimh.”  She turned back to him.

“And we wouldn’t have rejuvenated ourselves time and again, Tes.”  Lawimh’s focus narrowed on her as he buttoned his suit coat.  “Could we have survived their world war?”

“We wouldn’t have started one.”  Tes pointed out the window to the smoke rising from the nearby city.  “Their entire civilization is built on killing each other, Lawimh.  Their leaders have already killed millions, openly threaten to kill tens of millions more and will soon be able to kill billions if they develop atomic weapons.”

He turned right to her again when a knock came from the door.

Tes looked right back at him and stifled a frown.  “Come in,” she said in Mandarin.

“They might not discover nuclear technology,” Lawimh said as a Chinese servant bowed to them. 

“Then you’re being naïve, Lawimh.”  Tes switched out of Mandarin, her face twisting to the left, and she threw up another hand.  “Their scientis…”

“The reason we’re here…”

“I know why we’re here.”  She stood up straighter, her hand still in the air between them, and squared her shoulders.  “Do you?”

“To access humanity’s potential value to the rest of the universe and…”

“That potential is what frightens me, Lawimh.”  She leaned in closer and pointed a finger right at him.  “Can you imagine what humanity would do with higher technology?”  She turned and pointed to the skies.  “They would turn the Confederacy upside down...”

“You’re assuming the worst, Tes.”  Lawimh took another step toward her, pointing to the skies too, and shook his head.”  The Confederacy would never allow...”

“You asked me to assume the worst, Lawimh.”  Tes lowered her now clenching fists, her face twisting hard to the right, and she took her own step closer to him.  “That’s why I’ve spent the last two generations on this planet.  To…”

“We’re here to access humanity’s potential and save them from themselves if necessary.”  Lawimh kept his finger pointed out the window.  “Just like the Confederacy saved us …”

“The Confederacy saved us from humanity, Lawimh?”  She pointed him to the smoke rising from the city.  “We’d be dead if they hadn’t set us up on a colony beyond Earth.”

His face dropped.  “That was 35,000 years ago, Tes.”

“And you don’t think they’d kill us today?”  Her face hardened.

“I think that a 35,000 year head start protects us, Tes.”  He breathed deep, looking her right in the eye, and kept pointing to the skies.  “And the Confederacy would never allow them…”

“You have too much faith in the Confederacy.”  She raised her hand between them.

“And you have too little.”  His large shoulders sank but he kept his eyes right on hers.  “The Confederacy sees the same potential in humanity that they saw in us.”

“Because they’re ignoring the facts.”  She lowered her hand to look right back at him.

“I know we’ve seen the worst of humanity, Tes.”  He swallowed.  “But you’re forgetting the best.”

She just stared at him and sighed.  “Tell that to the Chinese.”

They both turned to their servant, an older Chinese man who stood waiting on the other side of the bedroom, looking politely out the window. 

“Herr Rabe, a Japanese colonel and three soldiers are waiting outside,” the servant said into the silence.  “They would like to speak with you, sir.”

Tes’s face tightened.  “What?”

“I don’t know,” Lawimh shook his head, gesturing her forward, and left the bedroom.

“Rabe is the Nazi?” Tes frowned, following him, and shook her head.

“I know who he is, Tes,” Lawimh said in Mandarin, frowning too as he noticed the servant following behind them. 

“I thought you delivered…”

“I did.”  Lawimh nodded, switching out of Mandarin, and pointed to the servant.  “That man has been loyal to us since he was a boy.”

“And your point, Lawimh?” Tes said as they continued past two younger servants while ignoring their bows.

He sped up and raised a finger in the air between them.  “Would you let him and those young girls and the other dozen servants we have die because you predict humanity will kill itself in a generation?”

“Excuse me?”  Tes half frowned at him, and they stopped at the front entrance, with another servant bowing to them.  “You know we’re taking them to America.”

“I do.”  He turned to the front door.  “But that doesn’t mean...” 

“They’re leaving tomorrow, Lawimh.”  She gave him a look.  “Tomorrow morning.”

He looked back.  “You said even America wasn’t safe, Tes.”

Her mouth tightened.  “I have hope no matter what the numbers say, Lawimh.” She stifled a frown.  “And you know I wouldn’t let anything happen to these people.”

“Good,” he said, stifling his own, and nodded to the older servant and the front doors. 

The man opened the doors and Lawimh stepped out onto the front courtyard to see two more servants looking pointedly past a short Japanese colonel in his full dress uniform, three shorter and armed soldiers in combat fatigues and a taller European businessman dressed in an old but tailored black suit.  “I thought we had concluded our initial business, Herr Rabe,” he said in German.

“I am sorry, Mr. Lawimh.” Rabe bowed his head and then shook it.  “We had.”

“Then why they you here, Herr Rabe?”  Lawimh’s eyes narrowed on him.

“I do not understand,” the Japanese colonel said in heavily accented Mandarin.

Lawimh turned to the colonel.  “Why are you here?” he said in Mandarin.

The colonel frowned at Lawimh, and the three soldiers stepped forward.

Lawimh’s eyes stayed on the colonel.  “Again, why are they here, Herr Rabe?” he said as Tes slipped out onto the front courtyard and stood behind him.

“The colonel says the Japanese expect the second payment now that thousands of Chinese civilians have entered the safety zone, Mr. Lawimh.”  Rabe pointed to the outskirts of the city with more smoke rising from it.

“That was not the agreement, Herr Rabe,” Lawimh said as Tes sized up the colonel and the three soldiers.

“I agree, Mr. Lawimh, and yet,” Rabe said, nodding to the soldiers, and shrugged.  “Here we are, sir.”

The colonel kept frowning.

“The one with the sword is in the newspapers, Lawimh,” Tes switched out of Mandarin and German while taking in the soldiers and frowned more.

“That’s not helping matters, Tes.”  Lawimh switched languages too and his features tightened, but he stifled his own frown.

“My apologies.”  She nodded to him, noticing the swastika pinned to Rabe’s lapel, and did frown. 

“What are you speaking?” the colonel said and stepped toward Lawimh, his soldiers right with him.  “That’s not a language I’ve heard.”  He stared right at Lawimh and Tes’s broad and nearly flat faces, his eyes narrowing on their big noses and bulbous ears, and then frowned himself.  “They don’t look quite human, do they, Sergeant?” he said, switching to Japanese, and nodded to all three soldiers.  “Almost sub-human, no?”

“Yes, sir,” the one with the sword said.  “Colonel.”

“Your army has shown a level of inhumanity I thought impossible from a millennia old civilization, Colonel,” Lawimh said in Japanese, turning, and looked the man right into the eye.  “Why is that, sir?”

The colonel looked back at Lawimh through a squint, and one of his soldiers leveled his rifle at Lawimh’s head, the bayonet pointed at his right eye.

“Do you think that will get you anything, Colonel?” Lawimh said, seeing it all, but not moving a muscle.  “Other than…”

“Kill him, Sergeant,” the colonel dismissed him with the back of his hand, nodding to the first soldier and then turned to the other two.  “Then kill the woman and everyone in the house.” 

“No.”  Lawimh moved in a blur then, grabbing the first soldier’s rifle in one quick and fluid motion, and bashed it into the soldier’s face before anyone else could move at all.  “I don’t think so.” 

“Sergeant,” the colonel said wide eyed before the first soldier hit the ground.

The second soldier drew his sword as the third pulled up his rifle.

Lawimh pivoted as the sword flew toward him.

Then the second soldier fell.

Rabe turned wide-eyed to Tes when the third soldier collapsed, clutching his chest.  She turned her pistol onto the colonel.

He stood completely still.

Rabe and the servants stared with their mouths open as Lawimh snatched the colonel’s pistol from his belt. 

“Tell your superiors that the rest of the funds will be delivered as discussed,” Lawimh said, shaking his head, and emptied the pistol’s bullets one at a time onto the cobblestoned courtyard.

The colonel looked down at the bullets and then blinked at the bodies of his dead soldiers. 

“Escort the colonel out of the zone and then clean up this mess,” Tes said to the older servant, her pistol still leveled on the colonel’s face, and kept her finger on the trigger.

The servants nodded.

Rabe failed to catch his breath and turned to Lawimh.

“I trust this will not happen again, Herr Rabe,” Lawimh said, turning, and handed him the colonel’s pistol.  “Another meeting like this will be much less pleasant.”

“Yes.”  Rabe swallowed and stared blankly at the dead soldiers as Lawimh and Tes returned to the house.  “I imagine it would, Herr Lawimh.”

He walked through the front doors and Tes grabbed his bleeding hand.  “The colonel will return with more men.”

“Those soldiers aren’t what we’re fighting for, Tes,” Lawimh glanced back to the courtyard while taking a clean cloth from a servant and wrapping it around his injured hand. 

“I didn’t say they were, Lawimh.”  Tes looked at his injured hand.  “I realiz…”

“They’re a blip in human history, Tes, nothing more.”  He turned, holding out his hand to her, and let her wrap it.  “Nothing we can’t fix.”

“Maybe.”  She looked up at him, dropping his hand with a frown, and turned back to their bedroom.  “But probably not.”

He just watched her go as the servants hovered over him and the older man rewrapped the hand.

Later that night Tes stood in front of their untouched bed with a small suitcase at her feet and looked out the window at the burning city in front of her. 

“The Japanese are firing parts of the city,” Lawimh said, coming into the room and seeing the flickering lights through the windows.  “Their last hurr…”

“It’s going to get worse.”  Tes was frowning again.  “The Japanese plan to kil…”

“I know it’s bad, Tes.”  Lawimh stared at her, and his face sank.  “But Rabe…”

“The Nazi?”  She gave him a look.

“Yes, the Nazi.”  Lawimh nodded, his shoulders sinking a little, but then straightened up.  “Rabe’s used the German/Japanese alliance to get as many Chinese into the diplomatic zone as he can.”  He pointed to the dark quarter of the city that seemed safe from the expanding fires.  “Now he’s now distributing food and organizing the means to get them out of Nanjing.”

“I know that, Lawimh.”  She stared, her body almost shaking, and threw up both hands.  “But what does it say if you’re counting on Nazis to lead the way?”

He stepped closer to her.  “Most humans will do the right thing in the end, Tes.”

She looked him right in the eye.  “Tell that to the dead, Lawimh.”

“They just need a fresh start.”  He shook his head and failed to find a smile.

“They’ll do the same thing whether they’re on this planet or another.”  She pointed to the city and then the sky above them.  “Their true nature won’t change.”

“If Rabe can see the light so can the rest of humanity.”  He shrugged and then managed half a smile.  “They’ve done great things, and will aga…”

“The Confederacy wants humanity for its ruthlessness, Lawimh: nothing more, nothing less.”  Tes turned, picking up her suitcase, and looked him in the eye.  “They’re killers, pure and simple.”  She kept frowning.  “And we’re bound to lose control.”

“The Confederacy won’t allow that, Tes.”  Lawimh took her free hand.

“They might not have a choice.”  She let him hold it.

“We will, Tes.”  He squeezed it and nodded.  “You’ll see.”

“This is beyond the mission, Lawimh.”  She looked up at him, touching his beard, and then nodded to their bedroom door and the world outside their window.  “And I’m leaving tonight.”

“I can’t allow that, Tes.”  Lawimh moved in front of her, tightening his grip on her hand, and nodded west.  “We’re going to America tomorrow.”

“No, Lawimh.”  Tes looked into his eyes, taking back her hand, and shook her head.  “You’ll need me on the outside and you know it.”

“I…”  He looked back at her but couldn’t meet her eye and stepped aside to offer her a clear path.  “I’m sorry, Tes?”

“I know.”  She leaned in, kissing him with her hand on his cheek, and then turned to disappear through the bedroom door.  “But we need to do more than be sorry.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything and walked to the large bedroom window, hoping to see her go, but instead saw a young and harried Chinese woman with a skittish girl scurry along the edge of his property and duck down as two Japanese soldiers approached their position.  The woman pushed the girl further behind her, pulling out and pointing a pistol at the soldiers, but held her fire as the soldiers passed them by.  The two waited for several minutes in the dark silence without moving at all, and then turned away from the city’s diplomatic quarter and took a step toward his large house and him.

“And let’s hope I’m not wrong, Tes.”  Lawimh said to himself, leaving behind the comfort of his large bedroom and larger house, and started for the young woman and the skittish girl crossing onto his property.  “That these creatures who once threatened our very existence are now really worth saving.”