In the Dark Spaces

by Cally Black

  ‘Twa!’ I say. ‘Twa!’ Will they believe I was just thirsty, not trying to escape or grab weapons?

  One of the squad whistles, ‘Tootoopne!’ The salute runs around the room. I turn. Tootoopne is on the landing, folding his wings, steadying himself on a tall walking stick. He limps towards me. Wings snap up and the salute is repeated. I salute when he gets to me and so does Tweetoo. She drops the cord.

  ‘Weku,’ Tootoopne says, tilting his head, looking me up and down. Then he turns to Tweetoo and they whistle at each other. Tweetoo waves a claw at the weapons lying around again, but she’s not so loud now.

  Tootoopne limps over to the nearest weapon and picks it up. ‘Weku,’ he calls.

  I go over to him and salute. He shoves the weapon at me. I step back, don’t take it. It’s a test, maybe. I salute him again, never mind that my hand is purple and aching as.

  ‘Weku!’ He whistles louder and shoves the weapon right into my stomach so I have to take it, but I step back and let it clunk to the floor hard as, hard enough even to break. I salute him again.

  I’m not stupid. If I took a weapon and killed them all in their sleep I’d still be stuck here waiting for another pile of Crows to pick me off.

  Tootoopne laughs, sha, sha, sha. Other squad members join in. Tootoopne whistles and Tweetoo undoes the cord. I move away from her, rubbing at the red dent on my wrist, stretching my fingers to get the blood moving.

  There’s a rush as Crowpeople fly in and lay food out on the table. Some of it’s that green sludgy stuff, but some comes from ship’s Stores on the Layla.

  I point to the beans and say, ‘Beans.’

  A young squad member, Teeka, I think her name is, laughs and tries to copy me. ‘Teenos,’ she whistles, like maybe her mouth can’t make the word work. I try whistling it too and do an even worse job than she did. The green stuff she calls ‘kooloo’. Also real hard to whistle. Gotta work on my whistle. Never mind me not ever figuring out how to speak to humans, surviving now depends on me learning how to make a whole new kind of noise. And learning real fast.

  The squad let me sit at the table and tell me the names of the food. I also learn ‘yes’ and ‘no’. This is some kind of after-battle celebration maybe, and I shouldn’t even be here. They’re knocking back cheap beer from the Layla as well, and there’s a lot of that sha, sha, sha laughing going on along with the eating, and a bit of hugging and shoving, which sometimes bumps me. Warm velvet wings nudge my face, making me pull back in case they get mad.

  They teach me the whistle for ‘little’ and ‘big’, and soon as I have ‘little’ I mime holding a baby, squealing ‘little’ over and over, holding up a plastic lid from some bulk can of veggies and spinning it around to be the freighter. But they don’t understand my mimes. To ask them about Gub I need more of their language.

  So never mind feeling like they might turn on me, I try to pick out more words. Try to remember names and figure out faces, pick out the differences in nose sizes, eye shapes and colours, the lines of their mouths. Who’s male and who’s female? I can’t tell. Wooloo I think is male just cos his nose is fatter, and Tootoopne cos he’s bossy as. Tweetoo’s nose is sharp and she holds her space like a woman does.

  After most of the food is gone, the Crowpeople drift off to their rooms until only Tweetoo and Tootoopne sit, tweeting softly like old friends. I rest my head on my arm and watch them, replaying the whistles they use to agree with each other in my head. Tootoopne stands and Tweetoo brings out the cord again. I sit up.

  Tootoopne laughs and takes the cord from Tweetoo. He loops one end over my wrist, and the other end over Tweetoo’s. Then he hobbles to the landing and launches himself off.

  Tweetoo and I stare at each other. I shake my head. Tootoopne is too smart for either of us.

  Tweetoo jerks the cord and I stand up. She could probably undo it if she wants, but I guess she don’t want to deal with negging from Tootoopne. She stomps off towards one of the rooms, dragging me, and as we pass the washroom, I tug the cord. She whistles low but we make a quick toilet stop. Well, I do. Iron Bladder holds on. It’s just a hole in the floor, so I lift up my sheet and squat. She looks at the wall.

  In her room, she throws a cushion on the floor for me like I’m some kind of animal who needs to know her place, then climbs onto her enormous bed, kicks off her boots and struggles out of her battle jacket.

  I sit on the cushion. When she’s all settled, I climb onto the bottom of the bed in the space that’s left, dragging the cushion with me, cos I ain’t no animal. The bed is made of that white stuff again, weirdly soft and warm just like the couch was.

  As soon as I’m settled, Tweetoo kicks at me and I punch her foot. She kicks again and I punch harder, like I can keep this up all night. So much hate. Never mind I’m the one should be hating on her, on all of them.

  When she thinks I’m asleep, she picks up my hair, rubs it between her claws and lets it drop again. I’ve never had a bed to myself so I don’t mind having to listen to Tweetoo’s breathing. It reminds me so bad of sharing a bed with my aunt that I cry for her all over again. Then I press the little dinosaur into my cheek and cry for little Gub, cos he’ll be crying too, wondering when me or Lazella will come for him, not even Headless to suck on.

  TOOR

  (GO)

  I wake to a soft sha, sha, sha. Tootoopne’s standing at the foot of the bed. I leap up and salute him, dragging the sheet around me, jerking Tweetoo’s arm. She’s on her feet, saluting, quick as. Tootoopne whistles, winding his claws around each other and pinching at the air like he’s tying a rope. But Tweetoo undoes the cord and drops it. She takes my sheet and loops it around me, knotting it at my neck and waist until I’m wearing the baggiest overalls in the universe, but at least the sheet won’t slip off.

  It makes sense when Tweetoo takes me to the deck. She wraps a claw around my sheet-waistband, and grabs my upper arm with her other claw. She drags me over the edge, me grabbing at the waistband knot to keep it tight, flies me down to another level and puts me on the landing there. It’s some kind of wide corridor, all soaring ceilings and white arches, and the other squad members follow us in.

  Non-uniformed Crowpeople walk past me, bristling their wings. If they have small Crowkids they pull them behind their wings or pick them up, like maybe it’s me who’s the killer beast. I try to hide between Wooloo and Tweetoo. I’m not used to being seen, never mind all this.

  We keep moving, on our way somewhere together. Some of the Crowpeople look official, and older than Tootoopne. Not dressed in uniform but the fit of their clothes makes me think they’re important. They’re staring, whistling to each other, getting louder, angrier, negging on me, following me. Pins and needles drive up my spine, make my scalp crawl. I look around for Tootoopne. He’s not here. If I were on a freighter with a Crow I’d captured, I bet people would come hunting for it. Maybe that’s what this is.

  There’s a group in front of us. Blocking our way. Shit. Tweetoo whistles and the squad stops and salutes. The official-looking Crowpeople march right at me, whistling, angry. I turn and run. They chase me. The squad stands still. None of them help the other Crowpeople catch me. They just stare. The occasional Sha! sounds when I do a quick dive or dodge.

  I duck in and out of squad members until I’m standing on top of a nearby seat cos there’s nowhere to run to, and the new Crowpeople are all around, glaring at me. One lunges at my legs. Tweetoo steps up then and whistles, ‘Weku!’

  I salute her. ‘Tweetoo!’

  She tells me, ‘No.’ She knows I’ve learned that word. She waves me down. What choice do I have? Never mind I’ve got nowhere to go, I do what she says.

  She waves at the landing and I walk back towards it. The official-looking Crowpeople don’t touch me, but they get in behind me so I can’t turn back.

  I stop at the landing and look at Tweetoo. She grabs me and flies me to a landing high in the hive, plops me down gently on my feet. Then she pushes me forwards, alone, into a gian
t hall.

  I whistle, ‘No!’ but she pushes me again. I take a few steps into the massive white space. Some kind of meeting place. Dozens of Crowpeople wait there, some a little hunched, eyelids a bit heavy, so they look older than the squad members. Most of them look older than Tootoopne but none of them larger. Maybe these are the rulers, or a council? They wear dark colours, deep greens and blues and maroons, like that’s a thing for older crows. They stare at me like they want me dead.

  If it weren’t for Tootoopne, I’d be dead already. I wish he were here to tell them to leave me alone.

  One of the older Crowpeople comes over, stares at me, and then whistles at Tweetoo. I pick up the whistle ‘Toor’, meaning ‘Go’. Hear Tweetoo’s ‘No.’ So long as she’s here, she’ll mind Tootoopne’s orders to keep me alive.

  Maybe. Shit.

  She tilts her head at me, waves a wing at the room and whistles, ‘Go.’ I salute her and walk to the middle of the room. Maybe if they think I’m a good little pet they’ll let me live.

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. The Crowpeople step apart as I walk between them, forming a circle around me, whistling quietly to each other, the terrible hiss of their whistles wrapping around me. Here it comes. They’re gonna rip me to pieces!

  A Crowman I’ve seen before steps into the circle, and the hissing drops away. It’s the one who stitched up the wing at the table. He whistles to the others in the room like he’s talking about me. He picks up my hand, spreads out my fingers and folds them into a fist, then taps the knuckles like maybe, ‘This is how a human punches Crowpeople in the head.’

  I pull my hand away from him and salute them all silently. I wanna show I’m not dangerous.

  ‘Weku!’

  Tootoopne stands near the landing. His wings are spread wide. His scar twitches.

  ‘Tootoopne!’ I salute.

  As he walks towards me, still limping, he waves to where Tweetoo and another squad member wait on the landing, tells me, ‘Go.’ I salute again. Saved! I hurry to Tweetoo.

  Whistling starts up in the circle behind me. Tootoopne argues with the older-looking Crowpeople. It gets louder, Tootoopne’s shoulders hitch higher, and finally Tootoopne turns and limps at me flat out. His face is twisted, his scar twitching under narrowed eyes. His wings quiver high and his claws reach for me.

  The only one who can save me has turned on me!

  I go to take a step back but that’s just a drop, so I reach for Tweetoo, but she and the other squad member have stepped away.

  Tootoopne grabs me by the sheet-waistband and flings me off the landing. But he’s not following me over the edge.

  Nobody does.

  TZAAR

  (HIVE)

  Tweetoo just stands there, staring, as I drop. No-one follows me down, and I’m falling fast as! The sheet slaps against the wind like it’ll tear off. The floor of the hive races to meet me. Wind roars past my ears. My chest clamps around my heart. The pattern of the holes on the floor becomes clear. I open my mouth to scream.

  The floor heaves. A blast of warm air smashes into me, blasts my scream against my open mouth, flaps my cheek skin, whips my hair into my eyes. The roar of the blast hurts my ears, pushes me against my fall. Slows me. That hot wire slices through my brain. Ideas push into me, ‘pull limbs in, roll body,’ and I do. I pull my knees in and twist. I hit the floor with my shoulder, air slamming out of me, and roll a few times before I stop.

  The floor, it blew at me. It spoke to me.

  Someone cries, ‘Weku!’ and Wooloo glides in beside me.

  I roll over and press my cheek into the floor. I love it for its blast of warm air. I love it for not smashing me. For being solid and warm. It warbles, far-off voices drifting on a warm Dios evening, like it’s praising me.

  ‘Weku?’ Wooloo tweets.

  I flop onto my back and stare up, looking for the landing I was just thrown off. Get my breath. Tiny Crowpeople dressed in dark colours stare down at me. The ones who want me dead. They stare like me lying here alive is not what they wanted. But who saved me?

  Wooloo whistles at me. I crawl over to him and hug his boots, my legs too shaky to do me much good, then get up and salute him properly. Did he turn the blast of air on? He bats me softly with his wing, picks me up and flies me back up to the squad rooms.

  Still shaky, I salute Tweetoo and the other squad member when they come back. Wooloo goes to them and they talk in a huddle. Something’s going on about me. No idea what, but it seems everyone looks at me a bit nicer, like I’m different.

  Tootoopne’s not back, and I’m glad. I still see that look on his face.

  The next day, Tootoopne holds out a package to me, like throwing me to my death never happened. Or maybe this is meant to make me forget. I take it and bob my head.

  It’s clothes and battle boots, a jacket, and a helmet with an artificial long Crow beak sticking out. The helmet is kinda terrifying, but the clothes are squad uniform, all black. I slide out of the sheet and put them on right away.

  Tootoopne stands and stares as I get dressed but I don’t care. I’m happy to have these clothes. Not just that they’re the first clothes I’ve ever owned that are brand-new and fit real close, but if they’re dressing me like them, they’re not gonna kill me. These are real squad battle boots, not like my old too-big worker boots, but they seem to be copied from my old boot cos they’re still a little too big. They come up to my knees and have clasps up the outside and one small talon on the back. How did they do this quick as?

  I unfold the jacket. It’s soft but armoured with bumps and lumps across the chest and shoulders and so shiny-new, it’s glinting green and purple in the light. There’s small leathery wing shapes hanging down from the upper arm, and I run my fingers around their outlines, wishing they were real. Flying is the only way to get around here. I pull the jacket over my head, struggling with the neck, then push my wrists into the cuffs and do it up under my arms. It’s human-shaped, but a real battle jacket. I turn around with my arms out so they can see.

  Tootoopne laughs and limps away. I pull on the helmet. The squad members in the lounge whistle and laugh, and tap my helmet like I’m hiding in here. Maybe I am. They push me around a little, in fun, like I’m someone’s little sister. These big scary creatures like me dressed like them. Maybe I’m their mascot now, or their pet. That’s shit, but better than all that side-eyeing the weird human, better than having the official Crowpeople coming after me again. At least now I look like I belong here.

  After a while, the squad line up and drag me to the edge of the landing. Wooloo taps my helmet, whistles, ‘Safe,’ and pushes me off. I’m guessing they won’t let me smash into the hive floor, not now, but I can’t look down. The wind whistles past my eye holes. It catches the leathery wings under my arms, which slow my fall a little. Crows snatch me out of the air and pass me off between them, jerking my jacket, making my stomach twist, and we end up back at the corridor and hurry through to some kind of combat training area, full of obstacles and fake weapons.

  It’s my job to follow at the back, maybe. Teeka bats me around the head with her wing and pushes me down when I don’t copy what they’re doing. They whistle at me and show me what the commands mean.

  I try to learn quickly, never mind I have no idea what I’m doing it for. I finger the little headless dinosaur tucked in my jacket pocket and whisper, ‘It’s okay, Gub, I’ll come back.’ There’s zero chance right now, but saying it brings me closer to him. Never mind dressing and speaking like a Crow, inside I’m still me, hanging onto Gub.

  TEWO WOEN TA

  (SHE IS MY HEART)

  I’m still sharing Tweetoo’s bed, cos if I fall asleep on a couch she wakes me by creeping around checking I’m not stealing weapons or something. Even with the new uniform, I keep thinking someone will throw me off the landing in my sleep. I don’t hardly understand this place. So never mind that she hates me, I get up, go to her room, crawl onto her bed. That way we can both sleep. I need more lan
guage to find out what’s up with her.

  I work on that, while eating, while training with the squad, while cleaning uniforms. I’m pretty good at learning names of things and instructions. But never mind that I listen to every whistle and understand plenty of words, and my whistling’s getting good, I can still only make short sentences.

  I have the words for ‘little’, ‘safe’ and ‘ship’ now, so I go around asking them all if they saw a little Weku safe on ship. When I first got here, I wished they didn’t find him, me thinking that’s the only way he’d be alive. But now, seeing how they’re not complete beasts, how they protect their own children, I’m sure they would’ve spared a human so tiny, so maybe one of them did see him. Then it’s only a case of him keeping himself warm and fed on storeroom floor scraps until a rescue ship or haulage ship turned up, which must’ve happened by now. I keep asking cos I’m desperate for news of him, never mind they could only know the first part of his story. But none of them understand. They laugh and think I’m talking about me being little or something. I hold up fingers, one for Weku and one for little Weku, but still they don’t understand.

  I give up thinking of them as Crows, and start calling them Garuwa, their name for themselves. The old, official-looking Garuwa still glare and point and don’t want me here, but the squad don’t mind me hanging around. Even Tweetoo is making space for me now, on her bed and at the table. And it’s weird being part of something bigger than my tiny family. Never mind I’d rather be with Lazella and Gub, I like that the squad is this big noisy moving thing that I can add my own noise to.

  I dunno who is male and who is female, but sex don’t seem to matter anyway. There’s no divide. The ones I think are female seem stronger than the ones I think are male, except for Tootoopne.

  Tweetoo seems to understand when she catches me tearing up an old sheet to use for period pads. First she’s annoyed when she sees me scraping the edge of the sheet on the sharp point of my helmet to get the rip started, but when I fold and position it in my undies, she tilts her head, draws her knife, and gets busy making me a stack of folded sheet strips, in the way a woman would. Don’t ask me if they even get periods, always seems like a waste of energy for human women, so I’m hoping it’s not a thing for an advanced space creature.