by Cally Black
‘Now things like you come to kill us, take the minerals all around us,’ Tweetoo says. ‘Always someone wanting what is ours.’
‘What happens if the hive runs out of minerals?’ I ask.
‘She starves, little one, she starves.’ And Tweetoo says it like I would say it, like she’s been there before. ‘She is hungry now,’ she says. ‘That last human ship. It cut her. She needs minerals to repair.’
Never mind that I never asked to be here, the hive saved my life and I don’t like that she’s hurting. I can’t feel the hive through the wall like I can when I’m lying on the hive floor. ‘Fly me down to the bottom?’ I ask.
Tweetoo does and I slide to the floor, my whole body spread over those warm holes. I press my ear to the hive. She warbles to me. It’s gentle, like she’s welcoming me.
‘I’m sorry they hurt you,’ I tell her. ‘They don’t understand,’ I whisper to her, cos she understands me no matter how quiet my words come out.
Ideas and images flow from her direct to me, bolts of light through space, and black scars and pain that hurts my head, and that hungry stomach-pinching need, and love for the Garuwa, and in my head it becomes Lazella kissing my palm and pulling me close and warm against her body at night, never mind we’re both too hungry to sleep. I could lie here forever, safe in the arms of the hive.
A shadow falls over me. I turn over and look up at Tootoopne. My cheeks are salty-tear stiff. I sniff and swallow. She drops to one knee and leans over me.
‘What do you need to tell me,’ she whistles softly, and I know my avoiding her is over. She seems to be in a gentle mood, but her palm sits on her knee and her claws stretch and jiggle above me. How easy it would be to stab me through the neck with just one claw. Her being a mother makes her somehow more dangerous. Like, deep in my core I know that a man kills, a woman protects.
And protecting is something you gotta see through to the end.
SWOOLTOOL TA
(MY SISTER)
Tootoopne looks at me, head tilted, waiting for me to speak. I take a deep breath. ‘The humans in Stores and first levels,’ I say, ‘they don’t know about your space. They don’t know about you. They just do what leaders tell them.’ I sit up, slide out from under those jiggling claws. ‘You don’t have to kill them.’
‘To kill a beast, you cut off its head,’ Tootoopne says and angles one large grey eye at me. ‘To cut off its head, you must first cut off the claws that scratch at you. They are the claws.’
Then she glides away into the updraft, leaving me wondering if anything I say matters a tiny bit the way everything Tootoopne says seems to matter.
Tweetoo carries me up to the squad rooms.
I run to Tweetoo’s room, cocoon myself in the covers and sleep. Lazella is in my dreams, her heart thudding loud and clear next to me. I turn over, reach out one finger and touch her cheek. Her skin slides off her face, leaving red bone! I sit up, wide awake, breathing fast.
Tweetoo is here. ‘Okay, little one?’ she whistles, and taps the wall to increase the light, like the hive wasn’t paying attention. The hive always knows when someone wants more light.
‘No,’ I whistle back.
She nods. ‘You are not a fighter.’
Her eyes are green, but as pale as the flesh that gets pulled out of a capsicum, and flecked with rust at the edges. The kind of eyes you could stare at all day, watching those whitish lines that fork out and away from her pupil, little lightning bolts cutting through the green pools of her irises.
‘Why did you not trust me for a long time?’ I ask.
She don’t answer. Instead she asks, ‘That first day, when you were in the shower rubbing blood on yourself and crying, who were you calling for?’
‘My trousers had on them the blood of my … mother,’ I say, not knowing how to explain how I only had an aunt. ‘She was shot.’
Tweetoo is silent. I lift my head.
Tweetoo bobs and there are all sorts of questions in her pale eyes. She finally says, ‘I understand.’ She takes a breath. ‘My sister. A big human on your ship bashed her in the skull again and again. I couldn’t get to her.’
I stare at Tweetoo’s long velvety nose as she turns away from me. She feels the death of her sister bad as I feel the death of my aunt. So bad it hurts to even think of her. That’s why she negged on me. ‘I’m not that human,’ I say. ‘I do not kill. Except when Tootoopne makes me call and point.’
‘That is not killing,’ she whistles.
‘Yes, it is,’ I say.
We are silent for a while. That I still don’t have any answers about Gub scratches at me. Would the Garuwa have killed him or shut the door and left him? I turn the little plastic dinosaur over and over in my hand, run my finger over the rough plastic of the chewed-up neck. I know that Gub’s little pearl teeth poked through his pink gums chewing on this, but I don’t remember him with it in his mouth. I don’t remember the shape of his lips. Not exactly. It’s like little bits of him are slipping away. Pieces of him gone. And maybe he’s gone forever. I blink back tears. If he’s gone, at least then, maybe, I will have the courage to say no to Tootoopne and die too.
‘Tweetoo,’ I whistle. ‘On the ship where I was found. On the ship where your sister died. Did you see a small human baby hiding in the kitchens?’
‘I have not heard of human babies being found. Who is this baby?’ Tweetoo asks.
‘My little sister,’ I say, cos I don’t know other words.
‘All this time you don’t know?’ Tweetoo asks.
‘All this time, I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I need to know.’
Tweetoo nods. ‘I will do the asking,’ she says. ‘I know what it is to lose a sister.’
I reach up and lay my hand on her sticking-out breastbone. Her heart pads against my palm, ‘bud-bud, bud-bud’. Then I say, ‘You are a killer of humans, but I am not a killer of Garuwa. But every night I sleep next to you cos you don’t trust me not to kill you.’
Tweetoo bobs her head. ‘You are not a killer, Weku. You have saved the lives of my squad. I am sorry it hurts you.’
NOOTU TOOTE
(YOU'RE DEAD)
The squad spends the next few days lazing about, chatting, cooking up big meals, repairing uniforms. Some go out visiting other hives, always back in time for daily training. The blam of those weapons so close to my head, the deaths I couldn’t stop, they find a place in the back of my mind, like a deep unhealed wound.
I don’t see Tootoopne again until I am told to go to her war room.
Tweetoo flies me up to the landing, joking about not leaving before she comes back. I push her off the landing, watch her swoop away.
Tootoopne’s not answering my whistles, so I’m left hanging in the small area outside. I’m wearing my helmet like I do when I leave the squad rooms so that regular Garuwa don’t neg on me.
Three tiny Garuwa swoop neatly onto the landing, whistling so busy at each other, they don’t notice me. When they do, they go quiet as and stare.
‘What are you?’ one tweets.
‘I’m a little Garuwa,’ I whistle back.
‘No, you’re not. Are you Tootoopne’s human?’ another tweets.
‘You guessed. I’m the terrible human,’ I say.
They huddle together like maybe they need each other to feel brave.
‘Take off your helmet,’ one says.
‘No. You will be scared,’ I say.
‘We are not scared of anything,’ they whistle. These must be Tootoopne’s children.
I sigh. ‘If you cry, don’t blame me.’
I take off my helmet and shake out my hair. They breathe, ‘Tsa!’ and creep forwards, stare at my face and touch my hair. They pick up a bit and tug at it like maybe they don’t believe hair can grow long.
‘I’m Weku,’ I say.
‘Is that what a Weku looks like?’ the smallest one asks.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ the middle one says. ‘Weku isn’t a real thing.’
‘Wha
t’s a Weku?’ I ask.
‘Some old-time thing,’ the tallest one says, and tilts her head to the side. ‘All the life in the universe was born on a squealing whistle. A Weku is the whistle of life.’
Tootoopne got that right. I was screaming for my life, but was I giving life by screaming?
‘But they say you can hear the Weku when you’re out in the flyers,’ the youngest says. ‘Squealing into the dark spaces between the stars, making strange new life.’ She waves at me like maybe I’m a strange new thing from between the stars.
The tallest one squints like she’s about to tell off the youngest, so I ask her, ‘What’s your name?’
‘I’m Twilloo, this is sister Weetwoo, and sister Tetoopwe.’ She flips her claw at each of them.
I bob my head, lift my elbow and say each of their names.
They fall silent, like they’re not sure what to do next. Like poking and prodding a human is okay but actually talking to one is wrong.
‘We shoot the humans,’ little Weetwoo says into that silence.
‘But not me. You don’t shoot me,’ I say.
Weetwoo tilts her head and looks like she might argue.
‘Cos I’d shoot you first!’ I say and grin. I lift my hands like a gun and say, ‘Blam, blam!’
Weetwoo jumps back, eyes wide. There’s a second when I think she’s gonna cry, then she gets that it’s a game and makes her three claws into a gun.
I make my eyes scary-wide. ‘No, Weetwoo, please don’t shoot me!’ I beg and scramble away across the bench.
‘Twon, twon!’ she tweets, unable to get down to lower tones.
I grab my chest. ‘No. You killed me!’ I squeal and flop onto the floor. I lie still. Small feet shuffle as they creep towards me, and a sudden rush of giggles fizzes up in my brain, a feeling I haven’t had since playing with Gub. When they are close, I spring up, growling. They go running. ‘Killing me makes me angry!’ I whistle.
‘No. You’re dead!’ Twilloo squeals.
‘Dead makes me angry!’ I tweet back, and make my hands into a gun.
Weetwoo runs up with both claws shaped like guns. ‘Now you will die forever!’ she says.
‘No, please!’ I say, cowering, but then I see Tootoopne on the landing, staring.
WOA TSO TEE
(WHAT DO YOU SEE?)
I leap up and salute. ‘I’m sorry, Tootoopne,’ I say, cos she’s angry, never mind I don’t know why.
She strides over, lifts her wing and bats me away. I stagger into the bench and catch myself.
She turns away from me. ‘You do not play with human!’ she says to her children.
‘I’m sorry, Tootoopne,’ I say again. ‘I started the game. Don’t be angry at the little ones.’
‘Wait here!’ Tootoopne says to me, then herds the children into her office.
Twilloo tweets as she enters, ‘But Weku is fun.’
After a while they file out again. They seem happy and bob their heads at me as they pass.
‘Weku!’ Tootoopne calls.
I hurry in and salute. ‘I’m sorry, Tootoopne. I thought a game would be fun.’
Tootoopne stands just inside the door. Her claws are tight as. Her scar twitches. ‘You are human. You were shooting my children. Do you understand how that looks? Garuwa and human are enemies.’ The final word hangs heavy.
I take a deep breath. I don’t know what to say. The squad are my friends in this strange place. They keep me alive. Do they all think this way?
I shake my head and stare at the floor. ‘I am not your enemy, Tootoopne,’ I whistle quietly. ‘I like the children. We were playing.’
‘I do not understand you, Weku. Why do you play games like a child?’
I stare at her. ‘I have a –’ I stop. ‘A tiny sister who was very young. I am young.’
‘Are you too young to travel with my squad?’
I shake my head.
‘You say you worked on the ship with the food,’ she says like I’m lying.
I drop my head and lift my elbow. ‘I was the child of someone who worked with the food. The captain didn’t know I was there. I was hiding. Sometimes I stole food. I didn’t have the language to say before.’
She walks around me, looking at me, as if trying to see me as a child. ‘What happened to your parent, your sister?’
I see Lazella’s perfect face, Gub’s chubby hands clutching pasta. I look up into Tootoopne’s pale grey eyes, hope burning in my chest, cos she will know for sure. Tootoopne knows everything.
‘Did you find a baby on my ship?’ I ask. ‘A baby in the kitchens?’
If Tootoopne found him, maybe she let him live. And if Gub was alive when the Garuwa left the Layla, maybe he lasted till the humans found him. Maybe.
‘I saw no babies,’ Tootoopne says.
‘Please,’ I say, hope gone cold. ‘You are a mother. If you ever find a baby or a small human, will you let her live?’
Tootoopne bobs her head. ‘Yes,’ she says. A promise. A promise given to me so easily, and one I believe, cos Tootoopne don’t say what she don’t mean. ‘And you didn’t say about your parent,’ Tootoopne whistles, soft as, like she can guess it’s bad.
‘My mother was killed,’ I say, never learning a whistle for ‘aunt’. My breath stalls in my throat. ‘The squad killed her.’
Tootoopne rolls her head, angry all over again. ‘Then why save my life? Why play with my children? Why do you not see Garuwa and humans are enemies?’
I think a minute and say, ‘We don’t have to be.’
‘The humans come to us,’ Tootoopne says. ‘They take our minerals. They fire on our hives. They want us dead.’
‘Not all humans have weapons,’ I whistle. ‘The children are not a threat.’ I take a breath. ‘And the hive, she let me in. She knows I’m not your enemy.’
‘Even though you saved me, I still thought she would kill you,’ Tootoopne says. ‘And when the leaders wanted you dead, and I had no choice, I let the hive decide. I was surprised.’
‘Yes,’ I agree, cos being thrown to my death is still raw in my head. ‘Maybe there are others she will let live?’ I ask.
‘Perhaps she knows you are young. Perhaps she knows you can help us.’ Tootoopne tilts her head at me. ‘Weku, how far would you go to protect the squad?’
‘I like the squad. I don’t like the raids. I don’t like death. And I am not a killer.’
‘Would you kill to protect the hive?’ she asks.
If I were truly a Garuwa I would say yes. But Tootoopne can smell a lie, so I say nothing.
Tootoopne stares at me like maybe she’s trying to read something in my face. She turns around and a cabinet behind her lights up.
No! I stagger back.
‘And this?’ she asks. ‘What do you see?’
The cabinet is full of hands.
WA ZAA WOONAN
(THE BIG HUMAN)
It’s a horror movie.
Cut-off hands stand in rows inside the lit-up cabinet. Captains’ hands mounted at the wrists. They cast fingery reaching shadows and, as I step back, the shadows move. I can’t pull my eyes away. Three down and four across with three spaces empty, ready for more captains dying.
Most of these are not my fault. Only two of them. The rest of them happened before I came along to call them out. But two are there cos of me. The only difference I make by calling them out is that we lose less squad.
I count the hands again. Nine captains and so many more crew dead. That’s a lot. That’s enough lost cargo for Starweaver Shipping to have sent an army by now, even if they don’t care about their crews.
‘These are all captains’ hands?’ I whistle soft as from nearly the other side of the room.
‘Yes,’ Tootoopne whistles. Her head tilts, seeing if I fail her test. Whatever it is, I’ve failed, for sure.
‘You hit nine ships?’ I ask.
‘Yes!’ she says, and bobs her head. ‘These show how many times I have honoured and saved the Garuwa and
our hives.’
‘But that’s so many lives, ended. And freighters belong to …’ I don’t know how to say ‘corporations’. ‘Big humans. They will not let you keep killing them and stealing their goods.’
Tootoopne flicks her wing. ‘Tsa! Why do they not guard their goods if they value them?’
‘You think they don’t care cos there’s not many people on the ships?’
‘Yes.’
‘But to hire guards for the freighters needs …’ I have to say the word in English. ‘Money.’
‘What is … nonee?’ Tootoopne stumbles over the word.
‘Humans are given money for work,’ I say.
Tootoopne steps closer. ‘They do not work for the good of their hive?’
I shake my head. ‘They have no hive. Each human works for themselves.’
‘No!’ Tootoopne bats me around the head with a wing. ‘That’s impossible. It will not work for a species. I was hoping when you got more language you could explain humans to me, but this is more confusing.’
I step back, nervy as, and salute. ‘I’m sorry, Tootoopne. I can’t explain it. Maybe they’re doing it wrong. There’s lots of unhappy humans.’ A world not about money? In my world, having no money makes you less. Less smart. Less useful. Less clean. Less human. People pushed past us on Dios, talked over us, sneered down. Made me want to yell at all them arse-shits, ‘We’re good as any of you!’ But of course, I never did.
The Garuwa all want the same thing: a strong hive for everyone.
Tootoopne shakes out her wings. ‘Explain what does nonee look like?’
‘Money is numbers.’ I put my fist over my head. ‘This is me working for the human who owns the ship. I am cooking. I cook for one day. Big human gives me money.’ I put up one finger. ‘I cook for two days.’ I put up another finger. ‘I cook for three days. Big human gives me money for all my work, my numbers are big.’ I add my other hand and put up ten fingers over my head. ‘When I get to a planet, I am cold, I want a new jacket. I give one of my numbers to the human who makes jackets.’ I put one finger down. ‘I want food. I give one of my numbers to the human who has food.’ I put down another finger. ‘I want a place to sleep. I give my numbers to the human who has rooms.’ I put down two fingers. ‘Soon I have low numbers, so I must get back on a ship and work for the big human again to get more numbers or I will be hungry.’