by Cally Black
Tootoopne squints. ‘So nonee is something to show honour. You work for the good of the hive, they reward you with gifts?’
I shake my head. Why is this so difficult? ‘Humans work for the humans who have the money.’
‘Tsa! So if any human has the nonee, she can make others work for her?’ Tootoopne says and bobs her head like she suddenly gets it.
‘Yes,’ I say slowly, knowing plenty of battles been fought between mining companies with mercenary soldiers, and maybe Tootoopne could buy herself a whole human army if she wanted.
My head spins and the more I talk about humans, the more Tootoopne looks at me like it’s crazy talk. And maybe it is. Maybe my whole life, I been surrounded by crazy and I was just too human to know it.
WOELLEOL
(TEACHER)
The next day, Wooloo stops in front of me, tilts her head and looks me up and down.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Tootoopne has a job for you,’ she says. Never mind I’m wiped out from yesterday’s lesson on money, I grab my helmet and do up my jacket on the way to the landing.
Wooloo launches off with me. ‘Tootoopne says you are a child?’ she whistles.
‘One day I will be taller,’ I squeal. Whistling into the wind is hard.
Wooloo laughs. ‘And maybe your wings will grow.’
Wooloo takes me to an enormous bright room where the green kooloo we eat, and even stranger plants, grow in troughs. They have fleshy leaves, bending and twisting, all floating in pools. The roof is panelled and glows bright and warm like an enormous sun.
‘Tsa!’ I say, and move from plant to plant. ‘Do these bite?’ I ask, just short of touching a plant that is so fleshy and pale, I’m thinking it’s human skin.
Sha, sha, sha! Wooloo laughs like I said something stupid.
Wooloo leads me down the rows to where Tootoopne and her three children are in some sort of lesson, next to a trough.
Weetwoo notices me first. ‘Weku!’ she tweets. ‘Come see what we are doing.’
I pull off my helmet. The trough is full of seedlings. Earth plants. The labels from the packets sit alongside the rows. Carrot. Chilli. Capsicum. Peas.
‘We are trying to grow them,’ Tootoopne says. ‘We thought they might use less minerals than our traditional foods. Can you tell us about them?’
I look up at Tootoopne, seeing her as a mother and teacher, not just a warrior. And then at the children wanting to know about these alien plants.
I bob my head and tell the children how I say the names and the sizes of the vegetables. Me, learning mostly by watching my aunt through the venting, and documentaries about off-world farming. An older Garuwa stands near Tootoopne. Her eyes follow me, and she gives me the frown that the older Garuwa give me. The one that tells me I shouldn’t be here. But I’m too full of the warm fun of the kids to even care about her squint-eyes.
Then Tetoopwe pulls out a box of dough and I help the children shape the vegetables that will grow from each plant. Their little claws mould and scrape at the dough. My breath catches as I think how much Gub would love this game.
‘It burns your tongue?’ Twilloo asks when I tell them more about the chilli I’m rolling out in red dough.
‘Well, it won’t burn it off. It makes it hot. A little is nice. A lot is bad. And if you touch it, and touch your eyes, it will make your eyes cry,’ I say.
‘But it is the smallest!’ Weetwoo says.
‘Tsa! The smallest can be the strongest,’ I tweet, quiet as, and she laughs like we have a secret, cos she is small and so am I. It’s nice to have silly jokes with a child again. I take Weetwoo’s claw beside me and give it a squeeze. The older Garuwa steps towards me, and I let go and get back to moulding the dough.
When the children have asked me all the questions they can dream up, Tootoopne leads me towards the landing and says, ‘Thank you for your help, Weku. I wanted the children to see you as someone who can teach them things. You are good at it.’
I salute. ‘Thank you, Tootoopne.’ I smile at the idea of me being a teacher.
Behind Tootoopne, the older Garuwa is wiping Weetwoo’s claw where I touched her. Little Weetwoo watches her, learning that I have germs. That I am dirty.
On the way back to the squad rooms with Wooloo, I figure out Tootoopne wasn’t doing it for me. If her children grow up to fight humans they’ll need to know how we think.
‘The old one. Did she think I would hurt the children?’ I ask.
‘She was sure you would rip off their heads or give them diseases,’ Wooloo says and claws at me, pretending to be a wild human.
‘Sha!’ I force a laugh, but the old Garuwa’s ideas settle on me heavy. It’s like when new squad members just push past me, ignore me.
Never mind how much I hide in the squad rooms or inside my helmet, or how nice the hive is, this is no place for me. Wherever it is in the universe that I fit in, I belong with Gub.
NOOL ZAAL WA TONDEE
(NOT THE HEAD OF THE BEAST)
Tootoopne arrives at the squad rooms, wings spread, and whistles loud enough to wake anyone sleeping. She gives the order to suit up, never mind that I chase her down, ‘Tootoopne! Please! The killing has to end!’ She flicks a claw, back of her hand catching me across the cheek, and launches off the landing like she’s not heard.
Standing at the edge watching her swoop around the centre air column, my heart gets stone-cold. Anything I taught her is useless. Here we are again. I’m pushed into the back of a mini-flyer and I memorise every step to get it moving, in case I get a chance to fly myself away.
On the freighter, Starweaver My Sharona, everything feels wrong, right from when Tweetoo hauls me, kicking and fighting her, from the flyer. We blast through to the landing bay. It’s empty. Spooky-empty. No sirens sound. No-one comes running. The doors leading down to ship’s levels have extra metal beams, but they shatter easy as.
I’m following along behind, thinking all the Stores-people are hiding. I won’t be ratting them out to the squad if I see where.
Getting close to the flight deck, we meet only two security people. They are old, scarred and tattooed across their faces, and wear armoured combat gear. Not like ship’s security. More like hired heavies. It takes the squad a long time to kill them before we can move forwards. The younger members of the squad break off to search the ship. I break off with them, though I know I’m not supposed to. I’m burning with a new sense of purpose. I’m gonna hide on this old hulk till it gets picked up by Starweaver or scrap merchants, anyone that can help me find out about Gub. They don’t see me slinking along behind them, but I’m only around the corner before Tweetoo swoops me into a wall and whistles, ‘Tootoopne needs you.’
I whistle, ‘No! She’s just gonna kill them!’
She drags me back towards the flight deck anyway.
‘Call them out,’ Tootoopne orders when the flight deck door shatters. ‘Swa tu Tzaar.’
I stay against the wall like I’ve not heard her. But one of the new squad members belts me across the back of the helmet, shoves me forwards. I salute Tootoopne and walk into the line of fire, me feeling hopeless as, like I deserve to be wounded, never mind I gotta stay alive for Gub.
‘Stay low, little one,’ Tootoopne whistles softly, like I’m one of her children. And for a moment, I wish I was. I wish I could be a Garuwa kid, safe and warm back at the hive.
I drop to one knee and call for surrender, the lines rolling out of me like a movie on a screen.
An old man answers. One more human weapon snaps. The old man wails. One weapon clatters into the flight-deck doorway.
Only the captain steps out. He’s bald, not a scrap of hair, and a lot of muscle for a man so old. His face is stiff, pale, trembling, hazel eyes watering. When we step forwards, beyond the door frame, I see another old man, the pilot, lying in a pool of blood behind the captain, his weapon on the floor beside him. The humans are killing themselves now.
I cover the eye sockets of my helmet wi
th my hands, listen to my breathing in and out, when I’ve no right to. When Tootoopne whistles, ‘Is this the leader?’ all I can say, waving my hand at the old man in his captain’s jacket, is, ‘He is a leader but he is not the head of the beast. He’s just doing his job.’ I run back up the corridor. I can’t stop this, but I can’t see it anymore either.
Tweetoo takes me up to Tootoopne’s war-room the next morning. Tootoopne waits on her landing this time. The cabinet lights are out in her office and the hands are just shadowy shapes in the darkness.
‘Why do they not fight us?’ Tootoopne asks, leading me in.
I bob my head and whistle, ‘Maybe the big humans don’t have enough money to send humans to fight.’
Tootoopne laughs. ‘No nonee makes them weak?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper. I don’t wanna keep trying to make Tootoopne understand humans. Never mind what I teach her, she just goes on killing.
‘Go to the washroom,’ she says, and points to a door in the corner.
To ask why would just get me a clout around the head, so I salute and get moving. There’s a rustling of feet on the floor as I go in.
The old captain from yesterday’s raid sits tied to the wall by one of those cords, one hand above his bald head. Yellow-green bruises mark his face, and he has a fat lip and a cut above his eye. He pulls himself to his feet. His tied arm twists, showing a compass tattoo on the back of his hand. His two middle fingers are just stumps, but not bloody. Some old injury maybe. He still has his hand!
Never mind he’s all beat up, first thought that hits me when I see him is: will he know what happened to the Layla after I left? Will he know about Gub?
TUWA SOOSULSOL
(THIS ONE IS TROUBLE)
‘Hi! Hello! You’re the one who pointed me out,’ the captain says, like he’s excited to see me.
I stare, cos why is he here? Why has Tootoopne kept him alive? How did she convince the hive?
‘What’s happening?’ the old captain asks. He’s full of his own questions. ‘What are they going to do with me?’ He steps towards me, his tied arm sliding back, holding him to the wall.
I open my mouth, but it’s so long since I spoke to a human except for movie lines, and I don’t know the answers to his questions anyway. So I say, ‘I wanna know about a baby on the –’
‘For pity’s sake, answer me, girl!’ the captain yells, and all the times I’ve been yelled at crowd in on me. There is too much desperation in this old man. Too much pulling at me. I shut my mouth.
Tootoopne whistles from the other room. ‘Tell her quiet!’
So now I’m ordered to speak. I take a deep breath. ‘Please stop yelling,’ I say, and my voice comes out soft and small, like it’s afraid. I have to not sound so stupid. Sixers, always speaking loud like they got a right to be heard. I gotta speak loud back or he won’t listen.
‘You pointed me out and made them save me. You have to help me,’ the captain says. His eyebrows lift into peaks.
I shake my head. Tāmāde. I did the opposite. ‘Tootoopne saved you.’
‘Is he the big Vulture?’ the captain asks.
‘Garuwa,’ I say.
‘He keeps coming in here and whistling at me and every time I answer, he thumps me.’ The captain says it like it’s a question.
I tilt my head as I think, like a Garuwa. ‘She maybe wants you to speak Garuwa.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ the captain says.
I lift my elbow to show him. ‘You need to salute –’
The captain straightens up. ‘I do not salute the enemy. Don’t even suggest it!’ His stubborn chest sticks out, grey hairs showing where buttons have torn away, hazel eyes fixed on me.
I say, too quiet again, ‘It might save you.’
‘You think he … she … intends to kill me?’ he asks.
‘Tootoopne never took a captain prisoner before,’ I say.
He frowns. ‘Then why did you point me out?’
What can I say to that? So she can kill you and put your hand in her cabinet for a trophy? Shit.
Tootoopne’s just outside. ‘This one is trouble,’ she whistles. ‘Trouble for me,’ she goes on, cos never mind how in deep she got for bringing me back, a captain smuggled on will make those old Garuwa freak.
I step back out and bob my head. ‘I have not seen a human in your washroom,’ I say.
She nods. ‘Good.’
‘Why have you got that human I didn’t see?’ I ask.
‘I think she is a slave,’ Tootoopne says.
‘Girly! Come back!’ the captain calls.
Tootoopne jerks her nose at the washroom. ‘She is too noisy.’
I bob to Tootoopne. It’s weird calling the captain a ‘she’ but I have no other word. ‘She will not be a good slave,’ I say.
‘Tsa!’ Tootoopne says. ‘I don’t want her to be my slave. I want to understand why she is a slave to the big humans with the nonee.’
‘You think the captain was a slave?’ I ask, me only ever seeing the Sixers as the bosses.
‘You do not explain nonee very well. You are too young. I want to ask the captain why she faces death if all she will get is the nonee.’
Tootoopne leads the way back to the bathroom.
The captain’s chin sticks out when he sees Tootoopne and he pulls himself taller. ‘I am Captain Anthony James of Starweaver My Sharona, and I demand you release me!’
‘Her voice is low and ugly,’ Tootoopne says. ‘What does she say?’
‘Her name is Antonee and she is sad to be captured,’ I say. Word for word’s not gonna do the captain any good.
‘Tell her my name and I have questions,’ she says.
I bob my head to Tootoopne and then to the captain, no matter it’s not a human thing. ‘Never mind saluting,’ I say. ‘Nod and say “Tootoopne” in a high pitch. She has questions for you.’
The captain scowls but nods his head and croaks out, ‘Tootoopne.’
Tootoopne turns to me. ‘Now we are getting somewhere. Ask her, why does she risk death for the nonee?’
‘Captain James, I been trying to explain money, but the Garuwa don’t have any, so Tootoopne don’t understand. She wants to know why you risked your life to bring the freighter through. Was it just for the money?’ I ask.
He sighs. ‘I’m old, can’t get captain’s jobs no more. This one voyage was worth four because of the risk of Vulture attack. Starweaver Shipping said most of the ships were getting through and they sent the money to my daughter up front. That will set her up for five years, help feed her kids. That’s more than I was doing back on Dios.’
My jaw prickles at the mention of Dios. Life on Dios was hard, but it’s where Gub was born. Our little star. I wanna ask about Gub bad as, but first I gotta translate for Tootoopne. So I tell about what the captain said.
‘She has children?’ Tootoopne says, like maybe that makes the captain special. It’s not special in the human world. More a problem if you don’t have money, far as I can tell.
Tootoopne stares a bit harder at the captain. ‘So if you have no nonee and you are hungry will no-one feed you?’
I nod. Maybe Tootoopne thinks food is free. I guess it is here. ‘There are too many hungry humans and not enough food. Only the ones with money will eat.’
Tootoopne hitches her wings. ‘I don’t understand this. The hive cares for all. Only those who do wrong are cast from the hive.’ She waves a claw at the captain. ‘Did she do wrong?’
I look down and away. Are there really no hungry Garuwa?
‘Ask her what will happen to her children when the nonee runs out,’ Tootoopne whistles.
Maybe I should just tell Tootoopne what happens when the money runs out. I’d know better than some old Sixer. Me and Lazella have gone without food for five days straight and slept outside more times than I can count. Your stomach shrinks so much, it hurts if you do find something to eat, and you are so tired, you can’t even think what to do next. You’re cold, never mind if the
nights are mild, and you huddle against your aunt next to a warm humming air-purifying unit in an alley and hope she knows a way back to some shit-arse cabin on a cold old freighter heading nowhere, cos then there will be food and a bed and maybe some movies you haven’t already seen.
I ask the captain anyway. ‘What will happen to your family when you don’t come back?’
The old man breaks down. His shoulders drop and he slides his free hand across his cheek, rubs the back of his neck. His hazel eyes water. ‘When?’ he asks.
WA TOSON NONEE
(A SLAVE TO MONEY)
I look at the wall above his head. ‘I’m sorry, Captain James, I meant if. If you don’t go back, what happens? I’m sorry.’ Tāmāde. But I don’t mean if, do I? Cos how does he get back? Does he think Tootoopne will give him a mini-flyer and send him on his way? He should be dead. At any second, for all I know, he could be.
The captain sniffs. ‘They’ll starve, girl. They’ll starve. My daughter is alone in the world with two kids to feed.’
My throat tightens. Alone with two kids, just like Lazella. I slap at the tears filling my eyes and bob my head to Tootoopne. I try to whistle but my lips are thick and I have to swallow and start again. ‘She says her children are alone and they will starve.’
‘Ask her why her hive will not care for them,’ Tootoopne demands, her shoulders hitching higher.
I turn back to the captain. ‘She don’t understand why your … community won’t care for them,’ I say.