Me Ma Supial!

by Ged Maybury

  Manta Ray came back. “What did you do, Mica? The Humans have gone mad! They’re marching around our village with their damage-sticks, shooting at the trees and talking crazy stuff about a Supial that attacked their village last night. Everyone’s scared! And they say there’s going to be real big trouble if that particular Supial don’t ‘give himself up’, whatever that means.”

  Pumice glared down at him, “You’d better tell us exactly what you did last night, yoodie, or you’ll be in big trouble with us too!”

  Limply, lying very still in his hammock with his chest hurting bad, Mica told them most of what he’d done.

  Then Feldspar went berko same as Manta Ray did, “They are not Supials, you love-sick weirdo! They are beneath us! Yes they might have metal jars and canoes that fly, but they are just a pack of clever animals! Oh, they say they came from a bad place. They say they came here to get away from badness. But you know what I think? I think they brought it with them! They’re still bad!”

  Mica had not heard anger like this before, coming at him but not about him. He looked up at his friends, his eyes full of fear and confusion. “I don’t know what you mean. How can anyone be bad?”

  Manta Ray took pity on him. “We’ve had trouble here, Mica. Lots of little troubles with these bloody Humans. Sometimes the water tastes bad after their air flier goes over the river. And they went and cut all the trees we told them not to so now we have to go a long way for blanket bark and petrol wood. And everyone now wants metal jars so the pot makers can’t trade enough so they’ve stopped making any kind of pot, big or small. And the Humans like to frighten us. They showed us one day what those sticks of theirs can do. They went and busted the big tree in the village centre, no asking or nothing. And they were laughing about it. Laughing!” Manta Ray suddenly got tears in her eyes and her face was angry, “It was a real bad thing when we helped them to move here!” she blurted out, “Should never have helped them!”

  MICA LAY IN BED ALL morning, too worried to eat. He slept for a while, but was woken suddenly by Pumice. “Quickly, you must hide! The Humans are looking for you!”

  Manta Ray, looking frightened, was pulling apart the wall-weave at the back of her house. “This way,” she urged, folding back the panel, “we must hurry to the beach. My brothers have just landed a big shark. I have a great idea to hide you.”

  Mica did as he was told, squeezing through the gap, weeping quietly about the trouble he had caused. His chest hurt bad and he ran bent over, crying. At the beach there was indeed a big shark pulled up, and the fishers had just begun cutting it open. Mica had never seen such a monster before. They were brave hunters, these Supials!

  “Get in!” hissed one of the young men. He held up the flap where the guts had just been released. Mica hesitated, looking reluctantly at the bloody cavity. Every-one’s eyes were flickering anxiously through the palm trees towards the village.

  “Quickly!” urged Manta Ray, in a voice just like Kynn Wheeler’s when Mica had not hurried, “You must! We don’t know what they will do, but they have their damage sticks and we’re very afraid for you! Now get in!”

  Mica got down, wriggled painfully in, and they rolled the dead beast over him. He could just see out through a curved crack in its side, a strange crack filled with stiff pink moss that was rough on his face. He had to breathe through this hole too. Muffled voices came from outside, Pumice and Feldspar talking hastily with the fishers. Some plan was being made.

  “Here they come!” called a voice. Mica felt movement on the outside of the shark, as if those around him had resumed the cutting of the meat.

  And moments later he heard the voices of the Humans, talking loudly and angrily in simplified Supial speech, “You lot! You seen Supial? Him got big cut. Maybe here. Maybe here. Very bad cut. Him die maybe. We fix him. You no hide him! Big Trouble Very Bad!”

  Mica heard one of the fishers speaking, “One of our canoes is gone. Maybe he took it last night. Not here this morning, it was. Gone. He’s gone he is.”

  “Oh yeah? You sure?”

  Mica could imagine all the fishers nodding gravely, agreeing; yes, it happened last night, very late; canoe missing; very serious; must have been a stranger. Not us.

  He heard the Humans speaking to each other, words he couldn’t follow. They were worried about something. Afraid of someone. Had to ask for something. He could tell that much. There was one word, over and over, ‘airsearch’. That was what they were discussing. Sounded like a big problem.

  Then, in Supial again, the Humans spoke to the others around the shark, “You talk us true? Bad trouble if not!”

  Once again that murmur of Supials, serious, explaining it again, where the canoe had been, whose canoe it had been, when it must have been taken. Then came something Mica knew to be totally false, “He would have gone to the village way up north. Crazy Supials live there. Waaaaay up north...” There was no such thing as a crazy Supial.

  Anyway, the Humans went away after a while, still talking about ‘airsearch’.

  Some time later the fishers rolled the shark over so Mica could crawl out, then they stood around him, all very angry and frightened, telling him what to do. “You go home tonight, to your village, and don’t come back! You’ve made us a lot of trouble and we’re really mad with you!”

  Then they finished darkly with, “Bloody Humans!”

  REPENTANCE

  GETTING HOME TOOK MICA and Pumice two days, the first walking at night in the strengthening light of the moon, then a morning resting at Village Of Honey, then more painful walking, uphill into the Escarpment Lands. Here it was cooler at night, hotter by day. And it rained twice, sudden heavy falls that turned the forest into a shiny green waterfall.

  At last they plodded into Far End Village and their people came out to greet them. As Mica lay in the shade, exhausted, silent and ashamed, Pumice told the story again and again. Then Mica was taken to the Healer’s house where she lit smoking herbs and chanted the old songs to remind her of the correct treatments as she fussed over his wound. Many people crowded in, berating Mica, and also praising his bravery, then declaring him stupid beyond measure, then admiring the length of his cut, then discussing the Human troubles again.

  Pumice had brought home lots of pretty seashells and dried sea-fish, and enjoyed a brief but lucrative trade before his stocks were gone. Then he squatted beside his brother, troubled. Magpie came in, and Old Wallaroo too, and they squatted down too, gazing at Mica a while. Magpie said nothing. He looked tired and sad, and now and again he would shake his head and sigh. Probably he was remembering Jumping Spider, Mica’s mother. Mica tried to remember her too. Just that one memory, as always, of her rushing him from the riverside.

  Wallaroo stirred at last and said, “Mica, are you gonna be ready for your Man-Time then? You can wait for another turn of the moon.”

  Mica had forgotten about that. He stirred, found his voice at last. How could he miss his Man-Time, once it had been announced?

  “No, I’ll be ready,” he croaked.

  “Then you get on with your preparations, yoodie. You have got all your songs to remember, for one thing. And maybe you should be talking to the Spirits too, asking them for a bit of wisdom...” Wallaroo’s voice grew angry, “...any little bit of wisdom will do.” He stood up to go. “Now get asking!”

  So then Mica started to get angry too. He started talking to everyone there, “Kynn Wheeler was in a cage, she was, just like we keep pork lizards in before we kill them! And she was crying all the time, she was! She had to piss out the side like some animal would have to! And she’s gonna die in there! All day in the sun! No shade of a tree! We don’t even do that to a pork lizard! Those Humans are bad, I tell you, very bad!” He began to sob painfully, “I was only trying to help her! Just to get her some water! And she will be dead by now! She is probably dead!”

  And he cried for a long time.

  Nobody spoke. Nobody tried to tell him any different. Quietly, in ones and twos they left
the Healer’s house, leaving poor miserable Mica there with just his brothers for company. And Lorikeet too, quiet Lorikeet, sitting up behind him where he couldn’t see, listening to everything as always.

  THAT AFTERNOON WHILE it was still hot, and while his wicked daughter was still in a delirium of dehydration and despair, Pastor Wheeler strode out to the punishment box wearing his temple robes and his tall preaching hat. Behind him came his wife and the other three High Ones of the Temple, all suitably attired.

  “Ho! Maggot!” called Wheeler loudly to Kynn in her stinking box, “Are you ready now to repent your evil notions? Do you now surrender to the Will of the Lord! Are you finally cleansed?”

  “Yes,” she whispered in a voice almost dried beyond use, “I am cleansed.”

  “Are you ready to marry unto the Lord, and to surrender to him in your worship and in all actions, great or small, from this day forth?”

  “Yes,” she croaked, “or I shall die...”

  “Oh, you shall die all right, and be cast into the eternal Pit of Damnation if you ever stray again, so help you Lord!”

  “So help me, Lord,” she gasped, then sagging further she gasped, “Lordie, help me!” And she collapsed as if lifeless, one arm dangling from her cage.

  “Get her out,” Wheeler growled to his wife, wrinkling his nose, “and clean her up. She is still drenched in the filth of the Dark Lord!” Then, with a twisted smile of triumph, he turned and marched back to the Temple.

  JUDKINS HAD WAITED for this. Wheeler’s obsession with his daughter was now over. It was the perfect time to act. “Oh, Pastor, my captain,” he called, hurrying to catch up as the Pastor strode away from the punishment box, “about that filthy Supial that violated our territory yesterday.”

  “Yes?” Wheeler replied dangerously. It had escaped capture and he was still fuming about that.

  “I know a sure-fire way of finding him, if I had the right equipment.”

  “And what would that be?” growled Wheeler, still walking.

  “Well you see, I collected a sample of the creature’s flesh from the top of the fence...”

  Wheeler stopped. “What’s this?”

  “Well as you know the men found drops of blood beyond the palisade. We figured the beast had cut itself as it escaped. You saw it leap.”

  “Yes, I know that! But I didn’t know you’d found any evidence.” Wheeler seemed to shudder at the very thought, “No, Judkins, destroy the sample at once!”

  “But I can test it, and we can catch that Supial! Look, if I just had the Van Dannier unit sent down on the next supply pod...”

  “Remind me what this thing is again.”

  “It allows me to analysis genetic material. I can match the sample to the Su – to the evil beast that got in here last night. We could find him.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Wheeler, a sudden gleam of hope in his eye.

  “Absolutely! Genetic testing is totally accurate.”

  “Hmmm,” growled Wheeler, “you know I do not approve of meddling with the Lord’s Creation. I’ll... I’ll think about it.” Then almost at once he changed his mind, “Ah! That wretched Kei Nam woman has been nagging to come down, so this machine of yours can take her place. Yes! Done!” And Wheeler stomped on into the temple, leaving Judkins outside in the heat.

  “Damn!” Judkins said violently under his breath, “She’s not going to like this.” Then he slowly turned and strode purposefully back towards his laboratory, murmuring again to himself, “But at least she’ll get the data she’s been wanting. The Van Dannier will prove one of us right for sure!”

  FULL MOON

  EARLY ON THE MORNING of Full Moon Day, the Old Dudes came for him and they slipped away from the village, the sky like a fire behind them. There were Mica and Platypus from their village, and three other yoodies from the Village Other End. One of them seemed very young.

  Soon they were moving through the Neo-Banyans over the swamplands, moving cautiously in the forest gloom, their feet sometimes slipping on the overnight damp. Safe on the other side they pushed on, through dry forest and wet again, through rocky defiles dripping with water and vines and spider webs, across deep turgid streams where the youngest whimpered in fear of crocadillies (though Mica knew the water was too tea-stained for crocs), pushing ever deeper into the escarpment lands.

  They walked in one day what Mica usually covered in two, and reached the Gem Cliffs and the big water hole as the Moon rose in all her full-pouch glory, huge and red, swelling up from the jumbled landscape behind them, bigger than the sun.

  They made a fire, cooked some food, sang songs and listened to stories from other times. But few of the yoodies stayed awake long enough to hear them all.

  KYNN WAS DRESSED IN white, as was the moon, and both of them were up that night. She stood in the Temple, looking up through the big old-fashioned coloured glass window that her father had shipped all the way from a temple in another world.

  She knew a little of the Supial story of the Moon, how an ancestor had been whisked into the sky, to bear and raise a child every lunar month for the rest of eternity. But she also knew that the Supials knew full well their Moon was another planet like this one, but lifeless and airless, and each orbiting the other every 38 days. All quite accurate, but how did they know?

  And was the Pastor interested?

  Quite the opposite, of course. She had tried to tell him. Judkins, as usual, was too obsessed with his samples and microscope to pay the story much attention. And she did not trust the other colonists with her discoveries. None of them were scientists, just plodders. Devoted followers of the Pastor. The ones he had chosen first from the cold-sleep tanks. The idiots.

  I should not think that!

  Only Dr Kei Nam would listen with interest, and there had been precious little time for that, even before... Quickly she switched her mind away from that memory, back to now, back to that huge alien moon in the sky, now neatly framed by the Window of Unquestioning Faith.

  With a sigh she sank down onto one of the hardwood prayer-benches. Her heart surged with confusion and fear. She should not be thinking like this at all! No, her parents had been right: the Supials were wild and strange and unpredictable. That friendly one, Mica, he ... it had just been trying to get at her, to have his animal way with her. Just an animal, a perverted animal!

  She stood up quickly, trying to block any further thinking, and retreated to her tiny room. She lay upon her narrow cot, unsleeping, empty within, still aware of her slow-healing bruises and burns.

  The Supial’s ‘healy sap’ would have helped, but of course no-one had dared suggest it to the Pastor. Judkins still had the litre or so in the lab, but now it was just another interesting sample, awaiting further study.

  Whenever that was going to be.

  Yet the aliens had been so generous! It did not make sense...

  Kynn got up and shuffled listlessly to the small door at the back of her room, desperate for some night air. It had no lock, inside or out, but she had not opened it since they had delivered her here, in a dead faint and almost dead, seven days ago.

  Tonight, she was sure, her urge for open space would finally outweigh her fear. Carefully, silently, she opened the door. But the fear leapt up again, beat fast in her chest, and she quickly shut out the night.

  MICA WAS WOKEN SUDDENLY by old Wallaroo. He sat up in such surprise that his new scar pulled and hurt. “What is it?” he said loudly.

  Wallaroo spoke fast, “We gotta cross the waterhole, now, before Mother Moon goes down!” He was so urgent about it, so authoritative, that Mica did not argue. He sprang up and hurried to the water’s edge with the other yoodies.

  The Moon was poised just above the trees on the other side.

  “Oh no!” said Wallaroo suddenly, gesturing out at the water, “We’ve got trouble! Look there! While we were sleeping Old Ninja, the Spirit of the Crocadilly, has sneaked up on us! See him there? And I know him too well! He’s got a plan! He doesn’t want you yoodie
s to become men. Aye-ee! I am so cross! See him down there? Waiting down-stream to smell us?”

  Mica peered into the moon-lit gloom. Sure enough, down where the water flowed out of the waterhole lay a long low shape. A big crocadilly! Old Wallaroo must have been crazy, thinking of crossing the waterhole now!

  “You might think I’m mad,” Wallaroo said right then, “But I am a powerful man! I can fool that ol’ crocadilly any time, and I’ll tell you how. See, he wants fresh yoodies to eat, ‘cos he don’t want no men in his territory. He’s the only man, he thinks! But we know better. Mother Moon made us many many men, and we help each other, and we listen to each other when we’re bragging, and when we’re crying, and when we’re laughing, and when we’re hurting. And you know what the biggest hurting is?”

  The yoodies all shook their heads. Mica was going to say, “My cut.” But he shut himself up just in time.

  “The biggest hurting is birthing a suckling, yoodies. You might’ve heard the cries from the women’s house, eh, when a new one’s coming?”

  The youngest yoodie was looking troubled.

  “They don’t just pop up in the pouch!” said Wallaroo to him, “They come outta here!” He demonstrated with his hands, squatting and spreading his legs wide, “Oh! Ah! OOOoooo! Arrrrh!”

  The yoodies were all looking frightened. Wallaroo shouldn’t have been talking about this stuff!

  “So then the suckling comes out, and there’s blood and stuff too. Then the woman she puts it in her pouch. You ain’t ever going to see this happen, but then Old Ninja hasn’t seen it either. So this is how we’re going to trick him. Put these on!”

  He passed them each an odd garment, which turned out to be like a woman’s pouch. They put them on.