Me Ma Supial!

by Ged Maybury

  “But that ain’t all! We gotta have some real blood too, and some real pain! He’d know if you were pretending. Mica, quickly, give me your tail!” Wallaroo reached between Mica’s legs, pulling his tail like no-one was ever allowed to do. He was very quick. He had a little knife out and nicked Mica’s tail before he had any time to get scared.

  Mica flinched and shouted out the pain, and his blood welled out. As Wallaroo did the same to the other yoodies, Magpie and Catfish began to chant a strange parody of the birthing-song.

  “Come on! Into the water!” shouted Wallaroo, “Quickly, before Mother Moon goes down!” and he strode into the water, calling, “Mother Moon, thank you for women, thank you for birth, thank you for the forest and the sky, thank you for our very lives! Come on yoodies! Say it with me!”

  Terrified, glancing always at that big lurking crocadilly down the way, the yoodies went after him. Their blood swirled into the water and their cuts stung. Their false pouches filled with water and threatened to drag them deeper. On, on they went in pain, struggling, bleeding, frightened.

  Desperate, panting, crying, they followed Wallaroo towards the place where Mother Moon was quickly dipping into the trees.

  “Quickly! She's going down faster!”

  Splashing, lunging, skidding on the slithery bottom, the five yoodies scrambled the last ten strides to safety and collapsed gasping and sobbing, and then laughing, on the other bank.

  “Well done!” said Wallaroo, “We fooled Old Ninja a real beaut!”

  Mica peered back, trying to see that dark shape again, but it was hidden by the curving margin of the waterhole. Now it was over, he had began to wonder how such a big crocadilly could live so far from the sea. But he had no time for such thoughts.

  Wallaroo called them together and pointing back across the water, “Dudes! Look! You’ve left your childhood behind! You ain’t yoodies any more, and you can’t go back to it ever again! And now that you appreciate life and women and the power of birth, you can now be fathers!”

  The young men glanced at each other, grinning, even as they gripped their cut tails, still feeling the pain under their bloody fingers.

  “Now we’re going on,” said Wallaroo, gestured westwards, “cos’ you ain’t yet full-on Dudes! Still got a lot to learn, lot to do! Come on!”

  IN THE SMALL HOURS of the following night Kynn went outside, briefly, before fear drove her back once more. The Moon was still huge in the heavens, and she knew too that somewhere up there was the New Ark, the mother-ship, her home for 99 years of her brief life.

  She couldn’t remember that other place, ‘the Evil Orb’ as her father always called it. She could barely even remember her life beyond the Temple, now.

  THEY MOVED ON, THROUGH landscapes Mica had never seen before. Up gullies and ridges into high cold places where the clouds lived, then down other gullies, and yet more ridges and gullies, all through the day, until they reached a wide warm land of hopping animals and tall dry trees.

  “This is the land of our ancestors,” Wallaroo told them, “Very sacred place. Long ago we were told to move away, back across the hills the way we have come, to leave our ancestors in peace. We were told how to be Supials in that time, and how we were to live without every little gizmo and technobyte.”

  “What’re they?” interrupted Platypus, because he was always curious about new words.

  “They are the things they told us not to use,” answered Wallaroo in his maddening way, “You’ll be seeing them soon enough anyway, because tomorrow we’re gonna visit that very place. The place of our creation! Then you are gonna have to confront the ghosts of your ancestors! Oh yeah! You are gonna be scared shitless! Then if you pass that you’re gonna get the chance to do the Big Brave Task, all alone! Then you’ll be Real Dudes at last!”

  Platypus stopped asking any more questions right about then.

  Wallaroo led them eventually to a campsite near a river, a different kind of river to the rivers they knew. This one was wide and slow and clear. It smelt totally different. There were plenty of birds about and they foraged for eggs and set a few snares. They dug for roasting roots and peeled the skins off blanket trees to make bedding for the coming night.

  Mica found a good clump of petrol-wood trees in the thin dry forest and gathered enough fallen branches to light the fire. He was good at fires.

  The night fell swiftly. They ate and listened to stories until the air turned very cold. Huddled together under their mats of woven blanket-bark, the young dudes lay troubled and still, listening to the strange sounds of night, sounds they had never heard before. Full of food and fear they were.

  Real scared.

  NEXT DAY JUDKINS CAME to pray. Kynn fetched the silver foot-bowl at once, filled it with warm water and a little of the precious perfumed oil, and washed his feet as he sat and prayed. It was one of her many duties.

  He only stayed a little while, as if impatient to get back to his research, and as he stood to leave a slip of machine-printed paper fell from his prayer-robe. He ignored it and strode out.

  She bent over it quickly, careful not to even glance towards the security camera, and gathered the slip up with the towel. In the back room she dumped the towel in the laundry sink and quickly read the note.

  “Dear Kynn,

  Judkins told me of the horrendous punishment meted out by your father...”

  “I have no father,” she whispered almost silently, her voice devoid of emotion, then she read on.

  “...very shocked to hear. Am still hoping to get down, though not on this Drop, I’m afraid. Keep heart. We are the first people in history to make contact with sentient alien life. Your work so far has been invaluable. Judkins hopes to get more data very soon. Miss your voice. Dr K.”

  Carefully, as if washing her hands, Kynn ripped and mashed the note and sent it down the drain. She felt numb and did not try to think about it any more.

  Besides, she had duties to get on with. There was another Drop coming, and that would mean more feet to wash.

  THEY CLIMBED ALONG the cliff face, high above the sparkling river below. Even here, on the near-vertical slope, trees clung to the cracks and lizards scuttled about on their plentiful legs, seeking drowsy insects in the shade. The dudes were suitably afraid, not of the drop (for they all were at home in the trees) but of what lay ahead.

  Mica, his feet on the rock and his hands and tail in the branches of a wiry little tree, paused to look ahead. What was that! He could see a metallic dome jutted up from the forest in the next valley, its top plastered dull with bird poop.

  Wallaroo called out at the same moment, “Behold! The Home of our Ancestors!” They all paused, peering forward, and fearing forward too. “Come on! Time’s a-wasting!”

  NINE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN kilometres above them, a tiny silvery egg was released from a great creature that looked like hundreds of fat hard beetles enmeshed in a silk-web of girders. This creature was the New Ark. Jets of smokeless fire sparked momentarily as the egg began falling toward the bright planet below. Another Drop was under way.

  ANCESTORS

  THE DOME WAS NOT THE only structure they came to. There were others, further up the valley, and beyond that were caves visible in the rock-face. The new dudes slowed, clumping together for safety, glancing around nervously. When a startled flock of parrots flew up with a screeching and squawking, the Supials cried aloud in spontaneous terror. The two sounds were almost exactly the same.

  Then Wallaroo spoke, “So here we are, dudes, in the Sacred Place, and we’re not gonna eat nor drink till we’ve done these final tasks. We’re going up there, now, right up into them caves. So put down all your stuff, and take off all your clothes, ‘cept your dangle-pouches of course.”

  They did these things, and then they were ready.

  “Alright!” called Wallaroo, “We’re going in!”

  The cave mouth was cut square, tall enough for any Supial to enter. And it was cold in there, and dark. Wallaroo paused at the entran
ce, lifted his arms and called out, “Hey! Ancestors! It is me! Wallaroo of Far End Village. I’m come back with a new bunch of young dudes! Reckon they’re ready to be real dudes, they do! Hah! We’ll see! Now give us a light if you agree with them, or let there be nothing but darkness!” He waved his arms wide, and strode forward. Instantly some lights came on. Weird lights, cold-looking, and the wrong colour for firebrands. They reminded Mica of the Human lights he’d seen. Some of the young dudes gasped, and one whimpered. Mica did neither. He kept breathing steady.

  “We’re coming in now, you Ancestors! I am Wallaroo, and I’m not afraid of you ghosts no more!” Then he turned to the young ones, saying quietly but firmly, “You can’t turn back now. They know you’re here. They’ve seen you arrive. If you walk away now you’ll never be a dude!” Without another word he began walking deeper into the cave. The young dudes shuffled after him, keeping as close as they could to him as if he carried some sort of protection. They passed several doorways, tall dark holes that breathed cool silence at them. Then Wallaroo turned a corner and their last glimpse of the outside world disappeared behind them. A soft murmur of fear began somewhere in the group.

  Wallaroo had stopped in front of a dark doorway. “Yo! Ghost!” called Wallaroo, “Make yourself visible! Come talk to us!”

  Nothing happened.

  “I’m telling you! You come out now!”

  Still nothing. Wallaroo was getting mad.

  “You asleep or something? Do I have to come in there?”

  Silence. Wallaroo looked around at his charges.

  “This is gonna take all of us, dudes. We all gotta go in there together. Wake that old ghost up! You ready?”

  Mica took the hand of the dude beside him who was quivering and quailing, and answered Wallaroo as strong as he could (after all, he’d been into the Human’s village, twice, and been chased out again), “Yes, we’re ready! Aren’t we?”

  No-one dared to disagree. They edged forward, terrified, but even more terrified of the alternative: of never being a real Dude.

  At once the lights came on. The room was huge, about the size of a clan-house, and full from the floor to the roof with things weird beyond imagining.

  “What are they?” asked Platypus in a whisper.

  “Technobytes,” replied Wallaroo knowledgeably, then he called aloud, “Hey, ghost! We’re here! You gotta come out!”

  And as they moved further in, towards a kind of wide flat circular rock, little coloured lights came on and something began to hum. Wallaroo bent and touched something and a shimmering light suddenly blossomed above the circle. Before Mica had time to wonder, or fear, or move, the light suddenly coalesced into a Supial-shaped figure, a very old and tired-looking woman. She began speaking but they could not quite understand it. Even if they could, they probably would have been too terrified to listen.

  “My greetings to you, people of the future...”

  Mica sort of listened, even as he huddled fearfully with the other dudes at the far edge of the room. It sounded in places exactly like Human speech.

  Couldn’t be.

  The old ghost talked on, then her talking ended. There were tears in her eyes. She turned momentarily as if to touch something, but stopped and turned back to face them, adding a few more words, “God Be With You.”

  Her arm moved further and suddenly she was gone.

  The dudes were silent, some breathing loudly, still frightened. They waited, but nothing else happened. The little lights went out on the smooth stone circle and the humming stopped.

  “Well done, dudes,” said Wallaroo softly, “You have faced the Ghost of your Ancestor. None of you ran away. Well done!”

  None of them could have run, so tightly had they been gripping each other. Mica suddenly remembered to breathe again, calming the flutter in his belly.

  “Now,” said Wallaroo, “we have another task. As you heard, we may take of the knowledge that is stored here. Each of you must take one of these...” Wallaroo opened the big flat pouch he had on his chest, taking out a thin flat circular disk which shimmered like a rainbow in the light. For a moment Mica thought it was like his own keepsake; his own little flake of mica; but then he saw it was different. Too precise. Too shiny. “This is a Story Wheel. It holds a secret story from the time of our Ancestors. We of our village must keep them safe for the day they will once again light up and speak to us. They are kept all around here,” he waved his hand towards the doorway, “and you must now choose a new room, and go in alone, and bring out just one Story Wheel each. Just one! Now go!”

  OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE the compound was quiet. Most of the men were down on the beach, getting the recovery boats ready. Kynn had everything ready for the welcoming service and now she needlessly polished the small silver objects on the altar. As a girl she had not been allowed near them. They were sacred objects, things that Saint Curran himself had once handled. But now they had become mere objects for her to polish. Another duty to do. Repetitive. Reassuring. Safe.

  There was a lot of activity in the kitchen across the way. She could hear it. More preparations for the landing. It was the first landing since just before the flood. In that other place, another time...

  She quickly resumed polishing. She had no memories any more.

  THE HUMAN MEN WERE busy on the beach, silently and grimly preparing two fat flexible canoes for the sea. About twenty Supials stood or squatted in the shade of the proto-coco palms at the top of the beach, quietly watching the proceedings.

  And two extra Humans paced the beach between the watchers and the watched, carrying those peculiar damage-sticks. They always carried them now.

  One of the boats was giving trouble. The Humans spoke in hushed angry growls, pulling again and again on a rope. Finally the lumpy thing on the back of the boat roared into action, pumping out blue smoke, splutter and froth from beneath the choppy surf. Then the roar began to cough, and it lapsed back into silence. The Humans growled and bickered some more.

  The Supials watched, bemused. “How do those things work?” asked a young yoodie of his father.

  “They have tiny paddles under the water,” came the answer, “they go around very fast. Remember that porposoid we found dead on the beach? The bite marks on its back? I reckon it was hit by those paddles. Bad things”

  “I mean those stick things,” said the yoodie.

  The father didn’t answer. He didn’t know. No-one did.

  One of the boats started off, whining like a huge angry insect, bumping over the surf and throwing off plumes of spray. Three Humans jolted about within it.

  “Where’re they going?” asked someone.

  “I heard them talking as they went by,” answered Old Leatherback, “They say another one of their Sky-eggs is coming down.” He would know. He was the one who had spoken most to Kynn Wheeler, and taught her how to speak right.

  “More bloody Humans?” growled one of the dudes, “Hope they’ll be more like Kynn Wheeler. She’s way cool.”

  “Aye. We’re all hoping that too,” murmured Old Leatherback, though his voice lacked hope. The second boat roared and smoked, then spluttered again.

  “I ain’t seen her awhile,” said someone, once the noise had stopped.

  “Me neither,” sighed Old Leatherback, wondering.

  “I hear the Humans put her in a box, made her get too hot!” said another Supial male, “Now she lives inside that Temple-house, ‘cos she’s scared of the sun.”

  “I seen her, I has!” said a young yoodie suddenly, proudly.

  “How come?” asked his father. Suddenly the young Supial went real quiet, like he’d said too much. “How come, I asked?” demanded the father again.

  “Over the fence.” mumbled the young one.

  “How come you’ve seen her if she’s scared of the sun, eh?”

  “Ahhh...”

  “Have you been out at night? Have you been climbing the trees like that stupid Mica? Huh? Answer me!” The youth silently nodded. His father shouted
, “I am so mad with you! You’ll get us all in big trouble?!”

  The guard-Humans looked around suddenly, unslinging their sticks indecisively, glancing to their leader down by the troublesome boat. It looked like he had not heard the Supials. As the Humans hesitated the Supials melted away into the shadows, and when the guards next looked there was nothing to see. They glanced at each other, relieved, and relaxed their weapons.

  THE NEWCOMERS SAT IN the temple, still looking ill from the thaw. They were all men, sitting in their baggy fatigues, their glazed eyes sliding about, overwhelmed by their return to life and their swift passage into this new place, and each doing his best to attend to the Pastor’s sermon.

  “...and He spoke unto Saint Curran, saying that even the Word itself was no longer enough to stop the corruption of the Evil Orb. The Flyblown were to be cast into the Pit, but the Faithful would gain their Rightful Place in This Space. The Lord then told Curran that he must cast his followers into the Void, before the Fires of Wrath began. That only with Faith could they cross the Void safely...” Wheeler looked up from his book, “...and the Lord was right, for here we are!”

  “Thanks to the Lord,” murmured the crowd.

  The sermon continued, “... and again He spoke, saying that despite all this, despite their Salvation, the Faithful must remain forever on their guard.” Wheeler leaned forwards, quoting the Wordolord from memory directly, personally, to the new troopers, “’Let no-one, nor any thing, deflect you from your Path, Soldier’.”

  He lifted his eyes to the whole gathering and continued, in a slightly more conversational tone, “And it seems we have come to those times already, My Faithful. Our Rightful Place upon this planet is under attack by those stinking animals out there, those ‘Supials’!” Wheeler gestured outwards, towards the thin metal fence that kept them safe. Then he dropped his eyes and gazed intently at the newcomers, “It is your duty, my friends, to ensure that the Word of the Lord is kept. You are Soldiers now, Soldiers in a New World, just as Saint Curran said we would be. And we will let no-one, nor anything, deflect us from our path!” Wheeler closed his big book slowly, deliberately, “So Let It Be.”