Me Ma Supial!

by Ged Maybury

  “Okay,” she whispered to Mica, returning to the door, “this way!” She led him the other way, around the back of the kitchens, past the methane digester and gas tanks, under the solar array and into the skimmer bay. She went straight to number 3, tugged out the recharge cable, hitched up her makeshift skirt and took the front seat.

  “Get on,” she ordered, “yes, behind me.”

  Mica struggled for long seconds to get his legs free from under the white gown. The thing began to buzz loudly under him and he let out a nervous whimper. Then it surged up and accelerated sharply forwards. Caught unprepared, he flopped backwards and nearly fell off.

  “You’ve got to hang on!” Kynn snapped, powering off abruptly. He flopped forwards and thumped into her back. She gasped, then gasped again as his arms snaked under hers and his big warm hands gripped her across the chest. Two of his fingers hooked through her T-shirt and under the bottom edge of her bra seeking whatever grip they could. She could feel his terror, yet her own mind also filled with a different terror: all about boys and where their hands should never go and the trouble she would be in if she ever let it happen. Meanwhile the skimmer drifted towards the fence, coasting on the basic lift of the coils.

  I must say something, she thought frantically, when at the same time came a further commotion somewhere in the compound behind them, people urgently shouting. The sound of doors slamming and running feet. In a sudden panic she jamming her foot on the power pedal and tugged back on the handles. With a mechanical howl the skimmer punched them up and forwards. The fence dived below her feet, a few tree tops flicked past on her right, then they were rushing down a wide empty beach as if nothing else had ever existed before.

  SHE RAN THE SKIMMER at full speed for several minutes, then as her panic diminished she eased back. She knew she had a clear run of some forty kilometres to the next major Supial village and needed to conserve the skimmer’s power. Glancing down she saw the charge had already dropped to 91%. She leaned sideways and glanced back, causing them to wobble dangerously, then straightened up again.

  There was no pursuit.

  Reluctantly she eased the speed down once more, then to save more power she disabled the force-field windscreen, letting the sea air slam suddenly into her face. Her tears went streaming back past her ears, to hit Mica in the face moments later.

  They were both still coughing from the tear gas and the pain in her back was intense. She said nothing of it to Mica, even though he was pressing the stiff bodice-lace of her mother’s gown hard into her wounds.

  After ten kilometres of this she landed the skimmer on the empty beach. Mica relaxed his grip, allowing her to dismount. He got off too.

  “Take that off now,” she told him, pointing to the white robe, “We won't be needing it any more.” Gladly he struggled out of it and gave it to her. She took her usual seat and jammed the robe down below her knees.

  “Get on again,” she told him, patting his seat as she glanced back along the empty beach nervously, “we’ve got to keep going.”

  Mica looked fearfully at the skimmer, but since she was already on, and since its insides still hummed softly like a nest of bees, he decided to get back on. He did not want to be left behind!

  As he went to straddle the seat he stopped. The back of Kynn Wheeler’s garment was spotted with dark blood.

  “You are hurt...”

  “It’s nothing! Get on, quickly!”

  He did, more carefully this time, and snaked his hands under her arms seeking the same two convenient handles he had found before.

  “Oh!” she said, “Um, Mica, I...”

  Then she gave up on words and simply took his hands, unhooked his fingers, and moved them down to her belly, saying “I won’t be going so fast this time.”

  He wrapped his arms around her midriff, gripped his own wrists, and simply said, “Okay.”

  Odd, thought Kynn distractedly as she eased the power back on, such a familiar- sounding word. Has he learned it from me?

  The skimmer reached its optimum height and Kynn edged up the speed. The white robe began to flutter and tug in the wind. Reaching down with one hand she pulled it up and let it play out into the slipstream. It began flapping loudly. “Thank you, Mother,” she whispered, “but I won’t be needing this now.” She felt a moment of reluctance and turmoil, then with all her courage she let it go.

  It fluttered to the beach behind them. Mica looked back, but she did not.

  PASTOR WHEELER TOURED his encampment, counting the costs of the latest Supial treachery. One soldier dead, his body pierced repeatedly by fishing spears. Another one missing. The trading store had been looted, then burnt to the ground. His wife had been wounded by a stray bullet, but even worse, chief medic Joseph Hammein had been struck in the same burst of gunfire. Both were now laid up in the medical hut, under the care of that fool Judkins. And last of all there were a dozen or so of those filthy aliens outside the gates, scattered, dead, and fouled by their own excrement. Revolting things!

  As he paced the compound he came upon the sergeant-at-arms, crouched over yet another wounded soldier. Wheeler strode over and spoke angrily to him, ignoring the groans of the young man on the ground.

  “I want to see you in my office, sergeant!”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Yes of course, now!” They strode to the office, ignoring the problems around them. The door closed, shutting out the heat and noise. Wheeler turned. “You are a fool! Why did you fire tear gas?”

  The sergeant drew himself together in good military fashion, “Standard procedure, Sir! Active Duty Handbook, Section 16, Quelling Native Unrest ...”

  “I don't give a damn about your rules!” snapped Wheeler, “You are a member of the True Faith, and you are under my command! I told you to shoot!”

  “Sir! If you please, sir, you asked me to Secure the Area, Ensure all Natives were at the Speech, and to maintain Crowd Control...”

  “So,” growled Wheeler disparagingly, “you used tear gas.” He made it sound like the most spineless thing imaginable.

  “It is standard procedure, Sir.”

  “I don't care about that! You disobeyed my orders! Stand down, soldier! I will personally assume command of the men from now on!”

  “But sir...!”

  “Get out! You are DISMISSED!!”

  The sergeant departed stiffly. In the doorway stood another of the new batch of soldiers, picking nervously at the lapel of his uniform.

  “What is it, errr...?”

  “Habib, sir. Joseph Habib.”

  “Well?”

  “Sir,” stammered Habib, “didn’t we have three skimmers, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well I thought I’d better tell you sir, one of them seems to have gone missing.”

  LORIKEET CAREFULLY drew, from memory, the thing she had seen in one of the Old Books. She had exactly one piece of blank paper, carefully slit from the back of the big medical manual, and she used it with care, drawing with half-burnt twigs.

  The boat builders looked on, studying this strange new way to remember how to make something. They discussed its parts, what timber to use, how to lash or pin the parts together, how big it would have to be, and which vines to make the spring from.

  Others began weaving coconut-sized baskets and filling them with small rocks wrapped in old bedding bark. This was then soaked in petrol-tree oil.

  There was an air of grim efficiency about this work, but occasionally one or two of them, and then everyone, would dissolve for a while into helpless weeping.

  And at the same time the rest of the villagers were packing whatever they could carry and slipping quietly away by the lesser trails, going north and inland. Old Leatherback had spoken, and so they were leaving. Leaving for good.

  Meanwhile the bravest (and angriest) of the younger dudes flitted amongst the houses closest to the Humans’ village, silently gathering what they could of value. And in the deepest tree shadows near the gates a number of Supials
kept a silent vigil on the dead. They were guarded by two of their fellows, each armed with one of the damage-sticks they had captured from the Humans. They knew enough now to use them for killing, and they were very keen to start.

  But to their disappointment, no Humans were about. They had retreated inside their metal fence and barred the gates. An occasional head could be seen looking warily over, with the tip of a damage stick visible beside it, but the two Supial guards did not try their first shots at such a distance.

  They had already seen how well the sticks had worked close up.

  THE BOAT-BUILDERS TESTED the device just before sunset and it worked well, flinging a coconut far out into the lagoon. They then tried it with a fire-ball. It flew well, trailing flaring crumbs, and stayed well lit all the way into the water. Their celebration was silent — bright grim eyes meeting, tails flicking with deep charges of energy.

  They all knew that the real event was yet to come.

  KYNN AND MICA ARRIVED at the next village to the south, on the hills above the Flooding River. They greeted the elders and told them what had happened, so angry about it that they could barely speak, and so shocked they could barely stand up.

  It would have been easier to give in to their grief right then, to stay in that village until they had recovered, but Kynn wanted to keep on. There were other villages, many villages. Villages she did not even know the whereabouts of, and she wanted to take them all the same message.

  “Please,” she told them, “do not trust my fellow Humans any more! I know, I am one of them, but I am ashamed to be. My people have gone bad! Please warn every village hereabouts. Please!”

  Old Quokka, the senior elder, glanced from Kynn to Mica, and back to Kynn. Mica looked terrible, his eyes still red from the burning smoke, but in those eyes the truth could be seen. Quokka simply nodded, and seemed to sag a little, then turned to speak quickly to her villagers. “Jumbuck, Dingo, arrange for lookouts. Ironbark, heat some steel and make us some more fishing spears. Harvest the ready food and pack up your valuables. We may have to...” Quokka hesitated, barely able to speak the unimaginable, “...to abandon our village.”

  Then Quokka’s voice grew sad, “And now we must sing for our cousins in Ocean Village who have died.”

  She turned back to Kynn, “Kynn Wheeler, you are welcome to stay. You have a good heart, despite your deformities.”

  “Thank you, Quokka, but I must move on. They’re sure to try and follow this,” she indicated the skimmer, “and so I must take it away from your village or else you’ll be in even greater danger.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “It is best I don’t tell. Just say – if it comes to it – just say that you hope the crocadillies got me.”

  Quokka looked pained, but she nodded her grey head, “Very well, but I'd rather die first than have to say that! Farewell, Kynn Wheeler!”

  Silently, her chin trembling, Kynn remounted the skimmer, gesturing for Mica to do the same. With a bubbling murmur from its mysterious innards, she flew it slowly out of the village.

  AFTER FLYING CAREFULLY along a trail through a patch of thick rain-forest for some minutes she turned to Mica, “So, where would crocadillies live around here?”

  He was surprised by the question but began looking around for the information he needed for his answer. “Not in the main river, see?” His pointing an arm that caused the skimmer to wobble. He hastily pulled it in, “Wrong kind of trees. Maybe we’re too close to the sea. Further up, in the fresher water.” He pointed across her right shoulder. Kynn veered the skimmer in that direction.

  Mica suddenly cried, “No, Kynn Wheeler, no! You must not do it!”

  “Do what?”

  “Throw yourself to the crocadillies!”

  “Relax, I'm not going to do that.”

  “But you said...”

  “That was just for my fa– ...for the ... the Humans to think. No, don’t worry.” She steered around a dense patch of trees and slowed into the next clearing. “I have to do something before we go on. Is this place safe?”

  He peered forwards. “Yes.”

  They landed gently. Mica dismounted and checked around for any dangers he may have missed, then confirmed his judgment. “Yuh, okay.” Even so he remained alert, sniffing the air and looking worried, as Kynn squatted beside the skimmer. She fiddled for a moment and suddenly the skimmer’s fat smooth belly fell open. Mica leapt back in fright, expecting some strange intestines to fly out, maybe twisting and snapping like a beetle-snapper snake, but nothing did. He crept closer and peered over her shoulder. It did indeed have intestines – fat coiled pipes and thinner things like veins and sinews, but since Kynn was unafraid he decided to relax.

  She peered in closely, poked with her fingers, pulling aside bunches of the coloured veins. Mica sniffed. These guts smelt strange, and there was no blood.

  “Hmm,” Kynn murmured. She pulled back, closed the belly flap and went around to the other side. Another flap opened. Mica crept around to look. There were more guts; similar but different. After some more poking and prying she murmured, “Ah hah!” and pulled out a thing about the size and shape of a chooky's gizzard.

  “What is it?” he asked, “Is it a technobyte?”

  She looked at him strangely for a long moment, then said, “It's a positional tracer. A spy unit.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My fa... my... just someone I know, he put it in here. He can sort of see us through this. Even right now, if he's watching.”

  Mica glanced around, uneasily. “Is he another Human?”

  “Barely,” she answered bitterly as she snapped the skin flap angrily back into place, “Come on, we’re off to find a crocadilly.”

  “Why?” he asked anxiously.

  She hefted the little thing, “To feed it this.”

  Mica paused, as if thinking, then said slowly, “So then this someone you know, all he will see is the inside of a crocadilly!”

  For the first time in many days, Kynn smiled, “Exactly, my dear Mica, exactly!”

  CROCADILLY

  KYNN TURNED SOUTH-WEST, navigating by the screen towards the nearest tributary of the main river. After some ten minutes she spied the telltale changes in foliage ahead and slowed the skimmer. Mica pointed down, shouting, “In there for sure for sure!”

  She found a clearing near the riverbank and landed.

  “You're good!” said Mica as he got off, “You know your way around.”

  She just nodded, too bothered to explain the navigation screen and the wealth of on-board maps. Besides, she had something serious on her mind (the rest of her day was still firmly blanked out). She had seen crocadilly skins hanging in a number of villages and now she was this close to their natural habitat she was beginning to have second thoughts about her plan. But Mica confidently took over.

  “We'll need to capture something tasty for the croc,” he said, “It won't just swallow that technobyte thing by itself.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Maybe till the morning. We'll have to make some snares from a springy tree, except I haven't seen one yet, then we’ll find an animal trail, set our snare and wait. We're going to be hungry too, so we'll have to go dig for kai-kai roots, then find a petrol wood tree, and then make a friction-bow to start our fire. Oh, and this is a bad place to camp.” He stamped the ground as if testing its moisture content. She remembered leech-worms again and felt a sudden urge to get on with it.

  “I think we can skip a bit of that.” She lifted the skimmer’s seat and dug out a tube of emergency food from the skimmer's utility bin. “Will this do?”

  “What is it? Petrol tree oil?”

  “No, food. Try it.” She twisted off the cap, triggering the decompression sequence. Food paste began oozing out onto her hand. She recapped it. “Try.”

  He sniffed it first, then licked some off her palm. She shivered from the unexpectedly warm moist touch.

  “Mmmm!” He licked a
gain, deeper and firmer, sucking the rest up. She squirmed again, her insides roiling with a pleasure she quickly suppressed.

  “Mmmm,” he said again, “tasty, yeah! But it's not much.”

  “Yes it is.” She uncapped the tube again and let the paste come out, more and more onto her hand. Mica's eyes bulged in amazement.

  “Now, what about that crocadilly?” she asked, trying not to sound nervous.

  Mica, still looking amazed, began to glance around. Suddenly he scuttled directly up a tree and, hanging by his tail, swung out to pluck a broad leaf. He came down precipitously and landed neatly on his feet. “Splodge it onto this while I get us a fishing pole. He-he, going fishing for a crocadilly! Wild, man!”

  She looked at him in that strange way again.

  He soon got a pole from a bamboo-like plant and stripped off a long thread to act as the fishing line at one end. Deftly he folded the leaf around the positional tracer and the food-paste, tied it to the line, smeared more food-paste on the outside and announced, “Okay, we're ready!”

  She looked at this crude thing. It didn’t allow very much separation between herself and a crocadilly. Then she glanced towards the river. “Uh...so...?”

  Mica was confident, “Here, you shadow me,” he pointed to the ground just to his left, “and hold the pole. Just copy every move I make.”

  And he began at once, trotting quickly across the clearing, through the last of the trees then gradually down to the muddy flood-bank of the river. There he slowed, approaching the water's edge more cautiously, calling loudly, “Hey-ya Crocadilly, you are looking silly! Hey-ya Crocadilly, you are looking silly! ...” thumping his feet rhythmically on the ground all the time.

  There was no answer, of course. The muddy water shifted lazily, the air was full of bird-sound, and everything stank of mud and decay. Kynn felt her heart thumping. Then she spotted a slight stir in the water. Mica had seen it too. Thump, thump, thump went his feet, then he stepped quickly back. Shivering in fear she kept her place beside him.