by Ged Maybury
They grumbled at him and went away. He paced anxiously after that, peering up at the Women’s House but too afraid to ask how she was. Though worried as he was, he still ate a huge breakfast.
SHE CAME OUT LATER, once the sun was well up, moving slowly and with great care. Mica greeted her with his big soft eyes questioning. She forced a brief smile and went past him, going directly to her flying canoe. Like he had seen her do once before she worked some secret catch and began to open its skin. But this time it came open in great loose flaps; very shiny stuff it was like it was made of thousands of bits of mica all patterned like an insect's eye. Mica and many others took a great interest in these and crowded close. Kynn Wheeler told them to move back, so then Mica did too, getting very important about it.
When she had it all spread out she explained, “It is recharging; getting new energy straight from the sun.”
“Ah, so it's a plant then?” asked someone.
“No, but these wide areas here do sort of work like a leaf.”
“Then it is a plant.”
Her voice was tired and fragile, but she persevered, “No, it's a... well yes; like a plant. A machine like a plant.” She looked around at them, her eyes filled with trouble and pain and vulnerability, as if even this conversation was an immense effort. Mica wanted to take her in his arms again, comfort her like yesterday, but he hesitated. What would these villagers think? Would any of his people understand the love he had for her? But to look at her was to love her, and this he allowed himself to do until the village healer came and ordered her back to bed.
He slept again himself, in the midday heat under the Young Dudes’ House, but was woken by loud voices well before the sun had touched the western trees. He looked up, asking, “What is it?”
“People arriving, from Ocean Village!”
THESE NEWCOMERS TOLD their story; weeping and angry, both proud and shattered. They spoke of the Human treachery, of the riot and the smoke, of the cries of pain and the deaths, and of their terrified retreat. Then others came, latecomers hurrying in, exhausted but elated, talking of a battle, of fires and an explosion, of bravery, of one who died in a canoe and another who killed Humans and escaped with a burnt face and fur. Mica was amazed, and horrified.
Then came the worst news of all; Burrawang was dead.
Mica hung his head, then his crying began in earnest. Hands caressed him, comforting words were sung around him to help him to cry better. He noticed after a while that one of the hands was naked, the furless hand of a Human.
He raised his head and turned to meet her eyes. She looked ill, her own eyes haggard and puffy. “We must move on tomorrow,” she said, “you will be wanting to get home, I’m sure, and I want to go there too. Your elder was very kind to me. She was a great spirit. A... a good soul.”
The other Supials heard this too. They looked at Kynn Wheeler with cautious respect, noting the tears flowing freely from her eyes. Then the hands reached for her too, squeezing gently, rocking her in the rhythm of grief. She cried better then.
At last Mica could hold her the way he had been aching to do.
AT THE END OF THE DAY she checked the charge. It had only reached 38%. She had to decide: take two days for the journey, or wait another day and get it really charged up? While she poked at the screen, trying to get a weather forecast, she noticed once again that she still had that single, unopened email. Who was it from?
I’m seventy kilometres away! He doesn’t know where I am! He can’t hurt me now, he can’t!!
Taking a deep steadying breath she touched the screen to open the message.
From: Dr Kei Nam
To: Skimmer Three
Subject: PLEASE RESPOND - CHECKING USER.
Hi. I've just had a channel open here. Can't explain why. Do you need some sort of help? Information? Please reply at once. Confirm your I.D. - Dr K.
Kynn uttered a choking sob. 'Dr K' was like a private code, only used for her. Frantically she dabbed at the screen, calling up the hidden technical information on the skimmer’s systems. “Channel nine?” she murmured, ignoring the Supials all around her, “I didn't even know I had a channel nine! Where’s the Help menu? Ah!”
Channel Nine: IFDL (In-Field Direct Line); Secure-status. Purpose: During field-work, this channel allows direct conversations with personnel within the Science Centre. Coupled with Channel Ten, it allows direct streaming of all field data to central science computer. Remote activation possible.
Kynn sank onto the screen momentarily, almost in a faint of relief, then she heaved herself up again, energised. Weeping, and laughing too, she poked the screen again and again, choosing her options:
REPLY... ENCRYPTED? -YES ... SPEECH-RECOG? -YES ... BEGIN MESSAGE:
“Doctor K!” she whispered to the microphone she knew was embedded somewhere in front of her, “It's me; K.W! Oh Lordie; the most awful things have happened! I need to tell you about it! Tell me this really is a secure line! I’ve got to warn you, he monitors all transmissions through Base now! Please, PLEASE don't let him find out! Oh Lord it has been so horrible! They started shooting the Supials. I’m okay. I got out with this skimmer! Just me and... and a Supial I managed to save. Help me Doctor K! Please help!”
For a moment she couldn’t breathe, then she felt Mica’s big warm hand on her shoulder. She glanced at him briefly, smiled, then turned her eyes back to the screen. After checking the voice-to-script transposition was adequate she took a deep shaky breath and hit SEND, her heart thudding in her chest like a desperate animal trapped in a cage (and she knew what that was like; knew it all too well!).
This had to work. HAD TO!
CONNECTION
FORTY-NINE MINUTES later the skimmer beeped and Kynn hurried to it. INCOMING R.T.V. CHANNEL NINE. She hit RECEIVE and eased herself onto the saddle in front of the inbuilt camera. The screen lit up with the static-shattered face of Doctor Kei Nam. Kynn’s face broke into a tearful smile.
“Kynn!” cried Dr Nam emotionally, “At last! Are you alone?”
She looked around at the twenty-or-so Supial children silently watching her. “Yes.”
“Good. According to my satellite data, you're some eighty kilometres north-west of Base. I’ve had no other contact for two days. Got your message, very garbled. Surely not! What’s going on?”
Kynn began to tell her. As the story progressed, Dr Nam's face stirred with many emotions; shock, disbelief, dismay, disgust, anger, grief, despair; and back around the same circuit. Kynn pushed on, only too glad to spill everything out. Even as she spoke, she saw Doctor K glancing away at other screens, reading data, ordering more, and growing steadily more frustrated and agitated.
“Damn him! DAMN him!” she kept saying, “I knew this was going to happen, I knew it!” At last she was silent, grim, thinking hard, still shaking her head in disbelief. “We have to stop this, Kynn. How are we going to stop this?”
“Can't you take over?” asked Kynn, almost angrily, “I mean you've got the whole mother-ship, the landing pods, the satellites! You’ve got everything up there!”
The face on the screen looked grim and grey. “Didn't you know? About a year ago he put security codes on every major system. I can't release equipment; can’t defrost; can’t set up a Drop; I can’t do anything without those codes.”
Kynn slumped, her head dropping hopelessly towards the screen, but she rallied a little when Dr K said fiercely, “Listen, I'll do what I can from here! The fact that we're in touch means he hasn't closed every loophole. Not yet! And first off I'll see if I can lock him out of this channel. And I’d better see what weaponry they've currently got; try to anticipate his next move; see if I can confirm the damage the Supials reported. Oh! And I've got some very interesting news for you!”
Kynn sat up. “What?”
“It's not fully confirmed, Judkins started picking up on it a while ago...”
“On what?” Kynn was terrified of more evil.
Dr K drew a breath, then continued, “... th
at Supial DNA is almost a perfect match with Human DNA. Entirely too close to be a coincidence.”
“Why? What does that mean?”
“Kynn, haven't you ever wondered? Their language. Their humanoid shape. Their social structures. Their technology. We probably have the same ancestry, and very recently too. Of course it didn't ever penetrate his head.”
“But... but they’re aliens. It's not possible.”
“Have you ever heard of... No, of course not. YouR parents never let get any decent books.”
For a moment Kynn reacted as her father would have, “They were protecting me from evil! The Evil Orb was crawling with insane ideas, false gods, bad science. Only we knew the Truth!”
Dr K was still there on the screen, silent, shaking her head slowly, sadly. Kynn felt her little bubble of outrage quickly subside, saw it for what it was. She sagged on the seat, rubbed at her face, feeling tired beyond measure. Her world was once again rolling away from under her mental feet. For a few moments she though she was going to fall right off the skimmer.
“Kynn, my dear, you couldn’t help being born into a world of such constraint and ignorance... No, worse than ignorance, it was... no, I won’t go there. Listen, we can't talk any more unless I relay through the satellites and I don’t think it’s worth the risk. He might have them monitored.” She glanced away for a moment, probably reading the orbit-clock, “So I'll call you again at nine forty-two tomorrow morning. Meantime you just hang in there. Once I hear from Judkins we’ll definitely be taking it to your father. He’ll have to believe us then.”
Kynn just nodded, disbelieving, as Dr K’s image dissolved into static, followed a few seconds later by her voice. The connection was now effectively dead until the mothership orbited back into a compatible latitude. Kynn reached out a quivering finger and shut off Channel 9, then the screen. Gradually the sounds of the Supial village came back to her; the murmur of voices; the clucking of chookies; the babble of children, but despite all that she still felt terribly alone.
REVELATIONS
MICA WAS HAPPY, TELLING his brothers how he was going to build his loving-house, “I think maybe here, and we'll make a space underneath for her flying canoe. She has to take it out into the sunshine each day, you know, because it’s a plant. She will park it just there and fold out the leaves, and I'll be sitting right here to watch her....”
It had been five days since they had returned home and his brothers were already rather sick of it. The Talk was going around; that Mica had gone crazy. And worse was said, too; ugly things about Humans. But his bothers never agreed with it, at least publicly. He was their little brother, after all.
Kynn, meanwhile, was in the Women's House, politely learning to weave while she learned more of the language from Lorikeet and the others. “So,” she asked, finally risking a direct question, “exactly how many Old Books are there, Lorikeet?”
“Twelve, but there are more kept hidden in the Sacred Place, they say. One day we will get them all here.”
Kynn forgot the weaving, “What Sacred Place is this? Where is it?”
Lorikeet seemed cagey, “Far away, many days walking. A secret place for women only. Every girl goes there, to become a woman.”
“What is there?”
“It is the Sacred Place. I am not to tell.”
“So the books you have? Where do you keep them?”
“They are safe. We keep them well.”
“May I read them?”
“Not yet, Kynn Wheeler Human. They are our treasures, and our past. You are still a Human. Perhaps later, when you grow fur.”
Kynn was annoyed by this, especially coming from a girl as young as herself, if not younger, but she kept quiet and went on weaving, listening, waiting for the time of her next call from Doctor K.
Mica was waiting for her outside, as he always did, and they walked together to the skimmer. Mica was happy, skipping along, talking of his plans for a house, and Kynn let him babble, lost in her own troubled thoughts. There was something that was bothering her; something said or something done, and it had happened right here in this village during her first visit.
Lordie, she was so innocent then! Bringing in that silly kids’ book of Wordolord stories, without the pictures, and getting so upset by....
“That’s it!” she said aloud, in her own language.
Miaca looked at her sideways, “What is it, my lovie?”
“I ... I’ve just had a good idea for the house. A, ahhh ... a moon window.”
Mica was happy with this and Kynn went straight back to her own excited thoughts. They were able to read my book straight away! How?
THE SKIMMER WAS IN the sun with its solar panels out. She was early, or the call was late, and as she waited she felt herself dripping and running with sweat under her dark green coverall. If only I could cut off these sleeves, and make the legs shorter....
“Of course!” Flipping up the lid of the utilities-bin she dug out the medical kit. Sterilised scissors. Two pairs. She broke the seal on the bigger pair and began at once on her modifications. Mica watched, fascinated. As each tube of fabric came free he took it and tried it on; poked his hands through; tried to look through them. Then he took to sniffing them. That was enough for her. Silently she took them and stowed them away in the ute-bin. I really should check all this equipment... she began to think, just as the skimmer-com beeped.
She quickly shut the seat and sat upon it to receive the call. Doctor K appeared on the screen.
“Kynn,” she began at once, her voice as troubled as before, “things are starting to happen. First off they took the survey plane out yesterday. Do you remember the place where I first emailed you? Well they flew to the exact same spot, landed for a while, then came back. Any idea why?”
Kynn tried to imagine her father and his soldier boys plodding around the edge of the river with their hand-held scanners, while hungry monsters surging out of the river every time they got near the signal. She began to laugh, a thin hysterical sound on the edge of emotional disintegration.
Doctor Nam was alarmed. “Kynn, what is it?”
Kynn tried to pull herself together. “Them,” she spluttered, “trying to find me...” The uncontrollable laughter returned.
“Kynn. Kynn! What’s up with you! Stop it!”
She finally stilled her shaking gut, took two deep breaths, and told the story.
“But Kynn! You could have been killed!”
Kynn laughed. “Guess I was a bit crazy that day.”
Dr K shook her head and said no more. Kynn could see the concern in her eyes, and her admiration too. Kynn suddenly had a terrible thought.
“So, did they... did they all get back safely?”
“No idea,” huffed Dr K crossly. “He didn’t even mention it to me, and of course I couldn’t ask and blow your cover.”
“What do you mean? Have you...?”
“Sorry, I’ve been meaning to tell you: this morning he called me, person to person. We talked for some time.”
Kynn’s heart seemed to stop. “What did he say?”
Dr K was deeply angry. “Oh, you wouldn't believe it! Purely routine! Not a mention of the massacre! And I couldn't say anything of course! Anyway the main point is he was ordering me to get ready for another Drop.”
Kynn slumped, worried. “A Drop? What did he ask for?”
“Mostly aviation fuel, a couple of flamethrowers, and five more soldiers. All loyal young innocents like the last lot, of course. In fact he’s ordered so much stuff that the pod will be too heavy. Get this: he wants all the remaining fuel.”
“But what if the pod crashes?”
“Huh! Try telling him that! No, my concern is that we started this colony with enough fuel for three careful years and it's virtually gone already – squandered on God only knows what. I'd love to know why he wants so much fuel... Well actually, I dread to know.”
“To find me,” said Kynn quietly.
“Eh?”
Kynn s
ighed and rubbed at her face, “It’s something I’ve been expecting. I mean, he virtually knows where I am. He’s already got the coordinates for most of the local villages, and this – of all places – was where I took that final run, the day before he... he...” Kynn didn’t finish the sentence. Hastily brushing tears from her face she drew herself straighter on the seat and continued, “so, I mean, it stands to reason; sooner or later he’ll try them all. He’ll want to get me back in that horrible box.”
“So why were you in that village in the first place, Kynn? You never told me.”
“About three months ago, in Ocean Village, I met...” Kynn's throat began to choke up and she couldn't go on. After a few uncontrollable shudders of grief she pulled herself together and continued, “I met an elder who told me about her 'Old Books', as they called them. I had to know more, so I printed out a children’s book and brought it here as a present, for her.” Kynn began shaking again.
“Was that the old one who was ... who died?” asked Dr K gently.
Kynn nodded, still weeping. It had only been four days since the funeral.
“There won't be any more deaths Kynn,” said Dr K firmly. “I'm doing my best to stop it. It’s a bad situation, but I think we’ll get through.”
“I wish I could believe that,” cried Kynn bitterly, “I wish I could!”
“Once we can secure those codes, we should be able to...”
“Ah!” shouted Kynn, suddenly sitting up, her grief interrupted, “I've just realised: I think I know where they are!”
“The codes? Where?”
Then she shook her head grimly and slumped again, “We'll never get them.”
“Where, Kynn, where?”
“In his Wordolord, inside the very back cover. I just got this mental picture, I saw something written in there, oh, months and months ago, before all the trouble. Numbers. I thought nothing of it at the time.” She shook her head again, “We'll never get them. We haven’t got a chance.”