Debris & Detritus

by Robin D. Owens

  The empty time before the man had come had stretched into an infinity of quiet moments, and Debris and Detritus began to realize how much he did not know. Did not understand concepts he should be able to grasp but made no sense.

  Debris and Detritus did know of time intervals. The brick courtyard with a sundial behind his not-street-facing walls measured time. The previous mobile beings had told him of time and the sundial when it had been built. That instruction, and the bit of Flair they’d sent him at the time, had made a strong enough impression that he could access it.

  But when the man had come and moved so quickly, Debris and Detritus had not been prepared. Especially since the man wanted to take away the powerful sparkling thing the last person had left. Debris and Detritus had swept a piece of flat stuff under his foot to slow him down.

  Now the house had two sparks on the floor, and it appeared that the one from the worked minerals—the brooch!—was stronger. That did not seem right.

  He did not know what to do, and he let out distressful creaks until the man made a terrible sound.

  Lady and Lord his back ached! Worse than his head. Bad enough that Zane couldn’t deny that he’d awakened from the chill of pain tears on his cheeks. Taking stock, he thought he’d be able to move; he hadn’t torn any muscles or broken any bones. Just wrenched the damn thing.

  Concentrating on keeping his breathing even and gentle, he let input lap at him and sensed the Flair of the Ivy brooch. The last treasure he could ever hunt and find.

  It lay on the floor to his right about two arm-lengths away.

  When the pain faded a bit, he rolled, and that didn’t seem to tweak his back as badly as he’d anticipated. He came up against a slight ledge. The odor of old smoke and soot filled his nostrils. Extending his fingers, he touched cold metal. He traced it, discovered a fancy pattern, realized it was a fire grate.

  His fingertips tingled this close to a great artifact. He refused to recall other times when his hands had nearly burned at the proximity of power.

  Stretching over the grate and into the fireplace, he tried to touch the brooch, failed, and felt the sweat of pain coat him. That would chill him fast in this cold house; better to keep his exertions normal.

  Rest again and wait. Don’t hurry and use energy he didn’t have.

  Greet. You, said a mature male voice.

  Zane jerked in surprise, let himself subside. “Who’s there?” But his own words echoed through the chamber, so he felt foolish. “Anyone?” The harsh grating of that word emphasized that the salutation had been telepathic, mind-to-mind.

  A Fam! His heart thumped hard. An intelligent animal companion. Lord and Lady, what a blessing, a being to help him get home.

  “Fam?” he croaked. “FamCat? FamFox?” He called out the most common Fam species.

  What is Fam? came the question, along with a long creak as punctuation, and his hopes plummeted. The building. This place had become intelligent, as happened to some after a couple of centuries.

  Lady and Lord. He couldn’t send the House to get help. And it sure wasn’t hooked into the network of intelligent dwellings, Houses and Residences, or it would know of Fams.

  Hope left him, and the chill pain of his body returned. He closed his blind eyes, let dampness ease the aching dry.

  Greet you. Hello. Debris and detritus. Please respond, mobile being . . . man.

  The odd phrase rang through his head, debris and detritus, usually leftover stuff after he’d finished a treasure hunt. Usually swept out to sea . . . or claimed by small ocean beings as dwellings. Odd bits that floated away.

  Couldn’t stay helpless on his back; he scooted to a pillar a few centimeters beyond the fireplace, propped himself against the column. Not an ungodly amount of pain, though his back did crackle during movement.

  The sound of rustling surrounded him.

  Finally, he croaked aloud, “Debris and Detritus?”

  YES! That is me!

  Definitely a telepathic voice, maybe not a hallucination, since he would never have imagined that phrase. Eh, he could talk until the last of the pain subsided, take the brooch and leave.

  “Debris and Detritus is you?” His voice sounded harsh and with an edge.

  Yes! Another creak punctuated the word.

  “Why Debris and Detritus?” Everyone else on the planet had botanical names, following the lead of the FirstFamily colonists who’d paid for the starships and the trip. Those colonists had formed the culture after what they knew of the Celts—and the twenty-five sacred trees.

  But the House replied, My former person . . . people . . . one, two, three, four . . . no, only three, I think. One, then two. They were scholars and studied . . . studied legends. Ancient legends of the foreland. The place not here.

  “Ancient Earth?”

  Yes! That place, and a place of that planet, Greece.

  Zane grunted. He knew a multitude of legends but barely recalled those.

  This notion of planets is odd.

  His throat tickled as Zane began to answer and he coughed. His chest hurt, felt a little soggy. Not good. “The humans—ah, mobile sentient beings like myself—originated on the planet Earth and came through space from there to here, this planet we named Celta.”

  The atmosphere around him thickened with heavy silence.

  What am I?

  “You are a House. Capital ‘h’ because you are becoming intelligent—that is, self-aware and able to communicate in a rational manner with other sentient beings.”

  Oh. A House. Long pause. What IS a House? Or a house?

  “A house is a building made by us mobile creatures to protect us. A dwelling.”

  I have a purpose! To protect a Family.

  “That’s right. From what I know of houses becoming Residences—” he cleared his throat where the damp fog had congealed, “HeartStones are placed when people—ah—mobile beings, want their homes to become sentient. The stones are blessed and, ah, given energy during rituals and such—” he pulled a hand out of a warm pocket to wave vaguely, though he didn’t know whether the House could sense the gesture, perhaps a ruffling of his atmosphere. “And after a time, a critical mass of energy or knowledge or spirit or something sparks, and you, ah, become conscious and intelligent.” Sounded good to him.

  So I was WANTED.

  “So I believe.”

  And as Debris and Detritus contemplated that in silence, Zane understood he, too, had been blessed. His chill lips curved in a self-mocking smile. He’d been more than blessed. He’d been arrogant. Had considered all the blessings of his life—his Flair, his career, his sight—as his due as a member of a Family who’d become noble within the first three decades of landing on Celta.

  What is a Fam?

  “A Fam is an intelligent animal companion who bonds with a person. Cats. Foxes. Dogs. Raccoons, I think, a couple of birds.”

  Animals.

  “Yes.”

  I know of this. A pause. Not humans and usually smaller and not bipedal.

  “Usually smaller. Think a horse or two has become a Fam.” Gradually, he began to stretch his muscles, test them, especially his back as he sat up straight, shoulders over hips. Easy does it.

  I am Debris and Detritus, the House said with a note of confidence not formerly in its tones.

  “Greet you.” If he licked his lips, the cold would crack them, but his mouth was dry. He rubbed a hand across it. “I am Zane Aster, of the GraceLady Aster Family.” Though the lowest of the noble ranks, ‘Grace,’ the early founding of his Family gave them better status. “And Debris and Detritus is a mouthful of a name; I’ll call you D and D.”

  That sounds . . . acceptable. A pause. Greet you, Zane of the Aster Family. Now the House sounded wistful. Another pause. We have exchanged names. What comes next?

  Suppressing a grunt, Zane began moving in increments. He pushed himself to a squat, crab-walked back to the empty space he sensed of fireplace instead of wall.

  Extending a hand trembling
with cold—had to be cold causing the shivering, not more futile despair—and his fingers touched a stone, rounded, no doubt a fabulous gemstone, for some reason the facets under his fingers, and the way it . . . resonated . . . made him believe the gem was a great round ruby. It pulsed like heart’s blood.

  Yes, now that he relaxed a little, analyzed his senses—undistracted by Flair—he felt glimmerings of the treasure that had brought him here.

  Zane Aster? What comes next?

  “Next I take this nice little bauble and hand it back to T’Ivy and collect the reward.”

  No!

  The whole house shuddered with a force that knocked Zane back on his ass, jarring his damn spine again so he sucked breaths through his teeth.

  You can’t go. You MUST stay! the House insisted.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I need a person. A Family. We belong TOGETHER.

  Zane paused. “You’re lonely.” He had a big, nosy, and noisy Family, all ready to mend him, though he couldn’t be fixed.

  I will think on that word and concept.

  Creaking to his squat again, Zane reached for the brooch.

  NO! Static electricity snapped through the room. Zane’s fingers curled reflexively, protectively.

  “Give me the brooch.” Gritting his teeth, he stretched, nabbed it. No electric jolt of pain that the intelligent Residence he lived in would have given him. Guess the House didn’t know it could do that.

  Drop a brick or a ceiling on Zane.

  Good.

  Bit by bit, Zane straightened to stand—hunched but upright. Soon he’d uncurl from that posture.

  Eyes open, he saw nothing but black but recalled the door opening. He glided one step toward it then the next.

  You can’t go!

  Impatient with being told once more this month what he could and couldn’t do, he barked, “You can’t make me stay.” Naturally, he didn’t have the strength to teleport. “I can kick in that door I mended.” He didn’t want to, and his physical strength felt subpar, his back ached.

  If you go you will— Debris and Detritus broke off.

  But Zane listened hard, knew the immobile being had nearly said something it might regret.

  I can tell you a secret.

  “Yes?”

  A long pause.

  The secret may make you stay.

  More quiet, until Zane broke it. “All right, I’m a treasure hunter, so I’m a curious man, tell me.”

  When the answer came, it was a feathery whisper in his mind. All who leave me leave something behind. It is the nature of . . . me. My being. My . . . Flair.

  That had Zane straightening to his full height, barely aware of his hurt back. His mind played with such a scenario a dozen ways, then he insisted, “That’s not all of your secret, is it?”

  No. If the person treated me ill, he loses what is most important to him. Loses more than if I like him.

  “I don’t understand that,” Zane replied curtly, but that sure explained finding the brooch here. “You just became aware,” he added.

  It just happens. I don’t do it on purpose. A pause. I don’t think, but if I’m upset—

  Maybe.

  “This always happens?” Zane’s voice cracked. He couldn’t lose the last of his sight, of his Flair, of both, and survive. Could not. Not today. Yes, the House had trapped him.

  He turned and pounded a fist on the wall, hurting his fingers. Didn’t care.

  Why did you do that? D and D asked.

  Zane refused to answer.

  I feel . . . heat from you.

  “It’s the heat of anger. You know of anger, ire, fury, don’t you?” Zane snarled. “Why don’t you think on that concept.”

  But he couldn’t stay still. If the House had been aware longer, Zane would have thought it bluffed. Couldn’t count on that.

  As he shuffled to the doorway, turned at the threshold, and walked down the entry hall to the main door, he strained to see. And to feel the object in his fingers as more than a brooch, a true treasure.

  Gray-shading-into-black sight. Nothing but shaped metal holding faceted gems.

  Face it. He’d already lost his sight and Flair.

  Today. Fligger.

  The tiles under his feet squeaked then the House said, You will lose the brooch and the reward if you leave.

  Minor compared to what he’d already lost. Almost he let his fingers release the thing. His lips curled before he replied, “It is not an honorable act to constrain someone against his or her wishes. To imprison them.”

  It is not an honorable act to abandon someone! the House shot back.

  “I’ll come back,” Zane grated out.

  I do not believe you. This time D and D’s voice whispered, so tiny Zane couldn’t catch any emotion from him.

  “Keep the brooch, then.” Zane let it fall. A wind whisked the artifact away. Setting his hand on the latch, he braced, shoved the door open, and followed it into a blizzard.

  His caught breath sucked icy air into his lungs, wind whirled around him, pelting him with snow. He saw white, and thought even if he’d had his vision, it would have been the same.

  MotherDam? he called with his mind.

  Nothing.

  No sense of how to go. He’d turned right into the house, but how many blocks had he walked since the last turn? How many times had he jogged left or right? He couldn’t recall because he hadn’t paid attention. First rule of treasure hunting, know where you were and how you got there, and he’d ignored that, sunk in despair. Big mistake.

  And if he stood out here more than a few minutes, he would die.

  If he tried to find his way home, he would perish.

  Turning in place, he sensed the quietness of the open door of Debris and Detritus, and returned, shutting it behind him.

  The lock clicked shut. He didn’t care. Didn’t even care when he heard inner bars slide across the door.

  You DID come back, the House said tentatively.

  “The weather is too bad. I can’t make it home in a blizzard. I have to wait it out.” He returned to the pillar and slid down it.

  Emotion radiated from the man in wild pulses beating against Debris and Detritus’s walls; small heat from that emotion sank into the House’s floor where Zane sat.

  The man did not speak to him further.

  What could the House do to interest him again? To make him think about the non-mobile being Zane shared space with?

  He had said he was a curious man.

  Debris and Detritus stretched his mind, considered all of his contents—the things transient people had left and those items the people who had made him had stored near his HeartStones, his brain.

  Papyrus instructions, ancient books, audios that D and D had not the skill to access. Memory spheres, but they were too odd and strange for D and D, experiencing the world as a human did. Vizes—recordings of his man and his woman.

  He could run a viz for Zane.

  Straining with the effort of a new ability, D and D projected the viz from one of the stones in his walls.

  There, there, three dimensional holographic images formed.

  “If I am Debris, you must be Detritus,” the man said.

  “What’s that?” demanded Zane.

  A viz, D and D replied.

  An ugly, spiky noise came from Zane, harder emotions flashed from him. “I’m blind, House, I can’t see a viz.”

  Oh, terrible that he’d hurt Zane. I am sorry, he whispered in his tiniest voice. I just wanted you to see my naming.

  The House sounded like a child, and its words stopped Zane’s futile and ironic laughter. He wiped his sleeve over the wetness on his face, lingering from the storm, his runny nose. Anything remotely like civilized manners were lost to him.

  The future looked—was—dim. Ha, ha.

  So may as well while away the time with the past while the blizzard raged.

  “Go ahead,” he said gruffly. “Play it, I can hear the dialog, listen.”


  Very well, Zane, came the high childish voice again. But then, in any terms, Debris and Detritus was a child, even less, a baby with only a full day’s awareness. The House’s first tones of mature and male were wrong.

  “Watch where you’re going,” boomed a woman’s voice. “You’ve broken the last vase. Left debris all over the floor. Well, I am not going to clean it up this time. It can sit until you do it!”

  “No, you’re a lump of inenergy aren’t you? If I’m debris, you’re detritus. The detritus that life has left of a woman,” said the man whose voice D and D had copied.

  A gasp, then a sniff. “Well, Mister Papadakis, I don’t think that’s very nice of you.”

  In a lofty tone, the man replied, “We are no longer Papadakis. We are the Family Parietaria, and I missed being a GraceLord by one percent.”

  Zane snorted. That sounded like an old excuse to him. The whole scene sounded well-worn, though it kept his mind off his aches and his future.

  The woman grumbled, “But you spend your days researching and writing about that ancient heritage of yours and too much time at night, too.”

  The man gave a sharp gasp, and Zane wondered if he’d gotten an elbow in the ribs.

  He found himself smiling; more, his back had loosened up, and he’d relaxed against the column. His shivering had subsided into occasional shudders, though his exhaled breath still felt warm against his face.

  “Fascinating stuff,” the man said. “I’m pretty damn sure that primal energies tagged along with us on our starships.” Followed by a hiccup that sounded drunk. Then words continued, “Small and large entities. Why not? Our main religion of the Divine Couple is not exclusive.”

  “An inclusive religion is a very good thing,” said the woman. “The easiest way for humans to pick a fight is to base it upon religious intolerance. We brought our religious fervor with us in many forms—”

  “Our beliefs. Energies might stick to those, form into what we thought,” said the male, more ponderous.

  “Or the major energies of the Divine Couple are real,” whispered the woman.

  “Who knows?” he grumbled. “And since you complained . . . ” A wet smooch . . . kissing?