by Tarkin, Mika
“How do you stop the Wild once it comes out?”
“You can’t. Not really. All you can do is to let it burn itself out, to starve it. The fear and the hate and the rage that it causes only make it stronger. If you try to fight it, you’ll only create an unstoppable monster.”
“The thing in the Dynasty compound.”
“Exactly. It was a Halian that was alone and afraid and trying to get out of its prison. When someone finally came, they tried to hurt it.”
“Where did it go?”
“Nobody knows. It probably wandered around in the woods until the Wild left it.”
Naeesha got up from the log and looked towards the camp.
“You’re sure it’s safe?” she asked. “They won’t want to hurt me for everything I’ve done?”
“I wouldn’t go telling them that you were in the Alderoccan military, and I can’t promise that nobody will want to hurt you, but nobody will. They truly are a peaceful people. You’ll see.”
***
The doubt in Naeesha’s mind did not last long. As soon as she and Marko emerged from the woods, there was a swarm of Halians all around them. The feelings that she felt from them were overwhelming at first. Happiness and relief like she’d never felt it before. Curiousity, too.
Marko addressed them in their own language. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, but she could feel the Halians’ emotional response go from concern to relief to wonder to pleasure to grateful friendliness.
“I told them that I walked very far over difficult ground, that I found you in the mists, and that you told me where to find a camp for our people. They are eager to meet you. This is the first time that many of them have seen a human.”
“I’m happy to meet them too,” she said cautiously.
She’d seen many Halians, but never this close. They always made her uncomfortable. Their unblinking third eye in the middle of their foreheads, the supernatural calm that always seemed to float around them, even in the middle of firefights. Their deep red skin stretched over long, lithe bodies.
They all seemed warm and friendly, but Naeesha couldn’t separate what she felt now from what she’d felt after so much fighting. She was grateful that the Halians couldn’t feel what she was feeling. If they could, they probably wouldn’t be quite so trusting of her.
“Follow me,” Marko said. “I need to give my report.”
The crowd before them parted, and Naeesha could see the Halian tent-city with new detail. All of the buildings - some of them quite large - were made out of the same heavy canvas. The tents were so close together that it was impossible to walk between most of them, and they formed tight, curving canyons of cream colored cloth through which she and Marko walked.
A cloud of curiosity followed wherever they went, a barrage of secondary emotions close behind.
She was more than curious herself. She didn’t know much, if anything, about Halians outside of the battlefield. Seeing little glimpses into their world only heightened the sense of mystery that surrounded them. She gathered that they ate and drank and needed shelter, just like a human or a Watcher would. They had beds - although they looked more like nests than what she was used to sleeping in.
The biggest tents, she realized, were the Halian’s sleeping quarters. They were big open spaces, a few fire pits in the middle, the outside of the tent ringed with sleeping nests and packs and clothes. Closer to the middle was sitting areas, small tables, Halians crowded around and talking to each other.
One tent must have been their dining hall. It was filled with long tables, and the most incredible smells drifted out from it. When she walked by, it was empty except for a few people moving around in the depths of the building.
The city was, as far as she could tell, completely primitive. There were long lines of people walking through the street with buckets of water and other goods on their heads. She didn’t see any electricity or high technology. There wasn’t even anything with a motor, as far as she could tell.
Marko lead her into a bigger, more open part of the city. A market, she guessed. The tents here were all colorful. People in plain tunics with bright belts around their waists stood out in front of the tents shouting into the crowd. She had no idea what they were saying, but she could see people going up to the tents and leaving with something tucked under their arm. What was strange was that as far as she could tell, no money traded hands.
“What is this?” she asked Marko.
“The town bazaar. Everybody brings whatever they’ve made or grown or foraged and give it to one of the organizers. The organizers make sense of what the town has, and help people find what they need.”
“How do they decide who gets paid for what?”
“Paid? The Halians don’t have physical currency. The closest thing they have is reputation.”
“Aren’t there people who take more than they give?”
“Sure,” Marko said,” but the Halians believe that nobody has to earn the right to eat. Come, we’re almost there.”
They left the bazaar and went down another winding street. This one was wider. The tents were further apart, and all of them were empty except for a large round table. She noticed that people were beginning to file into the street behind her, and they turned into some of the tents as they walked past.
Marko lead her to a small tent at a dead end in the street and beckoned her inside. A few Halians walked inside and they all sat down around a big wooden table.
“This is the small circle. Anybody who has news to share comes here and tells the others. Then -- we’re ready to get started, one minute.”
A huge Halian with brilliant white tattoos over all of his arms and chest rose and began to speak. There was an undeniable force to his voice. It boomed in the small tent, filling the space. Naeesha could feel awe from the others around her.
The big man sat down after a moment, and another Halian stood, spoke, and sat down. The response to their message was largely happy.
Then Marko spoke, and everyone was joyful.
Everybody in the circle spoke their turn, and when the last person had shared, the all stood up and filed out of the tent. Marko hung back with her and they walked out together.
“Now we go to the big circles and share all of the news that we have learned.”
She followed him into another tent that was already filled with all sorts of Halians, big and small. Marko didn’t wait for a moment before talking. Judging by the rapid shifts in the feelings around her, he must have been going through all of the news in one fast, unbroken speech.
A second after he finished, the room erupted with speech and an indecipherable noise of emotion.
“What are they doing?” Naeesha asked.
“Discussing. Now comes the mixing. The entire community will discuss the news for five minutes. Then, everybody moves to a new tent with new people, and the discuss the news. After an hour, everybody has talked to everybody about everything.”
“Then what?”
“Then we eat.”
The next hour went by in a blur. Naeesha couldn’t follow any of it, not even the feelings. There were too many, too fast. Marko tried to keep her updated, but it was impossible with so much going on. She didn’t even realize that they had finished until she walked out of her tent and everybody was funneling out of the street.
She and Marko followed the crowd through the bazaar. Many Halians stopped and picked up huge baskets and carried them through the streets. They were all headed to the same place. The hall that she’d seen earlier.
It hadn’t seemed that big before, but even after every Halian in the city was inside, there were still plenty of seats to chose from when she and Marko walked inside near the back of the crowd.
“Here,” Marko said. “I want you to meet my friend.”
He sat down in the middle of a nearly empty table next to a Halian child who was so excited to see Marko that Naeesha could feel it over the noise of thousands of other emotions. They talk
ed for a minute, and the child turned to Naeesha with a smile.
“Hello,” they said with only a trace of an accent.
“You speak Alderoccan?” she asked.
“Marko taught me. My name is Kiran.”
There was a contagious amount of excitement in every part of the child. Their voice, their feelings, the way that they moved. It was a lot just to take in.
“I’m Naeesha. It’s nice to meet you.”
Without warning, the child jumped up from their seat and ran off. Naeesha leaned across the table and asked Marko a question that she’d always wondered about.
“The Halians,” she said. “Do they have sex?”
“Frequently and unabashedly,” Marko said.
“No,” Naeesha said, trying not to imagine the entire dining hall erupting into a spontaneous orgy. “I mean do they have like, boys and girls?”
Marko laughed.
“Anatomically? Yes. But it doesn’t map onto a cultural or social concept for them.”
“Er, what do you call them?”
“‘Them, they’, that sort of thing. Or just by their names.”
“Weiiiird.”
“Just different. You get used to it.”
Kiran returned out of the crowd.
“Here,” they said. “I brought this for you.”
It was a small wooden figurine, beautifully carved. It was a little bigger than her fist, and depicted a sprawling tree with small creatures all around it.
“Thank you,” Naeesha said. “It’s very pretty.”
“I made it myself!” Kiran said.
Naeesha looked the child over. The figure was breathtaking - as good as anything that the greatest artists in the capital would have made. And this child didn’t look older than ten.
“Kiran is a very talented woodcarver,” Marko said. “I keep asking them to teach me.”
“I tried!” Kiran said. “You just have clumsy Watcher hands!”
Marko held his hands out in front of him, turning them over and inspecting them with great concern.
“I guess you’re right,” he said gravely. “What will I ever do with these ponderous paws?”
“Well you’re good at stickball,” Kiran suggested. “At least, you’re good at hitting.”
“Aw, thank you Kiran,” Marko said, quite genuinely.
Their interaction was so easy and effortless. She’d never seen Marko be effortless with anyone before. He’d always been sort of cold and rigid, and look at him now.
Naeesha started to wonder if maybe the Halians had changed him for the better.
Chapter Twelve
“How’d you like dinner?” Marko asked as they walked through the streets. The sun was going down and the Halians were slowly making their way back to their tents. Naeesha seemed more at ease than when she’d first arrived at the city. It was hard to be nervous and suspicious when you were surrounded by so much peace and contentedness.
“I had no idea that food could taste like that,” she said. “That was incredible.”
“I told you,” Marko said. “The Halians are amazing cooks. Even Watchers like their food.”
“Other Watchers have been here?”
“Not here, but I’m not the first to break ranks and join with them. That’s how I learned their language. One of the elders had been with another clan who’d taken in a hermit.”
“How do they do it?”
“I don’t know. It’s something about the way they do everything. They don’t think. The just do. Kiran’s skills as a woodcarver? They’re not atypical by any means. The Halians are a precocious people.”
Naeesha looked around, looking a little confused.
“Then how come they live so primitively?”
Marko turned his head and took in the teeming city. He’d never really thought of it as primitive, but now that he looked at it another way, he could see what Naeesha meant. Nearly everything that the Halians did was done by hand. Even when they had machines, they rarely chose to use them.
“That’s a tricky question,” he said. “For one thing, these people are refugees. They’ve been moving around every few months since they got to this world. The things you see, they’re what’s essential to their way of life. They simply can’t afford to bring anything else with them.”
“Oh.”
“For another - they’re perfectly happy to live simply. They tend to each others’ needs, and spend the rest of their lives enjoying the communities that they’ve built.”
“That makes sense. They all seem so happy in spite of everything.”
That was a sort of dangerous half-truth. The Halians were masters of their own emotions. They could find happiness in anything - and they did. But it didn’t change the fact that they were standing on the brink of destruction, trapped between the Alderoccans and the echoes of hate that still chased them.
“So what do we do now?” Naeesha asked.
“Well,” Marko said, we’re moving the camp tomorrow morning. Everyone is settling down, getting some rest, and packing their things.”
“I’m already packed, and I don’t think I could sleep if I wanted.”
“I feel the same way,” Marko said.
“So?”
Marko looked into Naeesha’s eyes. She was already regaining some of her spark. The crippling withdrawal was working its way out, and he could sense her spirits lifting. It was hard not to feel better when you were with the Halians. You couldn’t help but feel what they felt, to see the world as beautiful and hopeful as they did.
“I know,” Marko said. “I want to show you something.”
“Well, lead the way.”
The streets were nearly clear except for a handful of Halians lingering at the tents of their friends and families, talking excitedly about the impending move. Marko had noticed a shift in the feelings around camp. There was a sense of loss and longing when word got around that it was finally time to leave, but it was nothing compared to the excitement to make something new.
The Halians had gotten so accustomed to packing and moving and rebuilding that they accepted it as a part of life, and cherished every new opportunity to do things a little better than he had the time before. He admired it, and wished that he could have had the same mindset every time that he’d moved following Naeesha around Alderoc.
They reached the edge of the camp, where the tents met the forest. It was almost dark out, and even Marko felt a sense of ominous dread as he looked into the blackened forest.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“You aren’t afraid of the dark, are you?” Marko teased.
“No,” Naeesha said. “I’m afraid of having my arms and legs torn off by a treegar or a tuskwhale.”
“Well tuskwhales are diurnal, so they’ll all be sleeping. And the treegars haven’t bothered us at all. I think they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”
“I’m serious, it’s dangerous.”
“Naeesha, life is dangerous. Now more than ever. I don’t know where you’ve been for the last three years, but this world has been killing itself for a long time now. The damage is done - all that’s left is to wait to bleed out. You can stay behind if you like, but I’m going to enjoy every minute that I have left.”
He hadn’t meant to come on so strong, but it was something that he felt powerfully about. All the time he’d spent thinking that he could keep Naeesha safe, he hadn’t realized how dangerous the world had gotten. He’d started to think that “safety” was something he could make. Now he knew the truth. Safety was just something that happened to you. It was entirely out of your control, no matter how uncomfortable a truth that was to realize.
“Fine,” Naeesha said. “But if we get eaten, know that I’m blaming you.”
“I can handle that responsibility,” Marko said. “Now follow me.”
He stepped into the darkened wood, following a narrow but well worn path through the underbrush. It lead around ancient trees, over trickling streams,
and up soft and shallow hills. The sky above them was grey-green and ever shifting. Shreds of moonlight filtered in through the trees and lit the forest floor in a soft silver glow. Every now and again, the canopy would part and they could see into the sky. The stars out here were so brilliant that they always made him cry.
They doubled back up a steep hill that rose up in the other direction, tapering to a cliff face that jutted out just above the trees. Many residents of the Halian camp had found this place and come by themselves, or with lovers, but tonight, they were all back in the city, together.
He and Naeesha climbed the steep final stretch of the hill, drifting above the canopy and stepping out under a sky of brilliant stars. The Halian tent-city was just below them, and the twinkling of camp fires was like another bit of sky, stretched out over the meadow.
“It’s beautiful,” Naeesha said.
“It is.”
“Thank you for bringing me.”
Naeesha’s voice was soft and distant. Her eyes were fixed on the sky, and Marko saw a side of her that he hadn’t seen since they were both practically children.
It was a part of her that hadn’t been hardened by pointless destruction. A part that looked for beauty and purpose. A part that he’d hoped was still alive somewhere in her heart. The starlight breathed new life into her eyes, and every breath she took seemed to restore her, bit by bit.
“I’m glad you came,” Marko said. “I missed you.”
Naeesha kept staring at the sky, breaking her gaze after a moment and turning towards him, the stars still trapped in her eyes.
“I missed you too,” she said. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”
“I… I thought the same,” Marko said, sadness filling his heart.
He’d never put that idea into words. It had never occurred to him that he actually believed that Naeesha might be gone.
Leaving was a mistake. He hadn’t been thinking clearly. The weight of his mistakes clouded his mind and he’d left for the forests, hoping that he could do something to heal the damage that he’d done as a soldier. In some ways, he had managed to make amends, and he was happier for it. But no amount of good could replace Naeesha, and every day apart from her had hurt like death.