by James Bow
Simon stepped up behind me, about to enter, but I put my fist to his chest. “No,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Wait. I call you.”
He understood, and held back as I stepped into the cool dark.
I smelled the musk of the Elder, but could not see her yet. « Elder? » My heart stuttered. Had I imagined her greeting? « Elder? Are you there? »
The Elder rasped, and rose from her nest. « Ek-Taak-Tock-Taak? Is that you? »
Did I imagine it, or did she take longer to heave herself upright? But her shape was so familiar, a liquid warmth ran through me.
« Elder! I am here. I have been to the invaders’ hives. »
The Elder stepped forward. She put an arm around me and tipped her forehead to mine. I turned my face up and touched my nose to hers. For a heartbeat, everything was as it should be. I felt small and protected, like a new hatchling.
The Elder stepped back. « So, you have seen for yourself. What have you learned? »
« Much, » I replied.
The Elder drew back, shocked and proud. « How? Did you get inside? Were you captured? Did you escape? » Her voice dipped lower. « Did they hurt you? »
« No, » I replied. « I did not enter, but I watched. I heard them speak. »
« You did well, Fierce One! You are a good hunter. »
I allowed myself a smile.
Then, at the edge of my sight, I saw Simon silhouetted against the entrance. The wind picked up and rattled the broken metal of the huts. I looked up at the Elder.
I had to do this. I had walked half a sun-turn to the invaders’ hives and back. I had come to understand something the Elder did not, and Simon deserved to know, too.
In front of me, the Elder coughed.
« There is more, » I said. « I have brought someone for you to talk to. »
The Elder tilted one eye at me, then the other. « You … what? »
« A boy, » I continued. « From the hives. » And I gestured toward Simon.
The Elder looked. Her breath rattled. « You … bring … them! »
I had a choice then to try to calm the Elder, or tell Simon to run. I tried to calm the Elder. « No. Just a boy— »
It was a mistake.
The Elder roared. She leapt for the entrance, knocking me down in her haste. I scrambled after her. I leapt onto her back, but she was on top of Simon, bellowing into his face, her talons gripping his chest, threatening to crack his ribs. Simon looked so small, and so scared.
« Stop! Stop it! » I strained against her bulk. « He is my friend! You need to talk to him, and you must not kill him! Please! He is my friend! »
Somehow, my words got through to her. She stopped bellowing. She glared at Simon, snout to nose, her protruding eyes jerking to focus on him. For a minute, in that silence, we all stared.
Then Simon tried to smile. It looked far more like a grimace of fear. He tried to say something, too, but all that came out was a squeak.
I gripped the Elder’s shoulders, hard. « Get off him! »
The Elder snorted at Simon, then straightened up. I jumped from her back and helped Simon to his feet. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but I did not think it wise to say anything to him in front of the Elder, just yet.
The Elder swung her face at me. « You fool. »
I started to fold my arms across my chest, but stopped when I realized that was a Simon gesture. Instead, I pressed my hands to my sides and faced her. « We must talk. »
She snorted again, then stomped inside her hut.
I eased Simon to the wall. He fingered the cuts the Elder’s talons had left in his chest, through his stained white coverings. He was breathing heavily. His hands trembled.
“Are you all right?” I whispered.
“A ticktock monster,” he muttered. “A real, live, ticktock monster! And I’m still alive!”
I snapped my fingers in his face. “Do not call her that!” I did not have to tell him why. I tapped his shoulder with my fist. “Wait here.”
Sure that Simon was safe, I faced the Elder’s hut again. I breathed deep, and marched inside.
The Elder was stomping around the back of her hut. Her breath rasped. She swung at me as I approached, but now was not the moment to back off. I pushed her, hard enough to send us both stumbling back. She caught herself on the metal wall with a crash. Her breath rattled in shock and anger.
I was shocked that I could have pushed her so, but I was not through being angry. « He is my friend and you attack him? »
« He is one of them! » she snapped. « They kill! They steal! They drive us to extinction! »
I drew my breath in at that. The Elder did not know Simon. She had judged Simon by the shape of his skin — a shape I mostly shared. The sudden sense that I shared this guilt felt like a body blow. It was not fair that Simon should be so judged. But then, had I not done the same with Simon’s people? With Simon himself, at first? That realization hit with a second body blow. My anger flared.
« He is no different from me, » I snapped back. « I do not kill or steal! »
The Elder snorted. « You were brought up right. »
That was a silly answer. Simon had also been brought up right.
« He does not know, » I said. « He is good. He does not know what happened. »
The Elder snarled. « He will betray us! »
« He has not! He will not! »
The Elder brought her voice low. « You want to mate with him! Your judgment is suspect! »
« Oh, find a mate and lay eggs out of season! » I snapped. The Elder growled, but said nothing. Anybody else, she would have clawed. I looked her in the eye. « All I have said is true. Silly Strange Boy is good. He does not know what happened. He will understand when we tell him. »
The Elder looked at me. « Silly Strange Boy? »
« That is his name. Nothing I can do about that. »
Her talons flexed. She coughed again. I frowned at that. Finally, she said, « You know their speech? »
« Yes, » I replied. « The boy taught me. »
« Speak it! »
What was I to say? But after a breath’s thought, I tried. “I speak the invaders’ speak.”
« Stop! » the Elder snarled. « It sounds horrible in your mouth! »
I winced at that.
Then she exhaled and settled onto the ground, slowly, as though there was pain. « Bring the boy forward. We will talk. You will translate. »
I nodded, then turned to where Simon waited. I let out the breath I had not realized I was holding. I had convinced the Elder to set aside sun-turns of anger and talk to Simon. That was a relief. But a new fear rose: what were Simon and the Elder going to say?
* * *
SIMON:
Eliza emerged from the shadows. “Come,” she said. As we stepped inside, she added beneath her breath, “Careful. No speak like me. Anger her. I speak for you.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to anger her,” I muttered.
Gradually, my eyes got used to the darkness. The shade was welcome, even if the air smelled of damp, musk and slightly of rot.
The Elder sat in one corner. She was much larger than a human. Her legs were thick and muscular, but curled up into her body. Her scales gleamed blue-green in what little light came through the door. She had slender arms with claws — two wide fingers and a thumb — at the end. The inner joints of her fingers had fearsome claws of their own, as did her palm. No wonder Eliza touched me with her fists, and not an open hand.
In front of the Elder, a dozen rounded pebbles lay scattered. She scooped these up into her taloned palm and poured them out again, studying the patterns.
She looked up at me.
For a moment, we stared at each other, myself keenly aware that I was looking at the first intelligent alien I’d ever seen. Emphasis on intelligent. Emphasis on alien.
Then the Elder leapt up on her haunches and lunged at me. I flinched back, but she didn’t claw or strike. Instead, her nostrils flared
and she sniffed deep, while her snout did a pass of the air in front of my torso.
She settled back and chattered.
Eliza took a deep breath. “You afraid.”
I stumbled to put together an answer. “N–no.”
Eliza clicked the word back, and the Elder chittered again. Eliza translated. “Wrong word. I smell fear. You people full of wrong words. Spring from mouth like water from mountains.”
Wrong words. Lies. Full of lies.
“All right, I’m afraid!” I licked my dry lips. “But I don’t need to be, do I?”
The Elder clattered.
“I kill you,” Eliza translated, and I dearly hoped she’d missed a “could.”
“But you won’t,” I said, fervently. “Yes, you’re strong enough and you have sharp claws, but you won’t kill me because you haven’t, yet. You’re willing to hear me. You’re good enough to give me a chance.”
The Elder rattled. Eliza didn’t translate this. I looked at her and saw her grimacing. I looked back at the Elder. She shook with the noise. To my horror, I realized she was laughing.
The laughter continued a long moment while Eliza and I waited in fearful silence. Then the Elder looked up at me and spoke.
“Good,” Eliza translated. “You right — I good. I tell you true self. I give-you-a-chance.” Eliza said it as if it were one word. “I give-you-a-chance. Again. I wrong give-you-a-chance before.”
This wasn’t going well. Desperation drove me forward. “Look, I don’t know you. I’ve never seen any of your kind. I mean you no harm.”
The Elder let out a snort, then fired questions and accusations at me so fast, it was all Eliza could do to keep up. “You not harm? You harm all! No more for harm.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I’ve never seen you before.”
“Your mothers. You people. You do this.”
“Do what?” I said, bewildered. “What did we do? You attacked us! You were the ones who attacked my colony when we first set up, over sixty-two years ago!”
The Elder snarled. “Yes,” said Eliza.
“But why?” I said. “Why would you attack us?”
The Elder spoke. “Because you harm,” said Eliza.
“What harm?” My voice edged up in alarm. “Landing here? We didn’t know this was your planet—”
The Elder’s laughter cut Eliza off in mid-translation. For a moment, I could only stare as the Elder laughed long and hard. I lost my temper and shouted. “What’s so funny?”
She looked up at me and snarled.
“Not our place,” Eliza translated.
I tried to parse this. I couldn’t. “What?”
“This. Not our place,” Eliza said again. I noticed she hadn’t translated my question. She must have thought I’d misheard.
“You were here—”
The Elder clicked and snarled. Eliza’s calm voice provided the words. “This. Not our place. You bring us. Through sky.”
I blinked. “Through the sky?”
More clicks. “You. Your people.”
“But … how—”
The Elder clicked furiously
“Our place,” Eliza translated. “Clear skies. Many islands. Great water. Our place. Our place. Our home. You kill us. Take us to this bad place.”
Planet, I realized with a shock. The word Eliza was rendering as place. It was planet.
I took a step back. “No … That’s not possible.”
But: Oceans. Islands. We’d been promised a blue world. An ocean world dotted with islands and broad salt flats. We didn’t know what had happened, and that question had lingered uneasily in the back of our minds all these years.
This didn’t make sense. And what the Elder told me next filled me with horror.
“You came,” Eliza translated. “You fall from sky. You make us great sickness. We died and we died. Then us — so few, us! — you bring us. Here: bad place. All of us. All of us die.”
I stared at the Elder as I finally understood what this meant. “But that’s … that’s genocide!”
Just saying the word made my stomach lurch. It was a word we hardly said on our colony, but which all of us knew. “It’s from the worst days of Old Mother Earth. We swore, when we fled, never again! We would never do that again! Not to anybody! Ever!”
The Elder chirped something, but Eliza didn’t wait to translate. “You did.” She looked at me, grim-faced. “Your people did, Simon. See here. Look here. We here. Only us. Only us here.”
I stared at her, stunned. It was horrifying and confusing at the same time. I stood accused on behalf of my people of destroying an entire civilization.
Eliza and the Elder stared at me. Eliza had that same look on her face as when she’d woken me from my nightmares about Rachel. The Elder cocked her head. She leaned forward and sniffed deep. She said to Eliza, « He does not know. »
« I said so, » Eliza replied.
« How could he not know? »
« They did not tell him, » Eliza said. « Perhaps they did not tell themselves. »
The Elder leaned back on her haunches. « Then we must show him. »
Eliza kept her eyes on me. She started to say, « I do not think this is a good— »
« Take him! Show him! »
« I do not want— »
« Show me what? » I said.
Then I realized my mistake.
The Elder hissed at me. Eliza looked horrified.
For a moment we said nothing. Then the Elder stood up, slowly, shakily. Eliza looked alarmed and rushed forward, helping the Elder to her feet. The Elder waved her off, then lumbered to the door, her heavy feet hitting the metal floor with a fleshy smack. She paused at the doorway, and did not look back at us.
« Show him. » Then she vanished into the fog.
Eliza didn’t look me in the eye. She started for the door. “Come, Simon. You see.”
I grabbed her wrist. She flinched.
“You knew this,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me when you found me?”
She turned slowly to look at me. “You not speak me.”
I didn’t let go. “But what about when I learned how to talk to you? You knew — when I asked about monsters, you knew.”
She hesitated. She took a deep breath. “I not want. Tell you truth.”
“Why?”
Her eyes bored into mine. “Because truth make you monster.”
She yanked her wrist free and walked out of the hut.
I followed her into the village. We came to another hut, which had also been kept in better repair than most. As I stepped to the opening, the Elder emerged and, for a second, we were face to face again, with me staring right into those teeth. The moment froze. Then the Elder stepped aside and extended her claw toward the darkness within.
I took a moment to prepare myself for the unknown, and ducked inside.
I couldn’t see right away — it was so dark — but the smell hit me immediately. The place was full of something. The musky odour of the Elder was thick here.
Nothing moved. I started to pick out shapes among the shadows. There were small mounds evenly spaced across the floor, like row upon row of lumpy kickballs. I could see patches of white, now. First I thought that the mounds were actually piles of spheres, then I realized they were slightly oblong, carefully stacked, surrounded by cobwebs … no, pouches. They looked like … eggs.
They were eggs. Dozens of them. But why were they here?
But then I thought, if there are eggs, why aren’t there babies?
Behind me, the Elder spoke and Eliza translated. “These …”
She didn’t know the word.
“Eggs,” I said.
“Ekkz,” she said, then tried again. “Eggs. All eggs laid in this bad place. Put here.”
My mouth went dry. “They don’t — why don’t …?” I switched languages, afraid the Elder would kill me, but needing to know. « Where young? Eggs dead? »
« We keep them dry, » the Elder rep
lied. « They will not die if they stay dry. But they will not — »
That word must be hatch. I missed something here, and waited for Eliza to catch me up.
“They need great water.” She said. “ Special place.”
A special place. A hatching ground. We’d taken these people from their hatching ground. We really had killed them all.
I could feel bile rising in my throat. For a moment, there was just the breeze whistling past the empty openings and rattling the loose roofs. Genocide. The most complete form possible. The evidence was right here.
The Elder chirped, but I didn’t really need Eliza to translate. “What you say now? When you see this. Here. What you say?”
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. Then I closed it. Finally, I said, “Nothing.” I swallowed. “Nothing. There is nothing I can say.”
The Elder spoke again. I translated it before Eliza said anything: « He understands. »
The Elder lumbered away. Eliza looked from her, to me, then back again. Finally, she followed, leaving me alone.
I stared at the eggs a while longer, then pushed away. I stumbled past the abandoned huts, picking a direction at random. I needed space to think. I didn’t look where I was going, and so, being me, I hurt myself. I stubbed my toe on a metal strut.
I jumped around, grunting, clutching my toe. Frustrated, I gave the strut a kick, which did the opposite of help. Then, after I’d massaged the pain away, I knelt by the strut. I ran my fingers along the rusted surface.
It was bigger than I’d expected, big as a tree trunk. One end was buried deep in the ground, and the other rose up at a forty-five-degree angle, losing itself in cloud. With the size and the weight of the thing, I imagined it stretching up until it rested against the chasm’s cliff face.
The ship, maybe, the deportation ship that had brought the Elder’s people here. Clearly they’d had some human tech to scavenge. But it didn’t make sense. If we’d stolen their world and sent them to this too-bright, fog-bound hell, why were we in hell ourselves?
The Icarus had crashed almost instantly on jumping to this system. When would we have had time to organize a … genocide? It was undeniable, but it made no sense.