The young dark haired girl drifted around him, rushing up to the adults and tugging clothes. She demanded explanations for everything, but few people gave her the attention she craved. Dressed in the odd smock all the children wore, hers was a vivid red. Someone had attempted to tie back the long wisps of her hair.
“She’s a little lost.” Ryla said to Kerris, noting where her gaze landed. “Lily, she’s called. Her parents died a few years back, and we all take care of her. But recently…” she shrugged. “Who can answer so many questions? The others need us more. Even Trin struggles with her.”
Her nod indicated a young man untangling a child’s angry hands from around his own neck. The low murmur of his voice matched slow and easy movements. His light blue shirt hung loosely above plain dark trousers. His only adornment was a slim band of silver encircling one wrist, although his black hair was more than long enough to merit a braid.
“He lost his partner on the journey over here.” Ryla said in a hushed tone. “We have all seen loss.”
“I didn’t mean to offend earlier.” Kerris said. The words felt wrenched out of her and she did not meet the older woman’s eyes.
“It’s not me you’d offend.” Ryla said, her voice warm but tired. “I just...a spark is all it would take here. We are a mixture here, all kinds of beliefs and backgrounds.”
“Understood.” Kerris said, after a pause. A subtle approval came from Arucken, though he made no visible sign.
A woman called to Ryla from the corner and with an apologetic smile she left them both. The smells of cooking filled the large hall, and Morgan beckoned to them. Cross-legged on the floor, Jiang passed round large bowls of warm soup to waiting hands.
As they sat to eat, a small shape flung itself at Kerris and soup spilled across her arm. She cursed as she moved it away from the child. “Lily?!” she exclaimed.
“Where did you go? Were the creatures out there? Did you find Serena?” the questions poured out of the child like a flood, and she paid no attention to the spilt soup. Kerris noted some had splashed across the child’s front, making a disturbing darker patch against the red.
“We explored! And no, to both.” Kerris responded as she took a towel Trin hastily passed her and made futile attempts to clean up the child. She noticed Arucken grinning to her side, and although a few adults looked across at them none made a move to help. Lyndon she saw, was occupying both his parents as they tried to coax him to eat.
“We saw animals.” Arucken volunteered, around a spoonful of soup. He grimaced as he ate, but made no comment. Human food wasn’t always easy for him. “They spoke differently.”
Lily’s face lit up like the sun. She pulled herself fully into Kerris lap. Kerris swallowed a curse and gave up trying to clean her. She picked up her bowl again, steering it away from the child. She had long since learnt never to waste an opportunity for food.
“How strange? What happened?” Lily demanded.
“Don’t you have food to eat?” Kerris asked, struggling with her own around the wiggling girl. Arucken grinned at her again, raising one eyebrow. She ignored him.
The child was completely unable to stay still. It was like a large, annoying kitten wrapped all around her.
“Nope!” Lily responded, with glee. “The animals speak weirdly don’t they! I think they changed them like everyone else.”
“What did you see?” Arucken asked. “When the creatures took you?”
Lily paused. Her voice was small. “I don’t remember.”
Movement caught her attention and she leapt from Kerris’ lap, across to where a tearful Morgan and Jiang restrained their kicking child. The bowl lay overturned to one side, the contents spilling across the floor. That was another thought Kerris didn’t want to dwell upon. The children here were all so thin.
Lily watched the fighting child for a few moments before picking up the bowl. She began taking it to the stack of dirty ones in the corner, but stopped halfway. The bowl dropped from her hand, forgotten. It lay there for a few moments before a short dark man scooped it up as he passed, laying other used items to the top of the worktop and beginning to clean them. Robotic movements spoke of long nights without rest.
“We need to go outside once dark.” Kerris said, more for those around them pretending they weren’t listening. She knew Arucken would have reached the same conclusion. It was the only action left.
Morgan approached them not long after, arms crossed in front of her and displaying a fresh crop of bruises. “How can we help?”
“I’m guessing you don’t have stealth items?” Kerris asked. Morgan shook her head. The colonists signed up for a sure thing, lucky to be amongst a select few. They weren’t well equipped in any way to be dealing with this.
“Good luck.” Morgan said. “Do you want...I could ask…”
“The directions are good, and we remember the way.” Kerris said with a smile. “We’ll find our way fine.”
You don’t have to send someone else back there. She thought to herself.
Traumatised! Arucken said, although her mind interpreted the label in human terms. She wondered how it would sound in his native language. Did they even have that phrase?
They left the hall again as the sky began draining of colour. A few heavy clouds lay on the outer edges of sight, with small pinpricks of light scattered across the night sky. The frozen air cut sharply across their uniforms, chilling exposed skin and lifting hair from the back of her neck. An uncanny stillness held no animal sounds, the land holding its breath.
The land and sky lay empty. With the heightened senses Arucken was lending her this came to her as terribly lonely, a wasteland where it should be full of unfamiliar noises and movement.
As they approached the shore, they followed the dim glow of the markers. Small solar cores shone against the line leading towards the shoreline. The markers led them to a small nook in the rocks, peering out she could see the waves washing across the beach. It would have to do.
The rocks they sank against cut into their backs, and no amount of shifting made them comfortable. Brief glimpses of the moon revealed white caps where they broke on submerged rocks further out at sea.
They watched in silence for what seemed like hours, careful to keep still against the rocks. A small creature, many-legged and covered in a rough kind of fur scuttled across Kerris’ leg at one point. She tensed, but it paused only to dip one furry leg in the top of her boot before moving on.
A sharp rustling noise, and tiny high-pitched sound suggested it had found prey. It was the only sound to break the silence, other than the soft rush of the sea against the pebbled beach.
As Kerris moved to bring sensation back to her aching back, Arucken stilled beside her. A light touch to her arm indicated his direction and she glimpsed outlines rising above the waterline. They emerged slowly, holding a rectangular item between them. In the dim light the images rippled a little to her eyes, making them almost wraith-like.
Taller than humans, two figures with large heads and arms. The moon kept hiding behind the clouds, showing brief patches of motion.
The two figures dragged the item up to the beach, pulling in fits and starts. They did so in complete silence, taking no time to look around them. How had they not grown wary since the casualties? Losses had happened on both sides.
Arucken tensed but Kerris tapped his leg twice in a denial. There was nowhere safe to edge closer, despite the creatures’ lack of awareness.
Kerris risked untangling her lens from the slim bag held tight to her body. She raised them to her eyes, shielding them from moonlight and focused them on the creatures.
The dim outlines gave little information, although there was a suggestion of tubing across the length of their rather stubby necks. They appeared to be wearing wetsuits of some kind, a tight fit that billowed out at the sleeves and neck.
They pulled the featureless block and left it resting on the sands, leaning over to point it towards the moon. The creatures settled to eith
er side of it, cross legged and still. The machine must be taking readings of some kind, or possibly, Kerris realised - broadcasting. It was calling to the children.
We need to stop the broadcast! She thought to Arucken.
The figures bolted upright, spinning towards her. The one to the right raised a gun and Kerris flung herself sideways. A bolt of energy crackled between them, lighting up the air around them in a vivid shock of orange, revealing Arucken crouching to the other side. As it burnt around them, shocks cascaded across the stones and driftwood. It stank of something she did not recognise.
Kerris dropped her lens in haste, drawing her pistol and raising it up to sight. She crouched to one side behind a large rock. Orange sparks obscured her vision. She was reluctant to fire back, even had her vision been clear to do so.
In her moment of blindness, a second volley hit. It fizzled across her chest, crushing against her ribs. The pain was instant, she dropped her weapon, hands spasming. Her heart stuttered, a jarring leap from one beat to the next. As she dropped to the sand she reminded herself desperately to breathe.
Outside noises ceased for Kerris, and she became aware they’d stopped firing as her partner ran towards her. The thunder in her head pounded against her forehead. Her whole body shook, about to shatter at any second.
Arucken raced to her, pulling her body towards cover. Shards of feeling pierced her skin as he dragged her across the rocky shore. They echoed in the background, as she struggled to pull new air into her lungs. She couldn’t understand why the gunfire had halted.
Had Aludra felt like this?
Her body fought with all its power and it was slow, so slow. Arucken gathered her up in his arms, stumbling away from the beach. She caught glimpses of Arucken’s broad worried face as he cradled her in his arms. She could feel him trying to reach her mind, it was invasive and urgent but she could not hear the words or answer.
When vision settled she tore breath after breath of new air into her lungs, she could never get enough again. Arucken placed her gently to the ground. She crawled to one side and vomited, dizzy whilst on all fours.
She pulled herself to her feet, swaying and Arucken steadied her. He made no comment but she felt the concern in every touch of his mind. Key to his species, pain may be wordless but those close to you still gave comfort from the periphery.
She began by counting each step, but soon lost the number. By the time the door came into view the journey consumed everything. Arucken cursed for a moment, an odd deep sound in his throat, before he remembered the sequence of knocks that allowed them access.
The light hurt her eyes, it was awful. The shock of it went through her head, sending stabbing pains behind her ears and neck. She blinked and then pulled herself more upright. Too many years of concealing injury, she could not allow herself peace now.
Jiang cursed, calling to Ryla and his partner. Kerris began shaking, crossing her arms together to keep bits of her torso from flying away.
“How are you…. come in!” he said, leaning forward to grab her arm. Arucken waved him away, guiding Kerris to one side where she swayed in place. Ryla peered into her eyes, her eyes wide and concerned. The muffled touch of her fingers ran along the length of her arm and neck.
“I don’t understand it...but you’d better rest.” she said. “Do you think you could drink?”
A dark face pushed past, shouting into hers. Kerris gasped, losing hold of Arucken’s arm before someone caught her again. The woman’s voice rose to a scream, fingers clawing into any part of Kerris she could reach.
More than one of the children shouted, or screamed. It was all confused, jumbled into each other.
The woman's eyes rolled back into her head and her body fell like every string had snapped. Ryla and Jiang caught her falling body, but not before Kerris saw the needle Morgan pulled away from the woman's arm.
"It's hard to see a stranger standing when her partner has gone to ash." Morgan said, her eyes following as Ryla and Jiang pulled away the unconscious woman. Kerris blinked, but the smoke across her vision did not fade. Her body tingled all over with tiny aftershocks.
A few voices queried Arucken as he led her towards the corner of the room, his torso rumbled but she could not understand the words.
He helped her onto a bench. She stared at her hands, the shape of them unfamiliar to her. It seemed as if they should be alive with sparks and ripples. Breathe was a cold knife to her chest, each one striking through her.
A blurred shadow was the only warning as a small person launched her way across to them.
"I'm sorry bug man! Nia is always angry now." Lily said, as she clambered onto Arucken’s lap. The colours of her clothes splashed against that of Arucken, and Kerris shook her head but it did not fix her vision. She couldn’t tell if the child was still wearing red, or whether that came from the haze across her vision. She blinked, her eyelids slow and heavy, but her vision did not clear.
"No need to be sorry, flower girl." Arucken said. He kept his tone light and easy as he helped Kerris to sit down. This child had already seen far too much.
Kerris lay propped against the reassuring weight of her partner and closed her eyes. She ignored the water offered her. She couldn’t drink, and they soon stopped trying to make her.
"I'm glad you are back bug man! I made a picture to show you!"
She held onto the solid, familiar weight of Arucken against her, his slow breath easing in and out his body. So easy.
A muffled rustle of paper came to her ears. They began discussing the artistic merits of the picture. The noise was a small island, in the greater movement of the large hall. She could hear other conversations, providing a disjointed background track.
Lily continued to point out her pictures, her voice was light, and friendly. Sometimes she stuttered, repeating words over and over until a gentle touch or reminder from Arucken set her straight. He made no comment, just content to listen to her as she spoke.
And it was to those cheerful sounds that Kerris slipped away.
Understanding
Arucken listened to the small human discuss her picture. He had never paid much attention to the art of his own species. A human trait, this urge to document everything, even things without words.
Part of his mind thought about the creatures’ reaction, the moment Kerris spoke mentally. Was that their only form of communication?
If they could hear her voice, they must also have felt the echoes of her pain.
Kerris settled beside him, her presence a warm comfort in his mind. This faded as she fell asleep, her chest rising slowly.
Slowing.
Arucken shot up, turning round to catch his falling partner. He pressed his hand against her rib cage. He barked for help, forgetting, and then reworded into human language.
The child leapt up also. She pulled at his arm, pointing to her picture. He shook her off and she fled.
Ryla ran up, pressing her hand to her side as if it pained her. She stared down at Kerris. “We didn’t...no-one has got this far. What has happened?”
“Heart” he said. Ryla began chest compressions and mouth breathing. He’d done the same before, but they matched up poorly. Human to human worked better.
It left him standing there, useless as they fought for his partner’s life.
He felt her thoughts as a weak confusion, far worse than when she’d shut him out following her sister’s murder. At least that silence had suggested an intact mind behind it.
Kerris! He called to her, fear rising. All the memories, all those feelings, even those he’d never let her touch or see before bundled up in his thoughts. When they’d first met, in the clinic, the despair and isolation. The humans were too alien, too wrong to him and he couldn’t connect.
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