Although his stomach was in knots, Arucken became free to move towards the schoolhouse unnoticed. Humans were quick to consider other species slow-witted.
He rapped on the door of the schoolhouse with his pebbled knuckles. Trin pulled it open and grabbed his wrist, jerking him inside. He looked close to tears as he slammed the door behind Arucken, wincing at the sound. A slim hand fell to his wrist, twisting a silver bracelet.
Arucken nodded to him, blinking in the dim light and spotted the sea dweller sitting on a child-sized bench in one corner, its long arms dangling. Around it the children played a simple guessing game, closing their eyes and naming. It was a low murmur of sound, the sea dweller a silent figure amongst the ring of sound.
The sea dweller stared at its hands despite the efforts Lily made to interest it in a picture book. An ungainly body, where everything was sized for a human child. The sea dweller’s head was close to the low ceiling even whilst seated. From the bench beside, Lily stood up and took several quick dancing steps in a zigzag towards Arucken.
“I tried to talk. It can almost hear me!” she said, her voice high and unsteady. She jumped with pride but stopped at Trin’s look of panic. Her face turned sulky and she thrust her chin up high. “It came to warn us!”
The sea dwellers eyes met his. Large and liquid and full of appeal.
I stand ready. Arucken said the agreed opening phrase, and it opened a flood of sensation that left him reeling.
He saw glimpses then of more soldiers, moving along the shoreline, recording things on tablets as they walked. A sea dweller greeting them, unable to distinguish between the soldiers and the colonists.
The sight of it after, burnt and still.
The one left behind, hidden to one corner behind the large rocks. Trapped, with no route back to the safety of the ocean. Fleeing toward where it knew the human colony lay, confused.
Thick strands of anger, but twisting with ones that urged caution. It recognised humans were a fragmented species, still arguing. Still in tiny groups. They had wondered before, but been grateful, that no more had come across from the mainland.
Lyndon and his father had greeted the sea creature, hiding it in the shed whilst the other humans were in the fields. Before the soldiers had come.
It had waited ever since, for someone who could talk back.
He sent it a stunned acknowledgement and it let out a gasping sigh, the first audible sign from them that Arucken had ever heard. Lily laughed at the sound, but Trin shushed her.
Can you call for Octavia? He sent urgently to Kerris. The light in front of him dulled. He placed his long hands to the hut wall to steady himself. He didn’t realise he was flailing until Trin ran up to him, steadying his shoulders.
Nearly. What is happening?
The soldiers here need to paint a target. Arucken said bitterly. And we make a good sacrifice.
He sensed the shock of her concern as he sent her the memories. Although faded from his own interpretation the reverberations of it reached her, and she sent back disgust and fear. At this distance, communication was hard.
As fast as I can. I’ll bring her. Stay safe. Always!
Kerris faded from his sense, leaving a void in his mind. In the emptiness several moments passed before he noticed the sharp whine of the gunfire outside.
The real world flooded back in. Adults shouting as a soldier barked orders to keep still. More shots followed after.
The children gathered in the hut moved into a tight circle, guided by the young male. They were silent, eyes downcast and bodies trembling. Trin met Arucken’s eyes, looking barely older than his charges. A small boy clung to his legs, his red hair burrowing into the clothing.
At the first sound the sea dweller leapt to its feet. It ignored his attempts to stop it, racing forward to peer out the window. Arucken moved beside, ready to pull away in an instant. Yet with all the movement outside one odd shape in the window was not spotted.
He stared out, heart sinking. The soldiers were everywhere, matching the colonists in lines to the far edge of the fields. The colonists moved carefully, abandoning tools to the ground. He saw one woman arguing as a soldier pulled her away from the chickens. A body lay sprawled to the ground, people openly sobbing as they passed it.
He remembered Lily’s question about why the sea people needed weapons that only worked on land. She’d thought it was funny. No memories remained of the process. It was all fuzzy, she said.
Arucken looked at the creature beside him, how its hands spread out on the window sill. Visible for the first time, a thin crest ran a line along its spine, the tips a pale blue, unfurled. It looked at him with a blank face, mimicking the odd gesture Lily had commented on before. Many times it signed. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
“Let the sea dweller out the back” Arucken ordered Trin, and the young man ran to obey. The sea dweller, bobbing its head fled outside. It shambled away, much faster than it looked. He’d seen that speed before. In the confusion, it went unnoticed.
Moments later, a soldier stood at the door to the hut. Middle-aged, her mouth a thin determined line as she scanned the huts occupants. The children surprised her but she looked Arucken over just once before commenting. “Didn’t think to see one of you here.”
“Didn’t think to be needed.” Arucken answered, keeping his voice low and calm. He took care to keep his hands visible and was grateful to see the young male keeping control of the children. He wondered how much these colonists had seen.
“Out. And be quick with it.” She indicated the way with the base of her gun, and Arucken led the way outside. The children walked behind him, subdued. The male at the end herded them like animals.
The colonists stood in a scary, ragged group guarded by a dozen soldiers. Streaks of fresh blood lay across several faces. The woman who had comforted Nia earlier cradled a broken arm, her face in floods of tears. Nia stood at the centre of the group, tight between two adults. They whispered urgently at her, whilst holding her pinned. It was having little effect he could see; Nia's eyes were blank pits of rage.
Jiang looked them over, showing no acknowledgement that the sea dweller was not amongst them. He seemed afraid to acknowledge the presence of his own child. Veerender attempted to smile at the children, a ghastly parody of his normal solid cheer. A single body sprawled at the side. Arucken knew he was not the only one scanning that crowd to work out who was missing.
Arucken could feel Trin trembling, where he pressed against his side and held his arms extended to prevent the children rushing forward. His charges looked across at their families with empty eyes, and some began sobbing.
“Mingle up.” The woman said impatiently, gesturing for the children to join their families. “Be no trouble, and all will be fine.”
After a heavy pause Trin began walking across, holding hands with two of the youngest and whispering encouragements. Lyndon looked across at his parents and took a deep breath before he too stepped in front of the soldier. He walked slowly, fighting not to break into a run and fling himself at them. Morgan was holding hands with her partner, her knuckles turning white.
A small shape stopped by Arucken, he felt the warmth of small hands wrapped around his knee.
“No.” he said quietly, not looking down. “Go to Ryla.”
“They shot Ryla!” Lily screamed, flinging out her arm at the body to one side. The soldier raised her gun and matched the child’s volume but her voice was far more in control.
“I don’t like shooting kids.” She said. “Get with the others! now!”
“Here!” The boy Lyndon called to her, tears on his face and Arucken shoved the small girl away. She ran sobbing, stumbling halfway across. Jiang took a few quick steps forward, snatching up Lily and returning safely back in line. No-one else now moved and Arucken stood alone.
“You need to follow me.” The woman said to him. He took a breath to steady himself, hands shaking. “I’m told you are the only one that can talk to these monsters.”
> She looked at his alien body and the judgement in her mind could not have been louder if she’d vocalised it. Arucken walked by her side, although he spared a look at the body they walked past. Grey hair with threads of white spread out from a broken body, thrown there carelessly like a discarded toy.
It was no good. The woman who saved his partner would not be making that same journey back. The complete stillness showed a body now lying empty, on crushed strands of grass. One arm was outstretched, her face turned away from him. He was glad of that. He tried to reach Kerris, but couldn’t find the strength needed. She was too far away.
They marched past Ryla as if she did not matter, as if they had not even noticed. Certainly the soldier by his side didn’t falter. Had she fired that killing shot?
He crushed his anger, daring a quick look backwards, although the long strides of the female made it only a glimpse. Soldiers herded the colonists through the forest, in the same direction he’d been earlier. Towards the ships. Without supplies, or pause, they marched. The children strung along with them until adults bundled them up into arms, still marching. Confused cries and marching feet, vanishing into the embrace of the trees.
“What is happening?” he dared, as he matched her stride. The woman glared at him, tapping the weapon at her hip as if it could fend him off. She grimaced.
“We’ve been ordered to evacuate this colony.” Her voice was tired but gave away nothing. Her eyes never moved from the land ahead. “You must have seen it’s already claimed. Weren’t you the team sent in to communicate?”
“So why stop the communication?” he asked, pressing for answers he was sure she did not have. She kept darting her eyes left and right to scan the empty area in front. A communicator strapped to the pocket at her chest kept him from taking any action. He needed to find out what they wanted.
He tried not to think about his partner, as if his thoughts towards her would bring her to the attention of these soldiers. Better if she lay forgotten.
“It hasn’t been working.” The soldier answered curtly, and he saw they were turning back towards the sea.
“They returned the children, restored.” Arucken argued. He pointed all the positive steps made, the communication and restored children, it was nothing but wind to the woman, and she made no further response to him.
They strode back towards the beach, and the burnt shell of the storehouse. The bays in front still lay empty. It felt odd to have the quiet surge of the sea in his ears, the faint cries of seabirds sounding wrong after the firing. The land could not remain untouched forever.
Sometimes he felt the island was solely made up of the journey between settlement and sea. A beautiful land in some way, but parcelled into such tiny pieces.
Two more people, dressed unlike the soldiers, stood in front of the ruined storehouse. Even at a distance he recognised them as the ones that had set it alight. He could hear the planks of wood creaking beneath their combined weight, as the soldier led him towards the arsonists. The damage seemed confined to the building itself, carefully controlled. He thought of the colonists, their children, and the race against the seasons. He tried not to let his anger show on his face as the woman came to an abrupt stop.
The pair of them looked at the soldier, smiling, and with a nod, dismissed her. She strode off, much quicker than they had arrived. Arucken watched her leave, his mind racing to connect the lines. He shifted his weight, watching the sea through the gaps in the planks beneath him.
“Look at us, nestling.”
He did, surprised to be named correctly. The two men in front of him looked similar, a light brown with thick dark hair. The one to the left was quite broad, his face showing signs of a life much richer than the colonists of Kalinaw.
Although his companion was leaner, a tightness around his eyes and a mean pinch to his mouth suggested the world could only disappoint. He tapped the prominent weapon on his hip and raised his eyebrows in an obvious meaning.
“I trust we won’t have problems, messenger?” he asked.
“Not at all.” Arucken responded. He kept his voice even, despite his fear. These two had turned upon their own companion, what could they need from him now?
“We are bound by the rules of interspecies communication.” he recited, just as if he were in one of the tests he had taken on his homeland, years ago.
“Ah yes. We.” The lean man responded. “A rare team of nestling and human, as I’ve heard it?”
As Arucken nodded, the broad man smirked. “And where is the fabled lady?”
“Sometimes it is more efficient to split up.” Arucken responded. He would not rise to their taunts, nor answer the clamouring anger of the weapons, held at their side. Weapons they’d used to kill their own. Hands that had set fire to the goods hoarded with such care.
He calmed his breathing, much harder without sensing Kerris with him. He was so keyed into her feelings he’d forgotten to take care of his own, without her to remind him.
“In you go.” The broad man said. His voice was a little hoarse, rough and tattered. He opened the damaged door behind him and Arucken paused.
“What do you want here?”
“You work in communication don’t you?” The broad man answered, growing angry. “Well then communicate! See what the bastards have left of him!”
And rather than be pushed, Arucken entered the darkened building.
The doors closed behind him. The air choked him, thick with ash and debris. As his eyes grew more accustomed, they started picking up on the shafts of light where the sun glittered through the ceiling. Torn open, unsteady and victim to the afternoon’s heat.
But it had stood for these days, he could only hope it would not choose now to come tumbling down.
His careful steps sent puffs of ash into the air and he made sure his breath was a whisper. As he moved forward he could see the metal shelving, their contents burnt but the metal that held them only charred. The skeletons lay around him, and he moved around the maze-like entities. A sound had caught his attention, a struggling, desperate fight for air.
And then a bundle, of rags and tattered clothing turned a face towards him that he’d last seen staring at the flames.
It was Malik.
So. They sent the nestling.
It was a brush against his senses, less than a child’s first whisper. With the richness of a long life, and a steady stream of determination it poured into him. In his weakness, Malik could hold nothing back.
They sent me back. Malik said, his touch so light Arucken began to fear he’d lose the connection. They said I’d be the one now. No more need for the children, or experiments. Not what I expected and there was no choice. You should have let me die.
You were dead! Arucken said. He could not hold back the memory and he felt the shock of it hit Malik to the core. In his weakened state, he could sense the man struggling to grasp the idea.
Malik coughed a few times, his breath rattling in his throat. Great shadows painted his eyes, hollowing them out.
In the silence of that he caught sight of thoughts that Malik could no longer hide.
You meant to frame them. Arucken said. You meant for the colonists to be killed, you needed an excuse to attack, one the Concordat would accept.
I thought we were just firing the storehouse! the grief and pain was overwhelming for a moment, leaving both of them gasping for breath. In it Arucken sensed a great determination, to push past a betrayal that had seen Malik left for dead.
How can you still trust them? Arucken asked, in disbelief.
Malik moved his broken body like sticks bundled together, shaking in awkward pieces. It is either that, or lose the whole planet. The Concordat wanted us to leave everything when we first reported the species. It was an acceptable risk.
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