You knew and let them settle anyway. You didn’t even try talking to the sea dwellers first? Arucken asked, in disgust.
Malik continued without stopping. I told the colonists not to go. I tried to send them away. Ryla would not agree.
At the thought of the colonies leader, the broken body flashed in front of Arucken’s eyes. Malik winced, in pain and his thoughts jumbled. He took some time to gather them back.
They’ll kill you. The moment you go back out. Another acceptable loss! I don’t know what they expect you to say, or what could save you from that. They’ll kill me, the moment they learn what happened. They didn’t know what to do when I was sent back...a complication, I guess.
Good friends! Arucken retorted, before he could stop himself. Malik laughed. It was a dry, hacking laugh that went on far too long whilst it clung to the weakness in his lungs.
Didn’t realise your kind had any concept of that!
We can learn! Arucken said. How many soldiers did you send here? Where are they taking the people?
I may have missed out on some of the later planning. It was impressive how much contempt could be in such a simple sentence.
A much more welcome voice blossomed in his head.
I’ve done it! She is in the skies and on her way! Heck, that took a lot. Where are you?
And Malik, raised up a hidden arm and spoke into the receiver with a voice Arucken didn’t know he still had.
“The other one is here. And she’s bringing their ship.”
Lily: All the things are scary
Bug man left her, taken away by soldiers. Ryla was dead. Just like the parents she couldn’t remember. She pretended sometimes that they were in space having adventures. They’d come back next week, bearing lots of gifts and stories.
Lyndon held her hand and his hand was not scary or rough. His parents looked scared as they walked behind the soldiers. It was a long walk through the forest, and Lily had not been this way before.
She’d been told not to go this way, ever.
She’d tried to tell Lyndon’s mum that but Morgan had said to be silent. She looked scared. Everyone was scared. Even Trin was scared!
The people all around her were scared and their feelings were everywhere. It made her want to curl up in a ball and hide forever. It was hard to still be walking, when her body was telling her it was all very wrong.
The tall, grim and scary soldiers were everywhere! They didn’t speak to the people around them, even when one girl begged them for water. Trin tried on her behalf and the soldier threatened him! Waved a gun in his face and spoke angry, angry words!
It was a long walk, and Lily’s legs hurt more than anything else had ever. She was too frightened to speak. She’d tripped once and Lyndon pulled her back up without letting her wipe the dirt off her knees. She thought if she fell again, they’d leave her behind.
They saw a ship, and the doors lay open and on the ground, folding out like unfriendly arms. The earth around it was torn up, as if a giant had wanted to crumble some in its fingers. She didn’t think ships were meant to land here. The earth looked broken, and sad.
She’d seen a ship before, but this didn’t look the same. The ship they had arrived in had been a brilliant white, the people in it very friendly. One of them had liked to feed her biscuits and called her a little sparrow. She didn’t know what that was, but it wasn’t her. She was a flower. She’d told the man that lots, but he hadn’t listened. Maybe a sparrow was another name for flower?
Words could have lots of meanings she knew. Synonyms. She was proud of herself for knowing that word, but adults sometimes were weird when she said a word or asked a question they didn’t know. Or bizarre. Or peculiar.
She was proud of herself for being clever, but being clever in her brain didn’t make the new ship any less scary. This planet was great! Why were they leaving?
The soldiers led them up and into the ship. It was very, very cold. None of the people had been allowed to get warmer clothes to dress in. Lily bet the soldiers realised how wrong they’d been now. It was silly not to listen.
She thought she might tell one of them, but Ryla had said to check with her before she asked too many questions. Then she remembered Ryla was dead now. She burst into tears but Lyndon told her to shh.
She sshhed. But it wasn’t easy.
A soldier put them all in one large room, and a hatch to one side opened. They began pushing through rations and drinks and the adults all clamoured to one side. Trin gathered up the children again, but his hands shook. She thought she saw shiny tears in his eyes. They were pretty little jewels.
A small door to one side showed a small space toilet. Lily hated space toilets, but her body was talking loudly now about her need to go. She let go of Lyndon's hand and rushed across, announcing to everyone in her way what she had to do.
When she came out she looked for Lyndon again and found him with his mum and dad, to the edge of the group of children. They were talking in low voices, and Lily soon found a question. It danced around in her mind until she let it escape.
“What’s a synonym for refugee?”
Urgency
Eland had stopped responding to verbal cues a while ago. Kerris eyed him with amusement as he studied the scribbled notes on boards all around the small room. He was an impressive find in a rural community. His knowledge was extensive, although he was not always that great at communicating it. Still, he more than made up with enthusiasm.
An older man, not far from Ryla’s age. He was of the same generation as her she guessed, a more nomadic lifestyle that meant care of your body and strength was vital. Constantly switching planets to share knowledge. She could respect that.
He’d been completely shocked by their findings, a small settlement at the base of the mountains. He’d commented on how they’d not even thought to explore this far yet, their knowledge considered definitive.
Looking at the discarded tools and half-finished projects Kerris wondered what else had been concealed. They were not the first here, nor even the second.
He made occasional comments under his breath, but they were not to her. She left him to it, searching for items to knock together and find a way to contact Octavia. She could barely contain her glee, and some of it spilt across a rather fragile connection to her partner. She hoped it cheered him up. They’d agreed on minimum connection, it drained them both too completely.
The caves were chilly, her stiff fingers threaded the wires together, fitting on the outer shielding material. She refused to dwell on what she knew to be more than just issues with the cold. Her body obeyed her orders, for the most part. Time would fix the delays. She was here. She was fine.
Grief was a pit inside her, and she skirted the edge of it. She would not think of her sister either. Or her parents, hidden away from it all and lied to.
Kerris sighed. Her mood had been quick to drop. She would see her ship soon enough. She missed Octavia and the streaks of new stars visible from the small portholes. The daft little song the washing machine made when it finished, and the ping of a new message as the projects poured in made a melody that gave shape to her life. People asked for the expertise only they could provide but no-one had believed their partnership would succeed. It hadn’t for so many of the others.
What had happened to the others in that programme? She was afraid to ask.
A sending came from Arucken and she saw the large, grey human ship landing down. She updated him on their progress, fingers still moving, and then the communication broke away.
She forced her fingers to move faster and said aloud to Eland. “A ship has landed outside. Any clue?”
Eland did not look up. “None. Arroyo tends to ignore us. Even when they shouldn’t.”
She wasn’t sure what he was decoding, but it had been holding his attention the whole time. Just scrawls to her, odd diagrams she couldn’t interpret.
It took some time, but eventually she had a working communicator. Horribly basic, set t
o send a signal to Octavia to bring her in to land. She'd need to add the encryption, a long sequence of characters that she only had any chance of remembering due to the pairing. She wondered what enhancements, if any, Arucken had gained?
Now that it was harder for him to hold back, she’d have to ask him.
She smiled, reminding herself to give him the space he’d always given her. Yet he did not have to know that!
A burst from Arucken, powerful but muted, came through. He explained in quick bursts of emotion, hiding panic. It hadn’t occurred to her, stupidly, that the new ship would be dangerous. She’d thought it was help, finally arriving.
As fast as I can. I’ll bring her. Stay safe. Always! she answered.
She felt his relief, and then he left her. Bereft, she flexed her stiff fingers and returned to her repetitive task.
“Be ready to move.” She warned Eland. “There’s trouble!”
The older man sighed, placing his hands to the base of a back that had bent over the writings for hours. So intent on taking in information he barely heard her.
“Always is!” came back a terse reply.
When Kerris was certain she had the correct encoding she pressed the button. She waited anxious, awful moments for the confirmation. The lights on the board shot up, two blue, and she could imagine Octavia’s welcoming chime echoing through the chambers of the empty ship. She’d heard, and was coming back to greet them.
She explained to Eland, dragging him reluctantly away, as he filled his arms full of the loose papers.
They hurried to the base of the mountains, looking around for the place where the ship would be landing.
Octavia was smaller than the ship she’d seen in Arucken’s memories, and didn’t need an area anywhere near so large. Landing without a grid was risky, but it was the only choice. She soon spotted a likely area and walked them both to a place to wait a safe distance away. Eland looked regretfully back at the cave, muttering about needing to go back. There was a lot he argued, still to be discovered.
Kerris gave him little response, her eyes scanning the skies for her ship. It seemed like months she’d been away, not the couple of weeks it had been. She loved the planetside journeys, they thrilled and livened her like little else did. Yet sometimes she felt she only took these missions so she would experience the joy of coming back to Octavia.
The ship came, with a quiet roar and burst of air. A neat little ship, and lighter than most. She dove through the clouds like a falcon, a little faster than if Kerris had been at the helm. This playful descent set Kerris’ heart racing. Octavia was a hybrid in many ways. So much of her was new.
The ground here had not been meant for ships. Smooth as the landing was it still tore into the earth. The force of impact sent a shock across the ground and Kerris stumbled for a moment. Eland swore as he dropped a roll of paper and she left him racing after to reclaim it. The air slapped across her face, taking her breath away in an instant. Then the rumble of her landing faded, and Octavia daintily extended a long silver ramp.
His paper retrieved, Eland stood back beside her, Eland’s eyebrows rose so high she was surprised they still remained on his face. He murmured some praise under his breath, but she did not hear its exact nature. He shuffled eagerly up the ramp, his arms full of bundles of paper.
Kerris followed after, and Octavia retracted the ramp, sealing them inside. She led Eland into the main living space. The air inside was a little stale, tinged with the normal faded scent of Arucken’s odd concoctions. She breathed it in gratefully, shedding the jacket she had needed for the cave and throwing it over the back of her chair.
Eland stared for a moment, and she realised he was the first human other than her that had ever seen the inside of Octavia. With no time to be curious about his reaction, she rushed to the cockpit to make the preliminary checks before departing.
“I can’t imagine what your life must be, travelling with one of them.” Eland shouted over at her, at a volume far more than was needed. He shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Kerris decided not to point out it was designed to mould to a nestling form. There was a reason she would chose instead to perch on the smaller chair, to one side. The couch was awful.
She knew better than to open a discourse on hers and Arucken’s unusual partnership. Although better than the planet-bound taken up in the purge, she had met colonists like Eland before.
The attitude saddened her, but she’d long since learnt there was little point arguing. A touch of xenophobia, a brush of racism or insistence on a gendered imbalance. There were contradictions and arguments in every human colony, and it wasn’t a messenger's job to point that out.
Her stiff fingers worked the controls much easier than her makeshift communication device. It was good to be back, although the air of Octavia felt a little heavier after the air of outside. She set the filters on higher, since Arucken was not here and moved the ship back upwards. If she hid in the clouds, she’d be harder to track.
She investigated the ship first, it was still on the ground and easier to pick up from the sensors. It was much larger than she’d thought from the second-hand images, plenty of room for all the colonists and more. Which accounted for the many lifesigns she scanned aboard. She cursed, but not quietly enough. She was powerless. Any damage Octavia could do would only endanger all lives inside it. There was no way to be selective.
And if Arroyo had truly revoked the colonist’s rights, then she would be considered an outlaw besides. She was helpless.
“What is it?” Eland had asked, raising his head from a document covered with calculus. He looked lost, as if the world outside his numbers was not as real to him.
“Relocation.” She answered, and Eland clutched the papers tight against himself as if it were a shield. His pain was evident.
“I’ll keep you with them.” She promised. “If it’s safe. We’ll do what we can, whatever happens.”
“Bit outside your remit I’d have thought.” He muttered, still in shock. Then he paused, staring down at the document again. “Put me back in the cave!”
She looked at him, in disbelief. “I'm not leaving you stranded!”
“So check on me when this is over.” Eland begged. “Leave me supplies. I’ve got to check this out!”
“No.” She said quietly. “I can’t spare the time.”
Eland pointed out the bare moments they had been in the sky. His voice was cold, but he couldn’t suppress the passion behind it.
“I guess there isn’t much human left to you then.” Eland said, his voice raising to a broken shout. He gathered the papers up and stormed off to the nearby room. It was the spare, she noted, so she didn’t argue. She was tempted to lock him in.
He hadn’t even asked about the other colonists.
She considered the colonists, their stake to the land here. She’d seen how keen they had been after they had fled the hall. A rough land with the beginnings of cultivation. The will the people had shown here was incredible. Arucken’s patchy communication had been difficult to make out, but she didn’t think the colonists would choose to leave their new home.
Eland didn’t respond to her knock on the door. A little aggravated, she sent an announcement on the loudspeakers. It was a daft little system for such a compact ship, but useful now.
“No.” He said shortly, opening the door for just a few sentences. “We’ve all moved enough. Sea monsters be damned; this is our home at last!”
He slammed the door shut, and she winced a little. Octavia might not know enough to know pain, but that wasn’t a sensible way to treat a hybrid ship.
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