She studied the shield but it was a technology she had never seen before. She regretted Eland, locked up inside her ship. He might have been useful now.
She hoped Octavia wasn’t playing with him.
Her mind worked furiously, distracting her from the impossible barrier in front of her. It looked to be the same technology as the guns, those the sea dwellers had been using. Those that the humans had used to shoot Malik, that the soldiers of Maylith Tara were now armed with.
Stolen tech.
She knew who she had to ask.
She abandoned the storehouse with a pang, turning back to lope up the long boardwalk and back to the pebbled beach. Her side was aching, her ribs sore and reminding her she was not yet fully recovered from her brush with death. She ignored her body’s warnings, just as she ignored those of her mind.
Damn you Arucken! It wasn’t easy to be that self-aware. It was only through all those ridiculous tests and the promptings of her own partner that led her thoughts that way. He had to be okay back there. She couldn’t accept any other conclusion.
She slowed to a halt by the side of the beach, waves lapping at her ankles. The salt air was a harsh scrape to the back of her throat as she breathed in deeply, the taste of it thick in her mouth.
A flicker of movement caught her attention and she dropped to the floor. She could see several human figures marching up the shore. The rocky pebbles were rough against her skin as she flattened herself downwards. They hadn’t spotted her, too intent on watching the seas.
She inched her way further forward across the rocks, as fast as she dared, until she reached a trio of large boulders half swallowed by the sea. She crouched beside them, her feet sinking into the sand and the chill water coming up to her waist as she knelt. Risking a look to the side she saw the group of soldiers stood with purpose, statues of blue and silver. There were at least six she could see.
She did not think they could be the colonists.
She strained her ears, frustrated at her inability to pick up any of the conversations. All she could hear was the waves, rushing against the pebbles and dragging them backwards. Seaweed tangled around her legs, damp and unpleasant but she was afraid to change her position. Her hand rested on the gun at her hip. Don’t let them spot me. Not here.
The roar of her own heart pounding was loud in her ears. She risked a look outward, and saw with relief the soldiers marching out of sight. They headed over the sloping path that led towards the Colonist’s settlement.
Once they were out of view she moved across to where they had stood, her clothes sticking uncomfortably to her lower half. Some careless debris from dehydrated food packets lay scattered but the pebbled surface retained no tracks.
She was bent down checking for any signs of the sea dwellers when both ships returned. They hung there above her, their vast shadows sweeping across her. She was the only human in sight. She was tiny.
“Messenger Kerris?” a message from one of the ships thundered across the shore. She couldn’t tell which one it came from.
“Trin!” Kerris answered in shock, despite knowing they could not hear her in return.
“And me!” An ebullient child shouted back. “We escaped the scary thing! Can we rescue bug man now?”
Lily: We can do it
Lily felt better once she’d eaten although the food was a bit rubbish. It was really plain and as it did not include cheese, she almost didn’t eat at all. She inspected everything though and it was all the same, so she had to eat or else she would die.
The adults huddled in small groups chattering. Angry lady was in one corner, trying to talk to the lady-who-liked-trees. Tree lady seemed too scared for talking, and didn’t even respond when Lily made the tree sign at her.
“Nia that just isn’t true.” Tree lady said. “We’ve all lost people we care about here. No-one knows what is happening.”
Lily stopped listening. She didn’t like those sort of talks. They made her think about her parents, and sad thoughts were thoughts to quash.
Quash wasn’t a sad word. It was a silly, happy, word.
She skipped across to the door they had entered by, but it was locked tight. An adult pulled her away and spoke sharply to her. It was a small man, fat and round. She’d asked him before if he was trying to be wider than he was tall.
“It’s locked you stupid child!”
“Lily!” Trin called to her, after giving the round man an angry look. He crouched to one side with Veerender. “Have you seen the patterns? I’m not sure they’ve done it right!”
“I’ll help!” Lily answered happily and came across to help him. The patterns were wrong, the lights and wires were all in the wrong places. She wasn’t sure why they’d torn the panel up over there, but she didn’t touch anything. She knew that wasn’t safe.
“It won’t do any good unless we can get someone outside.” Veerender answered. He was an old man, with a turban wrapped around his head. He had clever hands, she’d seen him carving wood. She wasn’t sure how he knew what hid in the branches and trunks, but he always did. He hadn’t carved for ages though.
“I’ve seen this before!” Lily announced, and then rattled off the sequence of colours and explaining whether they should be twisty or twirly or straight.
“Excellent.” Veerender said, when he’d finished. “But that is as far as I can take it.”
Then the doors slid open, all on their own with a whoosh!
The colonists froze, in complete shock. They hadn’t seen any sign of the soldiers for hours, and some of the conversations had been quite scary.
Lily raced outside, and someone behind her screamed. She turned back to shout.
“It’s okay! The scary people aren’t here anymore!”
And it was true. The corridors were all empty. The adults muttered to themselves and some of what they said was pretty horrible so Lily didn’t listen. She helped Veerender to open the big main doors, and when they got outside there was another ship that had landed beside them!
The soldiers knelt in lines and other people were holding them in place with guns. But then a friendly looking person came towards them, looking anxiously from face to face.
“Is Ryla here?”
“They shot Ryla!” Lily tried to shout, but Trin was beside her, begging her to be quiet.
Morgan went forward. She explained the same, but in less angry words. The soldier was sad. He asked them to walk forward and go into their ship, he promised to take them to the mainland.
Lily was a bit confused then. She just wanted to go home. Arroyo wasn’t home.
Finality
The relief in Kerris was so strong she couldn’t contain it. She shouted aloud, drumming her feet on the boardwalk. Octavia had not let her down. The sensors had told the truth.
The sheer power of her emotion must have bridged the void as she felt Arucken’s voice, weak, but clear.
Malik fell unconscious when they fired. Some shelving fell on my leg. I’m fine! But can you get me out?
I had planned to!
Kerris studied the storehouse, thinking about human patterns of thoughts and what she’d learnt before. She thought about what a clever little girl had told her partner about weapons and sea people. And grinned.
Hold fast! Can you give me your location?
Arucken sent it through to her. It was a fuzzy impression, of chiaroscuro battling with the blue light of the shield. He was lying to one corner, his legs and one arm trapped by some dusty shelves. The pain he relayed was dim, she guessed he was burning through his energy stores to keep himself from feeling it.
Kerris stepped off the boardwalk, and into the cool sea. The water folded around her, embracing her. It was shockingly cold. She sent an impression of herself out and flung it wide, in case any sea dwellers were near enough to care.
She opened her eyes underwater, studying. Lily had been right. The weapons made no sense for the sea people, and the shield was a human invention. It did not extend into the water.<
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She swam underneath, where Arucken had sent his location. It was clear to her, even when the water muddled her senses. She could point to him, and sense when he moved.
Kerris rose to the clean air underneath the storehouse, just to one side of where he was. Removing her knife, she hacked away at the weakened boards.
Arucken heard and started tearing at them from above with his free hand. After some minutes, his bleeding hands tore the last chunk away and she saw his face, panting wildly.
To one side lay a slumped figure, eyes open and staring.
Dead? she asked in alarm.
Better if he were. Arucken answered. But no.
I don’t think it sends a good sign to the sea dwellers if we kill their conduit, mad or not.
She felt his reluctant agreement. He looked at her, eyes filled with pain. She could see his pebbled skin, racing with a mixture of colours so close to the surface. From the dullness of his skin and eyes she could sense he was struggling to hold himself together.
She pulled herself up, swearing as a splinter pierced the skin of her palm. He raised a brow at her then, making a low amused rumble in his chest.
When you’ve composed yourself from that. A little help?
She laughed at him, relieved. She moved beside him, and pulled the heavy shelves away from his body. He shouted when they were removed, and she could see bright lines of a dull purple across his skin where they had cut through his skin’s thick surface.
Can you walk?
Not easily. He said to her, eying the hole she had cut through the floor beneath them. But swim, I can manage that.
Kerris helped Arucken lower himself into the water. He gasped when the shock of salt water flowed against his cut skin. He plunged down into it and she shot after, staying beside him but he did not seek her help.
He indicated her to go forward, and after checking that he was fine she darted forward. Although she was a strong swimmer, his kind had a higher lung capacity so she made the most of her greater speed. She was soon back on shore, standing up to fill her lungs with air. She stood there panting, her hands pressed to aching ribs.
A moment later Arucken emerged, shaking a little but standing steady enough. Kerris moved to support him as they walked, dripping, to the rocky side of the beach.
She reached out her hand and he took it, afterwards his colours became more alive.
They’d visited the beach so often in the lower light it seemed wrong to her now in the brilliant colours of daytime. It was beautiful in the sunlight. Different coloured stones and crushed shells made a rocky kaleidoscope that crunched beneath her feet.
Conscious of the timer ticking away on her ship, Kerris stopped at the shoreline and with Arucken’s consent, flung their thoughts out wide, holding nothing back. It was not the first time she had used their link that way but it was the first time she expected to hear an answer.
I stand ready! We hold true but others of our kind do not. Can you help us?
They answered her in an odd bubbling chorus. She could sense their unease, tinged with many emotions she could not put a name to. And then a decision, made together.
They exited the sea in a flood. There were more of them than she could have imagined, and in many different shapes and sizes. The ones she recognised from before were leading, but others held different proportions. If it were not for the same thick, pitted skin and large eyes she could have thought them from a different species.
One of the original ones paused by Arucken, nodding to him for a moment before passing on. They made no effort to communicate, just moving ponderously further up the shore. A few turned to look at the storehouse, the sparks from the shields flickering across their deep eyes. It was hard to tell what they thought of it.
Kerris steeled herself, Arucken steady beside her. Is that your tech?
No! a chorus of voices, and then a painful burst of explanation. They had met humans on other planets, and realised the need to defend themselves. The tech wasn’t human, but they shared that trait at least in common. Scavengers.
They cut contact then, and stood in lines on the shore directly under the shadow cast by the remaining human ship. There were hundreds of them, a diverse set of colours and shapes and sizes.
Without ceremony, the thoughts from the creatures spread wide and open. It was like a net flung across them that Kerris heard both through her pairing, and as the humans it was intended for. Everything doubled, sick with echoes.
But it was feelings only, no words this time. A sense of urgency, a demand couched in peaceful feelings. No more violence, but the ship must leave. They would take back the broken human; they would make him truly their Conduit.
No more violence, but the humans must go.
The ships flew off, back towards Arroyo. Kerris couldn’t guess if they’d received advice from the mainland or whether they had sensed enough to obey. It seemed to her impossible to ignore.
The shield around the storehouse faded, crackled and died. Arucken looked at her in query, before they both walked slowly towards the front of it.
The sea dwellers stopped them. They stood just in front and refused to respond to any queries but their meaning was plain. They stopped.
The creatures reached the two bodies of the arsonists in front of the storehouse and pulled them away. They dropped them into the ocean without comment and Kerris bit her lip. Were they dead then? Or would they return changed, like Malik?
They dragged Malik after them, head drooping to one side but as a pair walked passed holding him she could see the slow rise and fall of his chest. Arucken growled, a rumble in his throat that he cut off abruptly.
The sea dwellers pointed them back towards Octavia.
Then the feelings thundered back, and this time it held a word, although just one, repeated from many voices. There was no room left to argue.
Leave.
***
Later that day, Kerris paced impatiently outside the entrance to the main council chamber in Arroyo. Beside her Arucken’s face was still, as if he were trying to recall every second of their meeting. It had not gone well.
There were a few windows, set to each side of the square room and applicants faced a row of councillors on raised plinths. It was all display and judgement and Kerris hated it. Hexagonal floor tiles in various shades of brown covered the large council chamber making her think of worker bees. Lamps set against the walls cast the whole place in a subtle glow, rather like the rising of the sun. The whole place made her feel trapped, a feeling she knew Arucken shared.
To one side, partly obscured by a curtain, she had spotted the familiar shape of a viewscreen. The monochrome branch and diamond shape adorned the lower corner, a subtle reminder of whose permission this colony had needed. And would still need.
The hastily drawn across material suggested that the Concordat has been in touch with the councillors, and recently. Their faces had not suggested a pleasant conversation, signs of strain on every face.
Yet the councillors still held enough power. They certainly felt their own importance enough to not explain how several of their own citizens had gone so rogue. Kerris had grown angry at the lack of explanations and it was only the calming sense of Arucken that had enabled her to stay so focused. It was plain that the Concordat was not pleased. It was a frustrating experience, tense and full of wasted time.
The council elders had listened to their brief explanation of what they had seen and experienced with grim faces.
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