by Cally Black
The Crowpeople trudge forwards as I make my way back. Tootoopne passes me also, not shoving me out of the way this time.
Now they might leave me alone. I look for some place to hide, a vent to take me back to Gub. Some place small and dark and safe. But there’s nothing here. I need to get back out past all those bodies in the foyer.
Something clatters behind me. A glance over my shoulder shows it’s some kind of cylinder. And it’s smoking! I dive away as a blast cracks the air. A Crowperson smashes into my back and we’re slammed down the corridor. I’m rammed into the corner, my shoulder crushing under a body, as debris thuds down all around me.
My ears ring. I’m deaf. The floor vibrates. Crew running maybe. No. Crowpeople running? I shove at the body on top of me. It’s hot, heavy, covered in bony black armour. Make room for my lungs. Free one arm and my head. Shove up, slide myself out. By the time I wriggle free of the body on top of me, the runners are gone. The corridor is only dead Crowpeople bodies. They could be in the flight deck, I don’t know.
The body on top of me was Tootoopne. A bit of metal sticks out from his long thin thigh. Blood oozes around it. Red blood. Not enough to be coming from an artery, if Crowpeople even have arteries there. But red, like human blood. Seems wrong.
I rub my ears. Where’s the next vent? Where are the Crowpeople?
The floor vibrates through my feet. They’re coming.
A whole troop of Crowpeople could be just around the corner. Do I run, never mind I might run right at them? If they see me running away from a dead leader-Crow, they’ll kill me for sure!
Tootoopne’s eyelids flicker. He’s not dead. He better not be dead. I don’t know any other way to stay alive.
THREE SPIKES OF PAIN
I run and grab a nearby weapon, and when I drag it back towards Tootoopne, he has one eye open, staring at me. Brown lid wrinkled and heavy above his pale grey iris, black pupil following me, staring like he has an intelligence bigger than I ever seen. His scar twitches. I unhook the weapon’s strap, wrap it around his thigh above the wound, and tie it off tight as, just like I’ve seen in movies. I pick up the weapon and hand it to him.
If he don’t understand he’s my security pass through this, he should shoot me now. I don’t know what he’s thinking but he wraps his claws around the weapon and puts it on his other side.
I grab his claws and pull him to sitting. I go to lift him further but he pulls his claws away and unclips something from his belt. It’s a vial and he stabs it into his thigh. Something pumps into him and he throws the vial away. He takes a deep breath, blinks slowly and reaches for my hand again.
Awkwardly, I pull him to standing. His wings beat me around the head as he finds his balance on one leg, then picks up the weapon. His wings are soft and warm and that seems wrong. Like they should be cold instead.
His claws find my shoulder and I try to guide him in the direction I want to go. But he uses the weapon like a crutch, and twists us back towards the flight deck. He takes a step and when he leans on me, my knees almost give out. He stops and stares.
We’re facing all those Crowpeople bodies and bits pushed up against the walls. Torn limbs and burnt wings, and slumped bodies next to the ripped-apart floor still smoking in front of us. His claws dig into my shoulder. Three spikes of pain. He’s drawing blood. ‘Tootoopne,’ I whisper and squirm my shoulder away. I don’t care if he’s hurting. I’m glad the captain blasted them, after what they did.
A squad of Crowpeople stomp out of the flight deck dragging the captain and a pilot. They stop when they see Tootoopne limping towards them. They lift their wings and whistle his name. He whistles back. It’s dull in my still-ringing ears.
The captain and pilot have ditched their jackets. In just their shirts, it’s hard to tell their ranks. Don’t hardly see anyone in just their shirts on these cold freighter hulks, so they’re not marked up with ranks like their jackets are.
‘You!’ the captain yells when he sees me.
Tootoopne whistles at me, shoves me forwards. I turn back to him and lift my elbow. I don’t wanna stand with the prisoners. I wanna stand with the one who can protect me. ‘Tootoopne!’ I say.
‘You’re a spy?’ the captain yells behind me.
What? I look over my shoulder. He says ‘spy’ like it’s a war. Like giant Crowpeople are a thing he knows about. He stares down at me like he wishes he had flushed me.
Tootoopne whistles again and looks at the captain and the pilot. He looks at each one. He looks slowly and on purpose, then he tilts his head and brushes his chest with his claws. The claws rattle on his chest armour, at the place where the captain would show his rank on his jacket. I’m guessing what Tootoopne wants when I turn and point at the captain.
THIS IS HOW I'LL DIE
The captain staggers back like I’ve slapped him. Beside him, the pilot’s skull erupts and his body snaps back, collapses on the floor. A Crowperson steps towards the captain. A flash. The captain’s hand passes me, gripped in dark claws. The Crowperson presents the hand to Tootoopne with a bob, and the stench of burning flesh hits me, back of my throat.
Tootoopne opens a pouch on his belt.
The captain screams, holding up his arm, clutching a scorched stump. His skin yellows. His eyes bulge.
The images pound at me, slamming me like punches to my brain. I gag, stumble back. What have I done? I turn to run. Run back to Gub. But Tootoopne’s claws land on my shoulder, grab me, and we’re heading away down the corridor. A Crowperson holds him up on the other side and we move fast, away from the screaming captain.
I swallow again and again to stop the vomit. My skin drips cold.
The captain’s screaming stops mid-scream, echoes in the sudden silence. I don’t look back.
We head in, up a stairwell. Tootoopne shoves me, so I have to keep moving ahead of him and the other Crowperson or be trampled.
I stumble and miss steps. I’m staggering through a horror movie. I grab on to the doorframe at Level Five. ‘My Gub,’ I whimper, but I can’t drag these monsters towards him. Claws tear me off the doorframe. Up and in we go, towards the centre of the ship, then out into another corridor. I’ve lost track of where we are. I try to guess the level by the curve of the corridor floor, but I don’t travel by corridors. I can’t focus after what I’ve seen. Can’t think. Back to stairs and climbing them gets easier, the Crowpeople leaping them two by two. Their long thin legs stretching and kicking, muscles bunching as they push off. Another level and I’m so light in the low grav now, I’m bouncing out of control in front of them.
Tootoopne grabs my jacket shoulder with his long claws. The other Crowperson blasts a ceiling above us and I reach for the floor. This is Level One. There’s nothing on the other side. Just room for rockets and cargo coming through the airlock. It’s empty clear through the zero-grav axis point to the landing bay floor opposite!
Tootoopne holds on. He jerks me up, drags me up through the hole. I’m dangling by the shoulder of my jacket. The armpit seam cuts into my arm. Cold air freezes my middle. Tootoopne still has me in the claws of his hand, halfway along his wing.
My legs pedal as we loop around the axis. And the ship loops around us, spinning on like maybe there’s still humans on board who need gravity. There’s only my Gub. He’s gotta be alive. What arse-shit would kill a baby?
Far below in the landing bay, Crowpeople are already packing the Layla’s cargo into their round black ships, towing out the great cylinders of phosphorous that arrived from a mining outpost just today, hooking up the chains of iron meteorites full of phosphorous that we’ve hauled in over our many months in space. All bound for food production, in space and way back on Earth, too. Phosphorous, essential for life. Is it essential for these Crows too? Is this why everyone had to die?
Tootoopne glides, but he’s dropping faster than the Crowperson beside us. My jacket jerks and I almost slide out of it as Tootoopne tosses me out into the air – but then he’s gone, and suddenly I’m in freefa
ll, head over feet over head, falling into nothing.
HIS VELVET WINGS
There’s a snicker above. A sha, sha, sha, and another Crowperson latches onto my jacket.
They’re playing with me! The arse-shits!
The Crowperson launches me sideways and another Crowperson moves in, grabs me by the arm and swings a big arc around the landing bay. Just when I think my shoulder will dislocate, it lets me go and I hit the deck and slide and tumble till I stop near Tootoopne’s boots.
‘Sha, sha, sha,’ I mumble, the sounds of the Crowpeople echoing in my shut-down brain.
Tootoopne tilts his head and stares at me through one large pale eye. He stands next to a round one-person ship, leaning on his weapon. The round ship is coated in something black that looks soft and thick, like blackberry jelly bound for a captain’s table.
I push myself to my feet, bounce in the low gravity, lift my elbow and give the salute. I don’t even know why anymore. He opens the door to the mini-flyer and bats me around the head with a wing when I don’t move.
I take a step towards the door, then turn to run. No way I’m leaving Gub. But I push off too hard in the low-grav and my first step away bounces me up. Tootoopne catches me in a massive claw, swings me and stuffs me into the small space behind the seat. I’m nothing to him in this gravity. A sobbing, struggling bag of rags and bones. I’m leaving the Layla. I’m leaving my sweet Tamiki. I can’t stop it. I can’t even breathe.
Other Crowpeople whistle at Tootoopne. Maybe about taking me or maybe about his leg with the bloody hunk of metal still sticking out, but he silences them with a claw wave and heaves into the seat, blocking my escape. His lower wingtips fold through a gap in the back of the seat and I make room.
The edges of the wings are like velvet. I run my finger over one. There are tiny tears in the top part of his wings. Tiny tears with edges that drip red.
Using controls set into the ceiling, Tootoopne slams the mini-flyer around, like a drunk crewman dodging tables in the mess hall, and gets it out into space.
There’s nothing more I can do for Gub. There’s no way back from this. All I know is, as long as Tootoopne says, I can stay alive. Did I do enough? Did I save little Tamiki? Can I find a way back to him?
The flying straightens out and a couple of mini-flyers pull in beside us. Tootoopne’s whistling. To them, maybe, or to me? I don’t know. I’m tired as.
I let the tears go for Lazella, for tiny alone Gub, but into my sleeve, so they don’t float out. Tucked down here behind Tootoopne where he can’t see, wedged behind the seat, crying my heart out, the warmth from his velvet wings not taking away the ache of losing my family one bit.
CRAZY WHISTLING
I’m jolted awake by alarms and crazy whistling coming through the mini-flyer’s comms system. I pull myself up and squeeze around the seat to a pile of things I can’t hardly understand. A mini-flyer buzzes overhead, tilted so a Crowperson can stare in. Tootoopne is slumped forwards, his helmet pushing two of the levers hanging down from the ceiling.
‘Tootoopne!’ I scream, and then, ‘What do I do?’ But the whistles just keep screaming through the comms, so I put a foot on the wall, pull him back off the controls and thump him across his long helmet nose. His eyelids twitch. We’re heading for something black and smooth and enormous! I pull hard at the largest control lever above me, then push left and we tilt away. The thing, high and dome-shaped, drops below us, vanishes almost into the darkness. The alarm squeals die. The whistling goes on. It’s the other Crowpeople. They pull alongside. They stare in at me, like maybe I killed Tootoopne. This never-ending horror movie’s only going to get worse for me if he dies.
‘Tootoopne!’ I yell and scrabble around at his belt. I pull off a vial like he did, open it and stab it into his thigh.
His eye opens and he bats me away into the wall. I bounce and put a foot against his seat to push me back. Hardly any room for me to not touch the controls. He stares at the vial sticking out of his leg next to the hunk of metal still lodged there. He shakes his head, blinks a few times and grabs the controls. He answers the whistling and it dies down. He turns the mini-flyer back around so it’s on its way back to the enormous black dome thing and flicks a switch. Then he sits back and shuts his eyes.
I’m hoping that switch is auto-pilot. It seems to be. Nobody whistles, no alarms go off and the mini-flyer glides in to some massive hall full of other flyers sitting round and black like fat blowflies. The belly of the black blowfly I’m in passes through a gateway. My head aches like a hot wire’s cutting into me. I cry out, grab my head, and Tootoopne opens an eye and stares. Gravity slides me down the wall and I lie on the floor, quiet as. The mini-flyer lands.
The flyer door is pulled open and Crowpeople lean in, all fussing on Tootoopne. They’re not in black armour or helmets. They wear soft fabric mostly in blue and white. Their bare heads are brown and velvety, and their long snouts and large eyes have me wondering if these are even the same kinds of creatures.
As they pull Tootoopne out, one of them sees me scrunched on the floor. The wide-eyed, long-nosed faces are replaced by weapons.
I don’t move. Anyway, I’m all out of panic.
More whistling and the weapons are pushed away. One of Tootoopne’s squad members leans in, snags me by the jacket and hauls me out across the seat. He stands me up in front of Tootoopne, now lying on a cart thing staring at me. I do the salute that’s kept me alive so far. ‘Tootoopne!’
Tootoopne nods and whistles, ‘Weku.’ Then he whistles to his squad. They salute and two squad members grab my arms and drag me away, past the other Crowpeople, who whistle low and point their weapons like I can slash their throats with my fingernails or something.
The squad pulls me to a set of arched openings leading to a huge white hall. Some gauzy force field covers the openings and the Crowpeople step through one by one.
The Crowperson behind me prods my back. They’re all watching, and my scalp crawls, telling me this could end bad, as I step into the arch. That hot wire drives through my skull again and this time it pulls a flood of ideas from my head: ‘Creature, small, warm, hope, safety, tired, weak, love, loss.’ I’m trapped in the gauzy force field, and it’s like this haze is trying to know me. Trying to understand me by slicing up my brain. Currents of pain rip through my spine, down my arms and legs. I can’t move. The weight of it crushes my skull, pitches me forwards, cuts me to pieces, forces me down. I crumble. ‘Help me!’ I whisper. I’ve never had much, but now I’m stripped bare. I’ve lost my aunt, my tiny cousin. I’ve lost everything I know. Everything I used to be is nothing here. Here, there is only a hot wire to slice me up, judge me. I think of Gub all alone in the storeroom on an empty ship. My sweet little Gub.
My knees buckle, the force of my skull pushing in, and I try my one thing. ‘Tootoopne,’ I whisper, but I can’t even hold a picture of him in my mind. I don’t want to. Not at the end. Only Gub. Only my little Tamiki. Let me see him again. Let me protect my baby Gub.
The arch’s hazy grip lets me go, sends me stumbling, bent over, into the wide white base of an enormous ship. I turn back, hardly seeing through the cramping pain behind my eyes. Hanging onto my knees cos my muscles won’t let me stand. Crowpeople step through after me, easy as. None of them are held and hurt like me. They stare at me.
At my feet, the floor is white and full of tiny holes, like hardened kitchen sponge. I drop to my hands and knees and run my fingers over it, feel the shapes of the holes with my fingertips. Each hole makes room for the shape of its neighbour, like it’s a message about life maybe. Warm air pumps through the holes. It’s the most beautiful thing, that random pattern of holes in an impossibly warm floor. I lie flat, press my cheek to the holes, like secrets will be whispered to me. Above me, level sits on top of level, like stacking rings, each smaller than the one it sits on, like the inside dome of an old-fashioned beehive. And all white with soaring archways leading to bright rooms with curved ceilings, row on row of archway
s, curving up above me. It’s all so … majestic. Nothing like no ship I ever seen before.
Some Crowpeople are doing that laughing sha, sha, sha thing behind me. I don’t know what at. Me lying on the floor, running my hands over it? Staring up at all those levels above me? Me nearly killed by that haze? Arse-shits. They’re crowded around me like they got something new to look at.
Three giant claws reach for me. Crowpeople grab my jacket and lift me and we’re flying up through the heart of the hive-shaped thing. Me hanging like a rag, thinking, none of this is real.
TWEETOO!
A warm breeze blows upwards from the base and the Crows circle the centre of the hive as they rise. I cross my arms tight across my chest so the tug on my jacket won’t make me fall out of it.
We’re higher than the landing bay back on the Layla. And above us the hive goes on and on and we go up and up. Other Crowpeople circle the outside, gliding down. Most of them in black like Tootoopne’s squad.
The ones lifting me fly towards a landing and drop me on the flat deck. The deck is the entrance to a massive space, a lounge with tables and seats. The furniture looks like it was shaped from something that just grew out of the floor. All the same white as the walls.
This is their squad home, maybe? I stagger in from the edge, away from the long drop down into the hive that sets my head spinning. No handrails here. Back out in the hollow centre of the hive, hundreds of Crowpeople are flying up and down. It’s probably half a kilometre, top to bottom, at least. Makes me look for something solid to cling to, sink closer to the floor. I’m light. The gravity here is similar to Level Three back on the freighter. Each step bounces me onto my toes. Nowhere near Earthed. These are not Earth creatures.
