by Cally Black
‘Tāmāde,’ he swears, like he don’t know what to do with me.
‘Is it over?’ I ask. I used to be so much better at avoiding storemen.
He don’t answer. Instead, he tilts his head to his jacket collar. ‘Need a guard in Rockets Two!’ he says.
‘Yoisho,’ I say. ‘Why you negging on me?’
‘You on the manifest?’ he asks, squinting at me, like he can guess I never been on a manifest ever.
‘I’ll tell you a truth. I’ve been a prisoner of those things and I just now escaped.’ I give him a smile, like I’m some rescued kidnap victim from a movie. ‘Lucky to be alive,’ I say, but I’m checking over his shoulder, looking for a way out. Don’t wanna meet no guard. Problem is, this storeman pops holes in lockers when he don’t even know who’s in there. He could pop a hole in me, easy as.
Another pair of boots thuds across Stores and my stomach drops. It’s a guard. A woman in a desert-brown uniform, weapon pointed at my head.
‘Hit the floor!’ she yells.
I do.
The metal floor sets cold crawling up my cheek and hands. Cold as on these ships. I don’t feel safe now with just dead metal between me and the dark nothing of space. Already I miss the live, warm hive, caring for me, healing every blow. But that’s not where Gub is. This cold dead ship is my way back to him.
I breathe. I wait. I should’ve run from the storeman. No chance now.
‘She says she escaped the Vultures,’ the storeman says.
‘Is that right?’ the guard says while she’s checking my pockets and armpits and belt. ‘Smallest Vulture I’ve ever seen.’
I wanna say, ‘Garuwa, not Vulture,’ but I don’t, cos I gotta keep on their good sides. I gotta look like Garuwa are my enemy too, never mind that’s not truly how it is.
‘They were so bad to me,’ I say, and my voice squeaks. My throat shrinks at thinking of Antonee, and my Lazella. I blink away the damp from my eyes.
The guard hauls me to my feet. Her weapon is already away. The storeman disarms his and pushes it into his jacket.
‘Welcome back,’ the guard says. ‘I never heard of the Vultures letting anyone live before.’
I rub the cold from my hands. ‘I think they figured I was harmless.’
‘We better go on down to security, get you registered. I bet you’ve got some stories to tell,’ she says.
‘Nothing but horror stories,’ I say, needing for them to take pity on me.
She pushes me towards the stairs.
Whole way out two flights of stairs, I’m thinking I’ll run, no, I’ll stick it through, pretend I don’t know why my ID’s coming up blank. Maybe they thought I was dead and threw away my ID, I’ll say. But that won’t work. I should run.
There’s no way the guard is letting me out of her sight. Her hand’s on my elbow as we go down the corridor to security, like maybe she can feel my muscles bunched tight ready to run.
She drops her hand once we’re through security’s doors and it’s too late. We’re trapped inside a cold grey box. Seems to be a block of cells off to one side, and we’re waiting for a large man to look up from his screen.
When he does, he’s frowning hard as so I give him my biggest smile, never mind the pins and needles driving up through my legs telling me to run.
‘What’s this?’ he asks.
‘This,’ says the guard, ‘is an escapee from the Vultures.’
MY SECOND LANGUAGE
‘Welcome back,’ says the large man.
‘Makasih,’ I say.
‘And what’s your name?’
‘Tamara,’ I say. Then, ‘Situ,’ the last name of my aunt, cos I never needed a last name before.
‘You’re looking in fine form for someone who’s just escaped a pack of monsters.’
‘I kept my head down,’ I say. ‘But they killed my aunt and my friends.’
‘Sorry to hear that, kid. Have you got any relatives who need to know you’re alive?’
‘Yes,’ I say, my heart bulging. ‘My little cousin, Tamiki. I hid him on board the Layla before the –’ I stop myself. ‘Before the Vultures came,’ I say, never mind the word ‘Vulture’ sours my tongue. ‘Did anyone find him?’
‘We’ll ID you first, then see about him.’
‘I really need to know he’s okay,’ I say, desperate. ‘Maybe someone remembers hearing about a baby on a wreck?’
‘I think I heard about a baby a while back,’ the guard says and I open my mouth to ask her more, my insides turning over cos that’s the first proper news I’ve heard.
‘How long you been gone, kid?’ the big security guy asks as he presses each of my thumbs onto his screen, then uses it to scan my face. He gets rid of the guard with a jerk of his head.
‘I dunno,’ I say, watching her leave, wishing she’d tell me more about the baby.
The scanner beeps and I get ready to tell him my story about being thought dead.
‘You have outstanding charges,’ he says. ‘Stowaway, theft and escaping arrest on the Layla. Am I going to have a problem with you?’
All that from a thumb? I need better plans. ‘No, sir,’ I say and my voice cracks. When I escaped that shit-arse captain through the toilet wet-wall, my aunt was happy as. She’d thought she’d be caught for sure and all of us dropped off at the next stop. She smuggled a square of chocolate out of the kitchens that night, just for me.
‘How old are you?’
I shrug.
He tilts his head. ‘When these charges were laid, back on the Layla, they guessed your age at around fourteen.’ He checks the screen again. ‘That was over six months ago. We’ll put down fifteen.’
‘Really?’ I ask, my eyes full of water all over again. Six months! I’m looking at my palms held out in front. Will Gub’s chubby lumps for feet still fit them? Will we be two pieces of something that belong together? What if he’s walking and his feet are all flattened out? What if he don’t like to play monkey-miki no more?
‘Says here, you refused to speak on the Layla,’ the security guy says. ‘How long have you been gone?’
‘Too long,’ I say. ‘Too long away from my little Tamiki.’
The jailor frowns. ‘Where did you learn to speak like that?’
‘Like what?’ I ask.
‘Quiet and slow like you’re considering every word,’ he says. ‘Is English your second language?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Language is my second language.’
The guy snorts like maybe I’m telling jokes, says his name is Israel. He gets me a drink and asks me to sit while he checks out my story.
‘And my cousin,’ I say. ‘Don’t forget to check on him.’
He taps away on his screen, steps through to the next room, talks to someone quietly, keeping one eye on me.
Then he’s back in front of me saying, ‘I guess we’ll have to find you somewhere to live.’
And I jump up, hoping I’ll be a real manifested crew member, until he walks to the door of a cell and holds it. ‘In the meantime, hop in here for a bit of a lie-down. I got some things to do and ship’s doctor wants to check you out.’
‘You’re not gonna lock me in, are you?’ I ask, stopping at the door.
He just waves a hand, and the moment I step through, the door slams and locks.
BREAKABLE THING
‘Hey!’ I say. But he’s off, leaving me trapped in this cold grey box. ‘What about my cousin!’
I sit on the bunk, blanket pulled over me. Israel and guards go past my door, then back, then past again. There’s some thumping and shouting down in one of the other cells, and someone swears.
I press my face to the glass in my door. A man in desert uniform, with a half-bubbled face, like maybe someone ripped his mask off near a gas leak, turns and stares at me. His eyes are ice, like he’s military modified, like he can see in the dark or locate long-range targets. I duck back, pull my blanket back over me again.
Being locked in here with just these bare grey walls
lets my brain slide back to this morning and Antonee and his hand with the compass on the back. I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them tight, press my eyes into my knees to stop them burning, swallow at the stinging lumps in my throat.
Israel comes in with a woman who has long hair, not tied back the way Lazella liked. ‘This is the doctor,’ he says.
‘Hello, Tamara,’ she says, all gentle, like I’m a breakable thing. ‘You must have been through a terrible ordeal.’
‘Yes,’ I say, trying real hard not to feel breakable, cos that’s not me. I ask Israel, ‘Did you find my little cousin?’
‘I haven’t had time to look that up,’ the big man says.
‘Can I check you over?’ the doctor asks, waving some kind of scanner at me.
I nod, and she gets busy poking and prodding me and looking in my eyes and ears and mouth.
Israel says, ‘I saw some footage of you landing here.’
My stomach sinks.
‘You were wearing a Vulture uniform –’
‘They made me!’ I say, quick as, shoving my innocent words over the top of his accusing ones. ‘I didn’t fight for them.’
‘Someone found your helmet and jacket dumped in a vent,’ he says, like I’m trying to trick them or something.
‘I didn’t want no-one to kill me by accident. I’m not one of them. I was just their translator. This is the first chance I’ve had to get away from them,’ I say.
The doctor twists and gives Israel a look that I can’t figure out.
‘Tamara,’ she says, after a long pause. ‘Would you translate for us?’
Tāmāde! Down in the other cell. They must have a Garuwa!
I nod, cos never mind I’ve left the Garuwa behind, I need to see who. The idea of one of the squad, here, captured, breaks my heart.
YOUR BEAUTIFUL WINGS
They lead me down a corridor past a few empty cells to another cell. I tiptoe to the hatch and peer in. Hunched against the wall, bent and broken, wrists wrapped in cords and punched through her wings, is Tweetoo. My Tweetoo!
I hold my breath, blink back tears. No, not my Tweetoo anymore. I left her. Left all of them. But my Tweetoo, still. Always. My sister. My family on the hive, her heartbeat each night filling the space after my aunt died. My friend. How can she be here? Is it my fault? Was she looking for me? She would. She would come for me. A woman protects. And protecting is something you gotta see through to the end.
She’s not completely tied. Her legs are free. She lifts her head and her green eyes flash at the open hatch. My heart breaks. Her eyes are lost. And there’s something wrong with the shape of her jacket. She’s hunched over. Her jacket’s damp with blood at the front and it’s smeared across the floor. Her wrists are tied to her throat, like she was lassoed cowboy-style, and her arms are winched in tight against her body. Where her wings stick out, they’ve just ripped through the wing skin like it’s not alive. Like it’s some kind of fabric. Arse-shits. The holes drip blood from their edges. Three strange red flags are pinned into her thighs and back.
I blank my face before I turn to the doctor and Israel. My throat is too full of lumps to speak.
‘We’re trying to treat this one,’ the doctor says. ‘It has a shard of metal lodged in its abdomen. None of our drugs seem to work on it and every time we enter the room, it thrashes around so much, we can’t get close enough to help. Before it was tied up, it tore the wound even larger.’ She shakes her head like she don’t understand.
I swallow. ‘What are the red flags?’ I ask, my voice wobbly as.
‘Tranquillisers. We don’t know the dosage. They’re taller than us but thinner. So far we’ve given it enough to take down three men. Any more may kill it. We don’t know what human meds can do to these aliens. We need you to tell it we want to repair the wound.’
‘Can I … go in and talk to her?’ I ask, and look back through the hatch. I don’t dare look at the doctor in case she reads the panic on my face.
‘Her? She has quite a range of motion in her legs, and those talons are sharp,’ the doctor warns.
‘She won’t hurt me,’ I whisper.
‘You sure?’ Israel asks.
‘I know her.’
I know her so well.
Israel hits something on his wrist and the door slides open.
I rush to Tweetoo huddled against the wall. ‘Tweetoo,’ I whistle. Her foot swings around and smacks me in the chest, sends me flying backwards, tears through my stolen jacket. ‘It’s me!’ I whistle as I hit the floor.
‘Weku?’ she tweets and shuffles round to face me.
‘Yes.’ I push myself back up. I am Weku once more.
‘You okay?’ Israel calls.
Tweetoo stares at the hatch where the doctor and Israel watch. ‘Why are you here?’ she asks.
I slide my hand along her wing. ‘To help you. They want to heal you. Look what they have done to your beautiful wings.’ My whistle catches and I blink back tears.
Tweetoo nudges my hand away and glares at the door. ‘Heal me so they can torture me and get information!’ she says.
‘Is that why you tried to rip open your wound?’ I ask.
Tweetoo looks at me and her eyes soften. ‘Weku, I can’t be a prisoner. I can’t be the one who tells them how to find the hive.’
I bob, cos it’d be the worst thing for a Garuwa to do.
‘The humans will torture me. And they will force you to translate,’ Tweetoo whistles softly. ‘It will kill both of us.’ Even the way she is, all bleeding and in pain, Tweetoo thinks about me. Brown lids close over green eyes, then open again. Her beautiful eyes are glassy, the pale lightning lines fading.
‘What does she say?’ the doctor asks.
‘She don’t want you to touch her!’ I yell back.
Tweetoo lifts her head, which pulls her arms up, jerks her wings. ‘Weku, you are my sister. You are my squad, yes?’
‘Yes, Tweetoo,’ I say and bob my head. Never mind I ditched them just a few hours ago, I don’t know how to give up on Tweetoo. I am a woman too. I protect. I will protect her to the end.
‘Then you have to help me,’ she tweets.
‘As much as I can,’ I promise.
‘Tear the wound open. Let me bleed to death.’
A SMILE SO FAKE
I look down and away, my insides burning. Pins and needles in my legs telling me to go, cos Tweetoo’s made up her mind, and I don’t wanna be here talking about this. I don’t want it to come to this. But I know it has, by the look in her eyes. And the burning turns to dread, heavy as, low down in my guts.
‘That is slow and you will pass out and they will fix you,’ I say. ‘Anyway, I am not a killer. You know that.’
‘Weku, do this for me. For me and the hive. It is not killing. It is saving the hive the way she saved you. You are the only one who can.’
I blink back tears. ‘I can’t, Tweetoo. I love you too much.’ And when the whistles leave my mouth, they ring with truth.
‘Then who better? How beautiful to die with someone who loves you? I came looking for you. Tootoopne told me to leave, but you are my sister,’ she whistles.
I shake my head. It is my fault! I breathe in and in again. Tears cloud my eyes. ‘You’re here cos of me?’
‘Please, Weku. What has happened can’t be changed,’ Tweetoo says as I slap the tears from my cheeks. ‘I need you to stand by me now, my sister, at the end. I trust you to spare me the agony of torture. I will not speak and they will kill me anyway.’
She came back for me, the way Lazella would’ve, the way I would’ve gone back for Gub, if I could. And now she needs me. I move close and lean against her. Our hearts side by side. This. This feels like family. It’s stupid now to think she’d kill me if Tootoopne said, cos she went against orders to find me, and now there’s only me and her. And all this is my fault.
‘Tamara?’ the doctor calls.
I blink, harden my face, bob my head to Tweetoo and turn to the docto
r. ‘She says I can fix her up, but she won’t let you touch her.’
The doctor shakes her head. ‘It’s too technical. The shard needs to be removed and the wound stitched at every level.’
I shrug. ‘I’m good with my hands, and she’d lie still for me. She’s not going to let anyone else do anything.’
The doctor mumbles with Israel. ‘Okay,’ she says. She opens her bag and hands some antiseptic through the door. ‘Douse the area in this, and your hands. You’re going to need to pull the shard back the way it entered, and then pack the wound with this.’ She hands through wadding. ‘Work quickly, because it’s going to hurt. Our knock-out drugs haven’t worked, but if the pain gets too great she may pass out and I can take over.’
I grab the antiseptic and the wadding and sit them on the bunk, then go to Tweetoo, pluck the darts from her thigh and carry them back to the hatch. The doctor takes them from me. ‘The metal looks slippery,’ I say.
The doctor ducks away a moment, then hands me a pair of long-nose pliers. ‘Wish me luck,’ I say, and smile. A smile so fake it’s sure to give me away.
FOR THE HIVE ONCE MORE
A wave of calm hits me. No. Numbness. I am numb.
I go back to Tweetoo and show her the pliers.
‘Weku, you have saved me,’ Tweetoo says, and shuffles sideways to the bunk, her claws tied at her neck, wings angled out. She sits at the end of the bunk, breathes deeply. I go to her, lever her helmet off and stare at her face. The long thin nose, the strength in her pale green eyes, edged with rust. How can this, all that she is, even end?
‘How am I supposed to go on after this?’ I whistle.
Tweetoo drops her nose, finds my eyes with hers. ‘Listen to me. Your little sister, no-one saw her on your old ship,’ she whistles. ‘No-one in our squad hurt her. You must find your way back to her.’
I suck in air. I suck in hope.
‘You must find her. You are stronger now,’ Tweetoo says.
I stand up. I am the big sister, strong, like Tweetoo. Strong like Lazella.
