He felt the vomit coming but could only turn his head to the side, buckling his legs as it came. It shot across the floor and then dribbled down his cheek. Specks of light glittered in the puke, like flames in shattered glass, and they continued to hover even when he lay his head back against his rolled up shirt. They were still there when he closed his eyes.
***
When he next opened his eyes he saw Annora crouched down beside him, cleaning up his puke.
“We’ve stopped,” he said, wincing as he swallowed.
“We have,” said Annora. “Thanks for the mess.”
“I–”
“I’m joking. How do you feel?”
“How do I look?”
“Like you fell off a crawler and banged your head, breaking a couple ribs and slicing your side on the way down.”
“That’s how I feel.” He raised his head, looking down his body. “Not so bad,” he smiled.
“Easy for you to say.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to puke everywhere.”
“That’s not what bothered me. You scared us for a second, out cold like that. What were you thinking?” Annora finished up with the last of the puke and swivelled to face him. She saw he was trying to pull himself up and put an arm under to help.
“Thanks,” he said, propped up on his elbows. “To be honest, I don’t really remember much.” He winced as he felt around his ribcage.
“Well I hope you remember enough not do it again. Water?”
Calix took the water and swallowed. “I had some weird dreams though.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Never dreamed like that before. Help me up?”
“Walker said to rest.”
“I just wanna sit up.” He pushed up on his hands as Annora helped him lean back against the wall. “It was so strange. Almost like...”
Annora looked away, grabbing the cloths and bucket and bringing them around.
“Ghost...”
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, standing. “You were in a lot of pain and it helped you sleep.”
“You gave me ghost?” He saw Essa’s crone-smile as she arched over her pestle, eyes glowing in the gloom of the fungi plantation. He suddenly felt sick again.
“It was one time – to help you!” Annora turned and walked off.
Calix wanted to shout after her but didn’t know what to say. Fucking ghost, Annora, I don’t hawk that shit. He’d rather the pain.
The dull throbbing at the back of his skull flared up and he lay down again. The urge to vomit dissipated, but he couldn’t get Essa’s grin out of his mind. It was there when he closed his eyes. Could even smell her clammy, pale skin. He wondered if she’d even come up for daylight since he’d last visited Sanctum.
***
“Got your spirit back?” asked Barrick.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
Barrick shrugged. “I heard they gave you ghost. I wouldn’t make too much of a deal about it – probably saved you a lot of suffering. Helped you sleep didn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Calix was sat in the dayroom. He’d made it to the toilet and then slowly walked to his chair, slumping into it exhausted.
“Did you trip?”
“Something like that. Is there nothing else you want to talk about? Like why we’ve stopped moving?”
Barrick relaxed and put his hands behind his head. “You tell me and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m not really in the mood for games,” Calix winced, rubbing his side.
“Alright.” Barrick tilted his head against the headrest and closed his eyes.
Calix reached for the water pipe and released some into a cup. After he had downed one cup, he filled it again. The amount he’d missed out on while he was asleep, he shouldn’t be overusing his ration. Although, he supposed Annora had used a fair amount cleaning up his puke.
The absence of white noise inside the crawler was always disconcerting; after weeks of constant travel, casting their metallurgy scan nets and keeping an eye on the readouts, whenever a halt came it was like something had frozen. A standstill of time. He found he actually missed the vibrations – they meant forward motion and forward motion was good. Another day closer to home.
Calix stood to leave, but Barrick said “Fine, have it your way.”
“I’ll go find out for myself.”
“Sit down,” he opened his eyes. “Really,” he said, noticing Calix’s stubbornness. “Sit down. You must be hungry.” He got up and grabbed a bread roll from the larder. “Fresh this morning,” he tossed it to Calix.
Calix sat. “How long ‘til this fucking heals...” he said uncomfortably.
“Don’t know. Never been stupid enough to break a rib.” Barrick sat back down. He watched Calix eat as he spoke. “We had a big spike about ten hours ago now. Team’s been out there trying to dig down.”
“Find anything?”
“There’s a lot of fragmentary readings on the scanner, all scattered about. Looks like whatever used to be here was big. Not the best of times to break a rib.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’d love to. Take a month and then some to dig up whatever’s buried out there.”
“Linwood finally nailed it, eh?”
“Almost. According to the plotting he still wanted us to go another thirty, forty miles.”
“I must be able to help somehow. Get me in the cockpit.”
“Tomorrow. For now, you need more rest.”
Dig
Beneath the maelstrom of red air something glinted. The bucket of the crane excavator ascended, waterfalls of sand falling from its mouth and swirling around. Its arm was attached to the front of the crawler. Annora raised her hand so Ardelia the operator would cease, and leaned over the hole. The sides were already cascading in but she’d seen a solid surface.
She hand-signalled to Ardelia in the cockpit, instructing her to call Walker and Caia who were scouting ahead with sand blowers. Hopefully they’re near, she thought, and retreated to the relative shade of the tracks. Between two of the wheels she waited, a statue painted red. Clouds of sand puffed from sudden movements, the layer on her clothing thick and insidious within the folds of the scarves wrapped around her head and neck. Always managed to get into her hair, as it did for them all, dying it different degrees of crimson. Beneath her headscarf, Annora’s braided dreadlocks remained dark, protected by the scalp’s natural oils. Washing with water was a luxury they couldn’t afford within the crawler. She often daydreamed about Sanctum’s showers and running a comb through her hair.
She retrieved a rag from a pocket and wiped at her goggles.
She thought about later; locking her door and stripping free of her clothes to be hung on the balustrade outside, the sand bashed out. Thought about an entirely different kind of cloud; the rose-smelling talc they made in the workshop which was as close as they could get to washing.
Caia’s silhouette appeared over a nearby swell and began a sliding descent. Annora headed back out to greet her at the hole.
“What you got?” asked Caia, sidling beside her and sounding muffled.
“Not sure. Something reflective. You find anything?”
“I got readings but everything’s buried deep.”
“Where’s a storm when you need one?”
“Make our job easier that’s for sure.”
“You want to get on with it? Unless we wait for Walker.”
“Yes, sir,” mocked Caia, heaving the combination sand blower and metal detector from her shoulder.
“Hey, I didn’t mean–.”
But Caia had already begun, the sound of the blower echoing back from the crawler, amplified. Particles swirled in a tornado, the hole decimated. The key, Annora was learning, was shifting enough sand to quell the impact of any cave-in, so they tended to make their holes twice as large as needed. Less chance of getting trapped.
As a child her greatest nightmare had been drowning in quicksand, the red powder plugging her th
roat and enveloping her in darkness. Growing up hadn’t changed that, only reinforced it.
“What you got?” called Walker, floating down the dune through the tornado with his arms covering his face.
“The excavator hit something reflective,” said Annora.
“Damage?”
“I don’t think so. The autodetect locked it on impact.”
“Good, good. I hate having to rely on that thing.”
The excavator bucket tilted up and down. Annora looked up to the cabin and saw Ardelia give the signal that she was heading inside for ten minutes.
The lens of her goggles clouded up again, but ahead she could still make out Caia in the eye of a storm. She held the blower with the weight supported over her back and shoulders, and swung left and right, pausing to concentrate gusts at particular sections. Both Annora and Walker protected their faces with their arms and walked forward to get a better look.
The excavated hole had been widened, and buried there was a triangle of dome glass. It was transparent with a metallic, triangular grid running through it, and could not be mistaken for anything else. The whole piece was uncovered, and the edges of adjacent pieces too; a dome that had seemingly shattered.
“Now this,” said Walker, “is interesting.”
***
“Nice of you to join us,” said Ardelia as Calix walked in to the forward station where everyone had gathered. He held a hand to his ribs and leaned against the doorway.
“And miss the action?” he said.
“Just in time,” said Annora. She made room for him in the semi-circle around the monitor and he joined them.
Walker continued; “... like there was a large structure here at some point. There are a lot of small readings, spreading out quite far, but if you look at where the large majority of them are congregated they definitely form a circle. And looking at the spread, I’d say it was maybe bigger even than Sanctum.” Walker controlled the scanned readings on the monitor, zooming out. The crawler blipped at the bottom of the image, and red and green markers flashed around it, becoming denser 350 metres further north before dissipating again. Red markers flashed at the edge of the screen, with the overall shape showing a circle with a diameter of 700 metres.
“What’s the plan?” asked Barrick.
“I’ve sent a message to the watchtower. No doubt they’ll recall the other crews, refuel, and send them out here.”
The watchtower.
Calix felt suddenly light-headed and light-footed, losing balance. He fell against Annora and she quickly grabbed his arm, putting her own around his back. “Hey there,” she said.
“Sorry,” said Calix, straightening up. “That was weird.”
“You okay?” asked Ardelia.
“Probably still tripping,” said Caia.
“Help yourself to a little after medicine?” joked Barrick.
“Fuck off.”
“Calix,” said Walker. “If you need to lie down that’s fine. You’d just be a liability right now.”
“I’m fine,” though his heart was racing.
“I would strongly advise it.” Walker’s eyes were bloodshot. Calix looked around – everyone’s eyes were bloodshot, and they were all staring at him. “I didn’t report your accident to the watchtower, no need for Linwood or Kirillion to find out. It was just a fall.”
A fall.
Calix felt the onset of light-headedness again, and Annora’s grip tightened around the small of his back. “I’ll help you,” she said. But when he looked at her, her eyes weren’t just bloodshot, they were bleeding. He looked around. Everyone’s cheeks were red with blood.
He fell against the floor, unconscious.
***
“Water?”
Calix opened his eyes to Annora leaning over him, offering him a cup. He was back in his bed, head swimming.
“Do I look that stupid to you?”
“It’s just water. Here if you want it.” She put it down next to him.
He groaned, and then exclaimed loudly out of frustration. “I ain’t felt right ever since that fucking ghost. The pain in my ribs I can handle. It’s my fucking head.” He pressed his palms against his temples.
“I’m sorry Cal,” she squeezed his arm. “Barrick says any side effects should wear off soon. He’s surprised they’ve lasted this long. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have consented.”
“It wasn’t your idea then.”
“The others suggested, but I didn’t stop them.”
“Well, now I understand why Essa’s nuts,” he smiled. He closed his eyes, appreciating Annora’s warm hands against his skin. The monitor from the watchtower floated in the darkness behind his eyelids like lights blinded indelibly on the retina. He squeezed his eyes tight but it wouldn’t go away.
“You okay?”
“I–,” the image of the monitor remained even after he opened his eyes, Annora’s face juxtaposed above. “Man, this is freaky.”
Annora leaned forward, pressing her fingers to his forehead. She pulled up his eyelids. “Your eyes are dilated,” she said.
“I keep getting these... flashes. Parts of my dream. Only... I’m not sure they are dreams.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my dream I was flying. I saw you. The crawler. The sand. The outer reaches. And Sanctum. Sanctum was like this living thing, and it was eating ghosts, or something. No, that’s not right. Anyway, the inside was bleeding. All the walls were slick. Maybe you and the others were there, I’m not sure. It was strange, familiar but then not at all. People turned into light in the lift, only it wasn’t a lift, it was some kind of organic cord that seemed to be sucking up people. And then it sucked me up. And then I was in the watchtower and everything was just normal. You know, not like a dream at all. I was manning the consoles, checking the monitors, that kinda thing. And...” he swallowed.
Annora picked up the water and gave it to him.
After taking a gulp, he asked “Do you remember Zi?”
“Zi?” she paused, thinking. “Like, how specifically? He’s part of our remembrances every year.”
“How he looked, maybe.”
“He wore glasses, I think?”
“Fuck, yeah,” he said, an image of smashed lenses flashing in his mind. “They were broken, by...”
“Didn’t he fall or something?”
“... by the fall, yeah.” And then he remembered. Remembered Kirillion’s call for medical attention. Remembered the boy jumping to his death, only... it hadn’t looked like a jump. Remembered wondering why Kirillion had called for help before Ziyad had fallen. Remembered Kirillion’s firm hand on his shoulder as he explained that these feeds had a delay. Remembered the look in Kirillion’s eyes; firm and unmoving. Grey eyes unflinching as they bore into him. His broad smile as Calix nodded assent.
And remembered forgetting, one of many memories of childhood that simply blended into one overarching impression of a time that had once been so immediate. Ziyad had been disposed of, recycled – maybe even now there were elements of him in the soil of the Agridome. It took leaving Sanctum to really understand how cold and barbaric that sounds, he thought. Inside the bubble, you take everything at face value. “When you’re a child, especially as young as we were, you believe everything an adult tells you is true.”
“I guess. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Ziyad had been after new glasses. They were found smashed by his body.”
“Uh huh.”
“There was no delay on the feeds. Never has been, never had been.”
“You what?”
“I think Zi was murdered.”
Acclimatisation
“Do you remember our acclimatisation camps?” asked Annora. It was night. The clouds gave the faintest illumination that turned the sand into a frozen ocean of waves forever at the precipice of breaking. They had climbed to the bough of the crawler and walked safely over the still deck. The arm of the excavator stuck out to the front, a ladder atta
ched to the side so linkages could be reached and oiled. At the end of the arm, the bucket where they occasionally sat to escape the politics inside was empty – Calix wasn’t climbing into that any time soon. Instead, they sat on the edge of the crawler drinking Mireille’s apple juice, spiked with a little of her moonshine to keep it from going sour after month’s away.
“Probably the only time I ever had fun out here,” said Calix. Whether it was the after effects of the ghost, or his body creating its own heat from the act of healing, he felt warm and was even sweating a little. He looked over at Annora – she wasn’t fending off the shivers by balling up tight within her jacket as though holding something in her lap. He removed his own jacket and placed it over her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“That’s alright. We have our moments but I can’t expect to compete with Galen and his guitar.”
Annora laughed.
“Laugh all you want,” said Calix, taking a sip. “We all sang along, including you.”
“Nothing like sitting round a campfire scared you’ll be buried by an avalanche any minute.”
“Least the singing was distracting.”
“Going round and round your head as you tried to sleep.”
“No-one ever really sleeping.”
“Expecting the tent to be crushed any minute.”
“Each time the wind blew, expecting Kirillion to blow the whistle.”
“Getting up at dawnbreak to see that the sand had barely moved.”
“Wishing you could just lie back down and actually get some sleep now.”
“Fun times.”
“Fun times.” Calix chuckled.
Annora arched her back and rested on her palms. She was the only silhouette he wanted to see. “This land is your land,” she began to sing.
“Oh no.”
She nudged him with her shoulder and began again. “This land is your land...”
“This land is my land,” sang Calix, voice creaking.
Neon Sands Page 6
