Exigency

by Michael Siemsen

  She drove past the pain and hammered out a scratchnote.

  He didn’t create my feelings by acknowledging them.

  She read each word and swiped it to the archive.

  A deep breath. The camp in view. Descent. Touchdown. Pablo’s face, Zisa’s tears and snot, Eeahso whining about the flight, Tom’s daggers in return.

  “Why’d we have to bring it?” Seething, Tom stepped right up to Eeahso. Rage had definitely taken shock’s place.

  “Step away, Tom,” Aether said, moving between him and the stumbling Eeahso. “Help with Angela.” Saying her name worked. Tom’s face flinched as if a housefly had grazed his nose. “Go on, sweetie. Let me handle this.”

  He complied, his eyes once more glassy as they rolled toward Pablo’s outstretched arm.

  “Come on, man,” Pablo said as they walked away. “Let’s take care of her … figure out everything she would’ve wanted.”

  Aether pivoted to Eeahso. “Is there anything I can get for you before we talk? Water?”

  Aether’s cold manner was lost on the uneasy outlaw.

  Eeahso’s eyes tracked Tom and bounced around the scene of EVs, skimmers, work and sleep tents, and other gear. “Water … water, yes. And shade. Where are we?”

  “This is where we’re staying.”

  Herself unfamiliar with the lay of the land, Aether surveyed the area, a relatively dry plateau with steep, grassy slopes on two sides, and few sources of natural shade. Back toward the tents, Qin and Tom carried Angela’s body on a stretcher as a blubbering Zisa looked on, shooting glances Aether’s way. Aether knew what Zisa yearned for—she wanted to come running, bury her face in Aether’s front, be embraced, soothed. But Aether couldn’t be that for Zisa right now. Her stress level at max, Aether could hardly withstand a creeping resentment toward her most fragile girl.

  “Is there water here?” Eeahso said. “River or sea, it matters not.”

  Aether set her eyes on the Threck. She changed her mind about hospitality. “Water later. First we talk.” She walked to the base of the steep rise on the camp’s west side, shaded from the rising sun. A flat-topped hunk of bedrock made for a good seat. Eeahso opted to stand, skittering nervously, as if on hot sand. “First, explain why you were exiled from the city.”

  After a series of eye hides and false starts, Eeahso explained. “There was time when Threck believed that kee came from our maker, who painted red this small place in the jungle, her tiny eggs laid out to then spread and enter every dumb animal.”

  “Kee … the worms.”

  “No, the kee. Worms are dumbest animal of all.” Eeahso alternated swiping at her arms. “This is a dreadful, dry place—”

  “Are the kee not the worms we saw enter the youths—the Sootskee—at the tree circle? The worms Skinny killed and displayed to your people?”

  “No, no, no.” Eeahso signed frustration. “These are threckee … Worms imbued with kee.”

  Aether, too, grew impatient. “Very well, how are worms imbued with kee?” She opened the Threck language DB in edit mode, preparing to add entries.

  Must every damned word include “kee”?

  “They eat it from the fshkee, behind the keepock place, where it grows. Orange People do not know most basic creation of Threck? Surely it is same for Orange People. How do you acquire your kee?”

  She added keepock:Tree Circle to the DB.

  “We’re born with it, I guess. Forget about Orange People. You’re saying that worms eat this stuff, this kee, which they then pass on to the young Threck?”

  Eeahso signaled continuing frustration and disbelief while her eyes roamed beyond Aether. “I must have water at once. I cannot go on without.”

  Aether sent an M to Zisa.

  AETHER: Can you please bring an open container of water to me?

  “Water is coming. Now, forgiving my extreme ignorance, explain as if to some person from another world—some world without Threck or kee or worms.”

  “Worms live all over. Infect animals. Make them die. Kee grows on plants. Lives in one place only: the fshkee. Worms living near fshkee eat kee. Change to smart worm: threckee. Threckee cooperate, live in worm city, send baby worms to eat kee, make more threckee, worm city grows—”

  The kee is a fungus, Aether grasped. Parasitic worms are taken over by parasitic fungus. Hyperparasitism.

  kee:Parasitic Fungus [USE kee fungus]

  fshkee:Parasitic Fungus Site [USE kee fungus site]

  threckee:Infected Worm

  “And this worm city is what Skinny burned?”

  “Yes … No … I don’t know. Unimportant. We say city, but this is really house on ground. Walls, tunnels, egg cave. We say smart worm, but this is still dumb animal. It is only when the three dumb animals become one, inside the body of the young Sootskee, that truly smart animals are made. Threck. I disbelieve Skinny destroyed entire worm city or got to eggs, but this is unimportant.

  “Worms are everywhere, but they are not Infected Worm without kee fungus. Skinny burned the kee fungus site, which means no more worms can be made Infected Worm, and with no new Infected Worm, there can be no new Threck. Threck City will die when the last of the Setkee have grown old and died.”

  Aether sat back in awe. The miracles of nature. The series of events that had to fall into place … Three-stage parasitism.

  Aether recalled Earth’s “zombie ants,” spiny ants in Thailand that wake up one day to find themselves compelled to travel to a specific destination. The culprit turned out to be a fungus—one of thousands of varieties all over the world that infect certain indigenous insects, from ants to bees. After the fungus took over, the spiny ant would make its way to a location with precise conditions—the underside of a particular leaf, 25cm from the jungle floor, pointed north-northwest, and at a fixed time: solar noon. There, the infected ant would bite down on the leaf’s main vein and wait to die a horrible death—the fungus building up massive pressure within the head, and then exploding out its spore stalk, like some ghastly jester’s hat.

  According to Eeahso, the kee, which the Threck considered their souls, infected its neighboring parasitic wectworms, but unlike its malicious Earth equivalent, the kee fungus improved its hosts. The worms had been upgraded from fend-for-yourself individuals to a nest-building colony.

  Cooperate, Aether thought. Threck always talk about cooperating.

  What if one of Earth’s “zombie fungi” had happened to infect a parasitic insect, like tapeworms or blood flukes—organisms known to reach the human brain?

  Zisa arrived at Aether’s side, sniffing, with a large bowl of water.

  Aether took the bowl. “Thank you. I’ll come see you later, okay?”

  Zisa nodded and left as Eeahso rushed forward, carefully grabbed the bowl, and dumped the entirety against her siphons. It looked to Aether that perhaps a quarter of the water had gone in, the rest splashing and dripping away.

  “More,” Eeahso demanded. “I need more.”

  “Later. Now, you were going to tell me about your exile.”

  AETHER: Zisa, what’s our water status?

  ZISA: 3 drums/600 L. The lake is close when we need more.

  “Yes, my people formerly believed that the kee fungus was purposeful and for all. Many Threck thought it imperative to give to other animals. They collected animals from all over Threck Country and the sea, failing every time to see results. Perhaps it was the Infected Worms not working inside these other animals. Surely the worms had been infecting Seekapock for as long as there were Seekapock, and also other animals, but only certain of these were made smarter, and not much smarter. Afvrik given Infected Worms: nothing. But afvrik given only the kee fungus alone, these afvrik could be trained.

  “The Special group did this work. They received permission to open dead Threck and see how Infected Worms lived inside. They opened other animals and compared. They collected kee fungus, by itself, from the kee fungus site, and gave to the young Sootskee, wishing to know if worms were necessar
y to make Threck. These kee fungus-infected people are the farmers now—most of them, that is, as offspring do not inherit the kee fungus from parent. The farmers, you may notice, are not so wild as my Seekapock you met, but not so smart as Threck. Threck train the farmers like they train afvrik, to do work in places no Threck wish to live.”

  “And you believed all of these experiments were wrong?” Aether guessed.

  “Wrong? Wrong as with rules?”

  “The testing, the farmers … You thought it shouldn’t be done? That Threck had to change?”

  Eeahso signed confusion. “No. Why change?”

  “Forget it. Continue. How did all this lead to your exile?”

  “One of my experiments was to determine if Threck could have two Infected Worms inside, thus becoming doubly smart. This was not unheard of experiment. Our leader, Amoss, attempted to insert kee fungus directly into several of us, with no effect. Long before me, Threck had gone to lay in the Tree Circle, but the Infected Worms disregarded anyone already imbued with kee fungus. I continued to the logical next step: I consumed Infected Worms.”

  “And you were caught.”

  “Caught? This was not in secret. I announced my plans and performed the experiment before Amoss and others in my group. Only after many days passed without success signs did Amoss inform others. The council reacted as if I had killed someone, and Amoss put stop on all experiments with kee fungus or Infected Worms. Days passed without event before I was forced to leave—I, the one to absorb blame and punishment for all of the group’s members, for all of the group’s actions.”

  “Well,” Aether replied. “Your new group really got them back, didn’t they?”

  Eeahso considered this unironically. “Yes, but the outcome for all is bad.”

  “You believe the Threck council will have you hunted down and killed. How do you think they would respond if I—if Orange People—went to them and explained that you weren’t involved? That it was only Skinny responsible, and that you executed Skinny for this offense?”

  The layer of water on Eeahso’s skin and cloak had mostly evaporated. She was growing antsy and distracted once again. “I don’t know if Threck believe things Orange People say.”

  “Assume they do. Would it matter? Would they still need person to blame, to present to the population in same way they did with you and your group’s experiment?”

  This idea seemed to strike Eeahso, her eyes bulging as her arms signed newfound recognition, her thirst and discomfort forgotten. “Orange People are smarter than Thinkers! This is remarkable ability, seeing all choices—”

  “Yes, fine, what is the answer? I need to return to my tasks.”

  “This is what they will want most,” Eeahso said with enthusiasm. “A liable wrongdoer. This is truly wise thinking, connecting past acts to present context.”

  “So if we drop Skinny’s dead body on Threck City’s theater stage, that will be enough?”

  Shock and confusion returned to Eeahso. “This would not be effective. This would only confuse … Dead body from the sky like rain …” She glanced at the nearby skimmers. “What holds the flying things off the ground? What carries it—”

  “Obviously, we would not drop the body on the city and fly away. I meant that if we give them Skinny, explaining what happened, as I said before, they would accept this and peace with Orange People could resume?”

  “And me,” Eeahso added. “It is possible, peace.”

  Minutes later, Aether stepped up to Pablo, squatting before compression bags filled with linens. Aether watched Pablo’s eyes shift from the bags, to Aether, to Eeahso as she arrived at Aether’s side. Spellbound, he stood up.

  “I have a task for you,” Aether said, and Pablo’s eyebrows snapped up. Aether turned to Eeahso. “This one is called Pablo. He is going to experiment on you.”

  * * *

  Warm wind gusts surged at the team’s backs, intensified by the cliff edge behind them, then streaming over the peninsula’s flat surface, before returning to the open air of a large bay. On a low pile of non-toxic branches and bark, Angela’s body lay wrapped in a white cotton sheet. From the crew’s perspective on slightly lower ground, she appeared as a glowing giant, stretched out across the island’s northeast mountain range as the sun set somewhere beyond.

  Aether tried to remain present as a jumble of thoughts and worries and emotions assaulted her brain. She tried to listen intently as Pablo read the words everyone had sent him, but she kept thinking that the current sentence was the last, and that Qin would then light the pyre, and Angela would begin to burn away to nothing. Aether wished they’d buried Angela, but Tom had insisted she didn’t want it—that she’d always been terrified of being eaten by little things. She’d alluded once or twice to her ashes.

  Aether wondered if she’d be able to sleep. She thought about tomorrow, returning to Threck City. She wondered what Minnie was doing at that very second. And John and Ish, too, of course … of course … Because, of course, all of them were still alive, and doing things.

  Zisa snorted out a sudden laugh and sniffed as Pablo read Qin’s prepared words. “‘… or complained about the sappiness of any of our tributes, and if she could right now, she’d probably shoot a horribly inappropriate M to only Pablo’—to me—‘to make me laugh at the worst possible moment…’”

  Aether stroked Tom’s back as he wept quietly beside her. She glanced behind him to the unnatural glow from their camp, down the hill. What was Eeahso up to? Aether had warned her that if she touched anything, they’d boot her off the cliff, and Eeahso appeared to believe it.

  Tom had taken to conspicuously ignoring Eeahso’s presence. He’d never been the violent type, even under the worst duress, but Aether didn’t feel good about leaving the camp with both Tom and Eeahso there. More importantly, she needed Tom with her in Threck City. He was the one that established first contact, built a rapport with key individuals, and knew from experience what verbal pitfalls to avoid. In less than twelve hours, she and Tom would audaciously request help—tremendous, unmerited help—from people who may currently wish them all dead. And for this feat, she would rely on a delicate, grieving, potentially hateful Tom.

  Aether felt Tom’s back shift and tense. The pyre had been lit.

  The team watched in silence as the flames quickly grew, stoked by the blustery wind. On Aether’s left, Qin joined Zisa and Pablo, standing arm in arm. Aether curled her hand around Tom’s waist, pulling him tighter to her side, as she wrapped her other arm around Qin’s back, joining all five into a single line. Angela’s sheet caught, and the flames rose madly into the air.

  2.9

  As Eeahso predicted, Skinny’s mud-soaked carcass lay undisturbed in the pit where they’d left it, the entire area deserted by Seekapock. Eeahso had confidently proclaimed the clan would be in the undersea fortress—a site she’d persistently branded as safe haven to her flock.

  Later, substantiating the Threck exile’s third presumption, the city’s harbor was abuzz with activity. Four colossal afvrik floated in a line along one of the artificial jetties, their amber-hued shells lying motionless above the surface like a string of sandbars.

  Aether slowed the skimmer and veered right toward the assembled Threck as they waited to board. The maneuver certainly caught their attention. Arms whirled and flailed like the cilia of a giant Threck hand. A dissonant, seabird chorus rose from the crowd as Aether swung the skimmer left, zoomed over the walled fish enclosures, and landed in the wide dirt field outside the southeast city gate. The alarm whistles were already blaring.

  “Here we go,” Aether said to Tom, and he sprang into action while Aether kept an eye on the gate and harbor.

  With a look of abject disgust, Tom unclipped the tie-downs, freeing Skinny’s limp body, and kicked it toward the edge of the pad. A runny mud streak traced the path. The flaccid heap did not exactly fall over the edge as much as pour, piling up a short distance below with the sound of splattering vomit. It was difficult for Aethe
r to reconcile the blob in the dirt with the first non-human, intelligent lifeform she’d met.

  Tom grabbed a passenger grip. “Clear.”

  Aether twisted the lift throttle and brought the skimmer up to five meters. “This should be well out of reach, right?”

  Tom peered over the side. “Not if they start throwing stuff.”

  “Well, hopefully we can avert that.” She set the skimmer to hold, released the controls, and nodded to the opening gate. “Here we go.”

  Armed Threck streamed from the corridor, fanning out in every direction. Aether glanced back as small squads of guards around the fish bay performed a well-practiced maneuver, splitting up and reassembling at the bay’s two exposed sides. Threck from the gate had traversed the field, half now passing the skimmer (without getting to close), and circling around in two organized ranks.

  “Do they ever throw those things?” Aether asked, referring to the bronze-tipped staffs.

  Tom’s fatigued eyes surveyed an area of troops. “Not that I’ve seen. Only melee use … Then again, one could always improvise—hey look, some folks hanging back at the gate. I’d say that’s your audience.”

  Tapping at the console, Aether fed her Livetrans output through the skimmer’s more impressive PA. She turned back to Tom before sending her first prepared announcement. “Sy-onz People?”

  “Yeah … like science … it’s all in there. You merged our DBs, right? I can talk to them if you really need me to. You know, it’s just—”

  Aether shook her head. “It’s fine.” She eyed once again the hundred or more Threck surrounding them. “You’re on lookout.”

  Aether crouched down and clutched the handle in the floor at her feet, raising the booster platform used by shorter pilots. She stepped up onto it, rolled her shoulders to stretch, and sent the message.

  “Peaceful greetings, Threck friends. Two nights ago, barbaric atrocities took place during your sacred keepock ritual.” A few figures emerged from the shaded gateway, gesturing as Aether’s message continued. “This offense was planned by one raider, who then ordered dumb, misguided followers to execute the plan.” The waving Threck from the gate—not quite so fast as the guards—plodded nearer, their waves more evidently gestures. “In the interest of ongoing peace and relations between us, we Syons People bring this villain to you, dead, killed by—”