Tacenda Read online

  They walked back towards the beach on shaky legs, muscles protesting the unusual transport. It was a pleasant ache, well earnt and healthy.

  Floating on the dock, a large building perched, roughly built from wood. It had a hurried look to it, materials that did not follow the same design. The boards it rested on were patchy, knots in the wood showing the sea underneath. The sturdy door was secured with a large metal bolt and no-one responded to their knocks. Shrugging, Kerris led them onwards and onto the pebbled beach.

  Their unease grew as no-one came to meet them. The darkening sky was swollen with wisps of cloud, lit by the dying light of the sun. The first pinprick of light shone overhead, from what constellation she could not tell. She shivered, her damp suit sticking to her skin as she moved.

  A sound behind them, and they both turned, raising pistols as they moved.

  They stood there in the growing dark, but nothing was ahead of them. Only the sea lay behind, waves crashing peacefully into the shore.

  Still holding weapons, they walked forward, scanning the area.

  A small figure darted ahead of them, human and terrified. “Wait!” Kerris called. She tapped her wrist to play the messenger chimes to announce them.

  But the child was long gone, and they came to the beach to see a set of spaced out small footprints fleeing. A dirty blanket and some burnt out sticks lay to the drier end, surrounded by an attempt at a fire pit that made Arucken wince.

  Should we break the door of that building? Check for signs? He asked her. It feels like they’ve been abandoned.

  I think we should find shelter. Kerris answered. Somewhere we can defend. This isn’t right.

  A cry of pain broke the silence, high-pitched and terrified.

  The child!

  They moved together, weapons ready and moving in tandem. Across the beach, past another set of footprints and towards a pile of towering stones. Arranged in a sequence, they looked oddly unbalanced. The shadows they cast hid part of the wavy trail leading upwards.

  As they rounded it, they saw a creature crouched above the figure they had seen before. It was covered in a dark robe, a large item concealed against its body. It held the child’s kicking legs to the floor.

  “Stop!” thundered Arucken’s voice, his voice deep and shaking with echoes. “Release the child, and move aside!”

  The adult turned towards them in shock, keeping the child awkwardly pinned. It was a woman, older and stern, with exhausted eyes.

  The child looked about seven, although Kerris knew little of kids. He was thin, with wild shaggy hair and torn clothes. He fought against the woman’s grip like an animal, making low keening sounds.

  The woman raised both hands slowly above her head, a roughly made spear clutched in one. She kept the child gripped between her knees and staggered a little as he thrashed.

  “I can’t!” she answered roughly. “If he runs, they’ll get him! Trust me, you don’t want them on us!”

  Kerris caught sight of the child’s eyes, wide but vacant, they showed no understanding of the situation. She remembered the rough signs of the fire, an imitation of the shape with little understanding of the purpose.

  “Explain then. Quickly.” She said, placing a light touch to Arucken’s arm. She was the only one that would notice his shaking, he kept himself so well controlled. The upbringing of his species was not a kind one, and it had suited him not at all. Little wonder he’d taken the chance to escape, experiment or no, the first chance he’d been given.

  “We were attacked. Six weeks ago. I don’t know by what, at night.” The woman said, giving answers like bullets. It was clear they pained her.

  She held the child with strength, but taking care not to hurt him. He hit out at her, landing blows on her legs and shouting but there were no recognisable words behind it. She ignored him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “This is my son. He’s been like this since. All the children, like this - Wait! I heard the chimes, do you finally bring the help we asked for?”

  “You are Serena?” Kerris asked, remembering the names Oleysha had given.

  The woman shook her head. “Taken. Dead, we think. Please, we need to get to safety. It is not far from here. If you can help me, we can be there before full dark falls. And we must be out of here by then!”

  At their nod, she passed Arucken the spear and grasped her child to her. She held him tightly, across her body but he continued lashing out. She made movements only to free her face, and accepted the blows without comment. She led the way with fast, careful steps and they followed.

  The light faded, as if it was leaking out of the sky. The only sound was the woman’s harsh breathing, her calm voice trying to sooth the child she carried. Arucken asked her once if she wanted help but she refused it. She did not strike either of them as someone who accepted help readily.

  Or perhaps, Kerris amended, as she watched the fretful kicks and low moaning sounds of the child - the woman did not trust them to know what to do.

  Arucken and Kerris strode to one side of her, careful to keep their senses alert. Who was it that would “take” the child? What was this woman so afraid of? They did not speak for some time.

  It was a gentle land, although they could see the rise of mountains further out. They lay on the flatter edges like spiked shadows, reaching up to touch the dim lights of emerging stars. The stones underfoot gave way to softer growth, grass and small bushes with the odd taller tree scattered around.

  The land grew more cultivated, rough beginnings of worked fields and small outbuildings. At this sight the child the woman carried calmed, and she was able to put him down. After many repetitions, she coaxed him to walk, although he was unable to do so in a straight line. He drifted, side to side, picking up loose stones and twigs from the floor and sometimes pausing at odd moments to gape at the sky.

  The woman appeared to relax some, chattering to them in a more normal tone about the buildings around them as she guided her child forward. There was a strain to her voice still, but her shoulders lost their stiff edge.

  “I’m Morgan.” She said. “And this is my son Lyndon.”

  Arucken introduced them both, asking questions of the settlement. It was hard to see much of what she pointed out, as it all lay in near darkness. Every building had shutters pulled down, and they held an air of recent neglect.

  They soon came to a cluster of buildings that they took to be the village centre. Morgan led them to a large building that stood to the middle. She directed them to rap a certain sequence, struggling to keep her son quiescent by her side. The child pressed his face repeatedly, with some force, against her legs. Her dark red hair lay ragged but she could spare no hand to sooth it back. Kerris wondered how she managed to stay so calm.

  Her fingers tapped against the gun strapped to her hip. She already sensed, with a numb anger, that this was not the simple trip they had planned.

  Arucken tapped the sequence on the thick wooden door. It drew open and Morgan motioned them immediately inside. Arucken walked in first, and she followed a step behind but he was already sending her calmer thoughts.

  A thin man stood just behind the door, slamming it shut the moment Morgan was inside. The layer of bolts he shot across after was shocking, and they bore the marks of hasty modifications.

  “Oh thank everything!” the man exclaimed, as the woman placed the child to one side. The boy started kicking, but the noises he made were less frantic and there was no-one in range to hurt. A dozen other children lay nearby, playing simple games with exhausted adults. A few bodies lay stretched to the corner, sleeping as if dead.

  A few of the adults looked up as they entered, but none of them moved. A dark skinned man wearing a turban nodded to them in greeting, but then returned to washing a pile of clothes in a makeshift tub.

  The woman and man embraced, as if no-one else in the world existed. “You found him.” the man stated. His voice was a low, deep whisper with feelings shadowing his simple words. “Oh gods.”


  When composed the woman turned back to them both. “We’ll be safe here. They don’t come this far inland. This is my partner, Jiang. “

  Her partner was tall with thin, unwashed hair and dark oval eyes. The lines on his brow looked recent, his plain clothes shabby and torn. He reached out a slim hand to grasp Morgan’s and smiled at them both.

  Morgan looked them over, noting how light their bags were. Her voice was not hopeful as she moved to a corner, and picked up a battered ID card from a shabby wooden bench to show them. “Do you have the supplies?”

  “The seedlings have been delivered to the mainland, as agreed. They send this message.” Kerris said, passing it across once she’d checked the card. It felt redundant, hiding in a ritual suitable only for normality. As the woman tapped in the passcode and read through her face changed to pure anger.

  “Cowards!” she said, spitting out the word. “No help from them.”

  “For what?” Arucken answered. “Why were we sent here, with no warning? What is this threat?”

  “Not one they’ll acknowledge. They’ve abandoned us, it seems.” Jiang answered, after a glance at their son. Lyndon curled up in one corner, repeating a phrase over and over. A man knelt by him, young and smiling, trying to get the boy to respond with little success.

  The hall was huge, its roof was high above them with strong, thick beams criss-crossing around it. The windows were set high up, wide and letting in slim patches of moonlight that splashed across a plain wooden floor. An odd assortment of furniture held piles of items, jumbled together.

  Kerris could see one with clothing for the children, a riot of dyed clothes in rainbow colours. The large pile behind it was clearly for the adults, the clothes more subdued and drab.

  Another held items for weavings, and further out lay a long wooden bench covered with food and plates. A large ceramic bowl with soapy water lay abandoned to one side of it. A lot of it bore marks of careful, but hurried, decisions from an organised mind.

  “They made a landing, not long ago and tried to talk. We had no-one to answer.” Jiang continued “When we could give them no response they went into our sea, we don’t know how many of them there are. They took hold of our children at night and they returned as you see them.”

  “We killed a few. We think.” Morgan said, after her partner paused. “And they us. They took what children they could catch. Returned them the next night as you see and we gathered here. We never see them, don’t know how many or what they look like. They come back, every night to the shores. We can hear them, calling. “

  “You fired first?” Arucken answered, his disgust clear. “Then the deaths happened?”

  “They took our children!” Jiang answered, his anger clear and looking at Arucken as if he’d only now noticed his difference.

  “Before, or after you fired?” Arucken pressed.

  “One before.” Morgan answered, the sparks in her grey eyes were like tiny fires. She moved to stand beside her partner, her voice brimming with anger. “Ours. Then the others after the killings.”

  Kerris stepped between the woman and Arucken, sensing his rage. He was slight in build, strong but so often underestimated. He held his colours tight in control, though she doubted any here held the experience to understand them.

  "But we are all safe here?" She asked, taking care to keep her voice neutral.

  Tearing her gaze away from Arucken Morgan nodded, a terse and controlled movement. "They tried that first night, knocking on the doors." She shivered at the thought. "We've heard them follow us after that but now they give up, and retreat back to the sea. No-one wants to risk splitting up, so we’ve been staying here together."

  "They took the children with them into the sea?" Kerris asked in disbelief.

  "I'm telling you all we know!" Morgan snapped. "We've never seen them!"

  "They may have equipment with them then. They’d need it for the kids." Arucken added. He was clearly keeping an effort to stay calm, and Kerris spotted a light aura around his hands. It was a pale blue, spiked with black lines. "Water may just be a convenient base for them, not a necessity."

  Morgan nodded. “It’s close to the storehouse. We found the next morning they’d raided it, took nothing but the fuel. “

  No going back via the Dolphins then. Kerris said to her partner. Without that, and no grid access, they are cut off. And us with them.

  "We asked for help. Reported it. But they want to forget us." Morgan said across their inward dialogue. Her voice was full of bitterness. She pushed a strand of her curling hair behind her ears, exposing gaps where small angry hands had torn out chunks, some quite recent.

  "So why draft messengers in to deliver? That makes no sense. They told us your answer would be going off world - we don't take local jobs." Kerris asked. She wondered how Arroyo had managed to ignore its own offshoot for six weeks, before making a half-hearted effort to help out now. What were they hoping to achieve at this stage?

  "Not just any messengers. You." Morgan answered. "An interspecies team. That's their response."

  She exchanged a look with her partner and Kerris couldn't fail to see their lack of confidence. A messenger team was not the answer they had hoped for.

  What a brilliant start! Arucken’s mental touch was anxious and tired. His fatigue splashed across her until she could no longer tell the true ache of her own muscles. This planet was terraformed far more for her species, than his. This isn’t right.

  “Do the creatures wait all night?” Kerris asked, after a moment. She agreed with her partner, and did her best to send him strength. She was never sure quite how well she managed it, but he did stand a little straighter after.

  Morgan sighed. “How would we know? We can’t spare anyone to watch.”

  “Is it only the children that they call? Could you have an adult watching?” Arucken asked.

  Morgan shook her head. “If we could spare someone, but there isn’t the light to see. “

  “Nestlings have the same spectral and intensity range as humans.” Arucken said, into the pause. He blinked those same eyes, a frown across his wide mouth.

  Morgan and Jiang exchanged another glance, and Jiang raised his eyebrows down at his partner. “We weren’t expecting miracles.” He said quietly, as he brought his eyes back up to them both. “Despite what it might seem, we are grateful you are here. Any help you can give is welcome.”

  Kerris nodded, her head was pounding. “Look, we’ve had a long trip and there’s little we can do tonight. Let’s sleep and prepare in the morning. Do you have any supplies here we can use?”

  Jiang gestured for them to follow, and led them to the large table at the back supplied with food. They ate a quick meal of bread and fruit whilst a few of the children watched them with a distracted curiosity. A small girl with black hair watched them long after the others had lost interest, until the young man Kerris had noted earlier came up and led her away.

  Jiang offered them some blankets and settled them to a small room, past the main hall. There were less people here, a couple slept on the floor and one on a bench that looked no more comfortable. Kerris picked her way amongst the three sleepers as Jiang whispered his good night. He left the door ajar, giving them just enough light to see dim outlines.

  Arucken grumbled a little as he joined her, but in a way only she could hear. They were both exhausted and any shelter was welcome. They had certainly encountered worse. The rustle of clothing and low, odd murmurs made an unpleasant background noise. Occasional sharper sounds sounded from the main room where the kids were. They changed clothing in the silence, shivering a little until they wrapped the thick blankets around them.

  Kerris settled herself against her partner in one corner of the room as clear of the sleeping bodies as they had room to be. She tucked her leg around the sides of the rough blanket and felt the steady warmth of her partner as they rested back to back. Arucken sighed deeply and wished her good night. Despite the oddities, they sensed no danger here.

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