Chapters 9 and 10.
Warnings - Violence against children, injury to a child, and Carina continues to fail at eating.
4405 words
Link to chapters 7 and 8, with links to the rest.
Anyway since one person wanted it. Chapters 7 and 8. Warnings - more self harm, nudity (not described but it's there), transphobia and mis
Sentinel Station
Sector 17, Ward 36, Waste Processing Block 3
2283 Standard Cycle
Carina, Age 22
Holding her breath, Carina rounded a corner. Ahead a group of workers carried shovels and buckets and long forks. She walked in step behind them. One glanced back at her and shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow. It returned quickly in the hot, damp air. More people were grouped around heaps of waste, sorting them into chest high tubs. An avaki man yawned and swayed on his feet, held up only by the grey pillar behind him, the thing like a dead giant. He glared up at the humans she walked with. The man beside him nudged his shoulder and he returned to work. A human woman looked up from a barrel of what smelled like rotting flesh. She languidly waved, her hand red and swollen. Carina returned the gesture, and walked onward. A drone flew overhead but did not stop. With her torn jumpsuit and tired eyes, that was all the scrutiny she received. Even to the few officers and the overseer she was invisible. Still, she sped up, following another group until the square opened into a wide, dim hall. Half asleep, the people wandered into grey rooms for their short breaks. She passed them and rounded another corner. More rooms lined the lightless passage, deserted, dry and decayed mouths half open. Carina's stomach twisted, dead and distant in hunger. She laid down and let one of the rooms swallow her.
Long before humans had even left Earth, ward thirty-six had been avaki skip, sent to Sentinel Station upon decommission. It had been an actual town once, but the Station had grown and its needs had changed. Its community lived in forgotten gaps now, in blocks hidden in the walls with fabric doors and hot, cramped lightless side quarters for the few avaki doomed to this place.
Eyes adjusted to the dark, Carina took in this room. Dust coated the walls and floor and rested thick on a worn bedroll in the corner. A round, ten legged insect crawled off a ledge and scurried across the floor. A long, furred creature darted from under a discarded sheet, snatched the bug and disappeared through a crack in the wall. Rapid clicks and an acid scent seeped from it.
She turned away and looked over the ledge. Even this ward's square had windows, though the displays were left off, grey walls towering over the silent workers. In the old crew rooms, however, no displays had ever been installed, only thick glass with retracting metal to shield them during hyperspace trips. This one could no longer be pulled down. She gazed through the thin gap into a pure, deep blackness. It was endless, both bashing against the glass and streaming away, the desert of night the Station's billions drifted in. In legends men went mad in the dark. She reached under the bedroll.
Everything was there, as always. She opened the small black box, slipped the three red and three blue pills into her pocket and unfolded the silver disk underneath them. It expanded to the width of the bedroll, wafer thin. She pressed a hand to it, silent as a needle shot into her palm, still save for her eyes widening. The metal rippled, turned red, and released her. She stood, waiting. A scarlet image flickered to life.
“We need to stop meeting like this.”said a soft voice. “Rina.” The letters formed slowly in blue furred hands - not out of old ineptitude, but as if to savor every movement.
“You always say that.” She signed in return. “Interesting new biometric, by the way.”
“I am great, aren't I?”Tovie signed quickly. Her translucent mouth broke into a warm smile. “Rina, you look so….” Her hands fell, just for a moment. She rubbed her eyes, lower hands on her hip. “It's good to see your face again.”
Carina stared, taking her in. After seven years her jaw was stronger and her eyes less bright, her left horn chipped at the top and her old veil loose with scattered tears. Still, even now, alone and relaxed, she stood taller than before, with coarser fur and broader shoulders. Four strong arms bulged out of her sleeveless top, and even in a long skirt there was a hint of the thickness of her legs.
“Do you mind if, while we talk, I…?” As usual, her hands fell to her sides, the question only ever half formed.
Carina nodded. She pulled off her scarf and undid her top three buttons. Black fabric fell to expose her shoulders and collarbones.
“Thank you.”Tovie signed, even though Carina always said yes. Shimmering in holographic red, she unclipped a stylus from her pocket, netpad propped in front of her. “You're…. Rina, I….” She started to draw. Pen strokes lit the air, her lower hands quick in the dark. “I know I don't have my family's money now, but I can send you some food, at least a little bit. Anything you want from what we have here. You can't live off that paste. Your teeth will fall out.”
Carina shook her head. “I’m alright.” She chuckled. “And so are my teeth. I'm… glad you had time for me.”
“Rina, I'll always have time for you.”
She grinned. “Still, I know how busy you are. Colony operations and all.”
“We're still not even halfway on the net.”she said. “Still, it's better than training was. Just one call every eight days.”
“Two with your constant workarounds.”
“Right.” She laughed. “They always took so long to catch me.”
Carina picked at her neck. “How’s mom?”she asked with small, slow movements against her ribs.
Tovie looked away, barely a pause to her penstrokes. “She finally has a proper home here. I see her sometimes.”
“You…. Oh.” She swallowed, palms pressed to her eyes. “What does she remember now? Has she said anything about…” She coughed. Her fingers trembled. “...about me? And… how long…?”
“She has about a year.”Tovie answered. “And… she doesn't remember much at all anymore. She always asks why this ‘damn horned bitch’ wants to talk to her.”
“Of course she does.” Carina laughed, choked and bitter.
“And”Tovie continued. “she uses the wrong name, but… she asks where you are.”
“What do you tell her?”
“You're at a college on Fortaera. On scholarship. You'd call but you're busy with classes. You'll be fast tracked to a job in translation tech after graduation. You forgive her. She's happy for you.”
“Thank you.”she whispered, choosing to believe her words. There was little else to do.
“That… boy of yours, is he doing well?”
“Tohru.”she said. “And he's hardly mine. But he's… relatively well. What about-”
“I haven't talked to Korvel.”she signed. “He's still on Arethon-tria, in the middle of that stupid varthek's war - not that he thinks so.” She rolled her eyes. “I suppose he fights well, if nothing else.
“I'm… sorry.”
“It wasn't your fault.” She shrugged. “And you know we wouldn't have been close these past few years anyway.” She wrung both pairs of her hands, picked up the stylus before putting it back down. “But, I might be….” She clenched her fists. “I might be away for a while.”
Carina blinked. “I thought you liked Herravalte-su. I mean, you specifically looked for a colony that wanted outside help. That's what you told me.”
Again she picked up and put down the stylus. “It's fine here.”she signed. “We could do with less surveillance, and cut into the forests less, but” She sighed. “that's just what's been decided. No, I meant…. Rina, you know I'm twenty-four.”
“So?”she asked. “That's what, five percent of your life? Probably less for you.”
“I know.” She bit the end of her stylus. “But, my parents still want…. They've chosen a husband for me.”
“But you're-”
“I know. It doesn't matter.”
“Korvel doesn't have a wife.”she said. “I mean, he shouldn't, but all the same.”
“Sure, but they'll let him wait.”
“I'm… sorry.”
She sighed. “Like I said, it's not your fault. And he's… nice enough. Varnell, I mean. At least, he has been on vid calls.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I'll be alright, The Spirits willing. I just wanted you to know.”
“I'm sorry.” She searched her mind for a new topic, something worth their limited time. “I might be getting extra work.”
“Extra?” Tovie's mouth turned down, her eyes narrow. “Rina, what has that absolute pile of kathret done to you now? ”
“It's not Harken.”she said, and explained the previous night. “He’s a little odd. I mean, paying just to get a closer look at me, then talking for his whole hour? But he doesn't seem dangerous. It shouldn't interfere with… us.”she finished.
Tovie stood with one hand on her hip, lips pursed. “Ketra Senan?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”she said. “I'm almost finished, by the way.”
“Alright.”
Tovie continued drawing, her eyes narrowed and bottom lip bitten in focus. Carina let her head fall back against the wall. They had to be quiet here. That last song would come later. She sighed, her eyes half closed.
“Done.”Tovie said after a long, comfortable silence. “See?” She turned the netpad. What it showed was, despite her skill, not quite a true likeness. Avaki potraits never were, nor were they meant to be, and this was at least a pleasant lie.
“It's beautiful.”she said.
“Of course it is. With inspiration like you, how could -” A siren blared behind her. “Vath!”she hissed. “Another storm.”she said aloud. “Sorry. Need to go.”
“Another….” Carina's mouth went dry. “But… but do you-”
“Relax.”she said. “It's a scale two and we have shelters. I'm sure all the humans are already there.”
“Then… then you'll-”
“I'm going, too.”she said. “Protocol. I'll let you know when it's over. I love you, Rina.”she added, with both her hands and her mouth.
“I… I love you, too, Tovie.”
Hologram snuffed out, the metal crumbled into pale pink flakes. She leaned back and slid down the wall, teeth gritted and fists clenched in her lap. Tovie would be alright. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Tovie would be alright.
“Oh, no.”
She jolted, hurrying to button her jumpsuit. An avaki girl and a human boy looked up at her through the gap in the door.
“Sorry.”the girl said. “We’ll go.”
The boy crawled through and shook his head. “She’ll tell your dad.”he said in stilted Aerkaath. Fists balled up, he stepped in front of the girl.
Carina sighed, a hand over her mouth, wracking her brain for what she'd picked up of this block’s threadspeak. “I'm not telling anyone anything.”she said, the words drawn out. She took the boy's bruised wrists and lowered his arms to his sides.
His sunken eyes narrowed. He helped the girl to her feet, clutching her hand. “I don't know….”
Carina tied on her mask. They were both so small. “How about this? I didn't see you if you didn't see me.” She held out a tube of nutrel and another of cura.
The boy stared up at her, yellowed teeth bared in his dirty face. He crossed his arms. Blood stained his ripped trousers. The girl hung her head and pulled at her sleeves with bony fingers. Matted fur peaked through torn fabric. The boy snatched both and opened the nutrel.
“Make sure to-” Carina stopped. The boy pressed the nutrel into the girl's hand. Slowly, she slurped out the paste.
“And sew up your clothes a bit. Please.” She handed the boy a needle and a cluster of thread.
“What…?”
“I know how.” The girl took the thread and gave him the rest of the nutrel. “Thank you. Do you promise not to tell? We just wanted to play.”
“I promise. Will you let me leave now?”
The girl stepped aside, tugging the boy along. Carina crawled out of the room, stood and brushed off her clothes.
“Wait!”came a loud whisper. The tube of nutrel slid to her feet, one third left inside. She sighed, kicked it back into the dusty room, and hurried back to the ward square.
Herravalte-su
Colony Outpost 1
2283, 3rd Standard Cycle
Tovrek, Age 24
“I… I love you, too, Tovie.”
The words lingered with the last flash of Rina’s image. Sirens harsh in her ears, Tovrek hurried to minimize the holo-drawing, shielding it from the human girls who had just run into her trailer. Wind howled outside.
“Kallis ve’ek-sen.”the first girl, Kyla, said with a half bow. “Storm.”she added in thickly accented Aerkaath.
“She means a storm is coming, ve’ek-sen.”Cora, the second girl, said.
“I'm aware.”she responded, not bothering with their common tongue any longer. She'd told the girls they could speak how they pleased, that under her their contract had few rules. Half a year later, they still couldn't believe her. “Which shelter?”she asked, pulling tubes and scopes off the shelves around her. The girls packed them into protective cases, fast and mechanical.
“Seven, ve’ek-sen.”
“Thank you.” She slung a bag over her shoulder, two more in her bottom hands. Schedule two, she'd told Rina to ease her mind. A branch flew through the window. The sill cracked under it and hard red bark grazed Kyla’s face. Her eyes widened but she made no sound.
Tovrek sighed, kicked the branch in half and pushed it back outside. “Behind me.”
The tempest shrieked through the streets, waving the blue leaves above like banners and grasping at the cables that kept the stackhouses in place. They were all dark now, and only one other group remained outside - a couple with four children in their arms and all their human staff in a small crowd behind them. Tovrek raised one hand, a Vital shield against the gale. It widened to cover the girls as well. Dark rain fizzled off of it.
“Ka’ahen veit!”she called to the running family. Come here! “Viil tais nohkt!” I can help!
They either didn't hear her or didn't care, continuing on. Her legs sunk well past her hooves into the already soaked ground. She glanced back at the girls, glad they'd remembered boots. The family trudged ahead.
The sky blazed and flashed white. Cables strained but did not give in.
A crack ripped through the air. More and wider branches crashed to the ground. The couple rolled away, youngest child clutched to the mother's chest. The soil burst and mud splashed thick on Tovrek’s shield. A scream hit her ears, quickly severed.
“Wait!”she yelled. The storm swept up her voice. “Vath!”she swore under her breath. “Stay behind me.”
“Please!”a human girl cried. A Vital field burned and died in her hands. The fallen tree did not move. A human boy squirmed under it, blood on his trousers and his leg bent the wrong way. Every movement cracked and bled.
“Please!”
After another step the two were under her shield. With her free hand she gripped the roots and pushed.
“Little help, please?”
The others joined her, lifting and rolling the tree away. Without a word she slung the boy over her shoulder. His cries dissolved in the wind. Rain whipped her shield until they reached shelter seven and leapt inside.
“Last expected arrival.”came a voice over an intercom. The place was lit bright as a ship, and just as silent. Human servants unfurled bedrolls and unpacked rations, needing little direction to prepare for a two day storm.
“Ah, Kallis.”came a low, even voice. It was not loud, yet it filled the room, and for a moment every face turned to it. “And here I thought you might not make it, and stay trapped in your little trailer.”
Like all the others she looked up. In closer quarters and without rain she recognized the pale-furred and darkly painted man now. Of course it had been him out there. The boy groaned. She turned away and carefully laid him on the floor. Blood spread over the white metal.
“Kallis, that is mine. Leave it be.”
“I'm sorry.”she said to the boy, in his own tongue. He coughed, trembling and no longer able to scream, his face blanched.
“Take this.”she continued, and held out a white powdery pill. The boy gritted his teeth and turned away, trying and failing to lift his arms.
“Let her.”the girl whispered in Aerkaath. “Please, let-” She stopped with a sharp breath and a whimper.
“And you, girl,”the man said, his fingers tight around her wrist. “ought to know better than running off on your own.”
“Let her go.”Tovrek said. “Thank you.”she added to the boy as the pill dissolved on his tongue. Fear remained in his eyes, but his tears soon stopped.
“Let her go.”she repeated.
The man scoffed. “Why, little Kallis, I'm only taking back what's mine. I do thank you for returning them.” He bent and reached for the boy.
Tovrek adjusted herself, hiding the boy a little more. “Kit, please, Cora.”
“Don't ignore- Why, you little-!”
With a sharp breath the girl stumbled and fell backwards over Tovrek's legs. A Vital field warped around her arm, just strong enough to pry apart a man's fingers. Her cheek was red with three open gashes, blood on her teeth as well. The silence deepened, as if the room itself was afraid to breathe.
“I'm sorry.”Tovrek said.
“Oh, now you're-”
“I wasn't talking to you.”she said. “I'm sorry.”she told the boy again. “Just a little longer.”she added and stood. Both pairs of arms crossed, she looked up at the man with narrowed eyes. “You're interrupting me.”
“I'm-” The man straightened, even taller now. Gold lines on his painted chest caught the light. “I'm interrupting you? Don't you remember that I could have you - you and your spoiled pets-” He glared down at Kyla and Cora. “kicked out of this colony with just my signature?”
Tovrek breathed in deep, rage lodged in her throat. “I'm fixing the boy's leg, Chancellor Herrehk.”she said with as little emotion as she could muster. Her fist balled up in the crook of her arm, claws dug into her palm. “Which is more than you would have done.”
“Perhaps.”the Chancellor said. “But that is my right. Now, step aside, before-”
In one swift motion, Tovrek's fist crashed into his face. Bones cracked.
“How dare-!”
She pulled back and hit him again. Blood poured from his nose.
“I'm working.”she said, turning away. The man lunged at her, only held back by his wife who had stood silent behind him the entire time. A small hand on his upper arm, she whispered in his ear.
“I….” The Chancellor's shoulders slumped. “I suppose that will have to be enough. You” He pointed to Tovrek, eyes cold and a sneer twisting his bloody lip around his long top teeth. “You can have… those” He flicked his hand toward the humans. “if you're so concerned about them. But your next stipend will pay for their contract., along with half of the next five. And your workload will be doubled for the foreseeable future.”
“Doubled?” Her mouth hung open. Between patrols and her work on comms she already had little time to sleep.
“It should be easy, with the extra hands.”
She gritted her teeth. Her fingers shook with the urge to hit him again. She shoved down the rage with a deep breath and nodded. “Understood.”
“Understood….” He stared at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Understood, ve’ek-sen.”
“So you can speak to me properly.”he said. “Now if only to could dress and act like a proper woman. We'd have at least one less problem here.”
“Noted.”she grumbled. “Now let me tend to my-”
“And” He grabbed her top. The collar stretched and claws tore more holes into the faded fabric. “anyone stunts like this, and you'll have far worse than relocation to worry about. Remember that.”
“I'd scarcely dream of forgetting.”she said. “Ve’ek-sen.”she added just as he opened his mouth to reprimand her, then turned and knelt as if he were not there.
“Right.”the Chancellor said. “Medic Tavjen, to me now. The rest of you, continue your preparations as usual.”he continued, and the whole room let out its held breath in a flurry of hands and feet and hooves.
“And may none of us forget our roles, so the Spirits may keep us prosperous and never revoke our dominion.”
Tovrek rolled her eyes. “Osten?”she asked with a glance at Cora. “Thank you.”she said and took the small tube of gel. They didn't have much of it, but this was hardly a waste of resources.
“This will help,”she told the boy. “but I still need to reset the bone. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded weakly. With Cora and Kyla holding his shoulders down and the last girl stroking his hair, she pushed his femur back into place. He twitched but did not cry out. The anaesthetic would soon wear off. She hurried to pull bits of bark from the wound, separating the flesh to inspect the bone. It was cracked, but not as badly as she'd feared - a small fracture rather than a large break. She rubbed a thin layer of osten onto it, her own breath held as it mended.
“There.”she said. “Almost done. Thank you for being so strong, little one.”
The boy responded with a weak nod. With her lower hands she held his torn skin and muscles together, and with the upper she squeezed a thick line of cura onto his skin. Finally, she wrapped a cooling bandage around his leg. The wound would be gone without a trace within two days.
“You'll be up and walking in a week.”she said. “You were very brave, but you can lay down now, alright?”
Again the boy nodded.
“Can you tell me your name?”
The boy tensed. His eyes flickered to the girl, who was handing a second tube of cura back to Kyla.
“He does not speak.”she whispered once her own cuts had knitted themselves up. Her voice was flat, the Aerkaath words slow as if she didn't fully understand them. “But he hears you.”she said. “And we do not have names.” She bowed her head. “I am sorry, ve’ek-sen. K-kallis ve’ek-sen.”
She sighed. “Tovrek is fine.”she said. “Just call me what feels best.”
The girl blinked and nodded.
“And you can think of names later. For now” She untied her bedroll from one of their bags. “we should rest before all that extra work. Alright?”
“Yes, ve’ek-sen.” Hesitant, she reached for another bedroll - the one meant for Kyla.
“I'll take care of that. You've all done enough for now.”
The children all stared at her but did not move. She unrolled and arranged their beds in silence, ignoring the disgusted looks shot her way.
“Done. You and your… brother?”
The girl nodded.
“Thank you. You and your brother can use mine for now. Don't worry, I won't complain about the floor.”
The girl was still, not making a sound.
“Please?”
She nodded, and quietly helped her brother into the bed. Tovrek sat near them, still paying no heed to anyone else. The other colonists could think what they wished to. Spoiled pets, the Chancellor had said, but they were all just children.
Cora lay on a bed detached from the others. She stared at the ceiling, eyes dark and distant as the day Tovrek had taken her in. A 116 with its cover torn off poked out of her pocket. Even if she wouldn't open it here, she'd never let go of it since buying it two months ago. It was the only purchase she'd made with the little money Tovrek could spare for them. Even she was still not the age Rina had been, running from Veniae-di all those years ago.
Rina. Tovrek sighed. Her head fell back against the wall and she opened her netpad. The drawing was still there. It didn't look entirely like Rina, but it wasn't supposed to. The Spirit in someone could not be captured, and no matter what anyone else thought she applied that belief to everyone. In the drawing, Rina's eyes sparkled with a life that had been rare even before everything had gone wrong. There was a shine to her skin and hair, the tight curls of which framed her face like a cloud - a far cry from how she had to keep them now, cropped close to her head. Her cheeks, too, were rounded - and that was as far from reality as the rest, a lie and a prayer. She should have done more back then, or now - whether or not Rina would ever ask.
Eyes closed and all four hands on her knees, she hung her head and let a prayer fill her mind. It droned repeatedly on like fingers tapping inside her skull, a rhythm of hope. She would fix things.
The light was harsh when she opened her eyes and looked over at the others. All but Kyla had fallen asleep. The small girl shivered in her blanket, jaw clenched to hold back tears. Even if they couldn't see or hear the storm now through the thick metal and packed soil, Kyla could feel it - and her fear of storms was worse than that of most colony-born humans.
“You can come here.”she said, her voice the only sound. The Chancellor glared at her. She waved him away, a gesture just innocent enough that he couldn't rage at her again. Shaking, Kyla curled up beside her, one fear having won over another. With a lower hand, Tovrek pulled her close.
“Warm.”Kyla whispered.
She nodded, reopened her netpad and minimized Rina's image, trying not to think of their conversation too much - of the old human woman in shelter two who was only kept alive by a medic who charged exorbitant prices for ‘such a frivolous thing’, or of the strange man who had bought Rina's time yet done so little with it.
An erathi. She looked down at her hand, retracting and extending her claws. That man's would be both longer and sharper than hers, and at the end of hands large enough to wrap entirely around a human’s waist.
She shuddered and pushed away the thought. Worry would fix nothing. She unfolded her netpad once and set to work.
