crispina kemp

Chapter Thirty-Nine of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

Please note: This is a weekly post

Exhausted though Canipse was, still he checked all around the log. There were insects at one end, but he sat away from them. Then came the task of removing the leeches from his legs and feet. He’d gained the trick of it now, how to pry them away without a sting and tear. Even so, they left a trail of blood. But what could he do, he’d had to rinse his trousers and crotch-cloth.

He’d had to rinse around his arse too. Something he’d eaten had turned his innards to liquid. Fungi maybe, or fruit. That and nuts was all he was eating. He had tried to net a fish but over the years of being an overseer he’d lost that knack. Netting birds too. Neither was he good at lighting a fire.

He looked at the mess of his legs. And looked at his clothes hung on a bush to dry. Though why bother to wait till they dried when like as not it would rain again before he found a place to shelter. He’d been a fool, he admitted that now. He couldn’t even backtrack and return to basecamp, the map Zem Jess had given him was all sogged apart. Useless.

“If you Techs have a god,” he shouted, his scratched scabbed and sun-ravaged face turned up to the sky, “then may that god scope you up and drop you in the deepest midden in Pendolsphere.”

He looked around, surprised at the strength of his voice. That wasn’t good, to make such a noise in the forest. His early training on these GM planets had taught him that – when maybe the planet couldn’t provide suitable herdable meat-beasts, when he’d learned to be successful in the hunt for wild meat he had to be silent. Besides – he was told by his fellow catering ops – if he made a noise he’d be easier to track, then he’d be the prey. But he was easy to track anyway now, what with threads from his clothing and trailed by his shit.

“Talking aloud?” he mimicked the Techs’ inflexion-less voices. “Yes, Techy-Techs, I am,” he answered. “I am and I can. I can talk out loud. I can even say the forbidden because – do you hear me? – because you’re not here to hear me. You know what I want to do to you? You…” He puffed his face, he couldn’t find the word, nothing was bad enough. He settled on “shits” then changed it to “leeches.” Then combined it to “shitty leeches.” With further thought he changed that to “rotten maggot-ridden meat, filthed with vermin puke.”

At another doubling spasm in his guts, he was up and off that log, turned around and arse hanging, splattering more of his innards. Something he’d eaten. Ironic, when he was a food-preparer. He and his sister Cally trained by the Techs while still in school. Then taken to Kreegirn. “And don’t you think I don’t remember.”

He wrapped the crotch-cloth, fixed it in place, pulled on his trousers, then his socks and boots. Everything still damp. Clinging. Chafing. Hardwearing Tech-issued clothes. Not woven but something melted and formed. Had from where? Not Kreegirn, that grey barren place. Maybe Adamzal? He’d never been there but tales told of a verdant place.

Clothed and rested as best as able, he willed his feet to continue his trek. Northward. At this time of day that meant he needed to keep the sun to his left. “Not entirely lost without that map.”

Despite his Tech-issued boots every stone along the trail dug into his feet. He winced, easing his weight first one side then the other in an effort to reduce the weight on those painful feet. He stumbled, hands out to catch himself. On what? Nothing there. He landed with a crunch of bones and yelped.

He knew to get up. He knew there were things on that forest floor, small things that would bite and sting and kill him.

“Small, see,” he yelled from his awkward forest-floor position. “Not only you Techs can kill. Not only Techs can kill,” he repeated, quieter. “I remember.”

He pushed himself up, hands bleeding now, and wobbled into a bent-over posture to stumble two more steps before he stopped again. Somewhere ahead this river flowed into the sea. The beach would be easier walking.

“You, Canipse,” he told himself, “deserve to be eaten. Like Cally? So you thought to send me to Colabri, that they’d fill my head with all those Pendoling demons and I’d forget. But I remember. I remember all the things me and Cally learned about you shitty leechy Techs. The kitchens on Kreegirn were a good place to learn your secrets. A place to learn not to speak of them too. But you can’t hear me here, so now I can speak.

“You know what I learned? I learned about that black sea-poison that brings death while in sleep – because you heartless Techs will kill, kill, kill, even yourselves. I’ve seen it, with my own eyes have seen it, the dehiscing dead body. Like those dehiscing plants I saw on Absin Delath – except your dead bodies split open with a great gush of water, not of air. And there’s no tiny seeds to gather and grind and make bread. Twins. Grey twins. I saw them. Me, yes, I saw them. Cally saw too. Twins, multiple sets of twins, and always female, never a male.

“Wasn’t long after that you slung Cally as a carcase on the marble slab and told me to cut her and cook and serve to you as a meal. Oh yes, I know to be quiet. But that doesn’t make the nightmares leave me alone.”

Canipse stumbled again, his head cracked on a stone. He laughed, even as he drifted into the psi-sphere. “No more nightmares. I shall die here.”

Continues next Monday

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed

Your comment would be most appreciated

Chapter Thirty-Eight of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

Please note: This is a weekly post

Jess lost all thought of those bones as he circled above the textile farm. The glint of water was unmistakable, the previously green and gold fields turned to deep cobalt blue. He brought the flier down in the only dry place he could see – between the irrigation plant and the hive.

“What’s going on here?” He had to bellow to make himself heard above the equally loud shouts of Eulal and Niapse and their hammering on the irrigation plant door.

Eulal turned at the approach of Jess and Joel. “Poalt’s what’s going on. We’re going to string him. Tie him on the tenter-frames and hope he dies.”

“When we can get to him,” Niapse added. He didn’t turn but carried on fisting the door. But that door didn’t want to give a snip.

“He’s flooded your fields, yea?”

Eulal rolled his eyes at Jess.

“Why?”

“In Pendling protest, that’s why.” Eulal tore at his long golden hair in despair. “Our zem has an Itamakku pet, so why shouldn’t he? But you forbade him, that’s what he’s saying.”

Niapse left off the banging, turned from the door and scrabbed at his developing beard. “And happens, we agree with him. But that’s no reason to flood our perishing fields, and that just after we’d seeded.”

“Yea but could have been worse.” Of the two textile operatives, Eulal was calmer, more reasonable. “At least he waited till we’d harvested. But we need to get that water turned off, and he won’t let us in.”

“No, because when I get in there, I’m going to kill him. Slowly, in the Techs’ way.”

Jess folded his arms across his chest while he thought what to do. “We don’t kill. We’re not Techs. We’re Monza. Mature Monza. Now first, how to get in there. Obviously banging isn’t the answer.” He glared at Niapse.

“Idea. Back shortly.” Joel splashed through the lesser water that swirled at the back of the hive, around the range of sheds and stores.

“Poalt,” Jess called through the irrigation plant’s defiant door. “Poalt, you’ve made your point. I hear you. And despite what Niapse might say, we’re not going to kill you. Now please, turn off the water.”

“Is that the zem?” The door muffled Poalt’s voice. “You lied, Zem Jess. Said to plug those Sankis would be our deaths. Liar. And those who lie once will lie again.”

“I told the truth as I knew it. It’s the Techs who’ve lied. And it’s true what I said of the Banmakka. Play with their women, you risk losing your head. Now, turn that water off. Please. You’re hurting the entire clutch, not just me.”

The deep splosh-glunge through watery mud announced Joel’s return, his arms strained with several bizarre-shaped wood-hafted stones.

Eulal looked at him, eyes wide. “Don’t even think it. You break them and we’re stuffed.”

“Poalt,” Joel shouted at the stubborn door. “Shut off that water and open this door else I shall personally smash the entire plant to pieces. And then your head.”

“Can’t,” he said. “Can’t turn off the water.”

Jess turned away, head wearily shaken. “By every Black Pendoling Pit.” He brought his hands up to rub his face. His beard needed trimming. “Just…just get out here, hey. We’ll sort it.” Though he didn’t know how.

“Can’t,” Poalt said again. “You’ll have to smash, like you said.”

“Are you refusing?”

“No. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Jess handed a hafted stone each to Eulal and Niapse. “Is he crying?”

“Does sound like it,” Eulal agreed.

“He’ll sopping well sob when I hit him with this.”

“No, Niapse.” Jess reached out and stilled his hand. “I’ve told him he’s safe.”

It took no time to shatter the front wall of the irrigation plant, to pull away the broken boards, to reveal Poalt crouched on the floor, his hands held up and crossed over his chest as in defence.

“What the…?” Jess stared at Poalt’s swollen bleeding discoloured hands. Green, they were, and yellow and purple and… “What…how?”

“Those Banmakka animals.” Poalt turned his hands over, displayed the palms, the skin peeled away from the wounds.

“We’d better get you back to base. Let Antel sort those hands. But first, the water.”

“You know how?” Eulal asked.

“Sometimes Pendol smiles on us,” Jess said. “Poalt showed me the workings, first time I was here.”

*

Before they were even halfway back to base, the discoloured swelling of Poalt’s hands had spread to his arms. He was dead on arrival.

Jess called all those present to witness the gut-turning sight, now made worse by the stench that was rapidly generated by whatever was happening inside Poalt’s skin.

“This is what happens when you try to force yourself on a Sanki woman. No contact,” he reminded them. Then amended it. “No contact unless the woman offers it. I don’t ever want to see this again. Pass your knowledge to those who aren’t here. Guul, Azal and Mavlin, as overseers I’m relying on you to ensure this message gets through to your operatives. Meanwhile, the textile farm needs another domestic. Azal, that’s yours to appoint.”

“Might this be how our cave Monza died?” Joel had waited for Jess to complete the flight-log.

“What, to draw those figures with hands like Poalt’s? And it doesn’t explain the Sanki bones. Itamakku, I’m assuming. And I know there’s been bad feeling between them at times, but those bones were mostly women. It’s a puzzle.”

It was a puzzle he was keen to share with Kookka and Armar. And Antel. For of late, wherever Armar was, there too was Antel. Saker joined them.

“This is new.” Kookka held up a pottery jug.

“Why use a water-bladder for my brews when there’s a hive full of pots and jugs and no Techs to check them in and out. Look, drinking bowls too.” He filled the bowl almost to brim and with great care passed it to Jess.

Jess sipped and pulled back. “Yea, good brew.” Or maybe it was the difference between sucking it and sipping it. He belched his appreciation. “There’s a tang to it.”

“On its way down, or up?” Kookka laughed.

“Both,” Jess completed the tease, then turned serious. “Joel, I’d rather you told our companions about our discovery.” He wanted no accusations of being biased and only seeing what he wants to see.

While the bowl passed around, twice filled from Saker’s big jug, Joel described the drawings they’d found, and the bones in the other cave.

“Any ideas?” Jess asked. “How we’re to read the message?”

Their silence was broken by Armar. “A message, you say. And I agree, that’s an effort to go to without some intent. But was it intended for our Monza eyes, or for the Itamakku?”

“Point,” Antel said. “How likely was it that a Monza would find it? And when?”

Kookka disagreed. “I’d say inevitable that one of the Programme would find it, sooner or later. I mean, when do we ever hold tight to base? We’ve all got our interests that take us beyond the perimeter.”

“Cela-Byi thought the message was intended for the Itamakku. But she didn’t understand it.”

“So what is the message saying?” Saker asked and again topped up the bowl to pass it around.

“Apart from that enigmatic ‘I am dead’, it’s just showing the Techs in control of us Monza and with some kind of interest in the Itamakku women.”

“It shows the GM Programme,” Jess said.

“I am dead…” Armar mused on that.

“We think he knew he was dying,” Joel said, “and these were his last words, so to speak. His bones are in the next cave, along with those of the women.”

“With babies,” Jess added.

“Well, there you are then,” Antel said. “It’s a warning not to mess with these women. Rather apt when we’ve just lost Poalt to this ludicrous lust. How many more? And you encourage it.” That last aimed at Jess, Joel and Kookka. He took Armar’s hand. “It’s time you moved out of this hive. Let the zem have his space.”

“In which case, I’ll move in,” Kookka said. “These hives are only by Tech’s allocation, anyway.”

“In which case,” Saker said, “Brib had better move in with me.”

“And now if everyone’s happy…” Armar was a few moments in his bed-cell, then arms laden he followed Antel out of Hive One.

Jess, Kookka and Joel watched in silence.

“Do you think…?” Saker cut the quiet.

“Medic and former apothecary,” Jess said.

“No wonder they’re pals. And pass that bowl, Saker.”

But none of that had answered the puzzle. Had that message been a warning? Or was it that the Monza had realised the true nature of the Techs?

Continues next Monday

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