Fic: The Odyssey, xxi. clouds
--
“Vulcan--”
“His name is S’chn T’gai Spock.
You will address him formally.
He is my yaS wa’DIch and so
give him respect accordingly.”
“QoS, HoD Kirk.
yaS wa’DIch Spock, will you not speak
of all you’ve seen-- the loss of Vulcan
your captain’s life, the ‘aj Marcus
and rot of Federation Starfleet?”
“ghobe’. I cannot.”
“Not to us, not in this place?”
“I will speak on his behalf
if you’ll accept my words for his space.”
“Speak, HoD Kirk. I accept your words.”
“We went on mission, Spock and I,
down to a planet covered with flies--”
“The planet itself supported a variety of life forms;
it was not monospecific as the captain implies.”
“You want to tell this, or should I?”
“Please continue, Captain. I apologize.”
“The region we beamed to
had an unusually high density of flies.”
Jim looked at Spock
Spock looked away, nodded.
“There were eggs and larva everywhere.
It got under our suits and into our hair,
we could barely hear through all the buzzing,
our sensor scans were useless, fuzzy.
Everyone beamed up in quarantine
the ship reeked with hexachlorophene
from all the decontam procedures.
"That’s not the point. The point is that
these fly-like creatures
can mass together in a cloud.
The black cloud then takes on the features
of your blood relations gone to ground.
We don’t know how they manage this,
we don’t know how they read the shape--
the worst thing is that their speech is
endless formless indiscriminate
ruthless buzzing like a scream,
their black mouths crawling and their eyes
hollow as they walk towards you,
collapsing to another sight.
I saw my father recreated;
I saw my mother’s hair in black;
I saw people I didn’t know were related,
clouds shifting, shivering to diffract.
I was affected by the flies
because it’s fucking freaky shit,
imagine seeing anyone
reanimated as a maggot pit.
"But Spock--
You asked to hear about his planet
I’m going to tell you through his dead.
"Spock’s entire house was decimated
only he, his father, T’Pau still stand.
He’s never told me of his house,
its ancient place, its lineage,
but that day I saw for myself
the multitude lost, the ghastly visage.
Some five hundred Vulcans encircling
all related distantly
their faces flickering, shifting with flies,
their silent roar overwhelming--
elders, children, brothers, wives.
And in the middle of the crowd,
Amanda Grayson, his mother’s guise,
formed, dissolved, reformed, enshroud,
as if the cloud took sick pleasure
in replaying her moment of death
over, and over in desperate measure.
"Spock tried to make contact
he tried to touch them with his hands;
use his skills as telepath
to gain insight and understand.
But every time he went to touch,
they dispersed like coal-dust windblown sand;
when he stepped back, they would reform.
The tricorders gave nothing grand,
just a massive mass of crawling flies
arranged in weird-shaped swarming bands.
"You say we’re speaking to your dead--
I understand why you call them this,
but you have not spoken to the dead,
who can’t reply, just scream and hiss;
who are embodied in a swarm
a mindless mass of meaningless
ghosts you thought you’d never see,
who stare and reach for you to flinch.
"It took that mission for me to know:
I have no fucking idea what a lost planet means.
The dead there represented blood,
not friends, not the life of their desert cities;
their native plants are all extinct,
their animals, insects, bacteria, birds,
their temples and their libraries,
their legacy exploring worlds.
Can you imagine losing more
than face, honor, and dignity?
Can you imagine loss so huge
it encompasses everything you’ve seen?
tlhIngan’s paralyzed, that is true,
but it’s not lost to singularity.
Death is the only absolute
everything else, we’ve got space to breathe.
"That’s why I say,
you give respect
to someone who is still living,
exploring space to seek, protect
new life forms,
new life,
new anything.
He’s the one
who kept me
from starting war here
a year ago.
He’s the one
you have to thank
for trusting
I know where to go.
"I’m here to build,
to start again,
to find a common ground to stand.
If death must be that common ground
I’ll tread softly
for my friend.”
--
“Vulcan--”
“His name is S’chn T’gai Spock.
You will address him formally.
He is my yaS wa’DIch and so
give him respect accordingly.”
“QoS, HoD Kirk.
yaS wa’DIch Spock, will you not speak
of all you’ve seen-- the loss of Vulcan
your captain’s life, the ‘aj Marcus
and rot of Federation Starfleet?”
“ghobe’. I cannot.”
“Not to us, not in this place?”
“I will speak on his behalf
if you’ll accept my words for his space.”
“Speak, HoD Kirk. I accept your words.”
“We went on mission, Spock and I,
down to a planet covered with flies--”
“The planet itself supported a variety of life forms;
it was not monospecific as the captain implies.”
“You want to tell this, or should I?”
“Please continue, Captain. I apologize.”
“The region we beamed to
had an unusually high density of flies.”
Jim looked at Spock
Spock looked away, nodded.
“There were eggs and larva everywhere.
It got under our suits and into our hair,
we could barely hear through all the buzzing,
our sensor scans were useless, fuzzy.
Everyone beamed up in quarantine
the ship reeked with hexachlorophene
from all the decontam procedures.
"That’s not the point. The point is that
these fly-like creatures
can mass together in a cloud.
The black cloud then takes on the features
of your blood relations gone to ground.
We don’t know how they manage this,
we don’t know how they read the shape--
the worst thing is that their speech is
endless formless indiscriminate
ruthless buzzing like a scream,
their black mouths crawling and their eyes
hollow as they walk towards you,
collapsing to another sight.
I saw my father recreated;
I saw my mother’s hair in black;
I saw people I didn’t know were related,
clouds shifting, shivering to diffract.
I was affected by the flies
because it’s fucking freaky shit,
imagine seeing anyone
reanimated as a maggot pit.
"But Spock--
You asked to hear about his planet
I’m going to tell you through his dead.
"Spock’s entire house was decimated
only he, his father, T’Pau still stand.
He’s never told me of his house,
its ancient place, its lineage,
but that day I saw for myself
the multitude lost, the ghastly visage.
Some five hundred Vulcans encircling
all related distantly
their faces flickering, shifting with flies,
their silent roar overwhelming--
elders, children, brothers, wives.
And in the middle of the crowd,
Amanda Grayson, his mother’s guise,
formed, dissolved, reformed, enshroud,
as if the cloud took sick pleasure
in replaying her moment of death
over, and over in desperate measure.
"Spock tried to make contact
he tried to touch them with his hands;
use his skills as telepath
to gain insight and understand.
But every time he went to touch,
they dispersed like coal-dust windblown sand;
when he stepped back, they would reform.
The tricorders gave nothing grand,
just a massive mass of crawling flies
arranged in weird-shaped swarming bands.
"You say we’re speaking to your dead--
I understand why you call them this,
but you have not spoken to the dead,
who can’t reply, just scream and hiss;
who are embodied in a swarm
a mindless mass of meaningless
ghosts you thought you’d never see,
who stare and reach for you to flinch.
"It took that mission for me to know:
I have no fucking idea what a lost planet means.
The dead there represented blood,
not friends, not the life of their desert cities;
their native plants are all extinct,
their animals, insects, bacteria, birds,
their temples and their libraries,
their legacy exploring worlds.
Can you imagine losing more
than face, honor, and dignity?
Can you imagine loss so huge
it encompasses everything you’ve seen?
tlhIngan’s paralyzed, that is true,
but it’s not lost to singularity.
Death is the only absolute
everything else, we’ve got space to breathe.
"That’s why I say,
you give respect
to someone who is still living,
exploring space to seek, protect
new life forms,
new life,
new anything.
He’s the one
who kept me
from starting war here
a year ago.
He’s the one
you have to thank
for trusting
I know where to go.
"I’m here to build,
to start again,
to find a common ground to stand.
If death must be that common ground
I’ll tread softly
for my friend.”
--