GTHW 7/10

[etharei]

chapter seven

The next scavenge mission started going wrong even before they could leave the base. Aberdeen's blaster sparked when he powered it up, causing him to drop it with a yelp of pain. The trigger somehow hit the piping at the base of the equipment table, and the bolt of plasma that shot out from it missed Toss by a hair, melting a crater into the wall behind her.

It seemed to shake the others up a little, and when the skater began making strange noises a minute after they started the engine, the whole squad seemed to hesitate, glancing at each other uncertainly. Dree cautiously got down and opened the engine compartment. He made the sign for "all clear", then dropped down to peer under the vehicle. Again, the "all clear". He made a full circuit, even clambered up onto the roof, but could not find anything wrong, nor the source of the noise.

Rum-Tum had been appointed Squad Leader after Sera's death. All eyes turned to him. He looked around at all of them, his hands fiddling with the strap of his primary blaster restlessly. Ianto knew that he was thinking of protocol - unless there was a clear problem that they could report to the Captain, the mission was a go.

Eventually, Rum-Tum signaled to Yeeka. She nodded, sent the signal for the doors to be opened.

The storm outside made it easier to ignore the sound still coming from the skater. He tried not to envision a thousand little imperfections that could lead to a disaster - an undone cog slipping into the gear belt, the hover-engines leaking flight fuel straight into the main lines, a whole segment of the vehicle coming loose. The ride was to be a long one, too, and it was difficult not to tense up at every unexpected noise.

He'd seen skaters coming back into base in abominable condition, the metal frame and a few pieces of wire the only thing holding them together, so he wasn't sure why he was so anxious. Soldiers were a superstitious bunch, he'd found, and maybe some of their selective paranoia had rub off on him.

Half an hour later, when they were expecting to pull up at the Bone Cup at any moment, Aberdeen let out a grunt over the comm system. "There's something wrong with the navigation system."

Wire deftly undid his straps, stood up, and traveled up the length of the skater using the ceiling handles until he was sitting next to Abe. "Let me see that." He poked and prodded the red and yellow tablet.

Outside, the day darkened, red and green lightning splashing the sky with color. Ianto thought, absently, that it was rather beautiful. They often spent their time outside hunched in, protecting their bodies from the winds and watching the ground for potholes or quicksand. Nobody ever looked up.

Gold and red and green, patches of blue and purple. It was like watching clouds, using one's imagination to find shapes and scenes. The many particles in the winds dispersed light, making each lightning-flash last longer and appear larger. Ianto watched a line of red appear, a purple spot blooming nearby, another red-

He jerked back. That was- He leaned forward again, straining against the shoulder straps. But the image was gone already, except for a small circle in the distance that could have been anything. Ianto shook his head. No, that wasn't possible, he'd just tried too hard to see a pattern. The Wake. It must be the Wake, affecting him again.

"Kriida!" somebody yelled. The skater changed direction abruptly, just as a hail of plasma and energy bolts hit the ground where they would have been in the next moment.

Everything became a bit of a blur. Ianto tugged his blaster out, but kept the safety on since he was still surrounded by the squad. He was on the side facing away from the Kriida, could hear the people behind him firing, Rum-Tum barking out orders on top of Abe's navigation.

Something hit the skater. The shock of impact traveled through the vehicle. Looking around wildly, Ianto spotted the collection of shapes in the distance, a second group that had been hiding in wait. "Enemy at starboard!" he yelled, aiming his blaster.

More firing. Then a second jolt through the skater, far stronger than the first. Ianto had a moment to think, We're awfully high off the ground, before sky and sandy ground rolled around, and he couldn't tell which way was up, and several voices were shouting, and the straps dug in painfully at every shock and bounce.

When it finally stopped, everything was dark and a great deal quieter. Ianto shook his head, flexing his fingers to feel that they were still there. His eyes adjusted; he was facing a wall of sand. The skater must have landed on his side. At least the sand cushioned the fall.

Varys was making the rounds, asking if they were all right, and Ianto picked up the sound of fighting in the distance. Wait, where was his blaster? He must have dropped it when the skater flipped over. Ianto fumbled at the fastenings of the straps.

"Knight, everything all right there?"

He nodded at Varys, and made the 'all clear' sign. Someone further along the line groaned, and Varys slipped past Ianto to get to them.

The main waistband was giving him trouble. He remembered it being strangely stiff and reluctant to lock when he'd gotten in, and now he couldn't push the release mechanism in far enough. He was about ready to pull his knife out and work the thing open when he heard somebody shouting over the comm, "Get off the sand! Off sand!"

The skater shuddered, and the wall of sand pushed in further. Ianto swore, whipped out his boot-knife, and slashed at the strap. It took him a few tries to get free, but then he was clambering over the seats, following the light coming from the other side.

Familiar hands helped him along once he was on the upright side. The vehicle shook again, and Rum-Tum was yelling at them to get away even as he fired his blaster at the Kriida.

Ianto couldn't see the danger, but he jogged away from the sand, joining the squad; they appeared to have reached the fringe where the familiar rocky plateau gave way to a sand-desert. Since he had no weapon, he activated his shield to full strength. He looked back just in time to see Varys, who'd clearly waited until the whole squad was out of the skater, shoot at something in the sand. Ianto thought he caught a glimpse of tentacle. She sprinted over to them.

He turned his attention back to the Kriida. The squad had adopted a defensive position, with Ianto and two injured soldiers in the middle. He could not tell how many of the enemy there were.

Abe, identifiable from his height, stepped back from the shooting. The gap he left in the line was swiftly closed. At first Ianto thought he'd been hit, but he was holding the nav tablet in the hand without a gun, and he was looking around them.

"What's wrong?" Ianto asked.

Abe waved the tablet around. "This thing. We followed the plotted course to take us to Bone Cup. But somehow we're at the Sands, two hundred miles north of where we're supposed to be. In the skater, this was tellin' me that we were in the right spot, but now it's statin' the obvious- that we're at the Sands."

"Bad luck, I tell you," somebody muttered. "Should have seen it from the start."

A pinprick of light in the distance. There was a moment of stillness, in which Ianto wondered if nobody else could see it. Then, "Missile!"

Somebody was pushing him away even before the word was finished. Ianto's legs continued the momentum, though the others were still faster.

Ianto wasn't entirely certain of what happened after that. He remembered a passing heat, than a shockwave that was more force than sound. It pushed him forward, not quite off his feet but close, and he landed in a sprawl over rough sand.

Sand is bad, tickled memory, but then things were exploding and dark shapes swarmed down from everywhere, and Ianto couldn't think of anything to do but lie very, very still.

Even so, he gradually became aware that he had no sort of covering whatsoever, that he was lying on the sand, out in the open, and the dark suit and headgear made no pretence at camouflage. He waited for a shout, a blaster against his back, or even just a moment of brilliant pain before darkness. But, nothing. Once, two Kriida in dark green suits and black masks jogged past him, inches from his outstretched hand, but it was as if they didn't see him.

He had one knife, and his shield. He had no idea where the others were, and what condition they were in. He had an emergency flare, and a compass; he thought he could make it to the base, or at least close enough for them to pick up the flare. But it would be tantamount to abandoning his squad, if they weren't all dead already.

The sounds of fighting speedily grew distant. He wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing, but the fact that there was still fighting indicated that some of his friends, at least, were still alive. He checked that there were no lingering Kriida nearby, and was just tensing his muscles to stand up when he felt something grab his ankle.

But instead of pulling him over the ground, the grip yanked him under. Ah, yes, that's why sand is bad. Ianto flailed and kicked, but the grip tightened, and it felt as if a hundred little microscopic needles were prickling his skin at once. Numbness crawled up his leg, spreading over the rest of him with every pump of the heart, and he had a brief moment to revel in the unexpected warmth of the sand before darkness, glittering like stars, closed over him.

- - -

Ianto opened his eyes with a start. For a second, he thought he was back in his bunk, and he'd gone to sleep without showering again. But the gritty feeling on his skin reminded him, sand, and he woke up the rest of the way.

He was in a room, long-abandoned and taken over by the desert, if the sand and the disrepair was any indication. No corners, he noticed, and a real, if presently shuttered, window on the end opposite the door. The walls were curved, like a dome or a round tent. No floor, either; Ianto was lying on sand.

Gingerly, he picked himself up, automatically dusting off the suit. All parts accounted for, and he didn't seem injured, though one ankle tingled oddly. He checked thoroughly, remembering with a shudder the dead man who'd walked right back into base with his squad. But, no, he bore no mortal wounds, and he figured the dead wouldn't feel pangs of hunger.

He tore open an energy bar from his utility pouch, and munched on it while he examined the room. There were three long tables, two chairs, and shelves all along the walls. A screen mounted on one wall had likely been the computer interface. He assayed an exploratory tap, but wasn't surprised when the screen remained dark. There was writing on the frame of the door, in a script Ianto did not recognize. He looked closer. No, there were two different scripts there, distinctly separate and likely representing different languages.

It was a real door, too, with hinges and a latch. Ianto didn't recognize the wood - the color of rosewood but lighter. He traced the patterns on it, wondering what this room had been used for, if somebody had lived here. It swung open easily enough, and Ianto stepped out into a deserted hallway.

Further exploration revealed that he was in a small structure, single-storey, with a common living area and three chambers for sleeping. The other rooms had floors, made of the same wood as the doors; he glanced back at the room he'd woken up in, and realized it had the look of a workroom of some sort.

He finally located the door to the outside, and gingerly tried it. It was difficult to move, and when he managed to get it open enough to squeeze through, he saw why - layers of sand had built up on the path outside, two feet thick, and there was a strange growth that covered every surface. It looked long dead, the vines twisted and bone-dry.

This must have been the colony. We've never been able to get to it, Ianto remembered the Captain saying, It's in the heart of the storm system.

The air was dead calm. He looked up at the sky, and nearly stumbled at what he saw.

Stars. The open sky, cloudless, and the moon a brilliant yellow ball, brighter than the Earth's. But, over the tops of the decaying structures, he could see the familiar clouds, gathered like a wall. "The colony's in the eye," he whispered.

He couldn't remember how far away the colony had been from the base. The Captain had only pointed out its location on the planet's map, or where they thought it was based on the last known records of the place. As for how he got there...

Ianto stared down at his left boot, remembered a squeezing grip. He reached down and felt at the boot. It looked intact, but once he brushed away the sand and checked his other boot for comparison, he realized it was riddle with little holes. And as far as he knew the Kriida didn't take prisoners.

An animal, then? Varys had shot at a tentacle in the sand. Was this its lair, and Ianto had been deposited here to be a meal later? Again Ianto felt himself up for injuries, his imagination swimming with images of eggs and larvae incubating under his skin.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. Ianto spun around, hands flying to the empty weapon straps on his harness.

Deep green eyes regarded him calmly. Images on a computer didn't really capture the Kriida; they appeared humanoid, yes, but the hair that had looked silver in digital form actually shimmered under the moonlight, and the slender legs didn't bend much at the joints.

"Hello," he said, for lack of anything better to do. The Kriida - Kriidon? was there a singular form? - didn't appear to be carrying any weapons, either.

"Hello," it replied, almost a mimicry. A pause, then, "You do not carry weapons."

Would he be killed if they found him lying? "I have a knife." And a shield, he wanted to add, but realized that the little disc was no longer clipped to his chest. Likely it had been dislodged on the journey here.

"They are respected. Only a fool enters the wasteland with no protection." The green gaze peered at him critically. "You are free of the weapons of fire and pain. You may have safe-conduct in this place."

"Thank you," said Ianto haltingly. "This is the colony, isn't it? The colony that failed?"

The Kriida hissed. "Of course, humans would change the story. Of course, humans would hide their shame." It waved an arm at the structures around them. Ianto noticed that it wore a several metallic bands bearing ornate designs around the upper arm, and its claws had been polished and trimmed neatly. "This was a Dying-Place. The children of Kri that died here wept before the end, and the sands taste of bitter betrayal."

Ianto swallowed. Not his war, not his people, but he knew how humans could be, both the good and the bad. "Please, how did they die?"

Thunder rumbled from the encircling storm. The Kriida blinked, its gaze going from Ianto to the sky and back to Ianto again. "This world likes you. The sands told the Ri'Ronek to bring you here instead of its babies. The wind tells me now, it's been waiting for you." It tilted its head, as if listening intently. "There is a song known only to the daughters of our people, who serve Mother Time, and you carry a piece of it."

Ianto had known what the key had been, where it had come from. He'd wondered if the Captain had suddenly remembered; but the next day he'd acted no different, save for a brief flash of warmth in his gaze when it caught a glimpse of the cord around Ianto's neck. Ianto resisted the urge to touch it. He half-expected the key to grow warm, or start glowing, but it remained cool against his chest.

The Kriida extended a claw towards him. "I am called Speaker."

Ianto reached out and shook the proffered hand. Ianto Jones, he'd meant to say, but what came out was, "Knight. They call me Knight."

Speaker bared his teeth, more of a grimace than a smile. "That was one thing the humans understood - new names for a new world. But we think it hurt them, in the end, distanced them from kinsmen who might have come to their aid, at the end." He beckoned at Ianto. "You asked a question, and the Speaker will answer. Just like of old."

Ianto followed the Kriida down the winding path. Most of the buildings - homes? - had a similar look and structure, but occasionally one would be larger, taller, or appeared to be several units joined together. At one point the path diverged, the second entering into the shadows of a larger structure. Speaker took the new direction, and Ianto had to duck under a low archway before they entered a compound.

"Imagine this place full of the sound of children laughing," said Speaker. His voice changed, became low and wistful, and it seemed as if he was speaking to himself more than Ianto. "They would play here after school, until their guardians came to take them home. Even after the crops died, and the sick stopped healing, there was always playtime."

What must have been a trellis once had collapsed in front of one of the doorways. Something about the design carved into the doorways caught his attention. And on a closer look, the same motif could be seen on the exposed parts of the wall, as well as the rusting play equipment scattered across the grounds.

"Rose," whispered Ianto. Base to Rose. He could feel Speaker's eyes on him. "This was where it started?"

"Yes." A breeze disturbed the sand and assorted debris in the playground, where previously there had been no wind. "Rose was the first building to go silent. All the other sectors followed too quickly for anybody to find out why. Children remember only what they know, and what they know is different from what the grown-ups know."

Ianto frowned. "You can... see memories?

"You cannot? Have the winds not spoken to you?"

The Wake. "How do you know that what you see is real? That what the, the winds tell you is real?"

"How can you know what any man tells you is real?" Speaker shrugged. "It is the nature of the wind to be tricky, and the duty of all thinking minds to tell truth from lie. Come, more answers can be found this way." He pulled out something from under one sleeve, and shook it until it began to emit a warm, strong light. It looked like a small square box, just large enough to fit comfortably in the Kriida's claws.

They entered the largest building. All the entrances had the decaying growth or unidentifiable debris blocking them, except for the main doors. It was obvious that somebody had previously cleared the way, and the relative smoothness of the floor along the route they took inside implied more than one past visit.

It was, quite clearly, a school. Most of the rooms contained a collection of tables and chairs, though a few had couches and small screens mounted on the wall. A wide spiral staircase at the center led up to a second and third storey, though there was also a tube that looked like a kind of escalator near the back end of the main building. The room Speaker led Ianto to was larger than the rest, situated near the staircase and was therefore at the heart of the ground floor.

The moonlight outside was barely enough to outline the round windows high up near the ceiling. Looking up, Ianto realized that the room extended into the upper floors, so that its ceiling was at the level of the roof. Things glinted in the dark, but he couldn't quite make out what they were, until Speaker pressed the little light-box into his hand, and gestured for him to raise it up.

Ianto did so, and let out an audible gasp.

Masks. He couldn’t tell how many there were. Layers overlapped on every shelf, different sizes and colors and designs. Most covered the full face, but there was a row entirely of half-faces. Half of them were child-sized.

It should have been eerie, to have so many empty eye-holes peering down at him. They glittered from the dim light of the box, so many silent, unmoving faces. But Ianto was not bothered by stillness; they reminded him of the mannequins stored at the back of his father's shop. It was the living that had frightened Ianto then, the constant and unpredictable changes.

Besides, there was something peaceful about the room. Most of the school was in a state of disarray, but aside from dust and sand, the room was perfectly ordered, each mask placed carefully on its shelf. This place had been respected, loved, and left untouched even at the end.

He looked at questioningly at Speaker, still unsure why he'd been brought to see this.

"Look closer," was all the Kriida said.

Ianto approached one of the children's shelves. Not knowing what he was looking for, he noted the exquisite workmanship - the adults must have helped, some of the tooling could not have been managed by a child's hands - and the different styles...

"Some of these are Kriida," he said aloud. He hadn't noticed, because the general shape of the head was similar. But the bone structure was slightly different, and at an even closer look, the eye-holes and the area around the nose were distinctly Kriida.

"Yes."

"Then..." He'd never thought to ask exactly how long the war had been going. "Both human and Kriida lived in the colony. You were at peace."

"We were allies," confirmed Speaker. "But there is more, if you can see it."

Ianto reached out to the masks, stopping just short of touching. One mask in particular caught his eye - it was blue and red, with a wavy stripe of purple in the center. It looked as if the colors simply blended in the middle, and the exact line of transition shifted depending on where he looked. The eye-holes were rimmed with golden desert-sand. There were other masks that had more elaborate designs, but he couldn't take his gaze off this one.

He floated his fingers above it, tried to imagine the child that had made and worn the mask. He was good at reconstructing features, he had his father's eye. It was most likely a girl, there was that delicate angle to the jaw, probably a beautiful child, and eyes-

He pulled back, head swimming. A school. Children. "These children were human and Kriida," he whispered. Turned and blinked at the Speaker. "We can interbreed?"

The Speaker's expression was grave, almost pained. "Yes." His voice lost some of the mystic intonation he'd been using. "Not easily, and half the time the offspring do not survive to full term. But we were at peace for a long time, and on many worlds our people mingled."

Ianto wondered what it said of his opinion of humanity, that he could already see where this the story was heading. "Was it- was it deliberate? What happened here?"

"Was it genocide, you mean?" said the Speaker. "We do not know. All we've learned from the transmissions during that last day, before the Silence, was that communication to the different sectors cut off, one by one. It began here, and those who had children left their homes to come here. The Great Storm, of which we are at the center now, was born that day. Some of my people believe that it was what destroyed the colony, others say it came to being because of what happened to the colony. But when our nearest ships arrived, battling through the storm, they found none left living. It was as if everyone had fallen asleep where they stood."

Ianto shuddered. "Is this why we are at war, then?"

"No. The war began with other things. It cannot be proven that human or Kriida had a hand in what happened here. But, perhaps, this can be where the war ends."

"What do you mean?"

"This is what I believe, from my meditations here: this storm was created by the Kriida in the colony. My people are especially skilled at terraforming and environmental control - a simple storm with few parameters would have been easy. The colony had been struggling for five years. It is possible that the sickness that swept through the colony that last day had been around for years, a virus the grew even more deadly with every generation."

"The storm has fulfilled its purpose. It has prevented the spread of the virus, and contained it to this place. Occasionally a strain of it escapes, carried by the wind..."

"Wait," interrupted Ianto. "You mean the virus is still active?"

"Yes. It is a resilient, deadly thing." The Speaker looked at him with concern. "Why are you afraid?"

"We are here, in the colony. Doesn't this mean that we are infected now, too?"

The Kriida blinked at him. "Oh. You could not tell?" He clicked two of his claws together, creating a sharp, ringing sound.

There was no sense of movement, but Ianto suddenly found them standing on a little hillock. The peculiar houses of the colony spread out around them, silent and still. The Speaker had sat down on the ground. After a moment, Ianto joined him.

"So this is a dream," he said.

"Yes," answered the Speaker. "The First People brought you here, because you have shed no blood of my people. Your body has already been found, and is being transported back to your base."

"And I suppose you're in a ship somewhere?"

"No. I am in the colony itself." The Speaker waved, and for a second Ianto saw a Kriida body sitting against a building. "It is a custom of my kind, and part of our pact with the First People, to have Speaker in this place at all times, one who has shed no blood for war. Our bodies die quickly, because of the virus, but a trained Speaker will be able to enter the dream first. We will remain here, until time and the due course of nature fade us away."

Ianto stared, at a loss for words. Finally, he managed, "And what now?"

"Now," the Speaker folded his claws. "We bargain."

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