RE: QUIETUS [S!5] [Round 2: Krei'kii'kelriz]
12-03-2016, 12:30 AM
Scurrying like ants, like rats in the dark, they moved. Figures in shapeless gray robes and respirators, clutching in cold hands crude weapons, clubs and guns and hand-made axes. Stalking the corridors with faith driven to frenzy.
“The sleeper wakes,” they chanted, called out to each other across the halls. “The sleeper wakes.”
Ak’kubal^ut could hear their singing, echoing through weird alien spaces. It stood in a spiraling ribbed tunnel like intestinal architecture, listening. It knew the mantra. Ship-worship in praise of a sleeping god who, on rousing, would ferry the faithful to paradise. The Wakeful Church.
Well, the ship had roused. Naturally, that had roused the Church. Given that the Church had, before this, been an army of isolationist fanatics, this was probably bad news.
The voices were getting closer. Ak considered its options.
Movement! Dark silhouettes at the end of the tunnel. One carried a lamp. Light glinted across spears made of jagged scrap metal.
“The sleeper wakes?” called the one with the lamp. It shone a beam across Ak’s red carapace.
“That’s not one of ours,” muttered a second. It lifted its spear. The blade dripped dark red.
Then there was a staccato pop-pop-pop-pop, and all four cultists collapsed.
“Sincerest apologies,” buzzed Ak, stepping over their convulsing bodies. The fist-sized electrolaser emitter slid back into his shell.
Ak paused mid-stride. If the Wakeful Church was rising, did that mean Mary was in danger?
It took a moment to consider Arokht.
Probably not, it decided. It continued onward. Its people needed to know there was indisputable proof of the Far-Travelers’ existence.
Ancient folklore stated that Ak’s ancestors had once inhabited a fertile and peaceful savannah, as far as the word applied to a bleak iceworld where liquid ammonia ran like water. But a great flood had driven them out of the plains and into the steep plateaus to the east, which they learned too late were already occupied by a violent race of giants who did not take kindly to the intrusion. Legend said that Ak’s people had very nearly been exterminated in the resulting war, until the Far-Travelers had come from beyond the stars and destroyed the giants in turn.
Legend said that that was the first of the Far-Travelers’ gifts, and that it hadn’t been the last. Modern thinking, on the other hand, held that the Far-Travelers were only a metaphor, historical fact distorted by millennia of retelling. But if the Far-Travelers had indeed existed -- if they had indeed helped uplift the ka^tul --
Ak began to run.
------
The sound of a human skull being crushed was a wet crack-crunch, like a stick of celery being crushed underfoot.
“Stop,” said Amaranth. The word a reflex, out of her mouth before she could think twice because Arokht what are you doing--
But of course Arokht ignored her. He worked his way through the crowd. A single blow from his massive fist was all it took; the weight of it alone did most of the work. Murder made methodical: if they lived, he killed them.
They’re asleep! They’re not dangerous anymore! Why are you killing them they can’t even fight back why can’t we just tie them up or leave them behind --
“You will carry Mary,” Arokht said, without pausing. Crack-crunch. “We will continue to the end of this tunnel and then wait for her to reawaken. We cannot travel this ship without her.”
Amaranth couldn’t have hated Arokht more than at that moment. His barked orders. His sheer callousness. But what else could she do besides kneel down among the half-frozen corpses and heave Mary onto her shoulders? Better my hands than his.
Her gut churning, she forced herself to look away from Arokht’s grisly work. This hall was a long tunnel with smaller paths leading off of it at irregular intervals; the cultists had come from several ways at once, coordinated. Chance, or a deliberate ambush? Some of the paths were only wide enough for a single person to pass through comfortably.
Or, with some discomfort, a single person carrying another.
Amaranth felt a sudden surge of adrenaline, of hope, of vindictive spite.
He’ll know. But he can’t follow. And he can’t risk killing me, either.
She stood, staggered -- gods, Mary was heavy -- caught herself, and began to walk.
Fast movements will alert him, she thought. He thinks you’re cowed. Go forward like you’re following behind him. Move like you’re trying to find a way through the bodies. Turn right at the side tunnel. Then keep going…
Amaranth had only gone two feet down the shaft before Arokht realized what she was doing, but by then it was too late for him to do anything about it.
First it was a snort like an angry bull. Then there was a pounding as of metal hooves and fists hitting the ground at speed, and then a massive dark shape blocked out the light from the main hall and a massive dark hand thrust itself through the entrance, scraping sparks against its edges, snapping and clawing and coming up short.
Arokht raged. His primary arm pawed at the sides of the tunnel, slammed against the floor -- the rest of him simply too huge to fit, though not for lack of trying. He roared after her retreating form, wordless, furious beyond words.
Amaranth began to run.
-------
Gone! Gone again! After her -- go through -- can’t fit, can’t fit --
Down, then. Down the main tunnel. Look for a branch. Circle around. Cut off her retreat.
Arokht pushed off with cybernetically enhanced strength, loping apelike on all fours. Graceless alien super soldier, single-minded as an artillery shell. The sides of the hall were a blur.
No Mary -- my Mary -- no map --
Neither does she. She is as lost as I. Here, turn right. Go.
Three more cultists staggered into his path, wounded, fleeing from something that wasn’t him. Arokht bowled them over, scattering them like dry leaves.
Commotion up ahead. Unknown significance.
-- must not fail again --
Arokht began to run faster.
“The sleeper wakes,” they chanted, called out to each other across the halls. “The sleeper wakes.”
Ak’kubal^ut could hear their singing, echoing through weird alien spaces. It stood in a spiraling ribbed tunnel like intestinal architecture, listening. It knew the mantra. Ship-worship in praise of a sleeping god who, on rousing, would ferry the faithful to paradise. The Wakeful Church.
Well, the ship had roused. Naturally, that had roused the Church. Given that the Church had, before this, been an army of isolationist fanatics, this was probably bad news.
The voices were getting closer. Ak considered its options.
Movement! Dark silhouettes at the end of the tunnel. One carried a lamp. Light glinted across spears made of jagged scrap metal.
“The sleeper wakes?” called the one with the lamp. It shone a beam across Ak’s red carapace.
“That’s not one of ours,” muttered a second. It lifted its spear. The blade dripped dark red.
Then there was a staccato pop-pop-pop-pop, and all four cultists collapsed.
“Sincerest apologies,” buzzed Ak, stepping over their convulsing bodies. The fist-sized electrolaser emitter slid back into his shell.
Ak paused mid-stride. If the Wakeful Church was rising, did that mean Mary was in danger?
It took a moment to consider Arokht.
Probably not, it decided. It continued onward. Its people needed to know there was indisputable proof of the Far-Travelers’ existence.
Ancient folklore stated that Ak’s ancestors had once inhabited a fertile and peaceful savannah, as far as the word applied to a bleak iceworld where liquid ammonia ran like water. But a great flood had driven them out of the plains and into the steep plateaus to the east, which they learned too late were already occupied by a violent race of giants who did not take kindly to the intrusion. Legend said that Ak’s people had very nearly been exterminated in the resulting war, until the Far-Travelers had come from beyond the stars and destroyed the giants in turn.
Legend said that that was the first of the Far-Travelers’ gifts, and that it hadn’t been the last. Modern thinking, on the other hand, held that the Far-Travelers were only a metaphor, historical fact distorted by millennia of retelling. But if the Far-Travelers had indeed existed -- if they had indeed helped uplift the ka^tul --
Ak began to run.
------
The sound of a human skull being crushed was a wet crack-crunch, like a stick of celery being crushed underfoot.
“Stop,” said Amaranth. The word a reflex, out of her mouth before she could think twice because Arokht what are you doing--
But of course Arokht ignored her. He worked his way through the crowd. A single blow from his massive fist was all it took; the weight of it alone did most of the work. Murder made methodical: if they lived, he killed them.
They’re asleep! They’re not dangerous anymore! Why are you killing them they can’t even fight back why can’t we just tie them up or leave them behind --
“You will carry Mary,” Arokht said, without pausing. Crack-crunch. “We will continue to the end of this tunnel and then wait for her to reawaken. We cannot travel this ship without her.”
Amaranth couldn’t have hated Arokht more than at that moment. His barked orders. His sheer callousness. But what else could she do besides kneel down among the half-frozen corpses and heave Mary onto her shoulders? Better my hands than his.
Her gut churning, she forced herself to look away from Arokht’s grisly work. This hall was a long tunnel with smaller paths leading off of it at irregular intervals; the cultists had come from several ways at once, coordinated. Chance, or a deliberate ambush? Some of the paths were only wide enough for a single person to pass through comfortably.
Or, with some discomfort, a single person carrying another.
Amaranth felt a sudden surge of adrenaline, of hope, of vindictive spite.
He’ll know. But he can’t follow. And he can’t risk killing me, either.
She stood, staggered -- gods, Mary was heavy -- caught herself, and began to walk.
Fast movements will alert him, she thought. He thinks you’re cowed. Go forward like you’re following behind him. Move like you’re trying to find a way through the bodies. Turn right at the side tunnel. Then keep going…
Amaranth had only gone two feet down the shaft before Arokht realized what she was doing, but by then it was too late for him to do anything about it.
First it was a snort like an angry bull. Then there was a pounding as of metal hooves and fists hitting the ground at speed, and then a massive dark shape blocked out the light from the main hall and a massive dark hand thrust itself through the entrance, scraping sparks against its edges, snapping and clawing and coming up short.
Arokht raged. His primary arm pawed at the sides of the tunnel, slammed against the floor -- the rest of him simply too huge to fit, though not for lack of trying. He roared after her retreating form, wordless, furious beyond words.
Amaranth began to run.
-------
Gone! Gone again! After her -- go through -- can’t fit, can’t fit --
Down, then. Down the main tunnel. Look for a branch. Circle around. Cut off her retreat.
Arokht pushed off with cybernetically enhanced strength, loping apelike on all fours. Graceless alien super soldier, single-minded as an artillery shell. The sides of the hall were a blur.
No Mary -- my Mary -- no map --
Neither does she. She is as lost as I. Here, turn right. Go.
Three more cultists staggered into his path, wounded, fleeing from something that wasn’t him. Arokht bowled them over, scattering them like dry leaves.
Commotion up ahead. Unknown significance.
-- must not fail again --
Arokht began to run faster.