Michael Siemsen - Exigency

Ish patted Aether’s back. “You too.” She’d always been a little timid about physical affection, but especially so after Aether left John for Minnie.

Aether had well understood the awkwardness and scaled back accordingly. It’d take time for everyone to adjust. People would have their thoughts. Mom leaving Dad was one thing, but Mom leaving Dad for the hot young neighbor girl? It was why Aether held off disclosing for so long. Looking back, perhaps it was the reason she missed Ish’s warning signs—months spent preoccupied with her own situation and how best to handle the crew. Taking her guilt a painful step further, what if Aether’s relationship decision alone had set Ish on her fateful course?

Qin’s voice broke into Aether’s head. “We’re surfacing… approaching shore.”

Indeed, a second later, the EV popped atop the ocean surface and rode a series of large swells. Gone was the smooth motion of the deep, replaced now by momentary peaks and sudden drops. Aether and Qin watched below as the sea people disconnected the EV from their towing animal. A moment later, three of them could be seen swimming toward the beach, dragging the slack vines behind them.

“They’re about to go taut,” Qin said.

“I see.”

“You think they’re going to be able to pull us up onto the shore?”

Aether looked up toward the island and spotted a new horde of Threck-like people, all converging and walking toward the bobbing EV. “They won’t be alone in that effort.”

“Whoa, yes, I see! And we’re about to hit the waves.”

The EV lurched and thrashed for several minutes as the people on shore dragged the pod, little by little, through a series of cresting and crashing waves. Finally, the EV touched land and the people swarmed, pushing it up the sloped sand as one of them—Aether guessed Skinny—directed them. Aether and Qin remained strapped tight to their seats, waiting out the slow, careful rolling and spinning. And then everything stopped just a few degrees from proper orientation.

The slightly-angled hatch clacked and squeaked.

“Visors?” Qin whispered.

“I say closed.” They both reached up and secured their visors. Aether activated audio. “Hear me?”

“Yes.”

Beeping and a final tell-tale click, and the hatch popped open once more. As it slid up and away, one of the sea people ducked under and entered. Outside, curious eyes competed for a view into the EV.

Aether reactivated Livetrans. Though her audio feed contained only a garbled mess of murmurs and shouts, she had her Livetrans fixed on the one in front of her.

“Welcome to… Aether and Qin. It is safe to depart white egg. Here is for food, for learning, for resist Threck. Skinny will teach Orange People of Threck and… . Come. Come out. Can Orange People walk?” On the right side of Aether’s fone, the two unknown words floated in a pink box, awaiting cataloguing or deletion: Eekareth , which context implied was the name of this place, and Seekapock , evidently something they were to learn about along with their unrequested Threck lesson.

Aether quickly composed her response as she unfastened her restraints. Peripherally, she observed Qin following her lead.

“We’re grateful for your welcome and will enjoy walking with Skinny and learning of Threck and ‘Seekapock.’” She’d considered including before we leave you but decided it was too early to gauge their response to such a statement. Instead, she inserted synths of Skinny’s uncatalogued words into her response. “Please, what is meaning of this word, Seekapock? And this place name, Eekareth, does it have meaning?”

Skinny took a step out of the pod as Aether stood up and leaned forward. “Yes, meaning! Eekareth is the base. The home of resist. Home that is not home, but visit place. And Seekapock, these are Skinny. These are all who are not Threck.” Skinny pointed at those around him as they spread backward. “These are Seekapock… these… these ones… these… you. Aether and Qin are Seekapock of Orange People of the white egg. Understand?”

“I think I do.” Aether’s arms waved out, curling in to point at herself—the only way to denote “I” in Threck.

Skinny and several others began singing a single, climbing note, like an opera singer reaching a crescendo.

Qin asked in a spooked voice, “What the hell is that? What’s happening?”

Livetrans answered for both of them:

LIVETRANS: [laughter]

Aether felt Qin’s hand on her back as she stepped out of the pod and onto solid ground for the first time in nearly 30 years.

“Thing that is alive?” Aether replied after the merriment subsided.

Skinny laughed again. “ Smart thing that is alive… that is not Threck.”

Aether peered around at dozens of curious eyes.

Qin again: “Some have weapons.”

“She says we’re here to learn,” Aether replied from the corner of her mouth. “She wants to teach us. We’re safe, at least for now. Stay calm.”

Aether felt her boots slowly sinking into the muddy soil as one of the Seekapock approached and handed the still-nude Skinny a cloak—initiating a rapid dressing process that lasted all of five seconds. Aether watched with fascination as Skinny’s leg tentacles suddenly curved inward, spreading into a split until she lay flat in the mud, stretched out between the legs of the crowd. She wiggled for a moment, covering her skin in mud, then rose up partially, arms dipping the cloak into a particularly wet patch of mud, as if cleaning it of its dryness. Finally, Skinny opened the square of cloth, slid it over herself, and popped her head up through a wide slit in the middle. Standing fully upright, Skinny now appeared as all Threck did when venturing outside the city walls: skin and cloak coated in mud. She even appeared taller upon dressing (though Aether’s leggy frame had several centimeters on all of them).

“That doesn’t look good,” Qin said an instant before the crowd of heads all twisted in the same direction.

Aether turned to see another Seekapock stomping their way, thick legs rising and curling and landing with dance-like rhythm. It reminded her of Tom and a loopvid he’d made of precisely this style of walking, captured by an observation unit and synced with risco music. And it reminded her of Minnie, cry-laughing as it repeated endlessly on her fone. “I can’t stop watching!”

The approaching stomper had many questions. “What is this? What are these? Why brought here?”

Skinny turned to face the new arrival and stood even taller. “These are new Seekapock—Orange People of the water. They… white egg… and travel the ocean. They speak Threck words.”

Aether noticed layers of raised, overlapping scars covering every visible swatch of the newcomer’s flesh. Even the rubbery folds of eyelid bore the marks of a hundred battles.

Blotchy eyes studied Aether and Qin. “These understand what say I now?”

Aether wasn’t sure if she should answer, and so instead let Skinny continue speaking for her.

“Yes! They understand! This is called Aether and this other is Qin.” Skinny turned to face Aether. “Orange People, it is your pleasure to meet… leader of resist. Aether—” Skinny paused. “Is Aether Orange People leader?” Skinny’s eyes flipped from Aether to Qin and back.

“Yes, I am leader,” Aether replied and queued up Skinny’s mention of the leader’s name. “It is our pleasure to meet Eeahso and to be welcome in this place. Where shall we go to rest and speak more words of each other’s history?”

The crowd laughed again, though Aether had no clue what triggered them. She assumed Livetrans had an incorrect translation in there somewhere.