"Kirru! Kirru, come here!"
He came, reluctantly, to the door. Silver light poured out onto the snow. His mother's silhouette radiated anger. And fear for me. I disappoint her. How much had she seen?
After the wind's serrated chill the house was hot, oppressive, confining. He turned at the doorway and blew out one free breath - it exploded in a shower of ice, defiant.
"You've been fighting again."
In the kitchen he let her hands turn him, explore the cut, caress the line of frozen blood, all the bruises. Without needing to look up he knew her face was changing from irritation to sadness - her shoulders were dropping, back bending under the weight, the weight of her love for him.
"Oh, Kirru. Why must you do it?" Why? She didn't really want to know, but if she went on like this much longer he would tell her. He would. Serve her right! "Taking on boys twice your age. Your own cousins.... Miri won't speak to me after this, and Jenji won't stop speaking."
Auntie Miri was listening in the hallway. She thought that because the door was shut and he couldn't see her he wouldn't know she was there. But he could have felt those faded yellow eyes on him across the whole width of the planet. Her thoughts were very loud; "If only she'd given him away..."
Like an echo from Auntie Jenji - who was chopping wood half a mile away, struggling to load unwieldy branches onto the gravsled - "If only they'd taken him."
It didn't seem fair that the aunties who hated him should see further into his heart than his own mother. She was his only defender, and her love for him was like a metal hook in his chest - if he pulled too far away the pain was unbearable. So he gave her something, though less than she deserved; "I don't know why I do it, mum. It's like there's a switch in my head and they press it. I don't know why."
Silence. Something brushed his mind and was gone - something glorious. No! Come back. I want you! Loss cut him, making his lip tremble. He hoped his mother would read that as remorse, but she was still silent, waiting for more, hoping.
The kitchen's earth walls glowed with stored heat. Warm green tiles slicked underfoot as the snow melted from his boots. At the sink a pink domestic droid pared trelga roots with calm efficiency. Jenji's pet hrafn trilled in its enamelled cage.
It was bad. The silence had never lasted this long before.
Finally his mother sighed, brought her hand out of her apron as if she was bringing out a weapon. "That's not entirely true, is it?"
What did she have? It was small enough for....
"How long have you been taking these?"
His tapes! Pulse speeding, stomach queasy, he tried to fight the feeling of betrayal, and failed. She must have combed his room, found the loose tile, his cache, his very own private world. Then she must have taken it, and looked!
"That's mine."
"Deep training combat tapes?" How dare she say those words and make them sound shameful? "No wonder you beat your cousins. How many years have you been taking these things?"
"Four." The word came out by itself, like the very tip of an arrow in flight - the barbs would come next.
"Since you were six?" she whispered, retreating until the table nudged her in the back. Her hands sought the edge and gripped. He focused there - on the coral skin, the tendons standing out, and knew how much she wanted to slap him across the room and scream.
Her voice came out thin, stressed like the cords of her wrists. "Kirru, when you reach twenty your father will take you away from me. You'll walk the long pathways of the men, taking sthredy fur to the islanders, and the spaceports, bringing back machines and food, and the brief joy of your presence."
She touched my stuff!
"This is the life you were born for - to be a trader, the son of a trader." Her voice fluttered like a wing-sore bird, falling. He looked at the stained apron, smelled meat and flour - dinner cooking - and his heart had to expand to hold the rage, there was so much of it.
"You'll have adventures then, you'll have everything you could want."
Her thumb had found the delicate contacts under the tape's cap. He lunged - "Don't you dare! That's mine,." - pried the fingers open. She dropped it, wrenched him backwards, and stepped on his world, crushing it.
"We'll get you something else - anything you want."
"You...! You...!" Finally he looked at her face - the red skin paled to pink, eyes like haunted ivory - closed as usual over her own desires. Blind, stupid, hateful.
"I hate you!" The truth came out in a gush, like spring thaw. He could no more have stopped it than the seasons. "You're always ruining things for me. You took away the only thing I ever wanted. You don't care about me at all!"
With the impact of a spirit shout, the words hammered her. He watched her reel back and thought I've smashed you, like you smashed my tape. Remorse and exultation squabbled over his soul, tearing it between them. Mummy!
He pushed past her, slammed the door-release, and ran out into the ice.
"She wrecked my whole life," Kirru said to his master. They sat on white fur in his den. Thref trees clustered close around the entrance of the cave, dark shapes trailing strings of wilted flowers. Under the weary sun their berries were black, but if he took them into torchlight they flamed the same colour as his skin. He spilled his handful on the rugs and they lay like drops of blood.
"Tell me."
Kirru's master was a thing of smoke and fervent need. His voice was deep and smooth, and no-one heard it but the boy.
"I could have been a Jedi."
It didn't matter that they'd had this conversation so many times that any living thing would be weary of it. Kirru's master was never weary.
"They came for me when I was a baby. They wanted to take me..." In front of his only friend - the friend he kept locked up tightly in his head - he could allow himself to cry. He did so now, the tears freezing to sharpness on his cheeks. "And she wouldn't let them."
Jenji had told him the story a long time ago. Hoping - he knew what she hoped - that he would stop having the nightmares once he understood. Hoping that an explanation for his strangeness would help him control it. Hoping that he would stop being such a problem.
Her voice repeated itself in his head. "They came for you in the deep winter. The man was pale, like bone, with fur on his head, like sthredy fur, but rougher - brown. He had a little girl with him - she was all brown - and they were both so quiet. They were like the Spirit of the Snow. Of course your mother couldn't let you go to such coldness. You are her only child."
"But now you hunger."
"I want something, and I don't know what it is!" Blood, blood on the rugs, red against white, and the words coming out like gushes from a severed vein. "It must be the Force I feel. It must be. I want it. I want it but it won't stay. I don't know how to get it to stay!"
Curled up, he lay on his side, and a small breeze blew dead petals over his face. He wanted comfort, but his master was the spirit of the snow and had nothing to give.
Yes, you're starving, because you cannot touch the Force. But you've taught yourself well. When you're old enough you can get away, show the Jedi what you've become. They'll take you on then. It began in his master's voice, ended in his own. He knew it was false, but it was the only hope he had.
Now run, Kirru, just run. Get away from it all.
The woods were a narrow band of life, clinging to Saw Mountain. He pushed his way through them, came out onto the plateau, the sun red in front of him, taking up half the sky. To his left lay a hollow, surrounded by the purple posts of the force-shield windbreak. He could see through it to the domes, steam and smoke of his house. To the right the plains went on for ever - scoured snow over permafrost; pink and white and palest azure against the ice-blue sky.
He turned right and ran against the wind. Skin-stripping cold froze his eyes. His face stiffened, and his body yelled at him to stop this before he died. He set his jaw, ran faster, gasping, cold pounding his chest like a mallet. Exhaustion hit him, he grinned - yes, it was going to work this time - and pushed himself, sobbing, over the edge.
And his mind flowered. Something golden poured into him, outlining the waves of wind, so he could step between them. It showed him the sun, the world, the trees, himself; little warm lives of rodents in tunnels under the snow; sthredy on the mountain hot with danger and grace; his own house like a beacon.
His house! Something wrong!
He had turned without knowing it. Now he saw dark shapes in the sky wheeling over his home. Massive birds?
Flashes of sulphur light speared the ground. Something black was rushing at him. What...!
Terror, confusion - and the Force span away from him like a wind-snatched cloak. No! Come back!
The black thing was a droid; a sinister ball, red lensed, with dangling, delicate claws. It swept up to him, stopped. He swallowed, stone still as it circled him. There was no yellow fire, no blasters. It chuckled away to itself in electronic code and even its voice sounded like metal.
"Get away!" Shoving it was no good. It just danced out of the way, smoothly, silently, the eye never wavering from his face. Claws twitched, and his dried lips cracked as he bit down on them, but still it did nothing; only stared.
He dared a step towards the house. Skin on his back puckered as he imagined the droid's hidden blasters slipping out from their casing, the flash, the sear of heat. It didn't come. He looked back - there it was, just a little too close, muttering to itself like a madman, staring.
Inside him, something snapped - he took off, faster than he'd ever run, panic driving him. The mad droid matched his speed - Ancestors! Get it off me! - and he didn't know if he fled towards his family, or just to get away from it.
Trees were on his left, their dim shadow tempting. He could run in there, hide, maybe smash the droid into the wall of his cave. But what about Mum? And he recoiled from his own cowardice. I'm going to be a Jedi. I'll save her!
He stopped. The wild energy within him urged him to keep running; run down the slope, break the runner from a sledge and just hit them - hit those people with the guns until they went away.
It was what a child would have done, and the tape-trained portion of his mind looked at it with contempt. No, I have to find out what's going on first. I have to find out how many there are, and get myself some weapons.
A whine pierced his head. The droid? He looked, it looked back, smug, sinister. No, not the droid.
The sound scaled up, dopplered like a moving thing. A flash of reflected light showed in the woods. He smelled fuel and fear, and hurled himself to the ground just in time.
Joriu staggered out of the undergrowth - a glimpse showed Kirru the mindless terror in his cousin's face, the burn, sticky with fluid, across his shoulder. He lurched onwards, his legs obviously failing, staggered towards the house.
Laughter. A bolt of fire came out of the trees and exploded like a firework on one ankle. Joriu screamed, fell, scrabbled to hands and knees, and began to crawl forwards.
Idiot! Part of Kirru's mind hadn't gone numb. Part of him didn't want to just be sick. He gave himself up to that part of him, gladly.
Bursting out of the trees, a swoop caught the light of the sun and blazed like a Hell-bike. The giggling rider aimed again, took out Joriu's other foot. Stupidly, animal like, Joriu dragged himself onwards.
Don't play that game. Idiot!
What could Kirru do? The swoop was slow now, following Joriu's crawl, taunting him. But it was too high for Kirru to jump up to. What can I do?. Rage at his own impotence kindled inside him, pushed at his throat.
At Joriu's slow pace the rider had plenty of time to aim. Crack of fire, and the blaster bolt tore through Joriu's trembling right hand. The scream and the laughter were equally loud.
"Don't touch him!" Anger slung Kirru to his feet, small hand upraised as if he levelled a weapon at the rider's face. He couldn't watch Joriu suffer any more. He didn't love his cousin, it was more basic than that. Too many of his things had been smashed today. "Don't touch him, he's mine!"
The shriek of rage was only part of what was going on in his head. His eyes were filled with the red dazzle of the swoop, the pulsing fire of the shots. Fuel smell coated his lungs. Inspiration struck; fire and fuel - he could bring them together, all it needed was a spark.
With the anger pulsing through him, he felt huge, powerful. So this was how you harnessed the Force! He let the anger leap out of his hand, travel up the smell of fuel, find the tank. Then he made fire happen. Easy. So easy!
Fire tore the pipes, exploded out of captivity. The swoop came apart in slow motion, its jagged edges tearing the rider to pieces even as the inferno swallowed him.
Kirru laughed and laughed, because he was stronger, and he could.
Silence as the pieces fell on the ice. The black droid whirred a little, nothing else.
"Ancestors protect!" Joriu rolled over, sobbing, and looked at Kirru as if he'd never seen him before, "What the Hell are you?"
"I'm going to be a Jedi." No way could they reject him now - not after that display of power. He looked down on his cousin and managed to feel affection. "Don't worry. I'll save the others."
But when he got up his knees buckled. Sweat soaked his clothes and the wind plucked at them. In the heat of the explosion his face had tingled briefly - he fingered it and felt a ragged cut across his jaw. There was no blood - his skin was too cold to bleed. I could die of that.
Fear found the place in his heart where the anger had been; the place which had emptied when he smiled at worthless Joriu. It was not a comfortable power, but it helped him lock his knees and stand. He felt now as frozen inside as out.
Cooling metal pink, pinked in the snow. Sharpened edges glinted in the red sunlight, offering themselves. He chose an axis strut - long enough for a spear, the end sheared into two wicked spikes - and a fragment small enough to be palmed.
"Joriu, straight through the trees there's a cave; furs inside. Get there and keep warm, I'll come back for you."
"Kirru," the first hint of respect he'd ever got from a cousin, "Don't go down there, they'll kill you."
"I can't let them get mum."
Between the icy fringe of his hood and the snow was a small stripe of colour. He lifted his head and the stripe resolved itself into smoke, hanging over the back of the house, figures in the courtyard moving randomly, the doors wide open, spilling precious heat into the air.
Sound warned him and he pressed his head down as the patrolling swoop grazed the edge of the windbreak. Above him, like a spirit-companion, the black droid hovered, marking him. Yet the alien on the swoop was taking no notice of the droid, and hadn't seen him - dug in, his white fur parka and leggings invisible against the snow. Why were they ignoring the droid? Was it important to know?
The swoop passed. He looked up again, watching it. Distilled wisdom from his tapes replayed itself in his head, confusing him. "'Do not leave an enemy at your back,'" and "'Do not advertise your presence.'" He couldn't blow this one up without failing the second, but he couldn't just sneak past either.
Finally he put back his hood and struggled to his knees, concealing his spear under a thin layer of snow.
I'm a helpless victim, he thought at the pirate, hoping some of it would come through, Come down and taunt me. I'm a helpless little boy.
An ugly voice swore. Yes, Kirru thought fiercely, So much for your lookout. The swoop flipped and dived for him. Something flapped from the saddle like a grotesque banner. An arm. Auntie Miri's arm with the bracelet that she loved, the one that was too small to get over her hand.
Ancestors protect!
The alien had snakes on his head, and teeth like needles. Urging the swoop lower he drew his blaster, shot. Green light seared past Kirru's face as he hurled himself away. Snow melted down to bedrock. The droid shrieked an electronic curse - protecting him? - but Kirru had rolled, bounced to his feet and flung the spear before he finished the thought.
Tape trained reflexes, tape trained accuracy, but the strength of a ten year old boy. The spear flew true - a moment of triumph keen as pain - and it buried itself in the man's face, mauling him horribly. Kirru had struck to kill, but hadn't had the strength. Now as the creature toppled off the bike to lie writhing at his feet, he looked down on its agony and decided this was better.
The droid's chuckle had a sound of approval to it. Kirru smiled. Something in the universe approved of him. That was new.
Now he had a blaster and a swoop. He hauled himself into the saddle, reached forward uncomfortably for the controls - everything too big for him. They were similar to the speeder-bikes his mother would take him to ride as a treat if he'd been good, if he hadn't hurt any one....
Feeling safer, the other Kirru - the child - had woken up again. It wanted to cry. He felt the sob come involuntarily and choked it back. Stupid, stupid, stupid! You can't do that yet. Mum needs you.
His mother was still alive. Of course she was. Miri might be dead - he didn't care about that - but his mother was alive. He was going to save her.
Pulling his hood up he turned the swoop and drifted slowly toward the courtyard. It was hard to approach gently - his hands were shaking. Adrenaline spiked again and his breath came shallow as the scene branded itself on his eyes.
A snake-headed woman, barely clothed, had his mother's jewellery box open on her lap, pawing through it. Above her head a grotesque flying creature cuddled a blaster-rifle as it stared disdainfully at the revels. It had a voice like mucus which it showered on the only man seated - a big human with a shaggy black beard and the glitter of drugs in his eyes. "We're wasting time. It's dangerous."
"The client's too uptight, Warra, and so are you. Let the boys have some fun."
Kirru marked the man, I should have saved my spear for him, looked harder, trying to find his mother.
Two humans had a child pinned, struggling, on the floor: Genju, his youngest cousin, screaming at the top of his voice while they hit him. He was a snitch, but he didn't deserve that.
Hairy, huge, a monster shouldered out of the broken doors, dragging someone by their bound wrists.
MUM!
Relief went over his body like a fever, shaking it. Don't get weak now. Not yet.
Her dress was torn, her mouth bloody. Genju's tormenters looked up speculatively as she was tugged past, and the anger began again, welcome as warmth.
"Please...." She sought the dark man's eyes abjectly, "What do you want with us?", and he smiled.
"We've come for your baby. But first we're gonna take everything else."
Too many of them. He had to.... The idea came like instinct. He had to swoop down, grab her, carry her out of there and then explode the generator. They'd all go up in flames. Genju too, but there was nothing he could do about that. Maybe he was dead already. Yes, he told himself firmly, Genju was dead already.
They'd thrown his mother on the ground. He gunned the motor, came streaking down, low. Her eyes widened, the bound hands reached out and he reached down.
A smack of light. He pretended to be dazzled so he didn't have to see his mother's face burned away. Uprushing air was scented with charred flesh. Conversations went on, unconcerned, as everything crumbled around him.
"Warra, you Sithspawn, I told you to leave it."
"Bloody fe-male, if you weren't so ugly...."
The flying alien's hawked reply; "Someone be a bit professional and get the kid, OK?"
They were after him? Well, dammit, they wouldn't get him. I'll have you, you bastards, I'll have you all!
He found the generator in his thoughts. He found the regulator, and the seething well of agony in his heart. He was going to bring them together.
A tiny pain, very cold. His hand reached up, distracted, brought away a dart from his shoulder. Just a second, staring at it stupidly, and then ice enveloped him, and he fell, helpless, straight into their waiting arms.
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Copyright © 2001, M.J. Goodbody
Revised -- March, 06, 2001
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