Names (Part 3)

The stars know what I've done.

The trial, the prison. The called it self defense. It didn't hurt that the trial was in Russia and the other girl was an American.

The claw marks, they didn't explain. How, I don't know? It's over now.

Free, to run across the forests, to think I even could've been locked in that ship. The intricacies of the plants and the moss like the circuits and wires on a computer board.

The stars know what happened up there and how I took their child but do they understand the fear?

There is prey ahead, a girl. She's blonde

It reminds me of Sophie, before she changed.

The hand on the hatch's handle is not a hand, though I feel it at the end of my arm. There is fur there, and it is matted and greasy, hanging limply over the claws which shine in the harsh light of the LEDs. The shape, so much like a hand, is still mine and as I flex the claws I feel blood rushing from my heart and a pulsing in my mind. A hunger.

“Sophie? What are you doing in there? Just calm down, okay.”

I move my lips to speak, to calm her so that she will be easy prey, but there is only a grunt which come out in spurts. Like the laughing of a wolf ill accustomed to the way's of speech, it can't help but have the opposite effect.

“Sophie. . . are you sick in there?” She's breathing heavily and I sense it for the first time. I can smell her fear, even though the sealed hatch. I can smell her more than I ever could before and suddenly I remember those scents in the bunk, of fear and of frustration. “Those noises. . .”

She's whimpering a little now, though she doesn't realize it, and something makes me look in the mirror on the wall above the toilet. There's the creature again with it's blood red eyes, looking out at me and smiling. Grinning from pointed ear to pointed ear, it's fangs hanging and dripping. It mouth's a word at me and though its lips were not designed for such, I know what it's saying. It says, “Go.”

And I do.

* * *

The warmth from the rocks soothes me and I look away from the stars. They judge me for what happened amongst them, but the earth knows what is right and what is wrong. The earth accepts her children and understands their hungers and their needs. She created us so long ago and she always calls us back to her, no matter how far we may stray.

But the stars, they will not stop staring down at me. They know I took their child, but it was not my fault. Not my fault that the earth sent one of its own to them.

The courts called it self defense, though they didn't attempt to explain the claw marks and the deep red blood sprayed against the ship's windows. They didn't wonder why the girl might have attacked me and why I would need to trap her in the air lock. They did wonder at the flayed skin of my arms and postulated how she might've done it. I didn't tell them of course.

When I made it back, after bringing the ship in those last few weeks, they found her there still in the airlock and they said she must've had some weapon she'd hidden aboard. Some weapon which had been sucked out into space, for nothing on board could have left marks like that. Her body was still lying there covered in my blood when they found her, though by then the hunger was creeping up on me as well.

It didn't hurt that the courts were in Russia and the girl an American. Of course I was suspended without leave, but I'd stopped caring at that point. It let me go home, to the forests.

The moss under my skin is so intricate; to think I even could've been trapped aboard a ship up there with nothing but the judging stars. The weave of the lichen is like the circuits I treasured there and the wirey strands of moss like the insides of a computer. How much better here though, the circuitry which heals itself.

The reflection in the water of the stream beneath my perch is clear and in the moonlight I can see myself. The fangs, dripping and glistening in the dim light of the uncaring moon, the fur matted and white on my shoulders. The creature stares back at me and I am it. No wonder the other one felt she was going mad on that ship. This creature need's her mother earth to live. If only I had known then I might not have killed her before she passed on her gift.

But tonight I understand and my prey is before me, walking back to her house under the cover of the moss coated oaks. She cannot see me but I can smell her, can smell the hint of freshness which always comes with the young. Can smell that she is unaware and will be an easy kill.

I do wonder what her name is though. She reminds me a little of Sophie.

Names (Part 2)

“Scaring you? I was just…” I turn toward Darya. Her pretty blue eyes are a mix of concern and fear.

“Just needed a minute, that’s all.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down? Your face, it was…” She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t know how to describe it. You’re so pale.”

“I’m fine, Dar.” I glance back at the mirror. The creature’s gone.

“Darya,” she insists. “My name is Darya. If you’re sure you’re fine…”

“More than sure, Dar…I mean, Darya.”

“Alright, then. Make sure not to over do it on your shift.”

“Yes, Mother.” I roll my eyes in jest, and it seems to work. A smile twitches at the corners of Darya’s lips before she sets off to the bunk for some rest.

I stand in front of the mirror, searching it. Darya’s right. My face is pale, almost skeleton-white, in the mirror’s reflection as I trace my fingers along the mirror’s edges looking for any sign of the creature. There’s nothing but a sense of dread, a faint heat emanating from the mirror’s surface. I run to my Evo suit and put it on in record time,and throw myself into the work in hopes of banishing the creature from my mind. It doesn’t work. The creature’s eyes follow all through my shift and stare down at me as I fall asleep.

* * *

Over the next few days, Darya watches me closely. At first I think it’s as much out of self-preservation than anything. A sick partner can make so many things go wrong; one wrong decision outside the ship can leave a partner dead or incapacitated; either way, your trip gets cut short and your pay cut with it. Darya, though, she cares enough to look after me, or as much one can do on a ship like this. It’s a moot point in the end. The creature dogs my steps on the ship like a poltergeist. I see it in the corner of my eyes when I’m by myself; it flashes across the mirror when I wash my face in the morning. Every night it’s the last thing I see as I close my eyes. On the few occasions I find myself staring into its eyes, I feel the dread, evil feeling that curdles my stomach and sends the blood rushing to my head. I’m losing my mind, but I can still do my job. It doesn’t matter how much I lose it so long as I can do what I’m being paid for. The end of the job is only a month out. I can make it. I can make it. I can…

“Sophie? Are you alright?”

No, I’m not. I try to tell her, but nothing comes out but a hacking cough. I can barely keep myself standing; my knees keep threatening to buckle even as I lean against the wall.
Darya places her hand on my back.

“It’ll be alright, Sophie.”

I want to to tell her to leave and run as fast as she can from me. That heat, that poisonous feeling, surges and falls like a wave in my stomach, and something – or someone – else skirts the corner of my mind, thinking thoughts that can’t possibly be mine. My vision blurs.

“It’ll be fine, Sophie,” Darya says again. “Just lie down, you’ll see.”

“No!” I can’t believe a voice so high and so scared, almost to the point of screeching, belongs to me. I push her away, and I hear her gasp as she stumbles and falls; by that time, I’m already running, panicking, with no better sense of direction than a frightened deer. I find myself in the bathroom. I lock the door.

I stop in front of the mirror. My reflection’s gone. In it’s place is the creature, its eyes burning hot, its lip curled into a sneer. It laughs, a low, guttural, booming sound, and I feel the last bit of myself slip away.

“Sophie! Sophie, are you in there? Answer me!”

My hand reaches for the door, but I’m no longer the one in control.

Names (Part 1)

The rock is cold and smooth beneath my fingers and after awhile, despite the chill, I start to feel it pulsing slightly. I feel the smooth stone moving under my fingertips ever so gently and through it I imagine I can feel the entire planet reaching up to me, touching me and soothing me. Telling me it will be okay. Willing me to be silent and calm.

The stars though, they tell a different story. As I feel the gentle pulsing of the stones beneath my hands and even my bare feet, the smooth cool surface of the broad river rocks under my naked calves and the gentle moss under my arm, I can also feel the stars looking down on me with a different pulsing. One altogether more ominous and not so comforting as the earth beneath me.

The stars know what I've done.

* * *

“Sophie, watch out!”

Darya's voice calls out from the earpiece in the slightly static way that everything has up here and I look up to see the girder drifting gently towards me. Silly Darya, always clumsy when she's in an Evo suit and always nervous about it.

“I see it Dar, don't worry. I'm a big girl.”

I hope she can sense the smile through my voice but I know it's hard for her. She is so sensitive to the smallest slight or displeasure. It's amazing how quickly one can become attached to a person in so few months. It is easier when there is only the two of you, especially if you occupy one bunk by turns. After a while you come to understand the scents left in the pinned down sheets when the other leaves. Come to know from the smell of their sweat if they are happy or discontent.

If they are nervous because a micro meteorite hit part of the rigging for the solar collectors. If they are nervous because they know they'll have to spend time outside the cabin with you.

“I'm sorry, Sophie. I just have such a hard time with these big gloves, you know? I was really designed to work on electrics, not this big brutish stuff.”

“Well don't think for an instant I'd ask you out here to help if I could do it on my own! I'd hate to put those delicate little hands of yours in danger.”

But she's right. Her hands really were designed for soldering connections on circuit boards and constructing tiny apparatus, not for moving three thousand pound girders around the perimeter of a spacecraft. Not that we can feel the weight of those girders. And those hands, so delicate. So unlike the big Russian farm girl I expected her to be when I found her name on the crew allotment. A shame—she would've been much more useful out here if she had been that Russian farm girl instead.

“I can handle this, even if I'm not a big bear like you. I'm just a little clumsy, that's all.”

“I know, I know. I'm just messing with you, Dar. Don't worry.”

She's silent for a while then, hovering on the end of her tether about twenty feet away, watching me as I slip the new girder into place on the solar arm and then pushing the damaged one off and away from the ship. I wish I could see inside that helmet of hers and know what she thinks in there. As many times as I've done these stints, I've never been so intrigued by the oddities of another worker like this one. Usually they are big thoughtless cows who have no thoughts besides the pay off at the end of the trip, not scared little girls with blonde hair and shifting blue eyes.

We shall see how we feel in another three months, at that. By the end of the out-solar run everyone reaches a point where they no longer care for the other worker, only for the voyage to end. I cannot wait for that time.

* * *

“I really wish you wouldn't call me 'Dar,' you know.”

“And why not? You call me Sophie.”

“Yes, but you introduced yourself as Sophie. I told you my name was Darya.”

“Oh, but that's such a silly name, Darya. So indiscriminately Russian and harsh. Dar has such a nice ring to it, though.”

“Maybe. I just like my name, that's all. Couldn't you respect that?”

“Meh, who cares. We only spend a few sentences together each day. I could call you anything and it would make no difference.”

“But Sophie, it would. Our names are all we have that make us human.”

“All we have? All we have?! And this spacecraft? These mining tools which we use to harvest the asteroids a million miles from our home planet? This doesn't make us something special? Something human?”

“No.”

“And what does, at that?”

“Our souls, Sophie. Our souls and the names they wear.”

* * *

It's staring at me, and in its eyes I see a fire burning. The flames lick up in little tendrils from around the deep orange pupil, licking the edges as if testing for a weakness there. Flicking out toward the edges of the eye as if each one carries the burning heart of a glistening sun. Solar flares of evil running out from the thing's brain and poisoning the world outside.

The eyes like worlds surrounded by the matted black fur that glistens in a way no fur should glisten. Fur that doesn't float outward in the weightlessness but instead hangs flat and dry, but glistening all the same. And why should a space faring creature have fur at all?

Fur or fangs, which glisten with the light from the ship's LED lights. Fangs which send tiny little globules of moisture floating in any direction away from them. Why should a creature in the night of space have fangs and fur at all.

“Sophie, why are you staring in the mirror like that?”

“What?”

“You're scaring me.”