Dust
by SWE
How do we make it go faster? Too slow, blood's pounding but engine's sputtering. It isn't fit for purpose and they're getting away. Run it hot, then. Tear off the core housing and let it burn like a raw sun. Metal gets in the blood. Wonder what that tastes like. Man's hot from the inside out, and all of us are fa shao now. Got needs. But since I put this metal through my lip, and staples up my cheek, they're all running. Not that it makes any difference, I'm faster, I'm stronger, and I'm made of many men.
It didn't begin or end at any fixed time, like one of the dust storms that rolled in off the plains into our town. Hot afternoon, hot planet. Settler kids. The last few weeks, there were changes. Daddy sleeping in his chair in the sun. Slowed-down shadow-boxing in the park. Traffic humming along with no-one in a rush to be anywhere. The dust was coming in through the windows again and laoshi tilted her head towards the light. I saw dust diamonds fixed in the air, turning so slowly. Half the room wasn't breathing – no, it was before, they kept breathing for a good few weeks before they started to die.
Miranda's a girl's name, nothing strong about it. Why is it that the girls always lay down first? Can't ever lie down or you won't be getting up, dust settles on the skin, flies come. I never was all that good at keeping still. Why do you kick off, why can't you learn? I don't know. Can't keep my feet still, it's like there are ants under my skin and I need something. You need pills, they all said. Daddy shaking his head, was he like this before we upped sticks and came out here? Even at the beginning? Can't remember much of the time before, just lancing sun and dust and I can't lie down in bed at night because my whole body's crawling and there's a red taste, a bad taste in my mouth, and the sky is on fire.
He'd done it with gasoline and other things, he said. Splashed it all around, bathed the whole town in sticky kindling. Struck a match and off it went. I clapped – never seen a fire like that before, that swallowed the dying town and the people who lay down. The right side of his face was bleeding raw, white blisters raised, and he was cutting at them with a bit of metal. Let it out and it'll heal, he said. Skin and fat and muscle. See what's inside.
There was one he'd tied down to stakes. He'd done her in and out and then brought her innards outsidewards, cold now like jelly. Touch, he said. No resistance, like wood ears in soup or soft jiaozi. He let me try but it wasn't doing for the thirst. Had an itch I couldn't scratch. Keep your hands off it, you dirty boy. You'll go blind, you know. Course you will with a nail through the eyelid but the hands are still going. Was he always like this?
He told me they weren't all dead. There were others. Down into the valley, where the smoke was thick – a family cowering in the storm cellar, glazed and dusty but still breathing, blood still going. He tore the boys apart and I went for the father. No resistance and no mercy. A pile of steaming meat, but the mother was sobbing. That made me mad. Shut the hell up! There used to be words but now I roar. I got on top of her and had her my way until she was stone cold dead and it chafed. This is how I wanted to kill them, but I'll put a staple in it, stop it bursting through and dragging me on after it. There are other ways.
He'd been watching, standing over us, recording the screams and the rutting sounds. Miranda's quiet and space is quieter. Something for the journey, he said.
Our home world was burning up. In every city there were more of us, and they were dying out, sleeping in their houses or drowsing in lawn chairs, no spirit, no fight. Only bodies, withering flesh, sinew and white bone, veins and marrow, and there's a big sky out there. That's how we arrayed our ship, ribcage on the prow, blood on the walls. Tore out the bunks and hung them by the ankles. Worms came and flies. Getting sick from the core, the heat's getting under the skin, so you scour it out with hooks and knives and go to slake the thirst on whoever you might find. Then you go and do some more – Lilac, Haven, all of them ripe, placid, fat, ready to bleed. Go in, cut your way, see what's in the middle.
Chinese
laoshi = teacher
fa shao = to run a fever
A/N: Inspired by a post in the mal_contents community on LJ, where it is suggested the Reavers are a result of double Y chromosome plus pax. Not sure about him above.