A Void and a Word

Movement and pain. Hands pulled at his clothing, and he was too weak to push them away. Someone or something was touching his face.

Cooling water on his over-hot skin. He tried to ask for something to drink.

More movement, cries of pain somewhere, and long pale faces looking down at him. Something hard was held over his mouth, and prompted a little kick of adrenaline. He struggled, trying to free his arms, but a vice-like grip bound him immovably. A reeking, chemical scent filled his mouth and nose; he tried to hold his breath but his lungs were on fire. He breathed in once, twice, and...he closed his eyes and it all went away.

The echo of a voice. Master? Where are you? Answer me!

He drifted on the edge of consciousness for a long time. He was, for the first time that he could remember, warm, comfortable, and without pain. Eventually, the stirrings of curiosity got the better of him and he blinked open his eyes.

He was lying on the floor of a room. The light was low, coming from two small lamps hanging from the walls. He could make out few features in the gloom. The ceiling was very high and shadowed; the curved walls looked like they were made of rough plaster or mud. In a few places, the surface had peeled away and stone-built walls were visible beneath. The room was decked with various agricultural or domestic items; baskets, plastoid containers, shelves of tools and jars. It was hard to tell from lying down but everything seemed disproportionately large. He looked around for escape routes but was not reassured. There was no window, and only a single door, directly opposite where he lay. It was huge and looked extremely sturdy. There was no lock that he could see, but it seemed to be latched shut. He would hear if someone came in.

He turned his attention to his own remarkably pain-free condition. There was a needle in his arm connected to a sachet of fluid hung above his head, which might have something to do with it. He pulled the needle out without really thinking about it, and then looked around. He was lying on a thin mat under a pile of blankets, both self-warming and handwoven in bright colours. Pushing the blankets aside, he realised with a start that he was wearing different clothing. The torn and filthy trousers and tunic were gone, and he was dressed in a long blue shirt-like garment that almost swamped him. The sleeves, were he standing, would have come down well past his knees. He pushed them up to free his hands and his bandaged wrists, and his thumb knocked against something metal.

Curiously, he pushed the sleeve up to reveal a thin bracelet no wider than his little finger which had slid down over the bandaging on his right wrist. It was made of some silvery metal shot through with ruby-coloured veins. He tugged at it a little, but it was too narrow to fit over his hand. Perhaps he had been wearing it for years. It told him nothing else, so with a shrug, he forgot about it for now and turned his attention to his injuries. On his left hand he could see that three fingers were strapped together and braced with thin plastoid strips. He flexed them a little, but they didn't hurt.

Pulling up the shirt, he first investigated his wounded leg. The embedded durasteel shard had been removed, and the thigh was firmly wrapped with thick layers of off-white bandaging. There was a strange, sweet herbal smell about it. He jabbed his finger at the area he knew had been punctured by the metal, and it produced only a dull ache. Interesting. That painkiller was astonishing.

Torso next. The ribs were sore when he pressed them, but not agonising, and he could breathe more or less without a problem. His side from hip to chest was darkly mottled with bruising. The only surprise was a square dressing taped high up on the right side of his abdomen, below the rib cage. He hadn't noticed a wound there before, but neither had he noticed the myriad of deep bruises and strange red patches like burns across his chest and arms. The bruises looked very much like they took the shape of someone's boots. Turning his head to try and peer at the bruises on his back brought sparking into life the forgotten wound on his neck. Almost reluctantly, he brought his hand up to it, and found a line of taped dressings stretching from the jaw below his ear down to below his collar bone. Tearing the tape off his beard was going to be delightful when the time came. He pulled his hand away with a shudder. That wound, somehow more than the others, filled him with horror.

A sudden noise made him spin round with a start. The latch on the huge door had clicked, and it was starting to swing open. Someone was coming in, and he hadn't come up with a plan. Heart thudding wildly, he looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing to hand. On instinct, he shuffled back to the wall, pulled his knee up to his chest, and stared at the door.

A creature peered round the door. As he watched, tense with fear, it let go of the latch and dropped down onto all fours. The beast had immensely long arms and legs. Its limbs were thick with pure white fur which appeared in tufts at the neckline and hems of its brown and grey clothing. The creature shambled into the room on its bare feet and knuckles with an odd gait, and then paused. It was looking at him with great interest and, seeing him staring back, turned its long neck and issued a chattering sound. A second creature came into the room, larger than the first but similar in shape and colouring. It appeared more cautious, loitering a little by the door. He turned his attention back to the first creature, which had crossed over to within a few metres of him. He saw that, for all its size, the creature had an expressive face of delicate proportions with a wide up-turned nose, white skin scattered with thin patches of fur, and very large guileless eyes with irises of deep blue. There were glints of light as it moved; the low lamplight glinting off beads and bits of feather woven into its fur. One of its curled hands clutched a bundle of tatty rags. It opened its mouth and showed him rows of sharp white teeth. His heart gave a jolt and he realised he had forgotten to breathe.

The second creature came over to join the first, and he realised that it walked much more smoothly than the first. It gripped the smaller creature by the shoulder, chattering at it in a way that sounded stern. Perhaps it was being scolded. The smaller creature didn't look too concerned; rolling back onto its haunches, it waved the raggedy doll-like object it was holding, and stuck its thumb into its mouth. The interactions between the pair suddenly clicked in his mind, and the man realised that, despite its size, at least the smaller of the two creatures was a child. His fear receded a little.

"Hello," he said, his voice rough and quiet, and entirely unfamiliar to him. "Do you understand me?"

The two creatures gave matching shrieks and dashed from the room. He stared after them with astonishment at the reaction. What the blazes could have caused that? Unless they had thought him no more than wounded animal that they had rescued. Him speaking to them must have been like a puppy suddenly asking the time.

There were voices outside the room, and the door pushed opened again. Expecting one of the previous visitors, his eyes were dragged up with surprise when a huge animal entered the room. Standing up on its back legs, the beast was easily twice the height of the small child, and four times as broad across the back. Its long arms were filled out with muscle. Its clothing were of greens and browns, and its fur was a deep rich gold. The creature, undoubtedly an adult, looked at the man huddled against the wall and turned to speak back out into the hall. The man thought the voice sounded stern. Kids, what did you do? Now you've frightened it.

The giant dropped down onto all fours and slowly crossed the room towards him. The man realised his breath was coming in little harsh-sounding gulps. He tried to claw back some control over himself and his fear. They had treated his wounds. Despite their terrifying size, they seemed to be friendly, so far. The creature stopped several meters from the bed, and dropped onto its haunches. It bared its teeth at him, raised its hands (two long fingers and a thumb he absently noted), and growled something in its own language. The man swallowed dryly, but did nothing, unsure.

The creature asked what sounded like a question, and picked up a plastoid container that had been beside the foot of the bed. It held it out towards him. He could hear liquid sloshing inside, and hesitantly he reached out to take it. The creature shuffled closer, and passed him the bottle. It was water, stale and little chemical-tasting, but he didn't hesitate to drink. The creature bared its teeth at him again, and he began to suspect that was probably a smile.

"Thank you," he said, a little less croaky, and handed the bottle back. The creature put it on the floor, and then, to his surprise, leaned in and ran its long fingered hand down his head. He froze, but the creature didn't seem to be put off, continuing to pat and stroke his hair. The two children, who had been standing by the door, bounded over and the youngest quickly joined in patting his shoulder, while the older child picked up his hand and started playing with his five fingers in apparent wonder. The man coughed a little, trying not to project his discomfort. He really, really wanted to find a way to communicate that didn't involve touching.

"I don't speak your language. Do you understand me?"

The adult said something that the man obviously did not understand, and then said a word that sounded like basic.

"Yes! Basic, I speak Basic." The man hoped desperately that he had understood the alien correctly.

"Hello fr-iend," said the alien with bared teeth. The man could have cheered with delight.

"Hello, friend!" he replied. The creature spoke to the oldest child who said something back and scampered from the room. Then it turned back to the man, placing its hand on its own chest.

"I am Chana," it said, in a strange, heavy accent. Then the alien gently laid its long spindly fingers on the man's chest. "You are?"

The man shook his head a little. "I'm sorry. I don't remember."

Chana's nose twitched, and it was clear its limited Basic was not enough to understand what he was saying. The alien tried again, pointing to itself.

"Chana,"

"Chana," the man repeated.

The creature pointed next to the smallest child. "Tiki," it said.

"Tiki," he echoed. The child made a coughing noise that might have been laughter.

The door opened, and the older child entered again, carrying a small electronic device. The adult pointed at the child and made a drawn out sound that was mostly vowels. The man didn't even try to imitate that. Then Chana pointed back to him, and he sighed.

"I can't tell you my name. I have lost my memory."

The oldest child shoved the electronic device towards him, and he eyed it with healthy caution.

"Again!" said the unpronounceable child, in Basic.

"I have lost my memory," he said slowly, uncertain what was happening. "I've forgotten my name."

The child fiddled with the device which played back a short recording of his own voice, then followed by an electronic droid-like voice in what sounded like the creature's language. A translator.

The man was relieved, although the aliens were looking at him with what seemed like alarm. Chana took a carefully grip of his head and began running his fingers delicately over the surface of his skull, feeling every area for injuries or depressions, and eventually peering into the man's ears and eyes.

"I don't have a head injury," the man said slowly into the translator which was lying on the blankets. "At least, I don't think so."

"You are very bad," announced Chana, and the man tensed with fear. Had he done something wrong? But the alien's relaxed body language and expression of concern had not changed.

"Bad," said Chana again, and then picked up the translating device.

"Bad," announced the dull monotone droid voice. "Rotten. Damaged. Wounded."

Oh. "Yes," he agreed. Chana continued to talk into the translator.

"You are damaged. You have no memory," said the drone voice. "What happened to you."

"I don't remember," the man whispered, and suddenly realised how tired he was. "I just woke up on the moor. I don't know what happened."

Chana made a crooning sound that was clearly intended to be comforting. "Sleep," the alien said in Basic, followed by some words to the translator. "She will be back tomorrow. She will know what to do."

"She?" the man asked, but his eyelids were heavy, and he was asleep again before Chana could reply.

He woke suddenly the next time, and was instantly aware of dull but unrelenting pain in his chest and leg, of being thirsty, and hungry, and too hot. The pain relief he had felt before had not lasted, although he could tell from a pulling on his arm that the IV had been reinserted. He felt feverish. He blinked back into full awareness, and went to sit up, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"Rest."

He started a little at the voice, and turned to see two more creatures sitting beside the edge of his bed. The closest, the one that had touched him, had withdrawn its hand when he jumped, but neither of them moved away, sitting calmly. There was no doubt from their huge size that they were both adults. The brighter lamp they had brought with them showed that, unlike Chana, they had fur that, while white at the core, was tipped in deep, indigo blue. When they moved, the white showed through like silvery light on water. The taller of the two, the one that had spoken, had a mane of blue hair around its ears, and was dressed in a long robe of midnight blue fabric. The second smaller figure was dressed in the same grey and brown hues as the children. The nearer creature showed its teeth, and then said;

"Please do not be afraid. I am Shaarm, wife of the house."

"You speak Basic?" the man said, overcome with relief. While he had managed a few words with Chana with the help of the translation device, a fluent conversation might help him figure out what was happening.

"Yes," the creature said. "This is Grandmother."

Grandmother? Wife? That helped the man to establish that the colour of the fur probably indicated the males and females of the species. If the females were blue then golden-haired Chana was probably male, although binary gender divisions were never something to take for granted.

"You are welcome in our home," Shaarm said, and he smiled, sensing she was genuine. Her accent was more delicate than Chana's had been.

"Thank you," he said, "although I don't remember how I got here."

"You have lost your memory," said Shaarm, "This is what my husband Chana tells me."

The man nodded, careful of the ache in his neck.

"Grandmother found you outside in the street, and you are badly injured. It took several hours to make your injuries stable."

Grandmother showed a set of large, razor-sharp teeth.

"You saved my life," the man acknowledged. His injuries had been severe. "Are you a healer?"

"I am a surgeon, in Tzsaaf," Shaarm said, "but I was able to do little for you as I have never been trained in Pechnar biology. There is a….livestock doctor in the town, and we took you there. Together, he and I were able to repair most of your injuries, I give thanks, although you will need much rest and a long time to recover."

"Thank you, " he said again, and she showed her teeth, handing him the water bottle. He was not surprised to hear that she was a medical professional. She radiated calm and understanding and balance.

"Where am I?" he began to ask as soon as he had finished drinking, but Grandmother had moved over to the bed and spoke over his question in their own language. Shaarm explained.

"She says that it is time to see to your injuries now. After that you shall eat, and I will answer what I know. Are you in pain?"

He hesitated, and then nodded. "Yes. Leg, hip, ribs..."

"What should your normal temperature be?" she asked, laying a device on his breastbone. After a second it beeped, and she looked at it with a frown.

"I don't know, I'm sorry. But I do feel a bit warm. Feverish." He tried to answer as honestly as he could. Playing down what his body was telling him in circumstances like these could kill him.

Checking his wounds took a while. The injury on his leg appeared to have been sealed with some sort of colourless paste, and to the man's eyes the skin around was bruised and angry. Shaarm palpated it for a while, and then pulled out different device. Held over the wound, it issued an orange light and a wave of heat that was just shy of being painful on his skin.

"Your hip?" she asked, and he indicated with his hand where the bone felt wrong. Possibly a cracked pelvis. The heat emitter was used again on his hip, and then in long concentrated bursts over his side, chest and belly. Whatever the device was doing, it was not helping with the pain. He gritted his teeth a little.

"What happened here?" He asked, pointing to the dressing on his right side, needing a distraction.

"A blunt traumatic injury," Shaarm answered, with a distracted air as she peeled back the bandages on his neck and focused the heat emitter on his skin. "You were bleeding inside."

The man ran his palm over the dressing, and pushed a little. He felt pressure not pain, and a firmer push brought a sensation of crackling under the skin, like old paper. Grandmother pulled his hand away, and scolded him firmly in their language.

"She says you are a crazy person," said Shaarm. "Do not poke at the wound."

"That's incredible," said the man, genuinely amazed. She had healed a severe internal injury. "What did you do?"

Shaarm looked at him for a moment, as if checking that his interest was genuine.

"Synthetic nanoplatelets," she said. "I was not sure they would work on your physiology, but as you would not have survived anyway, I decided to try. The bleeding was sealed. Now I want to see your back."

With the same lack of concern for his personal space that Chana and the children had shown the previous day, Shaarm put her arm behind his back without warning and easily lifted him into a sitting position. Before he had time to flail or feel unsteady, she had tilted him forward and was pressing on his lower back with her cool fingers. He twitched a little as a stabbing pain flared up. That could be a damaged kidney. He felt her make a few passes with the heat-emitter, and then place something metal on his back. After listening to him breathe a few times, she said "Good!", and his nightshirt was lowered back around him. Then he had to undergo the same search of his skull that Chana had undertaken the previous night, with both Grandmother and Shaarm running long fingers through his hair, jaw and the back of his neck. Their search apparently yielded nothing.

"I will take you to the cleansing room now," said Shaarm, and without another word she lifted him easily, blankets, IV sachet and all, out of the bed and tucked him to her with one arm. She swung round and loped out of the room, trotting on three legs. He was dizzily aware of a large, brightly lit space outside which passed in a swift blur, and then he was gently being stood on his unsteady feet in a small wash room. Shaarm handed him the IV bag and left him alone while he used the facilities. His urine was darkly discoloured with blood. Definitely a damaged kidney then, bruised at least. He splashed a good deal of water around trying to turn the faucet on and off with his damaged hand, but eventually managed a perfunctory wash. He looked at the door to the 'fresher longingly, but that would have to wait until he could stand properly.

When he was done, Shaarm carried him back to the room where his bed was laid out. He really wanted to walk, but even standing for a few minutes in the wash room had made his leg ache abominably. Before long, he lying back down, propped against the wall, and re-wrapped in his blankets. Shortly afterwards, Grandmother joined them again, carrying a bowl.

"You seem to be recovering," Shaarm said. "I am sorry that I do not know more about your people, but were you a Kheelian, I should say that you were very malnourished. Eat, and I will answer your questions."

Grandmother settled a large bowl on his legs and pushed a spoon into his uninjured hand. He eyed the contents of the bowl with caution; a lumpy white paste with dark brown pieces mixed into the mush.

"We feed this meal to our sick and infirm," Shaarm said, with her toothy smile. "It is mild and wholesome."

He took a cautious mouthful. At first the taste was not too bad, rich and earthy, but after a moment a heavy burn of spicy heat filled his mouth and caught in his sinuses. He swallowed quickly, trying in vain not to cough as his eyes watered. The two females eyed him with concern but he managed to force the food down and smile.

"Goodness," he managed, "it's quite spicy." Grandmother seemed to take that as a compliment, and beckoned for him to continue to eat. A little reluctantly he put another spoonful in his mouth, and Shaarm began to speak.

He was currently in a village called Thet which had a population of about one hundred of their folk, living under the cliffs of Kender, the Great Moor. The nearest town where Shaarm held a medical practice was called Tzsaaf. It served the villages around with supplies and services, although mostly the people lived off the land. Shaarm and her family were called Kheelians, although he was not certain if that was the name of the entire species, or just of Shaarm's tribe. The county was called something he couldn't pronounce, and the planet seemed not to have a name. So far so good. Except none of it was in any way familiar.

"And I am a...Pechnar?" He thought his pronunciation was correct.

Shaarm nodded. "Well, that is our name for your species, I do not know what you call yourselves. I am sorry that you seem disappointed. But come, you must eat."

He took another reluctant bite and forced it down. He found that the mush burned his throat less if he avoided the brown pieces. "I thought I might remember something from your descriptions. I suppose, when I saw the lights from the clifftop, I hoped that you would recognise me, and would know where I came from."

"I am sorry," Shaarm said again. "But you did not come from here. There are no Pechnar in Thet, and I have only seen them a dozen times in Tzsaaf. There are more in the City, but that is many hundred lengths from here. People here will be very curious about you. No one except myself and Pakat will ever have seen a Pechnar before, I expect. Chana and the girls thought you were an infant because you are so small."

He snorted a laugh, unable to feel insulted or annoyed by the insinuation. He supposed that explained all the petting and cooing he had endured yesterday. They really had thought him no more than an injured baby animal.

"I might not know much about myself," he admitted, "but I can safely assure you that I am no infant." The was an ache in some of his joints not caused by his recent injuries, but instead the result of a long life, and a hard one.

"You truly remember nothing?" Shaarm asked, and her expressive face looked worried. "For we found the nature of your injuries...concerning."

He shook his head in answer, even as he pondered what her pause could mean. "Nothing. I woke up in the marshes already injured. I think I had walked there, as my feet were dirty, but that is all I could tell. I saw the rock stacks in the distance and headed towards them. I crossed a stream, and followed it for a bit. By the time I reached the rocks I could see the lights from the village."

He looked at the females, and could see their poorly-veiled concern. "Perhaps I came from a village on the moor..?"

But Shaarm was already shaking her head. "There are no settlements on the moor, and it stretches for a hundred lengths in every direction. You could not have crossed it on foot. It is astonishing that you found your way to the cliffs at all. Even those who have lived their lives in its shadow do not find their way easily on the moor in the dark. And there are other dangers too; vicious creatures live there who do not care for Kheelians."

"Perhaps I encountered one of those," suggested the man, keen to find an explanation to one of the mysteries surrounding him.

Grandmother made a harsh coughing noise, similar to the sound he had identified as laughter from the children. She followed up with a brief statement that made Shaarm smile. The man realised that Grandmother had been following their conversation; she clearly understood Basic even if she didn't speak it.

"Grandmother says that dangerous the creatures may be, but they do no regularly stab people in the legs with metal shrapnel."

Seeing his blank look, she pulled out a bundle of ragged cloth from beside the sleeping mat, and unfolded it, showing him a long shard of smooth metal. It was washed clean of his blood, but he knew it was the same that had been embedded in his thigh. He picked it up without much hesitation, and weighed it in his hand. It meant nothing. He handed it back, and with a sigh, slumped back a little against the wall, hand coming up unconsciously to rest on his aching ribs. The pain was back full force, and even this short conversation had exhausted him. His stamina really was a disaster.

"You should eat more," said Shaarm, frowning, but he couldn't, not even to be polite. He held out the bowl, it was still almost full.

"Thank you," he said, "it's very...filling,"

Grandmother took the bowl from him, and trotted out of the room with it. Shaarm, with infinite care, lifted the man away from the wall and laid him down onto the sleeping mat. She smoothed down the blankets.

"You must sleep then," she said, "Four a few turns at least. Pakat will be home for the latemeal and you shall join us, if you feel able." She leaned down, to the floor and a plastoid mask was being held up against his face. He caught a whiff of a familiar chemical scent, and he shrank back, fear bursting into life. Before he could stop himself he had pushed her arm away. He couldn't have hurt her, of course, and she merely looked surprised, but the guilt was already twisting in his gut.

"I don't want it. I'm sorry."

She was not deterred, but her voice took on a very gentle soothing tone. "You are in pain," she said, "and that is not necessary. This is valiform, you need only inhale a little so it will take the pain away so you can sleep."

She sat back, but instead of applying it herself, just held the mask out to him. He paused for a long time, but loathe to be any ruder than he already had been, he took it. He intended to merely pretend to inhale the narcotic, but found that after only a moment holding it near his face, he was already drowsy. He felt the breather fall from his loose fingers, and he slept.

TBC