Telling Stories
The scenery passed by in a slow drift of green and brown. Ben rested his head back, and let the wind ruffle his hair. Tiki was curled in close to his side, watching the landscape mutely. He was glad of her closeness and warmth; the cold brush of the wind was chilling as it whipped over the landspeeder. The land around was a steady undulation of fields, some with crops or livestock, and some with rows of solar panelling, shining like fish scales in the cool daylight. Here and there were isolated farmsteads or stands of large purple bush-like plants, the closest thing to trees that he had yet seen. Ahead, the vague shimmers of light and shade that had hinted at the distant town of Tszaaf were slowly coming into definition. Soon, individual buildings could be made out, and Ben started to get a feel for the size of the place. It was certainly much more significant a settlement than Thet; he could see at least a thousand structures, possibly more, scattered across the horizon. They would soon arrive.
Ben shivered, pulling the blankets closer, and coughing shallowly into his hand. It had been a hard night. The small amount of movement he had attempted the previous day had still been too much for his weakened body, and by the time they had returned to the sleeping area, he had been in a lot of pain. Shaarm's tablets had proved all but useless, and the vet's painkiller had just made him feverish and even more uncomfortable. Around midnight he had developed a cough that he couldn't seem to shift. The night dragged on, and by the time the morning arrived, Ben had been exhausted. Shaarm had checked his vitals and listened to his lungs with a distinct frown. Shortly after, it was announced that the village's two landspeeders would be taking a convoy of the injured to Tszaaf for treatment at the main medical centre. Ben found himself bundled up in blankets before he could protest and ushered into the back of Shaarm's speeder with four other Kheelians and Tiki at his side.
They left the village without incident. The road was clear and empty, and there were no narms to be seen. Ben just hoped they would honour their agreement to return to the moor until the following evening. At least that had been one mystery easily solved – the time that the narms had wanted to meet. Ben had described the creature's drawing of a single moon the previous night, and the Kheelians had instantly understood. In two night's time, one moon would be full, while the second would be cast so completely in its shadow that it would vanish. The arrangement occurred every eight-hundred days. Ben had marvelled again at that; the narms had a way of recording and anticipating the patterns of the cosmos. Remarkable. His thoughts turned unbidden back to the riddle that he had done little but puzzle over since the previous night. The stolen sky. The Kheelians had stolen the sky. What did that mean?
The journey to Tszaaf had perhaps taken a standard turn, and so it was still early as they approached the quiet town. Ben looked for a fence, similar to the one which had saved them in Thet, but there was no sign of such a thing. It was only when the speeders passed over a bridge covering a wide ditch did he recognise any defensive capability of the town. It might once have been filled with water as a moat, but right now the ditch was dry and dust-filled.
The town itself was noticeably more substantial than the village the Ben was familiar with. The round buildings were primarily of stone or brick, and unlike those of Thet, some had two or more storeys. The streets were wider, and here landspeeders were not an oddity. Their own convoy of speeders passed by several domestic side streets, a market place, a park and eventually a grand-looking building faced with plates of stone and metal. Ben peered over the side of the speeder and saw a platform and beyond it, silvery rails, gleaming dully in the morning light, disappearing into the distant haze. Train tracks.
Tiki patted Ben's arm and pointed to another building they were passing; a two-storey construction with large windows set back from the road, with each stone in its walls painted a different colour.
"Ooouli's school." Shaarm called back from the front.
The medical centre, when they arrived at it a few minutes later, had grown from around a core of an old stone building. Extending off and up in all directions were wings and extra storeys of duracrete and brick as the building had been extended at least four or five times to catch up with a growing population. The oldest stone-built section, fronted by large stone pillars, seemed to still be the main entranceway, for as soon as the two speeders stopped, a door flew open and four Kheelians in dark blue robes trotted out. Three of the group started helping the injured Kheelians down from the speeders and leading them into the surgery, while one, a young male, came over to Shaarm.
"Stars and Sky! Shaarm, what happened?" He exclaimed, looking over the injured. "Why did you not call?"
"Narms," Shaarm replied, shortly. "It is over, for now. But I have brought ten of the most wounded with me. Three died."
"Trzk..." The nurse swore, shaking his head. "You need help out there, it is too isolated. Have you called..."
"Not yet," Shaarm said. "I just need to focus on one thing at a time right now." She lifted Tiki out of the back of the speeder. "You remember my daughter, Tiki? Tiki, you have met Yalani before. He is going to look after you."
Tiki had a suddenly bout of shyness and turned her face into Shaarm's shoulder. Yalani laughed a little and stroked her fur. Then his eyes turned to Ben and perceptibly widened. He recovered from his surprise quickly however, and in a soft voice said;
"Oh! Well hello. I am Yalani...what is your name?"
"This is Ben," Shaarm said. "He is staying with us at the moment and got caught up in the attack."
Someone called Shaarm's name from the doorway, and she glanced away.
"I have to go and prepare the surgery," she said, apologetically. "I will leave you two with Yalani; can you please get them registered so we can start as soon as possible? Here is Tiki's MedIdent."
Shaarm kissed Tiki, ruffled Ben's hair, and disappeared after her colleague. Yalani reached over towards Ben. Ben pictured the Kheelian's huge hands gripping his shattered rib cage, and quickly stood up.
"It's alright," Ben said hastily, sliding over the edge of the speeder onto the ground. "I don't need help."
The Kheelian stepped back with a smile. "Of course you do not. Do not worry," he added, soothingly. "I am not going to hurt you. Everything is going to be fine. Come on."
The Kheelian picked up Tiki and easily swung her onto his shoulders. Then he led the way into the medcentre, walking slowly to accommodate Ben's limping pace. The room Ben found himself in was painted a rich earthy orange, and was lit with more electric lights than he had yet seen in one place. A desk was arrayed along one wall beside a long ramp which went up to another floor. The injured Kheelians from Thet were crowded around the room as the uniformed staff, nurses or doctors, he wasn't sure which, went from casualty to casualty talking details and making quick assessments of injuries.
Yalani led Ben over to a quiet area out of the way of the rest of the chaos and lifted Tiki down. She grabbed Ben's hand with her good arm and clung on, looking around unhappily. There was no sign of Shaarm. Ben gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. There were, of course, no chairs, so Ben took a seat on one of a number of cushioned mats scattered across the floor, Tiki curled in against his side.
"Good," said Yalani, encouragingly. "Now, just wait here a moment. I will get a datapad and be right back."
The Kheelian disappeared across the room in the direction of the entrance desk. On the way, he stopped and exchanged a few words with one of the other doctors. The other Kheelian glanced over at Ben surprised. Ben frowned, uncomfortable with this level of scrutiny, but it couldn't be helped. Shaarm's previous plan of sneaking him in the medcentre at a quiet time had gone very wildly awry; this was probably the busiest it had been in years.
Yalani returned after a few minutes with a datapad and two cartons of drink. Ben opened Tiki's for her, and then sipped his with caution; it was some sort of sweet fruit juice. In the meantime, Yalani scanned Tiki's MedIdent card, which gave a faint beep, and then quickly entered some details.
"So, you were attacked by narms, eh?" He said, in a tone of slightly forced jollity. That must have been scary."
Ben tried not to feel irritated by the Kheelian. He presumably thought Ben and Tiki were about the same age. A reasonable assumption given their similarity in size, although in this case a flawed one. Ben said nothing. Tiki nodded, and then uncharacteristically spoke up.
"Dada and Ben fighted them off. Ooouli hit one with a stick."
"Ooouli...oh, your sister? She hit a narm with a stick? Good for her."
Yalani ran a small hand-held triage scanner over Tiki's arm. "Tsk, broken arm, poor girl. How did this happen then?"
Tiki didn't answer, pushing her face into Ben's shoulder. Ben decided it was time to intervene; Tiki had been through a lot that night.
"So, are you a nurse or a doctor, Yalani? Forgive me; I am afraid I am not familiar enough with your uniforms to distinguish the insignia..."
The Kheelian looked at him with surprise for a second time. "I suppose you would say I am a nurse, although I mainly work on the equipment here. May I have your MedIdent? Thank you. I must say you speak our language very well, Ben. How long have you been in Thet?"
Ben smiled faintly. "Fifteen."
"Years?"
"Days."
The Kheelian stared, and for the sake of his cover story, Ben elaborated slightly. "I am a colleague of Pakat's, from the University. I was conducting research out on the moor."
"A...a colleague? You are not a child? I thought...I am sorry!"
Ben smiled again, briefly. Shaarm had given him the last of the tablets before they left that morning, and the pain relief had long since worn off, along with some of his vast stores of patience.
"No need to apologise," he said, but didn't elaborate.
Yalani didn't ask anything else but quickly ran Ben's fake MedIdent card. Ben watched, slightly wary, but the machine just issued the same faint beep as the fake was accepted.
"Oh…!" Yalani looked at the screen. "You have been in the wars...Internal injuries, burns, suspected fractures...What happened?"
"Transport accident," Ben answered. Of course Shaarm would have updated the card with his recent medical history. He should have expected that. Ben gave Yalani a brief account of the new injuries he had received in the flight from the narms, and the Kheelian made some passes with the small scanner. He noted everything down in the datapad, frowning the entire time.
"I need to go and organise your full scans," he said. "I am afraid none of our equipment is calibrated for Pechnar biology, but your standard readings are on the card so I can work from that. Are you all right if I leave you here for a little while? Are either of you in pain?"
Both shook their heads, and Yalani excused himself and left, disappearing out through a far door. Ben stroked Tiki's hair affectionately as he looked about the room. The other nurses were still taking notes from the patients, although some of them had been led into side rooms for treatment. More than a few glances were being thrown his way. Ben ignored them, closing his eyes. He let his mind settle, and it inevitably wandered back to that same endless question. How had the Kheelians stolen the sky? And how could he possibly hope to return it? He had one day to figure it out.
"Ben?"
"What is it, Tiki? Are you all right?"
"C'n I have a story?"
"Oh yes, of course," Ben answered, and then hesitated, feeling slightly panicked. He didn't know any children's stories. More than that, he remembered nothing beyond the last fourteen days, and there was little child-friendly material he could draw on there. Very well, he would just have to make something up. Tiki curled up on her side, broken arm stretched out, and her head resting on Ben's knee. He drew his fingers through her mane.
"What sort of stories do you like?" he asked, playing for time.
"Nice ones," she answered.
Helpful.
"Very well. There was a-"
"...Doing it wrong," Tiki interrupted. "Have to say Once upon a time."
"Oh. I apologise. Once upon a time...Better? Once upon a time there was a...um...princess."
Tiki stuck her thumb in her mouth and huffed in an unimpressed way. Ben quickly revised the story.
"A princess who was also a ... warrior, and a diplomat, and a musician, and a thoroughly nice and well-rounded person. All right?"
Tiki nodded again his leg and he took it as permission to continue.
"The princess was the leader of a beautiful kingdom. The land was lush and green and the kingdom prospered. The princess herself was noble and good, and all of her people loved her very much."
Tiki made a humming sound. He hoped it was approval.
"One day, some rather despicable people came to the kingdom. They wanted to overthrow the princess and rule the land themselves. They brought with them a huge army."
"...were narms?" said Tiki in a small voice.
"No, definitely not narms," said Ben firmly. "They were… hmm...robots."
Tiki nodded, satisfied. Robots were good.
"The villains built a giant wall around the kingdom," said Ben, starting to get into his stride. "They were merchants, you see, and the wall meant no-one could come in or out of the kingdom, and so the townspeople couldn't get to the market to sell their food and goods. If the merchants could overthrow the princess, they knew they could take all the kingdom's resources for themselves. But the princess was very stubborn and very clever. She sent out secret messages across the land, and called all her friends together to help her defeat them."
"...is the Princess's name?" asked Tiki, with a yawn.
Ben cast around for something plausible.
"Her name was Padmé."
Tiki nodded. Apparently the name was acceptable, which is good because Ben had just completely made it up.
"What she look like?"
"Well... " said Ben, starting to flounder. "She has very long fur, deep blue, like the colour of the sky reflected in water. She is not tall but commands a great presence when she speaks. She is very beautiful and her eyes are kind. Because theatricality and appearance are essential in politics, she wears her clothes like armour, to impress and intimidate the other kingdoms. In her palace she has fifty gowns in a hundred different colours. Some are decked with gold and feathers and some even have jewels or strings of glowing lights."
Tiki stuck her thumb back in her mouth. Apparently Ben was doing a reasonable job.
"Where was I? Oh yes. The princess was trapped by the evil merchants and had called her friends together to help her. She had lots of friends so all who could came to her call; famous pod-racer pilots, and knights, and good droids, and, of course, the princess's ten lady bodyguards who never left her side and used to go about in disguise. The princess used her diplomatic skills to persuade another local kingdom to fight with her, and soon she had a great army of her own to stand against the robots. It was an historic battle but after many turns, the princess and her friends prevailed. The evil merchants were captured and the robot army was defeated."
"What happened next?" asked Tiki.
The question hit Ben like a punch to the gut, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. The intensity of the unexpected grief that burst from him was more than he could bear, drowning him in a torrent of anguish. Something terrible had happened at the end of the battle, he knew. Something world-changing. He gasped a little, trying to force back unexpected tears. He could feel Tiki sitting up at his side, concerned, and his put his hand over his face so she wouldn't see his expression. His stomach felt like a cold stone in his belly, his mind skittered away from some dark horror…
"Ben?" It was Shaarm's voice. Ben dashed the tears from his face and looked up. Shaarm was crossing the room towards them. She looked confused.
"Are you okay?"
He nodded and made a positive sounding hum. He didn't trust his voice. His hands were shaking.
"I am just taking Tiki in for her x-ray," Shaarm said, still giving him an odd look. "It will only take a moment, and then I will be back."
"All right," Ben managed.
Shaarm carried Tiki off through one of the doors, and Ben was left alone. The feelings of grief and rage and terrible despair that had undone him had already dissipated, leaving just a faint hint of unease, and tear tracks on his face. He found out the location of a cleansing room from one of the assistants and scrubbed his face in cold water, trying to scour away the cloying emotions. What the kriff had just happened?
Shaarm, true to her word, was back within a few minutes. She led him up the ramp to the second storey of the building and into a large, oval room. In the centre of the room was a raised circular platform, shaped like a dish, with various stands of equipment positioned around. On one side of the room was a small bank of jury-rigged computer equipment, connected with intercrossing wires and scraps of open circuit-board.
"This is our medical scanner," Shaarm said. "It is far from state of the art, but it does the job. Yalani has just finished in putting your standard vitals, so hopefully it should now be calibrated for your biology."
Ben nodded. "What do I need to do?" he asked.
Shaarm lifted him up onto the platform. She slid the sling off his arm but left his other clothing in place. "Just lie down," she instructed. "However you are comfortable is fine, but try not to move. You shouldn't sense anything, but the scan might take up to a full turn as you have multiple injuries. Do you have anything in your pockets?"
Ben handed over the lightsaber and his MedIdent card. In his other pocket he found the metal inhibitor bracelet. He had forgotten he was even carrying it. With a shiver, he also handed it to Shaarm.
Shaarm waited until he was lying down and comfortable, and then raised a bar at the edge of the platform. A curved screen rose up over the top of the dish and down onto the far side, sealing Ben in under a small tent-like dome. There was a small clear screen in one side of the opaque fabric, so that he could look out and see Shaarm at the computer bank. There was a small electronic click, and Shaarm's voice filled the space.
"Are you all right, Ben? Can you hear me?"
"I am fine, Shaarm," he answered out loud, wondering where the microphone was.
"Very well, I will start the scan. Just speak up if you feel uncomfortable for any reason."
"I will," he agreed. There was a faint vibration and a pins-and-needles sensation in his feet as the scanner began its work. After a moment, this was joined by a faint humming and an intense high-pitched sound that set his teeth on edge. It certainly did make him uncomfortable, but he held his peace. He doubted the Kheelians would even be able to hear it, let alone do anything about it.
"How are the others?" He asked, as a distraction.
"They are being seen by the other nurses now," Shaarm answered, through the microphone. "It looks like none should need any serious surgery, although there are a couple of the injured who I should like to stay in the medcentre for a couple of days for observation."
"And Tiki?"
"She is fine too, Ben. Her arm was set properly and has already started to knit. There is no need to worry."
"Good." Ben breathed shallowly, trying to relax. There was quiet for a few minutes as the machine did its work. After a while, there was another click, and Shaarm's voice filled the machine's chamber.
"Ben...What happened just now?"
Ben frowned. "What do you mean?"
"When I came out of the pharmacy, and you were sitting with Tiki in the waiting room. You looked...devastated."
Oh. That.
"I honestly do not know," he confessed. "I was telling Tiki a story to keep her entertained, some silly thing I made up about a princess and some villainous merchants. Then I just had a very intense feeling of sadness. I can't explain it. Perhaps it was just an after effect of Choha's pain meds."
"It did not look like just sadness to me," Shaarm said. "It looked like utter desolation. Perhaps the story was neither as silly nor as made up as you think."
"Perhaps," Ben said, uneasily.
"You may have been drawing from pieces of buried memory," Shaarm continued. "Trust me, that is a good sign. You have already remembered a few things about your past; the ship you travelled on for example, and the lightsaber. And that strange name you called to Chana when you were fighting together."
Ben was bewildered. "I did what?"
"Oh, I am sorry; I thought you had talked about it. Apparently you called out a name he did not recognise when you were fighting at Kadat's house, although he couldn't quite recall it. Kinanar or Amaykeen…something like that?"
Ben remembered just in time not to shrug. "It means nothing to me, I'm afraid."
The following half standard of the scan was spent in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, the machine issued three beeps, and the high-pitched whine and hum of the scanner fell silent. Ears ringing, Ben looked up as the dome-like canopy folded back to reveal Shaarm.
"All done," she said. "Sit up slowly; you will probably be dizzy.
The results of the scan, she explained, were no worse than they had expected. The machine had produced a long laundry list of the physical injuries Ben had accrued over the past two ten-days, and even he couldn't help but wince as Shaarm read them all out. First were the older injuries that he had arrived with; some almost healed, but all still visible to the scan. This included broken carpals and metacarpals in both hands, fractured ribs, a poorly-relocated shoulder joint, hyperextension of the spine, puncture wounds, intra-abdominal bleeding, damage to his kidney and liver, a break in his right pelvic ilium, and numerous burns, lacerations and contusions. Overlying those in a palimpsest of pain were the results of his recent encounter with the narms; broken collarbone, broken ribs, and the damage the tension pneumothorax and following treatments had caused to his lung, not to mention the nasty bite wound to his left calf. All were compounded by what Shaarm had described, with a frown, as fairly serious malnutrition. It seemed the Kheelian foods that he could eat were not providing him with sufficient nutrients that his human body needed.
Ben sighed. Just one thing after another.
The results of the scan, however dismal, did provide Shaarm with enough information to come up with a surgical scheme to repair the worst of the damage. She pushed Ben on a Kheelian-sized holo-trolley through to a different part of the medcentre where the surgical bays were located. Yalani and one of the other technicians had already prepared one of the surgical suites while the scan had been taking place. Ben was keen to get the surgery over and done with as soon as possible, and Shaarm agreed that they could start more or less right away. While she went to check on Tiki, Ben changed into a lose gown, and then allowed the nurse to attach an IV as Shaarm had directed. He was unconscious before she returned.
The surgery to repair his ribs and lung lasted a couple of turns. Ben awoke groggily to the sound of Shaarm's voice reciting something. He opened his eyes to find he was lying on a sleeping mat on the floor, with Shaarm at his side. She had Tiki tucked between her front feet, and was reading out loud from a datapad.
"What time is it?"
Shaarm looked up with a smile at the sound of his voice.
"It is 30 past 16 turns," she said. "Welcome back. You were asleep a little longer than I expected and I was starting to get concerned. Do you have any pain? How are you feeling? "
"All right, I think, all things considered. Tired." There was a dull, distant sort of pain in his chest, but it felt numbed in a way that only heavy duty painkillers could achieve. Apart from that he felt quite groggy but yes, not too bad. "How did it go?"
"Everything went fine, Ben." She positively beamed. "The displaced ribs have been realigned; I had to use a thin metal plate to splint two of the worst but they should now heal without further complications. The small tears in your lung have been repaired, as have the incisions I made. I have also checked the surgical sites for the repairs we made to your liver when you first arrived, and everything is healing well. The scan showed me that your other fractures are aligned correctly and should begin healing without any further assistance. I give thanks you did not damage your pelvis further when you fell; that could have been most serious indeed."
Ben nodded, too groggy to worry much about it for now.
"Sleep," Shaarm told him. "You will feel more alert in a turn or two, and we will talk again then."
Ben nodded again, but something was nagging at him. "How did the Kheelians steal the sky?" he asked her, fretfully. "I don't understand what it means. But I can't work it out by tomorrow, everything will fail."
"Stop dwelling on it," Shaarm shushed him. "In just two days you have already made an armistice with the narms and saved the village. Beyond that, you have shown us creatures we thought no more than savages are highly intelligent, something that we never dreamed of. The last few days have brought out the best and worst of ourselves, but you have opened our eyes to new wonders even in our own world we thought we knew so well. Ben, you should know that whatever happens tomorrow, you have already given us great gifts."
She smoothed her hand across his forehead, and sighed. "Now, you must sleep. I have to do some tasks while we here are in town, but I will not be long. If you need anything, press this buzzer and one of the nurses will come."
Ben nodded, but could already feel sleep welling up again. Shaarm let Tiki give his hair a gentle stroke.
"Sleep well," he heard Shaarm say, and he was closing his eyes.
He did not sleep well. The anaesthetic still coursing through his system pulled him down into a horror of nightmares, a dreamscape of war; echoing with the sounds of explosions and alarms, then screams and tearing metal, and a fatal impact. They are trapped in the dark, confined, bounded by sparks and pain and corpses, and they can only wait. Someone will come. He is trapped, and can only breathe in the smoke, listen to the sound of fifty other breaths that dwindle out one by one, falling silent in the dark until there are only two left breathing. No-one came, and all he can do is grieve.