Page 70 of Them

“Thank you. For everything.”

The wind whispered through what trees remained in the capital. Tim felt the gaze of the starry sky upon the back of his head, billions of bright lights shining in anticipation. Burning crystals among the void.

“I love you, old man. Always will. Won’t ever forget you. I promise.”

Tim’s tears stained the soil, intermingling with the cranberry extract. Seeping into the depths of the weary earth. He didn’t want to go, but it was time. His heart told him so.

Eyes to the sky, wondering if he would ever return to this place, Tim turned toward the moonlit street. He donned the headphones and powered up the Walkman, Jimi Hendrix’s ominous “… And the Gods Made Love” spinning to life beneath the plastic cover. Thunderous drumbeats—like gunshots over an open battlefield—gave way to voices distorted by the veil.

Timothy Cassius Wheeler let the introduction play through, then skipped ahead to track 15, “All Along the Watchtower,” and once again began to walk, feeling that he was somehow stepping into this strange yet familiar world for the very first time.

ELSEWHERE: A ROUGH TRANSLATION

December 2031

Before today, Rkrkat has been awake kor’ket’kor’ket’ket times. In plain English, that is two-three-two-three-three. 23,233. Rkrkat’s native tongue only has words for one, two, three, four, five, and six: kar, kor, ket, tek, rok, and rak. To count any higher, Rkrkat must combine the words: kar’kar, kar’kor, kar’ket, kar’tek, kar’rok, kar’rak, kor’kar, and so on. They think their kind counts in sixes, in rak, because they only have their eyes to count with.

There are kor’kar in Rkrkat’s pack. Rkrkat distrusts that number, but they do not know why. It just seems like bad luck.

On their 23,234th morning, Rkrkat rises from their vast pool. The water is growing colder, as it does with every spin of this world. They themself do not mind the temperature, but it makes their family slow and groggy. They all wake up later in the chill. Even the young ones sleep softly when the minuscule white crystals fall from the sky. That is bad. The young ones are all who keep watch. Everyone else sleeps too soundly.

But it is worth it.

Rkrkat steps out of their pond nest with a turning gait. More frozen water crystals fell last night. They are crisp yet soft under the weight of Rkrkat, who imagines that this is what it feels like to walk atop those billowing moisture beasts roaming above, the same ones that expelled the frozen whiteness, or liquid water when it was warmer. The same ones that come and go on a whim, no matter if the daystar or the nightrock is present.

Could such a gaseous thing even claim life? Rkrkat isn’t sure, but they prefer to imagine that such is the case. Then they might find a way to one day thank the moisture-laden behemoths for all the falling water they’ve brought. Rkrkat loves when water spills from the sky. Liquid or frozen, it does not matter. The moisture in the air lends their voice a pleasant reverberation. When the whole pack speaks as one in the falling water, it makes a beautiful sound.

Rkrkat’s six pupils gaze downward at the shallows of the water surface. They can see themself. The morning light turns the water into something else, something reflective. Rkrkat thinks that they themself are quite beautiful. Rkrkat is proud of their big eyes and the curve of their stalk, but do not like the shape of their head. They wish it was more angular, more like a kettork—a three-sided shape—like some of the others’. Kettorks are Rkrkat’s favorite. Their own head is oblong and elliptic.

Rkrkat scans the pond. In the shallowest cove lay two bodies, both other Rt’uk’rt, now deceased. In these two bodies, the fourth generation of their descendants will nest until they are tall enough. That is good. There, they are safest. They do not brood within those small fleshy creatures anymore, the Kurraa, not that there are any left to be found. The children born in those strange animals never grow as well. They die within the cycle one of every tek times.

Farther, in the depths of the valley pond, are the larger ones. First, their third generation, the ones who sired their fourth. Beyond them are the second and first. The first generation came directly from Rkrkat’s stinger, but Rkrkat would die for any of them. They have killed for their family before. Probably they would be forced to again.

Rkrkat thinks they themself belong to the second generation to be born in this new place, sired from one of only two original progenitors. They have not seen their parent in thousands of wakings.

Rkrkat turns away from the pond and stalks into the motionless herd of waiting plants, themself now almost as tall as the oldest of the immobile giants. Many starshines ago, their pack worked to clear a way through the plants to connect their pond to the hard path so that they could walk easier. Rkrkat likes the hard paths. They lead to interesting places. They are one of the few useful things the Kurraa left be-hind.

Those old creatures. They had done something to Rkrkat and their kind. The Rt’uk’rt are not the same as they should be. Rkrkat is not sure what. Something inside. Something displacing. Every Rt’uk’rt knows this, not only because of the stories passed down, but in the very rock of their bones. If Rkrkat closes their eyes, sometimes they can see those inherited visions. They dream of the underground place where the stars could not reach, the cage their parent was born into. When Rkrkat was but a child themself—their own memories few and far between—they could see glimpses of another world, the lives of countless ancestors blending together.

The older Rkrkat got, the harder it became to see through the eyes of the old generations. But that is acceptable, because now Rkrkat can walk the hard paths and visit interesting places and make their own memories in this beautiful world.

As they leave the pond, Rkrkat turns their head and whispers, “Rooooroooooroooo.” It is a message of presence and reliability. It is their way of telling others that they will be back for them, always, if any are awake to hear.

In the herd of plants, Rkrkat passes their pile of metal pieces. Once, long ago, they found a strange thing. It was a box. A tektork in all three dimensions. It was hard, but also fragile. That was surprising to Rkrkat, but even more so were the sounds it could make. It was resting on a ledge inside one of the Kurraa nests, discovered when Rkrkat was still small enough to fit inside such places. It made wonderful sounds that made Rkrkat want to move without purpose, for the sheer joy of movement. Alien tongues spoke in beautiful tones that seemed to slip and slide and float. They took the contraption with them and promised to carry it forever. Rkrkat wishes they themself could make those sounds. They are beautiful sounds.

But one day, during the height of the Old Fight, the beauty turned into a harsh noise. It was the sound of fuzzy needles piercing Rkrkat’s auditory canals. They stopped and began to prod frantically at the small hard box. There was a small circle on the front that made the needles go away and the beautiful sounds come back. But each careful turn of the circle seemed to flee quicker than the last. At the end of the Old Fight, it was all needles. The entire circle was needles.

The Old Fight. Why did the Kurraa detest Rkrkat’s kind so? Does understanding lie opposed to difference? The small creatures that shot sharp fire did not want to understand. Difference is a creek that flows into the lake of fear. Rkrkat hopes that isn’t always the case.

Rkrkat gazes back at their pile of metal pieces. They try to find and fix the sound boxes, but they are too big and the boxes are too small. It never works. Rkrkat does not think they will ever hear the beautiful alien noises again. A deep, wistful melancholy stirs within.

At the end of the wood, Rkrkat carefully coils their tail around one of the larger plants, pulls it up, and sets it aside, pointing toward the rocky peaks nearby. That would tell R’tokuk, their oldest spawn, that they have gone to the Favorite Place.

They never found use for the tall, barky plants. Rkrkat lets the children chew on them. They seem to like that, but Rkrkat does not think they need any use. Rkrkat thinks the tall plants are beautiful, and that is enough.

Rkrkat spins down the hard path without fear. Any other Rt’uk’rt large enough to challenge them would be older and therefore a friend. They would remember each other well, or at least Rkrkat hopes they would. Rkrkat worries.

They follow their chosen path to their most Favorite Place. They only go there when there is thinking to be done.