Out of Death

His arms hurt. Tir had been chopping wood since mid-morning, and now there was a burning pain across his shoulders and in his neck. The axe had turned on a knothole early in the day and wrenched his wrists, and pain shot up his forearms as he dropped the last load of logs onto the pile in the shed. He winced and gritted his teeth, determined not to let it show. He wouldn't let Elke tell him the axe was still too big for him! It wasn't, not really; he had grown a lot this year. But she still thought she could boss him around, just because she was four years older! He dusted off his hands and went to the pump to wash them, waving cheerily to his sister in the open doorway of the cottage.

"Ho, Elke! Wood's all done!" He grinned as she nodded and bent back over her sewing. The old pump in the yard was cranky, but he got it primed and held his hands and wrists under the icy water for a long time. He even put his head under, to let the flow cool his neck, and came out spluttering. When he got the water out of his eyes, he saw his father Alton striding toward him across the dusty yard.

"Tir! I've got to ride the fields before supper--want to come? I want to check the ditches after that storm last night."

Tir nodded and ran off to saddle Missa. She was a gentle mare that Alton had bought the year before, when the harvest had been so good, for his children to ride. But Elke didn't much like riding and Missa had fallen to Tir, which was the way he liked it. She was beautiful and brown, and he fed her a bit of carrot he had saved as he led her out of the barn. He brought his father's horse as well, holding it while Alton settled his rifle in the saddle boot. Elke rose and went inside the house, as Alton insisted they do whenever he took the gun away. She left the heavy door open for air, though, and her father called after her disapprovingly. "Shut that door, Elke!"

"Oh, Papa, I'll be right here! I can shut it fast enough."

"Shut it. And you and your mother stay inside until we're back." Grumbling a little, she obeyed. Tir swung into Missa's saddle, grinning to himself. He was going out with his father; he didn't have to hide inside!

Riding through the fields with his father was always a treat for the boy. Alton knew so much about farming, sometimes Tir thought he'd never learn it all. The shoots were just beginning to show through the earth now, a faint mist of green that would soon be a sea of gold, and then sacks of meal when they brought it to the mill, and finally a new bridle for Missa, and cloth for Ma and Elke to make new clothes from, and some to put aside for the gun Pa had promised him for his fourteenth birthday, if the harvest was good! Tir wriggled in anticipation. Beside him, his father muttered to himself, looking at the irrigation ditches clogged with leaves and mud.

Suddenly a rabbit broke from where it had been illicitly nibbling and dashed right under Missa's hooves. Startled, she shied, throwing her head violently up and nearly sending Tir flying. The reins jerked through his hands, twisting his wrists cruelly. Tir cried out, and his father was there on his big gelding, grabbing the reins and trying to calm Missa and keep her from bolting. The mare quieted and stood trembling, her left front hoof slightly raised.

"Tir, are you all right?"

Tir nodded, gingerly feeling his wrists. They had been badly wrenched again, and they hurt so much now that for a moment he wondered if he might have sprained them. Nonsense, he scolded himself. They're just sore, that's all. He picked up the reins again and was about to cluck to Missa to go on, when his father stopped him. "Wait, Tir. She's gone lame; look how she's favoring that leg. We'll have to walk her home."

It took an hour to lead the trembling, limping Missa back to the barn, although she picked up her pace a bit when she smelled Ma's cooking. Tir was cold and tired when they finally got home; the scare had left him sore and cranky, and his father sent him inside to help with dinner while he unsaddled the horses and checked Missa's leg again. Ma and Elke didn't need any help, though; since the men were late getting back they had dinner ready, and Elke good-naturedly sent him back outside to wait until his father came in. He sat on the stoop and idly pitched stones at the pump, but gave it up after a while and closed his eyes. Leaning his head against the doorjamb, he drifted off, and started violently when his father clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Wake up, boy! Time for dinner." Tir nodded and pulled himself upright, shaking his head a little. It hurt, and he stood up too fast and was dizzy for a moment. Blindly, he stumbled after Alton, into the dark main room of the cottage. The food that had smelled so good when they rode up only half an hour ago didn't appeal to him now, for some reason. As they sat down, he glanced at the bread already on his plate and quickly looked away. His arms were stiff and sore.

The talk went on over his head throughout dinner; Riel, his mother, and Alton were concerned about the dry spell, and the violent windstorms that had been more and more common in the past weeks. Last year had been a record crop, but "if things go on like this," Alton said, "we'll need everything we saved last year just to see us through this one."

"Surely it won't be that bad," murmured Riel. Alton and Elke looked at each other; it was a family joke that Riel never believed things would turn out badly, even after they had. She saw them and smiled too. Elke suggested diffidently that Pietr Nikt, who lived several miles down the river, might be willing to come and help clear out the irrigation ditches, and then blushed bright red when Alton raised an eyebrow at her.

Through all of the conversation, Tir kept his head down and pushed his food around. He felt ill; perhaps he'd spent too long in the sun chopping wood. He managed to chew half-heartedly at the bread, but the thick venison stew defeated him completely, and he was grateful when Elke, smiling, switched bowls with him when Alton and Riel weren't looking. She was usually hungry, but their parents had the fixed idea that Elke and Tir should each finish what they were served, regardless. He looked up innocently when Riel clucked and took the empty bowl from his place, and Elke hid her smile in a spoonful of Tir's stew.

"Are you all right, Tir?" she asked quietly. "You look awfully pale."

"Just a headache. Too much sun, maybe."

"Too much woodchopping with the big axe!" she retorted, and blocked his immediate swipe at her, giggling. He gasped when she caught his wrist, and she grinned and said, "I told you so. Strained it?" He shook his head emphatically and tried to tickle her under the table, but she squealed and Riel and Alton looked over and frowned. Properly chastised, Tir and Elke settled back down, and Elke was soon caught up in a discussion of the fall fair, where she did fine embroidery on commission.

After dinner, Riel stacked the dishes and began the washing-up, while Alton and Elke brought out the old chess set that Alton's mother had brought from the city when she moved out to the frontier with her husband. It was carved delicately of stone, and shone in the light from the fire and the twilight that came in at the narrow windows. Riel sang quietly to herself as she scraped the plates. Elke murmured strategy aloud and scowled when she realized what she was doing. Alton grinned at her. "You always do it, Elke. And you know it's the only reason I win!" He tossed a handful of cedar chips on the fire and leaned back to inhale the scent, watching his daughter think.

Tir stayed at the table. His head was throbbing, and his wrists seemed even more sore as they stiffened. The light sound of his mother singing irritated him, and the sharp cedar smell made him gag. The pain in his head made him reluctant to move, and yet at the same time he was restless. He didn't want to be here, in the close, dim room that smelled of food and smoke. Abruptly he got up and paced, his eyes half-closed, and realized it was a bad idea when he was suddenly dizzy and nearly fell against his mother. Flailing, he grabbed for the washbasin, slopping water onto the floor.

"Tir, be careful!" Riel mopped up some of the spill. "If you're going to spill it, you can just refill it, too. This water's too greasy now, anyway." She handed him the big basin, in which scraps of food floated sickeningly. He almost dropped it, and she looked closely at him. "Tir? Dump this for me and fill it again, will you?"

His head was spinning, but he managed to hold the basin and propel himself toward the door. As he stepped out into the yard, he heard his father call, "Check on Missa, too, will you, Tir? Make sure she's not fretting that leg!" He gasped out an acknowledgement and half-ran outside, the bowl of dishwater slopping and spilling over his arm. A few steps outside he fell to his knees and threw the filthy water across the ground. The sound it made slapping the dry dirt was somehow revolting: "like throwing up" he thought and suddenly nearly did, heaving, doubled over the pool of gristle and fat and breadscraps from the bowl. His stomach twisted and he could hardly see for a moment. Then his vision cleared and he got up, gripping the rim of the washbasin tightly with one hand, and stumbled toward the stable.

He hardly knew what he was doing when he went inside. Warm and quiet, the only sound the breathing of the animals, the barn smelled of cows' sweat and hay. He didn't notice when he dropped the bowl by Missa's stall, and he had forgotten that he was supposed to be checking on her. Instead he crawled into the hay by one of the cows, his fists clenching and unclenching, rhythmically, unconsciously.

Inside the house, Riel dried her hands and went to watch her husband and daughter at their game. Though she could not play chess at all, she loved to watch them, so intent on the motionless pieces, Alton's face like carved stone itself when he was thinking, Elke forever muttering and catching herself at it. The fire crackled thoughtfully to itself, cedar chips curling and charring in the embers. It wasn't until each of them had moved several times, and Elke had narrowly missed capturing her father's second bishop, that Riel started and said, "I wish Tir would hurry up with that water. The plates will all be crusted."

Alton looked up from the board. "I wonder if Missa's leg is bad. But he would have called me if she was worse hurt than we thought!"

"I think he's just distracted somewhere," Riel said. "He seemed awfully far away when I sent him out. He'll be off daydreaming behind the barn."

"I don't think so, Ma," put in Elke. "He said he had a headache from the sun, and he sprained his wrist chopping wood today. He was pretty pale at dinner; I bet he's just working up the courage to carry the full bowl back in." She said it casually, and was startled when her parents turned on her intensely.

"His wrists hurt, and he had a headache? And he didn't say anything?" Alton stood up angrily, his knuckles white against the table. Riel, whitefaced, twisted her hands in her apron. Confused, Elke looked from one to the other.

"Pa, what's wrong? Tir was just embarrassed about the axe, that's all. Why--" and then she stopped short and gasped with dawning realization. "No, Pa! He's just a little boy! He was just tired, that's all!"

"He's thirteen. Old enough for changeover." Alton's voice was tight. His wife looked up and whispered, "Alton, he hardly ate anything at dinner..." Elke, horrified, watched her father take two steps toward the door, where his gun hung ready at all times. He lifted it down from the pegs it rested on, and shook off his daughter's panicked hand as he checked the priming. Riel pulled Elke away, her own eyes wide and frightened. "We have to be sure, Elke."

"No! Pa, don't!" Elke threw off her mother's hand and ran toward Alton, who was already stepping carefully outside. Riel gasped and tried to pull her back, but Elke clutched at her father, and the three of them ran, half-stumbling, into the yard... into the tentacled arms of the Freeband Raiders.

Within the barn, Tir knew nothing of what was happening only yards away. He knelt in hay filthy with vomit, eyes wide and staring, hands wrapped desperately around the wooden rail of the stall. His breathing was laboured and hoarse. Every few seconds he gasped and strained, and the sheaths swelled and bulged along his forearms.

Alton managed to get off one shot as the riders pounded down on them, and one of the Raiders screamed and fell from his saddle. But the rest of them were on him, five thin howling figures. The one in front leaned down and snatched him bodily off the ground with unbelievably strong hands, wrapping tentacles around his arms and pressing his own lips to Alton's terrified face. Neither of the women had time to move before Alton's dead body hit the ground at their feet, as the Sime wheeled back to them and the rest of the raiders swung off their horses and formed a loose circle around them, grinning.

Riel screamed. The leader barked something in a strange guttural language and she screamed again, high and shrill. Elke's nails left bleeding tracks in her mother's arm, and then Riel broke away and bolted for the door. But a Sime was there, impossibly fast, inhumanly fast, laughing in her face with breath that stank of rot. She spun and found another behind her, Elke's terrified face barely visible over his shoulder. He stepped toward her and she backed away, still screaming, a thin terrible keening with hardly any sound left. Then the one behind her, in the door, slid a tentacle along her neck, and another, wrapping her throat and choking her.

Elke stood, paralyzed, rooted with horror, as the Sime slowly turned her mother to face him. They were all laughing, all the Simes, watching the one in the doorway with her mother, hardly noticing her where she stood in the center of the circle of tentacled arms. Riel was silent, gasping and choking for breath; and suddenly the Sime threw her down hard at Elke's feet, where she lay gagging and sobbing. Elke stared at the leader, still mounted on his horse, watching the scene with a broad grin on his face. He still held her father's gun, and when he saw her he grinned even wider and held it up. With a hand on the barrel and one on the stock, tentacles lashing over his fingers, he flexed and snapped the rifle in two.

Riel clutched at her daughter's legs, and Elke helped her upright. She stood trembling, whitefaced, tears running down her face; then she bolted again, this time out into the yard. But a Sime caught her easily, and threw her across the circle into the grip of another. They tossed her back and forth, calling out obscenities that Elke could barely understand, faster and faster, her mother's face flashing by, stumbling, screaming again, until suddenly the leader called out and gestured at one of the circle of men. Riel was shoved to him, blindly staggering, and as Elke watched he wrapped tentacles around her arms and pulled her face against his. Riel stiffened, the Simes all gasped, and then she went suddenly limp, and Elke tripped and fell as her mother's body was hurled at her legs.

The Simes watched, more quietly, as Elke pushed the corpse away and stood up again. She was numb, trembling; she knew she was going to die. The leader eyed her and she stared back, noticing for the first time how filthy he was, how filthy they all were. Their clothes were torn and stained with blood. The leader wore an ear pinned to his shirt, greenish and stinking.

Inside the barn, Tir heaved and strained. The sheaths along his arms were full and stretched tight; the tentacles thrust desperately against the translucent membranes. He gripped the railing tighter, his hands bleeding with splinters, his eyes open and blank, knowing nothing but the driving need to push, to break free... Suddenly the membranes burst, first on the left arm and then the right, spraying blood and fluid wildly. Tir doubled over, gasping, tentacles waving randomly. The coolness of the air bit into his laterals, and then the need hit him.

He was completely hyperconscious. The cramping, grinding pain in his stomach blinded him to everything but the sense that somewhere, somewhere outside was what he needed. His tentacles lifted, sensing selyn; they weaved and turned toward the open door of the barn, pulling his arms with them, and his head, eyes shut now as he zlinned. The taste of selyn, out there, called to him, promised relief from the howling pain in his gut; but he staggered as he got up, and moved gingerly over the sodden hay. On the wooden floor of the barn the footing was surer, and he slipped quickly outside, into the yard.

The nager pulled, demanded. It was there, a bright spike of life, life, he would die without it, it called to him! But there was something else there too, a group of eddies in the nager, competition, threats! He growled and moved forward.

Elke didn't understand when all the Simes suddenly spun around, ignoring her, to stare at the barn. Then she saw Tir swaying, uncertain, faint in the dim light. The raider leader called out, "Ha! A newborn!" in an accent so thick Elke could barely make out the words. Tir took another step forward.

"Run, Tir!" Elke screamed. "Get away, run! They're Simes! Tir, run!" But he didn't, he cocked his head oddly and shifted his weight. For a moment Elke had the crazy notion he was about to charge the whole group of Simes. "Don't worry about me! Run!"

No one seemed to hear her. The leader kneed his horse to the side of one of the intently watching Simes. "See how much the newborn wants it, Kreth," he said, with the same barbarous accent. The Sime, Kreth, nodded and moved slowly out towards Tir, tentacles darting. The others pulled back, until Kreth was the only one between her and her brother, who still hadn't moved. As Kreth walked forward, Tir tensed, swayed, and then suddenly threw himself forward. Kreth blurred to one side, and Tir ran straight for her. He was ten feet from her when she saw the stains down the front of his shirt, and how his eyes were closed as he ran. She saw the tentacles just before they touched her, and then she saw nothing.

Tir felt the blinding promise of selyn, hanging just out of reach, surrounded by the others, the dangers. But then they drew off, leaving it to him, leaving the prize to him! The last one fled as he charged, starving, desperate; the warm body came into his arms and he drew, drew, until the fire of selyn went white-hot and exploded in his eyes and gut, and he sank down, savoring the taste, the satiation. Slowly he calmed, relaxed, settled into hypoconsciousness.

The Simes watched as Tir drew in a slow breath and raised his head. He was sitting on the ground, half-lying, his sister in his arms. Confused, he tried to lift her, but she was heavy and wouldn't move. Where was he? He had been at dinner, felt sick; was he sick? Why wouldn't Elke-- Then he saw the bodies of Riel and Alton, tumbled in the dust next to where he sat cradling his sister. Shocked, he looked up and met the eyes of a tall man on horseback, who grinned down at him.

"Come on, newborn. Get up," he said, in a strange, guttural accent. Tir suddenly realized that he was surrounded by Simes, but he felt no fear. The Simes, the bodies meant nothing, somehow; he was numb. The tall man leaned down and pulled him to his feet; Elke's body slid heavily from his arms into the dust. Around him, four Simes retrieved their horses and jumped heavily into the saddle; the horses staggered at the sudden weight. He stared at them, thin and covered with sores, the horses as well as the riders. The leader barked an order, and one of the Simes grunted and led a sixth horse up to Tir.

"We've got a spare, newborn. Hop on and let's get out of here," called the leader, already turning away. But suddenly another Sime staggered up, clutching a bleeding arm to his side, his eyes wide with panic. He grabbed at the leader's reins with his good hand and jabbered in clear English, "No! No, that's my horse, you can't give him my horse--"

"Your horse? Your horse!" The leader laughed cruelly and looked down at the pale face staring up at him. "You don't need a horse, Wes!" Lighting-fast, he leaned down and grabbed the wounded arm at the wrist, hauling the Sime up one-handed to hang in the air. With the tentacles of the same hand he ripped the blood-soaked sleeve away, and the man screamed. "You're a dead man! You have no use for a horse!" With the wound bared, Tir could see what every other Sime there had already zlinned: the outer lateral tentacle had been shot off. Although the bleeding had nearly stopped, selyn voided into the air in rushing counterpoint to the heaving of the doomed man's chest.

"You're dead!" repeated the leader, and threw Wes down into the yard, nearly on the tumble of bodies already there. "You'll die of attrition if you haven't got the nerve to cut your throat, or--" His head went up sharply, and even Tir, hardly understanding any of what was happening, sensed a subtle change in the ambient nager.

"Or if the border patrol doesn't get you first!" finished the leader, wheeling away. "Come on, newborn, get on that beast! Can't you ride?"

Slowly, painfully, Tir climbed into the saddle. The reins were passed to him and he took them in his hands and stopped, staring at his forearms. Along them ran the sheaths, the large ones and the small lateral ones, and in the sheaths lay tentacles, quietly, only quivering a little as his hands trembled on the leather reins.

The leader shouldered his horse up beside the boy's. "You have a name, newborn?"

But Tir hardly heard him, and the thickly accented speech meant little to him anyway. He was staring fixedly at his arms, his hands on the reins, the alien tentacles in their sheaths. "Sime," he whispered. He felt sick again, he couldn't think. He looked up at the face of the man bending beside him, and then over to the bodies of his family, broken and abandoned, and the stunned, weakening raider clutching his bloody arm. But the tentacles on his arms drew him, the strange sensations as they moved against his flesh, out of his control and yet part of him. He watched them loll. "I'm Sime," he said again, and shuddered.

"Shim, is it? Well, come on, Shim, the fleckin' patrol's on the way!" The leader slapped his horse's rump and the animal started and broke into a trot. The Raiders moved away, forcing speed out of their shabby horses, and Shim rode with them. Behind them, in the empty yard, the wind blew dust into the open, drying eyes of the Gens. The dying Sime moaned once and then was silent.