Engines and werewolves

Chapter 57

As I approach, I can see that they’re buildings, of a sort. A collection of small huts and shacks, leaning against the massive wall of the ship for support. All of them have at least partially collapsed, and some are little more than piles of rubble. Not a promising site, but more than I’ve found anywhere else, so I turn my steps in that direction.

Something catches my eye when I get close, faint movement in the sand. I freeze, watching carefully, and catch tiny gray particles whipping across the dunes. They look like the flows I can see inside Soliton’s pillars, and they’re converging on the village, drawn inward like they’re caught in a whirlpool.

That gives me pause. I ignite my blades, the green light harsh after the near darkness, banishing the faint wisps of gray. Shadows dance as I move closer to the wrecked village. Down at the very edge of my hearing, the whispering voices are back, speaking words I can’t quite understand.

The village is full of corpses.

The people who lived here have clearly been dead for a very long time. For the most part, the bodies are practically mummified, reduced to skeletons wrapped in dried-out skin and dressed in shredded rags. None of them are intact, not because of the passage of time but from the manner of their deaths, which is gruesomely clear. Several large shells, bleached white, lie among the villagers. One crab’s corpse is half-covered by the ruin of a demolished shack, as though it were killed while wrecking the building.

There are people who live in the Deeps, then. The ones the crew called wilders. Or were, at least, until the crabs came for them. I walk gingerly into the village, blades ready. Nothing moves. There’s no sign of living people, or living crabs for that matter. The shacks themselves seem to be made of long, spongy poles, which I guess are dried mushrooms of a more useful species, along with a few little bits of fabric. Not sturdy, but how sturdy do they need to be, here inside Soliton?

The skeletons, up close, are … strange. The bones seem twisted in places, not broken but grown into strange new shapes. One body has what looks like a third arm, fixed bizarrely between its shoulder blades. Another skull has bone spikes growing from it. A foot seems to have … blossomed, each toe stretching into a twisted corkscrew shape that looks like it was trying to become another limb.

Closer to the great wall of the ship, there’s a faint flicker of movement, gone before I can focus on it. My lip twists, but I extinguish my blades, counting quietly as I give my eyes time to adapt to the dark. The gray light emerges, gradually, flowing stronger here, mounding up into silent, shifting waves like a torrent of water spilling through a river gate, converging on one of the shacks. Once I’m sure there’s nothing moving beyond the strange lights, I approach, my power tightly coiled.

Two human skeletons lie under the dead crab, bones scattered. People fought and died, down in here in the dark, and no one ever knew. I step over them carefully, edging around the big shell and smaller, scattered pieces, following the intangible flood of gray.

The shack backs against the wall of the ship itself, the huge metal barrier that stretches off into the dark. But here, at the back of the shack, there’s a hole, a square about as tall as I am. A smaller dead crab lies there, a spearpoint emerging from a hole in its shell. The gray specks rush over it, cresting like a wave over a rock.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for. There are useful materials in the village, but …

I step through the hole. The white sand of the Deeps gives way to metal floor, without the patina of rust and decay that covers the rest of the ship. There’s a chamber here, inside the wall, a large cube-shaped room lit only by the flickering gray of that intangible light. Apart from a scattering of sand, it’s empty.

No. Not quite empty. My eye follows the gray motes, which converge on the far side. There a semi-circular pillar runs from floor to ceiling, like half a pipe stuck to the wall. The flow of gray stuff rushes into it, pulled upward and out of sight, like what I saw in the pillars outside but much brighter and more powerful.

Beside the pillar are two more corpses. They sit side by side, one grinning skull on the other’s shoulder, their hands entwined between them. This place’s last defenders, perhaps, who retreated here when the crabs came. They don’t look like they died fighting, and I take a few steps forward to get a closer look.

“… toria …” The voice rises from the faint babble, stronger than the others. For a moment I think I’ve imagined it. “… victoria…”

Rot. I turn in a slow circle, just to confirm I’m alone.

“… hear … it’s…”

“H … hello?” My own voice isn’t as strong as I intended it to be. But rot, there’s no one here. I grit my teeth and take another step forward, bringing me within arm’s length of the pillar. “Is someone there?”

No answer. The gray motes swirl around me, my legs making eddies in the flow as they rush onward. I reach down to touch them, and they swirl around my fingers like smoke.

“victoria.” The voice is definitely stronger.

“Who’s there?” Then, without really knowing why, I ask, “Grog?”

The voice could be his. And—rot, that was a dream. I killed Grog, and dead is dead.

I raise my hand, and brush my finger against the pillar.

Something moves.