Silent Cries
By: Doug Doughtie
© 1997 by Doug Doughtie

Nikkit looked up at the sound of someone entering his home. The air currents shifted, and the faint smell he always associated with Gitch invaded his senses. “Gitch? Is that you?” There was no reply. He didn’t expect one. “Gitch?” A faint moan came from the entryway, then the crash of someone falling down steps. Nikkit dropped the rock specimen he had been studying, and bolted up the stairway to the lobby. Gitch lay on the floor at the bottom of the entryway steps. Blood mixed with the juices of the food he carried. His face was contorted into a look of agony and his appendages were twisted, as a result of the fall, into unnatural positions. Nikkit looked down closer. One of Gitch’s legs was missing. “Gitch!” Nikkit cried. “Gitch!” Gitch’s arm twitched. He was alive, good. Nikkit bent down and picked up the body of his friend. It was surprisingly light. Gitch hadn’t been eating well since the queen had assigned him to the morgue last cycle. They were short-handed, and the frequent earthquakes had been supplying them with more “business” than they could handle. Nikkit carried Gitch into the operating room. It was a good thing he’d stayed late to examine the shrapnel taken from Keert’s body. Something had told him he would be needed here. He lay Gitch on the table, and hurried over to the medical cabinet. He had prepared a salve earlier that day to treat a wound of his own, and he spread some on Gitch’s bleeding stump. The flow of blood immediately slowed, and within a few minutes had stopped altogether. Having solved the immediate crisis (for the wound had already started to close over), Nikkit examined his friend’s body. Much of his armor was dented. There must have been another cave-in, but at the morgue? Nikkit sighed. He would not find out until morning, when his friend would be ready to go on duty again. Luckily, Gitch had only lost a leg. He would still be useful in certain posts. If the injury had been any more crippling, he would have to be executed. There was no room in the clan for a cripple. Nikkit looked down at his silent, unconscious comrade. Ever since the wars, Gitch had not spoken. No one was sure if it was brain damage or some sort of emotional trauma, but Gitch never said a word. He only communicated through a series of gestures and foot stamps that only Nikkit and Deek understood. Nikkit smiled. Gitch had never looked so peaceful. He was always troubled by some Clan affair or personal problem and always seemed nervous. But the worried look was gone now, and replaced by the face of tranquillity that can only come in deep sleep or death. Nikkit drew a deep breath. There was nothing for him to do now but wait for his friend to awake. He sat down by Gitch’s side, put his friend’s limp hand in his own, and soon nodded off.

---------------------------------------------

Deek and Pitak sat together in the conference hall. Deek reached out and took Pitak’s hand. She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. “How did it happen?” she asked. She was beautiful. Deek had known from the moment he first saw her that they would be lifemates. He had never been as happy as the day she accepted his pledge of love and servitude. Now he looked into her sad, worried eyes, and the pain he saw there stabbed through his heart like a spear made of ice. “They don’t know. They never know what causes these quakes.” Deek chose his words carefully, so as not to upset her. “It’s one of the many mysteries that have arisen with the New World.” Back in the Old World, there had never been quakes. There were wars, with Clan Red, but never quakes. Even the bloody battles hadn’t devastated the community the way these quakes did. “It must have been nice, living in the Old World,” muttered Pitak. He’d forgotten. She was born a cycle after the Great Capture. She had never known the Old World. He hardly remembered it himself, for he had been very young. “Do you think he’ll make it?” she asked, her voice trembling. Deek didn’t want to tell her, but Tzedd would not make it. He had lost two legs and an arm. Even if he survived, his usefulness would be at an end, and he would have to be executed. He hoped she wouldn’t have to see her father executed. He put his arm around her protectively. “Shh,” he said, “the doctors are doing the best they can.” He referred to the small band of medics who had been attending a lecture when the quake shook the community. Several of them were wounded themselves, and those that were left were being flooded with more casualties that they could deal with. Pitak buried her face in Deek’s chest. “Deek?” she sobbed, “I’m so scared. What if it’s you next time?” Her sobbing intensified, and her whole body shook as she cried. Deek stroked her head with his free hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll always take care of you.” As she cried on his shoulder, a medic came out of the door to the room where Tzedd was. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Tzedd has passed away.”

----------------------------------------------

Outside, the community was ravaged. Dark cracks snaked their way through the city streets. Houses were caved in, and the dead and dying lay everywhere. Holes opened up like gaping mouths of Hell. It had been a truly devastating disaster. But for those who were left, nothing was worse than the feeling that it wasn’t over. A sense of inevitable doom covered the community. The smooth, unnaturally green hills seemed shadowed with an unholy darkness, and the mysterious transparent borders that kept the clan on their small strip of land seemed to close in tighter on the devastation. One survivor, pinned under the wreckage of his home, looked fearfully up into the dark sky. He held his breath and waited.

----------------------------------------------

“Cool!” exclaimed Todd. “Look at `em scramble!”

“Yeah,” agreed Nathan. “All I did was shake it.” He looked down at the ant farm he held, and laughed at the sight of all the little insects scurrying madly about.

Todd smiled slyly, amused with the spectacle. “Let me try.”