I didn't find Tore for three days, though I frantically searched for him: I went to all the nooks and the hollows he'd shared with me, to the pool, but I couldn't find him. I missed him. And my nightmares got worse. I'd wake in the night, sweat pouring from my back, my body clammy and shaking, my head thumping: I'd never be able to get back to sleep so often walked the forest in the night. Looking to escape my nightmares; looking for Tore.
My head was thumping. Thump. I stumbled through the undergrowth, a week after Tore'd disappeared. Thump. Thump. And heard drums, beating from the heart of the forest, couple of klicks to the South. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Tore was not alone. There was a whole encampment of people at the far end of the valley. It would've been hard to find - it was partially hidden behind a wall of rock and foliage - but for the drums. And so I found it, found them. I clambered up the rock face, careful about my footing in the dark and found a ledge and sat watching. There must have been almost two hundred of them: many like Tore: pale golden bodies and sleek hair, tight muscles; others looked slightly older, a little greyer and it was the latter playing the drums. Tore was there, in the middle of a circle of the younger ones. He was dancing, whirling about, his arms outstretched, his head down, his hair wild. And then the music stopped. Tore stopped and remained motionless for a second and then flopped to the ground, laughing. I could hear his laughter from my vantage point and could see the other children clapping and laughing with him. But, I realised with a chill, the elders were not laughing, few seemed able to manage a smile, their faces grim and doubtful.
After a little while the party seemed to be over: the children then the adults slipped back to caves, or wooden huts built in the trees and the camp was silent. I was about to go when I heard a small noise behind me.
"You liked my dancing, yes?" I started then relaxed when I realised it was Tore.
"Yes" I muttered, then motioned towards the circle in the camp where he'd danced, "But I didn't know about them..."
"You thought me alone?" He laughed, his eyes following my gesture, "I am never alone."
Tore shifted around to sit down next to me, his chin tilted a little upwards, his eyes reflected the moonlight. I moved to touch him but he flinched and pulled back.
"I am never alone, and I will never be alone. Tomorrow..." I listened and waited, craning forward. "Tomorrow I face 'vastl', but I do not know how to explain in your words." He scratched his hair slowly, thinking, "Tomorrow, I think I face exam". It was the first time I'd heard him say anything in his own language and did wonder whether he could have translated it right, but as I started to speak, to question him, he moved up to crouch on his heels and, as I cried after him, moved swiftly off.
"Can I come" I managed to shout after him, "Can I come to, to the vastl?" And Tore stopped in his tracks and turned around at the hips.
"Of course not"
I followed at a distance: I didn't want to be seen, given Tore's warning, but I was desparate to see what went on: I thought maybe this, obviously a ceremony of some significance, could go some way to explaining Dom's death. Tore walked at the front of the procession: his golden skin bare and oiled, glinting in the sunlight dappling through the trees, his head held high, his long blonde hair loose down his back. He was singing: soft and low at first, hesitant and nervous, then gaining in strength and confidence. I'd never heard Tore sing before and it was beautiful - clear and fresh - so when the others started to sing too I was actually quite disappointed: their songs were different - some sad, others questioning, all a little nervous, filled with anticipation - a little magic in each.
The procession came to a halt in the Glade and Tore stood alone while the others encircled him. The glade looked different: most of the trees on the Southern side were merely dead shells, and so more sunlight was able to shine in. The singing continued, growing louder and more insistent, reaching a crescendo. And then it stopped. Four figures moved forward, out of the circle towards Tore: two took hold of one of Tore's arms each; a third touched his open palms to Tore's head from behind and the fourth spread his hands across Tore's chest. They made no sound and I realised that they were the blind aliens that Ben and I had first seen in the caves: in the sunlight their flaccid white skin didn't look so bad, but there was no mistaking the blank patches of skin where the eyes should have been.
They stood, the children in the circle, the four blind ones and Tore, completely silent and still for the best part of twenty minutes and then as the blind four moved soundless back to the circle, an elder moved forward and offered him something. I squirmed to see: my vantage point was chosen mainly for its ability to keep me out of sight and I couldn't properly see what Tore had been handed until he lifted it into the air above his head. It was a tuber: pale mottled purple - the same sort that had killed Dom. My mind went blank. I knew I had to stop him, stop him killing himself like Dom had; I should've cried out, warned him but I was paralysed. I crouched in the damp grass in the bushes, silent as he bit into the tuber.
The tuber didn't take long to work: as Tore chewed and swallowed, the circle dissipated into the forest and he was left alone. First, he fell to his knees, his arms clutching his stomach and then fell sideways and by the time he hit the floor I was at his side. It was too late: his breathing was shallow, his pulse racing, his eyes closed but flickering then nothing: a slight spasm, a whispered sigh and he was still. Tore was dead.
Tears streamed down my cheeks: more even than I'd shed for Dom, though I couldn't say why: this strange alien boy had been killed by his own people, sacrificing probably, and I'd done nothing, even when I'd known he was going to die. I bit my lip and started to run from the glade. And stopped as I heard a cry from behind me.
Tore was still lying on the ground but his eyes were wide open and his chest was heaving. It was if something was squirming about just underneath his skin: something that was causing Tore a great deal of pain - he was crying out, his scream high and anguished. I rushed towards him and tried to hold him but he was barely conscious and as I got close he lashed out at me, scratching my arm. Instinctively I pulled away and looked at the wound: there were four parallel lines of red gouged into my skin, more claw marks than mere scratches. Nursing my arm I looked back to Tore.
What I saw, I would not have believed if I hadn't seen it: Tore was changing in front of my eyes, his slim body mutating from one form to another. Some of the forms were like the animals that Eloise and I'd been studying, others were strange, a vast array of birds and animals, each for just a moment. It went on for an age but in the end the screaming stopped and Tore, or the beast that Tore had become stood in front of me.
Gone was the golden-haired child: the animal was on all fours, its large head about the same height as my waist, and with a long muscled body, covered completely in white hair. Its paws were large, clawed pads and it had a fearsome set of teeth: sharp, carnivorous teeth. It was looking at me, its amber eyes looking me up and down, and I backed away: it growled a little and then turned and bounded away into the forest, towards the village. I shuddered a sigh of relief and headed back to our camp.
I hardly went out for the next couple of days, and when I did, I managed to go with Ben or Eloise. Visions of Tore dominated my nightmares and late at night, while the others slept, I stood on the terrace listening to the drum beats in the far distance. They were very faint, and only I ever heard them, so that after few nights I began to wonder whether they were real or merely figments of my imagination. In the end, I could do nothing no longer and, seven days after Tore's vastl I waited until the others were sleeping and went back through the valley to the camp of the aliens.
I made it up onto my previous vantage point with little difficulty and watched the scene below. In many ways it was the same as that I'd seen before, but it was different. When I first looked down a fair haired child like Tore was dancing, whirling round in a flurry of activity. Other children looked on and the elders beat their drums. Then as the music stopped and the child flopped chest heaving for breath on the dirt floor, a whoop came up from the crowd as another child appeared from a treehouse, stood arms outstretched to the side, gave a little skip and somersaulted off the side of the ledge to land feet first in the dirt circle where he began to dance to a more urgent beat even than before. It was Tore. Tore, as he had been before the vastl. Tore, looking more human than ever.
I realised that I'd caught my breath and slowly let it out, trying to make no sound. I wasn't sure what to believe, but as I watched the faces of those below me I came to one conclusion: that they were more human than before - their skin was paler, their hair lines more like ours, their limbs and facial features more akin to our own. I shivered, not knowing what to think, unable to move, not knowing whether I wanted Tore to find me there or not. I waited, all my limbs aching with tiredness and the drum beat went on.
I awoke, still on the ledge, as the first rays of dawn lit my perch. I ached all over and I was stiff from my terrible choice of sleeping position and lay there for a moment, eyes closed, allowing the morning sun to warm me. When I opened my eyes, Tore was sitting there, silently waiting for me to awake. I caught my breath.
"Tore"
"What are you doing here?" He asked, his voice low, his accent much better.
"I wanted to see if you were OK..." I stuttered. My head thumped and my mouth was very dry.
"No, I mean what are you all doing here, in the valley?" He replied, his voice serious, his eyes unsmiling. I stopped, confused. I guess I'd never told Tore what we were up to, but there again, he'd never asked.
"We're doing a survey. To see whether this place has minerals, can support life. There are lots of groups like ours all over the planet. This planet is the best chance we've had in ages..." I stopped, unsure whether I should be telling Tore this. But Tore was my friend, and my head ached, and I couldn't think straight and he just kept looking at me with those big, blue eyes. "The systems, the planets where we live are full, Tore. We need to find somewhere else to move to, to live. Where the air is fresh and there is more space. I've never seen anywhere as beautiful as this place. You can't imagine what it means to me..."
"I think I can." he replied, his voice soft now. "And what of us?"
"You and me?" He shook his head,
"You and me? What you and me? What of my people? What do you intend doing with us?" I didn't know. I really didn't know. We'd never found non-human sentient life before, hadn't had to think of it. But I guessed. The controllers on Avrameas were hardly going to stop colonisation because of a handful of natives. Tore broke into my thoughts, a frown on his face.
"You will fill our lands with people. You will pollute our air, dirty our waters, rape our lands and kill our children."
"No." I cried out, wanting it not to be true, "We've learnt from our mistakes. We won't wreck this place, not like the others. We can all live together, as friends..."
"Humanity doesn't learn from its mistakes. We've watched your thoughts and dreams for months now. I've seen your mind in the last few days. We cannot be friends any longer." There were tears in his eyes and his face was contorted into a snarl. "We'll fight you, live among you and bring terror to your every minute, until you all leave."
"You can't fight us, Tore, we've got technology to blast us across the stars, to change entire ecosystems..."
"To destroy a people?" Tore shook his head and stood up. "You won't destroy us. You can't destroy us. How will you be able to destroy us when you don't know who to destroy?" He turned to leave and moved quickly away down the slope. I sat still for a while, not understanding what he meant, unable to call after him, until I came to my senses and moved quickly back to the base camp.
Nothing happened for a week, and the week stretched into a month, and still we heard nothing. I worked every day and every night I dreamt. Dreamt of Tore, of the sightless ones, of hundreds and thousands of alien children, of Dom. I finally dreamt of Dom, not dead, cold and stiff, not even as he had been when he was alive, gentle but distracted, but as I'd always wanted him to be: loving, playful, sexual. I would wake with tears wetting my cheeks and my pillow. The drums continued.
We worked hard for those four weeks, compiling more and more data, writing reports. The others had become excited again, hopeful even, that despite Dom's death, here was a place for us, a bit of breathing space, but I couldn't be hopeful. I forlornly looked for Tore in the wood while avoiding their camp: I managed to fake reports and survey results to keep the others away. My headaches got worse and my joints ached much of the time.
Finally, the drums stopped.
Two days later, we were eating dinner as usual. We were silent as I wasn't the only one of us to be plagued by aches and everyone was tired. The air was warm and still and, I thought, stifling. My head was thumping and I was resting it in my hands when Ben sat up straight and whispered,
"Do you hear them?" The room was silent, except for our breathing and the slow thump of drums. They were real, and nearby. One by one, in silence, we stood and walked quickly to the door and looked outside. Tore was there, flanked by tall, lithe aliens. They looked almost human. There was frantic whispering among the others and then we all fell silent.
"We want you to go." Tore said, firmly.
Ben tried to argue, Jose got angry and soon the two sides were shouting at each other. Tore remained silent and after a while closed his eyes, breathed out slowly...
I fell to the ground clutching my head, my legs turned to jelly beneath me. I thought I heard screaming but I couldn't tell whether it was me, Eloise or Alice, Ben or Jose. Everything was black. Everything... everything...
When we got the call to leave, we had very little time to pack, but noone seemed to mind, except Jose, who'd collected large amounts of mineral samples he was loathe to leave behind. But Ben was firm and anyway we were reminded of the urgency by the thumping pain in our heads and joints. I finished packing first and feeling uncomfortable in the midst of the others' flurry of activity, went outside for some fresh air. I stayed immediately outside the door, ready to jump back in again at any sign of trouble.
There was none: the valley was quiet and still: I could hear birds and, far away in the distance, the children, singing. The wind whispered through the grass and cooled me down and my head began to feel better; the ache in my joints a little less painful.
Tore emerged from the trees. Dom emerged from the trees. If I hadn't known Dom was dead and 300 k away, I would've sworn that the man before me was my ex-lover: I saw his eyes, blue and clear, his lop-sided smile, his tousled copper gold hair; he smiled at me and I ached, tears barely kept back. Then Tore let the mask slip just for an instant and I saw the alien inside - the golden boy, adaptable, ever- changing; the white beast, strong, quick and clever, a leader; the silver tree, surviving - and I let out a cry, and Tore slipped back into the forest.
When I left Ghyll Research Station for the last time the sun was setting beneath the mountains. Above the faint whine of the flyer's motor I could hear the whisper of the Ghyll itself in the distance: the crystal waters of the mountain stream trickling over the cliffs into the valley, like the tears that poured down my damp cheeks.
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