A map of the lightning farm and the surrounding pylons.
Gaijin men were gathered around a cluster of controls nearby, and one of them soon spotted Red standing before the glowing diagram. A hulking uniform-clad shape Yukiko recognized as Danyk appeared, bellowing at the top of his voice. Red cowered low, belly to the floor. Blue-white light glinted across the flattened samurai helms on the big man’s shoulders.
told you baddog now …
I’m sorry, Red. I really am.
Danyk picked up a wrench and made to throw it at the dog, roaring again. Ilyitch appeared from behind a cluster of pipes, a dripping mop in his hands, faint hand-shaped bruise on his cheek. The big man cuffed the boy across the back of his head, sending his goggles flying. Scooping them back up off the grille, Ilyitch grabbed Red by his collar and dragged him down the stairs, berating the hound in his strange language. She sensed Red’s shame, vague resentment mixed with confusion about why he’d done something so thoroughly baddog. She felt awful guilt; a pity-sick disquiet that she’d turned the Kenning into something so overt. So cruel.
She eased away from the contact with the hound, blinking hard, licking at the blood drying on her upper lip. And tentatively, she projected herself through Red’s eyes, reaching out to touch the boy’s thoughts. The migraine grew awful; like a metal vise grinding the base of her skull. She had to fight to maintain her grip, to stay inside the noise and light of a human mind, so utterly different from the beasts she’d swam in for most of her life.
The boy dragged Red across the catchment room floor, through the double doors and up the spiral stairwell. Yukiko tried to speak into his head, to frame words Ilyitch might understand, but they slipped away from her, all a-tumble, white and empty noise, like hollow pipes falling upon a sodden floor.
The boy stopped, looked around him with a frown. Red whined, hackles rising. She could feel the dog’s trepidation, his instinctive sense that something was very wrong.
She tried again, to form a greeting and project it through the dog, but it collapsed like a castle of sand between her fingers; just a muddled jumble of consonants and vowels and hissing static. Ilyitch tilted his head to one side, eyes screwed shut, holding his nose and trying to pop his eardrums. Yukiko backed off, lingering on the edge of his warmth, and he grabbed Red’s collar again, hauled him up the stairs.
This isn’t working. I can’t form the words.
It was as if the constructs in the boy’s head were too different from her own: square pegs into round holes. Language was never an issue with animals, but perhaps that was because animals didn’t really speak? Perhaps the Kenning was never meant for this?
What could she do? How could she leap the barrier between them? She needed a way of communicating that they both understood …
She recalled Danyk looming over her, the katana blade slipping down over her tattoo. His eyes fixed upon the picture inked into her skin, the symbol he understood without her needing to speak a word.
“Keetsoonay. Sahmoorayee.”
… That was it.
The answer.
Not words. Pictures.
Yukiko formed an image and pushed it into Ilyitch’s mind; herself, sinking beneath the waves as he dove into the thrashing waters to save her. The boy reeled back against the railing, hand to his brow. She gave him another image; of her and Buruu flying through clear skies, her arms around his neck. She tried to inject emotional content into the picture, the simple warmth of friendship and trust.
Ilyitch steadied himself, blinking as if he’d been struck in the face. Sure enough, the boy loosed his grip on Red’s collar and looked to the stairwell above. He ascended at a scuffing, cautious pace, Red on his heels, heavy footfalls ringing on metal as he reached the landing and started down the corridor toward her room.
The sensation was disorientating, almost nauseating; watching the boy walking down the hallway, Red beside him, hearing their footfalls through Ilyitch’s ears, the same footsteps coming closer in her own. So she broke full contact and opened her eyes, wiped her nose as best she could on her shoulder and leaned back against the wall. As she did so, she pushed one last picture out to the gaijin boy; an image of herself, helpless, frightened and wretched. Bound wrists and pleading eyes, desperate and alone, looking to him, her only hope.
When Ilyitch opened the door a few moments later, that was exactly what he saw.
26
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW