The Chant of the Sibyl; True Life.

[crows]

“Ho there! What's that!” a voice nearer to him cried out in curious alarm, drawing the snap of his attention out of his swirling thoughts. He stopped and looked down the hill, watching the collective of his brethren bewilderedly drop their their skids and turn, raising their hands to mitigate the indistinct glare of the sky.
His senses honed to a sharp enough focus a few moments later to perceive the sound, and the black mass in the sky, at the same time. An ungainly flying shape angled its way through the petticoats of the cloudcover, which was low over the ground but so featureless that it offered little depth-perception to the eye. The staccato of its blades slicing the air to keep it aloft struck Caleb's ears unfettered by the haze that made its shape inconstant in the sky.
Caleb narrowed his eyes for a few moments at the helicopter as it moved inland and then burst into a run back down the slope away from the base. He paused on his way down, skidding to a stop that almost sent him tumbling to grab a bewildered compatriot's shoulder.

Caleb barely waited for the other man to nod, dimly aware that his name something to the effect of Preston or Tristan, and took off toward the rocky shore without looking back to see that his orders were followed. In the wash of grey seawater on the darker stones, a boat pushed off to head back to the carrier loaded with cells. Caleb shouted and waved his arms, plunging ankle and then knee and then thigh deep in the cold swells before someone stretched precariously over its edge and hauled him roughly on board. Sitting on the floor of the boat as it swelled with the breakers, just beginning to gather a little speed for its trip to offload, Caleb took a moment to catch his breath. The small handful of men on board looked down at Adrian's lietennant with veiled curiosity and perhaps a touch of wariness. He waited until the chill from his soaked clothing bit finally through to the bone, and then stood, shaking himself off.
“A helicopter flew overhead,” he said heavily, still short of breath. “Did you see it?” A glance around at his companions revealed their nodding faces, some excitement beginning to stir about their postures. “Good,” Caleb continued after. “I need to go ashore to tell the leader.”
Silence lapsed in again, like a wave. Caleb continued, feeling the tenacity of conviction bind up his shoulders, his neck, and push his head up higher. “I'm going to take a team ashore to follow it. We need to figure out where it's going, and hopefully where it came from, too. We have to know who has access to that kind of technology,” other than us, his mind continued silently. There were a few aircraft left on the carrier, but no fuel by which to fly them and nowhere Adrian felt safe flying them for sure.
Truth be told, Caleb didn't know that Adrian would want to follow the craft inland, whether or not he'd be willing to expend the care or risk to figure out who those other people were. More and more, Caleb discovered himself not caring. Adrian saw deeper things than most men would in their lifetimes, casting his bright-eyed gaze out across barriers that Caleb couldn't fathom. Sometimes, however, he failed to see his proximity to the immediate, mundane, and deadly present for how far his gaze reached into all those interminable depths. Caleb saw those needs, swelling in open-mouthed hunger around him; hungry for nourishment, for rest, for warmth. For companionship, stability, shelter, and hope for the world of today, rather than the indistinct universes of tomorrow. Turning himself against the rail of the little boat, Caleb turned his gaze up to the aircraft carrier that loomed closer to them on the waves, and set his jaw hard against a growing headache of exhaustion and dehydration.
Yes. It was time to tell Adrian that he would take a crew ashore for however long it took to find the helicopter or assure himself they wouldn't. Caleb knew some men would go with him regardless of Adrian's wishes. Either for easily manipulated enthusiasm – like Donovan Kurtz – or because their loyalty to the charismatic leader was beginning to flag, four years of stagnancy down the line. Caleb didn't like those men, whose vision began to fail them already. They were, however, useful tools when the right occasion presented itself. And this was the right occasion. His eyes narrowed in the hard light above the water.
A quarter hour's time later he stood in the door of Adrian's berth, from which Adrian had not emerged since his near-breakdown to Caleb about the girl the prior day. Adrian stood with his back to the door, waiting to speak, composing thoughts Caleb could not read out of the back of his skull. Caleb kept his hands clasped at his back, staring hard, trying not to make a single sound lest he put himself on the incorrect side of Adrian's sensitivities for the evening; this didn't need to be any more difficult than it was going to be to begin with.
“Yes?” Adrian's voice finally lilted toward him. Faintly, in the reflection of the porthole, Caleb could see the other man raise an eyebrow.
After a moment's pause trying to determine how to broach the subject, Caleb closed his eyes and spoke. “A helicopter flew over the compound, going inland. We need to follow it, see where they're going and hopefully where they've come from.”
Silence flowed in past him to fill the room, making the distance between himself and Adrian farther and heavier. Caleb opened his eyes, taking in Adrian's silhouette in the dim room, the faint reflection of his face in the glass. The dim facsimile of his countenance remained unreadable, staring hard through the porhole and out over the sea away from the shore.
Finally, Caleb could no longer withstand the weight of that quiet pressing down on his shoulders, the lapping of water o the outside of the boat growing slowly more audible as no other sound penetrated to distract him from it.
“Sir, I...”
Adrian's eyes shifted just so in the dim reflection, pinning him with their disconcerting gaze. “Take what you need and get out of my sight.”
“Sir?”
“Caleb, go.”
Adrian's spoke entirely without emotion, his voice as level as the still earth and as cold. Chilled, Caleb stood on as long as he could handle it and then turned stiffly to go.
Donovan was fortunately still awake, lying in his bunk staring at the ceiling.
“You, boy,” Caleb said cooly from the door of the baracks. Donovan sat up, blinking his way back to the present. “Are you really ready to prove yourself in this system?” Caleb had a difficult time keeping the bite of bitterness out of his voice, and saw it cast a shadow over Donovan's countenance briefly.
“Um, yes sir.”
“You're coming with me,” Caleb hesitated, recalling the conversation he'd had with Donovan ashore not an hour ago. “I realize you haven't had much opportunity to rest, but this is important, and I need someone there that I can trust.”
A half-truth, Caleb did know that he could trust Donovan, but he was yet unsure how much of that trust came from integrity and tenacity on the boy's part, and how much came from the subtle but firm understanding of who he could and could not control at the end of the day. Caleb and the boy shared a long, level gaze for a moment before Donovan nodded, deferrance visible in his features.
“Yes sir. I'm honored by the opportunity.”
“Very good. We'll be going back to shore as soon as I see what kind of equipment I can put together.”
“Um, sir?” Donovan fidgeted slightly, his expression uncertain.
“What is it?” Caleb replied more shortly than he intended, stalling in the doorway.
“What... what am I coming with you to do?”
Caleb leaned his head against the jamb of the door, the coldness of the metal on his brow pressing fingers of fleeting relief into his headache. “We're following a helicopter that flew over the compound, going inland.”
He could feel Donovan's excitement without opening his eyes. After a few moments, the boy spoke, eagerness thinly veiled.
“Oh. Alright. I'll be ready when you are.”
Nodding, Caleb stalked from the barack, his temper growing steadily blacker.



Witch frowned and let his hand fall away from her. Her dark eyes fell floorward and closed a moment later.
“What if he's still alive?”
“Still alive?”

Comments

[helixnine.livejournal.com]

...not sure how I feel about the phrase "Ho there."
Otherwise, this is good.