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The Mother’s Chain

David Turton

    I awoke to a searing pain in my shoulder and ribs. My memory quickly came into focus, as if someone had adjusted a pair of binoculars in my mind, making everything clear. My ship had gone down, a problem with the thrusters. I had been spiralling off course, towards a large, green planet. I remember entering the atmosphere and then shutting my eyes. Then darkness.
    It was still dark here, wherever I was. I shuffled to my side and felt the surface below me move. I grabbed the ‘floor’ below and, when my fingers gripped a rough, thick piece of wood with thin twigs protruding from it with attached leaves, I realised I was lying on some kind of tree. I looked across and squinted, in an attempt to adjust my eyes to the dark. The mellow twilight from two moons in the night sky afforded a little light, allowing me to assess my surroundings.
    I was lying on a branch of a huge tree, as big as any skyscraper I’d seen on Earth. As tall as any building in New York, London or Dubai, before the war tore them all down in a storm of anger and death. I must have been hundreds of feet in the air.
    Where is my ship? I thought to myself. And where is Jackson? Jackson, my co-pilot, had been sat next to me when the ship went down. I shouted his name but no sound returned across the dark sky. Holding my painful ribs, I put my head down and, either out of shock or fatigue, fell immediately to sleep.

#

    I woke slowly to the loud but cheerful sound of birds singing. I yawned, smiling at the sound, which reminded me of home. Life, I thought. There is life here. That was a good sign. I looked over from the huge branch that had been my home for the last few hours and saw a large expanse of green. Huge trees, all as big as the giant one I was lying in, lined the landscape in front of me. A massive lake gleamed in the shining light from a nearby star. For an alien land, it felt pretty nice to look at. I pulled my suit up to look at my ribs and saw a huge purple bruise on my side. They would take some time to heal.
    I looked to the top of the tree. I was about half-way up. The ground was thick with green shrubs and long grass. I jerked backwards as a huge bee buzzed past, the sound loud and low. The bee was around the size of a Labrador and skimmed the air less than ten feet away. I could see every hair on its black-and-yellow body. It flew away after what felt like an hour and seemed to glance at me before it left. I would need to be careful. If the bees were this big, what size could the other living beings be on this planet? I laughed to myself at the irony; we were moving to a planet where humans could live and rebuild their lives after the destruction of Earth, and I had stumbled upon a different planet altogether – one that was even more like home.
    I scanned the floor and felt a pang of relief as I spotted my ship. It had flipped onto its back, its dark grey metal poking out of the luscious green undergrowth around two football pitches away from me. I had been lucky. The auto-ejector must have kicked in as the ship fell towards the ground and thrown me into the tree, cushioning my fall. I scanned the horizon again, looking for a trace of Jackson. I shouted his name again, but once more there was no reply. I heard a loud, rhythmic pounding noise and looked up. A huge bird flew across the sky, the flapping of its vast wings causing a stiff breeze to rustle the large branches of the tree. I gulped. The bird, which looked like a woodpigeon, was around the size of a Range Rover.

#

    I stood gingerly on the branch, holding on to the edge of the tree’s thick trunk. I needed to get back to the ship, to see if I could salvage it. But that wasn’t the only reason I needed to move; my stomach was rumbling with a low, intense gurgle. As I stood, I pulled down the top of my suit and urinated onto the ground, around half a mile below. My urine was dark and strong-smelling, a sure sign that I was dehydrated. Whatever was waiting to greet me at ground level could not be as bad as sitting still and waiting to die of thirst or hunger. I began my descent, using the strong branches to hold my feet and hands.
    At around fifty feet I turned away from the trunk to take a break and froze with shock. There was a large circular structure, constructed with twigs and straw, sitting right next to me in the tree. It was around the size of my living room back home and the same height as me. I jumped when I saw a bird’s head peer over the edge. I was looking at a gigantic sparrow’s nest in the tree.
    The sparrow hopped onto the edge of the nest and my heart rate increased. It felt like I had an old-style locomotive running across my chest, gaining momentum, pounding faster and faster. I locked eyes with the over-sized bird. It was around seven feet tall. It’s beak alone was the around the same size as my arms, and its eyes were like two black bowling balls. I saw its feathers part in the morning breeze, disrupting the attractive brown patterns on its wings. Then, even in this strange new world, I experienced something that blew my mind. The bird sang. The sound was high pitched and loud. It carried across the breeze and it was beautiful, like a symphony performed by an entire orchestra in one of the great theatres on Earth. But there was something else. Amongst the beauty of the sparrow’s song, I understood what it was saying. Something wonderful inside my own head translated the song into words. I heard both the fantastic music that it produced and I understood the message contained within its notes.
    “Get out. Stay away. Go.”
    I looked back at the sparrow, confused. Would it understand me? I raised my hands to show I was peaceful.
    “I mean no harm. I landed in the tree. My ship landed over there.” I pointed to my ship but the sparrow’s gaze was still locked on me. A sudden breeze brushed against me, so strong it nearly knocked me backwards, and another sparrow landed in the nest. This one was larger, with a grey chest and a large brown bib below its beak. It sang with the same melodic beauty of the other sparrow, which I now realised was the female. It dawned on me as I noticed an egg protruding from below the female; the sparrows were nesting, protecting their unhatched young. The male hopped over the edge of the nest and was now right next to me. His sharp beak was inches from my head as he looked down at me. I could smell his breath, a warm, earthy aroma.
    “Are you here to harm us? To take our eggs?” The male sparrow asked.
    “No. No. I just want to find my ship and leave.”
    “Your ship?” The male asked.
    “I came by accident. I landed down there. On my way to a new planet.”
    This time, the sparrow looked around at the ship. “Yes. I saw you fall. You come from elsewhere? Not here? You come from the place above the Mother’s sky?”
    I breathed in, deeply. Is this really happening? I thought to myself, beginning to panic. I was stood on a giant tree, talking to a seven-foot-tall sparrow. Is this some kind of afterlife? I had heard of planets that held eco-systems and life, but they were all tales from adventurers who had heard the story from others. There had been no evidence. And I had never heard a tale of an over-sized planet full of car-sized bees and towering birds. I composed myself and answered the sparrow’s question.
    “Yes. I suppose I am. But the place above the sky – the Mother’s sky as you call it - is a big place. I come from another planet. It’s a lot like this one but smaller.”
    The sparrows looked at each other. Without human faces and with their black eyes it was hard to judge their emotions. Silence passed for a few seconds. Had they understood me? I opened my mouth to repeat it again, but the female sparrow sung once more, the words forming in my head to interpret her lovely chiming tweets.
    “You come from another place above the Mother’s sky. Why did you leave there?”
    I gulped. “We had to leave. There was a war. It got out of hand. Weapons were used that destroyed our landscape and scorched our skies. Diseases wiped out a lot of humanity-”
    “Humanity?” the male sparrow interrupted.
    “Oh yes. That’s my kind. Human beings.” I looked at the sparrows again, looking for some kind of reaction but again I couldn’t interpret their body language or their eyes. “Do you have my kind here? Humans?”
    “No,” replied the male. “I have never seen your kind here. You say your kind destroyed your planet. Why?”
    I sighed. “My kind are creators. We built amazing things. Structures that reach high into the sky, as tall as this tree. Ships that can reach other places – travelling above the sky as you say – and medicines to cure disease and prolong our lives. But we are also destructive. People crave power and control. They kill in the name of their God and their country.”
    The sparrows stared back with their large black eyes. “It is a sad story. May we ask your name.”
    “They call me Kitson. Richard Kitson.”
    “Kitson. Do you come here with your destruction? Do you bring it to us?”
    “No. No I come here peacefully. I come here to fix my ship and leave. To see my family again, my children.”
    “You have young? Then you will understand our cautiousness, Kitson. I am Lothar and this is Lemir. Our eggs are due to hatch soon. We can take no risk of a stranger from an evil place disrupting us.”
    The sparrows suddenly jumped backwards and crouched their bodies down in the nest.
    “What’s going on?” I asked, confused. But then I saw what they were hiding from. Descending from high in the sky was a hawk, dropping at a fast rate with its large talons outstretched towards them. I acted quickly, jumping over the edge of the nest and heaving myself up over the side. I snapped a twig from the circular nest and held it up at the oncoming attacker. My heart jumped as I saw how big the hawk was– each leg was around the size of an industrial crane, with claws as sharp as Samurai swords. I held the twig - which in my arms felt more like a large plank of wood - behind my head like a baseball player waiting for the pitch. As it came close I swung, knocking the humongous predator off its stride and into the side of the nest. The sparrows continued to huddle together over their eggs in the middle of the nest. I looked on in horror as the bird’s talons found their way around Lothar and swung the wood again, the impact causing the hawk to let Lothar go. I heard Lemir shriek as the hawk crushed one of the three eggs. Using my final surge of strength, I hit the hawk across its breast. This blow was enough to cause the hawk to abandon its attack and it fled, the flap of its giant wings causing a gust so powerful it knocked me off the feet and into the side of the nest, causing fresh, hot pain to explode in my ribs.
    “Thank you,” Lothar said.
    “Sorry you lost an egg. I would have killed the evil bastard if I could, would have stuck this right in its heart.”
    “No,” Lothar replied. “That is not the way, Kitson. Ranchett is hungry. He needs to eat to feed his own young. This is the way of our world, Kitson. We live and we die. We produce young and hope it is enough. But sometimes we must give way to others. We are part of the Mother’s Chain, Kitson. And we thank the Mother for being here at all. We thank her for our survival and we thank her for our death, when we are chosen for the Chain. We are all part of her plan and we are thankful.”
    I looked at the sparrow again and this time the lack of emotion, the absence of body language, made me angry.
    “How can you say that? How can you not hate something that tries to kill you? Tries to eat you? And you even know its name? Ranchett? It’s crazy?”
    “You come here with tales of your world. Scorched skies. Disease. Death. Destruction on a level so great that you cannot live in your home any more. Look around, Kitson. Do you see that here? And you say we are crazy?”
    I slumped back against the side of the nest, exhausted. I had helped these sparrows escape certain death by this hawk and they were willing to accept their fate like it was something trivial.
    “I think we need to agree to disagree, Lothar.” He looked at me still with his black eyes. I shrugged and stared at the wreckage of my ship. “Can you do me a favour?” I asked, turning back to him.

#

    It wasn’t a particularly comfortable ride. Lothar’s talons, although much smaller and less threatening than Ranchett the hawk’s, gripped tightly and dug into my flesh. It only lasted under ten seconds but I was glad when he dropped me in the long grass next to the ship. He perched on the edge of the ship’s bonnet as I stood and dusted myself down. The sparrow’s size looked surreal on the ship, a vision that would have looked out of place anywhere but on this strange land.
    “Lothar, is there anything I need to look out for down here? Anything dangerous?”
    “Danger is everywhere, Kitson. Ranchett will still be around and he will be hungry. The foxes may be around here somewhere. I will warn you from my nest if I see anything approach. And you can return the favour if you see a worm. Soon I will need to feed my young.”
    I thanked the sparrow and inspected the ship. Immediately I could see what had happened to Jackson. His body was slumped against the windscreen at the front of the ship, his head twisted unnaturally to one side. He’d broken his neck in the crash, his ejector must have failed. I climbed inside and dragged his dead body out of the wreckage. I looked at his face. It looked at peace, and I thought back to Lothar’s words about the Mother’s Chain. Jackson had died trying to find a new home for the human race. Maybe he had given his life for something bigger, the human version of this Chain.
    My thoughts were broken by a movement below my feet that caused me to stumble. I looked down and, to my horror, I saw a huge, pink worm burst from the ground. Its skin was translucent and I thought I could see the blood flowing through its long body. I froze with terror as the worm wrapped around my foot.
    “Lothar!” I shouted, looking towards the tree. “Lothar, worm!”
    I felt the light around me dim as Lothar’s shadow swamped me. He swooped and grasped the worm in his break, before throwing his head back so his entire body was at a one-hundred-and-eight-degree angle. The worm slipped down his throat and I could see the its bulk slide down his body. Lothar looked back at me and without a word, flew back to the tree.
    I climbed back aboard the ship and inspected it. The electrics turned on but there was a problem with the thrusters. Without the thrusters, I’d not even get off the ground, never mind travelling beyond this planet’s atmosphere. I was stuck. With my head in my hands, I sat in the ship and sobbed. I would be gobbled up by a arge predator within days, weeks, months. I would be part of the Mother’s Chain whether I liked it or not. Images of my painful death in the talons of a hawk or the mouth of a giant fox consumed me and my sobs grew louder.

#

    Days went by. I placed Jackson’s body back in the ship which, after a strenuous effort, I had managed to turn the right way up. I didn’t want one of this planet’s huge predators to eat him, like he was a piece of tasty roadkill or rotting carrion. I lived on a diet of food from the ship, but I only had two weeks’ worth. Then I would need to find something edible in this strange world.
    Four days in, where I spent my time sobbing and moping, I decided to search the ship for any extra supplies. My heart raced as I found an engineer’s manual. Although I only had basic engineering knowledge, I was pretty handy when I had a set of directions in front of me. I flicked the manual to the page about the thrusters and immediately broke out into loud laughter, until tears filled my eyes. I punched the air with delight. Page sixty-eight of the manual gave instructions on how to install the spare thrusters.
    It took me three days to install them. When I finished, I was exhausted, but I needed to test it, to see if it worked. I started the engine and it began to thrum. It was a beautiful sound. It immediately felt like home – although after leaving Earth, the word home was a pretty fluid concept. To me, home meant seeing my wife and two girls again. It meant a new start. It meant safety. The new planet for humans was as earth-like as you could get. Luscious and green, with half of the planet’s surface covered in seas and oceans. And there would be no over-sized predators ready to rip me to shreds. I looked over to Lothar’s tree and smiled. The emotionless sparrows wouldn’t mind that I hadn’t said goodbye. They would barely remember me. I laughed as I thought about how I would approach telling this story to others. Sparrows that spoke my language. Well, they didn’t exactly speak my language but I could understand their songs. People would think I’d gone mad, that I’d hit my head after the ejection. Maybe that is what had happened? Who could know? It would become one of those stories that passed around the travellers, one that would morph and twist to something different entirely.
    My smile dropped as I flipped the levers for take-off. The engine spluttered, the ship lurched forward and stopped dead. I tried again but once more the ship lurched forward and failed to take off. Panicking, I grabbed the manual and turned to page sixty-eight. I read it and re-read it and couldn’t see any other instructions that would fix this problem. Then I turned the page. There was one line, in bold, block capitals.
    PLEASE NOTE REPLACEMENT THRUSTERS SHOULD ONLY BE INSTALLED IN MID-FLIGHT WHILE AIRBORNE. THRUSTERS WILL NOT HAVE POWER FOR TAKE-OFF.
    I threw my head back and brought it back on the ship’s steering wheel, causing a flash of heavy pain on my forehead. I let out an anguished scream of despair and pounded my fists on the dashboard. I was stuck in this place after all. With my head throbbing and my body exhausted, I slumped in my chair and forced myself to go to sleep.

#

    The next morning, I climbed out of the ship. A shadow covered me, blocking the light from above and causing the light to firstly mellow and then dim in a sheen of darkness. I looked up to see a hawk circling above. Ranchett? I wondered to myself. The hawk glided hundreds of yards above, taunting me. I raised my fist and yelled at the bird.
    “Come on then! I’m right here. Come and have a go, you big bastard!”
    The hawk continued to glide, but I saw his head lower, as if to look in my direction. He then flew across and behind some distant trees.
    With a strong gust, Lothar landed on the ship next to me.
    “Don’t taunt him, Kitson. He is hungry, looking for a meal. What is bothering you today? It sounded like you had made progress on your machine last night.”
    “Waste of time,” I replied. “I can’t get it going unless it’s already in the sky. Great luck, eh, Lothar? Looks like I’ll be here fetching you worms and hiding from hawks for the rest of my natural life, which is probably going to be a few days at most with all the overgrown beasts in this hideous place.”
    “You do not speak kindly of our home,” sang Lothar. “You must understand this place. There is the Mother’s Chain and the Mother’s children live according to its command.”
    “I don’t want to be part of your Chain, Lothar!” I yelled at the sparrow, looking into his black, cold eyes. I hung my head immediately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. It’s just, we come from two very different places. Humans look to survive. Anything that threatens that survival needs removing. I suppose that’s the difference between our kinds. You live with your threats and respect them. We can’t live with them so we remove them.”
    “And without threats your race has thrived? No. Your kind’s biggest threats are yourselves. And yet you still apply your logic, wiping out yourselves. You could learn from the Mother’s Chain, Kitson. I implore you take it back to your own kind. Spread the word of the Mother’s Chain.”
    “Lothar, I’m never making it back. Didn’t you listen? My ship won’t work unless it’s in the sky.”
    “I heard. But you may be able to get some help with that. What if something was to lift it into the sky and release it high in the Mother’s sky?”
    I looked at Lothar. He was big, but the ship was over twice his size. There would be no chance he could fly with the ship in his feet. Even if Lemir was to help him – and there’s no way she would risk leaving their eggs.
    “But Lothar, you couldn’t...”
    “Not me, Kitson,” he replied. “There is only one bird big enough to carry it.”
    I looked into the sky and saw Ranchett gliding high above the colossal trees. I laughed and looked back into Lothar’s emotionless eyes.
    “Are you crazy? He would kill me. He would eat me and feed my body to his chicks.”
    “That may be. It is certainly a possibility. But hawks are intelligent. They have grace and skill and they can solve problems. They are blessed with the Mother’s empathy and integrity. You must try to appease him. Offer him a substantial meal and he may see fit to reward you.”
    “How can I find a substantial meal? Surely eating me would beat one of those worms I’ve been getting you?”
    “That’s true. So, you need to offer something else. Something as substantial as you.”
    “But where -” I stopped, realising what Lothar was talking about. Jackson. He wanted me to offer his body up to the hawk. “No. No I can’t. I can’t go back to Jackson’s family and tell them that a hawk ate him. That I gave him to a hawk as an offering? They would put me in prison.”
    “I’m afraid I do not understand your arguments. It is important to the hawk that he eats. Your friend would surely be pleased at his part in the Mother’s Chain. And he died elsewhere. He has no use for his body now, he should be happy that it will be donated back to the Mother’s Chain.”
    I leant my head back and cried. Back home we buried our deceased. Dead human beings were treated in a sacred way. I really couldn’t contemplate giving his body to the hawk, in the hope that the bird would somehow agree to lifting my ship up to the sky. But it was my only option. I looked back at Lothar.
    “Okay. I’ll do it.”

#

    It would have been easier if Lothar could have acted as a translator, but he couldn’t risk being close to the hawk. His family needed him. Me on the other hand – I had nothing to lose. I said my goodbyes to Lothar, feeling emotional and thankful that this strange, peaceful being had come to my aid. Lothar said goodbye and I heard Lemir calling from the nest. As expected, there were no emotion in their farewells.
    I stripped Jackson naked and placed him on top of the ship. It didn’t take long for Ranchett to swoop down. He glided from above, his body almost motionless, his talons protruding like weapons at the bottom of his long, stalk-like legs.
    As he came closer I shouted: “Ranchett! Please help me. I offer you this food for your help. Please take my ship and drop it as high as you can in the sky. Help me get home.”
    The hawk grabbed Jackson’s body, his razor-sharp talons piercing Jackson’s dead flesh and hooking into him. He soared back to the sky and beyond the trees in the distance. Is he coming back? Did he understand? My head was full of questions but I took the chance, jumping in the ship, sitting behind the controls and starting the engine.
    After a few minutes – which felt like hours – I heard a commotion from above and felt the ship lift upwards.
    “Yes. Yes!” I shouted and punched the air. “I’m going home. I’m going home.”
    I looked out of the window and over to Lothar and Lemir’s tree. If I made it back to my family I would never forget this pair of wonderful beings. Maybe I would hear their sweet chirps in my dreams, beautifully translated into human speech. Or maybe over time I would forget their chiming songs, their poetic outlook on their world and the Mother’s Chain. I didn’t need to even ask them about the Mother. I understood it was their God, their creator. The creator of us all? I wondered. There was something beautiful in their beliefs, something profound and innocent, respectful and resolute. Tears formed in my eyes as I looked over at the sparrows for the final time. “Goodbye, my friends,” I said looking at the distant nest in the tree as I soared higher and higher. I heard a chime on the wind and roughly translated it to say “Remember the Mother.” Or maybe I had imagined it within the confines of the ship. I smiled and looked across the sky of this strange place, lifted higher and higher by the flapping of the hawk’s gigantic wings.

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