Nohat

 

Can you smell it? Death is still fresh, the dust is still wet on Atlan it stinks of Petrichor. The moldy scent stuck in your nose, when the rain has set but the dust is still wet.

Nobody who ever has walked the dust of an outpost at Atlan can ever enjoy the scent of Petrichor. It’s like going through the ashes of Pompei. Like Fallout. Like walking through a town just the moment after the Black Death has finally managed to purge itself of its last infected. Like looking at the stump of your arm cut off just where the infection hasn't spread yet. One might imagine the smell of Petrichor there to be a relief. Like getting a fresh breath of air after four minutes of waterboarding or like feeling the strength returning to your body after a bad case of the flu. You just have survived the bad horrors and now you can rebuild life. That is not the case however. Death is too visceral on the days of Petrichor. The damage is done and you but a lonely bunch of ants have to suffer through a long period of reconstruction and grief. Rain on Atlan takes and destroys, melts flesh like ice and hates life. This must be why Earth has long abandoned Atlan as a resource. Too high was the cost, too destructive was this moon. Nobody wants to live here but only rarely do people manage to emigrate from this hell these days. The fire rages and takes possibilities. The ones who could afford it took the last spaceships generations ago. The remaining ones have accommodated to their fate as the forgotten ones. Spaceships are nothing but fables, nothing but the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

 

Samwise swipes the bar. Petrichor. Who knows. Maybe he could serve guests again today. He smells the booze. Liquor. And chooses which to put up on shelves. Swipes the tables. Fetches the chairs from the back. It's been Petrichor for three days now, but Atlanians are cautious folk. He goes to the back again and as he returns there actually was a new guest. An unfamiliar one even. With a bare scalp. They stood in the door like there was nothing to it. A foreigner? Foreign to Atlan?

“And who are you?” The hatless gave Samwise a nod. “Lexington, I'm looking for a place to eat and sleep.” There was no way this tourist could pay in bones. “And how exactly would you pay me back for that?” Pause. Nohat wrinkles their forehead. Then: “I guess I could pay you back in work. My gun works just fine and I'm willing to do whatever needs to be done.”

“Alright then I have a small garden just blossoming, some space in the storage room and one unfixed hole in the ceiling. Why don't you start off with that?”

While Nohat was working up on the second floor Samwise got out in the garden to reap some fruit for lunch. He would never complain about a second pair of hands after the rain. After his job in the garden was done he returned to the bar, just to find a second guest who had just entered his bar. “Morning Strider, what can I do for you?” “I presume you have not seen anyone since the rain?” What an odd question. “Why? Has anything happened during the rain?” He nods. “Something has happened to the Baggins family…” Samwise pours three glasses of Vodka, two for him one for the strider. Sounds like he is in for bad news…

“Half of them are gone… then there are the twins, we found both of them melted by the rain… And lastly, Marry. She was torn to pieces… her blood all over their farm…” Strider's voice starts shivering, “it looks like it was a monster.”

“May I take a look at it?” Nohat just stood in the door to the back as if Strider did not hold  a rifle ready to hunt a loose beast. Their bare scalp out as if it was not a shining target for Strider's bolt.

Strider kept his eyes on Samwise: “You didn't tell me you were hosting guests.” “This one appeared just before you did. Told me they would exchange food and shelter for labour.” The strider nods. He understood the deal, but had to notice the weird coincidence. “And this stranger wants to see the massacre at the Baggins farm, do I get that right.”

“As I told your friend earlier, I know my way around a gun and if a murder has happened in this lonely town, then that may be the best use for my work.” Now the stranger fully has the strider's attention. “Well if you are that confident I might just take you there… I like to keep track of all my residents anyways.” Nohat takes a step to the bar and picks up one of the glasses. “So you did already fix the hole in my ceiling?” Samwise asked Nohat. The stranger nods. 

 

“Are you aware or ignorant of the safety measures we take here on Atlan.” “The hats, masks and helmets?”

The Strider and the stranger are walking side by side. “It’s protection.” “I'd call it caution at best. Besides, I like to keep a clear vision and a light head.” “Hhm.” The strider does not like the answers he is getting. He is not used to talking with a person he doesn't know and this particular one does not seem to care about his suspicions. Almost like they want to be perceived as a threat.

“What even brought you to Atlan?” Nohat shrug: “A crash landing, I guess” “You guess?” “Just a figure of speech.” What is a figure of speech? “What does that mean?” Nohat stopped walking and turned to Strider: “You know what a figure of speech is, right?” Strider spat on the flour and kept walking. “Whatever…” Silence. Then the strider found his next question: “So does that mean, you are just passing through?” “Sort of, I guess, I haven’t put much thought into it.” Strider shook his head: “You sure like to guess a lot, stranger… Anyways, here we are.”

The strider opens the door to the massacre. Furniture thrown over. Holes in the walls, but not the ceiling. And then there was the blood. It was like balloons filled with it popped all over. The walls, the ceiling and especially the floor. Strider has witnessed his fair share of accidents and even murder during his time, but never could he have imagined so much blood coming out of a single body. He feared that the wife was not the only one bled out by this beast. Aside from finding the monster there probably was not much point in investigating this crime.

Nohat stepped forward, kneeling down beside the corpse in the middle of the room or between what was left of it: Half a Torso with one leg and arm and the other leg right beside it. The other arm Strider had found melted outside and the head was nowhere to be found. They were investigating the wounds as if there was a pattern familiar to them but foreign to Atlan. “Nasty work.” They let their fingers glide around the corpse then looked up at the ceiling. The blood was only partially dried up. A single last drop slid down from the ceiling directly on the stranger's face. Splash. Then they turned around looking at Strider.

“You spoke of a beast earlier. Is there fauna on this planet that could explain this kind of wound?” “Fauna?” A word no one Strider knew has ever used. “Wildlife, animals.” The strider shook his head. “Nothing I have ever heard of. Large animals tend not to survive the rain.” Nohat looked back down at the Corpse. “Makes sense...” And after a moment: “So we can presume a human might have done that most likely.” “A human? Are you implying a person during the rain just entered the Baggins farm in order to kill them all.” “I don't know, probably not to kill them all… That would seem pointless to me.” “Then what? To kidnap them? It is stupid to do this either way. No one I know would be this stupid.” Nohat got up again and started to just walk around, looking at the scene. “So no person on this planet would get out during this rain, makes sense.” “Only a stranger like you would behave like this.” “Someone from Outerspace.” “Do you want to tell me now why exactly you, a foreigner who has never met this family, is so interested in their death?” “May I see the ones outside first?”

 

“Damn, I did not grasp how destructive this rain is. Wow.” They both stood outside just some steps away from the back door over two small bodies or whatever is left of them. Grey statues that is what it looks like when the rain touches flesh. Grey statues of just a little more than  skeletons, knee deep in the dust, bend like a sea of water was emptied over them when they died, melted like wax in the sun, mouths still open. It is barely visible, but there was terror in their faces when they died. “Yes, that is why we do not like to expose our skin to this world, Atlan hates life.” “It really does seem to hate life… hard to say who of those victims got the more dignified death... I'm sorry you had to find them like that.” Strider sank his head. “There are still some more people I have to talk to. I hope anyone has witnessed something, if you seriously think you can help me with this case I guess you can join me. I'll pay for your night at the bar.”

 

It was late when the strider and Nohat returned to the bar. Both of them looked devastated. Samwise was prepared to snark at the stranger for doing a bad job with the ceiling and then bailing on him, but as he saw those two, he had to acknowledge that their day probably was harder than his. The strider threw a handful of bones on the next table and said, “that should cover for her,” and was already about to leave as Samwise interrupted him: “Hey, you took your time, are there any news about the Baggins?” Strider turned around: “Do you want the good news or the bad ones first?” Samwise went once again to his bottles. “Why don't you sit down first? Drinks are on me.” Strider chose a table of his liking and Nohat followed him. Samwise came back with three glasses, this time one for each.

“Why not start with the good news?” “This fella over here,” he points his thumb at the hatless, “seems to have theories of what may have gone down there and also assumes for the missing three to be still alive.” “That is good for now. What is bad is that we don't have a single clue on where to look next and I have by now talked to all of our neighbors.” 

“Well shit, what use would it be if the missing Baggins survived if we can't find them.” Nohat raised their voice: “Mister Strider, can I share my theories here?” Strider nods. “As Mister Strider told me, there are no beasts or weapons known around here to explain this particular wound that Misses Baggins had suffered from. I'm sorry for the details, but they might be important: Her head and parts of her upper body seem to have exploded in a single blow, with so much energy that the blood reached into every corner of the room. I presume you, too, would not have a logical explanation to what may have caused such enormous damage.” She looked at Samwise who just stared at her with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. After he shook off his shock he just gave her a voiceless “no!”

 

Brrrrrmppphhhh

 

A loud vibration crushed the silence.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Nohat reached for the gun on her lower back and ran outside, the strider grabbed his rifle, following her and Samwise just ran after them unarmed.

“What was that?” The Strider was short on breath, but as he followed Nohat he thought he might have found an answer. In the middle of the road stood something he only has heard of in stories. Bigger than the farm, coated in titanic metal, this must be a space ship. If that was what came for the Baggins the only reason, not every single citizen was under alarm back then, was the rain covering their noise.

“Fuckers!” screamed Nohat. The lettering on the ship, “IGRF”, did not say anything to Strider or Samwise, but it must have been the thing that turned Nohat into a mononoke. They stood there just for seconds until five people left the house. Four of them were head to toe covered in metal, except for their face, where a combination of glass and hoses was covering them, three of them were holding huge rifle like constructions, while the last one was holding the fifth person, Martha Took. The Three without Martha turned around, while the last one continued to drag her inside the ship.

They raised their tools.

“Drop your weapons!”

Said one.

His voice was cold, metallic.

He spoke only through a microphone with them.

Strider's knees started shaking.

Is this what true foreigners look like now?

He never has seen one, so who's to tell if Nohat is just from another side of Atlan?

What might the ones who abandoned them come up with since they left Atlan. 

Could his Bolts even harm them?

“Drop your weapons!”

It repeated.

Strider’s grip tightened.

They killed his citizens.

Then they came back.

To kill more.

He would not let them go without a fight.

 

Clock.Clock.Clock.

 

The sound of three bolts.

Strider hasn't even raised his weapon.

Did the others shoot Bolts with their devices too?

 

Brrrrrmppphhhh

 

No.

As one of them fell over his gun went off, sending out these loud vibrations. Strider looked at Nohat, all three shots must have come from her.

 

Clock.Clock.

 

She shot again twice. Did she miss? He turned to the aliens who have not shot back so far. Two of them lying dead on the ground. While one was still moving.

Reaching for his weapon.

 

Clock.

 

“Strider, grab his weapon. He might have answers for you.”

 

Strider was one autopilot. Doing what Nohat said, but unable to really comprehend anything going on. He did not even realize how the ship quietly vanished again into the night. He found himself sitting in the storage room of the bar as he finally snapped back to reality.

 

“Did you catch any of that?” Nohat looked at him tense. “Sorry, I must have blacked out.” “Okay, out there is basically your whole town.” Nohat points at the door to the bar. “They have talked to us about the vanishing of the Baggins family and then they saw the fucking IGRF land on their lawns, just to kidnap another citizen. They have a lot of questions...” Strider struggled to follow these words

Samwise interrupted her: “Lexington, we still don't quite know who you are to handle that like it's fixing holes after rain, but we barely have visitors, especially not straight from outer space and especially not attacking us. 

What do you want from Strider? He is just as shaken as the rest of us. 

Let me handle the people outside and you talk to Strider.”

Nohat sighs: “You're right. I'm sorry.”

Then she glided down next to Strider, as Samwise leaves the room.

“Your friend is smart, he was spot on about my reaction. I'm sorry for the way I handled myself.”

Strider stumbled over words, still catching himself back in reality: “You just saved me.”

“Well I might have bought us time at least.”

“Who is the IG..” 

He can't quite finish the acronym.

“The IGRF? Well basically it’s the same fuckers that left you to die on Atlan.” “What?” “Resource collectors, hoarders, colionisers…” “So they haven’t given up on Atlan.” Nohat looked bitter: “No. Project Atlan is over, for millennials now, there is nothing on this planet, you couldn’t get elsewhere but cheaper…” She looked at Strider: “Well I guess there is one thing, that the IGRF has started to take interest.” “What?” “People, recently the IGRF has started to take interest in genetic anomalies that occur in isolated colonies.” Strider did not really understand, but the fact that Nohat knew so much must mean something. “How do you know about that?” “Your colony is not the only one with this fate. When they come for a planet they tend to squeeze the population, till every human is turned into a resource, but I guess everybody makes mistakes sometimes.”

“Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.” He mumbled these words like a silent prayer. Then a smile. Big. Warm. Hopeful.

“If they have abandoned Atlan once, we can make them abandon Atlan again”