New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

It was Zey’s sleep-talking that woke her up.

“Hello,” Apollonia heard, jarring her to consciousness.

The two shared quarters on the outpost, space being at a premium.  And usually Zey’s talking did not bother her.

But tonight, the woman seemed nearly lucid.

“I want some more,” she said.  “It tastes so good . . . mmmm . . .”

Apollonia made a face in the night.  Zey was enjoying some tasty snack, but now she was actually making a munching noise that was strangely disturbing.

She got up and dressed, stepping out into the night.

The wind was as bad as ever, but not the worst it had ever been.  She went to her favorite spot at a railing, peering down, and feeling glad again for the fencing that made falling off an impossibility.

The water below was terrifying.

The waves were so dark as to be nearly invisible, only the white caps could be seen.

There were no porpishes playing down below, but they were about; she could hear them breaching and making an oddly mournful call.

Strange creatures lit up in the water, showing bizarre shapes that seemed truly alien.  Sometimes she thought they were squid-like, but the next moment they were an entirely new shape.  They seemed drawn to the pylons that held up Outpost Alexa.

The porpishes were hunting them.  She could tell when one was caught, because the glow would suddenly turn into a huge cloud that took time to dissipate.

She heard footsteps approaching, just barely, over the wind.

Turning, she saw it was Alisher.  He looked tired, but smiled pleasantly.

“I was going to wake up Nurse Boziak,” he yelled.  “But since you’re already awake, want to go inland?”

Apollonia only caught about half of what he said, but it was the right half.  “Sure!” she called back.

Ten minutes later, they were in the undersea crawler, preparing to head ashore.  It was just her, Alisher, and Hawa, and the lieutenant quickly explained the situation.

“We’ve got a vital node that’s gone out,” he explained.  “Something big bumped it, we think.”

Apollonia’s heart beat faster.  “Is this something big still around?”

“Maybe.  We’ve got defensive drones around the area, so it’s nothing to worry about.  Protocol says we have to bring a medical tech with us on a night mission, since there’s more hazard of injuries like falls.  But don’t worry, we’re going to be in a well-lit area, so you probably won’t have to do anything.”

“I’m not stepping one foot out of the defense ring,” Hawa promised.  “It’s well-lit and safe.”

“So what do I do?” Apollonia asked.

“Just stand there and look cool,” Alisher replied.

The crawler came ashore and they transferred to the hovercraft.

It was the pre-dawn time, she saw as they lifted, with the edge of the sky just turning a lighter blue.

“How far are we going?” she asked.

Hawa glanced at her.  “I forget you don’t have a HUD sometimes,” she said.

In her still-sleepy state, Apollonia found herself annoyed.  “I make do.  I just pester people,” she said.

“About a hundred and fifty klicks.  We might be there for a few hours, though.  Don’t worry, I brought snacks.”

He actually had; the chips tasted funny to her, and when she looked at the package she saw they were green tea and onion flavor.

Who the hell ate those?  She’d never even seen them for sale in the fancy marts on Hell Rock.

Nevertheless, they were chips, so there was only so bad they could be, and she ate up her bag.

The trip felt longer than before, perhaps just because she was tired.  She was starting to doze off by the time they arrived.

“Apple, you can stay in the car if you want,” Alisher told her.

Fat chance of that, she thought.

But she fell asleep almost immediately after they landed.

She awoke with a start.  Sunlight was beaming into her face, and as she remembered where she was, she felt terror at the idea that she might miss a chance to see a dinosaur . . . -ish thing.

It might even be her last chance, she thought, heart pounding.  She clambered awkwardly out of the vehicle.

She didn’t see Alisher or Hawa, but her tablet told her they were on the other side of . . .

Her eyes were drawn to the massive carcass.  In life, it had been a super-giant, one of the six-legged, huge herbivores that wandered these jungles.  Now, bones jutted out of ripped flesh, and half of its side had been torn out.  The entrails would be on the other side from her, but she could smell their stench already.  It was so much worse than she had expected, and the flies!

There were carrion creatures all over it.  Nothing larger than her hand, and she wondered where the bigger ones might be, but then remembered the security drones.  They must be driving off a lot of things.

Checking her system, she saw that they were indeed working overtime.  In six spots, animals from about the size of a cat to bigger than a human were being kept back.

Looking around, she saw no such creatures.  But the cause of the damage to this station was apparent.

The ground had been churned up, turned to mud.  There were footprints all over.

Some were the big, strange prints of this thing.  It must be of the same species as the one she had caught a glimpse of on her first trip out.

Others were from something with equally-huge, splay-toed feet.  Like a dinosaur, one of the big predatory ones.

This thing had been hunted, had been killed, and then the killer had eaten its fill.  In the struggle, their tiny little station of equipment had been damaged.

She walked around the carcass, waving away flies as big as her finger, and tried to find its head.

It had a long neck, like a sauropod, but the head was different – like a star-nosed mole, with scads of tentacles that were already swelling under the hot sun.

Its mouth was open, and the stench coming out of it was even more rancid than she could have imagined.  One of its eyes had popped, the other a gross milky-white, and she quickly walked away.

As she rounded the head, she saw piles of horribly yellow entrails spilling out far beyond.  They looked like any earth animal’s, at first glance, except for the fact that they were yellow – and so was all the blood.  In many spots it had dried to a sickly brown color, almost green.

The stench again prompted her back.  But why was she trying to get past it, anyway?  Alisher hadn’t called her.

She was free to do as she liked.

She looked out.  There was one direction the scavengers weren’t coming from.  She could go to the edge of the security zone and peer out.  Maybe she’d see something.

The jungle edge was clear, the plants straining to grow past the cuts into the empty terrain, but held back by regular sweeps of drones.

Stopping at the edge of the cut zone, she picked a path and went through.

The jungle was immediately dense, the humidity raised significantly, and she felt mushroomy bits and leaves rub against her clothes as she pressed forward.

Wow, this was a dumb idea, she thought.  But she kept going.

The ground seemed to be sloping down, and when she looked back, it seemed that her entrance had been much higher up than she expected.

She’d just go a little deeper, she thought, though a sliver of fear was starting to creep into her stomach.

She took another step – and found no ground.

Letting out a yelp, she fell, tumbling awkwardly, just avoiding landing on her head, hitting her shoulder instead.

Tumbling, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle as she tried to catch herself.  She kept falling, her leg hitting repeatedly, the pain spiking to blinding levels every time her foot hit.  Thorns ripped at her, catching on but not tearing her uniform.

Then she came to a stop.  The ground was flat, mushy even.  When she put a hand into it to push herself up, it sunk in.

Please be mud, she thought.

Something was on her face, and she reached up despite the awkward angle and grabbed at it.  It felt insubstantial, strand-like, and a handful of it felt like holding a marshmallow, but with something hard inside.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that it was webbing, and that she was holding some kind of creature.

It snapped sharp jaws and thrashed in her grip.

She flung her hand out, trying to get rid of it, but the sticky strands of silk stuck it to her hand.

It was going to get those fangs into her!  She thrashed her arm, until finally the thing flew off with a thunk onto the muddy ground.

It scrambled away noisily, and she sat a moment, panting.

Where the hell was she?

She was in a dip, a meter or so below the level of the rest of the jungle.  A dense copse of trees stood off alone, slightly ahead of her, while the opened area extended a few meters to her right, collapsed in, then spread out again, out of sight behind the copse.  Off directly to her left was a swampy area, part of what she was in.

Pulling her hand out of the muck, she saw that there were little creatures writhing in the mud that was stuck to her.  She shook her hand to get them off.

She must be in that mud.  Standing up, she stumbled out of it, towards a drier patch.  Light from above filtered through, leaving a strangely bare spot of yellowish soil.  She moved towards that, each step sending sharp pains through her ankle.  She thought she felt something hot running down her skin, but her suit and ankle seal at the top of her boot was still intact.  Without breaking it, exposing her skin to the many creatures and germs out here, she couldn’t check it.

Fumbling on her belt, she found her tablet, still there.  She’d felt herself land on it several times as she fell, and she feared to see how much she’d busted it up.

The screen had to be cracked at least, and she’d be lucky if it worked at all.

Wiping mud off the screen, it lit up, and turned to her normal desktop view.  It was working!

There was a red alert on the screen, telling her that she’d passed the security perimeter, and to stay still, waiting for help.

“Apollonia?” she heard in her ear, Alisher’s voice.

“Yeah, I’m here,” she said.

“Apollonia, are you there?” the call came again.

“Yeah, I’m here!” she called louder.

Part of her sensed the movement off to her left, but she didn’t register it consciously.

“Apollonia, if you can hear me, stay where you are, we’re coming,” Alisher said.

“I said I can hear you!” she yelled.  Then she saw that there was mud over the mic on her tablet.

She started to wipe it, but then movement caught her attention.  It was still not conscious, but she turned to look, the scale of movement triggering something in her.  It was big, far too big.

Huge.

The creature was huge.

As it raised its head, it towered twice her height.  And its body was still laying on the ground.

It had a long muzzle, and through lipless jaws she saw the teeth, as long as her hand, protruding.

Two eyes, focused straight forward, were fixed upon her, watched with a cold curiosity.

It was not a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  But it looked enough like one.

It considered her, a mere three meters away.

This had killed the creature above, she thought.  Then it had come down here to rest.  She had awoken it, stumbling through the jungle like a buffoon, yelling while right next to it.

“Help,” she said, her voice barely audible.

Its jaws were longer than her whole body, she realized.  The skin on them was mottled, a disgusting yellow, and she realized it was dried blood.

It started to rise.  She stumbled back, and its interest visibly increased.  When it was on its feet, it took a step forward, into the light.

The stench came with it.  It was so powerful it made her gag.  Hordes of flies, disturbed by the movement, took off from it.  In the light, she could see how disgusting it was; vermin crawled across its skin, burrowing into dirty crevices.  Snot ran from its nostrils, and large flaps of skin dangled from its throat.

It was wrinkly, she thought.  Thick folds of extra skin around its neck reminded her of a turkey, but any amusement at that thought could not last, in the face of it taking another step forward.

She felt the ground rumble.  It was not from its step; that had been shockingly almost silent.  It was making a sound, but so deep that she could not hear it.  She could only feel it in the ground itself.

She was about to die, she realized, her legs turning to jelly.  Primal fear of the predator, developed across the endless span of evolution, was thrown to a level she could not imagine at the sight of something so much larger than any predator humanity had ever encountered.  She felt she had no control of herself, and time moved in simple flashes, without thought.

The creature’s head snapped up, as a group of things flew in.  They were small specks the size of her hand, but they circled the beast’s head.  It snapped at one, the movement impossibly fast – but the flying thing avoided it easily.

They were drones, she realized.

The beast took a step back, and one of the drones crackled, a bright light jumping from it to the animal.  It let out a sharp sound and backed up more.

“Apollonia,” a new voice said.  It was Cenz.  “Do not worry, I am here.  Try not to move, movement will only draw its attention away from the drones.”

The massive thing she could only think of as a dinosaur backed up more, into the jungle.

“It is retreating,” she heard Cenz say.  “Apollonia has only a minor injury to her ankle.  However, her audio pick-ups are not working.”

“Oh thank you, Commander!” Alisher said.

Apollonia automatically tried to say again that she was okay, but even if her recorder had been working, she could not make herself make a sound.

She was on the ground again, she realized.  She did not remember falling, but she had.

And she’d peed her suit.

The suit had cleaned it up, but she knew she had done it all the same.

The line clicked as something changed.

“Apollonia,” Cenz now said.  The channel had switched to private.  “I do not know what you were thinking, walking into the jungle on your own like this, but it was an extremely foolish move.  This large predator could have killed you, very easily.  It is a wild animal, and I suspect the only reason it did not kill you is that it recently ate.  It was too tired to even play with you – which I assure you would have been just as lethal as if it had wanted to eat you.”

He paused.  “I know that you are young, and that you have had a difficult childhood, Apollonia.  But this was beyond irresponsible.  There are consequences to actions, and regardless of how great our technology is, it does not mean that we are immune from harm – or nature.”

Apollonia tried to reply, to say that she understood.  But she still could not talk.

A sound from above came as the hovercraft approached.  It lowered quickly down through the tree line, and when it landed, Alisher came out.

“Apple!  Are you all right?” he asked.

She still could not talk.  She only nodded.

---

< Ep 12 part 34 | Ep 12 part 36 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Jaya had often thought about how she would run her own ship as Captain.

The only real issue she had found, now being the acting Captain of the Craton, was that Ian Brooks had already run a good ship.

There were few changes she could make.  She did implement a few alterations to schedules and operations, making a mark so to speak.  They were not huge, and despite some initial discomfort from a handful of officers, it had gone smoothly.

Their discomfort had been good, in a way.  The hard work was being done on the surface, and it would be weeks more yet before the Craton was actively called upon to be taking in teams and groups of !Xomyi refugees.  The ship was acting only in a support role, and that could breed complacency.

Shaking things up had been a way to keep everyone alert and active.

Drills were another, and right now she watched in interest – and no small enjoyment – as the bridge crew ran through one.

In this scenario, she was out of action.  How didn’t matter, nor did it matter if she was dead or alive; all that mattered was that junior officers were in control of the ship.

The idea was that the moon had begun breaking up sooner than expected, and the crew were scrambling to keep the ship both safe and to evacuate as many teams from the surface as possible.

“We need to move the ship closer so we can pick up those shuttles that have breached atmo,” Navigation called.

“No,” Operations disagreed.  “We’re already too close to significant chunks of the moon that threaten the ship – we don’t have the ability to deflect objects that size.”

Comms chimed in.  “We have two more teams launching from the surface, but they’re experiencing heavy bombardment of small debris, I don’t think-” he suddenly went silent.

“We lost them,” he said, his voice heavy.

Response stepped up.  Its commander was, in this scenario, Lt. Commander Pirra.  “Our duty is to our mission.  Navigation, have you plotted us the safest path you can?”

“Aye!”

“Then take us down.  Ops, get the weapons going, try to give at least a missile bump to anything big that threatens us, and use the point-defense guns for smaller objects.  Orient the frontal cone to catch anything they miss.  Tell all the shuttles our path and get them to move to meet us.”

“But the pieces we can’t deflect-” Ops began.

“Are we going to be hit by them, Nav?” Pirra asked.

“I don’t think so.  The odds are small – this is our best shot.”

“Get us moving.  Ops, get to your task.”

The Operations officer looked to Jaya, mouth agape.

“Don’t look to me,” Jaya said.  “I am dead.”

Pirra was not a bridge officer, but in this scenario, there was little for Response Team One to do except be on the ship.  Though they should have been down running their own companion scenario about fighting fires on the ship, Pirra had delegated that role.

“The bridge needs a Response officer,” she had said when she had arrived.

Jaya had found herself quite amused by this call.

“I’ll allow it,” she had said.

“We’re moving in,” Navigation now called.  “We’ve got large pieces of the moon – Dark, they’re bigger than us – just forty clicks at heading . . .”  She read off the numbers.

“That is too close,” Ops said.  “We can’t even hope to budge a piece that big. If it breaks up further-“

“If,” Pirra said.  “Keep our heading, monitor the piece.  Warm up the zerodrives – if need be maybe we can nudge any pieces with a partial field.”

Nav nodded nervously.

It was, Jaya thought, the kind of crazy thing Brooks would try.  Zerodrives were not toys, and using them in the way he often did was widely considered foolhardy.

“We have shuttles approaching,” Flight called.  “Their path is rocky, though.”

“Get what point-defense guns we can on it,” Pirra called to Ops.

“The moon piece is starting to break up!” Navigation called.  “It’s calving – a piece is on a course that will hit us in thirty seconds!”

“Get that drive going, alter its trajectory!” Pirra called.

“It’s too big!”

“Nudge it, buy us a few more seconds.  Get us a course that will avoid it if you can.”

“There’s no safe path we can register-“

“Dive into the planetary well,” Pirra ordered, looking at the charts, herself.

“We can’t escape a planetary gravity well like that easily-“

“We’ll make a jump at the last minute – we’ve got the drive up, yes?”

Science called out.  “We cannot make a jump in a planetary atmosphere, the repercussions-“

“Will not be worse than what’s already happening,” Pirra replied.

“We’ve got three shuttles docked,” Flight called.  “Those are the only ones in range . . .”

“Give them our best calculations for a safe path out, tell them to burn until they’re clear and we’ll get them as soon as we can,” Pirra called.  “Prepare for zerojump in-“

The emergency lights on the bridge suddenly went back to normal.

Everyone froze in surprise, as the emergency suddenly became the normal.

“Very good work,” Jaya said.  “Lt. Commander Pirra, your bravery in action would have netted you a medal, or perhaps killed everyone.”

Pirra looked suddenly somewhat chagrined.  “I stand by my actions, Captain.”

Jaya nodded sharply.  “Good, I am glad you are not second-guessing yourself.”

“May I ask, Captain – why did you stop the scenario before we finished?”

“We have a signal coming in, Captain,” the comms officer suddenly called.  “It’s Research-Major Nkosi.”

“That is why,” Jaya said.  “Bring the call through.”

Nkosi appeared.

“Hello, Captain, I am sorry if I am interrupting your war game.”

“It is only a practice for a rescue operation,” she said, feeling for a moment like he’d been making some kind of soft rebuke.

“My mistake,” he replied, and she genuinely could not tell if there was more to it.  “I wanted to speak to you about your latest scans you sent over.”

Jaya checked the logs; they had been sent over just ten minutes ago.  “Is there some problem with our work, Research-Major?”

“No, not at all.  But there was something unexpected.  In this location . . .”  A map appeared, highlighting a part in the middle of the main continent.  “Your scans observed the remains of a camp.”  His face went troubled.  “I can tell you with certainty, Captain, that it is not one of ours.  We have never had people within a hundred kilometers of this area, let alone a field camp.”

Jaya took a moment to process that.  Bringing up their detailed images, she could make out the camp.  All that could be seen were the tops of tents, some of them quite large.

They did not match any Union-issued tents, however.  They were not just camouflaged visually, but contained electronic baffles that made them hard to pick up.  The Craton‘s powerful scanners had seen through that, but . . .  even if Nkosi was mistaken, his people wouldn’t have had any reason to use such things.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she told him.

“I find it troubling, Captain,” Nkosi said.  “My guess is that it has been occupied for some time, longer than we have even been here.  Who else has come to this world, and why?  Why are they hiding?”

“There is only one way we will find out,” Jaya said, looking to Pirra.

The Lt. Commander saluted her.  “I will prepare Response Team One for orbital insertion.”

---

< Ep 12 part 33 | Ep 12 part 35 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Hard Biter had been gone days now, and life for the !A!amo carried on.

Brooks found himself impressed by the ways that these people accepted death in their midst.  They mourned, and then they continued.

He saw in their psyche no sign of the stress this life must bring to them; their bodies bore the scars, the aging from endless struggle and toil.  But they remained themselves in mind, without blemish.

Post-traumatic stress was likely too strong a negative to exist in a people who lived day-to-day, he thought.  It made him wonder what illnesses civilization had created, even as it had cured the more obvious ones caused from without.

Without technology, sickness for the !A!amo was a constant threat.  They understood cleanliness to an extent, cleaning themselves and their children regularly.

But the deeper causes were both unknown to them and they were nearly helpless once a sickness took hold.

A week after the funeral, two of the children suffered from fevers that they could not cure.

Cool River collected herbs, making a paste which she spread on their heads and wings.

“It will draw out the fire,” she explained.  “But whether they live or die is up to the spirits.”

She refused to look at Brooks as she said it, but he did wonder if it was a request.  So far, despite the gift of his scanner that he frequently saw them using to search for tubers – and they had figured out how to tell it to search for other edibles – they had asked for nothing from him.

“These fires of the mind are common this time of season,” Knows the World told him.  “It claims our youngest often.  This year, we are lucky it is only two.”

Brooks called upon Y to intervene.

“Of course, Captain,” Y told him.  “If you wish, I can summon a team to come and give the !A!amo full physicals as well.”

“I don’t think so,” Brooks told him.  “I want you to visit the children when no one else is around.  Give them what they need, and they will simply believe it is good fortune.”

Y hesitated.  “Captain, this is an opportunity to show to the !A!amo that with our medicine we can-“

“I understand what it is,” Brooks said.  “Do it as I instructed.”

Y complied.  The sickened children, Causes Trouble and Sweet Child, recovered.

Thanks was given to the spirits, and to the strength of the children themselves.  Their parents doted upon them as they recovered.

But he had a feeling they attributed it to him.

The mystique was a powerful thing, he noticed.  He seemed to be avoided for some days after.  Sometimes, small groups of the !A!amo would be talking to each other in hushed voices, and grow quiet when he was close.

Their ears were sensitive, and even his equipment could not pick up these conversations.

They did not seem to fear him, or to be angry, but the lack of communication made it difficult to progress his trust with them.

There was nothing to do but wait.

---

< Ep 12 part 32 | Ep 12 part 34 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The waves were high today, Apollonia thought, watching them beat against the pilings that made up the base of the Outpost Alexa.

The waves were high every day, she reminded herself ruefully.  Every single day on this planet looked like footage from some monstrous storm on Earth.

When it got really bad, when the winds racing a hundred or more knots came in, the waves towered like tsunamis.  Never quite reaching the outpost, but sometimes there was a warning to use only indoor corridors.

She imagined the outpost swayed at times, under those winds and waves, but Cenz himself had assured her;

“This rig and its pylons are constructed from some of the strongest carbon materials.  They can be used to make space elevators or towers that breach the atmosphere.  This rig will be the last thing to fall on this world, even after the mountains have crumbled.”

Among the pylons below, the porpishes were playing, jumping from one wave to another.  Sometimes they even looked up at her, seeming to beg for attention.

“Eh, I got Everett down to sleep,” Zey said, coming up next to her.  “What’re you looking at?  Oh, those things.  They’re creepy as hell, if you ask me.”

“The porpishes?”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“It’s what I call them,” Apollonia replied with a smile.

“Yeah, well, they need to mind their own business,” Zey said, glancing down at them critically.  They seemed even more excited now that two humans were looking down on them.

“They just want to play,” Apollonia said.  “I think we’re still new and neat to them.”

“Yeah, play with our dead bodies,” Zey replied.  “One researcher tried swimming with them early on, I heard.  They dragged him down and when they figured out he was using a rebreather they pulled it off him and he drowned.  Then they kept playing with the corpse.”

“That’s just a rumor,” Apollonia said.  Though, it was probably true.  “You said you got Everett to calm down?”

“Yeah.  Whatever that drug those !Xomyi gave him, it finally seems to be wearing off.  Man thought he was Tarzan.”

Apollonia laughed even though it wasn’t funny.  The young diplomat had been invited by the !Xomyi he’d been with to try some mystic drug in a ceremony.  It apparently hit humans far harder than !Xomyi.  After he’d taken it, he’d acted a complete fool, even eating a huge amount of their food.

It had overwhelmed the processor in his stomach, and since they’d brought him in he’d been vomiting and pooping almost constantly.  All the while, though, he was still trying to climb the walls.

It wasn’t the first time they’d seen it.  An advisory bulletin had been sent out, but there was a lot of difficulty; rejecting some sacred rite you were asked to partake in could ruin the trust that had been built.

Well, at least it had given her experience, Apollonia thought.  She’d never thought she’d have to clean a grown person’s butt, but now she felt like an old hand at it.

The first time had been the worst.  She’d only had to watch as Zey had worked.

“Don’t we have a drone that can do this?” she’d muttered.

“On the ship we have plenty.  But down here, we only have one soft arm.”

“Soft arm?”

Later, Zey had shown her the robot arm made of a soft, warm polymer that felt like human flesh.  “You don’t want something hard-edged going in sensitive places,” the nurse had told her.

Which made sense.  It made less sense not to be using it.

“You still need to learn,” Zey had said with a shrug.

“Sure, but then we can use the gummy arm, right?”

“You know what the gummy arm can’t do?” Zey asked.  “It can’t be a person.  Replacing the human element of health care – of most fields – is just something we don’t do.”

“Surely we could make robots that look and sound like us, though,” Apollonia had pointed out.

“Don’t get me started on that can of worms,” Zey had said.  “Now show me what you’ve learned.”

And so Apollonia had cleaned butts.

Now she was well experienced at it, and it hardly even seemed a big deal.

A long way to come, she thought.

“He’s probably going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow,” she said out loud.

“Tomorrow he’s gonna wish he wasn’t alive,” Zey replied, sighing.  “Short of scrubbing all his blood and organs, we’ve done all we can for him.”

“Wow, we can do that?”

“Yeah.  Not assistant-grade stuff, but yeah,” Zey said.  “We have a portable internal scrubber here, but it’s only for serious cases.”

“Who would have thought that the !Xomyi have such primo shit?” Apollonia thought aloud.

“Pfft,” Zey replied, waving the idea away.

Apollonia let her gaze go to the mainland.

Zey was quiet, messing with her system, but after a while she leaned up next to Apple.

“You look like a love-sick puppy, looking out there,” she said.  “Is it Alisher?”

“Huh?” Apollonia asked, caught off-guard.  “Oh, no.  He’s great and all, I’m just . . . thinking about the mainland.  All those dinosaurs.”

“The not-dinosaurs that want to rip your face off and eat it,” Zey said.  “Not the handsome, dashing officer who clearly really likes you?”

“That’s right,” Apollonia replied, almost defensively.  Sure, Alisher was great, but dinosaurs . . . well, these ones were going to be gone soon!

“You two still having dinner on the regular?”

“Yeah,” Apollonia said.  “Last night.  I had some noodles . . .”

“Dark, you’re dating him and you’re thinking about the noodles?”

Apollonia watched Zey for a moment, feeling a gulf between them.  Food still rated as just one of the most important things to her mind.

Alisher was great, she thought.  So great that she kept telling herself he was great.

And he truly was.  He was kind, respectful, talented, funny . . .

Her thoughts drifted elsewhere.

“So imagine,” she said suddenly, forcing the topic to a subject she actually wanted.  “If I was out there.”

“Okay,” Zey replied warily.

“And I found a little adorable dinosaur.  Maybe it’s a baby.  Like, not a baby of something that’ll get huge.  And not like helpless.  But, you know, adorable.”

Zey narrowed her eyes.

“And it sees me, and it’s like ‘you’re my new mom’.  I’d have no choice but to take it in!  I mean, the whole world is doomed anyway, so what does it matter?  It’d be an act of mercy.”

Zey crossed her arms, one eyebrow going up.

“I’d name him Little Zey,” Apollonia said on a whim, loving Zey’s look of disbelief.  “And he’d be much smarter than we expected.  Like, nearly as smart as a person.  And my little buddy.”

Zey clicked her tongue, let out a long-suffering sigh, and turned away.  “This is what happens when I leave you alone.”

“He’d be a great sidekick!” Apollonia added.

A ding came on both of their systems.  It was an automated alert, telling them that Everett was up again.  And stuff was coming out of him.

“It’s my turn,” Apollonia said with a sigh, pushing off the railing.  “I’ll take care of it.”

---

< Ep 12 part 31 | Ep 12 part 33 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The !Xomyi were letting out long, lamenting cries.  Two of them had fallen to their knees, beating the Earth in some form of ritualized anger.

But the others were holding back another.

“I will save him!” Fast of Wing was screaming.  “I will save him!”

“He is gone!” Old Hunter told him.  “The keko!un wants you to follow so that it may take you as well.”

“I will kill it!” Fast of Wing shrieked.  “I will kill the beast that took my father!”

“There is nothing to be done,” Old Hunter said with finality.  “If you wish your line to die – then go.  Your father is with the Sky Child.  He will not thank you when you go to him too soon.”

Fast of Wing let out a sound of anger and turned away.

“That was a keko!un?” Brooks asked.

Diver turned to him, but then looked back warily.  “It was.  It has taken one of the best among us.  It wounds us deeply.”

Tracker did not take his eyes away from the jungle.  “It is not alone,” he declared.  “There are others.  They wait.  For us to make a mistake, to take our eyes away.  We cannot stay.”

Brooks looked out.  He saw nothing, and his drones saw nothing.  But that animal was small enough to get close to them before being detected.  If he pushed out their radius, they might slip through entirely unseen.

He didn’t think he had enough with him.

Looking down at his hand, he still held the pistol, though it shook in his grip.  Slowly, he put it away.

“Y,” he said.  “I need you.”

The drone appeared.  “Yes, Captain?  I can assist you.”

“A predator just took one of my group,” he said.  “Can you recover the body?”

Y must have assimilated all the drone data, as he immediately replied; “The body is severely damaged, and was already being consumed before the animal left sensor range.  Are you certain you wish to do this?  I do not believe the !Xomyi will thank you – they will be disturbed by the damage to the body.”

Brooks wanted to yell yes, of course Y should recover it.  But he had a point.  A mauled corpse would be a horror for his son to see, and if they took it with them, it would give the keko!un a reason to follow them back to their camp.

“We must go,” Old Hunter declared.  “The he!ak’s meat is tainted.”  He turned, walking back towards the base of the hill where Brooks had been left waiting before the hunt.

Brooks understood.  It was not that the meat was truly tainted, but to save their own lives they would have to leave it to the keko!un now.  If they stayed, they risked more members being picked off.  If they left it . . . the keko!un would not follow, as it would have the kill to itself.

“This is an ill-omened day,” Old Hunter added.

Brooks was startled by that, and his eyes went to the moon, which his people had dubbed Omen.

It was still there, as it always was.  The glow around it was ominous.

How soon, he wondered.  How soon until it comes down and kills he!ak, keko!un, and !Xomyi all?

As Old Hunter left, the others slowly moved to follow.  Tracker stayed.  “I will watch,” he said.

When he noticed that Brooks was tarrying, he waved.  “I will be safe.  Go with the others.  Stay close, my friend.”

Brooks nodded, fingering the grip on his pistol.  The whole attack had been so fast that he couldn’t get there soon enough to help.  If it had come for him, he wasn’t sure if he could have even gotten his weapon out in time.  Not without drone warning to be ready.

“Kai,” he messaged.  “Where are you?”

“A few hundred meters out, still.  You all right?”

“Yes,” he told her, his voice grim.  “I want you to head back – and be alert.  There are large predators about.  I don’t want to lose anyone else today.”

---

The keko!un did not follow them on their return.

“They will come eventually,” Old Hunter told him.

That was the extent of conversation on the trip back.  The group was grim, even Tracker did not make jokes or laugh.  Brooks saw little of him, nor Fast of Wing, who he suspected Tracker was keeping an eye on.

By dawn they had arrived back at camp.  Already, the women of the camp knew; Brooks was surprised until he saw that Fast of Wing and Tracker had preceded the main group.

The group of men entered the village in a solemn, formalized way.  Standing apart from the group was Knows the World, who had his head bent, folded under his wings.

Brooks felt he was supposed to be a part of this, he wanted to be.  But he was not sure what role to take.  He simply moved with the men, staying just behind them, and tilting his head down.

The women were letting out a high wailing, throwing handfuls of dirt into the air.  The men moved among them, and Brooks could not tell if this was ritual or simply them wanting to be with their dear ones.

Fast of Wing and Tracker went to Knows the World and formed a circle with him, all of their heads down.

Old Hunter eyed Brooks.  He, too, was standing apart.

“They mourn as family,” he said.

“They were related?” Brooks asked.

“Knows the World was the father to Hard Biter.  Tracker was his younger sibling.  And you know that Fast of Wing was his son.”

Off to the side, three of the women had formed a similar group, keening together.  Old Mother was one of the group, along with Young Mother, wife of Tracker.  The third he only knew from his system identifying her, as High Spirit.

A child joined them, who his system told him was Causes Trouble.  The girl seemed to be in a stunned silence as she held onto Old Mother’s leg.

“There is no body for us to bury,” Old Hunter said.  “I must still make a remembrance of my friend.”  He shook his head.  “It is not right I should admit this to an outsider, No Wings, but I am shamed.”

Brooks found the fact that he confided in him a positive sign, though he hated the situation that had brought it on.  “You have done nothing wrong.”

“I was the eldest on the hunt.  It was my task to protect the others,” Old Hunter said.  “I should have known the keko!un was there.  But I took too much pride in my friend’s prowess.”

“They are clever,” Brooks said.  “And they plan.  You did all you could.  Sometimes you can do everything right and still disaster happens.”

Old Hunter regarded him a moment, then nodded.  He moved away, towards his shelter.

Brooks considered what he should do.  There were many possible ways to honor the dead hunter, a being whose life he had hoped to save.

---

< Ep 12 part 29 | Ep 12 part 31 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Night had fallen.

The hunting party and Brooks were still out; this was unusual, but Diver assured him that in a group they were fine and this was something they did often.

“He!ak are best hunted at night,” he said.  “They are sluggish then.”

Brooks was slightly confused, as he had thought they were hunting hamomo.  But the two names might be cognate; he suspected that they were hamomo in normal speech, but the name he!ak was used when hunting them.  The precise rules, though, were unclear.

There was a troop of creatures on the ridge itself, about thirty of them, which were alert to their presence.  They remained silent but watched the !A!amo carefully.  They looked similar to the !Xomyi in some ways, smaller in size, about as large as a mid-size Earth monkey.  Their heads were smaller, but their snouts longer.

Distant relatives, maybe, Brooks thought.  Like baboons were to humans.

“!Kos will be quiet,” Diver said.  “Unless we threaten them.”

“We will kill them if they interfere with our hunt of the he!ak,” Hard Biter promised.  Brooks could believe that he would, too.

They crept to a lower edge of the ridge to look down on the he!ak.

The creatures were larger than Brooks expected.  There were ten to fifteen of them, large animals that had short trunk-like snouts and bulbous bodies.

The largest probably weighed several tons.  They would provide a huge amount of meat for the clan.

They’ll eat like kings if they can pull this off, Brooks thought.

But looking at the !A!amo, he wasn’t sure how they could realistically do it.  Yes, humans had hunted mammoths in ancient times, but the !Xomyi were far smaller than a human.  They had only spears and blowguns.  Unless the poisons in those darts was spectacularly powerful, he wasn’t sure if they could fatally injure a creature this big.

The herd was also alert, despite the darkness.  The !A!amo seemed to have no trouble seeing in the dark, reminding him again that they had evolved from nocturnal creatures, slowly moving towards being diurnal.

Their ancestors, living in trees, had gained much safety from foraging at night.  But on the ground, it only increased their vulnerability to larger predators.

Diver turned to him.  “We move now to hunt.  When we kill, we must remain cautious.  Large beasts will come, drawn to the smell of blood.”

Brooks nodded.  “I’ll be ready.”

Amazing, he thought, that they had survived in a world of giants.

On some level, he wasn’t sure that he could.  Would his pistol be enough protection against one of the Tyrannosaur-sized carnivores?  The drones kept them at bay most of the time, but it was likely that the lure of food would be enough to make them power through.

“Kai,” he radioed.  “Are you nearby?”

“I’m trailing back about a kilometer.  Do you need help?”

“Not presently.  But something big might come this way if there’s a kill.  Can you move closer safely?”

“I’ll be there shortly,” she replied.

“But safely?” Brooks asked.

She sighed.  “I’m monitoring the drones.  I’ll be safe.”

“Don’t hurry.  Your priority is to keep yourself alive.”

“My priority is to keep you alive, sir.”

“We differ in that.  But I outrank you, and your life comes first.  Things haven’t started yet, so there’s still time, I think.”

“Copy,” Kai replied.  She was not happy.

The !A!amo began down the hill, towards the herd.  Diver stayed with Brooks, taking more care now to help show him the best way to move without making too much sound.

“Your feet are big and clumpy,” Diver said, making clump, clump sounds with motions of plodding.  “You must walk with more softness.”

Brooks considered, then took off his space boots.  He’d worn the boots for the long-distance travel, but now he needed stealth.

He was still louder than Diver, but the soft leather moccasins helped a lot.

“Do they need you?” he asked Diver.

“Yes.  You remain here.”  Diver disappeared in an instant, with very little sound.  Brooks felt humbled by just how much he’d been holding the !Xomyi back.

The position he’d been left in, still partially on the slope down to the lower area where the herd was resting, gave him a nice view of the clearing.  But the !A!amo were impossible to see.  Shifting his vision through different modes, even in infrared he could see only small spots that might have been the hunters, though there were so many from small life forms that it was hard to be sure.

His spy drones were the only way he could keep tabs on them.  The !A!amo were incredibly stealthy; their lives depended on this, after all.

His system created a filter, seeking signals that only matched the size of each member of the !A!amo party, and in a second he had their exact positions.

A part of him felt a strange guilt, using such high technology to spy on them when they went through all this effort.  His technology rendered their skill meaningless, and the gulf between their people and his had never felt wider.

The !A!amo spread out in the jungle, forming a crescent shape.  Diver was separate from the others.

Brooks kept the top-down view from the drones and added the data to his visual system, highlighting the position of the hunters in the real world.

They were inching closer, communicating with a bird whistle that did not seem to be noticed by the he!ak.

But then something spooked them.  One member of the herd let out a loud snorting cry, and the wake ones all turned, crying as well.  The sleeping members all started to rouse.

A light came from the forest, and Good Hunter emerged, carrying in each hand a torch.  Brooks wondered for a moment how he’d made it so quickly, then remembered that the higher oxygen content of Ko’s atmosphere made it far easier to start a fire.

Good Hunter was yelling, twirling as if in a trance, swinging the torches in a way that seemed wild yet must have been very controlled.

The he!ak began to make a deep, gurgling cry, some moving towards Good Hunter, others moving away.

The !Xomyi was in a dangerous position, drawing their attention, the he!ak could charge him and run him down without much chance to survive.  But they seemed to fear the torches, and even the largest of them were starting to move away.  Yet at the same time, they seem entranced in a way that was more than watching a predator.  Perhaps this was exploiting some aspect of their behavior or mind?  Thousands of years of living alongside the he!ak had surely taught the !A!amo secrets of the creatures.

Then, from the forest, the hunters emerged.  A dart came in, making a horrible howling as it flew.  Unlike most of the spears Brooks had seen, this one had some objects attached to it, hanging by leather thongs.  They must have been pierced in a way that the air rushing through them as they flew caused the sound.

Panic gripped the he!ak, and some began to run into the jungle.  More darts flew in among them, not seeming to be aimed to wound, but to frighten and break up the group.

As most of the he!ak made their escape, a smaller one was cut from the herd.  It was still probably a ton in weight, but it was slower than the others, one leg perhaps lame.

More screaming darts came in, in front of the lame he!ak.  It came to a halt, changing its direction – and leaving its flank open.

More darts flashed out of the jungle, this time true hunting darts.  Three hit the he!ak, one skidding off its top flank, two hitting in the body.  One fell out, leaving a wound that gushed a light-colored blood.  The other struck just below where Brooks thought the shoulder girdle would be.  It went deep, the shaft falling out while leaving the head in.

The he!ak let out a wounded cry, and the herd ahead started to turn, but more screaming darts sent their way kept them running.  They stampeded into the jungle, the volume of their flight seeming all the worse for it being night.

The wounded animal was limping along, but a huge stream of pale blood was coming from its flank.

It had been speared through the heart, Brooks realized.  Or whatever its alien equivalent was.

The other darts had done only a little damage.  But this one, precisely placed, would bring down a creature that weighed dozens of times as much as the one who cast it.

For a time it continued to try and flee, making its way towards the jungle, in the path carved by its kin.  Much had been trampled, leaving the area almost barren.  It stopped to regain its strength, its sides heaving with breath.

One !Xomyi emerged from the jungle, approaching the wounded beast.  From this distance, it was hard to tell who, but Brooks thought it was Hard Biter.

He held a heavy spear, and he came close to the he!ak.  It saw him and tried to move, but sank down onto its belly.

Hard Biter thrust the spear into its neck, just at the base of the skull.  The he!ak let out one last cry, and rolled over onto its side, its legs finally going still.

The hunters came out.  Hard Biter climbed the he!ak, pulling his spear from its head and hefting it up.  The power of the moment still burned in him.

The others raised a clamor, hefting their spears.  Diver came over, his torches burned low, and let out a triumphant cry.

An alert came on his system.  Something big was approaching.

The !Xomyi were outside of his sphere of drones, he realized.  Whatever it was, it was already on them.

“Hey!” he called, raising a hand.  “Something’s coming!”

The !Xomyi heard his call, but did not seem to understand.  They raised their spears to him in victory, happiness on their faces.

It turned to terror as a huge animal came from the forest.

It moved with stunning speed, enough that Brooks barely had time to register it.  It was big – bigger than a human, almost like a bear, but long and lean.  It did not roar or stop to threaten like every predator in every low-budget film.

The !A!amo saw it too late.  Then it was on Hard Biter.

The !Xomyi screamed, a sound of pain and shock.  But the creature’s fangs had already sunk into his head.  Its long, knife-like canines pierced into his skull through his eye sockets.

His spear dropped from his hands and he reached up, clawing at its face, but to no avail.

The other !Xomyi were screaming as well, in shock which quickly turned to rage.  They thrust with their spears, but the attacks were not well-aimed, and they did nothing but glance off the creature’s fur.

It was like a bipedal cat, almost, Brooks thought.  But its face was more reptilian than that; like a dinosaur.  It lacked the features that !Xomyi and humans shared, and the thought came to him unbidden; it had no face, and so did not have a soul.

It backed up but let out a high shriek around its prey.  Hard Biter’s movements had gone more feeble.

Brooks realized that his feet had taken him on a run down there.  He was panting for breath, crashing through the underbrush like a wildman.  He had drawn his sidearm.

He came stumbling out, but the giant animal had pulled Hard Biter back with it, to the edge of the jungle.  It gave a hard shake of its head, and the !Xomyi moved no more.

The others were edging forward, throwing some spears at it, but it waved a paw and knocked them aside.

It saw Brooks approaching, an unknown element, and it made eye contact with him.

There was intelligence in its eyes, he realized.  It was studying him.

It moved back, into the jungle, and was gone.

---

< Ep 12 part 28 | Ep 12 part 30 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The cry of a bird-like creature, a ko!go, came from thirty yards away.

It was not actually the animal making it, though the sound was perfectly identical to his ears.  It was one of the !A!amo hunters.

Then there was a crashing through the undergrowth.  It lasted only a few seconds, and then a triumphant call came.

“We can move up,” Diver told him.

“What was it?” Brooks asked.

“Small prey,” Diver replied.

They came closer, to find the other hunters gathered around a creature only about a meter long.

It looked like a large lizard, with short, bristly feathers down its back.  It was mostly tail, which was very thin.

“Poor kill,” Hard Biter said, sounding annoyed.  “Little meat.  Usually their tails are fat!”

Tracker laughed and acted out a creature grunting in exertion as it dragged a huge tail, making a little snuffling noise with it.

The others laughed, and started butchering the lizard.

Brooks was glad he had asked if he could come on this hunt.  They hadn’t seemed to mind, but Diver had been with him the whole time – as his guide and caretaker, Brooks thought.

He couldn’t really mind.  He was not good at going through the jungle like they were, and unless he used a gun he was not going to be a skilled hunter.

“You don’t even have a spear,” Hard Biter had said as they had started out.

“I don’t need one,” he said.

The thought had occured to him to use a gun and help them hunt.  But he’d decided it was best not to use his sidearm unless he had no other choice.

The !A!amo had yet to be exposed to that.  He did not know how they would react – it was possible the fear it instilled could lead them further into thinking he was something supernatural, or it could drive them away.

The lizard was quickly butchered, split into two loads that Hard Biter and Diver split between them.

They continued on, seeking nothing in particular.  A small bird was caught, as well as another lizard, a different kind.  It bit onto Tracker’s finger and refused to let go, which they all found very amusing.  Even after he cut the head off it kept holding onto his finger.

Brooks’s medical drone hovered up near him.  The !A!amo regarded the drone with some fear and made some distance between themselves and him as it appeared.

“Captain,” it said.  It was Y’s voice.  “It may interest you to know that there is a nest of honey-producing hive animals near your location.”

“How do you know?  Are you monitoring for that?”

“I had some idle time,” Y said.  “And !Xomyi seem to universally value honey.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

The drone zipped away and Diver cautiously came closer.  “What did the spirit say to you?”

“Nothing of importance,” Brooks said, squinting to look in the distance.  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

Diver looked in the direction.  “I see nothing.”

“I saw something moving in that tree,” Brooks said.

Diver looked more carefully, alert.  Then he sucked in a breath.

He went over, calling out to the others, and went up the tree.

When he had confirmed that the honey nest was there, the others lit up.  They worked quickly, starting a fire, creating a small, smoky torch, which they passed up.  Honey Finder went up, taking the lead now.

Smoke to dull the senses of the creatures, Brooks thought.  Just how humans had done it on Earth.

It was the same logic; smoke was toxic and an irritant.  Its byproducts were not useful to life like theirs.  The bee-like creatures would be stunned, allowing the taking of their honey.

At least some of it.  Most likely they’d not pilfer the whole nest, to leave the colony intact so it could be found again later.

The honey came down, chunks of it taken into hands and hence into mouths.

By the time Diver and Honey Finder came down, every other member of the group was feasting.

“Take!” Honey Finder said, offering him a piece.

This time he didn’t feel he could say no.  He took the piece and looked at it.  It looked superficially like an earthly beehive, but larger, and the wax was slightly green.  There were numerous grubs in it, not even many cells filled with honey.

He took a bite.  It tasted bitter to him, with hints of sweetness and that odd mintiness, but he chewed anyway.

Honey Finder and Diver watched him eat, then cheered.

“I told Honey Finder of your sharp eyes,” Diver said.

“Me?  You found the nest,” Brooks said.

Diver considered him.  Brooks could see the intelligence behind his eyes working.

Brooks could have just found it miraculously, as he had with the scanner and tubers.

But he wasn’t here to be a hero.  He was here to win their trust.

“You are humble,” Diver said.  “And a good friend.”

---

< Ep 12 part 27 | Ep 12 part 29 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“You frown too much, No Wings,” Diver prodded Brooks.

Brooks was crouched, looking out through a gap in leaves at some sort of beast that the !A!amo hunters were investigating.

Brooks looked to him.  Basic human expressions seemed to be taken as serious by the !Xomyi, and their smiles were different.  He tried to emulate the expression of happiness they used.

“Better,” Diver told him.

“I am just a serious person,” Brooks replied.  “Usually.”

“Ah, well serious attitudes are no good on a hunt,” Diver replied.  “Joy is better.  Laughter is best.  Just not when you are near your prey!”

“Is that prey?” Brooks asked, gesturing to the creature out beyond.

It had six legs, moving in an undulating motion for a short distance, then stopping.

Terrestrial life on the planet was strange.  On Earth, all macro lifeforms on land descended from a single ancestor, a fish with a backbone and four limbs.  Everything descended from that ancestor shared those same qualities.

But on Ko, there seemed to be several lineages among large terrestrial life.  The !Xomyi came from a group that had four limbs, similar to Earth.  But there were two other lineages, that had six legs each.  Some had convergently evolved in a way much like archosaurs on Earth; crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds.  He’d seen the dinosaur-like creatures, both large and small.  Some had feathers, others leathery skin and scutes.

Then there were the ones like this; they were simpler lifeforms, with soft leathery skin, and little intelligence – and six limbs.

It stood to reason they shared a common ancestor with the more complex reptilian/avian creatures, but they must have split long, long ago, and continued to hold their own in the world.

“This?  Food?”  Diver dismissed the idea.  “Tastes very bad!  Sometimes we eat, when we’re very hungry.  But it is hard to take the bad taste out.  Eat too much, and . . .”  He mimed vomiting, then staggering about, pretending to fall at the last moment in death.

Poisonous!  That was interesting, Brooks thought.  It suddenly made sense; just by being poor eating, they could compete with the far more complex and intelligent life.

“What do you call it?” Brooks asked.

Diver shrugged.  “Go!em,” he said.

Brooks had heard that word before.  It translated in his ear into “bad food”.  “Bad food, that is all you know them as?”

“Big bad food,” Diver said.  He pointed to a slug-like creature on the side of a tree near them.  “Little bad food.  We can’t eat it, so why care?  It doesn’t bother us.  Sometimes we use their blood for poison.  But too much makes food taste bad.”

Brooks looked back out; Hard Biter was approaching the go!em, a handful of darts in his hand.

He came closer to the thing, and his hand shot out, stabbing them into one of the legs of the creature.

Its huge head, a simple thing with just a spherical mouth and tiny eyes, swung around.

Just as quickly, Hard Biter pulled the darts out and ran back into the undergrowth.

The head of the go!em finally had turned enough to see, and its flank shivered.  Not a movement of fear, but contained strength; the creature was at least three meters tall at the hip, and it clearly had an enormous amount of muscle mass in its body.

Seeing nothing, though, it seemed to forget the issue, its head moving back forward.  It took another rippling step forward, and its head began to swing up into the trees, eating fruit that hung from them.

“See?  Not even scary,” Diver said with a shrug.

He began to walk away, and Brooks followed.  “So it is go!em, and so is that tree slug.  Is old food go!em?”

“Yes,” Diver said.  “And you know what else is go!em?”

“Me,” Brooks ventured.

Diver laughed.  “Yes!  You do not smell nice to us.  You are lucky, we are very good hunters!”  The words were playful, and Brooks had the feeling that Diver was doing this to see how he reacted.

“Your names are interesting,” he said.

“Our names tell what is important,” Diver said.

“You are Diver.  Do you dive?”

“Once,” Diver said.  “When I was young I hunted a big slippery fish from the river.  I held my father’s spear like this.”  He pressed it to his chest, pointing straight up.  “And I dove into the water.  I speared the huge fish!  It was bigger than me, but I pulled it from the river and we ate very well.”

“Interesting,” Brooks said.  “What were you called before that?”

“Loves Food!” Diver said quickly, amused.  “It is why I thought to dive in after the fish, it looked tasty.”  He laughed.  “Sometimes I am still called Loves Food Diver!  We do not ever lose our names, they are part of telling our story.  Only when we die do we lose our names and go live in the moon.”

“What’s it like on the moon?” Brooks asked.

The !A!amo look scandalized.  “I do not know, I am Loves Food Diver, I am still alive!”

“I meant no offense,” Brooks said.

Diver waved it away.  “You meant no offense, No Wings.  I do not hold it against you.”

---

< Ep 12 part 26 | Ep 12 part 28 >