Alright, I’m back with more. It took less time than I thought.
Chapter 15, part 2
“Mrrh-wAa, what are you doing?” The new comer sounded desperate, “The Elders told you not to contact the aliens, Supai said it was dangerous!”
“Prrt-hai! Are you following me? They’re from igassss, like Supai. They’re looking for Supai!” Mrrh-wAa hurried their words out, “I told you it would be fine, you fussing will just worry the brood.”
“Yes, yes, the brood worries and the Elders were very specific; you are not to talk to the aliens.”
“But the book works, they understand me!”
Mrrh-wAa waved the book at their sibling. Mrrh-wAa was a linguist and had spent considerable time since the aliens – humans – arrived, observing them and learning their language. When the IGASS team had arrived, Mrrh-wAa had reached out to them, and made contact with their language specialist. Between them, they’d put together the phrase book Mrrh-wAa was using to talk to the giant aliens staring down at them now.
Mrrh-wAa had started a campaign within their brood to meet the human’s Elders, with the assistance of the IGASS team, but the brood’s Elders refused when they saw how humans treated the Puh-tuut (aurox: giant plant-eaters, useful for clearing new brood nest areas – according to the phrase book). After what Supai had told them when they’d found it hiding in the cliff cave, Mrrh-wAa had agreed that they shouldn’t talk to most of the humans, but these two were also IGASS, they were safe to talk to.
“I don’t believe you, humans are just beasts, they can’t speak, they just make noises.”
“Supai said they are sentient, and they respond to the sounds for their word for name.” Mrrh-wAa pointed at the aliens, “That is Sahrai, who is an Elder, I think, and that is Maria, who might be a kit, but I’m not sure.”
Prrt-hai sniffed the two aliens, drawing air over their vomeronasal organ, tasting the air, mouth opening slightly, snout wrinkling in a grimace.“Sahrai doesn’t taste like a human.”
Mrrh-wAa took a sniff and nodded in agreement. There was an overtone of human, as though they spent a lot of time with humans, but the undertone was something else. Sahrai smelt more like one of the IGASS team, a ‘space-dragon’ or, arshanii, than the humans currently infesting their home.
“I’ve seen them before, Sahrai has the metal box near the human brood nest.” Wrrh-wAa waved in the general direction of Sahria’s home.
“You shouldn’t have gone there, it isn’t safe.” Prrt-hai blurted out, uninterested in the aliens, their names, species or nest locations. “And you shouldn’t be using the high road, it goes too close to the human nests.”
“It’s safe than the low road through the forest, or the mud tracks the humans use. They never look up and don’t come into the forest often anyway.” Mrrh-wAa said, sullenly.
Prrt-hai grumbled in response and turned to look at the aliens, inspecting them properly for the first time. Their sibling was determined to associate with the aliens, so they should get a good look at them, in case anything happened. Aliens couldn’t be trusted, except Supai.
“They’re looking at us?”
“Of course they are, they can’t understand us.”
“We should tell the Elders.”
“You worry about everything Prrt-hai.” Mrrh-wAa flapped their wings, teasingly.
Prrt-hai snapped their teeth at Mrrh-wAa.
Maria watched the pair of Rwwrr.
“Are they arguing do you think?”
“No, I think that’s just their language. We should try to translate it. I have a language programme on the tablet. We should be able to sync up the audio and video and see if we can make any sense of it. If we could get some images from the notebook it would help.”
Sahrai nodded towards Mrrh-wAa, who was waving the book at the other Rwwrr and bouncing, wings flapping ever so slightly.
“Can we do that? It seems…intrusive.”
“How do you think we learnt the human languages? Lah-shah spent several IGASS standard years studying the transmissions. It was quite confusing until he decided to focus on the Moon colony.”
Maria laughed.
The aliens looked at them, shocked. They chittered and backed away.
“Oh, sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you Mrrh-wAa.”
The alien tentatively stepped towards them, holding out the book. Sahrai tapped on the tablet and played a recording of the scream that caught their attention originally.
“Mrwwww hello?” Mrrh-wAa said, slowly, enunciating the word.
“Mrrh-wAa, have you seen other people here?”
The aliens chittered and clacked at them, a wrinkle between its eyes. Sahrai swiped at the tablet and turned it towards the pair of Rwwrr.
“These people, from IGASS. Have you seen them?”
Mrrh-wAa put the notebook into the pouch and gently took the tablet.
He held it carefully in both hands, as though it might attack. Prrt-hai leaned into look over Mrrh-wAa’s shoulder. They chittered and screamed at each other then turned away, taking the tablet with them, darting away into the jungle.
“Hey!” Sahrai shouted.
Prrt-hai zipped on frantic wings back towards them, waving and screaming. Maria walked towards the little creature, Sahrai following cautiously. Prrt-hai flew onwards.
“They want us to follow them.”
Maria started jogging trying to catch up with their new acquaintances and hopefully retrieve the tablet. The data would be fine; so long as the device was on, it would transmit everything to the data storage in Sahrai’s basement. They could track its location once they got back to the house, but it would be much better to retrieve the tablet from the Rwwrr.
Prrt-hai hovered above a whip tree, waiting for the giant aliens to catch up.
“Slow down, Mrrh-wAa, they can’t fly!”
“If I must! This is so exciting.” Mrrh-wAa zipped and fluttered back, dancing around the hungry vegetation, “Look, look, it can make the picture bigger, or smaller.” Mrrh-wAa excitedly showed the screen of the flat box to their sibling.
“That’s Supai and their friends! Before they came here. Look, they’re wearing different clothes from the uniforms we saw them in, before the humans attacked them.”
“Yes, yes, we need to take Sahrai and Maria to Supai.”
“The giants have caught up!”
The aliens panted as they stopped beneath the whip tree. Maria bent over coughing. Mrrh-wAa dropped down in front of them. They turned the tablet towards the aliens.
“Supai, Supai! Come Supai!”
“That’s Dr Suah Painen, a geologist from Etta Koir. Xe is a geologist. Do you know xem?” Sahrai took the tablet from Mrrh-wAa, looking at the picture.
Mrrh-wAa took out the notebook and started to mumble to themself as
they flicked through the pages. Eventually, Mrrh-wAa looked up and said,
“I…know…Supai. Come.”
The giants looked at each other.
“I think they’re saying a version os Suah Painen, just the first parts of xyr name?” Maria said.
“It’s a hypothesis. They want us to go with them to see xem? I think?”
“Maybe the Rwwrr saw xem or met xem?”
“Which means one of the crew survived whatever was being shown in the petroglyphs on the cliffs.”
Mrrh-wAa watched as the giant carelessly held the device in one hand and tapped away at the screen. Sahrai passed the tablet back to Mrrh-wAa with a new image on the screen. Mrrh-wAa huffed a laugh and flapped lazily up to Prrt-hai.
“They found the warning.” Prrt-hai took the tablet.
“Maybe they want to know about it?” Mrrh-wAa fluttered up and down slowly, a slight wobble to their flight.
“They don’t know about the massacre?” Prrt-hai said, surprise wrinkling his feathers.
“Probably not. Supai will tell the giants.” Mrrh-wAa said certain.
Maria looked up at the screaming, chittering pair, huddling over the tablet.
“What now?”
“We keep following them.”
“Why isn’t the tree trying to eat us?”
Sahrai shrugged, “Maybe its full for now?”
“They’re off again.” Maria pointed at the Rwwrr, who had flapped onwards.
Maria and Sahrai followed as fast as they could.
That’s the end of chapter 15. I’ll be back with more soon.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 