Chapter Nine

Search parties came close the following day but did not find them. By the third day Ryo and the monsters were so deep into the forest Ryo doubted anyone ever would.

Occasionally, search aircraft would slowly pass overhead. At such times the monsters concealed themselves and their hostage beneath tree roots or overhanging rocks. Once they even buried themselves into the clith, which badly strained the temporary truce between monster and Thranx because the thought of immersing himself in that numbing cold was nearly too much for Ryo to bear. They settled for his remaining motionless against a small rock, trusting to his pelt to camouflage him.

The next day one of the monsters demonstrated its familiarity with the energy rifle by using it to kill a small emlib. The furry herbivore jerked once and was still. Ryo watched with interest as the creature drew a small Thranx knife from a pocket and neatly butchered the carcass, which was then roasted over an open, largely smokeless fire.

The larger monster offered a piece to Ryo. While he normally would have disdained so uncivilized a meal, he knew that if he didn’t eat hunger would kill him before the cold did. He accepted the meat, holding it under the head of his pelt as he bit off small chunks with his mandibles and swallowed them whole. Some vegetables would have helped, mixed together with the meat in a proper stew, but he was thankful enough for just the protein.

It was comparatively warm that night. The next day, they crossed ground that was mostly devoid of clith. As they walked Ryo was startled when one of the monsters suddenly began to whistle. There was rhythm but no sense to the sounds. It was very similar to the crude speech of a newly hatched larva.

Perhaps it was simply their mode. He tried imitating the sound, managed to match it almost perfectly the first time. It was simple compared to the monsters’ more common communications noises.

The monsters looked pleased and whistled back at him. At that point Ryo wondered if the researchers who’d studied these creatures had concentrated only on trying to learn their guttural language instead of trying to teach them Thranx. If so, they probably tried to use electromechanical interpreters. And for various reasons the monsters might not have been interested in cooperating with the study.

Stopping, he pointed importantly to the nearest bush. “Slen,” he whistled. He gestured again, adding movement indicative of thirddegree importance. “Slen.” He repeated it several times, much slower than normal, drawing out the whistle comically.

The monsters hesitated. The larger seemed to argue with the smaller. That was only Ryo’s impression. For all he knew they might have begun a mating ritual.

Turning to Ryo, the smaller monster hesitated a moment longer, then formed its pair of flexible mandibles into a circular opening. The sight was so disgusting Ryo had to force himself to watch.

But it produced a fine whistle. “Men,” it said, also pointing at the bush.

“No, no,” he said. “Try again.” He touched the bush. “Slen.”

“Zh … slen,” it said.

Ryo again touched the bush, said “slen,” and added the movement for affirmation. The monster repeated the word, but left off the gesture.

At that point Ryo glimpsed part of the trouble and was further amazed. These creatures spoke only with their lungs! They apparently never utilized their whole bodies.

Without thinking, excitement completely overwhelming normal caution, he walked up to the monster and took hold of one of its upper limbs. Both reacted sharply, but the smaller one did not pull away. Ryo pointed to the bush, said “slen,” and made the affirmation gesture again.

This time, after the monster repeated the word, Ryo moved its limb in the gesture of affirmation. The limb moved freely, but the feel of it made him a little ill. He fought to retain his composure. If the researchers studying these creatures had thought to try the same thing it would not have surprised him to learn that the larger monster had thrown its inquisitor into the nearest wall.

Sometimes physical contact means more than mental, he mused. Fal had told him that. It was an important rule to remember while teaching larvae.

He let go of the arm, stood back, and made the click sound signifying “do you understand?” The monster stared at him. He repeated the sound.

The monster slowly made the gesture for “yes,” then pointed at the bush and whistled “slen.” He was about to try the word for clith when the larger monster, which had been watching intently while keeping the muzzle of the rifle pointed at Ryo, suddenly walked over and touched the bush. It looked at Ryo, made a gargling sound, then pointed at Ryo and used some part of its internal mouth-parts to click, “Do you understand?”

Ryo was so overjoyed he almost forgot to make the gesture of affirmation. Then he said “slen” and tried to imitate the monster’s own mouth noise.

At that point the monsters made a whole series of very loud mouth noises accompanied by a great deal of mutual touching.

The whistles, he knew, were produced by forcing air past those soft mandibles. It took him a while and the patience of the smaller monster to discover how they produced their clicks. These sounds were softer than his own. Instead of grinding mandibles together as Thranx did, the monsters apparently utilized their peculiar mouth appendages against the upper parts of their jaws. The resultant words were sloppily executed but, if one paid attention, quite comprehensible.

The point of communication which had eluded them the longest, that of gesturing and posture, turned out to be the simplest for them to duplicate, once they began to understand that civilized speech was more than merely a matter of atmospheric modulation.

By the fifth day Ryo was imitating some of the monsters’ terms fairly well. As they marched they all engaged in an orgy of identification, beginning with the bush and working up to more complex terminology. Trouble was had with certain gestures because the monsters were short the correct number of limbs. They solved this by using one of their legs as an arm or sitting down to use all four limbs if a quadruple complicated movement was required.

By midmonth they were carrying on crude conversations. By the end of the month and yet another meal of carbonized emlib Ryo was convinced the authorities had given both him and the monsters up for dead.

The monsters were not members of different species, which was one thought he’d given some credence to. Like the Thranx their kind had two sexes, but the larger turned out to be a male, the smaller a female. Ryo readily accepted this mild perversion of the natural order. They were not, however, a mated pair, but simply members of the same ship’s crew. Their name sounds were “loo” and “bonnie.” They did not have clan or hive names, only personal and family. Ryo allowed them the unusual familiarity of calling him by his personal name alone, since his full name verged on the unpronounceable for them.

He learned that their skin color and slight difference of eye shape were due to internal racial variations. Other things he already knew by observation, such as the fact that they were omnivorous.

“Our ship,” the larger monster Loo was explaining one day, “hurt by other ship.” The term hurt required a double click. Ryo took personal pride in the monster’s tolerable pronunciation.

“What different … other, ship?”

The monster stopped. In damp mud he sketched the outline with one digit. Ryo recognized it immediately. It only confirmed earlier thoughts.

“AAnn ship,” he said. As he repeated the word he picked up a rock and threw it forcefully at the drawing, sending mud splattering. That was one gesture that did not require elaboration.

“Bad. Not good,” the monster agreed, making a gesture of fifth-degree and maximum affirmation. Clumsy and unsubtle, Ryo thought, but a least they are learning how to get their thoughts across. The monster emitted a long, rippling whistle. “Very bad.”

At least we have one thing in common, Ryo mused. Neither of us has any love for the AAnn. These creatures were not allies of the Thranx’s hereditary enemies.

“Why we imprisoned?” the monster suddenly asked.

Ryo thought, constructed a simple reply. “My people afraid you AAnn-friends.”

The monster made a funny noise that Ryo had not learned how to translate. He asked for an explanation.

“Funny. Very funny.”

So that was monster laughter, Ryo thought. Most peculiar. “Understand.” He then demonstrated the gestures and whistles for first-through fifth-degree amusement. “No like AAnn, my people,” he said. “My people afraid you and AAnn friends.”

The smaller monster said, “Funny. We afraid you Thranx people and AAnn friends. Very funny.”

“Big mistake,” Ryo agreed.

“Very big mistake,” the larger monster agreed. “All you Thranx people afraid of us people when capture us. Why afraid? Because afraid we AAnn-friends?”

“Partially,” Ryo said. That required further explanation. Understanding was coming quicker to both sides now. “Also another reason.”

“What reason other?” the monster asked.

“ `Other reason,”’ Ryo corrected it-no, him, he reminded himself. He hesitated, then decided that if they were offended there wasn’t much he could do. It would have to be brought out sooner or later.

“My people, the Thranx, certain type.” He tapped the chiton of his thorax, then a leg, then his head. “On this world, on other my people Thranx worlds, many creatures like you.” He pointed to each of them in turn. “Such creatures eat Thranx.”

It took them a moment to digest this. Ryo had learned to recognize some of their emotions, which were transmitted not by distinctive gestures but by certain positioning of their flexible face parts. He saw that instead of being angry they were confused.

The she-monster said, “On our worlds, my people afraid of creatures like you Thranx people, only much smaller.”

“Eat your people?” Ryo wondered.

“Not people. Eat our people food. For long time. Very long time. History.”

“Mine also, all history fear of your creature kind.”

They walked on in silence. After a while he thought it safe to continue. He touched his antennae with a truhand. “Other things, too. You people smell not good.”

The smaller monster made the gesture of apology, without adding degree.

“Not your fault,” said Ryo.

“You,” she replied, “smell not like little Thranx kind all history trouble our people. You smell very good.” She halted, drew in the mud. Ryo did not recognize the species, but the flower outline was unmistakable. “Like that.”

“Your color also,” the he-monster added. “Very pretty.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “Your colors not so pretty but not so bad as your smell.”

“Your feel …” The smaller monster reached out slowly. Ryo flinched, forced himself to hold his ground. He’d touched them while demonstrating proper gestures, but neither of them had touched him since Loo had clamped five massive fingers around Ryo’s mandibles.

“Just want to touch,” Bonnie said.

Feeling like a museum exhibit, Ryo stood motionless while the monster ran its fingers under the byorlesnath fur and along his body.

“My turn now,” he said.

The monster opened its clothing, exposing itself to the air. The sight made Ryo shudder, and he had to remind himself of the creature’s extraordinary tolerance for cold. He ran a delicate truhand along the exposed surface, wondering how closely their bodily divisions and internal organs would match up. Too much botany, he told himself, and not enough zoology. Though alien design would not necessarily conform to similar Willow-wane shapes, he reminded himself.

The most remarkable thing about the body was its flexibility. He pressed in lightly. The monster did not complain or pull away. Fascinated, he watched the tip of his finger sink into the flesh. When he pulled his hand away the covering sprang back.

Such a reaction was normal for plastics and artificial fibers. On the exterior of a living creature it was stomach turning. He pressed again, a little firmer. The exoderm changed color slightly. He could even see bodily fluids moving beneath it. Utterly remarkable, he thought. The more so when one realized that the beings inhabiting that thin envelope were intelligent.

“Strange, so strange,” he murmured. “Skeleton inside, flesh outside.”

“We find you same,” Bonnie said. “Skeleton outside, flesh inside. Very different.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “very different.”

The monsters ate three times a day instead of twice. As they were finishing their odd midday meal Ryo thought to ask a question that had been lost in the excitement of mutual education.

“Where are you going? What are you going to do?”

They looked at each other. “I do not know, Ryo,” Loo said. “We thought you were those who had attacked our ship. We thought you enemies. We were treated like prisoners.”

“Remember,” Ryo reminded them, “my people think you are allies of the AAnn. How then should they treat you but as enemies?”

“But we’re not,” Bonnie said. “Especially if you tell truth when you say it was AAnn who attacked our ship.”

The challenge to his veracity was cause for combat. He calmed himself. Remember, he told himself, these creatures have but primitive notions of courtesy and common etiquette. They will for some time be as clumsy in their perceptions as they are in their speech.

“Big mistake,” he said. “Cosmic mistake. You must do something. Out here,” and he gestured at the surrounding forest, “you will die.” He did not include himself in that prediction. It was self-evident.

“Better to die here,” Loo said roughly, “than in captivity, poked and prodded at like an exhibit in a zoo.”

“No need for that,” Ryo said encouragingly. “Silly mistake. Silliness in proportion to size. We must go back. I can explain everything. I can interpret for you. When mistake explained by me, will be clear to all. We will be friends, allies. Not enemies.”

“I don’t know …” Loo made a gesture of thirddegree indecision. “The way we were treated …”

“Were you killed? Are you dead?”

“No, we’re not dead. We’ve been reasonably well fed.” He made a face gesture of mild disgust.

“More mistakes. Must return and explain all mistakes.” Ryo implored them with gestures. “Trust me. I will explain everything.”

“We would wander this place forever to keep our freedom,” Loo told him.

“Not a logical end of itself,” Ryo countered. “Also another factor.” Maybe, he thought, it wasn’t self-evident. “I … my people-Thranx-cannot tolerate long cold weather.” He’d felt his circulation slowing the past several nights. “I will surely die. Will you kill me to preserve your freedom, which has no logical end of itself?” There, he thought as he leaned back against the log. There is the real test. Now he would learn just how civilized they were.

“Most of what you say is truth,” Bonnie declared finally. “We would not like to be responsible for your death. We have been careful not to kill. Yet. You have been friend. There are misunderstandings here, on both sides.” She looked up at Loo and for a moment Ryo thought they might also be telepathic.

“Friend speaks truth,” she restated. “We’ll go back with you.”

“Next problem,” said Loo. “Can we find our way back?”

“I think so.” Ryo gestured skyward. “In any case, if we make our presence known when a search ship flies over, we will be found.”

The hoverer set down nearby. There was a tense confrontation between Ryo and a group of net-and stingerwielding soldiers. Disbelief gave way grudgingly to guarded astonishment. The two monsters were conducted to the base under watchful eyes instead of netting. There they descended via a heavily sealed entryway to a section Ryo had visited before. The gestures of complete amazement performed by the officer who’d previously refused him admittance were lively to behold.

Torplublasmet was not present to greet him, having been questioned and allowed to return to his burrow, but Wuu was. “My boy.” He spoke while looking past Ryo at the two monsters towering nearby. “I’d given you up days ago. I’ve been asked many questions, which I answered sorrowfully and freely. How we came to be here, and why. But you appear whole and healthy. I thought they would have consumed you by now.”

“Not at all. That would have been impolite, and these are civilized creatures. They can’t help their appearance. Their ship was attacked by the AAnn. They thought we were responsible.

“If we can overcome the unfortunate beginning our respective species have managed to make, they may prove to be strong allies. There has been mutual misunderstanding of colossal proportions.”

“What are you saying, Ryo?” Loo asked.

Wuu and the other Thranx looked properly shocked. “By the central burrow, they can talk!”

“Sometimes situation and precedent can combine to blunt, rather than facilitate communication,” Ryo explained smoothly. He looked up at Loo. “This friend of mine,” and he pronounced the alien name, “is a he, the other a she.” He then gestured at Wuuzelansem, gave his name, and tried to explain what a poet was.

The monsters soon deciphered the gestures and clicks. Then they shocked the assembled researchers, guards, and Wuu alike by simultaneously gesturing at the poet with a movement indicative of thirddegree respect mixed with mild admiration.

“They may be monsters,” Wuu decided, “but they display an unarguable ability to recognize higher intelligence when it is presented to them.”

“Come, let’s go in,” Bonnie said to Ryo. “We want you to meet our companions.”

Ryo followed, Wuu hanging back just a trifle. The guards hesitated but the Thranx scientists and researchers in the group gestured them aside.

The party passed through several corridors, the monsters having to bend to clear the ceilings. Eventually they entered a large chamber. The saddles inside appeared unused, for obvious reasons of physiology.

Six monster males and four females lay alone or in small groups on the floor. To Ryo’s untrained eye, half of them looked damaged.

As he watched, the aliens suddenly recognized Loo and Bonnie. A great deal of noise and physical contact resulted. Alien greetings, he explained to the enraptured scientists, who stood clustered in the open doorway, recorders running at maximum speed.

When the greetings were concluded, Loo and Bonnie turned to Ryo. “Well, it was good to be outside for a while, anyway,” said Loo.

Ryo responded with a gesture of mild negativity. “Good to be back inside.” He added a whistling laugh while the two monsters made their own laughter noises. It was difficult to tell who was more flabbergasted; the Thranx scientists or the other monsters in the chamber.

“Different preferences,” Bonnie said, running a hand through her cranial fur.

“Yes,” Ryo agreed. He gestured past her. “How are your friends?”

“Pleased to see us alive,” Loo said. “Disappointed that we could not do more. I explained to them that we now have a friend. This they understood, for a friend can often be worth more than freedom.”

“I am sure it will be so,” Ryo replied confidently. “I will explain all to these authorities.” He indicated the rows of busy Tbranx crowded around them. “This mistake will be straightened out soonest. There is much to do between our peoples.”

“Yes,” Bonnie said. “There is nothing like a mutual enemy,” and she made the gesture for the AAnn, “to produce understanding among potential friends.”

One of the officials was gesturing urgently to Ryo. He turned back to his friends. “They want to talk to me now and I am equally anxious to talk with them. Will you be well?”

“Well enough,” Loo replied.

“Then all is calm for now. I will return as soon as I am able. Burrow deep and warm.” He inclined his head slightly and extended his antennae.

“Be warm,” Bonnie said, reaching out to touch the tips of the delicate organs.

Several of the Thranx guards turned away or otherwise indicated their disgust. Of sterner stuff, the researchers and scientists simply recorded the exchange with cool detachment. Then Ryo turned and joined Wuu and the little cluster of specialists gathering around him. The two aliens rejoined their own companions, who crowded excitedly around them.

Ryo was escorted to a nearby chamber and promptly sat down in a comfortably padded saddle. The scientists who’d packed in around him immediately threw a barrage of questions at him.

“What was it like? … What did they do out there? What did they do to you out there? … How did you learn the language so quickly? … How did they learn

ours so quickly? … How did they avoid the search parties for so long? … How? … Why? … When? …”

“Slowly, gentlesirs. I will-” He paused, suddenly dizzy.

Wuu stepped close. “Leave the youth alone for now. Can’t you sense his exhaustion? Doubtless he is weak from hunger as well.”

Ryo looked gratefully up at the poet, made a thirddegree gesture of assent. “I am far from starving, though it would be wonderful to have a good soup. I’ve had little but meat and raw greens for a month.”

“Then they are omnivorous like us?” one scientist inquired anxiously. “It seemed thus because they ate much of what we supplied them, but it is helpful to have it confirmed by nonlaboratory experience.”

“I said, no questions,” Wuu broke in firmly.

But Ryo gestured his confirmation. “Yes, though they take their meat largely in burnt chunks and not in proper soup or stew.”

There was muttering among the assembled researchers at this fresh assurance of alien oddity.

“They don’t boil it or cook it with any other liquids?”

“Not that I saw.”

“But they eat soups and stews here,” another pointed out.

“It may not have been by choice,” Ryo told her. “When one is in prison, -one eats what is supplied.” There, let them ponder that one, he thought.

After a few additional questions Wuu began to shove officials from the chamber. A hot meal was delivered that was among the finest Ryo had ever enjoyed. Upon devouring it he had a second and then a third serving. Following that he lay down on the sleeping lounge provided, the warm feeling induced by the food overpowering his excitement, and fell into a deep sleep from which he did not awaken for over a full day.