Alien Alliance (28 page)

“Mark it as unknown tree dweller. Any sign
of sapience?”

“Go around again.”

The plane circled again, checking for a
second factor.

“No.”

“Mark it as unknown animal tree dweller. I
don’t know why they use these cheap scanners.”

The plane continued on. Twice more, the
scanner noted Niseyen; both of these groups were in caves. The
operator and pilots again complained about the scanners as they
logged the sightings as unknown animals. They didn’t bother to
circle and check for signs of sapience. So they didn’t find
any.

*

The next morning in the starship, Slirtmif
was going over the reports from the night and the reports of the
malfunctioning scanners. He read the report, in disbelief, of
Niseyen up trees. He also read that the amphibian creatures that
were proving so difficult to kill were also identified as Niseyen.
Niseyen, in the water! You couldn’t get Niseyen to go into water!
They hated it. You often couldn’t even get them into boats. They
could fly anything or drive anything but boats generally were a no
go. Those thick fur coats didn’t help! What was going wrong with
the scanners? Had the Zeobani sabotaged them before they had
acquired them or were these the ones from the Nashi? They all
looked pretty much the same. He asked the Supply Officer, who
replied, “All were stored together. I have no idea which ones came
from the Zeobani.”

“Could they have been sabotaged before they
were ‘acquired’?”

“Well, yes, it is possible. But they seem to
be correct in all other identifiers. At least it matches with what
we were told, doesn’t it?”

Slirtmif read over his notes. The
mercenaries were instructed to take a note of which races were in
the cities and make rough numbers of each. The pilots were to get a
rough estimate of the numbers of bodies they dumped. Niseyen had
been identified, a hundred or so in one city and a smattering in
other cities. Very few in total. The scanner tallies roughly
checked out with the eyeball accounts.

Were the Zeobani just doing a random
sabotage or were they trying to hide something on Torroxell? No,
that wasn’t possible. The Zeobani had no idea that Torroxell, or
any other planet, was to be targeted. The Zeobani and Niseyen were
not political allies but they got on. If anything, the Zeobani
would be trying to hide their presence. No, he thought, this was
just random glitches or sabotage, probably the latter. It wouldn’t
be the first time. The problem with being a dominant race was that
other races resented you and tried to pull you down. The main
problem was, what other sabotage was done with the scanners? That
was the really worrying problem.

In the crew lounge, this little glitch was
one of the topics of conversation. Particularly the lounge that had
several Niseyen pilots. Inevitably, they got teased and taunted. No
one believed the scanner. All were perturbed about the inaccuracy
or the malfunctioning of the scanners. Maybe sabotage.

The Niseyen pilots were even more unhappy.
Most had liked the Zeobani and disliked the Nashi, who were
aggressive and ruthless. Now they had discovered that they had
killed their own. The eye-witness parts of the reports confirmed
that.

*

In the morning, unaware of their nocturnal
visitors and overhead observers, the adults set out for the fruit
tree with the mat rolled up and the bags. All were apprehensive but
all were also hungry. The children were delegated to make the fish
trap Karl had drawn for them in the gravel, and make more bags and
mats. And also to keep a good lookout.

Rani had a good memory and sense of
direction and was in a hurry. They made good time, found the tree,
loaded up and headed back. But Rani started to become uneasy.

"They're following us," she said looking
frightened.

"They may just be curious. We might be in
their territory." Karl tried to soothe her but with no success.

Rani increased her pace until they were
nearly running. Nothing was visible but her fear was infectious.
Then Julia gasped looking behind.

"I saw something. Like a funny black face.
About six feet high."

"That's them," said Rani grimly.

"There's another one," Julia pointed to her
left.

"And there," said Rani, indicating to the
right.

They continued on for several minutes trying
to move away when Karl said, "they're herding us."

The trees around them were too small to
climb up.

"Oh God the children," gasped Rani. "How
will they survive?"

Julia had been desperately thinking, "Karl,
we're too heavy but we could boost Rani up that tree and try to
lead them away somehow," she indicated a small but sturdy tree.
They eased towards it, carefully muttered instructions and then
suddenly all three moved and they boosted Rani up the tree. It
leaned precariously but she remained safely holding on, about
twelve feet off the ground. Quickly, Karl handed her up the bag of
fruit. She slid back down a few feet, grabbed it, stashed it in a
fork of the tree and climbed back up to her perch.

"Tell the children we love them," said
Julia. "We'll try to lead them away from you."

"It might be best to lead the children out
of their territory but the decision’s yours," called out Karl as he
moved away.

Karl and Julia started to run. The animals
followed them.

Karl and Julia ran for their lives, their
breathing increasingly ragged. Karl kept looking back and again
realised they were being herded, and driven away from the trees.
But then Julia spotted a tree out on its own and headed for it. She
sprang and climbed up. Karl too leaped up but the lower branch
broke under his heavier weight and he crashed down in front of one
of the animals. It couldn’t brake in time and they collided. Both
leaped back. They looked at each other, Karl gasping and knocked
down. Julia scrambled down and stood in front of him aggressively,
her fists ready. The other animals came running up. They stopped.
All five of them looked at each other.

Julia noticed the animals weren’t black,
they were dark purple. Camouflage? But the grassy stuff was green
and blue. The only purple was the trees, the variety they had been
in that made up most of the trees in this area. She looked at their
feet. Claws. Made for climbing. So why hadn’t they climbed up after
them? The animals sat down, all three moving together. Karl had
stayed where he had fallen. Slowly, Julia sat down too. There was a
long silence.

One of the animals stretched out a paw to
Julia. Hesitantly, she reached out and gently touched the huge paw.
Shocked, she whipped her hand away.

“What happened?” whispered Karl.

“Images,” she answered. “Like it’s trying to
talk to me.”

“Telepathy?”

“Maybe.”

She reached out again and this time kept her
hand out and closed her eyes. A series of images flashed into her
mind. The ships, the mist, the Aliens dying, some of these animals
dying, the balloons crashing to earth, the deaths of things she had
never seen before, and a feeling of anguish, fear, anger, sorrow
and hope? She looked up and into the creatures dark violet eyes.
Carefully, she tried to consciously think back her memories of
looking at the mist, her horror, the fear and hopeless acceptance
of the Kepis and tried to project that the Nedri’s were trying to
help organize resistance. It was a struggle to keep an organized
projection. Without realizing, she started to talk. To explain in
words. The creature seemed to understand, at least in part.

Karl reached out to another animal. He
introduced himself and asked the creature’s name. The animal
growled back something. It was a series of noises he couldn’t
duplicate. Damn. But at the same time it flashed an image. He found
he could duplicate the image. He repeated the process for the other
two. The images were similar but not the same and the image for the
individuals were all different. He was sure they had named
themselves. Then one of them cast an almost cartoon image of Karl
as the faller out of trees and Julia as the little one protecting
him. Karl laughed. The creature seemed to be asking if he and Julia
were mates. He projected back an image of himself, Julia and their
children.

“Do we take the chance and go and get
Rani?”

“Agreed. We need all the allies we can get
and so do they.”

Carefully he stood up. The animal’s heads
were around his chest height and up to Julia’s shoulder. They were
big! They outweighed Karl. They all headed back to where they had
left Rani.

Rani watched them come. She was shocked at
first and timorously stayed up the tree until Julia explained.
Apprehensively, she climbed down. One of the creatures moved over
to her, touched her, and ‘talked’ to her.

“It’s showing me it could have climbed the
tree but didn’t want to frighten us any more than we already
were.”

Julia explained about their colour and their
claws.

“Well the children will love them, at least
my Yogabala will.”

After some discussion, they went back to
pick up the fruit and then walked back, eating the fruit, to feed
the children. As Rani predicted, it was almost an anticlimax to
introduce the children and they did indeed decide the animals were
great. The animals ‘told’ Rani that it was easier to speak to the
children.

The children were now fed, happy and no
longer scared. They had woven more mats and made a huge hammock,
not yet big enough for all of them for a bed but it would make a
sleeping mat or blanket.

It was now midday. They had a discussion
with the animals, which Yogabala insisted on calling cats. She
loved cats. “Well you can’t just call them animals or creatures and
they sound like cats, they talk like cats would if they could talk,
they’re smug! OK they don’t look like cats but they feel like
them.” It stuck. The cats were intrigued, according to Yogabala.
There was a vague resemblance, mostly in pussonality. Then all of
them headed across a valley towards the ocean to talk to the
Priskya. The cats knew a cove, hidden from the air, where they
could go. There were shellfish there too which the cats were keen
on.

An hour or so of walking later, Yogabala and
Bea being carried by this time, the cats led them to a tree with
fruit they had never seen before. It had a taste that sort of
resembled a melon. It was tube shaped and purple and well hidden,
just looking like a thicker leafy tube. To the surprise of the
Terrans, the cats ate them too. They explained they were
omnivores.

Moving on, two or so hours later they came
to the cove. By this time they had all had enough of walking. The
cats were impatient to talk to the Priskya. They went down to the
water’s edge, two looking for food and one sitting, looking for the
Priskya.

Julia had a better idea. She took a deep
breath, put her head under the water and called, “Coooooeeeee!” She
repeated this a couple of times and a Priskya fin became visible in
the distance. Intrigued, they watched the fish and cat ‘talk’ to
each other, by touching heads. They seemed very unlikely friends,
the fish and the cat.

The Priskya then talked to Julia, “We are
very happy you have met our friends, but their intelligence is a
closely guarded secret that they wish to maintain. We are very
interested that you are now the second group of your people that
has been able to talk with them. We will take you now to your own
people.”

“You mean there are others alive?”

“Yes. They are in boats. Although most died.
Two more of your people were found today that were thought to have
died. They are waiting at another cove. We must wait until night to
transport you. The day is not safe. We will come back.” The Priskya
continued to talk in turn to the three cats and then swam away.

It was a long day but at least it would have
a happy ending. Just after dark, the Priskya came back towing a
boat. They boarded and it towed them around to a nearby cove. A few
minutes later, two women appeared; Jolene and Nanelle! They shared
their experiences on the way, then had to repeat them as they
reached the others.

Jolene said, “We were out sightseeing and
got tired and hot. We took shelter in a small cave on a downward
slope. The gas went straight over the top of us. By the time we got
up to see what it was, it had passed. We looked out and saw the
beast things in the paddocks fall to the ground and we saw the same
thing happen to balloons and to a flight of Clets and Hoekfyds. We
stayed inside the cave for a considerable period before venturing
out,” she said with feeling. “We managed to contact a patrolling
Priskya youngster early this morning and she told us to come back
after nightfall when it would be safer to transport us out.
Otherwise we could swim. I was game but Nanelle said she couldn’t
swim that far.”

Mathew was full of questions. “I need
details of the Kepis.”

“But Mathew, they wont fight,” said Karl.
“They’re scholars not fighters and they have their children with
them.”

Mathews face fell when he understood that
they refused to fight. But everyone was pleased at knowing the
Nedri and de Jonge families, and the Kepis, were still alive. And
Nanelle and Jolene were well liked.

Mathew mused later, “Curiosity turned out to
have had good survival value. Over half of us were out of the city
when it was attacked. The worst hit group were the diplomatic
groups as they were all back in the city.”

Karl wondered if Mathew found it difficult
that he was the only survivor of the official political contingent
from the USA. Mathew kept telling others not to let survivor guilt
affect them but Karl suspected he cared more than he let on.

As instructed by Mathew, they next went to
see Sarah, the designated administrator, civic leader and
everything else that someone needed to do. She smiled at them. “Now
you’ve been interrogated, my focus is a little different. Food, any
injuries, then I need to know what you saw about food sources,
anything at all that could help us. But first, any injuries?”