by Lizzy Bequin
I suddenly feel so small and helpless.
“Rogar!” I shout, placing my hand against his bare chest. “Are you okay? Say something! Oh, please say something…”
He doesn’t respond. But beneath my palm, his heart is thumping strong as a sledgehammer against his ribs and his broad, muscled chest is rising and falling steadily like a bellows. He’s unconscious, but he’s alive.
At least for now.
Shit. This is all my fault. I was the one who insisted on defending that other creature from the predator, but Rogar is the one who paid the price.
“Rogar, please,” I whisper. “I need you to be okay…okay?”
“Babu?”
A high-pitched, warbling voice startles me upright. I twist around to see the strange, slender being with noodle arms and transparent skin that reveals the network of glowing fibers running through his body.
It is inspecting the predator, which is lying where it fell, body completely still and bright blood oozing from its wound.
The being reaches out a timid arm and touches one finger—it only has three on each hand—to the metal shaft of the spear that is plunged into the monster. I realize the being is checking for any vibrations from the creature’s heart.
“Gubaaa,” the being says, really drawing out the last syllable with a tone that sounds an awful lot like relief.
The monster is dead.
The slender being turns toward me. Unblinking eyes that are bulbous like a bug’s shift back and forth between me and my wounded companion.
It occurs to me that I don’t know if this thing poses a threat, but it certainly doesn’t seem to. Right now, all I have to go on is my intuition, and my gut reaction is that this thing is friendly.
Actually, it’s something even more than that, like positive vibrations are emanating from it, like an aura. That probably sounds very California of me, but I swear, I can sense something.
“Babu?” it asks, tilting its head like a curious dog.
“Please,” I say as I try to blink away the tears that are blurring my vision. “Help me. Help my friend…”
The being approaches, taking long bouncing strides on its bendy legs. It leans over and looks Rogar up and down.
“Babu?” it says again.
Not knowing quite what else to do, I stupidly answer, “Babu.”
The being lifts its head and looks right into my face. Its expression is blank and impassive, yet somehow quizzical. It tilts its head again, studying me a moment longer, and then it turns back to Rogar, who is still unresponsive.
“Babu balabu,” the thing mutters and shakes its head. “Na na na na na…”
The being, which I have now mentally dubbed Babu, takes one slow lap around Rogar’s body before crouching behind the fallen warrior’s head. Rubbery, transparent fingers reach for the damaged helm.
“Wait,” I gasp, holding up one hand, and Babu freezes.
Of course, we need to be careful not to hurt Rogar even more by accident. But there’s something else I’m thinking of—I’m remembering back to what he told me last night about not being able to show his face. As strange as it seems to me, it’s obviously very important to Rogar.
“Luba,” Babu says reassuringly. “Luba, lubaaa…”
Babu’s hands moves delicately, as if he knows what he’s doing. All I can do is trust that he actually does.
Rogar’s warrior creed is just going to have to take a back seat.
This is a matter of life and death.
Babu slides the helm from the bounty hunter’s head. Those thick, segmented locks that I felt last night come spilling out, and for the first time, I see the alien who has been my captor and protector these past days.
His face is like a sculpture, combining angular lines and graceful curves in an unexpected harmony. His jaw is strong, his cheekbones high and almost elegant. Bumpy ridges line his brows. The broad wings of his nostrils flare with each deep, unconscious breath.
“Na na na,” Babu mutters, lightly touching the side of Rogar’s head.
His temple has a bad looking laceration right where the helmet was dented. Black emerald blood is oozing from the wound. Babu traces his fingers around the perimeter of the cut without actually touching it.
Babu reaches and places one hand on my shoulder. The touch is warm and filled with those good vibes that I have been sensing ever since Babu showed up.
“Lulaba balabu.”
Babu stands up. When I start to rise too, the slender alien gestures with his hand that I should stay put.
“Lulaba balabu,” Babu repeats, more insistently this time.
And with that, Babu lopes off through the long, wind-rippling grass toward the edge of the jungle nearby.
I have no clue where Babu is going, but I get the impression that the strange alien is coming back for us. When it spoke, I couldn’t understand its words, but it seemed I could sense its emotions like waves of energy.
Maybe I was just imagining things, though.
I turn back toward Rogar and study the features of his beautiful face, silently praying for those closed eyes to flutter open.
The only answer is the whisper of the long grass swaying in the breeze.
For the second time in two days, I’m faced with the possibility of losing Rogar. I can’t let that happen now.
Yesterday when I thought he was dead, my concerns were purely selfish. I didn’t know how I was going to survive without him on this wild planet.
Now, I don’t know if I would even want to survive without him.
It sounds crazy, but after everything we’ve been through together, my connection to him has grown into something else. A bond.
All I want to do is break down and cry, but that won’t help anything right now, so I struggle to hold myself together.
After a few minutes of waiting, I hear a voice calling excitedly over the sighing wind.
“Baaa-buuu!”
My new alien friend is returning, racing toward us through the grass. It is still alone, but it is carrying something in its arms. As it gets closer, I realize it is carrying a sheaf of large, but rather ordinary looking bluish-green leaves.
Babu skids to a stop and drops the leaves in a heap next to Rogar with an excited chittering sound that could be a laugh.
“What is this?”
I realize it’s stupid to try to speak English with this creature, but it just seems natural, and it helps me think. Besides, I get the impression that Babu can empathetically pick up my intentions, even if it can’t understand every word I say.
Babu sits down and crosses its bendy legs, practically tying them into a pretzel. “Babu babu babu,” it mutters, and I mentally translate this as “be quiet and watch.”
So that’s what I do.
Babu picks up the top leaf on the stack, rolls it longways into a tight tube, and then begins munching on it like a burrito. As Babu swallows, bit by bit, I can see the chewed-up plant matter through the alien’s translucent skin, traveling down its throat and collecting in a bulbous, fluid-filled sac that I guess must be Babu’s stomach.
It’s both fascinating and kinda gross.
I’m also wondering what the hell Babu’s doing. We need to be helping Rogar, not sitting here having a picnic.
But I decide to wait and see what Babu does next.
Once Babu finishes the first leaf, it sighs contentedly. The digesting plant matter has turned bluer inside its stomach, starting to bubble and foam.
Suddenly, Babu’s body twitches, and the alien makes a sound like a cat that’s working on a hair ball.
“Hork!”
“Babu, are you okay?”
He holds up one three-fingered hand to quiet me.
“Hooork!”
After a couple more dry heaves, I can see the blue, pulpy leaf coming back up. Babu spits it up into its hands, letting most of the juice fall away and just catching the partially digested cud, which Babu begins turning and molding into a flat circle about the size of a s
ilver dollar. A weird minty smell comes from it.
Babu presses it against Rogar’s wound as a poultice.
“Will that save him?”
The slender alien nods as if he understood my question and starts rolling another leaf to start the process again. After two more leaves have been chewed and regurgitated, Rogar’s wound is completely covered by the blue, gummy poultice.
Babu leans back, propping himself on his arms, and hums, studying the handiwork. The glowing lights running through Babu’s insides have even taken on a blueish glow to match the leaf.
The alien nods approvingly at its accomplishment, then looks up at me. It makes and noise like it is clearing its throat, and then gestures toward my loincloth.
It takes me a moment to understand what Babu wants.
Cloth. Something that can be used to wrap the poultice and hold it in place. My loincloth isn’t exactly a sterile bandage, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment.
I take it off and hand it to Babu.
The slender alien studies it with flexible fingers, then tears away most of the remaining fabric and starts to wrap it around Rogar’s skull like a head band, covering the healing wad of half-digested plant matter to keep it from falling away.
Babu’s head bobs. The skinny alien babbles something incomprehensible.
Then that slender, transparent body moves to my side and those weird noodly arms wrap around my neck in an unexpected friendly hug. A sudden surge of gratitude seems to saturate into my body. After a moment of surprise, I awkwardly hug Babu back.
“Okay,” I stammer. “Th-thanks, Babu.”
Babu moves away again and starts talking a mile a minute—a long string of babus and glubas that I can’t even begin to piece together. The alien gesticulates wildly as it talks, pointing to Rogar, where he still lies comatose, then to me, then to someplace over the horizon.
And just like that, the clear alien bounds away in the direction that he pointed, moving with a clumsy grace like an animated stick figure in a child’s flip book.
The best I can figure out from Babu’s little pantomime is that I’m supposed to stay put and watch over Rogar while Babu goes to get help.
So that’s exactly what I do.
The hours stretch out, filled only with the hush of the wind through the grass. Today is cloudier than yesterday, sparing my bare skin from the sun as it gradually makes its way across the sky and eventually turns golden, then fiery orange followed by fluorescent pink as it sinks toward the horizon.
At one point, one of those flying snakes that I saw yesterday swoops down and perches like a vulture on the spear shaft that is protruding at an angle from the slain beast. Beady eyes stare at Rogar hungrily.
“Shoo!” I shout angrily.
The creature squawks and flaps its leathery wings and hops around to the side of the beast’s carcass to inspect its underbelly. Soon I hear the sick squelching sounds of the scavenger feasting. Other flying snakes join it.
Rogar never stirs. Every now and then, I place my hand on his chest, checking his heartbeat and breathing.
When night falls, the flying snake scavengers flutter away, sated from their disgusting meal. There’s still no sign of Babu.
I start to get nervous.
There are clearly predators stalking this region. There’s one very big and now partially eaten example of that lying only yards away. And what if the carcass draws in other nocturnal scavengers that aren’t as skittish as the flying snakes?
Briefly, I consider retrieving those security orbs from the shaft of Rogar’s spear. It doesn’t take me long to abandon that idea, as an inspection of the shaft reveals no buttons or switches. However this alien tech works, it’s obviously beyond my primitive Earthling brain.
I plop back down by Rogar’s side. It’s up to me to guard his body on my own.
Or die trying.
As much as it scares me, I silently promise myself that I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Rogar’s life tonight. I have no doubt that he would do the same for me.
As the night goes on, the air becomes chilly, and my nearly naked skin pimples with goosebumps of a non-sexy variety. Without the warmth of a campfire, I start to shiver. But in a way, I am grateful for the cold—it keeps my weary mind alert.
After a couple hours, the night wind blows away the clouds, and the majestic splash of the Milky Way fills the sky and paints the grasslands silver with starlight.
I gaze up at those distant stars, wondering where Earth is. Somehow, getting back to my homeworld seems a lot less important now with Rogar’s life hanging in the balance.
“Kuh…”
The sudden choking syllable startles me out of my thoughts. It came from Rogar. The muscles of his face are twitching, and his eyelids are starting to flutter.
“Kuh…lare,” he mutters sleepily, and I realize he’s trying to say my name. “Kuh…lare.”
The wave of happiness that washes through me nearly bowls me over. I lean close, pressing my hand to his scaled chest.
“Rogar,” I say softly through happy tears. “Rogar, I’m right here. Are you okay? Please wake up.”
Lashless lids crack open and his eyes glisten like dark gemstones.
“Oh thank God,” I half sob over him. “Rogar, you’re awake. How do you feel?”
Once again, I don’t know why the hell I’m trying to talk to him without his helmet on, but I can’t seem to help myself. The words are just tumbling out of my mouth almost involuntarily.
Rogar blinks and says something in that fluid, sibilant language of his. He struggles upright, crunching his abs and propping himself on wobbly elbows.
“Rogar, be careful.” I place my hands on him trying to calm him down. “You’ve been hurt. You shouldn’t move around too much.”
He stares at me for a moment before scanning his eyes around until he sees the spiny silhouette of the dead beast with his spear still protruding from it.
“You did it,” I whisper. “You killed the monster. But you got hurt, and the other thing, Babu, used some special leaves too…”
Rogar grunts and touches his head where it is bandaged. He draws his fingers away and inspects the sticky residue of the poultice.
His face drops, and so does my stomach.
Rogar has just discovered one key detail about the events that he missed. I’m not sure how he’s going to react, but I’m sure he won’t be happy.
His gaze falls on his damaged helmet lying on the grass by my knees.
“Qypaara?”
He touches his head again as realization dawns on his face.
“Qypaara…”
I start talking a mile a minute trying stupidly to explain, using pantomime and sound effects to try to get my meaning across. I tell him how he was thrown through the air, and I mimic the awful crunching sound that his helmet made when he hit the ground. With my fingers, I do a walking motion as I describe Babu coming to help. I show him the remaining leaves and try to explain that Babu used them to heal Rogar, leaving out the kinda gross regurgitating part.
Rogar just shakes his head and rises unsteadily to his feet with a pained grunt.
“Hang on!” I half shout in surprise. “Rogar, you need to chill out for a sec, okay? You’re hurt really badly and…”
He ignores me and stumbles over to the slain beast. He appraises the carcass for a moment before wrapping his fists around the shaft of his spear, twisting and pulling it free. The tip slides out of the wound with a nasty schluck!
The alien warrior studies the bloody tip in the starlight.
“Rogar…”
With a sudden motion, he flips the spear around in his hands, holding it in front of himself with the point aimed straight at his own heart.
CHAPTER 17: ROGAR
The Mezentine Creed is very clear on this matter:
A disgraced warrior must never remove his helmet in front of another sentient being. If he does so, he is honor-bound to end his own life.
With the wind
whistling at my ears, I close my eyes, draw a deep breath, and mentally prepare myself to die.
The tip of my spear, drenched in the gore of my enemy, is poised, ready to pierce my heart and spill my lifeblood onto the grass of this foreign world.
It will be an honorable death, befitting a Mezentine warrior.
Just before I strike, a shrill voice splits the night. The human female is screaming. She rushes forward and places her hand over my chest. If I want to stab my own heart, I will have to go through her hand.
She is babbling uncontrollably in her strange Earth language. The only words I can understand are my own name—its pronunciation horribly mangled by her Earthling tongue—and one other word that I heard her say many times last night as I was pleasuring her with my fingers and tongue.
“Please.”
I’m not entirely certain what the word means, but I enjoy the sound of it—the liquid onset like water over stones and the light, sibilant finish like the wild sea serpents of my homeworld.
But what touches me most of all is the plaintive tone in her voice.
Maybe I don’t understand every detail of what she’s saying to me, but I get the gist. She doesn’t want me to kill myself.
I turn the spear downward and stab it into the soft soil of the ground so it stands upright. Then I stride over to my helmet and crouch to inspect its dents and the cracked visor. I pull it on over my bandaged head.
“What the fuck?” Clare shouts at me. “Rogar, are you fucking crazy? What’s the matter with you?”
The helm may be damaged, but the internal translator is obviously still working properly.
Raising myself up, I turn to face the wild little human.
“Clare, I’m sorry, but you have seen my face. Now I must kill myself honorably. Stand aside.”
She places herself in front of my spear, stretching her arms to block me.
“Hold on. You didn’t tell me that last night,” she says defiantly. “You just said that you couldn’t show your face to anyone, but you didn’t mention anything about stabbing yourself in the heart with a freaking spear.”
“The consequence of breaking the Creed is death. Now step aside.”
“Okay, well if I had known that, I wouldn’t have let Babu take your helmet off.”