*
“Ma?”
“Yes, John.”
“Is our guest an angel?”
John was joking, prodding his mother about her oft-repeated story about the lights flitting about in the night sky.
She became angry then. Her normally smooth brow bunched up and her eyes blazed. “You must never suggest such a thing! That beast is no angel. It is a devil and will be the death of us.”
John stuttered an apology but his mother wouldn’t hear it.
“I forbid you from seeing it. Don’t think I don’t know about you sneaking into the barn. I know what you’re doing and I forbid it! Go to your room!”
This confused John, but he was determined to learn everything he could about the devil that lived in their barn. He went to bed that night with the tablet under his covers, researching the bear-like aliens until long after lights out.
They were called the Kyooli and had come to Earth with one of Empyrean’s daughter stars. They flew in small, non-displacement-capable ships in triads; the first group was captured aboard the FCF-097 Morrison during the battle of the Fifteenth Fleet around Jupiter. They were unable to learn much about the race after that encounter, but a small group had been taken to a refuge in Montana, where they were allowed to remain under strict supervision by UEF scientists and xenobiologists, before those all left for other parts of the galaxy.
*
John was over in the stand of scraggly pines, chopping wood, when his father hobbled over to him, calling his name.
He set his axe down and waited for his father to approach. The winter had been hard on his father and his leg was permanently stiff now, the knee wouldn’t bend. He walked with a cane he had spent the winter carving and finishing.
“John. Come to the barn. Our guest is waking up.”
John beamed and had to hold back from jogging ahead of his father, instead helping him through the field of stumps. Their heavy rubber boots squelched in the spring mud.
When they arrived at the barn, they found the alien sitting up, gnawing on a frozen deer haunch, gripping the leg in its claws and chewing on it with big white teeth.
The smell in the barn was incredible.
It took a moment for the beast to notice them standing there and with a final ripping crunch, it set the bone down on the straw beside it and stared at them.
John stepped forward and raised a hand. “Hi,” he said to it.
The creature raised its hand in a mirrored gesture, three fingers outstretched into the points of a triangle. A low growl from deep inside the alien’s barrel chest served as acknowledgement.
John stepped closer. “We had to cut you out of your suit,” he said, feeling he needed to say something. “It was hard going, but we got you out of it. Too bad there isn’t much left, but we were able to save the helmet.” He strode over and heard a gasp from his mother as he approached. He hadn’t heard her enter, but when he turned to see, she was already gone. “It’s over here,” he said, pointing.
The beast turned. Its mostly hairless head sat atop a pair of broad shoulders. The skin hung off it like that of a sumo wrestler. There was muscle underneath that thick hide, but it was buried under layers of insulation. John reached into the straw and dug out the helmet and held it out in front of him like an offering.
The creature took it, turning it around in his hands. For a moment it looked at John, their eyes meeting, and he saw something in them. Something like hate.
The beast flung the helmet from his hand and it crashed into the wall of the barn with a deafening bang like a gunshot. It picked up the venison and resumed gnawing, the crunch of bones signaling the end of their meeting.
*
Recovery was slow for the alien. It had suffered some severe injuries in the crash. It was weeks before it got up and moved around on its own. John visited it every day, slopping out the barn with a shovel and piling fresh hay into the stall. He wore a bandana around his face and made a big production of it, like he used to do with their horse. The beast’s hair grew back, in clumps at first, gradually covering it in a short gray-brown pelt.
“PHeee-ew! That’s a big one, right there,” he might say, pointing his shovel at a pile. Their guest was well-behaved. It had a corner it used and would do its best to cover it up with straw. It didn’t help much with the smell.
“You think this stuff’ll make good fertilizer, or are you guys too different for that? Maybe I’ll get you to poop in a field and see what grows,” he joked. The creature didn’t seem to mind.
One day he found the creature standing up. It was using an old barn board as a crutch. The heavy timber would have been too big for John to lift himself, but this thing…
“Hey, you’re up.”
“Keeyownli.”
“Hey! You can talk!” John scratched his chin, wondering what the creature wanted. “I’m John,” he said deliberately, while pointing to himself. He had to start somewhere. “John.”
The beast tilted its head at him. It pointed, three fingers combined to form a single sharp spear, the long arm pushing the claw into John’s chest. “Garn,” it rumbled. Then it pointed at itself. “Keeyownli.” Or something that sounded a lot like that.
“You mean Kyooli? That’s you, right? Your people? Kyooli?”
The creature made a face that looked like a grimace.
“John.” He pointed at himself. “Human.” He held his arms out and waved his hands around in a gesture he hoped encapsulated his entire person. “Human.”
The creature stood up straight. “Grawrn,” it boomed. Hands like spades waved in front of it. “Keeyownli.”
John laughed. “All right. Grawrn!” He pointed at the alien and he could’ve sworn the creature smiled at him.
*
It was slow going. Grawrn didn’t use a lot of words, but listened to John the whole time he spoke. Sometimes, Grawrn would point at things in the barn and John would give them names. “Hook.” “Shovel.” “Tackle.” “Bridle.” He’d do his best to show him what they were for, but some things, like the old horse bits, didn’t make a lot of sense without a subject for demonstration.
One afternoon during one of these sessions, Grawrn drew a round triangle on the dirt floor and pointed a shovel at it. “Kreeeowon,” it said. John was beginning to think of the alien as a “he,” but he didn’t want to assume too much. They weren’t really that familiar yet.
“I don’t understand,” John said, shaking his head.
Grawrn carefully added more pieces to the triangle with its claw. Three round sections. One of them, an oval, extended outward from the triangular shape.
“Is that your ship?”
“Kreeowon,” it growled at him.
“OK. We can go see it.” John stood up. “I’ll show you where it is.”
*
John was quiet on their way to the ship. He hadn’t been back to it since they’d recovered the alien. Grawrn. He remembered the state they’d left the fallen ship in. Side opened, his two broken companions still belted into the ship in their suits. John had a sinking feeling as they approached that he had done a terrible thing bringing his friend here, but he couldn’t warn him–it, he reminded himself. There wasn’t anything he could do for the dead aliens – Kyooli, he reminded himself. They were a people.
They approached the vessel in silence. Grawrn lowered his head and sniffed the air. Its small ears retracted, then stood up on its head, listening, twitching in the cool air.
The ship was dirty now. The pyramid was covered in dead leaves and damp from rain and the year’s snow, stained where the water had run down the entrance to the ground. John hung back as Grawrn approached, still tasting the air, mouth opened and panting. Grawrn’s heavy feet squelched in the soft earth, raising water. With a heave, the big alien dropped the timber it used as a walking stick and lumbered forward into the ship’s opening. It rushed up the ramp and dropped to its knees in front of the two aliens in their suits, still strapped into their seats, vines creeping up
their legs from the forest floor.
Grawrn dropped to his knees and let out a howl unlike anything John had ever heard before, the sound echoing off the hill through the trees. Birds flew from their branches into the sky as the sound rang through the forest. Not sure what to do, John stepped up behind the big alien and put a hand on the coarse brown hide of its back. The big head turned back with glistening black eyes and John gave it a hug, wrapping his arms around its head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We should have shown you sooner. I didn’t know what to do.”
The big alien pushed John away and climbed inside. It began undoing the restraints and hauled the first of the aliens out, then the other, laying them down on the opened side of the ship. Then Grawrn removed their helmets. It sat between them for a long time after that, in silence, the insects chirping and birds singing all around them. John sat down on a fallen tree and waited.
After a long while, Grawrn heaved its bulk up and crawled inside the cramped ship and began rummaging around, opening panels and compartments. It gathered up equipment John couldn’t make sense of from appearance and arranged it neatly on the floor amongst the dirt and leaves. It found a harness and put it on over its shoulders and began strapping equipment into it. Finally, it pulled out a wrapped implement over six feet long and strapped it to its back. One last look and a stabbing motion into one of the compartments and the ship lit up inside. The lights turned red and Grawrn stepped out, picked up the timber and began lumbering up the hill. It paused and turned, making sure John was following, then motioned with a clawed hand for John to hurry up.
Clambering now, stepping over the fallen tree trunks and sliding in the scree, he heard a whine increasing in pitch behind him. John felt a grip on his arm and was hauled up the embankment and dropped on his back behind some trees, just as the ship lit up in a white-hot fireball. The rush of air on his skin was like a hot wind followed by a cold whoosh as the fire was snuffed out. He flopped himself over and crawled over to the edge of the tree trunk and looked down at the crater. Nothing remained of the alien ship. Grawrn was looking at him, crouched on one knee. Then one of its ears twitched and it turned its head.
“What is–” then he heard it too: Men shouting over mechanical crunches. A woman’s shriek.
Grawrn crept forward, quieter than John would have thought possible given the creature’s bulk. John crouch-walked behind the alien through the trees, wishing he’d brought his .308. “Wait,” John hissed. “They could be dangerous. Raiders.”
Grawrn held a hand back behind it, signaling for John to stay back, then pulled the bundle off its back and began unwrapping a huge double-ended spear with blades on each end the size of small swords. The sword staff made a humming sound in the alien’s claws as it crept forward.
“Bring the tractor ‘round,” one of the men hollered. “I want to see what that explosion was.”
Another mechanical crunching sound and John saw four large wheels rip through the smaller trees at the forest’s edge, black metal box sitting atop the big-wheeled chassis, carrying a man and a woman in the seats up front. It reared up on its back wheels and slammed into the woods, breaking trees in half. Beyond, John could see their barn was on fire, black smoke curling up into the sky. The homestead’s doors were hanging open and men and women came out of it, their arms full.
“No…” John whispered as Grawrn rose up to its full height. Three meters of brown and black muscle rose and stepped out of the copse of trees towards the man who’d called for the tractor. The man opened his mouth, maybe to scream as he saw Grawrn stalking towards him, the man’s mind unable to register what he was looking at. With a whoosh Grawn brought the sword spear around and down, splitting the man in half, both pieces slowly falling beside one another about a central mass of gore.
Grawrn stalked forward towards the men and women coming out of the farmhouse. One of the women screamed, then a man opened fire with a pistol. The short pops sounded like a .22 to John. He heard sounds like tree bark snapping as the bullets bounced off Grawrn’s shoulders and chest, and then it dropped its head and charged forward, powerful legs pumping, clawed feet tearing trenches in the soft ground as it barreled down on the intruders and swung the staff through them, the humming sound getting louder as it ripped through three bodies in one stroke.
Grawrn bellowed in rage and the remaining raiders ran over one another to get to their vehicle, now desperately trying to back out of the woods and turn around. The driver revved the tractor’s engine and smoke billowed out of the pipes sticking out of the sides. Then the wheels dug in and it churned mud and dirt, John watching as it picked up speed and wobbled towards Grawrn, standing its ground in front of the house. The tractor must have weighed five tons, heavy metal and huge antique combustion engine atop an over-built chassis. John watched in horror as it approached. “No!”
Grawrn swung the blade and it hummed through the front wheel, through the frame into the engine block, and stuck there. The machine dropped down onto the broken wheel, collapsing like a falling barn as Grawrn crawled up the wheel with its claws, onto the smoking engine and into the front compartment where two terrified humans met a horrible end.
4
The days after the invasion of the homestead were a hazy blur in John’s mind. Somehow, he and Grawrn had decided to set out together; whether at his own insistence or Grawrn’s urging, he wasn’t sure. He just knew they had to leave. Packing had been hasty and not clearly thought out. On the road, there were items he missed. The home’s tablet, for instance. They’d over-packed on guns and ammunition, his bow and two quivers full of arrows. There wasn’t a lot of food to bring, most of it in freezers and rifled through by the raiders during their search of the house. Instead his pack was full of his hunting clothes, a parka, hats and gloves and socks.
They’d been two days onto the Long Trail when he realized they had no flashlights, no matches, no axe. He’d had a little cry that night as they sat chewing dry ration bars and a cold tin of beans.
Grawrn didn’t seem to need much, fortunately, but couldn’t live off its stores indefinitely, John figured. They’d have to hunt and he’d have to build a fire somehow. Maybe build a drying hut to cure some meat. They’d make it.
It took them three weeks to reach the Ithiel Falls along the Lamoille River. They followed that to Johnson, an abandoned village straddling the Long Trail and West Settlement. They scoured the town and found more supplies they could use. John found a hatchet he liked in one of the houses. He added an axe with a decent blade to his collection of tools. He found flints and matches and lighters and some of them even worked. It was getting late in the summer and the trees were beginning to yellow in places. Fall was coming early. Earlier every year, his father used to say. The orange sun was still warm and the mosquitos attacked them at dusk, making it hard to wear anything comfortable in the heat.
They stayed in Johnson for the night and heard the roar of machines as the sun started to set. Grawrn gripped his sword staff to its chest, ears flicking at the sounds as they huddled inside what used to be a church. The roof was partially collapsed and exposing the sky. Machines roared over shouts and calls as the vehicles rolled through the town. John could hear destruction as they tore down houses, scavenging for anything of value. John slept fitfully that night with his .308 against his chest, until eventually he was awakened to the sound of crackling and yelling. Smoke crept under the door to the church; they’d barricaded it with pews and lumber from inside the building. When the raiders had been unable to break in, they’d set the church on fire, with John and Grawrn inside.
John hacked at the floor with his axe and Grawrn jumped in to help, tearing floor boards up with its claws. They crawled underneath the building and huddled there in the crawlspace as the fire licked up the walls outside, smoke filling the tiny space under the floors. They crept underneath, Grawrn barely able to fit in the cramped space, flattening itself out against the dirt and dragging itself forward to the edge of the wall. A flimsy lattice of pa
rtially rotten wood was all that separated them from the outside, but they could still see lights flashing as the raiders circled the buildings and razed the town of anything useful.
Eventually, the scavengers got bored and John and the alien snuck out to the river and made their way into the woods again.
“We can’t go to the towns. It’s too dangerous,” John said. “We have what we need now.”
“Good,” Grawrn growled in reply. “It junk.”
After two days, they woke up one morning and John heard the snort of a deer, the breaking of branches. He crept up and shot it with his .308. A twelve point buck. Grawrn watched him clean the animal with interest, occasionally licking its lips. John passed it a cup of blood and together they drank.
“Good,” Grawrn said.
“Good,” John agreed, wiping his face with the back of his arm.
They ate meat that night, over a fire. Grawrn was upset when John set his steak on the flames and reached in and pulled the meat off with its claws. “Not good,” Grawrn said in its gruff voice.
“Fire makes it good,” John said, quoting his father.
“Not for Grawrn,” it said, tearing off a hunk of meat and chewing happily.
“Hey, Grawrn, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Are you a…” John wasn’t really sure how he was going to explain this, but had to try, for his own curiosity. “Um, are you a man Kyooli, or a woman? Something else?”
Grawrn looked at him funny, chewing its meat slowly.
“Like, man, like me, or woman. Like… Like my mother. Was.”
“Mother.” Grawrn considered.
“So… you’re a woman? Female?” John cut a chunk of meat and chewed on it, then put it back on the rocks near the fire. “That explains why you pee sitting down.”
Grawrn ignored this and picked up a leg and bit into it with a crunch. Finally it said, “No.” And that was that.
Explorations: Colony (Explorations Volume Four) Page 16