by R. Lee Smith
Scott walked away.
The lizard’s eyes tracked him. The sword stayed in his hand.
Scott came back.
“I want you both out of this camp right now,” he announced.
Amber’s eyes went automatically to her sister, seeking support or at least surprise, but Nicci didn’t protest. She didn’t even stand up. Nicci just looked back at her with that same lost and unhappy vagueness she’d pretty much worn since the crash.
And for the first time since that day, Amber had to fight—really fight—the urge to slap that vacant stare right off her.
Instead, she made herself turn back to Scott, and with all the disgust she could not unleash on her baby sister, she said, “I have a reality check for you, Everly. You are not Commander-in-Chief of the entire planet or even this miserable little piece of it. You don’t get to say who stays and who goes.”
He muttered something, flushed and glaring.
“What did you just say?” she demanded, knowing damn well she’d heard him. “Oh no. No no. If you’re so goddamned sure of yourself, you say it right out loud!”
She didn’t think he would, and for a moment or two, she could see him waver, wanting to back down, find his supporters, regroup. Then, without warning, he changed his mind and stepped up.
“I said, things have changed. And whether you like it or not, I am in charge. And while I’m in charge, you better watch your fat fucking mouth or else.”
“Hey.” Eric stood up, his hands open and raised. “Everybody calm down.”
Scott took a step forward.
Amber hopped up to meet him and bumped into the lizard’s back. He really could be fast when he wanted to be; he’d been behind her just a second ago. She had to move around him to see why everyone else had suddenly gone so quiet.
For the moment, Scott’s head was still firmly attached to his neck. For the moment. The edge of the lizardman’s sword hovered motionless in the air just beyond the throbbing vein in Scott’s neck and the lizardman seemed content to leave it there. All day.
“Call him off,” Eric said.
Amber looked around, thunderstruck, and sure enough, he was talking to her. More astounding, everyone else was looking at her. “Hey, this is not my trained alligator!” she said crossly. “If he wants the sword out of his face, he needs to stop acting so fucking hostile!”
The alien punctuated this with a low, menacing hiss.
“You’re not helping,” Amber snapped. She started to take his wrist, but thought better of it and snapped her fingers a few times instead. “Hey! Meoraq!”
He looked at her. The sword stayed where it was.
“You’re not helping,” she said again, and just said it this time. “Ease up on him. We’re all friends here. Sit down. But while I have your attention,” she went on as the lizard grudgingly lowered his arm and hunkered down again, “I would like to point out that this is the only guy in camp who knows where the next nearest waterhole is. He might also know which plants are poisonous and which ones aren’t. Judging from his outfit, there’s even a good chance he knows how to take down some of those stupid deer-things and he maybe even could help us turn a few of them into clothes of our own. This is a godsend and you’d know that if you weren’t so worried about who’s in charge!”
“She’s right,” said Dag, looking at Scott. “If nothing else, we’re going to need to know what we’re up against, right? I mean…if there’s one, there must be more.”
“And I don’t believe for a second they’re all going to be happy to see us,” declared Scott. “Miss Bierce can believe what she wants—as loudly as she wants—but that doesn’t change the fact that, historically speaking, natives don’t take it too well when strangers show up.”
“Particularly when the strangers start acting like dicks!” Amber interjected.
“No,” said Eric, also moving around to Scott’s side. “I’m sorry, Bierce, but you are dead wrong on this one. Unfortunately,” he added, looking at a smirking Scott, “that’s the best reason I’ve heard yet to let the lizard stay. I’d rather have him where I can see him than let him go who knows where and say God knows what to who, you know?”
“Well,” said Scott after a moment, “I guess we could kill him.”
“Oh my God, seriously?” Amber stepped aside and flung both her hands at the lizard’s battle-scarred chest. “I want to see you try it,” she said as the lizard cocked his head at her. “Right now. Whip out your little knife, Space-Scout, and see what he does with his.”
The three of them stood close together and eyed the lizard with caution until the lizard glanced their way. Then Dag and Eric backed away and Scott turned pink and angrily said, “Have you even thought about the germs that thing could be carrying?”
“We all got the Vaccine,” she argued, but she didn’t like the way it came out, almost as a question.
“The Vaccine isn’t magic, Miss Bierce. We are all very much vulnerable to bacterial infection and other forms of contamination which I’m sure never occurred to you. No,” Scott said, frowning very seriously at the lizard, who stared expressionlessly right back at him. “Bringing that thing into our camp without consulting anyone was a stupid and reckless thing to do and we are all at risk because of it. He may turn out to be friendly, I don’t know, but his intentions aren’t the only things potentially endangering us. You’re on probation, Miss Bierce.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake.”
Scott stared her down with unbelievably effective dignity. “You may not think this a colony. But it is a community and that community cannot afford to have members who don’t care about the consequences of their actions.”
She was not going to win this one, not with an alien sitting in their camp, dripping with swords, scars and bacteria. Amber turned her back on Scott and stared at Meoraq instead. After a few minutes, he noticed and shifted his red eyes from Scott to her. He frowned; the corners of his mouth were the only flexible parts of his whole face, but they were turning down.
“How can he possibly help us?” Scott demanded, coming up behind her. “He can’t even talk.”
“Yes, he can. He just doesn’t know English yet.” Amber hesitated, and then eased a little closer to the lizardman and sat down, facing him. His spines came all the way forward. Otherwise, he was perfectly still. “But we can teach him.”
“Sure you can. This I’ve got to see.”
“Meoraq,” said Amber, reaching a hand toward the lizardman’s chest.
His hand snapped out and caught her wrist. He held her for only a second or two, which was plenty long enough for her to feel how easily he could be breaking her bones, and then slowly opened his fist.
“You’re going to get hurt,” said Scott. “Or you’re going to be responsible for hurting other people who don’t deserve it. And sad to say, that will probably be the only way you will ever admit you were wrong to bring him here in the first place.”
The lizardman glanced at him, then looked at Amber some more. He raised his own hand and tapped a knuckle to his chest. “Meoraq.”
“And I’m Amber.” She patted herself. “Amber.”
He watched her hand while it was moving, but made no effort to repeat her.
“This would be funny if it weren’t so sad.”
“Shut the hell up already, Scott!” Amber snapped. “You made your point. Now you’re just acting like an asshole.”
“Leave her alone,” Eric said. “You know how she gets.”
“I know I’m getting more than a little tired of how she gets,” Scott announced, but he moved away. Everyone just stood around, staring like they expected her to do something. The lizard kept looking at her and she had no idea what he was thinking.
“Amber,” she said again, feeling foolish and a little desperate.
He uttered a curt grunting sound without opening his mouth and reached out to thump her on the chest with one knuckle. He still didn’t try to say her name.
But he knew it was her na
me. That was something.
“So…okay. We—” Amber waved around at the whole camp to include everyone; the lizardman’s eyes never left hers. “We’re humans. We’re from another planet. Called Earth. Um…Earth? Humans? Feel free to make an effort here, Meoraq.”
His spines twitched. “Meoraq.”
“We’re humans. Um…what are your people called?”
Nothing. No reaction. Not one word. Not even another grunt.
This wasn’t working. She didn’t even know what she was doing wrong. Amber started to get up, then sighed and sat back down. She rubbed her face, then looked at her hand and raised it up like she was making a shadow-duck.
The lizardman’s eyes moved to it and narrowed.
“We came here from Earth,” she said, sweeping her hand through the space between them and down to thump on ground. “And we crashed.”
The lizardman frowned, watching her turn her hand over into a limp, dead palm. With her other hand, she made walking fingers to step out of her palm into the grass.
“Then the ship blew up.” She tried to show him by flexing her fingers and making what she hoped was a fiery whooshing sound.
The lizardman’s spines ticced. He looked up—not at her, but at the sky. He said something, then frowned at her again.
“I guess you saw that, huh?” This time, when she waved at the camp, he looked at the people instead of her hand. “We’re the only ones left and we can’t get home.”
“You don’t know that,” Scott interrupted.
Amber simply looked at him, then shook her head and looked back at the lizardman. “We need your help. I wish I knew how to make you understand. We need your help, Meoraq.”
He looked at her, unmoving and unmoved. Then he leaned back slightly and muttered to himself for some time, frowning and rubbing at the side of his snout. At last, he stood up and shrugged out of his backpack.
“What’s he doing?” Scott asked.
The lizardman unrolled a huge bundle of leathery something to lay on the ground, but it was not until he also began to assemble some short threaded lengths of metal rods into flexible poles that Amber had an answer.
“He’s…putting up a tent,” she said, a little dumbfounded that aliens even had something as banal as a tent.
“Why is that thing putting up a tent in the middle of my camp?”
His lieutenants exchanged glances.
“To sleep in,” said Amber. “Just a guess, but—”
“I said I’d think about it! I never gave you permission to let that thing stay!”
Amber watched the lizardman hammer his poles into place and raise the tent up. It was bigger than Scott’s, and a part of her could not help but wonder if that was the man’s biggest objection to it. “He’s not asking for permission.”
“He’d better,” said Scott, marching himself over. “This is my camp and if—”
The lizard turned around and extended his arm with a sword magically at the end of it, so suddenly that Scott almost walked right into the point.
“Amber,” said Eric quietly, after it became obvious that Scott had rooted himself to the spot and the lizardman’s arm wasn’t going to get tired anytime soon.
“Jesus, you people. What do you want me to say to him? Meoraq!”
“Meoraq,” the lizardman said without looking at her. He said something else too, and then said, “Meoraq,” again.
“Please stop poking swords at Scott! Being a dick is not a capital offense where we’re from. See? He doesn’t—”
The lizardman sheathed his sword and went back to assembling his tent.
Scott swung around and glared at her. “You call me that again, you dumb bitch, and I’ll kick your fat ass for you! See if I don’t!”
“Calm down,” said Eric before Amber could say anything. “You’re being kind of…aggressive.”
Scott looked at him, then past him to the lizardman, who was still making himself at home. His jaw ticced. After several cooling minutes of silent thought, he looked back at Amber. “You really think you can teach it to talk?”
“He already talks. It’s just a matter of teaching him English.”
“Fine.” He gave his jacket a few curt tugs and ran a hand through his hair. “Then do it. But the rest of you—” He swung to face the watching crowd of Manifestors and they obediently shuffled back a few steps. “—keep a prudent distance. Until the full ramifications of Miss Bierce’s decision are known, I’d just as soon not risk any more lives.”
They obeyed, huddling up at the far end of camp to watch the lizardman, and Amber, with equal parts awe and suspicion.
“Make sure they stay back,” Scott told the Fleetmen. He glanced once at Meoraq, who gave the front of his tent a last adjustment and then went inside it with his backpack. “And keep an eye on that thing. I want someone watching it at all times.”
Dag snorted. “What the hell are we supposed to do if—”
“We’ll figure something out,” Eric interrupted, giving Scott a nod. “Come on. Let’s…Let’s get all the tents moved back.”
Amber watched as the Fleetmen left, knowing that a few more choice words were coming and that now that the witnesses were all gone, no one would ever believe he’d started it, so no matter what happened next, she’d have to shut up and take it. “We got something more to talk about?” she asked, as calmly as she could.
Scott waited until they were good and alone before he bothered to turn around and look at her. “Just this. I’m letting this happen because I can see the slimmest chance of it working and I know there’s some benefit to having one of the natives as a member of this colony.”
That word again. Amber rolled her eyes.
“You’re making it happen,” Scott continued, “because you’re a stupid bitch who’s trying to make trouble for me. But okay. Fine. Have it your way. If you can actually teach it to talk and we can get it working for us, I may even re-evaluate your position here, but I’m warning you right now, Bierce, the first thing you’d better teach it is some goddamn respect for authority, because if I don’t start seeing it from it and you, I’ll bounce you both right out of here. Dare me if you don’t think I can do it.”
Amber clenched her jaws shut and said nothing.
Scott nodded once and stepped back. “I’ll let you get on with it then. This debriefing is over.”
She watched him walk away. Then she went across the camp—her jaws hurt, but she couldn’t seem to unclench them—to find her duffel bag. No one said anything to her, not even Nicci, although she could feel stares on every side of her and hear their whispers under the wind. She got her things and her spear and came stalking back to throw them down next to the lizardman’s tent.
The lizardman lifted the flap and looked at her.
“Repeat after me,” she said tightly. “Scott is a dick-headed motherfucker.”
The lizardman grunted, now looking at all the other people looking back at him. He let the flap drop.
Amber clapped a hand to her face and rubbed until her wind-chapped skin had warmed some and her aching muscles began to relax. Then she said, “Meoraq.”
The rustling noises inside the tent paused. After a long moment, the flap lifted again. He looked at her, the double-row of spines on his head and neck twitching first higher, then flatter.
She didn’t know what to say to him. He couldn’t understand anything anyway. Amber stared at him, feeling hot and angry and cold and useless all at the same time. At last, she reached out and patted the ground in front of her. “Please.”
He looked at the ground, then at her. He frowned.
She patted it again, trying to smile, although the effort felt ghastly and she couldn’t imagine it looked very convincing.
He dropped the flap. Amber’s shoulders sagged in defeat, but almost in the same instant, the tent opened and Meoraq came out. Ignoring her, he cleared a small area, gathered up enough rocks to form a ring, piled up some deadwood, and took a burning stick from one of the othe
r fires to start his own, close to his tent and to her. When it was going strong, he broke down some fairly long branches and lashed them into a tripod-shape, then set this close to the fire and hung a smallish leather pouch from it. He filled it with water he poured from a huge leather flask almost as long as Amber’s arm, then ducked back into his tent, emerging with a few round, polished stones which he placed in the hottest part of the fire. Back he went into the tent, this time for his swords, which he stabbed into the ground after deliberately pacing off six long strides, kicking two stray duffel bags and a pair of boots ahead of him. When he came back, Amber was on her feet with her bag and her spear, ready to move on, but he plucked them both out of her hands and set them down again more or less where she’d already had them. Then he finally sat down.
Looking at her, he knocked on the ground in front of him like it was a door.
Amber stood there.
The lizard knocked again, this time with a few words and a flick of his spines.
She sat down where he wanted her.
He grunted and looked away, watching all the people who were watching them. He muttered under his breath, glanced skyward, scratched his throat. If he had a reason for calling her over, he was in no hurry to tell her what it was.
“Meoraq,” said Amber.
He grunted, still without looking at her. Scott was at the head of the crowd now, just beyond the invisible boundary marked by the lizardman’s swords, listening to the complaints of the people who’d had their bags kicked.
“Meoraq,” said Amber again, reaching for his arm.
He caught her before she could touch him, but he looked at her.
Now what?
“Hand,” said Amber, feeling stupid and a little desperate. She pointed at her own, caught in his unbelievably strong, scaly grip. “Fingers.” She wiggled them.
Meoraq released her, frowning, and watched as she brought her arm up between them.
“Fingers. Look! One, two, three, four, five. Hand,” she said, now pointing at her other one. “And fingers. One, two, three, four, five.”
He said nothing.
“Head,” said Amber, pointing at herself. “Hair. Ear, see it? And this one. Ear. Two ears. Eyes. One, two. Two eyes. Nose. One nose. Mouth. All of it together? This is my face. My face is the front of my head. It…Damn it, will you say something?”