by Calista Skye
Caveman Alien’s Riddle
Calista Skye
Contents
The Story So Far
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
The Story So Far
The Abduction
Eighteen college girls were abducted by a flying saucer and dumped on the alien planet Xren.
They were abducted by the Plood, a servant race of the evil dragons.
Xren
The planet the girls were dumped on is a jurassic planet where huge dinosaurs rule the jungle. There are flying, pterodactyl-like horrors called irox and velociraptors called rekh. But there are also creatures the size of office buildings as well as more mysterious beings.
They all have one thing in common: they’re deadly.
The cavemen
The cavemen live in small tribal communities and are alien humanoids with colorful stripes and unusual features. They have no women of their own. The cavemen are very large and strong, but at the same time quite sophisticated.
The girls have uncovered that the cavemen are not native to Xren - they were placed on the inhospitable planet to harden them for generations before their ultimate mission: to fight the dragons.
Bune
Bune is an ancient spaceship that crashed on Xren about a century ago. It contains many of the clues to the mystery of the cavemen and of Xren itself.
It also contains a smaller ship that appears intact. The girls hope to make that spaceship fly, so they can go home to Earth. But the alien technology is extremely complicated.
The dragons
The dragons are the most fearsome species of aliens in the universe. They hunt other civilizations to extinction, including the species that built the spaceship Bune.
Several dragons have come to Xren recently, and most them have been killed or neutralized by the Earth girls and the cavemen, working together.
The girls suspect that the main dragon force has now arrived, coming to invade Xren and kill everyone.
The girls
The girls live in a village with their husbands and an increasing number of other cavemen who want to help fight the dragons. They form a tribe that is quickly becoming the most advanced on Xren.
Sophia, Heidi, Emilia, Aurora, Caroline, Tamara, Ashlynn, Phoebe and Dolly
These girls are all married to cavemen and have brought them into the tribe. Five of them have given birth to half-caveman babies.
Delyah
The unassuming genius Delyah is the elected leader of the tribe. She is married to Brax’tan, her co-chief. They have a daughter together.
Mia and Eleanor
These two friends are both married to dragon shifters, Mia to the silvery Kyandros and Eleanor to the green Aragadon.
Jennifer
Jennifer is a helpful and friendly kind of girl, although not the most innovative. She knows it well, and she cannot wait to leave Xren behind and go back to Earth.
This is her story.
1
- Jennifer -
“So everyone is leaving?”
Heidi dumps the not-sheep carcass on the ground and backs off, all the way to where I’m standing on the edge of the clearing.
I look around, feeling skittish. The jungle is dense and humid, as always. And extremely alive. There’s movement all around us. There’s rustling in the undergrowth all over the place, sniffing noises, light footsteps, the occasional leaf that flutters on the twig despite there being no wind.
The primitive, caveman-made gun in my hand should make me more confident, but I’m not too sure about it. The barrel isn’t properly machined steel, just a rolled-up sheet of thin metal. It’s probably more dangerous to the shooter than to the target.
“Everyone,” I confirm in a whisper. “Except for most of the cavemen. They’ll stay and guard the village in case some of the girls want to return to it.”
“Not a bad idea,” Heidi says and leans casually against a tree trunk. “We’ll all go to the escape ship in Bune, and only then will we have to decide who’s leaving for Earth and who’s staying here on Xren. No need to say all our goodbyes yet. You ready?”
I clumsily light the stiff wick on the gun using a thick match made from Dolly’s sulfur. The gun has a primitive mechanism with a simple pivot. If I now pull the trigger, the burning end of the wick will be plunged into a small hole in the barrel and light the gunpowder inside, causing it to fire a handful of metal scrap and gravel. In theory.
“Ready. I think. Yeah, not all the girls have seen the escape ship. We should all know what we’re entrusting our lives to before we decide. Heidi, shouldn’t we be quiet?”
There’s a weird hiss coming from the bushes in front of us, like a big animal sniffing the ground.
Heidi tenses up and hefts her crossbow. “I don’t think it matters. These guys are either totally deaf or they can’t hear the frequency of our voices. Or they can, but they just don’t care. That’s my guess, anyway. Keep ready, though. There’s one that’s close.”
I lift the gun, aiming at the spot where the creature has to emerge if it wants the rancid meat.
I was never a fan of dinosaurs, and actively going out of the village to find one is one of the more insane activities I can think of. But Heidi needed help, and I haven’t been feeling useful lately.
“Still sniffing around,” Heidi says. “This is a cautious one. That usually means it’s a mature example. The younger ones are easier to deal with, but we’ll see what we can do. If you have to shoot, aim for the middle of its chest. If it has one. Did you pack all your things?”
“Back at the village? Just about. Not that there’s a lot to pack. Some soap we made and some specimens of leaves and such. For the scientists on Earth. I suppose the more stuff we bring, the more credible our story will be when we return and the more money we can probably make from selling it. Well, we’ll see.”
“Yep. I’m thinking the same thing. Maybe you should bring some dino eggs, too. Safely, of course. The small ones, the size of footballs. We all leave tomorrow morning?”
The gun may be primitive, but it’s heavy, and I have to shift my grip on it. “At sunrise, Delyah says. So we can travel in the daytime and get there before sunset. And then… well, I don’t know. I guess takeoff time will be the next day. For those of us who are returning to Earth.”
Heidi looks away. “And you are definitely returning?”
I nod. “Definitely. You’re not, I would guess.”
She smiles tightly. “You would guess right. Probably all us married girls will stay, as far as I know. We don’t trust the government on Earth to treat us right when we arrive with alien husbands and hybrid children in tow. And even if they deal with us perfectly well, the best case scenario means endless quarantine and tests and research being done on us. Especially the kids. And that’s just one
of the reasons to stay on Xren— here he comes.”
The bushes rustle and part, and then the dinosaur is standing there, eyeing the meat with three of its dinner-plate eyes. The other two are focused on me and Heidi.
The dino is the size of a bus, and clearly a predator type. It has six stubby legs with backwards-pointing knees, a triangular, narrow body with flared sides like huge gills, and a long, thick neck that ends in a cylindrical head so full of spikes it reminds me of a sea urchin crossed with one of those mallets you use for playing lawn croquet. It’s an extremely weird alien dinosaur, and the cavemen call it a murong. It smells like you would expect — like a flock of elephants on the way to a mud bath.
“Which part is the chest?” I hiss.
“Aim right at the face,” Heidi replies, not concerned. “That makes it easier for him to notice he’s being shot. I think the bang and flash will scare him more than the impact. But I doubt it’ll be necessary to shoot. Give me thirty more seconds, and we’ll see.”
The dinosaur makes my skin creep. It’s not just an actual dino, which is bad enough. It’s also weird in its own, otherworldly right.
But Heidi is used to these things. She knows how to tame not-raptors and how to fly on not-dactyls. Her caveman husband taught her, and she ran with it. Now she’s been going on secret excursions to the jungle on a regular basis, sometimes returning on the back of some prehistoric monster.
I look around again. If one monster is tempted by the scent of a dead and skinned not-sheep that’s been hanging out in the open specifically so it will start to rot, maybe others are, too. Like a dragon, for instance.
They are here in their hundreds, somewhere in the jungle. The lack of gold and other valuables on this primitive planet means they can’t gather hoards to give them strength. That, in turn, prevents them from changing to dragon form, and they’re stuck in their human-ish shape. They’re still dangerous and deadly, and they have this way of sneaking up on you.
“I’ll try now,” Heidi says and picks up a long stick, made from a thin sapling and stripped of all its twigs. It looks like a fishing rod, and it even has a string with bait attached to the thin end. Except the bait is not a worm or a small fish.
She calmly walks closer to the murong, and I reposition myself and follow her so I have a clear aim at the dino without any danger of hitting Heidi.
The dino calmly comes closer, all the way up to the meat on the ground. Now three of its eyes are on Heidi and two on the meat. None on me.
Heidi extends the rod and holds it right over the murong’s head so the bait dangles in front of its eyes. And immediately the dino’s attention snaps to the bait — all five eyes focus only on that.
No wonder. The bait is a butterfly the size of a face towel, colorful and dainty. Heidi spent all of last night making it from fabric, and the colors are quite dazzling.
The dino stares at the fake butterfly as if mesmerized. That’s not because it’s beautiful — here on Xren, butterflies are usually venomous and deadly, sometimes even to dinos. The giants have no particular way to defend themselves against the fluttering horrors, except standing still and pretending to be mountains. Mysteriously smelly mountains, perhaps, but it’s all they have.
Heidi keeps the butterfly waving a couple of feet in front of the dinosaur while she makes her way to the murong’s main body. With three quick, barefooted steps she climbs up on the creature’s back and swings one leg over the side.
She’s sitting on the monster, riding it like it’s no big deal.
The dinos might be deadly. But they’re not all that smart.
“Looks like it’s working.” Heidi turns the butterfly to the right, and the murong’s head follows until it has to move its body to keep the threat within sight. She turns it the other way, and the head follows to the left, too.
Then she yanks the butterfly straight up and catches it in her hand. The dino immediately returns to its prior activity of not doing much. One eye is on me again, but I guess I’m not much of a concern.
The gun is getting heavy in my arms. “Are we safe now, or should I—”
The dinosaur opens two mouths and gives off a loud, two-toned roar that’s so deep it makes my chest shake.
Yeah, that can’t be good. With trembling hands, I take aim at the middle of the mass of spikes and leathery folds the murong has for a face.
“It’s fine”, Heidi calls to me, grinning with white teeth in a tanned face. “It just yawned. That’s good! Means it doesn’t feel threatened anymore.”
I lower the gun.
The dino isn’t looking at me. It arches its neck far back, then slams its head into the ground, and when it comes up again the entire not-sheep carcass is skewered on two of its spikes. Long, brown mandibles come out from one of the mouths and cut into it, then move the slimy meat to the monster’s toothed gape.
The teeth are too long and pointy to be much good for chewing, so it doesn’t bother. The whole carcass disappears into the mouth, and that was that.
I stand there looking while Heidi does various things with the rod and the butterfly, making the dinosaur walk this way and that. By moving the bait behind the murong’s head, she can make it walk forwards, too.
Finally, she jumps off and casually strolls over to me, fishing rod in hand. “That worked. It’s a breakthrough. I didn’t bring the stuff I’d need to control it properly, but this rod will do in a pinch.”
The murong shakes its head and slowly lumbers back into the jungle. Maybe it isn’t that much of a predator, after all.
I extinguish the wick on the gun. “Useful stuff. The trick is to not make it feel threatened by you, only by the bait?”
We duck under a branch and start walking back to the village.
“Yep,” Heidi says. “A creature our size is not a threat to the dino. Only much smaller and much bigger things are. So you make sure it’s fed — that’s where the carcass comes in —- and then you make sure it has something other than you to worry about.”
“And this works on all dinos?”
“Most of them, probably. I mean, don’t try this on a charging raptor or a diving dactyl. They’re already in attack mode. But one that’s already calm, maybe just curious… sure, why not. Very useful experiment. Thanks for helping.”
A sticky drop of condensation hits me on the shoulder, but I’m so used to it I barely notice. “Dragons probably won’t fall for it, either.”
Heidi pulls a branch aside and holds it back so I can pass. “Definitely not.”
I narrowly avoid stepping on a wide centipede the size of a yoga mat. “Seems like those of the girls that stay may have to deal with the dragons one way or the other. With no hope of escape.”
Heidi shrugs. “Our husbands and their caveman army of dragon slayers will keep us as safe as anyone could hope for. Unless the dragons suddenly change and become more active, I see no reason for much worry. They’ve been pretty quiet lately. They keep getting weaker without any hoards. And you know how terrible they are at cooperating.”
I shudder at the mere thought. The dinosaurs scare me, of course. As well as the huge insects and the myriad of other deadly things here. But the dragons are something else. The two that are married to Mia and Eleanor and live in the village sometimes make me walk big circles around them. There’s something icy about them, something menacing.
“I’ll be happy to put all the dragons behind me forever,” I state with conviction. “And when I get back to Earth, I’ll totally avoid anything that has even a hint of scales. No idea how I’ll weigh myself or play the piano, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
Heidi chuckles. “And eating fish would be out of the question, I guess. Sure, I understand you. I just don’t think the dragons will be much of a problem going forward.”
We’re getting close to home. I can smell the charcoal smoke from the village. The girls are preparing a really nice meal for tonight, which for some of us will be the last dinner in this village we’ve founded
and then built to be by far the best settlement on the whole planet.
I sigh, happy to be back and none the worse for wear. “Not for me, they won’t.”
- - -
Some of the girls start to sing Careless Whisper, with most of the lyrics slurred or blatantly made up on the spot.
“Hey Jen, want to dance?”
Beatrice holds out her hand, and I’m drunk enough to see no reason to not take it. The cavemen aren’t big on couple’s dances, so if we want to do that, we have to dance with each other. Which is fine. It’s a lot like some parties back home, except the music here has less bass and is more out of tune.
I do a quick little twirl, and Beatrice grins with bright, white teeth in her caramel face. “Not bad, Jen. My turn now.”
Yeah, we have to take turns leading, which is fine. It’s fun, anyway.
For a goodbye party, it’s pretty lively. The girls sing old hits, we put flowers in our hair as a way to dress up, we hug a lot, we get drunk on various types of caveman booze, and there’s a lot of grilled meat. Emilia and Caroline have experimented with the herbs we know, and they have come up with a pretty passable barbecue sauce.
There’s not much we have to say to each other. Twelve of the girls are married to cavemen or dragons, and they will probably stay. The six of us that are still single can’t wait to be home on Earth. And this isn’t the final goodbye — that will happen at Bune in a couple of days.
I’m okay with leaving this place. The other girls are much more productive and useful to our tribe than I am.