Chapter 3 - Interloper

  Day 4

  We are no longer chilling, me and the Capy that follows late in the night of the 3rd. I decided that we have spent enough time looking up at the Milky Way about an hour ago – doesn't look so different than it does at home but I shiver at the thought of one of those stars being home. Me and the Capy are stalking back to the beach, one paracord wrapped tree at a time. I hope I'll see the morning of the 4th. Even that doesn't seem guaranteed anymore. As the hours progress a late night fog descends upon my coastal abode, cutting down visibility to meters of the single digit variety. Not even the stars above can be seen and the goggles can't help either, they make the dark light and outline the hot stuff.

  Neither helps with fog.

  I am reminded of the horror video games the genre's fore-bearers created back when a megabyte of RAM was considered a bounty. What would they think of us today, half a century later and fighting for decabits per second of bandwidth with our cutting edge communication devices? They would probably say we have plenty of bits. Say that their masterpieces were made with naught but sheer will power and ingenuity and I suppose they were.

  The journey is a bit nerve wracking, with this grey wool pulled over my eyes plus the goggles too, but nothing will ever be as scary as that one time. IIEM training really did prepare us and that includes me. I can still hear it, you know?

  Over G! Over G! Caution, Pull Up! Pull Up!

  The T-38 instructor was laughing, and I'm sure if he could, he would've gave me a pat on the back through the ejection seat. We landed on rubber wheels and not our butts under ejection seat parachutes as I feared. That day proved a fact though, that I'm inoculated against that stuff. Ain't no tough situation I can't work my way out of. You have to truly believe that to make it through IIEM selection. So there's no hesitation as I place my foot forwards once again, because there's no bitchin' Betty telling me I am about to die should I fail to pull the stick back. And there is no inopportune breaking of branches to sound my presence either. The goggles make sure of that. I can see crystal clear only where the next foot fall will land in the dark. I glance down at the Capy and notice they aren't outlined. Confusing. I raise my hand in front of my face and see the edges of the appendage highlighted as the thermal enhancer does its work. Just strange then, the little alien doesn't show up on thermals. Well, they didn't show up before. Now the Capy is plain gone. Their presence is inversely correlated with my proximity to the beach and I am now proximate.

  At the tree line I halt. The SERE survivor would be disappointed if I didn't. His words sound loud and with authority in my head even now. Stop. Look. Listen. Smell. With these four steps you too can stay safe when entering a novel environment. The fogged up beach is a novel environment. My senses tell me it is devoid of life. No movement, no sounds but ocean waves, no smell of crab corpse. My instincts tell me my camp is not safe. In the dead of night I am actually considering abandoning it all. What has gotten into you George? Push up.

  More steps forward now. Trees with waxy leaves give way to bushes with stringy leaves give way to grasses with exotic features growing thinner under boot and then finally sand. I have finally arrived back at the campsite and boy has it seen better days. I steal some bites of food and water out of the escape pod (still closed and secure) and take note that the crab bodies are gone. No trace of them remain. Proof something has been here rummaging around.

  The tarp is now out of place and I see orange survival color facing upwards. There are... are those claw marks? Yikes. There are claw marks in the heat shield tiles of the starboard escape pod wing, exposing their white interior, two inches deep. I follow the claw prints in the sand and I am disappointed and relieved at the same time when they end abruptly. It is a flying creature is it not? The last impression in the sand is where the first crab was. I can crouch down inside of the paw print, so that must make it some 70 centimeters in diameter then? The tarp makes more sense now. The creature must have made quite the windstorm when it left. Where is my sleeping bag?

  Far out. One thing at a time.

  And there is one thing that calls for attention now, however, it is not in the camp. The goggles point it out through the fog. Ghostly, the contact is in the water. My seeing the edges means the goggles think it is hot. It looks like Tongzhou wreckage...

  Curiosity gets the better of me and I low walk across the sand like a snail, rifle in hand. Just as they trained us during outdoor survival training, I get progressively lower over the approach until I'm finally lying on my belly. It was the recommended way to approach a water source while on the run. The radiation dosimeter clues me into what it is. 100 μSv per hour it says, chirping away in warning. I press the audio mute button.

  Definitely Tongzhou wreckage and it's not the welcome salvageable kind either. A fragment of the reactor casing wall. I can tell that is what is is because I see pieces of fuel rod tubing still affixed to it, broken in half. We are never supposed to see fuel rod tubing by the way. At least there are no fuel rod pellets to deal with. That would be a real nightmare.

  Damn shame it couldn't be something useful washing ashore and now of all times! This is just a radiation hazard to manage in the dark of night. I can’t leave the debris here, but pushing it back out to sea would be down right unethical, despite my desire to reward the crabs for their good behavior. I have to do something.

  The return to camp from the waterside is done in reverse fashion as the approach, crawl backwards, then slowly rise up. I fashion a sort of fishhook out of the tarp steaks and, you guessed it, a bunch of paracord. I use the hatchet as a kind of handle to hold my crude invention. It takes a few tries to throw my hook thingy over the radioactive chunk. I'm working at as large a distance as I can manage. The inverse square law is here to save the day. I plan to bury the reactor casing fragment a ways down the beach and then sleep. The metal stake makes a clinking noise as I finally score a catch. I pull, both hands on the hatchet, and the fragment moves with me. Good...

  Right as I begin dragging the reactor fragment down the beach something strikes my back fast and hard. I never heard it coming. I'm thrown half a meter or so, roll, and stop on my back. The rifle wants to be flung away but the sling holds. Goggles? Who knows. At least the lanyard around my neck guarantees they are somewhere in my vicinity. I feel sand in my hair and down the back of my shirt, sapping body heat away, but that ain't nothing compared to the black scaled paw pressing down on my chest.

  I'm trapped beneath it, the scaled toes placed over my shoulders pinning me down. It's black and dark and hard to to see, or maybe that is just the lack of Chara light obscuring its features.

  I reach for my hatchet. I need my hatchet. If this thing is going to eat me, I'll be leaving as many cuts and slices as I can in its esophagus.

  The beast growls. I feel the warmth of its breath flowing over my face.

  "Hrrrrghh!" my response. Nearly got it....

  The thing's tail comes down hard onto my hand. The hatchet is sent tumbling away and out of reach.

  A quick glance to the rifle, not that I can operate it with my arms pinned, reveals that the magazine has come loose. The metal rectangle rests next to the steel and polymer rifle. Only one round to work with then.

  If I can just...

  No, the tail flicks the AR-7 away too, breaking the sling.

  Not giving up that easily. Thankful I am, in fact, for unclipped fingernails. I try to use my faux claws to cause some pain on the paw. Anything to make the creature stop thinking about me so I may escape.

  "??∩ ???? ?? ????? ??? ?? ?"

  A longer guttural vocalization this time. I imagine it's asking me: "Head first or feet first? How would you like to die?"

  I would have liked to die among family and friends, thank you, but it looks like George West messed that up too.

  What am I saying? Don’t give up. You can give up when you’re dead.

  Still, the direness of the situation is apparent and my mind drifts away from the immediacy of my hands ineffectively trying to pull the creature's toes off my shoulder to family and friends.

  God knows I should have spent more time with Mother, and my sister was always a free soul, I should have asked how she was doing more often, and Mi...

  I try to whack the toe with my right fist cursing my lack of a knife. The scales do not budge but each strike is done more for me, for every time Mi asked if I wanted to come to her place and I would decline. We had a routine, it would be another late night for another nearly due Quantum Communications assignment, she would ask, half way out the door, and I would keep working away. How she always had her work wrapped up before 8pm each day was beyond me. And we were both persistent. Persistent like my hand hitting this alien foot pinning me down. Even as weeks became trimesters which became years and undergraduate became postgraduate. When it was hours of PhD work developing a novel method to use entangled particle's momentum instead of spin to communicate, still Mi would ask, and I would decline, until one day she stopped asking.

  Stop thinking about it. Plenty of time to contemplate what could have been in the next life...

  The creature's head is a dark shape against the fog. It coils down towards my face and I see not two but four eyes on its face, there is a line of symmetry down its face. The scales are black, but glossy, even in the dark of night they seem to shine. How very Earth like...

  "????? ????§ ???? ??∩ ??∩?? ???"

  The growling is deep and I feel it reverberating in my chest. My ears protest the thing that is pinning me down. I see lips raised and teeth inside. Oh, it's definitely a predator alright. And here I am rocking up on its territory: the uninvited guest. Maybe this is an eviction?

  My feet impotently push against the sand, seeking purchase but finding none. All I have accomplished is two channels, carved into the sand. The paw pushes me along the beach away from the water, I leave my own human sized channel.

  Aww fuck, this is how I die isn’t it? With the UESC being right about leaving the planet which bears intelligent life alone and to its own devices, lest they find George crunchy and tasting good with ketchup!

  Suppose I’m a rule breaker after all.

  And what a terrifying punishment this is!

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I shout at it. Hurry up and get it over with then. Don't be cruel, like a cat with a bird. I may have uttered a few choice words at it. Including the ones I reserved as a temporary name for this planet.

  Suddenly it twists its head away from me, exposing its neck, and…

  Woah!

  Day -3

  Dawn Watcher sits on her haunches looking up skywards from the mouth of her home as she often does at night. Luxa's light is yet to bathe her territory in warmth, but she is not here to watch the morning rise like usual. She is watching strange lights fall from the sky, in many colors.

  It is the most mesmerizing thing Dawn Watcher has ever seen.

  Dawn Watcher nuzzles up to Sky Catcher, feeling his chest rise and fall. He is asleep, as is their child. Yet to hatch, Dawn Watcher can see it nonetheless within the egg, in the strange light she sees the warmth circulating around her child's body, a sure sign that it will be strong and healthy when it hatches... any day now.

  She wonders what its first great act shall be outside the egg, for such actions are how one earns their name. Still, speculating about that miraculous moment won't bring it about any faster. Something that will, however, are the chores that need to be done between her islands as soon as possible, lest she miss her own child's hatching. Dawn Watcher leaves an affectionate lick over Sky Catcher's muzzle and the lights on his neck flash in light speak "See you soon".

  Seems Dawn Watcher is not the only one who is restless after all. She takes one more look at the strange lights descending from the sky then spreads her wings, falling from the lip of their home, flapping, climbing, taking to the sky.

  It's trouble, as usual, across the water. Some miscreant has broken her water dam... again... She winces over the flooded grasses. The mollis will surely go hungry now. Dawn Watcher thought her days of buying mollis feed were finally behind her. The fencing for the mollis has been cut too. Finding the mollis could take all day, and longer still to wrangle them back to their enclosure! If they haven't been eaten already that is.

  Dawn Watcher's seething hatred for poachers boils over into a roar. It rolls off the hills and back, echoing several times. If her claws ever reached the menace responsible for jeopardizing her livelihood, she would do unspeakable things, but by the scent of it, the interloper is long gone. If only they would stay gone. How many days of this must she endure?

  Dawn Watcher spends the next three days cleaning up the island. She spends a fair time checking that the cuts and scrapes and scents she has put onto the land to mark it as hers are all still present. The coward didn't have have the bravado to challenge her claims, yet the gall to break her things!? Much time is spent finding the mollis and carefully taking them back, one at a time. Special care is taken to avoid their claws. That is a death she is not interested in experiencing. Each time Luxa falls below, inviting out the stars, Dawn Watcher dreams of her son emerging from the egg. Then she is up to watch the rise and then back to work again putting her home in order.

  Day 1

  On the next island there is no vandalism. No, there is something much much stranger. A rock that floats? Dawn Watcher never would have thought such a thing possible. She contemplates whether these things lining the beach are what she has glimpsed falling from the sky.

  For one of the rocks, the buoyancy is the least interesting thing about it. The water around the stone glows blue and the air too! Even in the strange light the stone glows a phantasmal Mirluxa color – forming odd geometric patterns. The strange light indicates it is hot too, like the egg of her child, it is as though the stone is alive. The others in the sand which the waves wash over are simply stone but they all show signs of being burned. This glowing one? This one is special. Dawn Watcher resolves to take it home with her. Thankfully this island seems unmolested by the fiend and the routine checks reveal nothing of note. If this island stays that way then her family will have plenty of food to hunt come the cold days. Before she departs with the stone something catches her gaze on the far side.

  There is something else in the sand. Dawn Watcher approaches it with caution. She is unsure as to its nature. It is white and black and passive. The odors from the holes in its body are repugnant. The anomaly makes a hissing sound and Dawn Watcher just about jumps into the sky. An internal chamber is revealed. It is a sombre scene inside. Something lies still within, enclosed in a kind of sheet that smells strange. By the strange light she knows already the creature inside is dead. She pokes her head into the compartment to remove the sheet. The creature has no wings and no tail. It looks vulnerable.

  The rest of the day is spent contemplating this bizarre development. Is this amongst the things that she has seen in the sky? Are there more of them? What if she finds an occupant that is alive? Are they dangerous? A threat to her soon-to-be born son and Sky Catcher? It is no creature she has ever seen before, not anywhere. She simply does not know. If only the Micoligo were here in the shallow waters when she needed them for once. They would probably know. They always know things. Dawn Watcher will ask when they return again. She hopes they know the death rites for it at least.

  Perhaps it is because the creature within the anomaly is small that she decides investigating the matter can be delayed. Maybe its because of her soon-to-be motherly instincts that she feels bad for the thing. Dead and she never even got to say hello. It looks like it would have been helpless were it still around. She certainly doesn't want the vandal to know about this, should it encroach on her territory again. The day is spent cleaning up the mess and pushing the anomaly to a more hidden location amongst the foliage. Dawn Watcher sleeps at its side on the grass.

  Day 2

  Come the morning, Dawn Watcher offers a silent word and a tear for the dead. Then she takes the stone and flies back to her dear Sky Catcher. The egg has not hatched when she pokes her head into the chamber. The pair share a tender moment (or two (or three)) before she unveils the stone. Sky Catcher too is captivated by its glow. In the dark of their hollow it looks even more amazing. "What a treasure this is" he says aloud. Dawn Watcher loves the way the light catches on his scales. He offers no greater insight regarding the creature she saw on the beach and the anomaly that housed it beyond what she already deduced. Wait for the Micoligo and ask them.

  As much as she wants to stay, Dawn Watcher has one more island to check. Once it is in order she can return home until the time of hatching. Her heart flutters with excitement. Once the child has grown she can investigate the anomaly further. With more affectionate licks for both Sky Catcher and the egg she departs, ready for the long flight.

  Day 3

  Dawn Watcher cannot believe it. She is not sure if this is her luck or something else. Another anomaly on the beach of this island! She calls out in greeting to it. Her keen eyes catch a blur, distant as it is, fleeing into the inlands where the wild mollis live.

  Oh... someone is shy.

  On the beach Dawn Watcher finds quite the scene. Three dead acercino are lining the beach. Dawn Watcher thinks back to the dead creature she saw before in the other anomaly. It was not that large... for its brethren to be fighting off not one but three acercino seems like quite the feat to her. It perks her curiosity. She remembers the dead had no claws, yet the acercino have had gashes torn in them. This perks her curiosity a lot.

  Maybe it was scared of her because it was harassed by the ocean predators? Dawn Watcher looks around some more. Every artifact she sees is alien, the purpose of each is unknown. Feeling the anomaly with her paw reveals nothing as to its purpose. She smells life blood spilled in the sand in several spots, but mostly near an acercino beneath some strange fabric. She drags the dead sea crab out with her jaws and sees why. Life blood on the finger. So they did wound the creature. Her confidence in the fear hypothesis rises sharply. If she can coax the creature out from the trees maybe she can ask it if it needs help, ask it about the one she found on the other island! Perhaps they knew each other. Maybe it will be sad. Dawn Watcher needs to find out. An idea begins to form in her mind. Winds billows around as she takes to the sky, departing back to the other island.

  The stone is dropped into the sand near the water. Dawn Watcher is happy with the placement. She choose one that stood out from the others. It was shiny and oddly warm. Dawn Watcher hopes it will attract the creature back to the beach. She climbs higher and higher, ready to wait the creature out. Her trap has been baited, and nothing gives one patience like hunting down escaped mollis.

  Day 4

  Luxa's warmth had long since dipped below the horizon when the creature returned. Dawn Watcher had to shake herself out of her flight sleeping when it did. Finally, after much skittering, it moves out into the open where she planted the bait. She dives downwards in a spiral, planting a foot on top of it.

  "Gotcha! Hahaha, you are elusive aren't you?" She says in a jovial tone.

  The creature is not pleased. It squawks and struggles. Dawn Watcher pushes the objects that it reaches for, keeping them out of reach. It looks like the other one, pale and no scales, again, covered in some strange sheets. A patch of fur on its head, much lighter in color than the mollis. In the strange light she sees the glow of its life blood circulating around beneath the skin, hot and very much alive. The thing has just two eyes. Maybe it can't see the strange light? Can't see Mirluxa? Dawn Watcher has so many questions. Most of all she wants to ask if it came from the sky alongside the falling lights.

  But Dawn Watcher asks nothing because this thing is really freaking out.

  "I am not going to hurt you" she says, but her reassurances have little effect. This is not going how she thought it would. It's vocalizations are like that of terrified prey. Not what she expected from something that dispatched three acercino on its own. Clearly it doesn't understand the spoken word. "Hmm, maybe you know light speak?" she wonders aloud. She shows her neck and speaks away.

  Day 4 Addendum

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been inside a data center before, right into the central core of the server racks where the online cloud stops being some abstract idea, but that’s what this thing's neck looks like: hundreds of little LED activity and status indicator lights blinking dozens of times per second. I’ve no idea what it means but it looks very pretty. It shut me up at least. I struggle no more against my captor.

  The creature tilts its head. It’s made an inroad. The lights flash more now in different patterns but I shake my head and say that I don’t understand. An honest to god alien is trying to communicate with me and I don't understand...

  I laugh at the absurdity of it all. Laugh at the fact that I thought I was going to die. Come on George. If an alien crash landed on Earth what would we do? Why should the inhabitants of this world be any different? At least I'm not being flown away to alien groom lake. And a predator too, given the teeth, an intelligent predator should be even less to worry about. Hunters tend to evolve a little bit smarter. You need to be smarter than your prey in a sense, or you would starve. Of course that would make me a curiosity.

  The blinking lights are gone with my laughs. I'm actually saddened a little, they looked beautiful.

  Now that I no longer fear for my life I pay closer attention to the growls. I'm sure my prefrontal cortex is trying its best, but their meaning is just as cryptic as the light show.

  "?? ??∩ ??§ ? ???? ??? ??"

  Yeah, don't know what that means either sorry.

  "?? ??∩ ??§ ? ???? ??? ??"

  It repeats the exact same sound with the exact same intonation. Think George! What would you say to an alien you just met? You would probably ask it a question. I think it is asking me a question.

  "Yes?" I say hesitantly while nodding my head back and forth.

  To my amazement the paw comes off my chest and I am free. I scramble back from the thing. It is still so dark, I want to find my goggles so I can see better.

  "??? ?? ???? ? ??"

  Oh that growl didn't sound so good. I don't think it liked that. It steps along to cut off my path back to the bush.

  "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to find something alright?" I reply.

  In the fog I stumble into the goggles. Any more haphazard and I might have crushed them underfoot. I blow sand off the lenses and slide them on.

  My butt hits the sand and I sit staring at this magnificent creature, my head tilting as I take in the details.

  What word could you possibly use other than dragon to describe it? It is hexapedal, four limbs, a tail, and two wings whose membrane runs from its shoulders and continues down past its hind legs, along the tail. There are dorsal spikes running down its neck, spine, and tail, but they aren't very big - maybe about the size of my fist?

  I can say now it is not absence of Chara's light making the dragon black in appearance, the scales really do have that color but there is an undeniable pearlescent sheen to them, under the chin and down the neck the scales are colored lighter, whether grey or white, it is challenging to tell given the fog.

  The dragon sits on its rear legs like a dog that wants a treat. It stares at me too. This showdown feels so different compared to that first encounter with the Capys. I don't have a smoothie to sip on this time! And what is the deal with those four eyes? Are those horns actually for impaling things or are they vestigial appendages?

  What do I even do here? The adrenaline has taken me so far out of the circadian low and combined with the goggles making the night bright, it feels like the middle of the day.

  The dragon rises up walks towards the reactor wall fragment in the water. It looks with what I have to assume is curiosity at my little contraption I was using to pull the radioactive hazard away from my camp.

  "Hey! Hey! You big lizard! Get away from that! It's dangerous!" I yell at the top of my lungs. I pull on its tail, instantly grabbing its attention but it doesn't move.

  The staff that trained us for the IIEM missions prepared us for a lot of scenarios, but God, there is no way anyone could have predicted this. How am I supposed to explain something as complex as ionizing radiation to the creature that was pouncing on me just minutes ago!

  However I'm supposed to do this, I feel some sense of confidence rising from deep within, memories of recovering the T-38 from a flat spin and a laughing instructor begin to stir. I finally understand why he was laughing. There is no way anything here and now can be tougher than that.