Significant Other

by Bill Bowler

conclusion

Svetlanov spooned a mouthful from the pot, “Not bad at all, but give me a slice of prime rib any day.”

“Please, Boris,” Mundlapati protested. He was from Bombay. A vegetarian. “Don’t insult this wonderful grain.”

“Here, Captain,” said Armstrong, offering Oscar a dish of the gruel.

Oscar turned away. The thought of eating the grass seed turned his stomach, though he could not explain his own revulsion.

The next morning, a delegation of the furry three-eyed humanoids approached the camp but stopped well short of the perimeter force field sensors. Svetlanov and Oscar went out to greet the guests, whom they recognized: “Spot” from the force field; the big guy, “Two Blades” who had sawed down the tree; and “Tiger,” the little one with faint stripes. They all wore woven belts and curved blades. Spot carried a long stick with a large rock bound to one end.

“Watch,” said Svetlanov, and he spoke into the small microphone on the translator, “Welcome.”

The translator emitted a series of clicks and whistles. The humanoids looked excitedly at each other and Spot began to click and whistle in reply. From the small speaker of the translator, Oscar and Boris heard, in a tinny, electronic monotone,

“Old one — want — see you. Come. Now.”

Svetlanov looked at Oscar, “Nice looking club he’s got there.”

“No match for a laser,” said Armstrong.

Oscar considered his options. Most important, this was an opportunity for contact with the local dominant species, one of the primary mission objectives. The cryptometer had decoded the language sufficiently to open a communications link.

Oscar noticed Spot eyeing his photon pistol, and Two Blades seemed overly interested in the force field sensors and Svetlanov’s laser. But it seemed unlikely they could pose much of a threat with their stone age implements. The crew’s hi-tech weaponry and surveillance equipment would easily prevail in a fight.

Oscar made his decision. “Armstrong. Mundlapati. Remain at base. Svetlanov and I will maintain AV contact by handheld. Boris, bring your laser. I’ve got a photon pistol, just in case.”

Oscar and Boris crossed the perimeter and followed the three humanoids through the tall grass, across the meadow, and into the forest. They retraced their earlier route, over the slope, and down past the fresh stump, into the valley.

There was nothing resembling a path and the humanoids used their curved stone blades, razor sharp, to cut through the dense brush. They came, after some time, into a small clearing and the humanoids crouched on their haunches while Oscar and Boris sat down on the soft ground for a short rest. Oscar and Boris drank from canteens filled with water from the stream which ran past base camp down to the sea. MABeL had tested the fluid and it was 99.6% pure H2O with traces of calcium, magnesium and sodium.

Oscar drank and looked around the clearing. At the edge, behind the squatting humanoids, an enormous flower, perhaps six feet across, was slowly opening and blooming before his eyes. Six enormous petals, crimson fringed with blue strands, spread apart, revealing a complex inner structure and the opening of a wide stem, leading down through the stalk. A thick fragrance filled the air.

Oscar felt drowsy, his heavy eyelids drooped. Next to him, Boris was nodding off. At the edge of consciousness, Oscar felt a tickle in his nose and sneezed. At that instant, the flower stem snaked forward and the huge petals engulfed the nearest half-asleep humanoid, the little one, “Tiger,” wrapping around him and pulling him in.

The flower straightened up to full height. A large lump appeared inside the top of the stalk and descended slowly down towards the leafy base of the plant.

Spot and Two Blades leapt to their feet with blades in hand. They hacked madly at the stalk below the thick outline of their unfortunate companion, but the thick stalk was tough and fibrous and their blades were useless.

Svetlanov had his laser out. The red needle burned a small hole in the lower stalk, then sliced through, and the flower, top heavy with its prey, toppled over. Tiger crawled out the bottom, covered with green slime. His two companions were chattering madly in their click and whistle language, pointing at Svetlanov’s laser and the cut stalk.

Late in the day, they reached a small village, a circle of eight low huts made of woven grass like wicker, at the edge of a clear stream which ran along the floor of the valley. Svetlanov and Oscar, surrounded by a mob of curious and chattering humanoids, were led to the largest hut.

The old one emerged from the dark entrance and squatted before the door. They sat facing him. He gazed at them in silence. His long fur was silver gray; one eye was covered with milky film; and one arm, with a hand missing two fingers, hung limp and useless at his side.

Oscar noticed Spot and Two Blades off to one side, communicating quietly about something. Spot pointed in Oscar’s direction. Two Blades whistled something and drew his blades.

Near Oscar, one of the humanoids struck two stones together. A spark flew and lit a pile of dry yellow grass, like straw, stacked in the center of the circle of huts. The stack took fire and flames crackled and climbed towards the sky.

Oscar sensed a distant wailing and trembled. The old one lifted a piece of “bark” on which was tree pulp covered with green juice, placed a morsel into his mouth, and offered the “plate” to Oscar. Oscar smelled the familiar fragrance of the carnivorous flower. His head began to spin. He would have turned away, he had the urge to run from the hut, away, into the forest, but he felt Svetlanov’s elbow in his ribs. The old one was holding the bark plate out to him, waiting. Oscar accepted the offering. He took a mouthful of pulp and flower juice, and passed the bark to Boris.

The dual suns were setting and the forest around them danced in the shadows as the flames from the bonfire licked higher and higher and the old one began to whistle and click. Svetlanov turned on the translator and they heard the tinny electric monotone of the handheld as the old one spoke:

“The Creator, who protects his children, has made us in his image and given us the gift of movement. He has fastened our enemies into the ground. The sign of the Creator’s chosen is movement, from place to place. Movement, which separates high from low, us from them, friend from enemy, life from death. The Creator made the low to feed the high, the still to feed the moving...”

The other humanoids picked up the old one’s chant and Oscar fell back, sank into a chorus of clicking and whistling, and lay on his back staring up at the sky. The twinkling stars in the black night sky began to spin in place. The bonfire crackled.

The tall trees around the camp had faces, voices. Oscar heard them screeching,“Lay down your blades. All are one. Consume the fruit but spare the root. Lay down your blades...”

When Oscar came to the next morning, the dual suns were high in the sky and the village was deserted. The fire was ashes. Svetlanov was out cold beside him. With some difficulty, he woke the linguist, who regained consciousness slowly.

“Where’d they all go?” mumbled Svetlanov.

“I don’t know,” said Oscar. “My pistol’s gone.”

“So’s my laser,” said Svetlanov, growing alarmed. “Those little...”

There was a rustling in the bushes and a humanoid popped out. It was little Tiger, whom Svetlanov had freed from the carnivorous flower. Tiger ran to them and began whistling and clicking in great agitation. Svetlanov turned on the translator,

“Old one want weapons. All weapons. Take all weapons. Many many go to your village. Big danger.” Tiger, in great excitement, scurried back into the brush and disappeared.

Svetlanov cursed under his breath. Oscar grabbed his AV transmitter and tried to contact Armstrong. He got nothing but static.

“We’ve got to get back to base,” said Oscar, and the two men set off up the slope, into the brush and forest, back in the direction they had come. They made their way back through the thick forest and came out into the clearing where the carnivorous flower had attacked the humanoid.

From the corner of his eye, Oscar saw movement in the forest, not the constant rustling and murmuring of the trees and brush, but flitting shadows circling around them. He motioned to Svetlanov, but too late.

A rock flew from the bushes behind them and struck Svetlanov in the base of the skull. He fell to the ground, unconscious, with blood gushing from his head. Oscar could see now twenty or thirty of the humanoids creeping through the brush, brandishing stone knives and clubs.

Oscar moved out of the clearing and slipped into the brush for cover. He felt the circle of humanoids closing in around him. A low plant, with leaves like elephant ears, opened before him. It spread its great, fan-like leaves and waved him in. Oscar saw there was room at the base of the plant’s many stems for a man to be well hidden. He slipped beneath the foliage and crouched down.

The plant drew its leaves back and wrapped them around Oscar. He heard the footsteps and then the excited clicks and whistles of the humanoids close by as they searched for him, but he was wrapped in layers of broad leaves and, as the suns set and the forest grew dark, the humanoids gave up the chase and Oscar heard their voices grow faint as they moved away through the forest.

The broad leaves unwrapped and opened, and Oscar emerged from his den and stood up. In the clearing, Svetlanov lay motionless in a pool of blood, dead, his laser and translator gone.

The suns were going down, the first stars were twinkling, and a curtain of darkness was descending on the forest. Oscar, uncertain, thought he knew the general direction of base camp but, as the darkness grew, he became increasingly disoriented and lost his bearings. He fought his growing panic and moved towards the edge of the clearing in the direction he thought the camp must be.

In the twilight, Oscar heard something, not heard, but sensed. With a creaking sound, a tree at the forest’s edge bent towards him and stretched out a branch in his direction. Something dangled from the branch, a red orb, glowing with some natural phosphorescence in the growing darkness.

Oscar moved towards the branch and stood beneath it, looking in fascination at the glowing orb. He had the impulse to hold out his hand. The branch rustled, and the orb dropped into his outstretched palm. The branch withdrew; the tree straightened up; and Oscar found himself holding what looked for all the world like a glowing phosphorescent red apple.

On impulse, as if following some unconscious suggestion, Oscar, who had eaten nothing that day, took a bite from the apple. It had a sweet and succulent flavor. Juice from the alien fruit ran down Oscar’s chin. It was the most delicious and refreshing food he had ever tasted. He felt stronger, his eyes seemed more used to the darkness, his panic subsided.

As he took the last bite of apple, the brush at the edge of the clearing began to rustle and a dimly glowing path opened up, into the forest. Oscar followed the glowing path into the darkness.

The night was pitch black. Beneath the canopy of forest trees, no sky was visible, no stars. As if in a dream, Oscar followed the glowing path which opened before him and wound its way circuitously through the dense forest growth. Oscar lost his sense of time and direction, and followed the path, wherever it led, with single minded purpose.

At times, he heard the whistling and clicking of humanoid parties abroad in the night forest, searching for him, perhaps. But the glowing path would change direction and swerve away from the sound of pursuit, leading him off and around the search parties.

The sky began to grow light. The twin suns were dawning. Oscar, sleepless, drained and exhausted, heard a hushed, whispering sound and followed the path as it led from the brush to the bank of a green river.

Dawn was breaking, and Oscar saw a small falls just upstream, and crystal green waters flowing by towards a bend in the river. Oscar fell to his knees and drank the cold water, then immersed his head to clear his thoughts and revive his spirits. The water was ice cold. Oscar sat back on the bank, and realized, with a jolt, that he had seen this river and falls before, had been here before, but in a dream.

Leaves and petals floated by downstream. The falls whispered; the current murmured; brush and trees along the bank rustled and leaned downstream though no wind was blowing. Oscar understood; the message was as clear as the river waters. He waded into the cold river, pushed off from the sandy bottom, and swam downstream.

As he rounded the bend, base camp came into view. This was the stream which flowed past camp to the sea! Oscar swam to shore and dragged himself up onto the riverbank.

Base camp was a scene of horror and desolation. Mundlapati and Armstrong were dead, bludgeoned from behind. The clearing was strewn with corpses of the humanoids, blasted by Armstrong’s laser. The two men had fought to the last.

The sleep pods were ransacked; the equipment wrecked and littered about the clearing. Armstrong must have thought they were friendly and let them in. Only the landing module remained intact behind its own force field.

Oscar buried the dead, human and alien. He cleaned up the camp as best he could, but none of the equipment was serviceable. The scientific instruments and communications devices were broken; the perimeter security sensors were smashed; even the table and basic living implements were thrown about and ruined. The lasers and pistols were gone.

As the twin suns grew low in the sky and darkness crept over the land and water, Oscar sat cross-legged in the camp clearing, breathing deeply, grieving for his dead companions and sick at heart that events had gone so terribly wrong.

He heard, then, the whispering voice of the yellow grass as it rippled at the edge of the clearing: “They are coming this way.”

The faint bass rumble of the trees picked up the refrain: “We will try to hold them. Hide. Run.”

The dense brush that ringed the clearing rustled: “They are near. Almost here.”

Oscar stood up. Around him, everything was in motion, the grass, the trees, the brush. The trees grew rigid and extended their low branches in an interlocking wall around the edge of the camp.

The low, dense brush tangled and wove its branches together, blocking access to the clearing from three sides. The yellow grasses waved and rippled, their voices swelled in a choir of alarm: “Run! Run! We cannot hold them!”

Oscar smelled smoke, and heard the crackle of a fire. The humanoids were torching brush, burning their way through to the camp. Oscar ran for the landing module, turned off the force field, and unlocked the hatch. Around him, the flames spread and grew higher, their red and yellow tongues licking the sky. The trees were burning; the brush was aflame; and the fire was spreading, roaring through the yellow grass in a burning inferno.

Engulfed in flame, to the dying wail of the burning trees, the grasses cried their last: “They’re here!”

Oscar closed the hatch, powered on the module, and lifted off. As he climbed, he saw the humanoids, hundreds of them, surrounding the camp beyond the wall of fire and swarming up from the riverside into the clearing.

Oscar entered the ship’s homing coordinates into the module auto-pilot, leaned back in the seat, and closed his eyes.