by Archer Swift
Chapter 23
“Forgive? What do you mean?”
“This!” I pulled the spike from her leg. Shumbalic winced but didn’t scream, her eyes changed rapidly between green and purple and red, and then back to purplish green with a tincture of red that, to my relief, vanished. I tied the strips of my shirt around her leg to serve as a tourniquet, to stop the loss of life-fluid. Distinctly purple in colour and with an oily consistency on my fingers, I couldn’t quite bring myself to call it blood. I could still recall the texture of olive oil from baking with my mother during my Earth-childhood.
Strange what you remember, and what you don’t.
“Are you okay?” I asked, binding her wound, grateful for the return of soft green in her eyes. “Geez, you’re brave.”
“Thank you, Rist,” she tried to steady her uneven breathing. “And you are … how would you say it? Very sneaky,” she said referring, I guess, to the way I used the element of surprise to remove the spike. My thoughts were still in an eddy. Is this really happening? The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile, and I was both reassured and gobsmacked by how human-like she was.
“Your injuries are not as bad as I first thought,” I said, blinking hard. “The spike has just pierced your left-leg thigh muscle, although you won’t be able to use it for a while. You’ve also twisted the ankle on your right leg. The main problem is your loss of life-fluid. You obviously struck your head on the side of the hole…”—I pointed at a gash behind her right ear—“…and were knocked unconscious. When you came around, I guess you were too dazed and too weak to help yourself.”
“Many, many thanks to you, Rist.” She put her hand on my shoulder.
Unnerved, I stammered. “Can I ask you how you came to fall in this trap? I can’t imagine you taking a stroll home along this stretch of the jungle.”
“I was so despairing … of my inability to capture one of your females. Conflicted. I was, as you say, strolling through this strip here, feeling sorry for myself, wondering what I was going to tell Xakanic—”
“Who is Xaka…?”
“Xakanic … pronounced Xaa-kaa-nick … is Head Chief of the Zikalic—”
I felt my eyes squint and my head hurt. “The what?”
“We are the Zikalic … Zee-kaa-lick … my people.”
“I’m listening, I’m learning,” I said, scratching my chin.
“You see; I have failed my coming-of-age challenge. I do not know what I am going to say to Xakanic and the Initiators … those who oversee the coming-of-age rite.”
“I’m sorry, for you … but relieved, for our women, my friends. Geez! This is difficult.”
Shumbalic then put her hand on my hand; hers was larger than mine even though she was smaller in size and stature. “I know … me too … I am so conflicted.”
“Can I ask you a difficult question?” I asked, feeling short of breath.
“Yes?” she smiled.
I cleared my throat and suddenly itchy, my scar needed scratching. “What do you do with our girls … our females?”
Her smiled disappeared in a heartbeat, and her eyes dropped to the ground. “I will only tell if you promise not to hate me.”
“Shumbalic … I … I—” How could I explain that I hated her kind … them … with absolute, unbridled hatred for a decade?
“I understand,” she said with incredible empathy, looking me in the eye, the colour in her iris now tingled green. It was beautiful, so beautiful; she looked so feminine. When angry, she looked ghastly, so monstrous. “I will tell you even if you hate me,” she continued; her chin rose in an effort to compose herself. “I owe you my life; I’m in your debt.” She breathed deeply, and was silent awhile before answering. “How would you say? … pets … we catch them as pets.”
“P-pets!” I didn’t know how to respond; it was the last thing on my mind.
“Yes, I am so sorry.”
“Th-they’re…” I gnawed on my bottom lip, “…all alive?”
Monix?
“Yes…” she sighed and her voice flattened, “…most of them are very well looked after. We learnt your language from studying them, watching them. Xakanic is obsessed with your species.”
“I’ve got so many questions.” A painful throb started in my temples.
Is Monix alive?
“Yes, and I have so much to tell.”
I coughed my throat clear. “What do you mean?”
Her brow furrowed. “You are in terrible danger.”
“Yes, every day of my miserable life.” I felt a pang of guilt for the sarcasm in my voice.
“No,” she seemed sunk in thought, “I mean Xakanic, the Head Chief, is plotting against your people.”
“Look. I don’t understand. You’ve killed so many of us, and continue to—”
“If Xakanic wanted you all dead, he would have terminated you a long time ago … now you are spared as sport for our young adults. We can choose our challenge for coming of age; one option is to kill one of your leaders or catch a female as a pet.”
“That, that’s an option?” I was mortified. My mind reeling.
“Yes, other options exist … like killing one of the beasts—“
“But where is your erm, gun, um, laser weapon, thingy?”
Shumbalic squinted, momentarily confused by my appalling use of words to describe a laser gun. Only when I arranged my hand into the shape of a gun did the confusion lift and clarity arrive. “Yes, for this option, to kill or capture a human, we are allowed rumbala only,” she pointed to the device on her wrist with what looked like disdain in her eyes, “but back to what is important. With your numbers falling, only those of royal birth can now kill one of your leaders, or capture a pet … your females.”
“So, are you then … of royal birth?” I cringed at the rather obvious question that slopped out of my mouth.
Her head nodded. “Yes, my father is a Chief, but Xakanic is Head Chief and does whatever he pleases. My father has tried to reason with him, but he will not listen. He has become bored with your people and now has put a plan in motion to cause conflict, a war between your people—”
“What?” I felt light-headed, and my vision went fuzzy for a second. Information overload threatened to fry the circuits in my brain.
“Yes, your one strength has been your unity, unity without a strong, dominant leader or an overt hierarchy,” her eyebrows scrunched. It appeared as though she was rehearsing a lesson she’d learnt recently. “At first, we studied it with marvel, but when the lower classes of our people began asking questions about social structure, Xakanic came up with the idea of proving how weak your unity is.”
I rubbed my temples to allay the pressure. “How?”
“Xakanic found a weak link in the aliens … your people, the humans,” she corrected herself, “one who will turn your people against each other. Xakanic says it will not be long; we will watch you destroy yourselves. There is even … how you say? … a wager on how quickly it will happen.”
“Who is this one?” I knew but I wanted to hear her confirm it.
“Your new leader, the one who loves himself, the one you call Dylain.”
Dylain’s heart is darker than I ever imagined.
“But how did—?”
“Xakanic and his personal guard took Dylain from his sleeping-tree one night,” she continued, reading my mind, “carried him into the deep jungle, and promised him power … promised that he would be Chief of the alien people … your people … if he aligned himself to Xakanic.”
I buried my head in my hands and rubbed my face hard. Taking a deep breath, I looked into her eyes. “Shumbalic. How do you capture and kill us without a sound?”
“Toxin in rumbala … our dart, we can set it to paralyse or kill…”
“Is it … um, painful?”
“No pain. No.”
Unable to keep up with the flurry of questions rapidly firing in my head, I thought my brain might explode. “And Xakanic will keep his word?”
�
��No, no. It is a game. Once Dylain has succeeded, Xakanic will kill him or feed him to the beasts in our Great Arena.”
“Your Great Arena?” I scratched my head with both hands and grimaced, my cranium swamped with both information and questions. “W-Why are you telling me this?”
“Because there are many, like my family, who oppose the Head Chief’s plans, but we do not know how to stop him, not yet.”
I felt a momentary reprieve to the growing pressure in my head. “What can I do?”
“I do not know, but your kindness, the mercy you have shown me, when I tell my family, they will be most determined. Rist, I owe you my life.”
“Shumbalic,” a thought germinated in the messy mishmash of my mind. “Can I ask you a difficult question?”
“Yes, Rist. Ask me anything.” Her dazzling eyes and soft smile made her almost attractive.
Almost.
I searched for the right words. “Did you mean it when you said you owe me your life, or … or is it just … how do I say this? Sentiment?”
She touched my shoulder again. “Sentiment? You mean pretend? No, no. Rist, I mean it. I am in your debt.”
“Sorry to ask you then to pay it.” I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead.
“How?” Her whole face beseeched me.
I started down a path I didn’t really want to go. “If you can convince your family to help—”
“Yes, they are already convinced.”
“Then return with your father.”
“Return where?”
“Come to my camp,” I hesitated as I felt the beat of my heart pulsate in my fingers, “fetch me in the night when the others sleep. The three of us will make our way upriver … to the first camp north of our main camp. A man named Scott—”
“Yes, I know of him. We all do.”
“I will need to introduce you to Scott, and then you can tell him what you’ve told me. He must know this information.”
“Yes,” she nodded eagerly, “it will be a start. I think.”
“You’ll have to fetch me soon after the others have fallen asleep; we’ve got a long way to go and need lots of time with Scott.” I immediately berated myself, realising how silly it was to explain what she would probably know well.
Her eyes widened, and the green dazzled. “But this is not a repayment of my debt.”
“You won’t do it?” I asked perplexed.
“Of course, I will do this … but until your life is at personal risk, and I save it, only then, the debt is paid.”
I put up my hands instinctively. “No, you don’t have—”
“It is not up to you, my friend,” she said with great cadence in her voice. The word friend—heavy with meaning, pregnant with possibility—seemed to stun Shumbalic as much as it shocked me. Somehow I knew she didn’t mean it merely as an appellation. There was an awkward but hopeful silence between us.
“Do you think we could be friends?” she continued, her face soft, her eyes swimming with yearning; longing for a friendship with an alien being.
Me!
I gulped, “I think we are friends.” It just flowed from my heart, and I meant it. How can I be friends with one of them? But I meant it; I really did.
“R-Rist! Hey, Villain!” The frightened voice of Shawz crashed through our moment.
