“Gimme a shovel!”
“Why’re you gonna use a shovel to make a fire?”
“There’s a ginormous bat out there. I’m gonna take a whack at it, chase it off.”
Jack reached for one of the guns, but I waved him off, “Any fool knows you don’t hunt bats with a gun. Just pass me the shovel.”
I took the shovel and swung at the flying rat, which managed to avoid the blow, almost as if it saw what I was doing. Must be that bat radar stuff they have. By the time Jack came out of the tent, the bat seemed to be long gone, although Schooner stayed alert, growling every now and then at the trees.
“If we put skeeter netting up around the campsite, it should keep out the bats,” Jack said.
“Do we have enough to cover the whole clearing?”
“We can do once around, if we hang it at the right height.” Jack pointed at the trees and turned in a slow circle.
I thought I heard the bat’s wings flapping in the air; nothing more than my imagination, I knew.
“You wanna get started on that while I build the fire?”
“Be easier if we both do it together. I’ll probably have to shimmy up the trees to get the right height. You can then pass the netting on up.”
I nodded. Jack was right. “Let’s do the netting first. It’ll be dark soon, and you won’t want to be climbing once the sun goes down.”
We unpacked the nets, and Jack climbed up the cypress trees. I duct-taped the netting to one end of a boat oar and passed it up to him. It took about an hour, with Jack climbing up and down various trees, but eventually we had the netting in place. With the nets to protect us from the bats and the zapper to handle the mosquitoes, all we had to worry about were the snakes, and we quickly laid a coarse rope around the campsite to keep them away.
Once the camp was set up, we’d have two uninterrupted weeks of camping and hunting. It was always good to get away from the plant, but I always do miss fiddling around in my workshop when we get back to nature.
There was a small colony of Tseekahn nearby where N’ctath made her home. She flew back with the news of the human incursion.
“It is only two of the beasts,” H’ckess said. “And it sounds like they aren’t staying here if their house is only made of plastic.”
“Not plastic, fabric,” N’ctath corrected.
“Fabric? Plastic? Neither demonstrates that they’ll be staying. There is no cause to worry,” H’ckess said.
“We can, and should, keep watch over them. Make sure they move on or that we know if more come,” Khakreet, the ranking member of the invasion force with this particular band, said.
“It makes sense,” N’ctath said.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. In fact, I won’t,” H’ckess said. “In fact, what I’ll do is go off and hunt mosquitoes.” He flew off before anyone else could respond.
“However, if the humans are moving into Thebayou,” N’ctath said, “it might be time for us to move out. We can live here because we look a lot like their bats, but if they get too close, they’ll learn we’re different.”
“I’ll contact the colony at Cashone and see if it might make sense for us to move to their colony,” Khakreet said. “If that’s decided, H’ckess actually did have a good idea for once. I’m off to hunt.”
N’ctath watched Khakreet fly off into the trees. She felt very alone, even knowing that at least three claws of Tseekahn were nearby. They were a space-faring race, a race that had successfully invaded this world only five years before, and now all of them were focused entirely on hunting the local animals. With a moment of reflection, N’ctath had to admit that even she was caught up in the desire to hunt, otherwise she would never have been where she was when she found the humans.
For four days, the Tseekahn colony in Thebayou kept watch on the humans. They seemed to have planted themselves, and, although they roamed through the region, they appeared to have no intention of leaving. Khakreet had sent a messenger to the Cashone colony, and late on the fourth day she returned.
“Our visitors are nothing compared to theirs,” the messenger said. “While we have a simple tent, the human’s word for the soft-sided house, in Thebayou, over in Cashone they have actual buildings. Several wood structures, with more going up. The humans use boats to navigate the bayous and get from one building to another.”
“Those humans are far from here and nothing to worry about,” H’ckess said.
“But we have humans right here,” N’ctath responded. “If they have a tent today, they may have something more permanent tomorrow.”
“I don’t think it likely. Besides that, what do you think we should do?”
N’ctath thought about that. She hadn’t really considered the best way to deal with the humans, just saw them as an obstacle, a danger to the Tseekahn colony.
A swarm of mosquitoes appeared near them, and N’ctath watched as H’ckess, Khakreet, and the messenger caught their aroma. It was a swarm that hadn’t feasted recently, and without their prey’s blood in them, mosquitoes were merely empty and tasteless calories. Nevertheless, N’ctath noted their reaction to the smell of the insects. It was all too similar to the way keers addicts responded when they tasted their drug of choice.
If mosquitoes were as addicting as keers, it meant the Tseekahn had much greater worries than humans on Earth. Later, when they were alone, N’ctath brought her concerns up to Khakreet.
“Interesting,” he said. “Although I haven’t noticed any negative behavior.”
“Tseekahn are dropping everything up and down to hunt mosquitoes and you say there is no negative behavior? What would you . . .”
“No. I wouldn’t. The jobs that need to be done are still getting done, perhaps a little slower than you or I might like, but there is really no urgency. We’re living under primitive conditions here since we have decided to keep the invasion secret from the aborigines. Mosquito hunting is about the only real leisure activity we have. I don’t think it is anything to be concerned about.”
Before N’ctath could reply, another Tseekahn flew over and perched on the tree next to them. “The humans have captured H’ckess.”
“Call a meeting of the colony,” Khakreet said, immediately reverting to his military role. While Khakreet flew up to where a meetingnest had been fashioned in the upper branches of the trees, N’ctath and the other Tseekahn flew throughout the colonized region to gather as many Tseekahn as possible.
The meetingnest was full by the time N’ctath arrived. At least one hundred fifty Tseekahn, more than half the colony, were gathered, hanging from the fine mesh of branches. N’ctath was glad to see that when something important happened the Tseekahn of Thebayou could come together with the same determination that allowed them to conquer several planets using more traditional methods.
After a brief introduction of the news of H’ckess’s disappearance, Khakreet allowed Th’kart, the Tseekahn who had first brought the news, to give details.
“H’ckess and I were flying through Thebayou, hunting mosquitoes,” Th’kart began.
Damn, there are those mosquitoes again, N’ctath thought.
“We were over where the two gullies come together, and H’ckess seemed to see something and took off to look at it. I ignored him until I heard him shrieking and a strange noise. When I went to look, I saw two of the humans standing in a small clearing near a small house. They had put up nets around the clearing, and H’ckess had gotten tangled in the nets. The humans were beneath the net, trying to reach it with long sticks.
“When I flew back, H’ckess was still trapped in the net, but he was still alive. I called to let him know I was going for help and flew to find Khakreet as quickly as I could.”
“A small group should be able to free H’ckess,” Khakreet said. “Th’kart and N’ctath, you’ve both seen this human camp, assuming it is the same one. I’ll go, and perhaps two more. Volunteers?”
Two more Tseekahn volunteered, and the group flew off toward the humans. As
they flew, N’ctath found herself thinking about mosquitoes. Not focusing on their flavor or texture, but rather on the way they seemed to be at the basis of so many problems. Were they as addictive as keers, or was that just a false speculation on her part? Why did the humans set up their small killing device to slaughter any mosquitoes that got close to them? Everyone knew raw mosquitoes were so much tastier than cooked ones.
N’ctath was pulled from her reverie by the sounds of H’ckess screaming in anguish. It was a sound N’ctath had never heard on Earth and only rarely on Tseekah, a high-pitched, undulating shriek. Only a few moments later, the clearing came into view. The two humans seemed to be completely unaffected by H’ckess’s pain, although their four-legged animal was making its own noise, clearly showing discomfort at the pain of another living creature.
As N’ctath watched, she saw one of the humans swing its axe at H’ckess. She couldn’t tell if the human’s blow struck home, but it did tear the netting beneath where the Tseekahn was trapped. For a moment, it looked as if H’ckess would fly free from the net, but instead, his body fell until it was caught by the net. The human started to take another swing with his axe, and N’ctath swooped down on him.
At the moment N’ctath launched her attack, she let out a shrill scream. The humans’ animal yipped and fled. Th’kart and the other two Tseekahn joined N’ctath in her attack. While they distracted the humans, Khakreet worked to free H’ckess from the netting.
A glancing blow from the shovel caught N’ctath’s wing. She fell to the ground, and one of the humans started to run toward her. She launched herself into the air and just managed to avoid another blow from the shovel. A glance skyward showed her that Khakreet had managed to rescue H’ckess and get him away.
N’ctath called out to the other Tseekahn. They broke off their attack on the humans, and the four flew back toward the meetingnest.
Along the way, one of the volunteers left them to hunt a swarm of mosquitoes he saw in the distance.
Getting out of the factory and into the bayou was always the high point of my year. The factory paid well, which was about all I could say for it. If I could get a better-paying job somewhere else, especially somewhere that let me see the sky more often, I’d be off like a shot.
Bill was cleaning his gun again, and I could practically see him trying to figure out a way to muck about with it to improve its action. I was tending the fire when the screaming started. I looked up to see a giant bat caught in the mosquito netting we had set up on our first day. There was a second bat, fluttering around the first, but as I moved toward the netting, it flew off, leaving the trapped bat behind.
Bill ran up and handed me an axe, while he wielded a shovel. We swung at the bat a few times, but it was too high for us to reach, shrieking for all it was worth. Bill’s worthless hunting dog, Schooner, came out of the tent and added its own yipping to the noise. Although I’d just as soon have swung the axe at Schooner, I focused on the bat we had caught.
Just as the creature dropped lower in the netting, we were attacked by a swarm of other bats that had flown over the nets and dropped on us. I swung the axe one more time and felt something tear, but I also felt a solid connection before I had to ignore the bat in the net and focus on the bats attacking me. Fortunately, Bill and I were far enough apart that I didn’t have to worry about opening his skull with the axe.
Suddenly, the bats all up and flew off. I looked over at the torn netting and saw that the trapped bat had managed to get away.
“We can fix that with the duct tape,” I told Bill. He seemed to be in his own little world, kneeling on the ground looking at something.
“You want to climb the trees, or you want to work from the bottom?” I asked him.
Instead of replying, Bill said, “What kind of bat has scales?”
I gave him a pitying look. “Bats are mammals. They don’t have scales.”
“The bat I just hit had scales.” He held something up and I took a look at it. It was a brownish-black scale.
“Bill, snakes have scales. One must have gotten over the rope, or it was here before.”
“Nope, I knocked this offa that bat,” he insisted. “ ’Sides, does that look like a snake scale to you?”
He dropped it into my hand, and I took a closer look. The scale was a strange triangular shape, coming almost to a point before rounding out. It didn’t look like a scale from any of the snakes that lived in the bayou.
“I don’t know. So not a snake, a lizard, or a croc or something. But bats don’t have scales.”
Bill nodded, but his mind was off in another world. A world where bats had scales.
When they arrived in the meetingnest, Khakreet was hanging from a branch, but there was no sign of H’ckess. N’ctath asked about him.
“He didn’t live,” Khakreet spat.
N’ctath glanced over at the medicalnest. She was too far away to see anything, but she knew what would be happening. The doctors would be performing an autopsy on H’ckess, no longer an annoying, self-centered person but now merely a lump of meat, killed over his addiction to mosquitoes.
An addiction to mosquitoes, and N’ctath had to admit that she was as addicted to them as anyone else. Or was she, or they? Were mosquitoes really the addiction that she though they might be? As H’ckess lay dead in the medicalnest, N’ctath vowed to find out if mosquitoes really were addictive.
H’ckess was not the most loved, or even liked, of the Tseekahn in Thebayou. Nevertheless, with a colony as small as theirs, everyone turned out for his funeral. Khakreet said a few solemn words as the military leader of the colony, and Ghart, a woman N’ctath barely knew, spoke about H’ckess. It quickly became apparent that the two had been lovers, and N’ctath filed away a low opinion of the woman.
At the end of the funeral, N’ctath took only the smallest of nibbles from H’ckess’s corpse. Despite what Khakreet and Ghart had said about H’ckess, she couldn’t think of any of his qualities she wanted to carry with her. In fact, she didn’t even want to carry any memories of H’ckess with her; however, she had to take some of him, for propriety’s sake if nothing else.
Following H’ckess’s funeral, Ghart and several of her friends went off on a mosquito hunt. It was clear that this was their way of mourning their loss. H’ckess had enjoyed the hunt, and if N’ctath felt there were things of greater importance that needed to be done, well, she wasn’t exactly one of H’ckess’s intimates. She could easily pursue her own agenda without infringing on the inanities of others.
N’ctath quickly learned how alone she would be. Khakreet brushed off her concern about mosquitoes.
“We’ve been on Earth for five years,” he pointed out. “One of us was bound to be killed by humans eventually. Had we actually fought in a war to invade, doubtless many more would have died.”
And he was right. Since their arrival, N’ctath had begun to feel less and less like a warrior of Tseekahn and more like a civilian. Her training had gone by the wayside as she worked to build a colony that had, surprisingly, grown up in peace alongside the natives. Some strife was bound to happen.
But the issue wasn’t H’ckess’s death, it was the potentially destructive influence of mosquitoes.
N’ctath tried to remember the last day she hadn’t eaten a mosquito and failed. The Tseekahn had discovered them within days of their colonization and as word of their flavor spread, they became a staple of all the colonies.
She smelled a large swarm of blood-filled mosquitoes and felt herself drawn in their direction. But no, she wouldn’t allow her basest yearnings to dictate her actions. Instead of swooping down on the morsels, she turned and flew off into the evening. She wondered how widespread mosquito addiction, if it was an addiction, was in the other colonies.
Five years. What had they accomplished? They had found good hunting on Earth, and not just mosquitoes. They had successfully established several colonies without a shot being fired. Their ships were in orbit, undetected, around the Earth, usi
ng the human’s own space debris as camouflage. But as far as N’ctath knew, all of the colonies were essentially living at a primitive, almost subsistence level. She wondered if she could get Khakreet to call some sort of confab where the various colonies could actually work together to figure out their next steps. Earth was nowhere near ready for an influx of Tseekahn, which was what the colonies should be striving for at this point.
She flew up to Khakreet’s nest, but the old officer was not about. Instead, she got to talk to Chaaloth, who acted as Khakreet’s aide-de-camp. Rather than just leave a message for Khakreet, she decided to outline her concerns, in detail, to Chaaloth.
“Things are happening,” Chaaloth responded. “Khakreet just doesn’t announce all of them to the colony. It is a holdover from his active military days. Perhaps not a holdover, since he still sees this as an invasion and occupying force, no matter the reality. In any event, he has been holding planning sessions with the leaders of the other colonies every twenty days.”
“When is the next meeting?”
“Two days from now. They’ll be meeting in Cashone. Khakreet will be leaving tonight.”
Although the Tseekahn were diurnal, they tended to make longer trips at night to coincide with the sleep cycle of the Earth bats and not to draw attention to themselves.
“Is there any chance I’ll be able to join him?”
“Have you discussed your concerns with him?” Chaaloth asked.
N’ctath flapped her wings in a way that indicated she had and that he had rejected them.
“Unless you can convince him, I doubt he’ll want to take you along. Having you present your concerns without agreeing with you will make him seem weak, unable to control his colonists.”
“Thanks, anyway.”
N’ctath flew off to the edge of Thebayou, away from the colony. Along the way, she flew high over the camp of the humans. Although the tent and netting were still in place, the fire was dead and the humans seemed to have deserted it, at least for the time being.
Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies Page 22
