Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 8: South Side of the Sky
Scene 3: Tall Tales and Hot Grelbet
8.3
Tall Tales and Hot Grelbet
“Jellear over there, she actually saw it. Watched it go down.”
It was impossible for Captain Howard, or any of the other away team members traveling with him, to determine whether the voice that emanated from underneath a mountain of cloth, fur, and other materials that might have been hides, belonged to a male or a female. Or indeed, until it spoke, that there was actually a person under that pile of material at all.
Neither he, nor his party had expected to come across a village, with low, snow-covered buildings squatting neatly on either side of the main path leading down from the gap they had walked through that morning. It wasn’t much of a village - a dozen tiny houses and one larger, public house, which Howard and his party had entered, only to find three mounds of textiles, each of which, apparently, had some sort of person underneath.
The person who had spoken was one of two sitting at a table near the door. The other mound, which, apparently, contained someone named Jellear, was alone at a large table near the back of the room.
Most of Howard’s party had entered the public house, leaving only two marines outside to keep watch. Marine Captain Osollaa sh’Zhiathis set up a staggered 2-hour rotation so that every hour, one of the marines would be replaced.
A cup of some sort emerged from the mountain of clothing at the back of the room and waived at Captain Howard. A voice also emerged. “Welcome to Jellear House. Sit. I’ll get a fire going. You’re welcome to sleep on the floor. I’ll trade you hot grelbet for whatever stories you can tell me.”
Oddly, it seemed that pile of textiles was able to shift her focus visibly to the other two who were sitting closer to the door: “Derp, Culby, get up, feed the fire, and get some grelbet going!"
The two mountains of textiles, who, apparently, went by the names Derp and Culby, got up, revealing that they also had, at the very least, two feet each, which could be seen underneath the shuffling mounds of fabrics. There were, in this simple shack, only two rooms, one of which turned out to be the privy. The fireplace was something that appeared very much like a Franklin stove and was located in the center of the room.
On approaching the stove, both piles of textiles were shed to reveal smallish humanoids with black skin and azure blue fur. Both were somewhat smaller than the average human and in build and facial feature not unlike a gibbon - if an unusually large gibbon. One retrieved a large pot that had been hanging from the ceiling, dropped a few dark gray cubes into it, then placed it on top of the stove underneath a tap that came down from the ceiling. She opened the tap, allowing water to drip into the pot.
The other used a tool somewhat like a poker, but with an insulated handle, to open a door into the stove, revealing glowing embers inside, then used a similarly insulated shovel to shove a few dozen orange crystals into the fire, causing it to blaze up brightly.
Within a minute, this caused water to run freely from the tap, filling the pot on the stove, and also significantly warmed the room, causing Captain Howard and his away team to shed their heavy, winter clothing.
Jellear also shed her mountain of textiles. “We haven’t had an excuse for a proper fire in months. And a proper fire is a place to tell stories. Tell me a story, then I will tell you the story you want to hear. Not that there is a lot to tell. But then, you aren’t from around here, so there are a lot of other things you should probably know before you go looking for that downed spaceship.”
A series of knocks at the door heralded the entry of another villager. “You might as well bring your sentries in from the cold,” Jellear continued. “Now that we’ve got a proper fire going, all the villagers will be coming in, bringing food and drink. They will want to hear your stories too. You’re the most exciting thing that has happened around here in, well, probably years…”
Captain Skip Howard was a decent story teller, and he regaled the village with a version of the Beagle Task Force’s misadventures at the Oulheadry, leaving out details about Pel’s gender, but giving exciting, blow-by-blow accounts of each of the matches, which had the villagers on the edges of their seats. He described the appearance of the Golden Champion (and the accompanying Golden Darkness) while glossing over that both were products of the task force…
The hot grelbet turned out to be something similar to a mixture of strong ginseng tea with tomato soup with a strong hint of bacon - an odd combination - but wonderfully warm and revitalizing after the cold trek through the high mountain pass.
“Your turn,” Captain Howard said. “We will stay here tonight and tell as many stories as you can stay awake for, but I really need to know about the ship you saw going down.”
“There’s not much to tell about that, but a lot you need to know,” Jellear replied. “Day before yester, I saw a small space ship pass over Lichter Ridge. They were going really fast and they made it really far into the mountains before they lost power. Must have been a very advanced ship. They went down on the south side of Torlochtor, which is just behind Thelochtor, the largest mountain you can see from here. There’s no safe passage around the west of Thelochtor and barely any to the east of it, but if you go round the east side, then round the east side of Torlochtor, which is just behind it, somewhere down there you’ll find that ship. I’m amazed that you received a transmission from them. It must have been a very short transmission.”
Captain Howard nodded. “About three tenths of a second. But that was enough time for them to give us their location, situation, and some background on who they are, where they were going and a few hints about the culture and the locals.”
“Compressed data from computer to computer,” Jellear opined, to the surprise of Howard and his away team. “Just because I live in the back of beyond doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.” Jellear smiled. “In better days, I worked on computer systems in the City. Until the purple started to get even worse and chased everyone else out. We all still go there. They allow anyone to stay in the City for four days a year. But no more than that. The City is for the purple.”
“So maybe you have an idea why our equipment is not working?” Howard asked, displaying a non-functional tricorder.
“Same reason that ship crashed,” Jellear replied. “The purple do not tolerate any high technology outside of the City. This entire mountain range is blanketed with a dampening field. If you had brought your space ship beyond the docking port on the other side of Gateway Pass, it would have crashed, too…”
8.3