Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 8: South Side of the Sky
Scene 10: Fine Old Cannibals
8.10
Fine Old Cannibals
“Your distress signal indicated you had a crew of 8. But our big friends here told us there were 9 of you.”
The alien that Captain Howard was addressing had three eyes. The compound eye in its forehead that was different from the other two. A very short third arm that protruded from its chest ended in a hand with two thumbs and three fingers which kept clutching reflexively. Two short, stubby antennae toward the front of its skull moved slightly while a longer, single antenna from the back of its head remained focused on Captain Howard.
It was lying in a bed far too big for it, in what was clearly a medical facility. A similar, but significantly larger alien lay in the next bed. Breathing, but otherwise showing little sign of life.
Two other large beds were empty, but neatly made. There was little evidence of electronic devices, but a vast chemical lab in an adjoining room was visible through a transparent wall. Cetris Rye and 2nd Lt. Emily Li were fascinated with the giant chemistry lab and the three masked, giant chemists.
The strange, clearly wounded alien made several swallowing motions before answering Captain Howard’s question. Its voice was a high, thin shriek.
“Eight crew. One regent. We were to deliver her. She lives!” The odd alien pointed with one of its hands, most of which was in a cast. “She lives on this world. She has hallowed this land with her feet.” The alien lapsed into some sort of weak coughing. Its left hand reached out, clutching for a glass of water. Howard placed the glass in its hand and the alien took a few drinks that quelled its coughing. It reached out and grasped Howard’s uniform with its right hand, pulling itself up, focused intently on him:
“If she dies, this world dies with her.” The alien released Howard’s uniform and fell back into the bed, clearly exhausted. It stirred momentarily to speak again, but gave up with a wheeze.
“They are dying. We do not know how to save them. They were all terribly wounded,” explained the elderly giant.
“Don’t trust them!” the alien managed. “They are cannibals! They will eat you! They ate us!”
The elderly giant sighed. “We do not eat our own dead. That causes genetic problems that would damage our children. And you have nothing to fear from us, Captain Ronald Howard, XIV. We brought four of them here alive and tried to save all of them. But they were too badly wounded. And their physiology is too strange. We did not eat their dead. I do not know if it would be safe.”
“Is there a reason he is saying you are a cannibal?” Howard asked.
“We tried to feed them some of our food. They wanted to know what it was. We eat the purple. And they eat us,” she added.
“You hunt each other?” Howard asked.
“They leave their dead out for us. We bring them ours. Food is not plentiful in these mountains. And we are safe food for each other. Our last common ancestor died out more than 700 million years ago. Apparently not too long after it first crawled out of the ocean.”
Howard nodded as if this were perfectly normal. “I would like to bring these two back to my ship. And the remains of the others. We have very good doctors. We might be able to save them.”
“They would never survive the trip back to your ship.”
“Is there anywhere nearby we could take them that would be outside of the dampening field?”
The elderly giant pondered only for a moment. “The closest would be Gateway Pass, which is the way you came in. That would be a four day journey.”
“I suppose there isn’t any chance we could convince the purple to lower part of the field so we could take them out?” Howard could tell what the answer was before he finished the question.
“I don’t think they would know how to do it even if they wanted to,” their elderly host replied. “Long ago they had a space program and they would take down part of the field for their launches. But those that wanted to go have all gone and they very rarely return. And while the City has far better medical facilities than we do, and the purple have better doctors, they would not lift a finger to save anyone who is not their own.”
“Would they allow me to use their medical facilities to save these people?” Howard asked.
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