Caveman Alien's Pride Read online

  “I think we should go back the first chance we get,” I state. “After you give birth, of course. I want to do some exploring up there.”

  “You should probably check with Delyah before you go,” Sophia says carefully. “She may have objections.”

  “She may,” I agree. “But she may also want to get home as soon as possible. Sophia, I've been wondering. Do you still want to go home?” I squeeze her wrist again to take the edge off the direct question.

  She looks at me, then over at Bune. “I still want that. But, full disclosure: not at any price. If going back to Earth meant that I'd have to leave Jax'zan forever, then I would be faced with a painful choice. But it would not be a hard choice.”

  “You'd stay with him.”

  She takes a deep breath. “I think I would. He's mine. And I'm his. You know?”

  I squeeze her wrist once more, to show her I understand, although I'm not sure if I do. “Hopefully you'll never have to make that choice. We'll bring the guys with us when we leave.”

  Emilia comes out of the cave, rubbing her eyes as she sits down beside us. “Good morning. I'll have a venti cappuccino and a smoked turkey sandwich, please. Oh, and a brownie. Heated in the microwave, please.”

  “We only have water with mysterious leaves and an unidentifiable stew,” I respond to her joke while I pour the hot liquid into a crude mug. “It's tastes like shit, but it's very expensive.”

  “See, that's all I ask,” Emilia says and accepts the steaming mug. “Just like home. Any sign of Alice?”

  Alice is Emilia's little alien pet that comes and goes. Lately she's not been seen much.

  “Not so far.”

  “I think she's maturing. She has better things to do than hang out with us. Good for her. So, no caveman attack in the night?”

  I look over at the edge of the jungle in the direction of yesterday's failed hunt. “Not as far as we can tell.”

  “And the mother-to-be is up and about?”

  “Totally,” Sophia says. “Totally up. About, maybe not so much. Feels like I'm about four times heavier than just a week ago.”

  “Gonna be a big, strong baby,” Emilia says calmly and sips her leaf infusion. “I can't wait to see if it's a girl or a boy.”

  Sophia carefully adjusts her position. “Yeah, I don't really care that much. As long as this brat comes out healthy. Oof. Yeah, yeah. I feel you in there. Didn't mean to call you a brat.”

  “He's definitely listening,” I say and pour more mugs of the steaming liquid that we use instead of coffee. “You should speak some other language when you're saying things you don't want him to hear.”

  I hand one mug to Caroline and one to Delyah, who have now joined us.

  “Gonna be tough,” Caroline says as she sits down. “That kid has a linguistics student for a mother and has been surrounded by bilingual girls for nine months. And a bunch of cavemen. You bet she speaks fifteen languages by now. Her first words will be buona sera, Mutti. Like, the second she comes out.”

  Heidi sits down and yawns. “Yeah, her problem will be keeping all the languages apart. I suppose ...”

  I get to my feet and walk a few steps into the clearing outside the cave while the girls continue their morning conversation, before we all have to start doing something useful. It's usually my favorite part of the day. Today, I can't enjoy it. There could be an innocent caveman lying dead in the jungle because I'm too impatient to actually see what I'm shooting at.

  But that doesn't bother me as much as something else. Hey, death is so common on this planet, it's just ridiculous. What's kept me awake most of the night is the thought that I may have just injured him.

  There may be a seriously wounded caveman lying helpless out there, dying slowly from blood loss or whatever else.

  Shit. I should go back and see if there's anything I can do. But that would be extremely dangerous. I could walk right into a gang of his relatives and tribesmen. Apart from all the other dangers in this dinosaur-infested jungle. This cave of ours has been a safe haven for months. We have never been attacked here, and we've been able to defuse any threat from the wildlife. Now it seems that the dinos are mostly avoiding this area.

  I take a sip from my mug and feel the tepid, bitter liquid fill my mouth. There's no caffeine in it, but we don't think it's toxic either.

  It totally understand why the dinos aren't coming here much anymore. It's a village now. We're nine people living here, and soon we'll be ten. The men have a smithy with a forge, they've built a store room for hanging and curing meats, there's a plowed field for growing useful plants, there's a grove with fruit trees we've planted, we have a large woodshed and we're talking about catching certain little animals and keeping them as livestock. The men have chopped down more trees and have gradually made the clearing much larger than before. In the beginning it was only a few square feet, but now it has to be the size of a football field.

  It's an area where the fear doesn't rule everything, like it does in the jungle all around us. The fear of huge dinosaurs with teeth as long as my arm. The fear of insect-like creatures the size of sedans. The fear of the other tribes and the raiders that roam around. The fear of dactyls swooping in from the sky.

  It's weird how a forest so full of life can be so full of death at the same time. Death and the fear of it.

  In our tiny village, we have some degree of safety, we have food, we have clothing, we have some primitive medicines, we have leisure time. And some of us have all the sex and love anyone could want.

  In the beginning, when we were first dumped on this planet, we decided to make this the best tribe we could. Now I'm starting to wonder if we haven't done a little too well.

  Dar'ax comes out of the cave, kisses Heidi and says something that makes her laugh and slap his meaty shoulder, and then he walks into the clearing, puts his hands on his hips and makes a strange, loud noise into the air. It's a long, warbling call that we all know only too well.

  I run back to the cave and help Sophia get to her feet.

  “Maybe tell us when you guys are going to do that?” I seethe at Heidi. “You know we hate that thing. And she's pregnant, for fuck's sake. A little prior warning would be real nice.”

  “It's okay,” Sophia says as she hobbles into to cave. “We have time.”

  Heidi winces. “Sorry. I didn't know he was going to do it right away.”

  I regret my angry tone. But fuck, what's going to happen now gives me the creeps.

  I help Sophia sit down on a rock covered in the fur from a not-sheep, and then I grab my bow, notch an arrow and stand beside her as we wait. Delyah, Emilia and Caroline join us there, alarmed by Dar'ax's yell.

  It's less than a minute before the dactyl comes flapping and sets down right outside the cave. Heidi and Dar'ax don't flinch, but just the looks of that monster makes my heart race. A swarm of them killed many of the other abducted women the first day. It has huge claws and teeth so sharp and dirty and terrible it makes me flinch. This is one of the larger ones, too. Dar'ax claims to have tamed it, but it's not clear to me that you can ever fully tame a dinosaur. Its eyes are icy with murderous intent.

  Dar'ax easily jumps up onto the huge predator's back, it flaps its wings again, Heidi waves to him, and then the monster's gone.

  I take a deep breath, and notice that everyone else is doing the same.

  “You'd think he could do that a little further away from our damn home,” I growl. I'm scared, and it makes me angry.

  “Easier to land here,” Emilia shrugs. “But yeah, maybe they could make a different landing site one of these days.”

  “It's not really harming anyone,” Caroline points out. “If it wanted to eat us, it's had plenty of chances.”

  “It hasn't harmed anyone yet,” I agree. “Until one day it kills us all. It happens to supposedly tame animals on Earth, you know. Dogs, even. One moment playing happily with your child, the next biting her throat out. And this is a damn dino, not a house pet.”

 
“I don't think that's very common,” Delyah says mildly. “But after the baby is born, it's probably better if it's out of sight of our dactyl. Just to be safe. A newborn could look like a tempting mouthful.”

  We all mumble assent.

  And now that the dactyl is gone, that other thing hits me again.

  “Figlio di puttana,” I sigh. “I shot a guy. I can't let him lie there. I have to check on him. I'll go alone.”

  “I'd recommend against that,” Delyah says slowly, and that's the closest she ever gets to giving orders. “You'll be walking right into a gang of cavemen we don't know.”

  “That's very possible,” I agree and put my quiver on my back. “But this is eating me up. I can't live with the idea of an innocent caveman dying in the woods and me doing nothing to help.”

  “I'll come,” Caroline says. “I'm not so bad with a spear.”

  “No chance,” I state as definitely as I can. “This was my mistake, and it's my guilty conscience. I will not risk anyone else on this.”

  “Try to stop me,” she says and grabs her spear.

  Shit. She can be stubborn. But this I can't have. If something were to happen to her on an escapade like this, it would kill my soul.

  I notch an arrow, pull the bow halfway back and aim at her thigh. “I love you, Caroline. And I'm grateful. So I will absolutely stop you.”

  The cave is dead silent while I lock eyes with Caroline.

  She holds my gaze. Yep, she's hardened, too.

  I'm bluffing, of course. I would never shoot her. I think she knows it. But I'm giving her a way out of her spontaneous offer, and she has no choice but to take it. On this planet, things so easily take a turn for the deadly serious.

  This is taking too long. I quickly pull the arrow further back, as if I'm preparing to shoot, and she gasps and jerks back.

  Then she looks away and puts the spear back up against the rock wall. “Just be careful, okay?”

  I place the arrow back in the quiver. Then I go in to hug her, feeling her quick heartbeat as I embrace her. I really scared her, and she's not hugging me back.

  “I will,” I say into her ear. We both know it makes no difference.

  I grab a bag of primitive medical supplies. It's various kinds of paste we think can be antibacterial, some clean and coarse bandages and various other things that we've made over our nine months here.

  A pouch of fresh water, some slivers of smoked meat and some fruit, and then I'm ready.

  There's nothing to say. I turn my back and start walking. “Don't come looking for me.”

  I can feel the girls' eyes on my back as I walk towards the treeline.

  “Shit, I thought she was really going to shoot you!” Emilia.

  “She's not that crazy. But she really hates that dactyl.” Caroline.

  “Maybe it'll be good for her to get rid of some of that anger.” Heidi.

  “She's been out there alone before. She'll be fine.” Caroline again.

  “She's fucking brave, I know that.” Sophia.

  They stage whisper, knowing I can hear them. It's fine. They're entitled to their comments. Right now, I'm the odd one out in our little tribe.

  “Hey!”

  I stop and turn, because it's not often Delyah yells.

  “What?”

  “We will get off this planet. And we need you for it.”

  I have no idea what she means. I just wave. “Sure.”

  Then I walk past the first tree, into the jungle and the fear.

  3

  - Aurora -

  The morning isn't a good time to be in the jungle. Things are waking up, and some are just as cranky as I am if I don't get my coffee. Tepid water drips on me from the trees that have collected dew through the humid night.

  But of course, there's no such thing as a good time to be in a jurassic jungle anyway.

  There are noises from the bushes. There are rustlings from the trees. There are screams and screeches from all around. Something is sniffing around in the underbrush, something big is passing in the woods just fifty feet in front of me, and something has made some deep tracks that show three-toed feet with claws. I can hear a buzzing sound like from a wasp the size of a hairdryer somewhere nearby.

  All things that will kill me if they can. Even the butterflies can be dangerous.

  I walk with the bow and arrow ready, half drawn back. I can loose a shot in just about one second. And then every two seconds until my quiver is empty.

  Walking in the jungle is now very slightly less deadly than before. Firstly, because I have some experience now. Secondly, because our own cavemen have taught us a lot about the wildlife. I know which sounds to fear and which to ignore. I know which creatures will attack aggressively and which will prefer to escape.

  And I know that the real danger is from that which you don't see until it's practically on top of you. I fear the not-dactyls and the not-raptors. They're both quick and they both have Earth girls listed pretty high on their dream menus.

  Dactyls can be cowardly, and they don't like being hit with arrows. And I have only seen raptors pretty rarely in this part of the jungle. So what I really should fear is cavemen. But I'm walking quietly, and I have just as good a chance to spot them first as they have.

  Or even smell them.

  I walk fast, but carefully, stopping once a minute to listen for the more lethal noises. Once the ground shakes as a huge dino passes just a few feet away from me, but the foliage is so dense I can't even see it.

  The day heats up as the sun rises further in the sky. But I've acclimatized pretty well, and I've made sure that my skirt is short, and my shirt has no sleeves. Dinosaur skin garments aren't that good at conducting moisture away from the skin, it turns out. But they're tough.

  I hear a noise I don't like and crouch down. That sounded like a series of hard clicks, like a hundred huge drumsticks being banged together in quick succession. No dinosaur I know sounds like that.

  I draw the arrow further back and look around at the trees and plants.

  Nothing's moving and everything is quiet again.

  Just as I'm going to straighten back up, the clicking returns. Much closer now. But it's hard to determine where it comes from.

  I raise the bow, wishing I had something to aim at.

  Then the bushes split right in front of me and I get the biggest, juiciest target I could ever wish for. Except nobody would wish for this under any circumstance.

  It's a beetle. It has a bulging shell that glints in a metallic green. It has a myriad of short legs like a millipede. It has tentacles and antennae all around. It has four black, scissor-like jaw things in front like an immense earwig.

  Oh, and it's the size of an Escalade.

  Huge insects that tower over you aren't that common, but I've seen one or two before. This one is new to me, though. And it's what nightmares are made of.

  A cold sweat breaks out on my back and I feel chilly. Those jaw things could snip me in half. They're at least six feet long.

  Then the beetle closes and opens them very fast, creating the clicking noises I heard. The blades move so fast I can only see them as a grey blur.

  It doesn't look as if the beetle has any eyes. But that's the only good thing I can say about it.

  It stands still, moving its tentacles in the air. They're like long, waving fishing rods, and the tips are not too far from me.

  There's another series of clicks. I get the feeling the beetle knows there's someone in front of it.

  I look for a good spot to shoot it, if it comes to that. The whole creature is covered in a green shell that looks hard and thick.

  Then I see the mouth. Right behind the jaw scissors, there's a round hole with concentric rows of mashing teeth like the Sarlacc from Star Wars. Except these rings of teeth are rotating against each other.

  I'm frozen here, aiming the arrow beside that terrible mouth.

  God, I wish I was home with a good book and a glass of chianti.

  A wavy m
otion goes through the beetle's legs, and it moves towards me. Now the jaw scissors are just clicking all the time, constantly moving in a way that tells me that:

  1. it knows I'm here and

  2. it wants to eat me.

  I quickly move backwards and to the side, wanting to give that terror room to pass by.

  But it turns to follow. Yes, it definitely knows I'm here. And it's coming for me.

  Okay. This is the jungle. It's kill or be killed.

  I aim for what I hope is a soft part and shoot the arrow at full force. Even with the iron tip that Ar'ox has made for me, it bounces off the beetle's shell with a metallic ping. It doesn't even leave a scratch.

  The beetle stops, and I back off further. Going backwards in the jungle is extremely ill-advised. You could crawl right into the mouth of something. But here and now, my urge to get the hell away from this murderbeetle totally overshadows any common sense.

  The second arrow drops to the ground and leaves only a tiny notch in the beetle's armor.

  That was the best I could do.

  Fuck this.

  I bounce to my feet and run. This is also fantastically stupid. Every creature within two miles now know there's a curvy chick barging crazily through the woods.

  I turn my head to see if the beetle is following. It's not. And the clicking noises are fading behind me.

  I run for two more minutes for good measure.

  Then I stop and support my hands on my knees and just breathe.

  “Fuck, I have to get a better bow.”

  It's been on my mind for some time. My arrows are fine. But the bow isn't powerful enough. Its power is limited by my strength in drawing it back. This one, I can just about draw it to about two thirds of the arrow's length. It's not enough.

  Well, at least it's powerful enough to get me into the trouble I'm in right now.

  The realization hits me and I snap upright.

  This is the place! There's the hill Caroline and I were on. There's the bush.