It sat down, then, to watch them. Chilaili had traced the extent of her daughter’s cuts and was trying to stanch the bleeding with her hands. The alien rummaged again in its carrysack, then offered a small bundle of whitish cloth which, once unrolled, the alien easily tore into smaller pieces which it used to press against the wounds, halting the flow of blood. It handed Chilaili another little bundle of the stuff, making motions with its hands. Chilaili nodded, unrolling it and winding the filmy stuff around the wound to hold the compresses in place. Sooleawa’s eyes had closed. She was trembling, with faint tremors that told Chilaili shock was setting in. Terror took hold of her again, seeing that. Shock could prove just as fatal as drowning.
The instant they had bandaged Sooleawa’s various wounds, the alien brought out the silvery blanket again, covering the shivering girl with it, which warmed her even more rapidly than the flameless heating device. The frightening shudders began to ease away. Chilaili hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she gulped down a lungful of air in sheer relief. The alien then produced a cup from the carrysack and stepped to the edge of their shelter, leaning out to fill it with clean rainwater, carefully avoiding the muddy spilloff that plunged over the edge of the ravine wall high above them.
A moment later, it knelt at Sooleawa’s side and offered the cup to Chilaili, gesturing to the girl’s mouth. It was awkwardly shaped, clearly designed for the alien’s smaller, soft-edged mouth, but Chilaili found it functional enough when she lifted Sooleawa’s head and coaxed her to swallow. “Yes, that’s good, most precious one,” Chilaili murmured, stroking her child’s fur gently, “take a little more, now.”
Her daughter finished the water slowly and gazed in wonderment at the alien beside them. It watched them silently through those eerie, water-blue eyes, by far the best feature in its strange, round face. A small protuberance which jutted out from the center must house its nostrils, Chilaili decided at length, watching it breathe. Her own nostrils were part of her beak, but some of the creatures they hunted had separate bumps to breathe through—although she’d never seen any shaped quite like the one on Bessany Weyman’s ash-pale face. It was a compellingly odd face. The skin stretched and shifted into differing shapes as thoughts passed with lightning rapidity through its eyes, doubtless rendering visible its feelings, if one knew how to read the expressions.
Chilaili wondered what it made of her own face, if it felt as puzzled about how to interpret Chilaili’s thoughts as she felt, trying to fathom the alien’s. Chilaili had to shift her head back and forth to accurately judge the distance between them, which made trying to understand its alien expressions even more difficult. Those water-blue eyes followed the swing of Chilaili’s head with a wrinkle furrowing its upper face. It was uncomfortable, Chilaili realized abruptly, cued as much by the shift in its scent as by the expression on its mobile face, uncomfortable and unused to creatures who shifted their heads more or less continuously to judge depths and distances. She handed back the cup with a low murmur of thanks and tipped her head to one side, gazing one-eyed at the alien, which appeared to reduce its level of discomfort.
Chilaili was startled when the alien parroted back the sound of her thanks. Its mouth wasn’t shaped correctly, however, and the word came out hopelessly mangled. After a moment, it pointed to the cup and said a single word. Chilaili spoke it back and the skin of its face stretched upwards, turning the soft-edged mouth upward like a hunting bow.
It’s an expression of pleasure, Chilaili realized slowly. It filled the cup again with rainwater, then touched the water inside and said another word. Chilaili repeated it, finding the sounds required of its language far less difficult to pronounce than it found hers. Sooleawa and Chilaili watched, wide-eyed with interest, as the creature touched and named the rocks, the cloth of its portable shelter frame, the flameless heating device, the silvery blanket, even its body coverings in a desperate attempt at communication. Then it gestured to Chilaili and Sooleawa, not separately, but inclusively. Chilaili narrowed her pupils for a moment, trying to understand, then understood the question in a sudden flash of insight. She nodded.
“Tersae,” she said, naming their species as a whole. “Chilaili,” she said, tapping her chest, and “Sooleawa,” touching her daughter’s silver-covered shoulder, then she gestured to them both and said, “Tersae.”
“Tersae?”
Chilaili nodded, clicking her approval in the base of her throat.
The alien touched itself and said, “Bessany Weyman,” then sketched other imaginary figures in the air, tracing the same rough shape as itself, and said, “Humans.”
“Humans.” The name of its species was as strange as its appearance. Chilaili pointed at the alien. “Bessany Weyman,” she said, then sketched rough approximations of others of its kind in the mud at their feet, using one clawtip to scrape the rough pattern of its face and body and head-fur. “Humans.”
The alien’s face wrinkled again in its expression of pleasure.
Chilaili stepped to the entrance of their little shelter and gestured for the alien to join her. It rose and moved to stand beside her shoulder. It was such a little creature, really not much larger than a half-grown nestling. The top of its head barely reached Chilaili’s shoulder. She marveled that its slender limbs and delicate-looking hands had been strong enough to support Sooleawa’s weight, carrying the wounded girl up to this cave. As the lightning flared, Chilaili pointed to the trees and said, “Forest.” The alien said another word, which Chilaili repeated. Chilaili then tapped herself, pointed to Sooleawa, and pointed to the forest, moving her hands in a broad circle, trying to convey that they lived in this area. She pointed to the alien, hesitated, then pointed questioningly to the sky. “Humans?”
The creature made a sharp sound and stared up into Chilaili’s face.
Then, very slowly, it nodded, copying Chilaili’s own head-bobbing gesture. Or perhaps the gesture was one the aliens used, as well? It pointed upwards and said, “Humans, sky.” Then it pointed in another direction, off to the east, thankfully in the opposite direction from Icewing Clan’s current, summer nest. “Humans,” it said, and a word that sounded like “hohm.”
They had made a nest, then, somewhere to the east.
Chilaili found herself wondering if the Ones Above knew about the arrival of the humans—and if so, what They intended to do about it. Had these aliens come here to build new nests and colonize the Tersae’s world? Were there just a few humans or would more arrive? Chilaili felt uneasy posing such questions, particularly since the Ones Above had spoken of devils among the stars, dangerous devils that killed with weapons of great power.
Were the humans such devils, after all? Surely not. Chilaili could not imagine a creature of evil risking its own life to save the trapped and drowning child of another species. A devil would simply have stood on the shore, watching with pleasure as Sooleawa died, possibly even shooting Chilaili down afterward, as she struggled from the water. Chilaili stared down at the slender little alien with a troubled gaze, wanting desperately to know more of these human creatures and why they had come to Chilaili’s world.
She made a good start, at least, during Sooleawa’s recovery from her brush with death. They stayed with Bessany Weyman in the little lakeside cave for two full days, giving Sooleawa time to rest from the wounds in her side. While they rested, they learned a surprisingly large number of the human’s words—but not nearly enough to ask the questions in Chilaili’s heart or to answer those she could see flickering through the alien’s luminous eyes. On the morning after Sooleawa’s accident, a morning which dawned grey with rain, but without the wind and lightning of the previous night, Bessany Weyman produced a small device from its carrysack, speaking into it. Another, deeper voice answered and a lengthy conversation followed, startling Chilaili enormously. It’s like a tiny Oracle, she realized with a prickle of awe.
She had considered climbing to the top of the bluff this morning, and sending out a distress call using the low, deep sounds a Tersae huntress in trouble used to call for help, sounds that covered great distances; but Chilaili now found herself wanting to keep the existence of the humans secret from her clan, at least for a while. Why she felt that way, Chilaili couldn’t decide, even in her own mind. Certainly, the clan would not be worried about them, yet. Blooding Hunts sometimes took days to complete, as inexperienced huntresses learned the art of the stalk, sometimes blundering through a dozen or more attempted kills before achieving success.
When the alien finished speaking into its tiny Oracle, Chilaili pointed to the device and asked in the human’s language, “What is?” then wondered if she would understand the answer.