Highway to Krell - Bisexual Edition

"You don't need a compass or a GPS?" Sousa asked.

"I assure you Doctor Sousa, that my sense of direction is quite good. We will not get lost."

"If you say so," he grumbled, wiping his brow. The heat was so intense, it felt as if they were inside some giant vivarium, the moisture in the air was such that their sweat couldn't even evaporate in order to cool them down. Reid's boots were already filling with sweat, and her hair was a damp mess, she just had to accept the situation for the time being and promise herself that the longest bath of her life would be her reward. Scented candles, soap bubbles, an audiobook playing on her tablet computer...

She was jolted back to reality by movement in the mud in front of her, or was it shallow water? It was impossible to tell, the ground was just a mass of brown sludge. Something long and sinuous passed through the group, its surface shiny and slimy as it disappeared below the surface again.

"Uh...Dubois? What was that?"

He had heard the splash of water as the thing had vanished, and was now aiming his hand cannon at the ground, sinking almost up to his ankles in the mud. They heard Webber yelp, and they spun around to see her standing as still as a statue as what looked like a slippery, grey eel coiled around her ankle and probed her boot. It was about as thick as a human wrist, not enormous but large enough to be alarming, its long, serpentine body trailing off into the mud so that they couldn't gauge how long it might be.

"Oh my God oh my God, get it off," she hissed through gritted teeth.

Dubois approached cautiously and gestured for her to calm down as the apparently eyeless creature tested the rubber of her boot with its grasping mouthparts, it didn't seem to be aggressive. He glanced at Sleethe, who seemed wholly unconcerned, which indicated that the creature was likely harmless. Poor Lena stood with her arms out, frozen in place with her face screwed up in disgust as it rubbed mud and mucous on her leg.

"Just let him get a look at you," Dubois breathed, his eyes fixed on the animal as it wound its serpentine body around her foot. "He doesn't know what you are either."

After a few moments the snake-like creature seemed satisfied, diving back under the mud with a splash and leaving a trembling Webber to glare at Dubois as if the whole situation were his fault.

"Let's push on," he said, turning about and heading off deeper into the forest. Webber sidled up closer to Sleethe as she followed behind, her eyes locked on the mud that seemed to make up the entire surface of the planet.

They marched for maybe an hour before Reid began to grow concerned that Dubois might not know what he was doing, but just as she was about to speak up, they came to the clearing that he had described. They emerged from the thick undergrowth into an open space, the shore of a stagnant lake nearby, and built beside it was a collection of wooden structures. It looked like treehouses or shacks built on top of one another, suspended in the thick mud on stilts made from the twisted trunks of the pale trees that made up the forests. Some had obviously been cut to size, yet others were growing from the mud and had been cultivated in order to reinforce the precarious structures. There were dozens of these buildings stacked together, connected by rickety walkways and rope bridges made from knotted vines. The roofs were slanted, made from what looked like fronds and leaves, clearly designed to ward off what must be frequent and heavy rainfall. It looked like a city of elves from a fantastical storybook, if the elves lived in Louisiana.

No wonder the Krell seemed primitive and rustic compared to the other races of the Coalition, even the Borealans in their harsh deserts and jungles had stone to work with, all that was available to the Krell was plant matter. They couldn't mine ores here, couldn't smelt them and forge stronger materials, industry would be impossible for them in this perpetual bog with no solid ground to build on. Reid noted that despite the ring of orbiting weapons platforms that shielded the planet, the Brokers had not elevated the Krell, nor did they seem to have provided them with any modern building materials. Did the Krell not wish it perhaps, or was there some other reason? The two species seemed to be intrinsically linked and she found it strange that the generosity of the mercantile aliens did not extend to the surface.

Sleethe stepped ahead of the group and let out a rumbling call, of a distinctly different pitch and intensity to their mating display. As the team watched, Krell began to emerge from the structure, poking their long snouts out from behind the beaded curtains that hung across the doorways of their wooden huts. Several emerged from the lake, rising from the murky water like swamp monsters, striding onto what passed for land on this planet to stare curiously at the humans.

"I think that was a hello," Webber whispered, not wanting to interrupt the proceedings. Reid did not expect a negative reaction from the aliens, but having so many of them staring at her with their yellow eyes was making her nervous. After a few seconds a low chorus began to rise from the village, growing in volume as the aliens seemed to sing in unison, their powerful call carrying over the lake as if a spaceship was passing overhead. She could feel it in her bones, shaking her to the core as the intense noise vibrated the very air around them.

Finally it diminished, and Sleethe waved them forward, marching through the mud towards the rickety structures. As the team grew closer they noticed that almost every centimeter of wood was covered in moss and fungus, green fur and bulbous mushrooms were clinging to every available surface, the pervasive dampness giving the beams and planks a wet sheen that reflected the green light. Reid mounted some steps that led up to a raised platform, the first level of this tiered village, reaching up to grip a handrail that was too tall for a human as she tried to avoid slipping on the wet surface.

It was nice to be out of the mud, but the wood beneath their feet creaked and swayed, it was a little worrying. If it could support Krell it would support humans, but a drop into the mud from this height, while not fatal, wouldn't be very flattering.

Sleethe was greeting the Krell who walked out of their dwellings to meet him, the aliens rubbing heads like giant cats, perhaps exchanging some kind of scent information. A crowd was forming, leaning over the wooden banisters above them to get a better look at the strange visitors, a low murmur of unintelligible conversation rising from their throats.

"Can you tell what they're saying, Webber?" Sousa asked, leaning over to whisper in her ear.

"Just fragments here and there," she replied, "nothing that I could string together into a coherent sentence. Something about traveling, fire in the sky, he's probably telling them where we came from."

Clayton recoiled as a male Krell approached from behind him and foisted its snout into his cheek, sniffing him and almost knocking him over as it rubbed its head against him. One by one other Krell began to descend the stairs from the myriad of levels and platforms, jostling eachother to get at the humans. Sousa laughed as they pressed their heads against his, reaching up to scratch at their scaly hide as if they were oversized dogs, Clayton and Reid finding the greeting less amusing as the giant aliens surrounded them.

Eventually the crowd began to disperse, the Krell going back to their daily routine, and Sleethe led the party onward. They climbed several flights of stairs that wound around the central structure, Dubois grinning with mirth as they made their way across an unstable rope bridge, this must be crossing so many items off of his adventuring list. Now all he needed was a rope swing and his life would be complete. The humans lacked the splayed toes and balancing tails of the Krell, and everything was oversized, they hopped up the massive steps one by one as they made their way slowly towards what must be the peak of this artificial mountain.

The more Reid examined the structure, the more intricacies she began to notice. The design had looked deceptively simple from a distance, but up close the artistry in the woodwork and the craftsmanship was undeniable, it was far from cobbled together. It seemed that they had propped up the initial structure with felled trees, then they had somehow cultivated new saplings to wind and grow around it in the directions that they wanted, reinforcing the village with flexible, living trees. That behavior suggested either extremely long life-spans or an impressive level of multi-generational planning, it wasn't unheard of in human cultures, but the application here was monumental.

There was a larger structure at the peak of the mass of huts and bridges, a veritable temple in comparison to the lesser buildings that made up its foundation, thick trunks serving as pillars to hold it aloft. The log walls and the ancient trees that grew around it like grasping fingers were carved with alien runes and symbols, moss and hanging vines obscuring many of them beneath their green strands.

"If only I had time to take some rubbings," Webber mused, running her fingers along the indentations as they approached the entrance to the building. "I've never seen Krell script before, and this looks ancient."

Sleethe brought them to the doorway, flanked by wooden pillars that were decorated with spiraling carvings, more like murals than text this time. They seemed to depict vines winding around the trunks, blooming flowers extending from them in extravagant patterns. The entrance was covered by a curtain of beads and shells, woven into strands of vine like ropes, and he parted it with his long arm to allow the humans through.

They walked under the curtain, the musty smell of the building overpowering the rotting vegetation of the swampland, the interior dark and dingy. They couldn't see very far ahead of them, but there was a sense of scale and reverence, as if they had set foot in some aged cathedral. The roof extended far above them, out of sight as they inched forward, their footsteps on the wooden planks that lined the floor echoing through the space.

Sleethe whispered something, a multi-layered sound composed of snake-like hissing and a rumbling growl, Webber doing her best to interpret as he spoke.

"Some kind of greeting, deferential, like he's talking to someone he respects. He asks permission for something...for council maybe. It's hard to tell, so much of it is subsonic."

From the gloom came an answering call, and a torch sprung to life, its flickering flame illuminating the leathery face of a Krell. Its weathered features were cast in shadow, dancing with the torchlight, the pillars that held up the roof bathed in an orange glow. It was truly massive, head and shoulders above Sleethe who now seemed small in comparison to this beast, it was wearing a poncho in the Krell style that was embroidered with patterns and symbols that were meaningless to the human onlookers. Reid noticed that it had patterns on its spinach-colored hide, drawn in clay or red ochre, bands of red and brown that crossed its snout and chest and framed its yellow eyes in a kind of mask.

"Enormous," Sousa whispered, "like archaic reptiles on Earth they must continue to grow as they age. Their lifespans must be even longer than I had theorized. Could this be some kind of elder, or maybe a tribal leader?"

It lumbered towards them, its sheer weight and mass apparent in its gait, its tail so long that it trailed out of view beyond the reach of the burning torch that it carried like a staff. It appeared at first glance to be a male, but it could also have been an especially developed and aged female, it was very difficult to tell at a glance. Sleethe began to speak, and again Webber struggled to translate what she could pick up from the alien conversation.

"He says...there is a change upon his...I don't know that word, there has been a change upon something, maybe the Krell on the station. The change is upon them and he has brought...allies. His allies seek...equilibrium, an end to this changing. He calls the big one...it's strange, like a combination of words. An old high parent, something like that, he's asking it for council. Maybe it knows something about how to stop the Krell from changing sex?"

It was a little hard to hear Webber over the low rumbling that echoed in the building as the two aliens conversed, and Reid had to strain to follow her running interpretation while she watched the Krell interact. She had never seen anything like this elder, in terms of mass and height it dwarfed even Borealans, a veritable dinosaur both in size and age.

"Now the big one is asking a question, an interrogative. It wants to know why he needs this. Judging by the tone, it doesn't understand why that's a problem, it seems as if it knows about their ability to change sex and considers it natural. I'm...having a hard time following Sleethe's reply, but I assume he's explaining the situation on the Pinwheel."

Sleethe gestured to Webber, and the larger Krell turned its attention to her, its footsteps heavy on the creaking floor as it walked over to stand before her. She craned her neck to look up at it, the thing so large that it wouldn't even have fit in the troop bay of a shuttle.

"It's uh...inspecting me. Wants to know what we are."

It leaned down, looming over her as if it was about to eat the tiny woman, it thrust its long snout into her blonde locks and breathed in her scent. Webber stood, petrified as it examined her, hands as larger as dinner plates resting gently on her narrow shoulders. Its yellow eyes reflected the flames from its torch, mesmerizing, its low rumbling speech penetrating her to the core. It ran its stubby fingers through her hair, perhaps it had never seen hair before, and then its hands roamed downwards. The Krell had little to no concept of privacy or personal space, and thought nothing of unsolicited contact, that much was evident by the way they lounged in piles and never seemed to close the doors in their barracks. There were no locks in this village, only bead curtains that would allow even strangers to pass unhindered into their homes.

Webber would not have wanted to offend what was obviously the leader of their village by pulling away, but even then she seemed compliant, her face beet red as the alien ran its hands over the curves of her body. Was it something about that low, vibrating call maybe? She had stopped translating and Reid had no idea what it was saying to her.

It seemed satisfied, pulling back to stand at full height, then one of its hands disappeared into one of the many pockets on its ornate poncho. It withdrew a fistful of what looked like damp clay or ochre, and brushed back Webber's hair to expose her forehead. She closed her eyes as it drew a symbol with its thumb, the red-brown material standing out against her pale skin, some kind of indecipherable rune that resembled two coiling snakes intertwined around eachother in a spiral. It was crude, but both Sleethe and the elder Krell seemed oddly reverent, as if something important had just happened.

The giant elder moved back over to Sleethe now, who was standing proudly with his chest puffed out, and it painted a similar symbol on his breast.

"What are they doing?" Sousa whispered. "It looks like some kind of ceremony, how is this related to our mission?"

Sleethe looked down at Webber and rumbled something at her, and she replied in the best imitation of their language a human could have mustered, then he repeated the phrase. Webber's face burned, whatever he had said had embarrassed her, but she seemed happy too. Sleethe stooped to rub his massive head against her cheek, and her comparatively tiny hands reached up to try to ward him off, increasingly flustered by his lack of inhibitions. Reid had seen that expression before, the men would probably be oblivious, but Webber's reaction was that of a teenager trying to a hide an overly affectionate boyfriend from her parents. Had this strange ceremony been for their benefit?

Reid smirked as she watched Webber struggle against the clingy alien, finally succeeding in fighting him off, her eyes darting back to her human companions as she straightened her hair and brushed off her clothes. She did not attempt to rub the symbol off her forehead though, and she was glowing with a barely contained glee, her show of displeasure obviously a farce for the benefit of the team. Reid glanced at Sousa who was also grinning, had he figured it out too? She fought off the desire to out the girl and expose the relationship that must have been going on well before they had embarked on this voyage, she wasn't doing anything strictly wrong after all. Reid would not have approved of fraternizing while on the job, but let her have her fun, the woman seemed to be working in every waking moment and some male attention would probably do her some good.

Even if it was coming from an alien twice her size.

They seemed to get back on topic now that what had looked suspiciously like some kind of alien marriage ceremony was over, and the conversation continued.

The humans sat nearby as the two aliens talked, the conversation dragging on, Webber too immersed to provide a running translation as she tapped at her tablet computer and tried to interpret as much as she could. After what felt like hours they finally finished, Sleethe bowing reverently towards the massive Krell as it retreated slowly back into the shadows of the cavernous building, putting out the torch and vanishing into the darkness.

"We need to leave now," Webber whispered, the team rose to their feet and made their way out of the structure through the curtain of beads and shells and onto the wooden platform outside. Once again the stench of the swamp assaulted their senses, renewed due to their short reprieve inside the temple. That's what it had felt like to Reid, a temple or some kind of cathedral, its cultural and perhaps religious significance greater than the visitors would ever know.

They looked to Webber now, waiting for some explanation from the still red-faced woman as her alien lover hovered nearby like some kind of giant, scaly pet. She might as well drop the pretense now, it seemed as if everyone besides Clayton had figured her out.

"Ok," Webber began, "through a combination of the translation software and my own training I was able to understand most of what was said. Or at least the general idea..." She brought up her tablet computer and looked over the notes that she had taken during the lengthy exchange, then started to summarize the important points.

"Keep in mind that some of this might be incorrect, I've told you before how unreliable the translation software can be, and my own understanding is limited by the range of human hearing. It appears that Krell undergo a period of heat, although I have no basis for comparison between human and Krell timekeeping, I believe that these events take place a great deal of time apart. Perhaps decades. This would explain why we've never seen this happen before, and it would align with the behavior we've seen on the station. It's possible that this is the first time since contacting the UNN that the Krell have entered this stage of their life cycle."

"That would make sense," Sousa added. "The Krell seem uncommonly long-lived, even in the reptile world, with their slow metabolisms and long lifespans it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that breeding might occur very infrequently."

"Well, the elder knew about the sex changes, so I have no reason to believe that it isn't a completely normal part of Krell biology. We obviously provoked it by housing so many males together with no females. They seemed to talk about what life on the station was like for a while, but they used very unfamiliar and metaphorical terms, it wasn't easy to follow. Sleethe had a hard time describing how a population explosion causes a shortage of air in such a carefully regulated environment, I don't think the Krell in this village have ever left the planet."