Return to Krell

"Unlike you, I have to keep myself fed, and today's meal is..." She turned the brown packet over in her hands and read the label. "Menu number two, scalloped potatoes and ham, twelve hundred calories. Sounds delightful."

She broke open the brown plastic and disgorged the contents out into the floor. There were several small packets, and a couple of brown cardboard boxes, everything labeled with large print and the UNN logo. Hamburger bun, apple sauce, sports drink. What? Apparently there was more to an MRE than just the main course that was printed on the bag.

She had eaten military rations the last time that she had visited the planet, but there had been half a dozen people with her back then, and they had all shared and prepared their meals communally. Now she was alone, and she would have to figure out how to work all of this stuff for herself. She opened the cardboard boxes and divided the packets up into a row on the floor in front of her. There were several courses it looked like, and she picked up the silver bag marked 'scalloped potatoes and ham', reading the information on the back.

It was self-heating, requiring her to use a chemical adhesive patch to warm the food. It appeared that only the main course needed to be heated in such a manner, and so she searched for the patches. They were two thin pieces of plastic which, when torn open, would react with the air and create a chemical reaction that produced heat. She tore off the adhesive patches and stuck them to either side of the meal's silver pouch, pulling away the protective covers and exposing the chemical heaters to the air. The packet said that it would take eight to ten minutes, and so she elected to start eating the other courses while she waited.

She opened the hamburger bun packet, extracting two somewhat squashed circles of bread. They should have put these in a cardboard box too, it looked as if they had been compressed during transit. There were two small packets that contained peanut butter and fruit jelly respectively, reminding her of the sauce packets that one might find at a fast food restaurant. She broke them open with her teeth and squeezed them out onto the bun, making a rudimentary PB&J sandwich. It didn't taste half bad. The bread was a little dry and crumbly, but the jelly was especially sweet and tasted strongly of strawberries. She chewed as she waited for the main course to heat, prodding the bag with a tentative finger to test if it was working.

It was hot to the touch, the chemical reaction was doing its work. Not hot enough to burn her, it appeared that most of the energy was being directed towards the inside of the packet, but enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from it. Hot meals would be a comfort for soldiers in the field, a little taste of home. Lena was no Marine, but the idea of having something warm in her belly was immediately appealing, and she hadn't been away from home for more than a couple of days.

When she was done with the sandwich she started on the applesauce, using a plastic spoon to fish it from inside the packet. It was smooth and sweet, the consistency of baby food, and she could make out mango and pineapple flavors on top of the apple. This was a military ration and so everything had a purpose, be it protein, sugar or vitamins. She would do well to eat the entire contents of the MRE each time that she opened one, regardless of how hungry she felt. She would need her strength in this environment, her work here was more physically taxing than anything that she was used to.

She scooted closer to the rucksack and began to remove the stasis containers one by one, lining them up and examining the specimens within as she ate. She had bugs, flowers, cuttings from plants and fungi. There was quite a haul, not bad for a morning's work. The containers looked like glass, but they weren't fragile. Being of Broker origin they were functionally indestructible and so there was no danger of them breaking on the way home.

The spoon held in her mouth, Lena turned one of the stasis containers over in her hands, examining the water-skipper bug within. It had ten legs, each one covered in tiny brown hairs that were probably hydrophobic, and its little head was covered in beady black eyes like a spider. It wasn't so scary close up...

Sleethe watched her lazily as she admired the flowers, and she smiled at his aloofness.

"We did a good job Sleethe. Barnes will like these. Samples, specimens, yeah?"

Her translator did its best, approximating the rumbling and hissing of a Krell, and after a moment her reptilian friend warbled his reply.

"Collection."

"Yeah, I'm collecting them." She leaned over to her stock of food and picked up a small packet of candy, popping one into her mouth. They were sour and gummy, this one raspberry flavored. "Open your mouth, Sleethe."

He opened his long jaws, akin to a crocodile waiting for curious birds on the edge of a river, and she tossed one of the candies into his mouth. He swallowed it whole, not even taking the time to taste it.

"So do you eat for pleasure, or only when you need to?"

Sleethe shrugged his wide shoulders.

"Come on you lazy lizard, we're supposed to be doing research. Do the Krell have snacks? Delicacies? Do they eat anything for the fun of it? I know that the UNN gives you MREs when you're deployed, and I know that you eat them." She picked up the brown packet, gesturing to it. "MRE, like this, right? So if you'll eat MREs, why won't you eat anything else?"

He considered for a moment, probably parsing what the translator had told him, and then replied.

"Packet food for replenish energy. Krell fights for protect friends. Loses energy. Eats to replenish."

That made sense at least. While the Krell were slow and lethargic in most circumstances, they were also capable of huge bursts of speed and power, usually when their lives or the lives of their comrades were threatened. Lena had seen it happen on a small scale, like when she had been threatened by the biting log and Sleethe had lifted her off the ground and out of its range before she had time to blink, for example. But she couldn't imagine what an enraged Krell truly looked like, how fast and how powerful they could become when they were fighting the enemy. They weren't aggressive by nature, but they were incredibly protective of their friends, or their 'kin' as they seemed to refer to them. Using Krell in an offensive capacity wasn't very effective, that was a role better suited to the aggressive and belligerent Borealans, but assign them to a squad in a defensive capacity and they would put themselves in the path of an oncoming train if it meant keeping their charges safe.

Sudden bursts of speed would of course expend energy, calories that the Krell would have to burn from their fat stores. It seemed that they would supplement their large and infrequent meals with smaller ones where necessary, in order to top up their reserves. It was like the opposite of a low calorie diet, the aliens always seeking to maintain a consistent store of fat.

"Oh, my main course is ready!" Lena scooted across the wooden planks and retrieved her dinner, tearing open the packet and watching as a plume of steam curled slowly towards the ceiling. The heating strips had done their job. She peered inside the silver pouch, narrowing her eyes at the food. It looked like vomit, chunky and creamy. She dipped a spoon inside and brought a hunk of ham to her lips, her expression brightening when she tasted it.

"Hey, not bad..."

It was no home-cooked meal, but it was a damn sight better than the vending machine sandwiches that she ate at work on days when she was too busy to leave the office. There were chopped potatoes in a cream sauce, large cuts of ham that tasted somewhat like bacon, and hints of cheese and chives.

"You're missing out Sleethe, not that this would make more than a mouthful for you. You'd need a wheelbarrow full."

She finished off the meal, feeling rather full as she sat on the damp floor. It was more than she usually ate in one sitting, but she would surely need these calories during tomorrow's swamp adventures. Lena got up and walked over to her portable computer terminal, chewing on some candy as she crouched and ran a finger over the monitor to activate the display. Had the computer finished sorting and cataloging the Krell alphabet yet?

It seemed that it had, and she recovered her spectacles from their case before examining the results. The computer had identified forty three individual characters, or at least what appeared to be characters. The algorithm was pretty good at differentiating changes in handwriting and style, but she should take it with a pinch of salt all the same. As she had surmised, the rolling script was read from top to bottom, and apparently left to right, similar to Japanese and other East Asian languages. The characters more resembled Arabic however, swirling and calligraphic. There was artistry in the carving of their language into the trees and walls, such care had been taken. It was more than just doodling and graffiti.

"Sleethe, I'm gonna need your help with this."

He slid out of the recess in the floor, making his way over to her side, where he squatted and brought his long snout down close to examine her display.

"I know these," he said, her translator picking up his subsonic tones.

"Alphabet," Lena said, nodding. "You can read, right? You must be able to read, the care and attention put into these carvings means that they have to be a huge part of your culture."

"I read," he said, nodding his massive head. "I teach."

"Yes! Excellent, that's what I want. I want to be able to read this, like you do."

He sat heavily beside her, the floor shaking under his weight, and Lena scooted further to her left to give him more room. The displays were small by human standards, for a Krell it was like trying to read from a cellphone screen at arm's length.

"First, phonetics," Lena said excitedly. She prepared her wrist-computer, setting it to record the ensuing conversation for later analysis. "Point to the letters, and tell me what they sound like."

Sleethe seemed to understand, gesturing to the first swirling character with his scaly finger. He emitted a short burst of sound, which Lena logged, numbering the audio file.

Deciphering an entirely new alphabet could be a real challenge, there was no Rosetta Stone for Krell. These characters could be as simple as those used in Latin based languages, or they could have emotional connotations, even conveying specific ideas and other more complex themes. She had to pray that the resemblances to Chinese were purely superficial, because that language could be an absolute nightmare to work with. Different combinations of the same characters could convey entirely different meanings and they could even change based on their context, all while appearing outwardly similar. Even the Chinese themselves had trouble with it, and Lena had been taught the story of 'Mr.Shi Eating Lions' as part of her linguistics training.

It was a short passage written in Mandarin Chinese by one Zhao Yuanren, describing the misadventures of a poet named Mister Shi who lived in a stone den, and who liked to eat lions in very specific quantities. The story was absurd, but it was clear and comprehensible. It made grammatical sense on paper. However when read aloud in its original language, the story consisted of only a single word, 'shi' that was endlessly repeated.

The story's title was 'Shi Shi Shi Shi Shi', and the body of the text was approximately ninety repetitions of the word 'shi', but each referring to a different word and character. It clearly demonstrated the complexity of the language and its reliance on context to convey meaning.

Sleethe continued to sound off, and Lena carefully recorded each vocalization, matching it to one of the Krell characters. It took a while, but eventually she ended up with a library of numbered voice clips, and she began to transfer them over to the main console for analysis once they were done. The next step was using the computer to match the individual sounds to the library of Krell words and phrases that she had accrued for use with the translation software, and in doing so reconstruct them from the ground up, along with their associated characters in the alien alphabet. There was no accounting for grammar and innumerable other factors that might alter the way the words were written and pronounced, but at the end of the process she would hopefully have enough to work with that she could piece the fragments together herself.

Computers were incredibly efficient at sorting, mathematics and pattern recognition, but interpreting art and meaning was usually better left to human minds.

CHAPTER 7: CANVAS

By the time she was done, and her wrist computer had finished transferring the data, it was getting too late to set off on another expedition. The suns were getting low as illustrated by what little light was still bleeding through the curtain, and the misty landscape was growing even more gloomy than it had been already. While the prospect of trying to bag some nocturnal insects was attractive, she would save that for another day, as the morning's trek had left her exhausted and sore.

Just when she was starting to think about calling it a night and finding a sleeping pit for her and Sleethe, a call rang out across the village. It was deep and resonating, penetrating Lena to the bone as she felt the floorboards beneath her shudder. It was the longest and loudest Krell call that she had ever heard, so powerful that it sounded as if it must be coming from a creature a mile long. She wondered for a moment if it was a mating call, if the denizens of the rickety village were being assembled for a breeding frenzy, but this one was different. The Krell were certainly being called to do something, but what?

She looked to Sleethe, and he saw the question in her eyes before she had even opened her mouth to ask it.

"Community," he said, a simple and cryptic statement.

"What does that mean, Sleethe?"

"All will assemble, commune."

The Krell were being called together, but for what purpose?

The wooden planks beneath her hands began to tremble as she sat upon them, this time not from a rumbling voice, but from footsteps. They were faint at first, but getting stronger. What felt to her like an army of Krell was drawing closer, their heavy marching making the structure itself shake precariously.

"Are they coming here? To the temple?"

Sleethe nodded. Well, what had she been expecting? This was clearly the cultural center of the village as well as the physical one. If they were going to congregate anywhere, then it would be here.

The heavy footsteps drew closer and closer, until finally the first of the procession pushed its long snout through the bead curtain. It was a female, identifiable by her wider hips and thicker thighs, the same spinach-green color as Sleethe and about the same size. Following behind her was a larger male with a darker coloration, and behind him was a younger and more vibrantly colored male, they just kept coming. They filed in one by one, fanning out in a large circle around the cavernous temple, until finally the last one brushed past the curtain. Sleethe stood along with them, moving back towards the base of the wall to join his kin as Lena sat beside her duffel bag on the floor, feeling out of place and wondering if she was expected to participate.

She was now surrounded by a wall of scales and muscles. Her chosen sleeping pit and the small pile of her gear was near the far wall, a little to the right of the entrance. There must have been fifty at least, in all shapes, colors and sizes. Now that they were all assembled, the differences in their markings and jewelry really stood out to her. No two were quite the same.

The largest was the elder, his onyx scutes reflecting the dancing firelight like black glass as he stepped into the center of the room. He was still adorned in body paints, symbols and runes drawn onto his skin in colorful pigments. He wore more jewelry this time, laden with so many colorful necklaces woven from beads and shells that they hung down to his belly, overlaid one on top of the other until it became an indistinguishable mass of geometric patterns.

Lena turned up the gain on her translator and waited, sensing that something important was happening, listening intently as he began to speak.

"We commune to welcome outsiders into the great family. One born of our lakes, and another from above." The translator had some issues with that last word. He had gestured to the sky to punctuate his statement, and the dictionary suggested that he was referring to a direction, but Lena got the impression that it was more along the lines of 'on high' or 'the heavens'. He was of course referring to her and Sleethe.

"Step forward, those who are outside, and join our circle."

Sleethe left his place in the ring of Krell that encircled the expansive room, lumbering towards the dark elder. He stopped beside Lena, putting out one of his scaly hands, and she took it as she rose to her feet. She began to blush, realizing that a hundred eyes were on her, examining her through the gloom of the temple as she walked beside her mate. She felt exposed, vulnerable. Her clothing was sparse and it had never completely dried out after her nap in the lake, it was sticking to her skin and leaving little to the imagination. She kept reminding herself that the Krell didn't care. Krell had no concept of modesty in the sense that humans did, and yet a lifetime of social conditioning made her cheeks flush with embarrassment all the same. Humans were taught to be ashamed of their nakedness and it was a very hard concept to shake, the Krell were not.

They came to a stop before the elder, the massive creature leaning down to brush his head against Sleethe's, another one of their greetings. He did the same to Lena, crouching down to reach her and bumping his leathery forehead gently against her brow. She brushed her damp hair out of her face with her fingers as she looked up at him, wondering what was going to happen next.

She got a better look at his neckwear now that he was closer, resisting the urge to take a photo as he rose back up to full height. It looked so damned heavy, but then again he was an especially large Krell, the immense weight would mean little to him. The jewelry glistened in the wavering firelight, every colorful bead and stone reflecting the flames, every twisted shell glinting as it hung from his neck. It almost looked like a dozen poisonous serpents were coiled about his shoulders. The thick bands of vibrant reds and oranges were striped with black and white patterns, reminding her of coral snakes. Still others hung lower across his broad chest, curtains of decorative beads and shells not dissimilar from the ones that they used to cover their doors dangling free. They were more intricately crafted, arranged in geometric patterns, squares and triangles formed from sheets of woven beads that resembled pixels on a monitor.

"Welcome to our lake," the elder said, his baritone voice almost deep enough to make her teeth chatter. "Tell me stranger, you have walked great distances to reach us, our eyes have not seen those of your kind before. Why have you come here?"

At least the translator was doing a decent job, the more experience the algorithm got, the more accurate the translations were becoming. It was hard to estimate if the reverse was true, and if the software was outputting anything coherent. She would have to rely on Sleethe to correct her if she slipped up. She cleared her throat, speaking as clearly as possible and trying to use very simple phrases.