Aurona, page 33
Adam and Elena had wandered, poking around way down the shoreline, nearly at the limit of the hidden SpeedSled’s sensors. Suddenly, some kind of orange pulp squished under Adam’s foot. He peeled it off. “Yuck! What is this stuff? I-I hope it’s fruit.” As he scraped intently, there was a great whoosh of wings over his head. A large bird of paradise floated down onto the grass nearby.
Elena gasped excitedly. “Good God, Adam, look at him! He’s fabulous! Look at the length of his tail … and those colors!”
Adam bent down to one knee. “Hey, whaddaya know, a Dazzor bird! C’mon, buddy, we meet again. Third time’s always the charm!” He glanced at Elena over his shoulder. “I got a glimpse of him from inside my SPYDER, then with the guys out in the rainforest and now face to face, right out on Duron’s front lawn!”
“You know him?”
He glanced at the bird. “Yeah, we’re pals!” He held out a piece of mashed fruit. “I really think he’s just hungry; he’s sure interested in this stuff!” The bird approached boldly, strutting proudly. As it reached out with its slender, hooked bill, Adam pulled the morsel back a few inches and offered his arm as a perch. A great, multihued crest fanned out. After a short hesitation, the elegant bird hopped on his arm and began to feed. Adam stood up slowly. “Wow! Look at this bad boy, will you? His tail must be twenty feet long!”
Elena’s wondering eyes traveled downward. Indeed, he was magnificent; his luxuriant, iridescent plumage sparkled and cascaded over the lake’s smooth stones in an ever-changing palette of colors with trailing tendrils of…. With a cry, she knelt quickly in Adam’s shadow to examine them closer.
“What? Am I actually looking at lights, Adam?” She held up a feather, shading it with her hand. “Wow! It’s actually quite bright! Blues, greens, and purples?”
The Dazzor turned, pulling his tail feathers out of her hand. He’d finished the fruit and was lingering on Adam’s arm to study them. Taking a chance, Elena slowly reached out and scratched him gently behind one eye. Enraptured, the bird tilted his big crested head toward her. His cheek feathers puffed out, luxuriating in her touch.
“I think we’ve got a friend, Adam,” she whispered. “What is he, some kind of parrot? He’s got a crest like a cockatoo and a tail like a quetzal. His bill’s different, though. Straighter, and softer.”
“Probably adapted to eating fruit,” he ventured. “With all this abundance, they apparently don’t have to crack anything open like ordinary nuts or seeds….”
The bird’s eyes popped open. “Seeee? Seeeeeeeeee??”
He laughed and mimicked the sound, piping in a high falsetto. “Seee? Seeee?”
“Adam,” she chuckled. “Please! Is that your mating call, too?”
Once more, the bird ruffled and bobbed his head in recognition. “Oooo? Oooo? See-ooo!! See-ooo!” It answered excitedly, flapping its wings. “See-ooooooo!”
Elena joined in. “I see you, too!”
Whatever they’d said apparently meant something in this bird’s language. He cocked his head, looked intently at them, and then crouching, took off in a thrilling blaze of color. “See-ooooo!! See-ooooo!!” He spiraled upward, his tail feathers tracing his path in long, flowing ribbons. Faint, hollow, bell-like chimes answered from the distant rainforest. He bobbed toward the sound, his tail following like an undulating pennant. After an impossibly long, magical moment, the metallic melody died away. “Bells?” She turned slowly toward Adam, squeezing his arm. “Did I actually hear bells? How in the world can the Bandors live underground with such an exotic garden up here? This is paradise!”
“Hey, you’re right!” He grinned, fanning his arms. “Look! No mosquitoes! No gnats! No greenheads! It must be paradise!”
Chapter 18: AERONAUTAS AND ANCHORPLANKS
There were sudden loud exclamations and the sound of running footsteps in the distance. Adam and Elena turned to see three women sprinting toward them at full tilt, their arms flailing over their heads. Seeming to have lost the last traces of their characteristic timidity, a cloud of hungry-looking Aeronautas were puffing after them in hot pursuit.
Adam cupped his hands, yelling. “Hey, kids! Whazzup?”
Joelle reached him first, totally out of breath. “Get them away!” she gasped. “They’re trying to get our food!” She hid her sandwich protectively behind her back.
“Gimme a piece,” he laughed, “and try to keep quiet a second, all of you!”
The Aeronautas approached him cautiously, their trunks snuffling about. As he held up a crumb, their iridescent peacock eyes turned to focus on the morsel, glinting in the sunlight. Protectively linking their stubby hooked feet and twining their trunks together, they edged toward him in a nervous cluster. He placed the bread in his open palm, waiting patiently. The last bonds of restraint broke. Bodies bumping and blunt, hooked toes flailing, their trunks converged. They picked away hungrily.
“See? They’re piglets!” Joelle whispered in exasperation. “Just plain swine! We were having a peaceful picnic, minding our own business when they sneaked up behind us and tried to steal our sandwiches! Sahir thought it was funny.”
“I only gave them a few crumbs, sir,” Sahir explained, “and then more and more came over….”
“And it got out of control,” Adam concluded. “I see. Well, we certainly don’t want to scare them away; they’re normally quite timid and may learn to start avoiding us. They’re also extremely smart. That’s what makes them so interesting.”
His eyes brightened. “Hey, I just got an idea! Joelle, see if you can lure them away with a piece of bread. That’s right, just break it up and scatter it on the ground.” As the Aeronautas jostled for position and followed her eagerly, Adam reached into his backpack and pulled out a small trash bag. “Voila!” He grinned. “Some things haven’t changed in seven hundred years!”
Joelle’s mouth flew open indignantly. “You’d never!”
He grinned. “Sssh! Just keep ‘em busy, girl. Promise I won’t hurt ‘em!”
Slipping up nonchalantly behind a lone straggler, he bagged it. Instantly, the dark plastic burst into a cacophony of pathetic, heart-rending squeals and thrashing bumps. Abandoning their crumbs in haste, the flock scooted toward the bag and circled it, bumping against Adam’s face as they probed the plastic with their snouts. He had to stretch his arm to the limit and turn his head away. They’d forgotten completely about him, the bag was the villain: it had just eaten one of them! As the squealing in the bag died down, the Aeronautas drew back into a cluster, plainly stumped. Twining their trunks in agitation, they began to converse with high-pitched, sensitive pops and whirring motorboat sounds.
“Awww, let him out, Adam,” Elena urged.
The women nodded vehemently, hugging each other and scowling.
“Nope. Gotta see what makes him tick.”
Sahir drew in a quick breath. “Y-you’re not going to … you’re not going to cut him up are you? D-dissect him?”
“No! Of course not,” he scowled. “Never!”
Joelle pursed her lips. “You must have been a horrible child,” she scolded. “Did you pull the wings off flies? Pop ants with a magnifying glass?” She glanced knowingly at the other women. “All men are like that, right?”
“Vulgar! Disgusting! Nasty!” They chorused.
Elena squinted at him. “Look me in the eye, Adam. Do you swear this pig-napping is purely in the interest of science?”
At a sudden, affirmative grunt from the bag, they all burst out laughing.
“C’mon,” he chuckled, “you know I’d never cut up this little guy! Let’s go show him to the others over there and then finish our lunch!”
With the late morning heat approaching eighty degrees, most of the crew was sunbathing on the shore. They stretched out, basking luxuriantly and turning their pale bodies to drink deeply of the warmth and sunlight after seven hundred years in darkness. As Adam’s group approached, several people rose to their feet, curious about the floating bag. He gave it a squeeze and it promptly squealed in response.
“Wanna buy a pig in a poke?”
They burst into laughter, prompting heads to turn in their direction. The trailing cloud of Aeronautas scooted toward the bag and surrounded it once more, puffing and bumping into everyone’s faces in their haste. Surprised at their uncharacteristic boldness, the crew backed away quickly, holding their arms protectively over their heads.
“See? We don’t exist!” Elena grinned. “They’re after the Bag Monster!”
“That’s right; to these guys, we’re just trees or something!” Adam added.
Abruptly, the Aeronautas ceased their actions. Their bright peacock eyes rolling toward the sky, they disbanded in a flurry of excitement and shot upward. The startled crew looked up to see an enormous, mysterious shadow sweeping in over the lake.
Suddenly, a voice yelled in distress. Another took up the cry, and then another.
Adam flinched. Something wet and gooey had just hit him on the head. “What the…?” Another glop hit the trash bag, splashing into his face. He jerked his head away, wiping his eyes.
With a loud roar, a curtain of wet, jelly-like slime poured out of the sky and swept over the beach, smacking onto everyone’s bare bodies. The women leaped to their feet, screeching in revulsion and dashing for the overhanging shelter of the ship.
Elena stood riveted to the spot, turning green. “Gross!” She shuddered. “Dis-gus-tingggg!! Yucky, ucky, messy! What is it, Adam?”
“Gack!” He recoiled. “I dunno … frog eggs?”
Someone heard him and echoed immediately. “Yeah, frog eggs!”
“Frog eggs! Frog eggs!!” The name spread like wildfire. They covered their heads with their blankets, clawed at their hair, and scraped the stuff off their bodies. It seemed like the heavens had opened up.
“Run for it! We’re getting a slime storm!!”
Shortly, everyone was under the the ship, watching long strings of bubbly goo falling out of the sky. With loud calls, ravenous flocks of birds swept in to feed among the discarded blankets, gobbling down the stuff with relish. Their crops soon bulged alarmingly. Attracted by all the commotion, great herds of spotted hopping creatures bounded in from the field, looking almost like tumbleweed rolling toward the shore.
Suddenly, Joelle gasped, pointing into the sky. “Hey! Look up there everyone!”
A momentary clearing had appeared in the apparent overcast. Darkening the sky from horizon to horizon, an excited mega-colony of breeding Aeronautas wheeled in an endless, roiling mass, skirting the shoreline of the lake. Their eggs dropped into the shallow water like sheets of rain.
Kron squinted, shading his eyes. “Hey, those aren’t clouds….”
“Bingo!” Adam interrupted. “And this glop ain’t rain, either!” He raised his voice and shouted. “Hey, everyone! It’s Aeronauta eggs!”
The crew was divided right down the gender line in their reactions: the men saw the whole thing as hilarious while the women glowered from the shadows, shuddering in revulsion. A few of them were still retching behind the leg pods.
The egg shower abated as unexpectedly as it had begun, prompting a few men to step out cautiously into the open. The vast majority of slime had made it into the water, sinking slowly toward the bottom. There was a sudden frenzied thrashing in the shallows.
Adam’s eyes narrowed. Wasting no time, he started running.
“Fish!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Get ‘em!”
About fifty of the crew sprinted into the water with him and began to scoop up fat, silvery aquatic creatures with their blankets, throwing them in heaps onto the shore. The supply seemed endless: the more they scooped, the more rushed in to feed. As they labored, Kron commandeered a small group to fetch some antigrav barges. Shortly, they flew out of a cargo hold with stacks of empty bins. In twenty minutes, every container was filled to the brim. Exhausted, the sweating crew waded out into deep water to cool off.
Adam looked up, panting. “That’s all? No more empties?”
Sahir’s voice was muffled behind her towel. “Yeah, that’s it, sir. We haven’t eaten much of our food yet.” She blotted her wet hair. “The guys looked everywhere for more bins: in the cryotanks, the walk-in superfrige, everywhere!”
“Ladies and gents,” Adam announced, “you’re now looking at dinner! In fact, many dinners, probably enough for the next six months! Let’s get to work!”
Most of the haul went immediately into the superfridge, but some appetizing-looking specimens were cleaned and prepped for an impromptu noontime feast. The enthusiastic crew brought out pots and pans and dug pits in the sand for a barbecue. With a wary eye on sky and jungle, they ate.
Down by the water, Kron was gazing transfixed into a large, cylindrical specimen tank. Elena and her bio team had put a few of the more interesting creatures into it, and he was watching them swim around in the clear lake water. Suddenly, a grotesque apparition appeared, distorted and out of shape. “Yike!!” He jumped away, stumbling in haste.
Peter was on the other side, his eyes bugged out, his nose squashed against the polymer. “What’s that one?” He jabbed his finger, pointing. “It looks familiar, somehow,” he grinned. “The way it moves, I mean.” He cupped his hands and made jerky, trailing motions in the air, his tongue hanging out. “You know, kinda squiddy?”
Kron scowled through the acrylic. “Hey, you goofball! How’d you get out of your tank? You-you scared me out of my wits!”
Wait, wait!” Peter held up a finger. “I-I think I know what that thing is!”
Adam trotted over and joined them. As the three made nose-prints on the polymer, Peter pointed out the creature again. “Yeah, there he is, sir, right there! Whaddaya think?”
Adam shrugged. “Ah, some species of freshwater squid?”
Peter nudged him. “Think again. Look closer: the loose membrane forming on its back? The eyes? Peacock? Think! They’re unmistakable!”
Adam let out a gasp. “Wow! It’s an Aeronauta?”
“Yeah! Their eggs land in the water and hatch, the young live as aquatic nymphs, and then they emerge as air-breathing, floating bubbles of gas…. Right?”
Kron elbowed Adam, motioning at Peter’s grinning face. “So whaddaya think this specimen will evolve into?”
Obligingly, Peter crossed his eyes, letting his tongue hang out.
“See? It’s already a bag of hot air!”
“Hmm,” Adam deadpanned. “Nope. Still a mono-browed knuckle dragger.”
“Hey, listen, you two,” Peter piped up. “There’s no telling what I might turn into,” he drooled. “On Earth we had dragonfly nymphs, mosquito larvae, tadpoles and caterpillars, and we all know what they turned into!”
Kron thumped him on the back. “Yeah! Pests!”
The three laughed uproariously. “No, you’re absolutely right, Peter,” he said, grinning. “This is a great find. Thanks for spotting this little guy. Why couldn’t these squiddy-looking Aeronauta nymphs turn into those banks of clouds up there?”
In the tall grass, a bizarre assortment of creatures was devouring the last scraps of fish from the morning feast. Surprisingly, Elena was sitting bravely on the ground, right in their midst. She lifted a spotted, featherweight ball of fur into her lap. The creature sat docilely, its long, sticky tongue snaking out and licking crumbs from the ground. “Hey, guys!” She waved them over. “Take a look at this weird poof ball!”
The three men trotted toward her.
“I think he’s the same creature that was sitting on Tola’s shoulder. I’m going to call him Fandango! Whaddaya think?”
Adam shrugged. “Me? What do I think? Sorry, Elena, but honestly I think he’s kinda’ stupid-looking.” His hand went to his chin. “Make a good hat, though.”
Joelle jerked her head up. “See?” she hissed. “Just like I told you!” Her circle of friends bent into a tight huddle, whispering and swapping horror stories.
Ah, his cue. Adam had been waiting for the opportunity since lunchtime. Winking broadly at Kron and Peter, he slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a plastic baggie, revealing the collection of garbanzo beans he’d saved from his Earth-salad. Making a hovering motion, he pointed at the Aeronautas. They glanced at him questioningly. He made snipping, cutting motions, then pointed down at the beans. They got the idea immediately and turned away to stifle their smiles.
Putting on his best poker face, Adam turned to confront the sea of disapproving female eyes. “Hey kids, I got something to show you! Wait a sec…,” he whispered, glancing around furtively. “Look at these!” He dumped out the small baggie into his palm and rolled the wet beans around, letting the women catch just the barest glimpse of the wet, pinkish-beige color. As they strained to see, his prank unfolded. He squashed one and held it up. They coughed, swallowing hard. Suddenly, Joelle’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t!” Her jaw worked, trying to form the words. “They’re not….”
“Yup, Aeronauta brains!” he confirmed. Bright eyed, he popped one into his mouth. “Mmmmm, tasty, too! Here, try one!” he offered.
As they gagged, Kron and Peter let out a snort, scurrying away. Adam’s shoulders shook in silent laughter, the beans dancing on his palm. They’d been duped, in spades.
“Get him!” Joelle hissed. Eyes narrowed and mouths stretched into thin, hard lines, they stepped forward as a single-minded unit.
Suddenly, there was a sound of rapid footsteps in the tall grass, approaching with purposeful strides. They stopped in freeze-frame, their heads turning.
Tola paused, holding up a tentative finger. “Ah….” His voice faltered.
“Hey, big guy!” Adam ducked the beans. “Whassup?”
Tola studied the group. “Um, I-I came to tell you that Duron’s waiting for everyone down on the shore, sir. He and his Bandor crew have brought a lot of strange-looking building material with him. None of us have ever seen anything like this stuff.”
