“Yes. Some time back, before any of us now living were alive, we were visited by a race from another world. We thought of them as gods. These gods left us a gift. With this gift, we were able to visit other worlds much like they did. In these worlds the Glee visited, they eventually found other things we could eat.
“At first, it was a wondrous device to explore worlds with different kinds of edible plants. In some of these places the Glee found the kind of water weeds and snails that were similar to our favorites and they brought them back for our young.”
Richard and Vika shared a look.
“You mean to say you care for your young?” he asked.
“Of course. We love our young. A male and female Glee will together care for and protect her eggs until they hatch. From the time they hatch, the mother and father bring them food until they grow enough to be able to learn to gather food for themselves.” Sang cocked his head again. “Did the goddess tell your kind something different?”
Richard let out a troubled sigh. “As a matter of fact, we were led to believe that the Glee simply reproduce, somehow, but that you don’t experience love and bonding the way we do. From what we were told, it sounded like your kind didn’t pair together, and producing young was not a meaningful act.”
Sang looked distressed. “That is not true. When we find a mate, we bond for life.”
Richard hooked his thumbs behind his belt as he stole another quick glance at Vika. “This is not what the goddess led us to believe. She gave us a picture of a cold-blooded race that cared only about collecting other worlds and hunting creatures in those worlds for sport as well as to eat. She made it seem that they were born for this purpose and it was all they cared about. We were told that even if the goddess grew old and died, it was not important because they are all the same and of a like mind and basically interchangeable. She said her death would not matter because there would always be another to take her place.”
Sang let out the same kind of hissing sigh as he had before. “The one who calls herself the Golden Goddess lies as easily as she breathes. She lies in order to strike fear into the hearts of those she intends her followers to hunt. They have developed a taste for the flesh of other creatures, including, most of all, your kind.”
“A taste for people?”
Sang nodded. “You are the only thinking creatures we know of that are in some ways similar to us. We have so far discovered no others. The other worlds we have discovered have at most lower creatures such as insects and other small creatures without the ability to understand our voice, much like float weed and muscle snails cannot hear our voices.
“The goddess and her followers find great satisfaction in hunting down, killing, and eating your kind more than any that has been found before in the worlds she collects. She will tell anyone from your world anything that makes it easier for the Glee to succeed in hunting and killing, hoping your kind never learns any of our weaknesses, as you have. Creatures that are terrified don’t fight back effectively. That makes them easier to kill.
“The goddess and her followers have come to highly desire the flesh of other creatures more advanced than the muscle snails of our world, and especially after the game of hunting your kind. The hunting has become the purpose of many, and they do not even devour all they catch. The fighters the goddess sends out to other worlds are all males, like me. They bring some of their kills back to feed their females, the young, and the goddess.
“Those of us like me find the idea of eating thinking, reasoning creatures like you to be not only wrong, but abhorrent. Those with the goddess don’t care about our objections, and as you have seen, they have embraced violence and they now eat your kind exclusively. They are even willing to use violence against their own kind in order to hold power so that they may continue doing as they wish.”
Richard was disturbed to learn how much of what they had been told wasn’t true. It changed everything.
“I have noticed that unlike all the rest of the Glee, you have a greenish iridescence to your flesh, especially over the top of your head.”
Sang nodded. “It is because of the flutter and float weed as well as some other plants of our world that we eat. Those plants we prefer to eat have this same shimmering green color. Those who have turned to eating the flesh of creatures in other worlds, especially your kind, no longer eat the food from our world and so they quickly lose this coloring.”
That certainly explained the color Richard noticed on Sang that he hadn’t seen on the other Glee. “I’m glad that there are some of you who don’t want to eat us. I would much rather cooperate with you and those like you.”
“It is the same with the others who side with me. You are the first creatures that I found who will fight back, which, of course, excites those who follow the goddess. And among your kind, you are the most effective at fighting and killing the Glee to stop them. I have been looking for one like you for a very, very long time, hoping all the time that I would find one.”
“For what purpose?”
“To help us kill the goddess, of course.”
“Of course,” Richard said.
48
“The Golden Goddess is smart, cunning, and knows how to win followers. She prizes the power she has. She craves the loyalty of her followers and is pleased that they would do anything for her. They would die for her. As you know so well, many have already died for her. As we speak, many more are preparing to come here and slaughter all the people living in this place.
“Those like me, who believe in consuming what our beautiful, wonderful world has to offer in abundance, have tried many things to make the others see that what they are doing is wrong. But they see us as simply weak and too timid for the dangerous hunts of your kind.
“More than for the food, they enjoy their power over your kind, much as the goddess herself enjoys her power over her followers. After trying everything to reason with the goddess and her followers, we now realize that there is no way to turn them back from their new ways.
“If they are not stopped, she will see to it that the Glee come to roam this world and hunt your kind until there are none of you left. They think of eliminating your species as a goal and as an accomplishment. Finding new worlds for her followers to hunt, especially this one, gives the goddess power over them.”
Richard stared into the large, glossy black eyes. “So why, exactly, are you are telling me all of this?”
“Because for your kind to survive, they must be stopped. For my kind to survive, they must be stopped.
“To stop them, the Golden Goddess must be killed. There is no other way.”
Richard leaned back a little as he tried to judge the truthfulness of Sang’s words. It was possible, after all, that there was a power struggle in Sang’s world and he was just as bloodthirsty as the goddess, and simply wanted to win Richard’s sympathy in order to help eliminate his opposition for power.
Richard supposed that it was even possible that Sang was trying to win Richard’s trust in order to eliminate him for the goddess.
On the other hand, what Sang was saying did seem to ring true, and if it was true, this could be the key to ending the threat that Richard hadn’t previously thought was possible. More than that, not ending the threat could very well result in the end of everyone.