He grunts, kicking at a rock on the ground.
“That’s a no. Okay, okay, lemme guess, three words, first word pissed, second word off, third word, alien.” I laugh at my stupid joke, though it’s not funny at all. Niki always says that humor is my crutch to avoid real feelings, and she’s not wrong.
Doesn’t mean I’m gonna change. Why mess with a good thing?
Kanuz points at me, the gesture so aggressive I flinch back, which only causes him to growl. He walks the length of the pool, then turns and walks back.
My translator spits out pure nonsense, as usual. “How can she not know? We are to live as one, and she does not know? How can it be that she desires to return to her village home life?”
I shake my head, my stomach sinking. Most of that actually made sense.
Which is very concerning. Extremely concerning.
What the hell is it that I don’t know that’s upsetting him so badly?
I dunk my slime-covered pants in the water. Why tackle an upset alien head-on when I can take care of the more immediate problem of wearing disgusting clothes? Absolutely no reason at all!
Still, it’s troubling. He’s clearly aggravated, and I know it has something to do with what I said about returning home.
It doesn’t bode well.
I wash and wring out the clothes as best I can, the thick mud and slime sucked down into whatever drain must be in the bottom of the pool, leaving the rest pristine.
“Why is this place here? How in the world does this still function?” It’s a marvel, and I stand up, my sodden clothes in hand. Water streams from my clothes as I wring them out, finally tugging them on, not quite brave enough to hang out in this freaky place in my underwear.
Boots are a good idea, and I go sockless, knowing all too well how much wet socks can fuck your world up. Trench foot would be a decidedly hellish development.
Kanuz is still fretting over whatever it is I don’t know, but I studiously ignore him.
There’s plenty I don’t know. A metric fuckton, in fact. Especially about this planet, which has been shrouded in secrecy thanks to their sacred language and their interplanetary defense tech. My crew basically came in blind.
And look how great that turned out!
At this point, I’m not sure I want to know what missing information has him so upset.
Instead, I run a hand over the rough stone wall. It’s smooth in some places, with swooping divots and dips. There’s a thin layer of dust and dirt over everything, and when I clap my hands together, it clouds the air in front of me.
Coughing, my eyebrows raise as I study the wall.
It’s not rough, not at all.
It’s carved.
Every inch of it, thick with inscriptions in what I can only assume is the Suevan language. There are images, too, and a sense of wonder fills me as I drink it in. They’re vaguely reminiscent of hieroglyphics—or maybe cuneiform—I studied what seems like a lifetime ago, but more pictorial than either of those systems.
I run my finger in the beveled edge of one, tracing the curve of a sinuous shape.
“What is this place?” Fear threads through my voice, because the longer I look at the wall, the longer the shapes start to mean something, which is… impossible. It should be impossible.
Two T-Rexes fighting a ridiculously huge snake should also be impossible, but I sure as shit watched that happen. Impossible, it seems, is a frame of mind. I snort, and then cough as I choke on more dust.
The images aren’t friendly ones. No, not at all. There’s the snake, which seems to be a theme of this swamp-ass planet, but it’s not eating the friendly neighborhood dinosaur.
No. It’s eating something with arms and legs and a Suevan shaped body.
Fuuuck.
“Kanuz,” I say, quiet dread flooding me. Water drips from my hair to the floor, loud in his sudden silence. “Where did you take us?”
“Wife, do not touch anything here,” Kanuz says. “There are many signs and statues, look at all the letters!”
I sigh in annoyance and frustration. Stupid translator.
“Why is this snake eating people?” I ask him, knowing I’m not going to get an answer. One I understand, in any case. I continue to rub away the accumulation of dirt and dust, stepping carefully around the random debris.
The carvings continue beneath a thick vine, and I tug at it, curious about what the hell this place is. The vine falls away easily under my hand, releasing an herbal fragrance as it gives way. It’s a big improvement on the smell of the swamp. Massive. Huge. I inhale deeply, trying to resuscitate my sense of smell. Olfactory CPR.
Kanuz crowds behind me, so close the heat from his body warms my bare back. I expected him to be cool to the touch, at first, like a reptile. But he’s not, he’s warmer even than me, a fact I haven’t taken for granted when the nights turn cold. “This is not human place, snake worship eat chicken.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Great.”
I’d much rather think about what the story is behind this temple than chase the same depressing thoughts like a hamster on a wheel.
A snake statue protrudes from the wall, dipping in and out of it. Here, the wall is carved to resemble a pool of water, rippling around where the body of the stone snake disappears into it.
“Oh, wow.” Each scale is so neatly articulated, and as I run my fingers over it, the grime gives way to something polished and shining. It’s not stone at all, but some kind of gem.
“This is gorgeous.” A thrill goes through me at finding something so unexpectedly beautiful. As I scrub the dust and leaf debris away, a deep, shimmering purple is revealed, each scale carved so carefully it almost seems real. “Not real sure I can get down with the giant snake worship or whatever you have going on here, but this is cool all the same.”
The exasperated sound Kanuz makes is so human, I can’t help but snort as I glance over my shoulder at him. His long thick hair’s braided back, and it drips wet across his chest, where it glistens as it runs down the deep furrows of his insanely ripped abs.
I have got to stop ogling his bod. Kanuz is not an alien object of worship, unlike the purple snake under my fingers.
Oh god. Purple snake. No doubt Bex, the resident monster-fucker reader on our crew, would have some thoughts about that. I stifle a laugh, biting my cheeks in a lackluster attempt to keep it in.
“So, uh, Kanuz, the snake here, this big, thick, purple snake… it’s not, like, a symbol for something else, is it? Like, does it mean something?”
What would Bex say? This time the laugh erupts out of me, and it feels so good to imagine what the over-the-top tech specialist would say about finding a big, ridged purple snake in the alien jungle that it nearly eclipses the overwhelming worry that chases the thought.
My laughter dies quickly at the thought, and I sober, gnawing at my lower lip.
I hope they’re all right. I hope that Niki and the other six of our crew aren’t being terrorized by dinosaurs. Fuck. I even hope Bex is living her monster fucker dream and getting it on with the locals.
Better than the alternative, that they’re—
I take a deep breath and refuse to let myself even think it.
The carved snake’s head juts from the wall ahead, and I continue running my fingers along the sinuous body, stepping over a tree root to get a better look at the work of art that’s the head.
“Holy hell,” I breathe, rubbing the polished orb of the eye. “Is this… a diamond?” Under the smooth exterior, the eye’s been cut into a million fractured facets, and as I wipe away the dirt crusting it, it catches the light from the opening in the roof.