Although Bower flinched, Elvis held no fear of the creature.
Mentally, she knew this was an intelligent being and that the creature meant no harm to her and Elvis, having rebuilt his arm, but after seeing Bosco shredded in seconds, Bower was well aware of the possibility for unbridled violence, and she couldn’t shake that image from her mind.
The pulsating mass of insects was probably three to four feet in diameter, she figured, perhaps more. In the soft light, she could detect a flicker of color and a slight hum.
Although Bower had interacted with the alien on several occasions, this was the first opportunity Elvis had to see the creature as anything other than a lethal killing machine. His only memory had been of the alien tearing Bosco apart and then of their attempts to shoot the creature, and yet he seemed unusually relaxed. He’d been unconscious when the alien had operated on him, and yet Bower sensed some knowing awareness between him and the alien entity.
Elvis stretched out his feeble left arm, reaching across the kitchen bench between them. The alien responded, its blade-like fronds wrapped around his hand as a stream of tiny creatures raced back and forth, clambering over his fingertips.
Bower was fascinated.
A sense of awe overwhelmed her natural desire for caution.
Elvis breathed deeply. He pulled his hand back and the tiny creatures returned to the core of the thorny alien structure.
The spiky creature rolled out of the kitchenette, moving slowly around toward them. Bower backed up, but Elvis didn’t move, limiting her ability to step away.
“Wait,” he whispered.
Light crept around the doorframe at the end of the hallway. Fine lines crisscrossed the dust. Bower could see how the creature had tracked her motion. It must have been curious to know what she was looking for beneath the door.
The massive creature moved toward them, squeezing through the doorway leading from the kitchenette, the tips of its fronds touching lightly against the ceiling.
What she had thought of as the alien transportation device rolled up to them.
Bower pulled away, but Elvis stood his ground.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s OK.”
Dark red fronds waved before her. Bower was in two minds. This alien framework seemed to be alive, she figured, looking at the fluid motion with which it swayed, and yet she’d seen it standing idle, like an abandoned car. Perhaps this was the alien equivalent of a pack horse, while the rider was the intimidating swarm of minuscule creatures at its core.
Elvis resisted her attempt to pull back. He clearly wanted to see what the creature would do.
“It won’t hurt you,” he whispered.
Bower wasn’t so sure. She swallowed the lump in her throat, stiffening her muscles as a clutch of fine tentacles touched at her face and neck. Her instinctive reaction was a sense of revulsion, but she suppressed that feeling and tried not to turn away. Tiny insect-like creatures clambered along the outstretch tentacles, racing up toward her face. Bower shut her eyes. She couldn’t look. The fronds were gentle, as soft as suede, passing lightly over her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose, over her eyebrows and across her lips. Bower couldn’t stop shaking.
“Easy, girl. Easy,” Elvis whispered. “Just go with it.”
The tentacles withdrew.
Bower opened her eyes.
Several insects sat on the tips of the alien fronds, just inches from her face, apparently taking a good look at her.
“Retracing steps.”
Again, it was her voice spoken back to her.
“Yes,” she said softly in reply. “I was looking to escape.”
Bower hadn’t noticed until now, but Elvis had relaxed. He still had his arm over her shoulder, but he no longer leaned so heavily on her. She turned to one side, allowing the spiny creature to twist and turn on its spikes and roll out onto the darkened factory floor.
This was the first opportunity she’d had to observe the alien’s locomotion in detail.
Although the tips of the spikes appeared rigid when the alien rolled forward, they flexed as they brushed the concrete, almost slapping the ground for grip. Bower figured the creature could race in any direction it chose without appearing to change its orientation. It could probably turn on the proverbial dime.
“Escape,” the creature said, using her voice as it weaved its way around a crate and out of sight.
Bower and Elvis stood there for a few minutes. Her heart was racing, her palms were sweaty.
The alien headed to the far side of the floor. It seemed the creature wanted to keep its distance, to stay away from them. Well, she figured, honestly, that was probably through mutual consent.
“Magnificent,” Elvis said as the creature disappeared into the shadows.
Bower was silent. She was still struggling with what the alien creature was and how to communicate with it. The alien appeared to be just as flustered with the communication gap. Although the creature used human terms appropriately, it seemed it had to learn them first. Somehow the creature had a grasp of the fundamentals of speech. Perhaps not speech as she understood it, but it knew how to associate human sounds with distinct concepts, and to her surprise, the creature got those concepts right.
Bower had just interacted with a creature from another world. As the realization settled in her mind, she felt jubilant, as though a weight had been lifted.
They hobbled away from the kitchenette.
Bower felt chatty, overwhelmed by a desire to articulate what had just happened, to make sense of the encounter for herself if for no one else. She distinctly remembered the same feeling of exuberance following her first encounter with a dolphin as a teenager.
“My mother is from Berlin,” she began, barely able to contain herself. “I used to spend my holidays there with my grandmother.
“I speak three languages, but I’m only fluent in English. Several of my friends are truly bilingual, and although I can speak French and German, I struggle to make the mental switch between thinking in English to thinking and reasoning in French or German.”
Elvis listened. He seemed to appreciate how she was working through what had just happened.
“I can translate with ease and occasionally I think in German, but English is home, so I think I understand how this creature feels. I used to be so envious of those that could make the switch effortlessly. Perhaps this alien creature feels the same. Language has to be a universal constant, differing only in how it is communicated.”
Elvis was silent as they staggered on through the darkness.
In her mind’s eye, Bower was back in Germany, a wide-eyed young lady on summer break. She could remember the sights and smells, the sweltering humidity, the lush farmlands, the fresh fruits. She remembered how difficult it was to order coffee or to find her way around the city as she stumbled over the language.
Bower’s grandmother had worked at the Helen Keller school in Berlin. She was a teacher and had introduced Bower to several blind students her age. Bower had been impressed by their agility of mind, their ability to compensate for the loss of sight. Now, in the gloomy shell of an abandoned factory, the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place.
“Think about it,” she said. “Even on Earth there are several different ways of sharing concepts. As closely related as speech appears to be to writing, they’re really worlds apart. We’ve largely settled on dark marks on paper to represent speech, but raised dots on a page work equally as well for the blind, while hand gestures and facial inflections convey the same versatility using nothing more than sight to speak to the deaf. For this alien creature, human speech probably feels a little like sign-language would to you or me.”
“Huh,” Elvis replied.
Bower was working herself into a manic state, a kind of euphoria. If she didn’t know better she’d have sworn someone just slipped her some hash cookies.