The creature released Elvis. Bower was curious as to who had initiated the separation, had Elvis pulled away or had the alien let go?
“Home, Stella,” he said as the alien moved back into the shadows, staying just on the edge of their vision. “We’re going to get you home.”
Bower didn’t even want to ask how Elvis proposed to do that. For now it was enough to escape their dungeon.
Time passed slowly.
Elvis stood watch, peering out into the night through a thin crack between the steel panels welded over the window. Bower watched the alien as it appeared to preen itself. Tiny insects scooted up and down the fronds, pausing on occasion to focus on a particular part of a certain strand in much the same way as a cat would lick its fur and pause to rid itself of a parasite.
After awhile, Bower decided to try to talk with the alien. If they could converse, they could reason. If they could reason, there would be nothing to fear.
“How much do you understand?”
Sitting there on the edge of the mattress, looking at the seething mass of insect-like creatures pulsating at its core and the supple fronds swaying with the slightest breeze, Bower knew she was out of her depth. She’d been out of her depth long ago, ever since the Osprey lifted off, abandoning them in the village. Somehow she’d bluffed her way through until now, but she felt as though she were sinking in quicksand; one wrong move and she was dead.
“Do you know what I’m saying? Can you grasp our speech?”
The alien was silent.
What intelligence lay in that contradictory, vast nest full of so many tiny creatures? Was it one entity or thousands? Did it think? Did it feel? Certainly, she felt as though she’d seen fear within its actions, but that was probably her own fear being played out before her.
What senses did the alien or aliens have with which to interact with the world around them? How had they survived on Earth? In an environment that was surely hostile to them in some sense, either through chemistry, or pressure differences, or the strength of gravity. Did the spiny carriage offer any more than transport and weapons? Was it in some way analogous with an astronaut’s spacesuit? Why hadn’t any other alien creatures come looking for this one? Why hadn’t they mounted a rescue mission? Had they assumed Stella was dead? Or was it that they didn’t care?
“Just because someone is mute doesn’t mean they don’t understand,” Elvis finally replied, cutting through the silence.
“Understand,” the creature replied, again repeating the most common verb in a series of sentences, recognizing the topic if not the content. Bower could have kicked Elvis. If he’d remained silent, if the creature had replied with ‘understand’ having only heard the word once, then that would have been progress. As it was, she had no way of knowing if the alien was still just parroting concepts back at them.
“There has to be an intelligence at work here,” Elvis continued. “We’ve seen too much to think otherwise. She’s like a foreigner, like an American in Paris that can’t speak French.”
Bower caught a slight change in the throbbing hum of the insects and raised her hand, signaling for Elvis to be quiet.
“Intelligence,” she said, addressing the creature. “Yes, we’re talking about your intelligence.”
The creature was quiet.
After almost a minute, Elvis said, “Well, there are a few things we need Stella to understand if we’re going to get her out of here. We need her to understand the basics of movement. We need her to respond to instructions. Let’s see if we can get her to associate sounds with actions, kinda like the kids game, Red Light, Green Light.”
Elvis beckoned for Bower to stand. She got to her feet, feeling a little silly.
Elvis moved back about ten feet and said to Bower, “Green light… Red light… Green light… Red light.” With each phrase, Bower either walked forward or stood still. When she reached him, he turned to the imposing alien creature and asked a simple question with a single word, “Understand?”
The alien was silent.
“Again,” he said, and Bower returned to the mattress. Elvis said, “Green light… Red light… Green light… Red light… Understand?”
“Understand,” the alien replied, retaining Bower’s voice.
“OK,” Elvis said, turning to the creature. “Green light.”
The spindly alien structure, some nine-feet in height, swayed as it rocked forward on its thin legs, rolling unnaturally toward him.
“Red light.”
The words had barely left his lips when the creature froze.
“Green light.”
Again the prickly orb moved forward. Elvis stood his ground, waiting until the last second before saying, “Red light.” The creature was almost on top of him, its fronds waved just inches from his face.
“This is good,” said Elvis. “We’ve taught her two key concepts; red and green, stop and go.”
“We’ve taught her three concepts,” Bower added. “We’ve also taught her understanding resolves into action.”
On cue, the alien replied, “Understand.”
“Can you see how it’s doing that?” Bower asked. “How is it speaking?”
“It’s the bugs on the upper surface,” Elvis replied. “They’re moving like an old speaker cone whenever she talks.”
“Huh,” Bower replied. Well, that explained why there were times when the alien’s speech seemed to come from all around her. Unlike human speech, the alien’s words were not directional, at least, not horizontally. The creature’s words bounced off the ceiling back at her and so appeared to come from everywhere.
“We’ve got a couple of hours before we make our move,” Elvis said. “We need to get that gun and work on loosening those hinges.”
As the two of them got up, the alien swiveled in place, seemingly asking for permission to join.
“Green light,” said Elvis softly, and the creature followed behind them as they walked through the darkened floor.
For Bower, it felt unnerving to hear the creature quietly creeping up behind her. Unlike her own footsteps that fell with a soft, steady, rhythmic crunch, the motion of the alien was more akin to the sound of the wind rustling in the trees.
“Just like a puppy dog,” said Elvis.
“A giant puppy dog… with tentacles,” Bower replied.
Elvis didn’t respond.
In the dim light she could see him grinning.
They reached the mattresses beneath the shattered remains of the upper floor. Elvis picked up the gun from where it lay in the dust.
“We need to find that bullet.”
“Is one bullet going to make that much difference?” Bower asked, crouching down and searching with her hands in the low light. It was hopeless. She was clutching at shadows in the darkness.
“One bullet won’t hold off an army, but could make the difference between life and death, it could buy us time.”
The alien seemed agitated, and for a second Bower worried that seeing Elvis brandish the revolver had upset the interstellar creature. She looked up and amidst the swarm of tentacles flicking back and forth one remained still, stretching out toward Elvis. The fine tip of the frond was wrapped around a bloodstained bullet.
Elvis reached out cautiously, saying, “Nice work, Stella,” and yet his voice was anything but confident. Like her, he had to be nervous about working with this creature. He took the bullet from her and slipped it into the revolver. Slowly, he tucked the revolver into the small of his back.
On reaching the door, Elvis used his fingers to carefully examine the hinges before setting to work with the butter-knife and the rock. The hallway was pitch black. The only light came from a faint glimmer breaking through cracks in the sealed window, where the alien stood casting shadows on the wall.