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There just wasn’t a whole lot to do at that point. Scott hustled the Fleetmen into his tent for an emergency debriefing (all but Mr. Yao, who went back to his bivy in spite of Scott’s threats to consider that insubordinate behavior). Everyone else drew off at first to sit and talk in low worried voices about if and how this changed things, but it was early and not entirely dry, and one by one, people drifted back to bed. Amber sat up until the fire died and even dared to interrupt the debriefing to ask for a flashlight, but Scott said no and it was just too dark to move around without one. She paced around the edge of camp for a while, banging into crates and tripping over bags of concrete while she strained her eyes trying to see shapes in the black. There was nothing, only the endless wind and a few icy pellets of rain, so in the end even she gave up.
Nicci was already sleeping soundly. Amber pulled out her blanket and wrapped up to stay dry. She lay down, but only to huddle close to her sister and share as much warmth as she could. She was way too wired to sleep now, couldn’t even if she’d wanted to. She was only keeping Nicci warm while she waited for the lizardman to come back.
The next thing she heard was a heavy, squishy, thumping sound, like someone falling over in the mud close by. Amber pushed her blanket back and dragged her head up into the light of late morning.
“I fell asleep,” she croaked and dropped back to the ground, slapping both hands to her face.
A low grunt answered her. The lizardman walked around the scaly deer he had just deposited on the ground in front of her and hunkered down to investigate his firepit. His little leather stewing pouch was slung over one shoulder like a ladies purse, bulging and heavy-looking, which had to have some co
‘Gross,’ thought Amber sleepily, trying to rub her face awake. Then she thought, ‘Food,’ but that wasn’t quite right, was it? No, it was Meoraq’s food and that was a very different thing.
She looked back into Scott’s side of the camp and saw dozens of people watching, looking like nothing so much as a horde of hungry prairie dogs, motionless and staring. At their center, Scott slowly stood up, towering over the rest of them for a few seconds before Eric and Dag popped up too.
She started to say something to Meoraq—just what, she didn’t know, especially since he wouldn’t understand it anyway—but then saw that he was making a fire. Amber sat all the way up, trying to pay attention to how he did it, but there wasn’t time. He just cleared the ground, laid out some branches and a few bundles of grass, put something from his pack up next to the kindling and then there was fire.
“Nicci, look at this,” said Amber, reaching out to pat her sister’s hip. “Look what he’s doing.”
Nicci rolled away from her. “Is he building a starship?” she mumbled.
“No, but—”
“Then I don’t care. Leave me alone. I’m sleeping.”
“Oh come on!” There was now a roaring fire where nothing but ash and mud had been less than a minute ago. Amber found Nicci through the crinkly blanket and shook her. “Look at this!”
Nicci heaved a sigh and raised her head just as the lizardman pulled the long sword off his belt and hacked the head off the deer. It rolled over, tongue lolling and sightless eyes staring. Meoraq picked it up and set it over the fire, carefully balanced on rocks to keep it out of the forming coals. The deer’s scaly lips shrank back, steaming, into a dead, idiot leer.
Nicci looked at this, then at Amber, open-mouthed.
“That’s not what I wanted you to see,” Amber said.
Meoraq grabbed both sides of the dead deer’s ribs and broke them well apart, forming a meaty platter where he upended his stewing pouch. Lots of shiny organs came tumbling out—heart, liver, kidneys…other things—along with a small splash of blood.
Amber slapped her hands over her face again.
“Thanks so much for sharing that!” Nicci punched her blanket into her duffel bag and stormed off through the mud to the other fire, where just about everyone else was already up and sitting together. They let her in, listened to whatever she had to say to accompany those angry arm gestures. A few of them looked at Amber.
Damn it.
Meoraq watched Nicci go without obvious interest as he cut up his assortment of organs and impaled them on sticks. He put these gut-kabobs over the fire, licked his fingers, then started cutting the deer out of its scaly hide.
“Looks like it’s going to be another great day,” she muttered, taking Nicci’s blanket back out and rolling it up neater. “Thanks for coming back, Meoraq.”
He covered his eyes with the back of his least bloody hand and muttered, “Meoraq,” under his breath. His spines twitched up and down as he thought. Then he pointed the tip of his knife at the half-butchered animal and said something.
“Meat,” she said. He hadn’t needed any help to catch it, either. He hadn’t even needed a spear. “And I, on the other hand,” sighed Amber, turning back to watch Nicci at the other fire,” never tried so hard to do something in my whole life as I tried to run that goddamn limping thing down. Take a note, lizardman: That was the best I could do. Amber Bierce’s very best was a miserable fucking failure.”
He caught her by the chin and pinched, not hard enough to hurt (although it was impossible not to feel the tremendous strength in that grip), but enough to shut her up. He pointed his knife down at the dead thing. He spoke again, just one word.
Did he want her to repeat him? Amber tried. “Soo—”
He pinched harder. Spoke.
“Saw…ow. Ak. Saw-owk.”
“Saoq,” he corrected, but released her. With the tip of his finger, he quickly drew a deer-shape in the wet dirt. “Saoq,” he said again, and stabbed his knife into its muddy heart. He said something else, pointed at the dead animal and said it again.
“What does that mean?” Amber asked. “Is it ‘dead’ or ‘meat’ or ‘hunt’ or—”
He caught her chin and pinched. He said his word.
“You know, I realize we’re the aliens here, but Scott wants you to learn English, not for us to learn lizardish.”
Pinch. He leaned close. He spoke once.
She repeated him., then crossly added, “Meat. Meat.”
He grunted, released her, and went back to butchering the animal…the saoq. He cut away a chunk of meat and held it up. He said a word.
“You should also know that I took Spanish from the second grade on up to the seventh and I flunked every single year.”
Meoraq cocked his head. He reached for her chin.
She pulled back out of his reach and said the stupid word.
The corners of his hard mouth turned up. He grunted, pulled the meat off the blade of his knife and skewered it on a thin bit of branch instead. He propped that over the fire beside him and said a new word, pointing at it.
Cook? Fire? Whatever it was, she parroted it back obediently.
His mouth opened in a hissing grimace. He took one of the gut-kabobs off the fire and held it up, steaming and dripping juices down its skewer, still partly raw and a little black around the edges, but enough to flood Amber’s mouth with eager water. He gestured at it, his spines flaring in what she could only hope was an encouraging ma
She said the word she thought meant meat and then strung it all together into what she hoped was almost a real sentence: “Meoraq cook saoq meat.”
He winced. Sighed. Put the kabob back over the fire and looked at her.
“If you don’t like it, learn English. At least I’m making an effort here. Listen!” She reached out to pat the corpse. “Meat—oh yuck, it’s still warm. Oh God, and sticky!” She started to wipe her hand off on her pants, then changed her mind and dragged it over the ground instead. She only had so many clothes. “Meat! Say it with me! Meat!”
He frowned at her, silent.
“Any progress, Miss Bierce?”
Meoraq’s gaze shifted past her to watch Scott join them. His spines flattened. He bent over the saoq, ripping it out of the rest of its hide and muttering under his breath.
“What do you want?” Amber asked.
“Nothing. I’m just not comfortable leaving the heavily-armed alien unsupervised.”
“I’m here.”
“Also unsupervised.”
Scott probably had more to say, but whatever scathing insult he was cooking up turned into a gagging cry as Meoraq shoved a skinless, disemboweled, dead deer against his chest. He tried to back away, but Meoraq only shoved harder, more or less forcing Scott to embrace the corpse.
“What does he want?” Scott demanded shrilly.
Meoraq spat out some suggestions, then looked at Amber and cocked his head.
She replayed his words and realized there were a few in there she knew. “He wants you to eat it.”
Meoraq gave the corpse a last push and pointed firmly back at the other fire. He hissed through his teeth, his flat spines scraping at the top of his scaly head.
“And he wants us to leave him alone,” Amber translated. She started to get up.
Meoraq’s hand slammed down on her shoulder and seated her with a squishy thump back on the ground. He hissed at her next, exactly the same way. On his throat, faint lines of yellow color were coming into his scales. He pivoted at the hip and pointed at the other fire, spitting out lizard-words faster than she could follow. The message, however, was clear: Go back to your side of the camp and stay there.
Scott backed up, holding the carcass clumsily before him like a shield. “If that thing attacks me again, I’m holding you responsible,” he warned.
“He’s not attacking you, he’s feeding you,” said Amber, rubbing her shoulder. “Am I responsible for that? Seriously, Meoraq, that hurt.”
“Meoraq!” spat the lizardman, still glaring at Scott. But then he leaned back on his heels and cupped the end of his snout, taking deep breaths and muttering to himself, and when he looked at her again, the scales on his throat were all black once more. “Meoraq,” he said, and gestured toward her, grudgingly inviting her own name.
“Meat,” she said, using his word and rubbing her shoulder some more.
He flung up his hands, took one stomping step toward the fire and the gut-kabobs roasting there, then pulled himself up with a jerk and really stared at her.
“Yeah. Amber-meat. And if you make some joke about bacon—” she began, rounding on Scott, but he had taken advantage of Meoraq’s distraction to retreat. She could see him at the other fire already, surrounded by worshipful Manifestors, rewarding their loyalty with someone else’s food. And they loved him for it.