image
image
image

Chapter 41

image

Owen was ready to start tearing his hair out. The executives who had taken over were doubling down on the failures of yesterday, running the same kind of disastrous expedition with more vigor. The aliens hadn’t talked to them before, and no amount of yelling at the river would change that. There weren’t even any real diplomats involved. Just a CEO and his various lackeys, none of whom were listening to reason.

“The colortalkers are going to keep threatening us,” Owen said for the umpteenth time, stepping around the pair of official cameramen who kept getting in his way. “At this point all we can do is look through the forest for solitary adults.”

Mr. Bhandari waved him into silence, watching the river. “Shut it,” he said in clipped tones. “If I want your input, I will ask for it.”

Owen threw his hands into the air and strode away through the grass. Ms. Acosta gave him a sympathetic look, but she didn’t speak up. Dr. Rhodes didn’t even meet his eyes — the psychologist stood forlornly at the edge of the crowd, despite having been relieved of his diplomat status. Mr. Bhandari had recruited everyone he considered to be useful now (which did not include Mr. Lee, who hadn’t seen the aliens in person), and then proceeded to ignore them. He hadn’t listened to Owen’s advice earlier, when the pair of doom bats had been patrolling the shore. They had nearly flown off with a biologist before they were discouraged with stun guns. And the CEO wasn’t listening now.

Mr. Bhandari was currently trying to convince some of the scientists wearing body armor to move closer to the shore, in the hopes that the natives would emerge from the water long enough to throw spears at them.

The men were reluctant to follow orders. “These aren’t bulletproof,” one worker pointed out. “We don’t even have helmets. They could kill us with a good shot.”

“And that last alien was carrying something that looked an awful lot like a gun,” the other said. “I’m not sure we’re even safe this far back.”

Mr. Bhandari was trying to come up with a good answer to that, with his handful of subordinate executives either backing him up or keeping stonily out of it, when the aliens in the water suddenly flipped their tails and dove out of sight. The humans all turned to stare, with the cameramen stepping to the front.

Owen was uneasy. “Maybe we should move back,” he cautioned. “In case they’re readying something big.”

“Get closer,” Mr. Bhandari directed the armored workers. “See where they’ve gone.” The men hesitated, looking from the scowling CEO to the head biologist who was taking his own advice and stepping away from the muddy water.

Then someone pointed out a single native swimming their way. It was moving fast, but it wasn’t carrying a spear. It did seem to have something flat in its hands, but this was kept close to its chest and impossible to make out from the shore.

“Translators ready!” Mr. Bhandari said. “This could be our chance!”

Owen ducked behind a tree, peeking around the trunk. The native powered into the shallows, its finned tail working hard, and before it ran out of water, it reared up into the air. Then it threw the thing it carried.

“Talk to it! Talk — ack!” Mr. Bhandari cut off with a squawk as the flat gray item spun towards his head like a discus. The CEO barely dodged it, and the native disappeared back into the river. Mr. Bhandari swore. “What the hell was that? Did anyone talk to it?”

No one had. Owen left the shelter of his tree with a glance at the water, walking over to the flat thing that lay half-buried in the sand. He crouched, ignoring the storm of questions he couldn’t answer, and he found it to be a square piece of metal with screw holes. He wondered with some concern where it had come from. When nothing happened as he touched it, he pulled the thing free of the wet sand and turned it over.

Then he broke into a grin and stood up.

“The natives have spoken,” Owen said, brushing sand off the message and holding it up. He had no idea how Hubcap had gotten it to them, but this was a good sign.

Mr. Bhandari disagreed, launching into a hearty round of swearing in which he cursed the robot, his camera crew, their families, their pets, and anyone who had helped them get in the way of progress. He ignored his own camera crew, who were filming his every word.

“Are you quite done?” Owen asked when Mr. Bhandari showed signs of winding down.

“No!” he shouted, pointing a finger at the biologist. “That clanker has ruined any chance we had of establishing relations with this settlement! He’s out here somewhere, putting a wrench in the works!” Mr. Bhandari turned to the assistant with the radio and had her contact the third aircar, which was currently scanning the woods to the south. That carload of employees was directed to look for the offending robot and anyone else he might have with him.

Owen sighed and wished the fugitives luck, deciding there was no point in trying to change Mr. Bhandari’s mind. He just hoped that something good would come of all this.

The radio crackled with a brief sighting of what had to be another aircar flying far upriver. Mr. Bhandari ordered everyone back into their own two cars.

Owen followed the crowd, crossing his fingers as the aircars roared upstream with flocks of startled alien birds in their wake.