Little Island Tales - Part 14

    "Diego. Wake up, nani."
    Diego grumbled and groaned, rolling over in his spot. He glanced over his shoulder and could see the sun shining through the cracks in the walls and the form of his mother moving at the far end of the house.
    "Diegooo~" she called again.
    "Mmph."
    "Your friend is here, nani."
    "Mmph!"
    "Have it your way." his mother said with a giggle.
    The pitter patter of feet on the floor was sudden and washed away by a high pitched squeal.
    "Diego!" Tamah yelled.
    She hit him from behind, practically tackling him into the wall, and began violently shaking him.
    "Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup!" the younger girl said in delight.
    "Mmmph!"
    Diego rolled over and glared up at Ka'lani's sister. Her face was bright and beaming and a smile was stretched from ear to ear.
    "Hi." she said shortly, her smile growing wide.
    "Why?" was all he could muster.
    "I got you something!" she declared proudly, jutting out her chest. "Come see come see!"
    Using his back as a springboard, Tamah jumped off of him and ran back to the other side of the house. He weakly pulled himself from the bed and followed after her.
    "Tamah brought you some-" his mother began.
    "I FOUND YOU SOME BREAKFAST!" Tamah squealed, nearly bouncing up and down as she turned back to Diego.
    Cradled in her arms was a small, woven basket. Tucked into the basket were a number of different fruits. There were some mangoes, papayas, raspberries, dragonfruit, and even a few bananas. They all looked ripe and incredibly delicious.
    Without hesitation he snatched one of the mangoes and began digging in.
    "Thank you," he offered after a few bites. "But...where did you get all this?"
    "I found it!"
    "Tamah has had a very busy morning from the looks of things." Diego's mother offered.
    Diego knew well enough that none of the fruit really grew that nearby and more than a few would even require venturing into the lower forests on the mountain.
    "Did your brother help you?"
    She shook her head.
    "Ka'lani?"
    Again, no.
    "Did you really go alone?"
    Tamah beamed once more, her smile threatening to split her face.
    "I wanted to make sure you had something tasty. I know how tired you've been. And I thought it would be nice to see you."
    Diego spared a brief look at his mom who simply smirked and shrugged before busying herself with something in the kitchen.
    It had been several days since the trek up the mountain with Johanas and he hadn't really done much other than help his mother around the house since then. He had felt strangely detached after the weird conversation with the older man but he hadn't been able to really place the why. His words had really bothered him, enough so that he hadn't given much thought to anyone really, even the recent discovery of the tracks.
    Not that much came of them. he thought to himself.
    He'd heard the warriors talking in the last few days. They hadn't really been able to find anything as the trail had been destroyed along with a chunk of the forest in the night. That, combined with the sounds they had heard the same evening, made many of them believe that if their had been an intruder on the island, they were likely already dead by the hands of the aka-akua. 
    It's too bad really. Diego wondered what someone from outside of the island would have been like.
    "Thank you." he repeated himself.
    Tamah nodded enthusiastically and set down the basket. As she did, there was a soft tinkle from inside.
    "OH!" she shouted. "I almost forgot!"
    Digging into the bottom of the basket, she retrieved several strange, shiny objects. There were four in total. They were cylindrical and made of a yellowish metal. One end of each cylinder was open to reveal a hollow interior. A hole had been punched through all of them with a simple leather cord so they could be worn as a necklace.
    Weirdly, they all smelt like burnt incense.
    "I wanted to give you one." Tamah continued and offered the shiny, little cylinder necklaces. "I thought maybe we could each have one. I found them while I was looking for breakfast."
    "You mean me, you, and your brother and sister?"
    "Mmmhmm."
    Diego shrugged and plucked the cleanest one from her palm. They all had little dents and dings, but the one he picked seemed to look the nicest.
    He promptly tied it around his neck.
    "I think they're kind of pretty." she offered.
    "They are, I guess." he confirmed with a nod. "Although, that reminds me, where is your sister?"
    In the last few days, Diego hadn't really seen Ka'lani. In all honesty, he hadn't seen anyone but his mother and whoever passed by the door. She had been the one person he'd considered trying to visit but hadn't quite brought himself to do so.
    Tamah, for the briefest of moments, appeared to be crestfallen. Her smile dimmed and her eyes fell to the floor for a moment. If he hadn't been staring right at her, Diego would have missed it entirely.
Because a moment later, she was beaming again, although it seemed strangely forced and artificial.
    "She's at Grammy Koula's. She's been over there for a couple days. I was going over there after you had breakfast to give her one of these." she said, holding up the cylinders again.
    "Can I come?" he asked her.
    "You should." Tula said from the kitchen. "As fun as it is to use you as my own personal slave, I think you need to get away from weaving and cooking for a little while."
    "Ok!" Tamah offered. "I'll make sure to take good care of him!"
    Before Diego could ask what that meant, the smaller girl had shoved a few raspberries into his hand, grabbed her basket, and was pushing him out the door into the warm sun beyond.

Xenophobia - Chapter 14

    After the last meeting, Darrian noticed that the cycles began to pass at a sluggish pace. At first, he couldn't wait to get to the meeting room. That was, until he noticed that Jin'thun was missing. Unlike before with Juag-e, the old Judge said nothing about the Gorderian's absence.
    That meeting dragged on like nothing else.
    The next meeting wasn't any better. No Jin'thun. No word of whether they had rallied support or the Gorderians had gone to the Tulgucks aid.
    It was like this for a dozen cycles.
    During this time, the humans were already making immense progress with their colonization of Mars. The colony ships from both China and the United States had arrived safe and sound and had quickly begun the process of creating life-support habitats for the colonists. Once they finished their construction, the humans immediately sank their time into agricultural and scientific endeavors.
    One thing that struck the council as odd was the fact that the humans from the two ships remained separated and seemed to make no attempt to actively interact with each other. Despite their only difference being geographical location on Earth, their groups remained separated aside for occasionally checking that the other was alive and well.
    Darrian thought he'd never understand how humans disregarded their own species so much.
    The humans' presence on Mars created a number of unique problems for the analytics team as well. Unlike on Earth with it's rather massive population, a lone individual or group of individuals stuck out compared to the general populace of Mars. It wasn't a matter of simply slapping on a holographic imager and walking into the crowd. Every human knew every other human and they couldn't simply walk into a mess hall as an unknown.
    But Harris's team was talented.
    Utilizing a combination of technological infiltration and carefully hidden listening and viewing devices, a small group of the analytics team was able to monitor the humans as they progressed into their colonization. It proved challenging keeping their craft hidden, sometimes in orbit and sometimes on the surface, and it was not nearly as informative but they made it work.

    "I just don't get why they don't really interact with each other." grumbled Ugul.
    "Hmm. Do you think it could be the whole 'language barrier' thing that Harris had mentioned before?" said Cagool snidely.
    Darrian couldn't help but feel that the Yool had become absolutely insufferable as of late. While he had actively denied any interaction or affiliation with the Tulgucks or Gorderians, his mood swing seemed too conveniently timed. Ever since Jin'thun's disappearance, he couldn't seem to keep his condescension to himself. Maybe he just liked being the contrarian.
    "Many of the colonists speak each others regional linguistics, Cagool." groaned A'alan't 32.
    "Well, maybe this is a new batch. Who knows? With how short lived they are, maybe they had to reproduce on the ship before the original batch died of old age. Did we think to check?"
    "Would you just shut up?" snapped Ferris in an unusually bad mood.
    Maybe he was just used to being the sarcastic one or maybe Cagool was just getting under his skin. Either way, Ferris had more venom then normal.
    "I feel like you haven't had anything useful to add to these meetings in a while." Ferris added quickly.
    "What's there to add?" asked Cagool. "We're basically just watching a virus grow in a petri dish while we wait for the doctor to come and destroy it."
    "Cagool." warned the old judge.
    "What?" he said as he looked around the table. "You might not like it, but facts are facts. The Tulgucks are on their way right now to wipe them off the map."
    The old judge glowered at him and a few of the other councilors looked uncomfortable.
    "Even if the Gorderians decide to try and stop them, which they probably won't, the Tulgucks have good headway. I'd give it another few cycles before for the first warships show up and then we can start doing something better with our time."
    "Cagool. Are you suggesting that this is a waste of time and that we should be supporting the Tulgucks in their vicious slaughter of a young species?" demanded the old judge.
    "Hey. I didn't say it. You did."
    Darrian could feel his throat tightening and was about to say something when the light on the holographic imager started flashing.
    The old judge reached down and hit a button on his datapad and Harris, not in his human disguise but instead his proper Merrenian form, appeared above the table.
    "Harris?" asked the old judge. "Is something wrong? You have this labeled as a priority one message."
    "I bet the warships just showed up." muttered Cagool quietly.
    "Would you just..." growled Ferris.
    "Shut it!" snapped the old judge. "Harris?"
    Harris adjusted himself and cleared his throat.
    "Yes. Well... I'm not sure how to put this. As you are aware, the humans begin their scientific research on the surface of Mars. Some of that research includes extensive digging. Archaeologic searches and the like..." his tone was hollow and he looked nervous.
    The room fell quiet. Even Cagool didn't have something snide to add.
    "What did they find, Captain?" asked the old judge with hesitation in his voice.
    Harris seemed to look around the room as if he was considering what or how to say whatever it was needed saying. After a moment, he sighed heavily and looked back to the old judge with a stern expression.
    "The humans have found a Guillae, sir."

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