Chapter 13
The group of humans looked up as Shiny abruptly quit working and approached them. Telisa saw that the creature held many new cubes in the tiny fingers at the ends of many of its legs. The alien sported so many legs that it was able to move fluidly even while carrying the items.
“Look, he’s carrying lots of…” Telisa’s voice dropped off as Shiny walked up to her and held out one of the devices.
It was a long stack of reddish cubes held together with strands of a silvery metal. One end of the thing curved away at an angle and had a hole in it.
“Uh, should I take that?” Telisa asked.
Shiny saw her hesitation and held up another leg toward Joe. The alien held an identical item in its grasp.
“I suppose we should… do we have any reason to refuse?” Joe said.
He accepted the device from Shiny and stepped back to examine it. Telisa took hers next, making sure to point the hole away from her. It reminded her of Magnus’s slug thrower and she didn’t feel like taking chances.
The alien offered Magnus a device that looked the same as the others. Magnus took the item and examined it.
“Any guesses?” he asked.
“I haven’t the faintest clue,” Joe answered, turning the collection of cubes over in his hands. “No mechanism, as near as I can see.”
Shiny walked over toward the wall. Telisa intuited what would happen next.
“Wait, guys. I think a demonstration is coming up!” She darted over beside Shiny, eager to see what he would do next.
“Yup, he’s still got one,” she said.
Magnus and Joe walked over to join them. Telisa noticed that the two were starting to relax in each other’s presence, content to cooperate for the time being.
When everyone assembled nearby, Shiny went back into motion. He placed the flat end of his device against the wall. A slight wind rose, startling Telisa. She heard a whirring sound and saw gray jelly flowing from the hole in the device. Shiny had turned it so the curved end pointed toward the ground to drop the goo onto the cavern floor. The alien waved the device along the wall several times and then ceased, stepping back.
“It put a hole into the wall,” Joe pointed out.
Telisa looked from the gray pool on the floor back to the wall. A small hollow about the size of a bowling ball had been excavated from the rock wall.
“They break up rock? What does he want to do, make us into miners?” Magnus asked.
“I dunno,” Telisa said.
Joe stepped toward the wall. He selected a spot to the right of Shiny’s hole and tried to duplicate the feat. When he placed the thing on the wall, the breeze came up and the soft murmur returned. Joe pulled his device back and Telisa saw a fresh hole in the wall.
“Easy to use,” he said.
Meanwhile Shiny had moved back to the center of the room and stood facing them. When Telisa looked, he made the motion they had used earlier for “follow me.”
“You guys, he’s motioning for us,” Telisa said.
The humans walked back to the center of the room and collected in a semicircle facing the alien. Shiny reached into the silvery metal machinery on his back with several arms, collecting things from various spots on his body.
“What’s up with this?” Joe wondered aloud.
“I don’t know. He’s trying to communicate something,” Telisa said.
“He seems to produce this stuff out of thin air,” Magnus said.
“His legs double as arms pretty well; he seems to use them however he wants,” Telisa said.
“Maybe he’s preparing a math lesson,” Joe guessed. “That might help us understand his language.”
The creature before them put down a small pile of stones, and set one of them forward on the ground between them. It was a tall intricate shape made of red cubes. Shiny touched the cluster once and then walked over to the center stack of cubes behind it. He touched it once in the same manner.
The humans just watched. No one said anything.
Once again, Shiny touched the small cube on the floor and then the large stack of equipment in the center of the room.
Then the alien put down several other small rock shapes. He placed one in front of himself and one in front of each of the humans. Shiny touched the rock in front of Telisa and then reached out and touched her lightly on the forehead. It was the first time he had made contact with her, and it shocked her.
“That scared me. I wasn’t expecting him to touch me,” Telisa said.
Shiny repeated the motion for Magnus. Joe pointed his pistol at the alien but allowed it to touch him in turn. A small gray sphere darted out from around Shiny’s trunk and hovered directly between the alien and the barrel of Joe’s weapon.
“Unreal!” Joe exclaimed. He pointed the weapon away.
The sphere moved away so quickly that Telisa couldn’t follow where it went. Telisa realized that it was the same size and shape as many of the tiny balls of metal attached along Shiny’s back.
“That was wild,” Telisa said. “A defense system, I bet!”
“Impressive,” Magnus murmured.
Shiny touched the stone in front of him, and then touched the smooth round part of himself that resembled a faceless head.
“These may be us,” Magnus said, looking at his stone. “The shapes in front of us have four extensions like limbs, and his has lots of tiny ridges on it like a miniature of himself.”
Joe nodded. “I think you’re right. And I think the big red thing represents the stack of cubes in the center of the room.”
Joe reached out, collected his figure, and placed it next to the red cube that Shiny had first placed out.
Shiny moved directly between Joe and the cache in the center of the room. Then the alien put its own facsimile between the miniature cube stack and Joe’s shape.
“Yes, that’s exactly what he’s up to,” Telisa said. She placed her own miniature on the ground indicating her position, and Magnus followed suit.
Shiny raised his first right arm.
“Yes!” Telisa translated.
Shiny took one of the cubic devices off the stack behind him. He set it on the ground next to him. Reaching into some of the silver covering near his trunk, the alien produced several small blue stones. He touched a blue stone with a pincer-like, three-fingered hand and then touched the thing beside him.
“Those stones represent the device beside him,” Joe guessed. Telisa and Magnus nodded.
Shiny reached out and moved his marker to the side. He moved Joe’s and Magnus’s stones with him. Telisa’s marker remained next to the main cache. Shiny placed a very small chip of blue stone at the other spot, next to his marker. Then he moved his marker again, still bringing the other two markers with him. He repeated this until eight of the small blue stones were placed.
“He’s going to move around and place those things at different spots,” Joe continued.
Then Shiny took Magnus’s and Joe’s markers. Joe’s marker moved to one side and sat by itself. Magnus’s marker moved back to the center where Telisa’s marker had sat untouched. Then Shiny moved Telisa’s marker in the other direction from where Shiny’s and Joe’s markers had circled. Magnus’s marker was moved first to Telisa’s stone and then beyond it. The final result was a wide dispersion of all the stones; no single stone remained next to any other.
“Weird,” Magnus said.
“That about sums it up,” Telisa agreed. “We think we understand what he’s saying, but why does he want us to do this?”
“And what do these stone liquefaction tools have to do with it?” asked Joe.
Shiny retrieved all the stones and set them back to their original positions. Then he began again. He went through the same sequence, moving the stones exactly as he had before.
“I think a key clue is the way that Telisa is supposed to stay here until Magnus comes back through to get her,” Joe said. “Shiny wants you here until the devices are all spread out.”
&
nbsp; “For what purpose? To keep the cache from disappearing, perhaps?”
“That’s all I can think of. But then why won’t it go away when you leave?” asked Magnus.
“Maybe he won’t need it anymore, if whatever this is works. I’m wondering about those devices. What will keep them from disappearing?”
“Maybe he can sense them,” Telisa said. “Maybe they emit something he can feel like when he sees through walls.”
“Are we going to go through with this?” Magnus said.
“What choice do we have?” Telisa asked.
Joe nodded. “I think we should. He seems to understand this place better than we do.”
The conversation lulled. Shiny collected the stones and moved through the sequence again.
“He really wants to make sure we know it,” Magnus said wryly.
“Well, he has no way to verify that we are paying attention or to know how smart we are.”
“We could help him out,” Joe said. “When he finishes, I’ll duplicate the movements of the stones myself to show him that we understand.”
Telisa nodded. She thought that was a great idea. She found herself wishing that Joe was her real friend instead of a UNSF officer. She snuck a peek at him and saw that he kept his hand near the butt of his pistol, but he stood in a relaxed manner and seemed to pay more attention to Shiny than to Magnus and her.
When Shiny finished the next demonstration, Joe stepped forward and crouched down to replace the stones. Then he duplicated the moves. Shiny stood back and watched. Telisa noticed that the alien twitched slightly from time to time as if extremely impatient. Joe finished the sequence and returned to a standing position.
Shiny turned back to the pile behind him and started gathering the devices together. Telisa marveled at the odd way in which the alien seemed to flicker back and forth between inactivity and fervent motion. It was as if the creature stood in place to think and plan and then, like the flip of a switch, executed the plan without further hesitation.
“Just like that? We’re going to do what he’s demonstrated?” Telisa asked.
Magnus answered first. “I think he knows a way out. Since we don’t have a plan of our own, I’m content to spend a day trying out what he wants.”
“I agree,” said Joe.
Telisa and Magnus went back to retrieve their packs at the edge of the room. As they walked back to rejoin Joe, Shiny finished his preparations and moved to one of the exits, waving his arm to encourage the others to follow.
“Here we go. I’ll be back by to pick you up,” Magnus said. He walked away to follow Shiny.
“Good luck,” Joe said and followed Magnus out.
Left alone, Telisa sat down and awaited Magnus’s return.