Nellie and the Nanites - Bk3 - Ch.4

Chapter Four

Distractions

The Resurgence's bridge was quiet as they headed back through the upper atmosphere to dock with the Bly. There were so many traded glances that they seemed to think Nellie didn’t notice. Her patience was not precisely her strongest point, so they barely left the atmosphere before she snapped.

“What?” She asked. “What is it?”

“That conversation with Duke and his people will cause problems in the future,” Lucy said simply. “I think the crew is wondering why you took that approach.”

“I’m not,” Paren said happily. “Largely because I don’t care.”

“Thank you for your input,” Lucy said with a laugh. 

“It will cause problems,” Nellie admitted. “Lots of them, probably.” She sighed, “Look. I know it seems weird to care about the people on that moon, but…”

Dar raised his hand.

“Dar, you don’t have to raise your hand to speak,” Lucy said fondly.

“I just wondered why you didn’t just collect those people,” He offered.

“You did?” Nellie asked. “You didn’t wonder why I cared at all?”

“It is just who you are,” Very said with a grin. “The same Captain who took in a bunch of synthetics and made them her crew, no surprise there.”

“Right,” Dar agreed. But I figured we would just go get them or something, you know?”

Nellie had to smile that her crew was so relaxed about her thing for underdogs, but it was difficult to put it into words.

“Look at it like this,” Nellie tried, “Those people on that moon may have no experience with space or aliens. If that is the case and we just round them up, aren’t we just kidnapping them? Could they possibly adjust?”

Dar raised his hand again.

“I told you that you can just speak,” Lucy sighed.

“Yeah, but this one might piss the Captain off,” Dar hedged.

“Go ahead,” Nellie said.

“The people on the moon. They might not know about space stuff?” Dar asked.

“Right,” Nellie confirmed.

“The people on the moon that had a space station next to it?” Dar offered.

Silence reigned on the bridge for a long moment.

“Fuck!” Nellie swore, “Reversing course.” 

The Resurgence spun through a 180 and started the burn to reverse their direction. 

“I’ll let the Bly know,” Lucy said, trying to hide a smile.

“Like you noticed,” Nellie subvocalized.

“Of course I did,” Lucy insisted. “I just want to let you work it out.”

“I believe you.” Nellie hid her smile. “I really do.”

Lucy surreptitiously flipped her off.

Nellie approached the small village, keeping her well wide of the Duke’s Hope. This was not just so they wouldn’t see her change course but also because she needed to do this in a controlled, calm manner. 

TV shows back home had often included the concept of meeting alien species, and if you looked at it logically, she already had met a bunch of them. This time felt a lot different, however. This time, she was the advanced technological group approaching people she suspected were not much more than hunter-gatherers. It was almost the reverse of the situations she had been in before.

She circled the village once, low and clearly visible, before bringing it in to land a good distance outside the walls. Her main thought at the moment was to not appear threatening. They must have known about space with that station right there, but that did not guarantee they had a good relationship with the people there.

As the bay doors opened and she led her crew out of the Resurgence, she was struck by how ridiculously out of her depth she was with all this. Her current approach of ‘fake it till you make it’ had worked so far, but this was a situation she could honestly say was beyond her.

Lucy reached out and squeezed her hand just once. It was quick, so quick many would not even notice it, but it helped to center Nellie a little. 

What would she want if she were the people in that village? 

First, she would want to feel safe. Then… 

Well, one thing to go on was better than nothing.

Nellie held up a hand and brought everyone to a stop. With careful, slow movements, she pulled out her pistol and laid it on the ground before stepping back. A quick nod to the others, and they did the same.

Then, she sat down to wait.

It was mostly a symbolic act. Both she and Lucy were more than fast enough to gather, raise, and empty the pistols in less than two seconds. But the villagers didn’t know that.

They had to wait for a good twenty minutes, but it was pleasant enough as they watched Paren play with her moss. By now, she had managed to make it grow a fair bit, and the strange sub-drone was covering her entire arm from gauntlet to shoulder. 

“Gates are opening,” Lucy noted quietly.

“I see it,” Nellie confirmed while they continued to watch Paren. “No sudden moves, everyone.”

Dar and Vey nodded and visibly relaxed again as Nellie watched out of the corner of one eye. 

What emerged from the village was strangely unsettling but not exactly terrifying. It just happened to look a lot like a nightmare. It moved on four legs, webbing between them, almost resembling a skirt. The elongated torso that emerged from the meeting of those legs was just slightly too long, too thin. It triggered the uncanny valley effect pretty severely. Two long, thin arms and an almost egg-shaped head, the front narrow and thin while the back bulged and sagged slightly. 

The arms themselves ended in dextrous, multi-jointed fingers. To her surprise, it was wearing something like armor. It was clearly made of stone and some dark leather, but it had definite modern influences. A simplicity of style that spoke of functionality rather than display. 

The long black legs were unarmored, but she noticed the spike-like ends tipped with stone and leather. The webbing itself was a bright yellow, which stood out against the dark legs.

“Holy shit,” Paren said. “Opalescent skin!” 

She wasn’t wrong. The skin of the person approaching her was opalescent anywhere the armor didn’t cover. 

The villager stopped and cocked its bald head to one side and then the other, almost like a bird, as it studied them. Two large eyes, whites broken by that same swirl of color iris that she had seen on the bulldogs, stared at her for a moment before the head bobbed a few times. The same bone ridge ran from over the eyes and covered the slight bulge of a nose before merging into the short, stubby beak. 

The beak opened slowly, then clicked shut loudly.

Nellie frowned.

“Hello,” She tried.

The villager clapped its beak again before sighing.

“What the fuck do you want?” It chirped.

“Uh,” Nellie hesitated.

“Can you understand me?” It chirped. “Hello? Anyone there?”

“Yes, I can understand you,” Nellie replied.

“Oh. Good.” The beak clacked a few times. “I was worried you lot were a bit slow.”

“We’re not slow,” Paren growled.

“Good. Good,” Another beak clack. “So? What the fuck do you want?”

Nellie and the others followed Krr’ch as he showed them around the village itself. The houses were not so much houses as hollow balls of twigs and grass sealed with something like a webbing that Nellie was trying not to think about too much. Each one hung from a half circle of the same stone they had seen creating those massive arches all over the moon. 

Her suspicions about their tensile strength were more than confirmed by the sheer weight they seemed to bear on what appeared to be thin slivers of actual rock. All around them, Krr-ch’s people moved to and fro or perched in the clusters of small perches to talk. It was clear they had next to zero interest in their visitors. Not a head turned as they were led around.

“That’s a house,” Krr’ch said as he pointed. “That’s a house,” He clacked his beak again and sighed. “What else did you want again?”

“I’d like to talk to whoever is in charge,” Nellie repeated for the fifth time.

“Oh, yeah,” Krr’ch clicked again, “Right, 'cause they have nothing better to do than talk to you idiots without an appointment.”

“I’d happily make an appointment,” Nellie said through gritted teeth. 

“Don’t bother, you’re here now,” Krr’ch waved off the comment and let out some sharp whistles and chirps. “ Right. Tw’ee will be coming when she can. So just, uh, wait here?”

“Okay,” Nellie said, unsure of what else to say.

“Nice, bye,” Krr’ch scuttled off and disappeared into a small ball that hung next to the gate. He was on what passed for gate duty in this place, and he had been hoping they would get bored and, in his words, ‘fuck off and find something better to do,’ but they hadn’t moved.

“What are you?” A small native with a high-pitched voice that she thought was female poked Dar again. She had been at it for over an hour, and no answer he gave seemed to satisfy her.

“Please stop that,” Dar said.

“No,” The girl chirped and poked his muscles again. “Are you going to hit me?”

“No!” Dar said, horrified.

“Then why would I stop?” She giggled and poked him harder.

“Captain?” Dar pleaded.

“Piss off, kid,” Nellie hissed.

“Are you going to hit me?” She asked. 

“I’m thinking about it,” Nellie admitted.

“It would make a bad impression on Tw’ee,” the girl said with a happy chirp. So, I think you won’t.”

Poke, poke, poke.

“Enough,” The largest native they had seen yet strode over to them at last. Tw’ee was also female if Nellie was reading the voice right, “You have waited long enough.”

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Nellie said with a smile. 

Poke.

“Stop that,” Tw’ee ordered.

“Are you go–” The kid vanished with a squawk of protest as  Tw’ee punted her away.

Nellie froze in horror until she heard the girl giggling as she landed. The webbing seemed to act as a built-in parachute, letting her gently fall to the floor.

“Let’s talk,” Tw’ee said as she settled down on her haunches, bringing her eye level with Nellie and the others.

Talking to the Clutch Elder, as they called it, was eye-opening in more ways than one. For one thing, Nellie learned a lot, and for another, the strange creature started to play with a webbing she spat into her hand as the conversation went on. While the two talked, the Elder deftly manipulated the little ball of webbing into dozens of different shapes and complex patterns. 

Their race had no name. They were simply people. The idea of a name for their race seemed offensive to them. Tw’ee explained that the village was her Clutch, one of many in the Falanar Tribe. There were several Tribes in the nest, and she had waved the rest as unimportant, but there was a definite suggestion that there was more to learn. 

To say their people had a laid-back approach to life would be a mistake. They were simply different. They had embraced the draw of space and technological advancement and, in some tribes, moved on from it. This Clutch was settled on this moon, and they lived here, the Clutch growing in size while they got to know their environment. While nothing overt was said, Nellie got the impression that they had something like technology; they just didn’t show it. 

No one in the Clutch seemed sick, weak, or missing limbs. There were no signs of malnourishment, and the entire place was messy but almost clinically clean. Then there was their armor. Her enhanced senses showed clear magnetic and electrical auras, as did several places around the Clutch. Strange emissions came from places along the walls. All of it was tightly constrained, almost completely hidden, which is why the ship sensors never picked it up.

The whole effect could be taken as subterfuge, but Nellie was betting on highly efficient usage instead. They hadn’t hidden anything so far, talking quite openly about their people and culture with her.

“So, you brought these people to this moon to live?” Tw’ee asked.

“I did,” Nellie admitted. “They were intending to go elsewhere, but their ship was damaged. This was the best option at the time.”

“At the time, but not now?” Tw’ee asked, clicking her beak in amusement.

“I think a planet unoccupied would have been better,” Nellie admitted.

“If a planet is good, there will always be people,” Tw’ee shook her head. “No people? Don’t go. There will be good reason no one else lives there.”

“You make a good point,” Nellie smiled.

“So, we will share,” Tw’ee said simply. “The moon is large, and both us and them are small enough in number.” She patted Nellie’s hand. “They can expand as they like; the Clutch will avoid them. If they come, we call, and you chase them away.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Nellie promised. “Shall I leave a contact device here?”

No, we will contact you like this

Nellie blinked in shock.

Ah, this is your first contact with an intelligent species. Please do not fear. I speak, you hear, nothing more.

“Ostie, that’s weird,” Nellie smiled. “How do you do that?”

“How do you speak?” Tw’ee shrugged.

“I see,” Nellie said, feeling seriously disappointed. Telepathy seemed like a skill that was too nice. 

“You wish to learn?” Tw’ee seemed pleasantly surprised. “A new part of the brain is needed. When one of us dies, we will give you the corpse. You can study it.”

“Thank you,” Nellie said, feeling stunned. “Do you not venerate the dead in the Clutch then?”

“The dead?” Tw’ee smiled. “The dead we hold closest. The corpse? It is a thing, a husk emptied of life. Nothing but armor shed when it is needed no longer.” 

Tw’ee stood and walked away.

That was it; the village went on around them as they left, half stunned and half confused.

The Resurgence once more slipped out of the atmosphere. This time, the silence on board was because none of them knew quite what to make of the Clutch. The strange appearance of the people had turned out to be the least strange thing about them. Tw’ee’s Clutch was clearly capable of defending themselves, but Nellie was getting the unsettling feeling that the ones who might need protection were the colonists themselves. 

The Clutch had agreed to share. They seemed to consider it a natural thing to do, but at the same time, she sensed no fear or tension in the small place. It was as if aliens had landed in a small town in America, and the entire place just shrugged and got on with what they were doing.

It wasn’t ignorance, either. Tw’ee had clearly been aware the colonists could become hostile. She just didn’t seem to care. 

There was only one reason she could think of for that.

If the colonists acted up, they would get curb-stomped with ease.