Sticky Situations

It ended up taking four days, and part of the fifth morning to get where we were going.

Nanahan actually did fairly well for herself, all things considered. The Kan’s apprentice already knew how to set up a sling for her leg, so apparently she’s not the first with an injury to a hind leg. Her injury seems to be doing okay. She has been very stoic about the whole ordeal. Even in unguarded moments, the most she'll admit to is that the sling makes her back ache. I've been wondering whether my efforts with the butterfly clips really helped her, or whether she survived purely off her own stubbornness. Talk about being tough as nails. And thanks to her two helpers, Sodaosi and Paksh, she managed to keep up without much fuss.

My taking over her former job was actually a lot easier than I thought. Ghee was by far the most troublesome of the children when I first met them, and I figured I'd be chasing her and Nyarno around constantly. But ever since Nanahan’s injury, Ghee has been quiet and hesitant. The only few incidences I saw any hint of her old self was when another youngster got too close to the edge of the group. Then Ghee would loudly bully the would-be-wanderer back to safety. The adults in the group seemed to be okay with this behavior. I think maybe they felt it would help Ghee come to terms with her mistake. I followed their lead on this. I don’t know enough to make a judgment.

All of Ghee’s bullying meant that the other youngsters turned to quieter items of interest to pass the time. Nyarno was too busy pouncing on each and every moving object in front of him to take much interest in me, but Oshtik and Eyani spent most of the trip practically glued to my shadow.

The first day was fairly dull. I don't think anyone was really complaining, mind. Nanahan's injury was more than enough excitement for the entire trip. But as the day wore on I was starting to get a little bored. The rolling, undulating topography made it hard to see more than a kilometer or so in any direction, and I began to get very tired of climbing down a hill only to have to start back up one a couple hundred meters later. The plants and animals I could see were the same ones we'd had for the last two days, so playing the "What is this?" game with the children got old pretty fast.

By the second day, though, I was lamenting the loss of boredom. The "small biters" that Nandi had described began to appear about mid morning. There weren't many at first, so few that they didn't immediately draw attention. Only enough to make a few clan members swat or scratch absently here and there. But within an hour everyone was scratching, and tiny yellow creatures were humming through the air, seeking whatever soft, yummy piece of you they could find to chew on. The creatures seemed to target Azu-nah ears, and the thin, soft skin around the jaw and throat. They found the same places on me, but also went for the backs of my knees. They aren't blood-suckers, by the way. Which is why, apparently, they found me just as edible. They took little pieces out of your skin, like a horsefly bite. I hope I gave them all indigestion, critical hemoglobin poisoning or something, because their little nibbles hurt like a bitch.

Fortunately, the Aket-oizo called for a pit-stop soon after we realized we were infested, and broke out the repelling sap the clan had brought. I wanted to bathe in the stuff, but I had to make do with slathering it all over every centimeter of exposed skin, and even rubbed it into my clothes a bit. It stank, kinda like mildew or old gym socks. But it could have smelled like rancid elephant puke for all I cared, because it kept those evil little yellow monsters the hell off me.

The biters hung around for a day and a half, and then abruptly disappeared. Oshtik explained (with some clarification from Kohirc later), that they relied on a short, fat, shrub-like plant for moisture. The plant only grew in small pocket populations scattered across the plains. And since there was no rain or other water source for kilometers around this time of year, the biters were relatively restricted.

I was deliriously grateful when they were gone. The repellant sap was a godsend, but we had to keep reapplying it throughout the trip. Otherwise the evil little buggers would immediately home in on a place where the sap had dried and flaked away. And worse, if I didn’t slather the hems of my clothes with it, the beasties would crawl up my pant legs, or down my shirt collar and start taking pieces out of me. So I was sticking to my skin, my clothes, and anything else I touched. I had gummy twigs and leaves in my hair. By the time we escaped the biters’ territory, I felt like a grass version of Swamp Thing.

The Azu-nah seemed to be just as uncomfortable. Eyani was particularly miserable. Everyone with long manes was braiding and tying back their hair to keep it from getting gunked up or sticking to their skin. Poor Eyani kept valiantly trying to scrape his gooey forelock away from his face and tie it up, but hairs kept escaping and were sticking to his nose and eyelids. I took pity on him and bound his entire mane back in a funky French braid thing. It was cute. He looked like a little highbred pony decked out for dressage. He was inordinately happy with it, and predictably Oshtik and Nyarno immediately came running up to me and shouting “Now me! Now me!”

Oshtik wanted me to teach her how to do it herself, and I let her practice on my hair a little. I love how lively her mind is. She’s really, really bright. Nyarno… well.. I only managed to get about half of his done before something small and bouncy flitted across his path and he vanished out from under my hands to give chase. He hasn’t seemed to have noticed his unfinished state yet, and it’s kept everything off his face well enough. So oh well.

The fourth and last full day of our trip was hard. While we’d ditched the biters, we’d exhausted the vast majority of our water supply. Kohric insisted there was plenty of water, both to drink and for bathing, when we reached the new clan site. The water shortage also brought to light the reason for their odd fasting. By now I was absolutely starving. I’d used up the last of my tiny food stash the night before, and I was about expecting to start hallucinating like a cartoon, maybe think the neighbors were walking sandwiches or something. So I finally came out and asked Kohric why we were subsisting off rations that would make Gandhi look well fed.

Our vocabulary gap has shrunk enormously since I first joined D’Keda, but Kohric still had a hard time explaining this one to me. From what I could gather, Azu-nah metabolisms are far more resilient than a human’s. They can drop to very low levels when food is short, and then bounce right back when food sources become regular. The trade off is their metabolisms also require a fairly directly proportionate amount of water to process whatever amounts of food they eat. And, apparently, when an Azu eats very little, the body’s water demands drop substantially. They’ve learned to exploit this quirk of biology to reduce the amount of water (a heavy, energy intensive burden) they need to carry on a journey. Kohric also said the Sa-kudayu prefers to bring very little food so that “we do not move a plant outside its home to take another’s.” That caught me off guard, and had me ruminating for hours after. I would never have thought the Azu-nah had any concept of something as “progressive” as invasive species. They keep surprising me.

The end to my fast came this morning, when we finally reached our destination. I was staggering a little from dehydration, and my stomach still feels like it’s trying to devour my backbone, but we finally, FINALLY made it.

The old clan site was a scrubby stand of trees in the middle of high, rolling, grassy hills. This area is very different. The hills had become flatter as we grew closer, and now we’re on a broad, flat coastal plain. There’s a ridge of high, rocky palisades that stretch along the western side, and down right into the sea. The sea is shallow, only a dozen meters at most, but I only know that from checking out the satellite readouts on the Marco Polo before heading planetside. There are hollows in the seaside cliffs. That’s where we’ll be living. I can’t wait to get moved in. I’ve had enough travel for a while.

But first I really, really need a bath.

Counsel

We stayed in our makeshift camp for two nights and a day. By the second morning the Kan seemed satisfied that Nanahan was not going to die from her wound. I still don’t know the Kan’s name. Everyone simply calls him Ana-kan. The “ana” is a bit like the Japanese suffix “san” or “sama.” It’s an honorific prefix that indicates the person is highly respected.

Anyway, he seemed to think that Nanahan would recover. The wound has finally stopped oozing every time she moves, and the surrounding skin seems to have begun knitting around the smallest parts of the cut. She has to be very careful not to flex her leg, though, or the clips will begin to pull on parts of the cut and tear open the newly grown tissue. The Kan will lay his hand very lightly against the wound. I can’t tell if he’s carefully pressing on it, or if he’s feeling for heat or blood flow, or something else entirely. But he will bob his head and gap grin just a little after. So that seems like a good sign. But then he asked her to try to extend her leg just a little, no more than a centimeter or two. Poor Nanahan’s face crumpled and she spat something harsh about pain everywhere. He kept curling his lips back and making little “ses, ses” sounds at the way her leg would move.

I asked Kohric if the Kan had said anything to the others. Apparently Azu-nah don’t have medical privacy concerns, because the entire clan was apparently periodically updated on Nanahan’s status.

“Blood has stopped coming,” Kohric said. “No fire has come inside. This is very good. But Ana-kan still worries. The leg has much pain, and he fears it will become hard here,” he patted his knee and lower thigh. “If this becomes so, Nanahan cannot hunt, cannot run.” Kohric tilted his head to inspect my troubled expression. “Tee-tee, it is not yet so,” he teased. “Must not make this face-shape. Tee looks like old ja’sssst’ok passing waste.”

Kohric is a sweetheart. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

Since Nanahan was on the mend, it was time to decide what to do next. I had my most crowning moment since landing on Minerva. The clan chief (Aket-oizo), began walking around the clan and asking people to come with him. I was shocked when he placed a hand solemnly on my elbow and asked me to come too.

The gathering wasn’t terribly large. There were about fifteen individuals there, including the Kan, the Sa-kudayu, Kohric, and one of the hunters I recognized from the hunting party that was attacked back at the old clan site. One older Azu female distributed a small drinking gourd to everyone, with perhaps a thumb-width of dark liquid in it. My computer determined it was a tisane from one of the sweet grass-plants they regularly eat. It was painfully bitter, but safe. Kohric explained that it was an old tradition to drink this tea at a gathering. It was a symbol of togetherness and trust. After everyone had drunk, the three leaders each took turns speaking, with Kohric murmuring explanations to me.

They were trying to decide how best to proceed. The Kan was saying Nanahan could not even try to walk for many days yet. The Aket-oizo did not think it was a good idea to stay, as the clan’s supply of water was limited to what they were carrying. I noticed he said nothing about food supplies (The Azus had not eaten more than a handful in the last two days. I do not understand how they can keep from falling over!). The Sa-kudayu did not want to remain in the area for fear of attracting predators, and concern that the aggressive gensidik may move their grazing back close enough to cause another attack. But they were all dedicated to making sure Nanahan was kept safe.

This actually surprised me a little. Don’t get me wrong, I never thought the Azu-nah were cruel or anything. But tribal lifestyles, especially nomadic tribal lifestyles, don’t generally lend themselves to excessive charity or compassion. Not because of innate cruelty, but because resources are so limited, and the environment so demanding that sometimes the needs of the many will outweigh one injured individual. To be blunt, I didn’t know how D’Keda could afford to dedicate so much care to Nanahan while on the move, without suffering further casualties or loss of precious resources.

But it was eventually decided that Nanahan would get another day to rest and recover as much as possible. Then her injured leg would be gently wrapped in more of their soft, gauzy weaving, then carefully bound in a kind of sling. The clan could not slow their pace or delay any further, or they would run out of water. So a pair of Azus would take turns supporting Nanahan and helping her keep up. I was asked to take over Nanahan’s job as youngster-guard. That kind of trust is incredibly touching. And intimidating. Kohric teased that I would only have to make them tall for most of the trip, not all.

We should be at the new site in about five more days, or a hand-and-tail as they say. I hope my back can hold out.

Of Green and Butterflies

I was so shocked by both the speed and violence of what had just happened that it took me a minute to decide what to do after they took Nanahan away. One of the other child-minders, a male whose name I don’t yet know, took charge of Ghee. Not that she really needed minding at this point. Her eyes were fixed in the direction they’d taken Nanahan. She looked miserable.

I followed her gaze and fidgeted with my bag. My hands were shaking, and it took me a couple tries to get the zipper to work. I was terrified Nanahan would die. Without really thinking, I grabbed my first aid box and jogged after where they’d taken her.

I’m not really sure what I was thinking I could accomplish, but I couldn’t stand to sit and wait to hear that the worst had happened.

There was a small circle of clan members around her when I got there. The Kan and another, younger Azu were crouched on either size of her. One was carefully peeling a thick, black, leaf-looking thing and squeezing liquid from it along Nanahan’s wound. It fizzled and produced tiny white bubbling liquid where it landed. Some areas were positively foaming. The Kan was following the other’s progress with a thick length of woven cord. He would lay a pale, soft, woven mat-like object across the wound, and was wrapping the area tightly with the cord after. The wound continued to bleed. The odd gauze-mat was green and sopping in seconds. Nanahan had her head covered with one hand and was making horrible wheezing moans. The crude binding didn’t seem to be helping her at all.

Kohric was suddenly beside me. He was actually leaning against my hip. He was shaking his head and making little keening sounds in the back of his throat. Even to my alien eyes, he looked upset. I crouched down to put myself even with him.

“Not good,” he murmured to me. “Blood comes strongly, still. I have much sadness.”

I opened my first aid kit and… stared. I didn’t know what to do. Surely something in it should be of use. But what would help and what would do more harm? The biofoam was the first thing on my mind. Surely that could seal the wound before Nahanan bled out. It should work with her skin well enough, but then again it wasn’t just sealant. It was also loaded with coagulants and antibiotics. It’s well known that taking antibiotics kills beneficial bacteria in the human body along with the bad. I was terrified I’d destroy some vital symbiote, or I’d poison her, or perhaps she’d react differently to the coagulants and I’d end up giving her the Azu-nah equivalent of a stroke.

I eyed the thick packet of butterfly clips taped to the top. They’re included mostly as an alternative for those poor shmucks who are unfortunate enough to be allergic to the biofoam, or whose wounds aren’t deep enough for the biofoam to really work.

It was worth a shot.

I shredded the wrapper and held the instructions up to Kohric. Thank the listening gods Earth has so many damn languages that instructions like this are pictures. “These will close the wound. May stop the blood,” I was speaking English, but he seemed to get enough between me and the pictures to understand. He stood up on his hind legs and began speaking rapidly to the Kan. He grabbed my shirt sleeve and pulled me into the circle with Nanahan. The Kan began nodding and started carefully taking off the binding he’d been placing. Blood welled up. I didn’t know if the fact that it wasn’t spurting was a good sign or not. Do Azu-nah have arteries the same way we do? The green blood was somehow terrifying to me. I’ve never been squeamish with human wounds. But green is the color of growing things, of life. Seeing it pouring out like that, it looked like Nanahan’s very life-force was spilling out of her.

The younger Azu was still squeezing the bubbling liquid on her. I started clipping, and clipping, and clipping. The Kan watched and then began clipping from the bottom up. I felt like her wound was ten meters long. Her blood was everywhere. My hands were soaked in it, it was under my fingernails, and it was starting to crust along my wrists by the time we finished. I ran back and grabbed one of the fat rolls of gauze from the kit and, at the Kan’s direction, carefully wrapped the worst parts of the wound. Pressure on the wound. Have to keep pressure on it, I was thinking. Of course, I was out of my mind, since pressure on an Azu-nah injury may have been a death sentence.

But the bleeding seemed to be slowing, and after it had begun staining the top layers of gauze, it finally, finally stopped.

Nahanan was still breathing (shallowly and raggedly), but she wasn’t moving. “She sleeps from pain,” Kohric explained. I’m surprised she hadn’t passed out when she’d first gotten here, honestly.

It was clear we couldn’t continue today. The clan all seemed to understand this at once, and the atmosphere shifted from waiting to action. Everyone immediately turned to the task of setting up a safe place to camp right around Nanahan.

I used precious water from my canteen to rinse the worst of the blood off my hands. And I’ve been scrubbing at them with damp grasses. Nanahan’s life is still all over my hands, though. I hope we’ve managed to keep enough of it inside her that she’ll be okay.

Blood

The clan ended up resting for a good hour before we set off again. I didn’t mind at all. I’m still adjusting a bit to the atmosphere, and while walking and regular work doesn’t wind me like it used to, this is more hiking than I’ve done in weeks. Last thing I need is for half the clan to start freaking out over me having “weak breath.”

And damn but I was getting hungry. The clan hadn’t eaten anything that morning, and no one did more than have a few sips of water during the pit stop. I was afraid of offending someone or breaking some kind of taboo by getting caught snacking. But at the same time, the last thing I need is to pass out in front of the entire clan. They’d have to brand “weak breath” across my forehead, then. I’d NEVER live it down. I had stashed a sack of rikosh nuts in my pack from our pre-hike pig-out dinner, so I sneaked a few when I thought no one was looking.

Kohric came and checked on me before we set off again. At first I was feeling a little abandoned whenever he’d do his disappearing bit. Wasn’t I his student? How could he leave me alone in this? But lately I’ve started noticing that he always shows up when I need him. Or like during the funeral ceremony, he was suddenly at my side as soon as I was out of my depth. Apparently the Azu-nah aren’t strangers to applied learning and constructivism. No knowledge without experience and all that teaching philosophy crud. Bleh. I should introduce him to Dr. Sutherland.

As we set out again, I tried to ease my way away from the kiddy table portion of the group. I may as well have been trying to break out of Alcatraz. Nanahan was on me in seconds. Seriously, seconds. I don’t know what kind of invisible Azu nanny security beam I stepped across, but damn. I’m surprised there weren’t klaxons going off or something. She just appeared in front of me and did a kind of disapproving trot in a circle around my legs.

”Tah!” she said. “It is safe here. You are like a child. You stay here and keep safe.” Then she looped the end of her tail around my bicep and hauled me back towards the kids. I haven’t felt my face burn like this since my high school play when I knocked over King Lear mid monologue.

To top off my already crowning moment, Nandi chose that minute to finally find me. In case you’re wondering, Azu-nah laughter is a loud “kheeee” sound, punctuated with a few breathy hisses.

Sigh. At least the kids managed not to see.

I trudged along in silence for a while, waiting for my face to cool. The terrain is getting flatter as we go on. The distance is a little less hilly and with fewer trees and shrubs. There seem to be more rocks too. Big boulders are littered all around. I almost want to say they look glacial, but they’re so weathered that it would be difficult to really tell.

The animals have begun changing a little too. The odd six-legged chestha seem to prefer higher, hillier ground. There are no big herds here, only a very few small bands. We encountered a new animal too. Nandi calls it a “gensidik.” He made gestures around the end of his muzzle when he said the name, so I’m assuming it translates to something about its odd face. They look like some freakish hybrid between a horse and one of Earth’s ancient terror birds, Phorusrhacos.

There was a whole group of them ahead, and the clan slowly swerved its route to avoid walking into the herd. Most of the creatures were a dusty, dappled green-blue-gray. Those individuals mostly had their heads down grazing, looking so much like horses it was a little unnerving to me. Two, though, were red; bright hotrod red. Their weird muzzle crests had a single huge black-ringed yellow spot along the flat part, like a banner, and their faces had black and yellow spotting around the eyes and head crest too. And they were big. They towered over the green ones, nearly half-again as big.

The red ones prowled around each other, making aggressive mock charges at each other and hissing like enormous snakes. Nandi pointed to the red ones and said, “The females wish to keep all the males for themselves. They fight. Very dangerous.”

“Females?!” I had a roommate once who was a total misandrist. She’d love the gensidik.

They were incredibly aggressive. Even as we watched, one female reared on her hind legs and lashed out with her forelegs. They don’t have hooves like a horse. They have three toes with huge long claws at the end. The rearing female ripped a huge gash down her opponent’s flank. The losing female shot away, howling. The big female began galloping in circles around the herd, snapping at the males and hissing. Holy shit.

We practically tip-toed past them after that.

The kiddy table had passed them a minute or so before, and I had turned my attention to the smudge of cliffs at the edge of the horizon, when suddenly someone behind me yowled.

I turned around and barely had time to register Nanahan tearing off like a maniac right toward the herd. I heard Nandi shout from over my shoulder.

“Ghee!”

The little one had somehow escaped Nanahan’s radar, and had apparently gone charging right into the thick of the gensidik herd. She was huddled behind a small bolder, while the big red female towered over her, reared up with forepaws poised, and hissing blue murder.



It happened so fast. Nanahan came belting up to the big female, screaming a horrible, keening challenge, and brandishing both clawed hands. Ghee bolted in the millisecond it took the gensidik to register its new assailant. Nanahan flashed in front of the rearing female just as she slammed her forepaws to the ground. Then the whole scene was surrounded by a seething mass of screaming, howling Azu-nah. The huge group was enough to scare off the gensidik.

Nanahan came limping back with a very, very subdued Ghee pressed up against her flank. The gensidik had managed to slash down the entire back of Nanahan’s hind leg, and she was bleeding badly. One of the others immediately took her away to the Kan for help.

Her blood was everywhere. It was green. Azu-nah blood is apparently green.

I would give a lot to not have learned that fact today.