The Nature of Predators - Wild West (2/?) (Patreon)

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Memory Transcription Subject: Nilrie, Takkan Smuggler

Date [standardized human time]: April 6, 1851

The binocular eyes glimmered with suspicion, a sight which was enough to make my blood run cold. Blake Donovan had returned, shuffling over to my bed with clear reluctance. Its hand touched my wrist to hold it still, causing me to shriek in disgust; the sensation of its greasy skin making contact with mine sent waves of revulsion down my arm. It hesitated, eyes darting over its shoulder toward the doorway, before unfastening the cuff. The urge to scream grew as I thought about how it must’ve touched me to carry me, passing along its contaminants.

I pulled my arm to my chest, scooting backward; I fell out of the bed, barely feeling the pain as I slammed to the floor. My heart pounded as I skittered back into the corner, putting distance between myself and the alien. The creature scratched its charcoal mane, which was no longer hidden beneath a hat; the mangy fur strips above its insufferable eyes slanted downward. It raised its outstretched hands and kept still. Was its chest shaking? Blake seemed to be struggling to find its courage.

“I’m not gonna hurt ya,” the sheriff managed. “Just…c’mon now. Don’t make this difficult. I let ya loose, just like ye asked. We’re fixin’ some breakfast.”

I struggled to gather my composure, knowing it wouldn’t understand me without the holopad to translate. Blake took a few cautious steps back toward the door, and gestured—perhaps trying to incentivize me to head for the opening. It was difficult to bring myself to walk toward it, not knowing what bloodied carcass these monsters might consider “breakfast.” What if I was breakfast, and they were herding me into the kitchen? I didn’t want to be eaten alive; I could see the pointed canines in its rotting dentures, through its parted jaws.

The predator sighed, pinching the bridge of its nose. “Someone hurt ya real good. I can see, but it weren’t me. I saved yer life, Nilrie. I don’t wanna do this no more than you. Please, for the love of God, can ye go out and eat so my wife gets off my case?”

I recalled what it told me to do the day before, and nodding my head up and down. The beast seemed a bit relieved, though its diabolical pupils still sparkled with wariness. I forced my legs to move toward it, knowing I needed to get toward a door to make an escape. Whenever its guard was down, or it was distracted, I could bolt. Where was I even going to go, stuck on this blighted world? Blake should be on the other end of an exterminators’ flamethrower; the Federation needed to know about this species, while we had a chance to stop them from spreading.

I need to find a way out of here, and get back to my ship to try to send up a distress signal. I have to try; billions could die if this species ever sees the stars.

The sheriff’s shoulders tensed as I walked past; I didn’t like having it behind me, but it had no intention of letting me out of its narrow sight. My legs quivered, weak as jelly as I could feel its eyes burning into my skin. It could pounce at any second, and I’d have no way to respond. I quickened my pace, feeling every signal in my brain screaming to flee. Another human was setting cutlery down on a table; it was strange that predators would have an extra step for shoving carcasses into their gullets. Cornelia’s head snapped toward me, unwelcome attention, and it gestured toward a chair where it’d set out a bowl. Blake cleared its throat, tossing its head to its wife; it wasn’t leaving room for arguments. I was boxed in.

“Poor thing, you must be starving,” Cornelia cooed. “Don’t you worry now. I’ll take good care of you, promise.”

Blake shadowed me, clearly apprehensive. “Cornelia, Nilrie is skittish. Just stay back; I told you, he’s dangerous. We don’t know what he can do, or how he thinks.”

“I can look out for myself. You said he needs the tablet to talk. Why don’t you give it back to him?”

I settled into the chair, swallowing hard as my empty stomach flipped; bile rose in my throat at the thought of where I was, and what guts might be heaped in this bowl. Knowing I had to get through this, I forced my eyes open…and saw a mundane helping of small grain flecks. My fear morphed away to speechless confusion. I eyed the aliens anew, finding what my eyes saw incompatible with herbivore food. Maybe it was just for me, because they knew I was prey. Blake huffed in exasperation, before putting my holopad next to me.

What? How can that be…their eyes! I watched the sheriff, as it...he picked at his own serving of grains. I closed out of the apps the bumbling primitives had opened, moving back to the audio translator. “These are plants.”

Donovan’s fist tightened, as he shot a look at his wife. “See? I told ya the metal rectangle talked.”

“Is there something wrong with the food?” Cornelia asked.

“No, not at all!” I said hurriedly, blinking as my senses failed to adjust to this development. “I…I thought you were like this other monstrous species that eats the flesh of dead animals. It’s hard to imagine, I’m sure; I hope you’re not offended that I thought such an awful thing. Clearly, you’re no predators. Thanks for the help and hospitality.”

I chowed down a few bites of the hearty grains in silence, as the two humans shared a look—no doubt horrified that aliens were capable of such unthinkable acts. The skepticism increased in Blake’s extremely unfortunate eyes, turning back to their hard exterior. He ate a few mouthfuls, continuing to look unsettled by what I said. No wonder he was confused when I accused him of eating flesh, though I wasn’t sure how he didn’t know what forward-facing vision normally entailed. Why did herbivores have that defining trait, and canines: teeth for tearing meat?

“No offense taken,” Blake commented, though his tone suggested that he had. I couldn’t blame him for feeling insulted by such a low insinuation; I should’ve known from the second he helped me and spoke to me like a person that he was no ravenous predator. “I think I get what ya were saying now. Ye were worried I’d hurt ya ‘cause you thought I ate…flesh?”

I bowed my head in shame. “That’s right. As I’m sure you know, flesh-eaters don’t think about anything other than blood and suffering; they’re cruel for the thrill of it. In a fundamental way, they’re driven to kill.”

Cornelia’s lips curved down. “Those are some bold accusations, Nilrie. You talk like you think this species is evil; did they hurt you?”

“Yeah,” Blake chimed in, wagging his finger. “Tell me about this…‘other monstrous species,’ huh? What’s that about? What’s yer bone to pick with ‘em?”

That was a predatory enough idiom. Who would dig up skeletons and take them for scrap?

I shook my head to clear that thought, certain it meant something else. “The Arxur. I don’t want to frighten you with the things they do; I feel bad enough for comparing them to a decent species like yours.”

“We want to know,” the sheriff said, placing a hand atop his wife’s knuckles. Open affection, comforting each other: things the grays would never do. “Tell us.”

“In short, there’s…hundreds of types of people in the stars. Most are good, not ruthless killers that feast off animals to slake their bloodlust. However, the Arxur are made for senseless slaughter, and seek out cruelty; it’s their predatory nature. They hunt the people of the galaxy, um, across the stars and all the worlds, to capture them and breed them as cattle. They find creative ways to make us all suffer.”

Blake paused mid-bite, as Cornelia’s expression changed to one that seemed horrified; her eyes had gone extremely wide, although I tried not to cast judgment about how they sent a sharp pang through my heart. These are harmless prey; I think Blake’s an exterminator, shooting beasts and protecting normal people from the predator-diseased. There was a prolonged silence, while the aliens struggled to find words. The sheriff drew a shaky breath, though I noticed how his hand quivered.

“That’s quite a story, Nilrie,” Blake sighed. “Ya think ye can draw us, I dunno, a picture of these Arxur, so we can keep a lookout? We’d shoot those cannibals on sight.”

I fiddled with my holopad, starting a simultaneous program. “I can do better. I have videos of the Arxur keeping cattle, though it’s quite graphic and disturbing. Might want to…finish your food first.”

“I’ve already lost my appetite. What’s a ‘video?’”

“Oh. Of course, you’re…never mind. Do you know what pictures are?”

“Those light-snatchin’ daguerreotype studios like they got in them cities? Yeah, I know what those are.”

“Okay, good; that makes this a lot easier.” I didn’t know what type of photograph that was, but if it needed to be done in a studio, it must be extremely primitive. “Videos are pictures taken really fast and played together so that they…move, like real time. It captures events so you can replay them.”

Cornelia seemed intrigued by my explanation. “That’s remarkable. Can you imagine, being able to watch things that happened in the past through pictures? Capturing childbirth, weddings…”

“Hmph. What would even be the point of that?” Blake huffed. “It’s not like people would wanna document every moment of their lives, instead of livin’ ‘em right now. That’d be awful vain. It’s bad enough how obsessed some folk are with gettin’ their pictures taken.”

“Either way, Nilrie has a ‘video’ of what these…monsters do. I think it’d be useful to see.”

“Of course. It’s easy to find news footage,” I said, turning a projection onto the wall with the holographic lens; that earned a gasp from the primitives, despite my prior explanation of what they were about to see. “This is an Arxur raid, captured from our…watchtowers and security footage.”

The humans looked intrigued by their first glimpse of another world, though they weren’t given time to be enamored by the layout of a properly constructed city with electricity, vehicles, and paved streets, not haphazard wooden and brick dwellings. Blake hugged his wife closer to him, as footage showed children being ripped from homes by ravenous abominations—torn apart by their bare claws, screaming and crying for help as they were eaten alive. Cornelia pressed a hand to her mouth, and even the sheriff seemed to withdraw from the images. They had fairly strong constitutions, though I supposed they had to live with these kinds of threats on their world. 

I tapped a few buttons, showing the footage we had of cattle pens. “The Arxur always fought with each other, did brutal things; they advanced by slaughtering each other, and waging wars with all kinds of bloodshed, unlike the rest of us peaceful sapients. You can see why I’m relieved you’re nothing like them.”

“I’ve never seen conquest and wars so close up,” the female human murmured.

“You were never supposed to. Awful business. You still think that if it’s in God’s creation, it’s got to be good, Cornelia?” the sheriff scoffed.

“I think Nilrie wound up here so we could keep him safe.”

“How am I supposed to keep ‘im safe from that? They fly in on fuckin’ fire kites…sorry for my language. Didn’t mean to do that in front of ye. Let’s just say their guns put mine to shame.”

“It’s no wonder he was so…frightened of us if he thought that. Why don’t you introduce him to the town? Maybe he can be some help around here, find his place. You two could bond.”

Donovan scowled, turning his face into the intimidating visage of a cold-blooded killer. “Bond?! What happens when he finds out…”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let Nilrie see our honest labor, how we live here on the frontier. This is his home for now.”

My eyes narrowed, wondering what the sheriff had been worried about me finding out. Blake still seemed wary of me, but grabbed his hat from the counter, placing it atop his head; perhaps the strange gear was an attempt to give shade. He gestured to me without heart, and I offered Cornelia my thanks. Her skin had lost a bit of its color, but she curved her lips up at my words—that chilled me to the bone, though I hoped it was a fearful response. I did feel bad for the primitives, learning about the atrocities that predator sapients were capable of, but they’d taken it fairly well. There wasn’t enough panic, even assuming they had a subdued flight response.

The sheriff is looking at me with a bit of anger, as if I insulted him somehow. He must really be offended that I believed him to be an irredeemable meat-eater.

The human had donned a strange foot apparatus, much like when he rode out to my downed ship; a stud protruded from the heel, and the almost skin-like texture covered part of his leg pelt. I noticed immediate stares as I followed him onto the porch, with several aliens pointed my direction and gawking. Despite knowing they were herbivores, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable with their eyes pointing straight at me; it stirred something deep-rooted in my brain. I walked down the dirt road, keeping close to Blake as he wove toward an outdoor shelter.

“Don’t mind them. They’re nosy, that’s all,” the alien sighed, once again verifying that they had prey empathy despite their rough edges; he could tell what I was feeling. “If ya wanna see how we live, I figured I should show you my horse. This is Bourbon—she’s been a good partner. She carried yer fallen ass all the way out here when I placed ya on the saddle.”

I walked up to the prey animal, much more comfortable around the side-eyed quadruped. Bourbon had a long snout, legs tailored to running away, and a naturally skittish demeanor, judging by how her head turned up with scrutiny. I didn’t understand why the human kept her locked up, or why the creature wasn’t spooked by a sapient with the face of a monster. Blake placed a hand against her cheek, and the horse nuzzled up to him. A part of my brain wondered why they would keep the animal tied up, against her will, like some livestock.

“Why do you make the horse carry you?” I blurted. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

Blake snorted. “Life’s not fair. I love my horse, I respect my horse, no two ways about it. There’s a relationship between horse and rider that you just gotta get, just knowing Bourbon’s a big girl and could kill me if I do the wrong thing. Look at those hooves, the power behind ‘em.”

“She wouldn’t kill you. She’s a prey animal.”

“Bourbon runs off at somethin’ or lands atop ya ‘cause she’s scared, and ya think she wouldn’t drop ya? Horses are animals, and ye just gotta be mindful of the power they got in ‘em. You seem more open to her than my pretty ol’ face, so why don’t you come pet her? Just be gentle and deliberate about yer movements.”

I complied, walking cautiously up to the horse to comfort her; it must be a struggle for her to deal with the human’s eyes pointing straight at her too. “Thank you for saving me, Blake. I’m sorry I didn’t warm up to you sooner. You didn’t answer my question about why you ride on the horses.”

“Horses are strong an’ fast. Ain’t that enough? We keep ‘em safe, they trust us, and in return they take us where we need to go. It’s a balance, a way to get around. We don’t got no flyin’ contraptions, after all.”

I rested my paw against Bourbon’s fur, noticing how much grime and dust was caked on her pelt as well. There was no hygiene at all on this unsanitary world, so perhaps I should help them out and inform them about germ theory. It’d be for their own good, after all, and would save the Federation one step of uplifting them. Blake beckoned to me after he finished setting out yellow stalks for the animal, clearly wanting to get back inside. I noticed his hand resting on his sidearm, though I couldn’t tell if it was still about distrusting me. Hadn’t I explained our misunderstanding?

I should try to offer another apology, because that’s no way to treat a person with actual feelings; it would only be right if he was a predator. He’s just a primitive, and we can fix primitives with time.

“Well, looky here. What have we got here?” a voice hooted. I swiveled around to see a human wearing a similar hat to the sheriff; he walked up to me and slapped my shoulder. His breath reeked of alcohol from up-close. “This thing looks like a damned hippo. That slate looks like it could be worth quite a fortune…hey, what riches did you dig up? We all saw something fall from the sky.”

Donovan stood very still, one hand resting atop the gun’s handle. “Back off, Marlow. There’s nothing for ye to find here, so why don’t ya head back inside to the saloon. Ya ain’t gonna loot nothin’ from the boy, he’s under my protection.”

“Territorial, are we, Sheriff? I was just having some fun.”

“You and your bandits can have all the fun in the world back in the saloon. Ye don’t know what yer messin’ with, so it’s for yer own good to find another score.”

“Me? I’m no bandit. Just an honest tradesman passing through.”

“Last warning. Get lost, Marlow, or I’m putting ye in a holding cell.”

“I’m going, I’m going. See ya later, old man.”

Marlow tipped his cap to me, baring his teeth to convey predatory intent; that was the snarl of an Arxur, promising it was going to eat prey. I was grateful that Blake was here to protect me, but I definitely had seen enough of this town. The sheriff’s strict posture, conveying a threat with his words and binocular eyes, wasn’t lost on me; he commanded authority, at least for the purpose of getting that filthy drunkard away from me. It still seemed like two hunters posturing for dominance. There was something not quite right about the humans, with so many predatory cues going off around me, left and right. It was as if they’d evolved from something quite savage, even if their present habits were more tempered.

While I was grateful for the assistance these aliens had given, living in their presence was proving a bit too much with their uncivilized behaviors. I’d encountered enough binocular-eyed strangers; I was quite ready to head back indoors and minimize the number of people I had to interact with. Thankfully, after that hostile encounter, Blake ushered me back into his home without asking. There were a lot of gaps I needed to fill in about these humans, to know whether they were safe to be around in the long-term.

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A/N - Part 2! Nilrie assumes that humans are weird herbivores and warms to his hosts, inadvertently tipping them off to what he meant by the predator comment…and also showing them video evidence of the Arxur’s crimes. Blake is persuaded by his wife to show him around the town, after that chilling footage, and introduces him to his horse…as well as a not so friendly human named Marlow. What do you imagine the humans are thinking after hearing and learning all of this; what do you think about their reactions? Do you expect the bandit to be a thorn in their side, after envisioning riches in the form of our alien visitor?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting!