The Nature of Predators - Gojid Refugee (8/9) (Patreon)

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Memory Transcription Subject: Talpin, Gojid Refugee

Date [standardized human time]: October 17, 2136

Rain was the Protector’s tears, nourishing plants and dousing the Gojids below in sorrow. That was what my father had always said. While I’d never quite believed in the mythos, it was an excellent observation for why precipitation seemed to fall on sad occasions. The overhead gloom of Venlil Prime matched my own despondency, as the news had reached our corner of space. The first messenger ship had made it out of the Sol system with footage of cities buried in rubble; murderous bombs were falling, and the Krakotl fleet was winning. If the Gojids hadn’t been transferred here, in spite of the Venlil government’s reluctance to take us in, we would be dead as well.

The humans outside of the refugee camps looked lost, which made it all the more laughable that Venlil skittered away like they were about to be eaten. The ones inside their encampments, which were much less well-maintained than the space they’d made for us, stared at me like I was mad for strolling into their midst. Berna wasn’t certain we could trust a large group of predators, who weren’t vetted for docility and who were wounded, albeit emotionally. However, what I knew was that their society, as a whole, displayed more compassion for me than my own kind. The average Terran from hundreds of years ago—primitive beasts—would’ve gone to see a deaf man’s composition with an open mind. That was enough for me to trust them.

My goal was to check up on Lily, who was living among the refugees due to a lack of available quarters at the UN embassy. She deserved to be comforted, especially since these might be the dying hours of humanity. I wasn’t sure if the Venlil or Berna realized it, but the Krakotl would come here next to finish off the leftovers. This would be how we died—on a planet targeted for sheltering innocent people, who not too long ago, the Gojidi Union had also tried to slaughter. There was a current of fear in my mind for our peril, but unlike my prior certainty that I’d be eaten any day, it was more of a grim resignation. If other prey could just see their kindness, they would realize how unnecessary this genocide was.

I just want to be there for the only non-family member that ever saw me as a person. I’m not afraid of Lily, flesh-eater or not.

Berna’s spines were at full bristle, as I point-blank asked a stranger for directions to the address Lily had given me. The human stared at me like I was insane, before pointing to a row of makeshift huts—which at least gave the displaced UN employees their own space. After finding the correct numerical symbols, just like the ones she’d drawn out, I rapped on the door: no answer. Since I couldn’t hear how loud my pounding was, perhaps I needed more intensity. I could see my sister’s lips moving, calling out the Terran’s name. That didn’t draw the sign interpreter out either, so I tested the knob of the dilapidated frame. It gave way, either left unlocked or never having a locking mechanism to begin with.

At first glance, my friend’s dwelling was empty; there was no sign of her in the cramped space, on the falling apart couch, or in the bed, which had her belongings strewn across it. My claws clacked across the keyboard, calling her name. Perhaps I could assume that Lily had gone out somewhere, roaming with the refugees outside in spite of the dreary weather. However, a strange object left discarded on the floor caught my eye: something I knew she would need to go wandering the premises. I cradled the artificial limb in confusion, and showed it to Berna in a questioning way. All I could guess was that something had gone wrong; was Lily stranded somewhere, unable to navigate?

My sister knelt beside me, inspecting the prosthetic with morbid curiosity. “Well, we’re in the right place, Tal. Where would Lily go that she’d leave this behind?”

“I don’t know,” I typed back. “I don’t think she has more than one prosthetic. She could’ve fallen and injured herself. Or maybe she’s gone outside for fresh air and fainted. We need to look for her.”

“How do you know she doesn’t want to be left alone? Or that she’s…hungry, not able to get meat on this world? Maybe Lily scented prey and was drawn to it, forgetting to put on her prosthetic during the bloodlust.”

“Really? After everything they’ve done for me…”

“Relax. I’m not saying us or the Venlil; I mean an animal. That…hunting is what they are. We probably don’t want to be near a human in that state, especially if she’s lost her faculties that badly.”

“Lily feels very deeply. If their warriors could keep their heads during our stampedes, with blood everywhere, I doubt one animal would set them off. The humans in the camp seemed fine, anyway. Their ‘basic decency’ exceeds our kindness.”

“I know that Lily is sensitive, and the humans have given you so much, so freely. We wouldn’t be alive without them, yet they’re being wiped out as they try to help us; I feel sorry for what’s happened. I just think the present circumstances would test anyone’s control. Weren’t you the one who doubted me, when I suggested they had emotional complexity?”

“That was a long time ago. Before…everything. Before they gave me a chance to be like you.”

“I remember it all too. The back door’s open, Tal. Why don’t we start looking there?”

I was grateful that Berna hadn’t backed out, no matter how tenuous the Terran’s mindset might be; someone with working vocal cords needed to be here, and shout my friend’s name. I wanted to be there for Lily, the way she’d held me as I poured out my deepest insecurities. She told me that I didn’t deserve the wretched treatment of my peers. This human should feel safe and valued, if this was the end for us both, and I wouldn’t let seeds of doubt ward me off. The memories scrolled through my mind, of all of the beautiful moments we’d shared on Earth—a planet that, by the next messenger ship’s arrival (if one could even make it here), would be no more.

Lily sat on the couch, her face all but glowing as Berna and I entered. “Ah, you must be Berna! I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You’re…the human who helped Tal. Who let him feel music,” my sister managed. Being secluded with a predator was making her twitchy. “T-thank you for being kind to him.”

“Don’t thank me for that. What do you say the three of us pick out a movie, with captions? I actually nabbed a few really old works that were silent films too, if Tal would like something more whimsical and familiar.”

“Why make a movie without sound?” I typed. “Were those made by deaf people, for deaf people?”

“No. It was in the very earliest decades of cinema, so there was no reliable way of synchronizing sound to films. They would play music in theaters to give some backdrop…oh, and another reason to preclude dialogue is that voice recordings were bad! You had to shout to be heard, and could only record small snippets at a time.”

“That sounds primitive.”

“Everything has to start somewhere. Technology doesn’t become advanced out of thin air. Did Gojids never go through technological hurdles like that?”

“I don’t know. If they did, I don’t think people are…interested in primitive art anymore, when the modern stuff is superior,” Berna replied.

“I think it’s impressive to see where it all began, and what people did with the tools they had. How art evolved. It doesn’t just show how far we’ve come, but also the foundation that made our storytelling into what it is today.”

I gestured with a claw toward the television. “I want to see how predators visually express emotion, and how you tell stories. It’s a better part of your history than what we’ve been shown. Let’s go with one of those classics.”

That was the earliest memory with my favorite human where Berna was also present. I remembered curling up on the couch next to Lily, absorbing her warmth; she’d draped a blanket over me, and I could feel her eyes softening from beneath the visor she wore for my sister’s sake. I’d wound up holding my sibling’s paw, as she struggled watching ancestral predators be expressive. There was something about that ancient Terran film that got my gears spinning—lacking color and sound, with lines darting across the screen from poor, scratchy quality. Why didn’t Gojids have any records of such things? Even if this was a predator’s media, it didn’t seem like an unnatural progression. There was a certain charm in the aesthetic, finding ways to tell a story in spite of their challenges. It wasn’t unlike me overcoming the limitations of my deafness.

Old media like that would be accessible to me, giving me a chance to experience Gojid films. I should try to find some of them. It must be at least mentioned in a history textbook, or as an influence on modern art.

There was no trace of Lily out the back door of her abode, just a stretch of muddy earth that seemed to be designed as a recreation space. No humans were using it under the present circumstances and with the abysmal weather. The only sign of life I could detect was a slight disturbance in the dirt, barely visible as it filled with rainwater. I moved closer to find that it was in the shape of a hand, and the remnants of a single drag mark showed; to me, it seemed Lily had been crawling on her hands and single limb. That did lend credence to Berna’s hunting theory, though I brushed it aside. I followed the trail of bizarre marks toward a ravine, musing on other memories from Earth.

The lightweight sticks were clutched between my paws, as I stared at the symmetrical containers and metal discs. Lily mimed a motion in encouragement, thumping an imaginary drum in front of her; I mimicked the swing, and took my first steps into playing an instrument. Percussion was something I could feel as I pounded each drum, and tapped out a rhythm in time with my pulse. Berna cowered, clapping her paws over her ears—the harsh clanging made her flinch. I stopped playing after seeing her discomfort. It was disappointing that the only music I could feel was aggressive and predatory, not something she’d enjoy.

Lily assessed the root of the problem, and returned with a pair of headphones that seemed tailored to the Gojid skull. “These will cancel out the noise. Should let Talpin hammer away; he’s really into it.”

I pressed a hindleg down on a low pedal, which rewarded me with a sonorous vibration, while typing out a reply with my claws. “This doesn’t seem like music. It’s just hitting things, not making any actual notes.”

“It’s a way of marking the beat—accentuating a great piece, or even soloing with its own mix-and-match of reverberations. The headphones should help Berna take it down a notch.”

“It seems to blot out the most painful or high-pitched noises. Thanks, Lily. Why did you already make headsets just for us, though?” Berna queried.

“Oh, it’s tailored to provide for people who might have noise sensitivity: you know, like startle epilepsy, or autism.”

I set down my drumsticks altogether, tilting my head. “I know what epilepsy is. What is autism?”

“You don’t…” Surprise flashed across the human’s face, though she made a quick recovery. “I suppose neurodivergence might present differently for aliens.”

“What is neurodivergence?”

Lily’s face went ashen with horror, and her eyebrows knitted in the same way they had when I told her how lacking accommodations were for deaf people on the cradle. She looked like she wanted to cry, though she simply stepped away, asking for me to keep playing. I returned to tapping my drums, while wondering what, by the humans’ standards, “basic decency” we were missing beyond my plight.

I could remember so many other things from our short time on Earth. There was the first time Berna and I stayed for the Terrans’ evening meal, and watched Lily shovel a salad into her mouth; when questioned, she said she was eating plants for our sake. I couldn’t deny how thoughtful it was. There was another time when my sister asked her why predators chased so many things, and the primate smiled, promising to show the appeal. She’d taken us to the park and blown bubbles into the air, before encouraging us to pop them. It felt so silly, leaping into the air to try to touch a rising sphere with a claw. I recognized what it was: tracking objects with our eyes, and clapping them between our paws like a piece of prey’s neck. Yet something about it granted me an infusion of youthful energy.

We worked our way down the ravine, where water was turning the ground mucky and nasty; I could feel it between my toes. As my eyes landed on a soaked heap of cloth, lying in the downpour without a care in the world, I thought back to when Lily told us about the extermination fleet. She looked so afraid, as she explained that all Gojid refugees would be moved to Venlil Prime by the day’s end. Kalsim’s extermination fleet could annihilate Earth, and they wanted to get the few cradle survivors out of harm’s way. When I asked what would happen to her, the predator assured me she’d be leaving too, and wrote down a series of human characters on a piece of paper. The Terran promised to get in touch with me once she was settled in, but there had only been silence.

I didn’t realize how bad off Lily was. What is she doing, laying out in the freezing rain, at the muddy bottom of a hill…without her prosthetic?

Lily’s back was to me, so all I could catch a glimpse of was waterlogged pelts that clung to her frame. Berna didn’t dare approach, but I needed to get a better look at the beast. I knelt by her side, seeing the binocular eyes that once terrified me glassy and distant; the normally stark-whites were bloodshot in abrasive red, as her tears mixed with the rain pummeling her face. The lips that were normally rosy had turned bluish along with her drained complexion; her menacing canines were chattering against each other from the cold. I laid a claw on her shoulder to find that she was shaking from head-to-toe. Her pupils migrated to me in disoriented, sluggish fashion.

“What are you doing?” I clicked out furiously. “You’re going to freeze to death. We need to get you inside.”

The human’s body rattled, as her chest was racked by a cough. “It…feels like the universe is crying with me. I want to sit here. In these feelings.”

“You can watch the Protector’s tears inside, when we get you warmed up. Berna, go get her prosthetic leg. Now!” As my sister scurried off with my extra insistence, I turned my attention back to Lily. Never would I have imagined that a predator would hurt so deeply at the notion of death…but this one looked so broken. “Talk to me. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had. I won’t leave you here.”

That jolted her out of her daze for a moment. “There’s too much death and sadness, Talpin. I can’t wrap my mind around…my whole planet…the city we were just in, that I’ve lived my whole life, it’s gone. New York, the centerpiece of the UN…”

“I know how you feel. I grieve the cradle and my father daily. It was all so sudden, and this is my second relocation in less than a month. The only reason anyone like me made it off our home is because of you, humans. This is an injustice. The extermination never should’ve happened. You deserve to be treated like people as much as I do.”

“Thank you. I…hope the Gojid refugees get help. If Venlil Prime still stands, somehow, we’re going to send a messenger to the Federation. I…told the UN it should be you. You…k-know we’re not monsters…”

“Of course I do. But I don’t know how much the Federation would listen to me, or that I want to go back to them.” I huddled closer to her, finding that her skin was icy to the touch. My own body had begun shivering, as the rain pelted me from the skies. “I have no future there. And…what of humanity’s future?”

“I don’t think we have one, Tal. You asked what I’m doing out here; I’m coming to terms with that reality.”

“I don’t want to play any part in a future without humans. I won’t.”

Berna rushed back, finding the energy to sprint across the soggy ground with the prosthetic. “You don’t have to. Check your holopads, both of you; the latest news just reached us. Kalsim’s fleet was eliminated, and while it’s bad, there’s billions of survivors on Earth. I’m not sure how they did it, but…”

“It doesn’t matter.” I noticed that Lily had perked up, a hint of hope returning to her eyes. I grabbed the prosthetic, handing it to the human. “If you want us to, we can take a message asking for help on behalf of Gojids—and tell the Federation the truth about you. Your honor, your compassion. But I’ll only do it if you’re there to send me off, and there when I come back. This tragedy can be overcome; your life isn’t over now, any more than it was with your leg accident.”

The sign interpreter attached her artificial limb with trembling hands, nodding. “I’ll be there. I won’t make you deal with this alone, or go back to however they treat you. I want to raise awareness for…so many things, but especially for you. I’m sorry you had to find me like this.”

“It’s okay. Let’s go inside. I’ll make a fire, we’ll get you a dry blanket, and warm you up. You just need to get back on your feet, alright?”

I placed Lily’s arm over my neck, paying no mind to how much I was provoking her into crushing my windpipe—Berna clearly noticed, however. I imagined my sister would be delighted to get back to Federation space, but life among the Earthlings had been much more appealing to me. If the humans wanted me to bargain for refugee aid, there was no hesitation in mind, since I wanted what was best for my sole remaining family. Berna had always looked out for me with selflessness; there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I just didn’t want to go back to being a burden to the herd. As I dragged the hypothermic predator to her shelter, the lifelong battle ahead of me made itself clear.

For all the Federation claimed to have empathy unmatched by predators, they lacked basic tools that humans had which could change lives. I wasn’t going to run away from the stigmas; I couldn’t give up, when there were millions of people like me who couldn’t just hole up in a Gojid refugee camp forever. Lily and I would raise awareness for people with disabilities, perhaps even waging the battle beyond deafness. If that didn’t show the extent of human compassion along the way, then nothing could. It was time that my friend and I were treated like the full sapients we were.

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A/N - The second-to-last chapter! Talpin looks for Lily after word of the bombs hitting Earth arrives on Skalga, reminiscing on his experiences: from silent films, to pounding away at a drum set, and chasing bubbles in the park. Our narrator wishes he could’ve stayed on Earth, and is less than elated at the prospect of heading back to the Federation. After pulling Lily out of her despondency with news of Earth’s survival, and gaining her agreement to send him off, Talpin agreed—and decides he’s going to fight to change things for others with disabilities.

What do you think will become of Talpin, with his new purpose in store? Will Nikonus’ news change his (or his sister’s) mindset at all, and will he stay in touch with Lily? What do you think, seeing a glimpse of how human refugees on Venlil Prime handled the intermittent reports from Earth?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting!