The Visitor (8 page)

With aching hands, dirt under his nails and fraying his fingers’ skin, he managed to sufficiently enlarge the passage. When he finally arrived to slip outside the cage, the reward for his efforts was a complex mixture of various feelings each more inebriating than the other. Sweet intoxication of freedom. Satisfaction at having triumphed over the terrible lightning-slayer gods. And above all, rejoicing at the idea of finally being able to go back to Mahisa. A deep anxiety also mingled into this. Could braving gods holding such powers remain unpunished? Had he truly escaped their attention? Or were they already having fun at his expense, ready to pounce in any minute? He preferred to no longer think about that and in all haste to get out of there, before the hitherto only lenient lightning-slayer noticed. All his efforts had made him parched. So, despite the relative freshness that the night brought, thirst held him by the throat. While he was just about to move away, also without knowing what direction to take, he became interested in the mysterious thing in front of his cage that Gentle-Lightning had several times manipulated. It was a black object with amazing shapes, like all things related to lightning-slayers, in fact. It was placed on three branches perfectly straight and smooth, a bit like standing branches which circumvented his prison, except that these were thinner. Looking at the thing in its entirety, one would think that it was a big insect with three long stiff legs. He grabbed it, smelled it, licked it, nibbled it and put his index finger into a hole at the back of which we saw a substance transparent as water, but hard as stone. However, this seemingly comprehensive study was done hastily, because he didn’t forget that he had to leave before the return of Gentle-Lightning. As nice as it was, there was no reason to anticipate with certainty what would be its reaction. He decided to take the strange object as a souvenir and as testimony of his adventure in the lightning-slayer’s world. Also, the wooden tool he had made to catch the stone deserved to be shown to Mahisa; so he decided to take it too. After a last look of defiance directed at his former prison, that he suddenly humbled with a dismissive kick, he turned all around wondering what direction to choose. The distant wailing came again to him. He decided to go that way, which made him come out of the forest. Moonlight made him able to distinguish strange things. Wow! Definitely! The lightning-slayers’ world was a world of strangeness!

Far before him, a little to the right, stood what looked like a very flat and low hill. Supernaturally flat!

On the left, at three or four hundred paces was a kind of large rock made up of angles and plane surfaces. It was rather white, apparently, but the most surprising was what jumped out from this curious form, things that shined in the dim light; light was coming out of it.

It was the first time that Etos saw a house. He was fascinated by the windows’ illumination. The fine rain that was beginning to fall looked like a curtain of twine in front of them.

The sun shines inside this thing
, he said to himself.
It can be seen through these holes that shine.
 

He ran towards what was intriguing him. The cries of a hinec greeted his approach. Etos was surprised to find that this creature, that he didn’t recognize, was held back at the neck by a long thing that trailed behind it. He advanced some more, but the animal was becoming clearly threatening, growling and showing its teeth, he slowed down, hesitated more and more, and eventually stopped less than a hundred paces from the thing that encased the sun. To try to unravel its mystery, looking in through the light holes, he moved gently sideways, to one side then to the other, leaning his head right and left, seeking the best point of view, while the tethered animal expressed its rage more loudly.

That’s when the unexpected occurred. A new bright hole appeared in the sun prison. Standing out against the light, the dark silhouette of a lightning-slayer appeared there. It had the thing that bangs and kills in its hands.

Terrorized, Etos dropped what he was carrying and ran away as fast as he could.

In her upstairs room, sitting on her bed and leaning on the wall, Akkaliza was watching the bov videos captured by her device. There wasn’t much to see. However, especially interested at the time when he was bovgrunting, she had viewed this passage several times.

What was he doing when I disturbed him?
She asked herself.
He was hiding something, that's for sure! When will people realize that bovs are intelligent, at least as much as a hinec or a thac, anyway?
 

Almost without realizing it, she had given her protégé a name: "Sneaky".

It was then that she heard the noise that Okkdor, the hinec on guard for the evening, made. She stood up and pulled back the translucent curtain in her room to see what was happening below. Unaccustomed to the dark, her eyes didn’t see anything else than darkness. She heard the front door squeak on its hinges and her father shouting: "Who’s there?” The voice of her brother also was heard: "What’s gotten into you, Okkdor? What have you sensed?" She opened the window and leaned over. The hinec hadn’t calmed down. Although her eyes were adapting a little more to the night, and her brother had turned on the outdoor lighting, she saw nothing that could justify the animal’s agitation.

*

Akkal and Akkalo saw nothing in particular outside. Akkalo patted the hinec’s head:

“
Hey! Okkdor, what’s gotten into you? I hope that you won't keep on making this racket all night!”
 

It was raining enough that father and son had little desire to stick around outside. They came back in. Akkal shut off the outside lighting and collapsed in his chair, in front of the TV. One of his thacs came onto his knees to be petted.

“
So? What was it?” asked his wife.
 

“
No idea. It looks like the hinec has gone crazy.”
 

In a commercial, rejoicing bovs were singing that dairy products were friends for life. Akkal produced a long screech while shaking his neck’s scales. That was the way umas laughed. But this particular laugh was sinister.

“
What’s making you laugh like that?” asked Akkali. “You look like the devil! You're really weird these days.”
 

He looked at his wife without responding.

“
Mom’s right, dad... you've been strange for some time," said Akkalo.
 

“
Yes, well... It's just that they aren’t everyone’s friend! I know what I mean!”
 

“
Okay! That’s better!” exclaimed Akkali. “But, myself however, I don’t understand you at all! Who are you talking about?”
 

“
Dairy products, of course! They aren’t everybody’s friend!”
 

Son and mother exchanged a puzzled look. Mechanically petting the thac with his lower left hand, the father tried to take his mind off things by listening to the news:

"...
seems to be a probe coming from the depths of space. A device that hasn’t been built on Teruma, of extraterumastrial origin. All the experts say that they don’t recognize this craft. In addition, the trajectory that it’s following in approaching our planet confirms that it can only come from elsewhere
... »

“
Such a waste of all that money to go into space with all the misery here on Teruma," said Akkali.
 

“
But, dear! It has nothing to do with that! Listen! They’re saying that it’s something that is coming from another planet!”
 

“
Yes, that's it! They can tell us all kinds of nonsense and you fall for it!”
 

Akkal couldn’t focus on the news nor on what his wife and son were saying. It was up to him to take the final decision regarding the removal of the dairy bov’s limbs. A meeting of the Board of Directors had been urgently called to discuss it. By ridding the animals’ mass of everything that wasn’t essential to the production of milk, they would make significant savings in feed.

“
Actually, the ideal case," pointed out one of the Board members, “would be a dairy bov that’s no more than just a mouth on one side, an anus on the other and large breasts in between. We can’t easily do without various organs related to digestion and respiration, however we must eliminate everything that’s not needed.”
 

This statement had raised murmurs of protest more or less horrified, but because of the prospect for profit and taking into account that the competition was already on that path, everyone had agreed that Natural Foods had no choice.

“I knew that we had to make savings on the puree," said Ykkmaly. “but I confess that I had never thought to reduce the quantity per dairy bov. From habit, I wanted to reduce its price. The idea is pure genius, we should’ve thought of it before!”

Akkal turned to her with a sad look:

“Then... Must we do the same thing?”

They all gave their approval, with more or less enthusiasm or restraint according to their character, but not one had said no. All knew that their money was at stake.

Akkal was the majority shareholder. It was up to him now to accept or to refuse to go to that extreme. Aware that if he refused, others would rush to sell their shares and that Natural Foods wouldn’t be worth anything, did he have a choice? First thing tomorrow morning, they would be expecting his response.

Suddenly, he felt himself being shaken by four hands.

“
What? What?” He cried.
 

“
Akkal! What’s happening to you? What are you mulling over?” asked Akkali looking over him.
 

“
Hey Dad! What’s wrong with you?” anxiously added Akkalo.
 

“
If your work tires you so much, you should take a little rest," said his wife.
 

“
Everything’s fine! Everything’s fine...”
 

With two skeptics looking on, he lied:

“
I was thinking about that thing, there, from outer space...”
 

But neither his son nor his wife appeared convinced. He felt exhausted and he had to get up at dawn.

“
Okay, I'm going to bed," he concluded extracting himself from his couch.
 

*

Etos charged ahead as quickly as he could. He headed for the low and flat hill whence came the clamors. Now that he was closer he heard them clearly and the smell of his kind became increasingly stronger. He was no longer running because he couldn’t any more. Exhausted, he could barely walk. All the cells in his body were asking for water. His mind was turned to finding something to drink , nothing else was important. Apart from Mahisa, of course! Mouth wide open skywards, he tried to drink by swallowing a few drops, but the rain was subsiding; it was no more than a drizzle that taunted his thirst.

He hoped to find water among his congeners. As he approached this strange hill, the cries made him increasingly uncomfortable. He realized that he couldn't make out a single word although he was now close enough to clearly hear these lamentations. They were undeniably his congeners, however, he didn’t understand them. One more strange thing! Like this hill’s flat shape which looked a little like the sun prison, ex
cept that it was bigger. Not much higher, but considerably longer.
 

One of the walls of the huge Natural Foods production building, that Etos thought of as a strange low and flat hill, was soon no more than a few meters from him. Howls, complaints, sobbing never ceased. At this short distance, they resonated so loudly in his head and in his heart that he almost forgot in that he was about to die from thirst. Until now, he had never heard so many voices at the same time. How many were there and where were they? Or perhaps rather, how many females were there and where were they? Because he seemed to recognize them as female voices. How could he hear and smell them so distinctly without being able to see them? For him, this was part of what was strange and inexplicable in the land of the lightning-slayers. Indeed, it was in the land of the lightning-slayers, that he thought he was.

At every hundred meters, against this main structure’s wall of kilometric dimensions, were adjoining constructs containing motors of ventilation systems, water inlets, puree pumps and other equipment. The door to one of these small appurtenances was ajar, no doubt by one of the maintenance employees’ negligence, or by a lock malfunction. As he approached this opening, Etos sensed that there was water. He passed his head, but was unable to enter more. His shoulders didn’t pass. Trying to sneak in sideways, he was surprised when ‘the hole’ grew as soon as he had put a little force on it to achieve his end. One more strange thing! But he wasn’t at a loss for surprises. Here, the laws of nature were different, he had no choice but to accept it; he did so all the more easily that he was too thirsty to bother with physics. It was the first time that he had opened a door.

Inside, there was almost total darkness. He distinguished vague shapes, but his senses confirmed the presence of moisture. An idea came to him to enlarge the opening so he could get a little more lunar clarity. Initially, he tried to push the door with his upper body, as that was how it had worked the first time, but he quickly realized that he could rotate the strangeness by hand. When it was opened wide and his eyes
became adapted to less light, he distinguished a small puddle on the flat concrete. Not even taking time to wonder at this marvel, this unlikely sort of rock, he got down to lick the surface. That’s when he felt drops of water falling on his head. He looked up and saw a wall faucet leaking, which he saw as a kind of small grey branch with a bent end from which trickled a little water. Without questioning the nature of this piece of surreal wood, he began licking it with greed shaking it in the hope that more liquid would fall. His hands jerked it so much, every which way, that eventually he unwittingly opened the tap by an additional one third of a turn. This was a paradise of flowing substance. He drank until his thirst ceded its place to a feeling of heaviness in his stomach. A lesser evil for sure! Body and nature having their requirements and mysteries, he was overcome with fatigue. It was as if something stronger than him had decided now that the most urgent need had been filled, it was important to deal with the second: rest. Moving away from the flowing faucet and, with the intermittent hum from a pump or other motor, he fell asleep on the floor without further ado.