Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [84]
As it was, the lone male’s tone rose in volume. Based on his studies, a retching Desvendapur thought it sounded slightly alarmed.
“Ay—what’re you doing? Are you all right?” It looked like the alien was throwing up, but for all Cheelo knew it might have been seeding the ground with its spores, planting more of its kind deep in the rain forest soil. As the creature explained when it finally recovered its equilibrium, Cheelo’s initial assumption had been the correct one.
“I am apologizing.” As it spoke, the bug was cleaning its four opposing mandibles with the back of a leaf it plucked from a nearby plant. “Your insinuation conjured up a most unpleasant picture. Thranx do not eat”—his voice quavered—“do not eat…other creatures.”
“Ay—vegetarians, eh?” Cheelo grunted. “Okay, so you’re a cook or something. That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here all by your lonesome.”
Desvendapur plunged ahead. He had nothing to lose now, less so by revealing himself to this representative of another species. “I am also an amateur poet. I was transmuting my impressions of my alien surroundings into art.”
“No shit? You don’t say?”
Desvendapur was unsure if he had heard correctly. “Yes I do say,” he responded hopefully.
A poet. That sounded about as unthreatening as anything Cheelo could imagine. “So when you were speaking into that recording device of yours, you were composing poetry?”
“A portion of it. Much of the artistry lies in the delivery. You humans use gesture as a supplement to language. For thranx, how we move is as important a part of communication as what we say and how we say it.”
Cheelo nodded slowly. “I can see that. If I had four arms, waving them around would probably be twice as important to me, too.” While he still did not trust the alien, neither did it appear as threatening as it had at first appearance. Nevertheless, a giant bug was still a giant bug, even if taxonomically it wasn’t a bug at all. He kept the pistol drawn as he rose from his crouch and scrambled down the trunk of the tree.
Desvendapur watched in awe. While adept at traversing rocky slopes or narrow ledges, a thranx had difficulty with verticalities. A certain sinuosity of self was required that their inflexible exoskeletons did not permit. To thranx eyes, the actions of a climbing human were as fluid as those of a snake.
Leaping the last meter to the ground, Cheelo found himself confronting the outlandish visitor. Inclined back on its four hind legs with thorax, neck, and head stretched as high as possible, the creature’s face came about to Cheelo’s chest. He estimated its weight at fifty kilos or so, perhaps slightly less. When erected, the twin feathery antennae added another thirty centimeters to its height.
“So,” Cheelo continued, “this expedition of yours? It’s authorized by the authorities? I thought all aliens were restricted to contact on orbiting stations, with only a few high-ranking diplomatic types allowed to actually set foot on Earth.”
Desvendapur falsified rapidly. “A special waiver was granted to my group. They are being supervised by representatives of your own kind.” Years of practice had given him the ability to lie with great facility and skill.
“Then you’ll be rejoining them soon?”
How best to answer so as neither to make the biped suspicious nor activate its defensive instincts? “No. They will be continuing their work for,” he fumbled for the appropriate human time referents, “another of your months.”
“Uh-huh.” The human’s head bobbed up and down several times. From his studies Desvendapur recognized the gesture as a “nod,” an indication of general concurrence. It was one the thranx could easily mimic. Though he normally would have used his truhands to suggest agreement, the poet duplicated the motion in so natural and relaxed a fashion that the biped did not think to question its unlikely origin.
For a self-proclaimed