“You are brave, but do not threaten one who is stronger unless you are prepared to fight,” Veral admonished her with another loud chuffing sound.
Terri’s mouth dropped open. “I wasn’t challenging you. I wassmiling!”
The alien narrowed its eyes on her. “That is not a smile. This is a smile.” It gestured to its mouth as its lips twisted upward as the corners, seeming to align with the tips of its mandibles, making the smile all the more unsettling and alien.
“Humans smile that way too, kind of, but we also smile more fully like this.” She demonstrated by grinning at him again, although this time it felt considerably more strained.
“Humans are a strange species. Very well… if you insist.” She laughed at his grudging acceptance, and the alien’s bright eyes fastened at her before something behind them seemed to soften with humor.
It was a start.
With a chirp to Krono, Veral turned to head out to the street, leaving Terri to scramble to her feet and follow after them.
Outside, the alien stretched, seemingly soaking in the sun before it reached for its belt and unclipped three large, dull gray discs. Veral showed them to her before putting one on the ground. With a touch to a band around its wrist, the disc unfolded into the familiar shape of one of his carts.
“Once these three are filled, we will return the units to the cargo hold on my ship and retrieve more.”
Terri scratched her nose where her latest sunburn was peeling. “How much are you planning on salvaging? To be honest, there are a great many cities on this planet. You could spend a lifetime here salvaging for scraps and still not get everything.”
“My storage only has room for twenty units of cargo. Once I have filled my ship to maximum capacity, I will alert a team to the coordinates. They will continue to salvage while paying out a percentage to my accounts while I search for other salvage opportunities.”
Terri’s eyebrows flew up. “Wow, that must be lucrative.”
“It is satisfying,” Veral said.
They went from residence to residence, looking for bits of metal, circuitry, art, and jewelry. More often than not, she found herself forced to pry open old electronics and pull out the tiny metal bits. These she deposited in the cart. There were some metals that Veral wasn’t interested in. Copper seemed to interest the alien the most whereas steel wasn’t bothered with. She discovered that after Veral threw out the set of knives she’d put in the bins. The result was that, even after hours of working, there was barely more than a few inches of shiny metal at the bottom of the first bin. Her back ached and her mood was souring. Reminding herself that she had a free ride to the coast coming her way, she kept silent and continued to work at a driven pace.
For the most part, they worked side-by-side wordlessly. The alien rarely spoke except to issue commands to Krono when he began to wander. It took them a full day to half-fill one of the carts. Terri found that depressing. It was almost tempting to recant on her offer and make tracks while she could, but then she reminded herself that there was a huge expanse of merciless desert between her and the coast. Even if it took a week to gather salvage, it was preferable to attempting that trek. So she continued to work without complaint, and in the evening they went back to their shelter, where Veral left her in order to hunt for their evening meal. Eating regularly almost compensated for her sore muscles.
They soon fell into a routine, spending the days filtering through the remains of hollowed-out homes, looking for anything that the Reapers hadn’t already taken. The alien’s constant, silent presence felt more comforting even though she didn’t know anything more about it than she had when they met. She’d tried to engage Veral in conversation, but her companion only spoke to issue orders, which became more and more annoying as the days passed. Despite that, she grew accustomed to its inhuman features, and that lessened her fear of Veral, making her increasingly bold.
She blamed that as the reason she finally snapped impatiently when the alien had—once again, for the hundredth time—grunted and gestured to a corner of a room that they were picking through.
“Pointing at something and grunting doesn’t tell me what you want very well. You’re going to have at least try to talk to me,” she retorted in exasperation as she threw down her bag. She immediately snapped her mouth shut, almost biting her tongue when Veral’s eyes narrowed at her, a menacing sound dragging up from the back of his throat. A cold sweat popped over her skin, but she didn’t move as it paced closer to her in an attempt to intimidate her.
She had no doubt that dominance displays were in equal part a way to control her and a form of entertainment given how frequent they had become. Still, this time Terri knew she’d finally pushed the alien too far and that it was about to kill her and leave her carcass for the buzzards. Her muscles tightened and twitched anxiously. Yet, to her surprise, Veral snapped the whips draping from its head with a loud hiss before gesturing again.
“Search over there, female, through the remaining debris for anything of value. Let us be on our way before night comes.” The alien turned away from her and stalked over to another area, tossing furniture out of his way, and he dug back through the more difficult section of the room where a wall had caved in.
Her lips quirked and a wave of endorphins flooded her system after escaping that confrontation unscathed. “See? That didn’t hurt you any, did it?” Her eyes widened in horror as she pressed her lips together and cursed her mouth which apparently had a death wish.
The alien snapped around, its whips flaring around its head as it glared at her. She smiled sheepishly and scampered to her duty before the alien second-guessed its decision not to kill her for her impertinence.
Clamping her lips shut, lest she provoke its ire again, she worked tirelessly throughout the day. She was rummaging through a big bin when he shifted a large section of a crumbling wall with a loud snarl. She stopped, squinting through the dust at Veral as the alien stepped into what had obviously been some sort of storage space. The growl turned into an interested trill as Veral pulled something out and set it on the floor.
Curious, Terri crept forward, waving one hand through the air to disperse the dust motes and plaster fragments away from her face. What did Veral have there? She walked over and leaned forward to see around the alien’s massive body. She hadn’t even been aware that she brushed against her companion until it jerked and whirled on her, its whips snapping around it so aggressively that one caught her across the cheek before she managed to scramble away to a safe distance.
Bringing one hand up to her bleeding face, she stared at the alien in shock.
Veral snarled and shook its head aggressively but it crept closer, its eyes inspecting her face. “You are damaged,” it observed gruffly.
“I was only trying to see what you found and you sliced the hell out of me!”
A low hiss came from its throat. “My apologies. I reacted instinctively. Never touch an Argurma uninvited. Make certain you remember this. Humans are very fragile, it appears,” it murmured, its eyes softening slightly. “Now hold still. I will heal you this time.”
“Heal me? How?” she asked.
“With my saliva.”