The men stayed hunkered down in the grass. One of them pointed at Jacques.
The woman eyed the stranger for a while, then scowled at the men and strode forward until her feet were just touching the water on their side of the river.
Jacques kept up his effort at getting melodic notes out of the reed.
The woman made shooing signs for Jacques to go away.
He kept on playing what he was playing. Kris thought it might be a ragged attempt at Pachelbel’s Canon. Or not.
The woman stooped to the water, found a rock, stood, and tossed it overhand at Jacques. It flew by his head, missing by a quarter meter or so.
Jacques raised his reed and blew a loud note at the woman. That done, he went back to his musical musings.
Giving her opponent a puzzled frown, the woman stooped again to the water, but this time she drew water into the palm of her hand and raised it to her lips. After she’d done that two or three times, the men came down to the water and slaked their own thirst. Some used the palm of their hands to draw the water up, others bent low and lapped it up.
Through this, Jacques stood his ground and made his attempt at raw music.
“Was this the music to soothe the savage beast?” Kris asked the women gathered with her in her day quarters.
Both Penny and Amanda met the question with shrugs.
Once the men had drunk, the four women with babes came down with the other young woman, who was shorter than the rest. The envious looks she gave the women and babes left Kris with a sick feeling that she’d had a child and lost it.
No doubt, life was rough with this small, abandoned group. What must it have been like to be dropped out of the world of spaceships and regimented life into the middle of an untamed world?
Then Kris remembered her own examinations of a world these people had plundered. Apparently, they didn’t even know to establish latrines when they went dirtside. Here was more proof the aliens knew ship life but nothing else.
On the screen, the small group held to its side of the stream. Now the children were babbling and splashing in the water, clearly enjoying its cool and refreshing touch.
It was time for Jacques to try his next trick.
They’d studied the other tribes not only for their language but also to see how they survived in this world. One tribe in the woods looked like it was about ready to begin passing itself off as indigenous. They’d learned how to strip sinew from their kills and use the tendons to sew skins together into rough clothing.
They also ate better than most of the gens wandering the immediate environs of the glass plain. One thing they seemed to like was the bulbous root of a plant that grew in all the streams of the area. It was starchy and rather tasteless, but it was a whole lot better than going hungry.
Jacques reached over and pulled up one of the water plants, washed the dirt off its root bulb, but not before eating a rather disgusting slug.
“Ugh,” said his wife. “He better rinse that mouth out with soap before he kisses me again?”
Kris nodded agreement while doubting Amanda would ask anything of the sort from her returned husband but hugs and kisses and to be taken to bed. They were just that kind of couple.
Maybe they would shower together first.
On-screen, Jacques was taking his second bite of the root. When the others just looked at him, he pulled another plant up by its roots and offered it to those across the stream from him. When they didn’t move any closer, he tossed it in the water.
The current began to move the plant, root and all, downstream and away from them. The short, childless woman made a dash out into the water before it went too far, retrieved it, and offered it to one of the nursing moms.
“That’s selfless,” Penny said.
“Watch,” Amanda said. “She’s learned. She’s pulling up one of the plants herself and is eating that one.” In a moment, men and women alike were plundering their side of the stream bank for the new food.
Jacques went on playing.
The others ate in a frenzied fury to his music. When they had eaten about all the tubers on that side of the stream, the group began to gather itself and move back into the woods. The short woman stayed behind. Turning her back to Jacques, she spread her legs a bit and bent over, showing Jacques about all there was to see.
Beside Kris, Amanda sighed. “We talked about this. That’s about the most standard ‘come hither’ sign the human race has. I guess that’s another way they’re like us at the basic structural level.”
“Can we even have sex with one of them?” Penny asked, maybe a bit red in the face.
“No doubt Jacques will find out,” Amanda said, and from the way the local woman was behaving, it would be sooner rather than later.
“Cut the camera feed,” Kris ordered. No doubt the scientists would study the pictures, and they would soon make their way into the onboard porn supply, but his wife didn’t need to watch her caveman husband do his caveman thing.
“So, we’ve made initial contact,” Kris said.
“And no head got bashed in,” Penny said.
“And I am a professional woman married to a scientist who does a lot of fieldwork. I just wish he didn’t enjoy it so much,” Amanda said, with a resigned sigh.
“So, what do we do now?” Kris asked.
“We wait,” Amanda said. “Jacques can’t exactly ask them what ship they’re from and what their myth is for wandering the stars and massacring all life, now can he?”
“That would be an interesting icebreaker,” Kris admitted.
“So he waits and sees what he can find out.”
“For how long?” Penny asked.
“For however long he thinks he has to,” Amanda said. “Of course, if the pickets sound an alarm, it may go differently, but for now, we just wait.”
18
The wait lasted a week. During that time, Kris avoided the voyeuristic urge to watch Jacques in action, or rather observe his research. Or whatever.
Jack came back the next day, and Kris showed him just how grateful she was to have him back in her ship and in her bed.
“I take it you missed me,” he said when they came up for air.
“And I want you to remember how pleasant a nice, clean, civilized girl can be,” Kris said.
“Honey, you don’t need to remind me of that. That place stinks. The insects don’t make any distinction between us and them. Even with bug repellent, you’re swatting them all the time. It was almost enough to put us back in full space suits and armor. But, oh, did I mention how hot it was?”
“I think you should have stayed in full space armor.”
“We’ve been over this too many times before. The scientists agree we’re safe down there. I couldn’t carry enough oxygen to stay down there as long as I did, and if we’d had to go running in to grab someone trying to beat Jacques’s head in, it would have looked better if we were as low-tech as possible. Otherwise, they might suicide on the spot. You do want someone to talk to, right?”
“Yes,” Kris said, trying not to sound too pouty. “You do have some nasty bug bites.”
“The surgeon looked at them on the flight up. They’ve been treated and are not going to make me turn into a monster or cause you to shrivel up into an old lady in the next five minutes. So come here and remind me again why I wanted to come home to my civilized gal.”
“Since you put it that way,” Kris said, and did.
Kris and Jack monitored Jacques constantly. Or near constantly. It seemed that every woman in the group wanted a part of Jacques.