(no subject)
I was a pilot. I flew my jet for the military with ten other people. We had gone to this world where the people were being killed and were not following the Planetary Protection Guidelines so we were sent to figure out why they were dying and blatantly flouting these Interplanetary Laws. We enter atmosphere and are circling this huge columnar hill with a wide road spiraling up its outer edge to this huge plateau, looking for a place to land, but something interferes with the leading jets and their engines quit working and thy veer off and crash into the lower hills. The rest of us move away from the column and find places to land elsewhere.
Then I'm walking towards the column. We're all going to meet at the capitol building on top the column. I come across this smaller village. The people are roudy and vicious. They beat each other up. But they know who we represent and know that messing with us will garner immediate reprisal so they don't do anything directly to us. I sit on the edge of a the sidewalk near a watering trough with a big rubber tube with rope tied around it on the ground beside it. I lean forward to take a drink and the tube flexes and rises and its a baracuda eel with huge teeth hissing at my face. The owner laughs and splashes water at the eel and it throws itself into the trough.
But now I'm on top of the plateau. I'm in a huge apartment building, trying to find the four team members I know are staying here. I've become a cute nerdy kind of guy, like Radar from M*A*S*H. Its late at night and the people in the building are sleeping, but I'm walking across the uneven roofs and balconies and see that in the valleys leading to the huge low field surrounding the column there are streams of light working towards the column. I hear a sound faintly drawn to me on the wind. Voices. Screaming. And from the high end of the valley channels I see in the moonlight the churning froth of the leading edge of water. All the valleys are being violently scoured by water, all rushing through the valleys that shoot out from this column like the spokes of a wheel. All the water is making its way to the low valley surrounding the column.
I don't even think about how high the water might get, I just feel compelled by my gut to run, scramble, and climb to the highest point of the building I can. I don't want to leave my teammates in some dingy apartment to drown, either, so I'm calling their names waking the other tenants up. I go from people's balconies into their living room and out the front door, calling. And I'm always going up. I'm walking up some stairs that curve around a fireplace chimney and I can feel the bricks beneath my hand shift, feel the pressure on the bricks, the sponginess of the mortar and I run even faster. I burst out onto a roof and see that the low field is gone. All those people in the valleys are in the water. All the people that lived along the spiraling edge of the column were crushed by the wall of water, on all sides. The water level has risen and many of the smaller buildings are submerged. And swimming naturally through the water, or crawling on the buildings are dinosaurs. Many of the leftover people are fighting them, reacting primally at their lizard like revulsion and just slaughtering them. Larger dinosaurs work their way towards them and kill them. Those that aren't hurting the dinosaurs are being left alone.
I see a smaller, purple dinosaur approach a larger, yellowish-green dinosaur. The large dinosaur lowers its head to the small one. Few moments pass and the large one nods, raises it's head and lets out a warbling call. Its pronounced a little differently, but I recognize the language. I start to yell to some people nearby beating little dinosaurs off the building "They're intelligent! Leave them alone!" but they ignore me. A nearby greeny-orange dinosaur doesn't ignore me though, it paddles through the water and nimbly jumps to a roof beneath mine. It turns its side to me, leans towards me a bit and looks back along its shoulder at me. I get on.
It takes me across the flooded field, up one of the soggy valleys and to the mountainous ridges- that had been insurmountable to the people living in the valleys- to a big village of small buildings. We stop at a shop on the edge of cliff. I get off the dino and a 3' tall, squirrelly looking female person (really squirrelly, bushy hair, huge eyeballs, big teeth, bushy tail) approaches the big dinosaur. The Squirrel person finds a long scar along the edge of the belly and draws a small tool along it. The scar opens and allows another squirrel-looking dude out of it. He comes to me and asks "What did you mean "They are intelligent?"" And I realize first, that I had used the warbling language when I yelled at those other men, and second that this guy thought I had been yelling it at the dinosaurs about the humans. Not the other way around. "If they're so intelligent you'd think they'd learn not to live on the hills." "With all that flooding, why would anybody live in the low lands?" and retorted. But I realize that this must not have ever happened before. "It was a tactic we used successfully to reduce their infestation." he responded. "We try again and again to teach them to avoid the hills, yet they return with even more people! Get out of your automaton! You look like one of them? What ploy is that?" and then he stalks away.
The lady approaches me, but she is actually looking at me. She touches my arm. I pull my shirt out of my pants to show that there is no scar on my belly. "I am one of them. I learned this language many years ago on another planet. You must stop killing the humans!" But she was still brining the tool towards my belly and
loud thumps and the shower turning on wake me up. ;)
Then I'm walking towards the column. We're all going to meet at the capitol building on top the column. I come across this smaller village. The people are roudy and vicious. They beat each other up. But they know who we represent and know that messing with us will garner immediate reprisal so they don't do anything directly to us. I sit on the edge of a the sidewalk near a watering trough with a big rubber tube with rope tied around it on the ground beside it. I lean forward to take a drink and the tube flexes and rises and its a baracuda eel with huge teeth hissing at my face. The owner laughs and splashes water at the eel and it throws itself into the trough.
But now I'm on top of the plateau. I'm in a huge apartment building, trying to find the four team members I know are staying here. I've become a cute nerdy kind of guy, like Radar from M*A*S*H. Its late at night and the people in the building are sleeping, but I'm walking across the uneven roofs and balconies and see that in the valleys leading to the huge low field surrounding the column there are streams of light working towards the column. I hear a sound faintly drawn to me on the wind. Voices. Screaming. And from the high end of the valley channels I see in the moonlight the churning froth of the leading edge of water. All the valleys are being violently scoured by water, all rushing through the valleys that shoot out from this column like the spokes of a wheel. All the water is making its way to the low valley surrounding the column.
I don't even think about how high the water might get, I just feel compelled by my gut to run, scramble, and climb to the highest point of the building I can. I don't want to leave my teammates in some dingy apartment to drown, either, so I'm calling their names waking the other tenants up. I go from people's balconies into their living room and out the front door, calling. And I'm always going up. I'm walking up some stairs that curve around a fireplace chimney and I can feel the bricks beneath my hand shift, feel the pressure on the bricks, the sponginess of the mortar and I run even faster. I burst out onto a roof and see that the low field is gone. All those people in the valleys are in the water. All the people that lived along the spiraling edge of the column were crushed by the wall of water, on all sides. The water level has risen and many of the smaller buildings are submerged. And swimming naturally through the water, or crawling on the buildings are dinosaurs. Many of the leftover people are fighting them, reacting primally at their lizard like revulsion and just slaughtering them. Larger dinosaurs work their way towards them and kill them. Those that aren't hurting the dinosaurs are being left alone.
I see a smaller, purple dinosaur approach a larger, yellowish-green dinosaur. The large dinosaur lowers its head to the small one. Few moments pass and the large one nods, raises it's head and lets out a warbling call. Its pronounced a little differently, but I recognize the language. I start to yell to some people nearby beating little dinosaurs off the building "They're intelligent! Leave them alone!" but they ignore me. A nearby greeny-orange dinosaur doesn't ignore me though, it paddles through the water and nimbly jumps to a roof beneath mine. It turns its side to me, leans towards me a bit and looks back along its shoulder at me. I get on.
It takes me across the flooded field, up one of the soggy valleys and to the mountainous ridges- that had been insurmountable to the people living in the valleys- to a big village of small buildings. We stop at a shop on the edge of cliff. I get off the dino and a 3' tall, squirrelly looking female person (really squirrelly, bushy hair, huge eyeballs, big teeth, bushy tail) approaches the big dinosaur. The Squirrel person finds a long scar along the edge of the belly and draws a small tool along it. The scar opens and allows another squirrel-looking dude out of it. He comes to me and asks "What did you mean "They are intelligent?"" And I realize first, that I had used the warbling language when I yelled at those other men, and second that this guy thought I had been yelling it at the dinosaurs about the humans. Not the other way around. "If they're so intelligent you'd think they'd learn not to live on the hills." "With all that flooding, why would anybody live in the low lands?" and retorted. But I realize that this must not have ever happened before. "It was a tactic we used successfully to reduce their infestation." he responded. "We try again and again to teach them to avoid the hills, yet they return with even more people! Get out of your automaton! You look like one of them? What ploy is that?" and then he stalks away.
The lady approaches me, but she is actually looking at me. She touches my arm. I pull my shirt out of my pants to show that there is no scar on my belly. "I am one of them. I learned this language many years ago on another planet. You must stop killing the humans!" But she was still brining the tool towards my belly and
loud thumps and the shower turning on wake me up. ;)