‘I came with you from the island because I got hungry,’ said Maggie. ‘No more eggs from Moby. And to get away from that alien… manisaur… Berg… who chased us. Chased you really.’
‘And we should stick together.’
Peter and Maggie moved down the rocky slope through the trees towards the beach.
‘There is that… I suppose. But I’m almost fainting from hunger.’ Maggie stopped. ‘Where are the orchards? You know. Those places where food literally grows on trees.’
‘I think it’s a ways off there.’ Peter pointed to the left. The lava tube had not seemed very long but a ridge of rock now separated the valley they were in from Berg’s fruit trees. ‘We can go there after.’
Maggie’s shoulders slumped in frustration. ‘After what?’
‘After we see what’s happening.’
Peter continued into the forest fringe that ran along the shore while Maggie scrambled to catch up. ‘What’s the rush? We need to eat.’
‘Shh,’ said Peter as she almost ran into him. ‘Hear that. Can’t make out the words, but that squawking sounds… almost…’
‘Intelligent?’
He nodded, then cautioning quiet, slipped through the undergrowth, trying to avoid sharp spines cutting him, and dry leaves that would rustle and betray them. Maggie moved close behind.
On the beach were the remains of the manta carcass and the fire where, just days before, Peter had seen the slavers butcher the sea creature. It had become obvious to him now, thinking back, that their victim had been one of the large mantas — a flying sea monster bigger than Moby.
To the left of the fire and manta remains, a skyship had settled on the sand. A large keel-like platform had lowered from the hull, and now supported the bulk of the ship without it resting on the two masts that hung either side and somewhat below the hull. It seemed impossible to balance such a vessel like that. Or it massed much lighter than he expected. Somehow.
Manisaurs hung from the rigging, perhaps ready for a quick getaway, but their eyes were fixed on the scene below.
The human male lay bound and on his knees. A party of manisaur soldiers stood around him. Peter had run from this man, but he seemed not as scary now. Instead he looked harmless and not worth the guard. Peter recalled now that it had been Berg he had run from, not this old man. The shock of seeing the manisaur emerge from behind the human had struck fear in him. He knew now Berg was not the enemy, so this man could not be either.
Or so he guessed. In a world so different from his own, could he trust anyone? Except Maggie.
She slipped beside him now and said — ‘Where’s Berg?’.
Peter strained to hear anything from the beach, but the ever-present wind, and the hubbub from the crew, made it hard to listen to individual voices. The notion that he could understand these aliens remained foreign to him.
He sensed Maggie about to say something, he turned and held his fingers to his lips, but saw Maggie had done the same to him. They made themselves small, and listened.
‘Where is the prisoner?’ The voice from the beach had the guttural warbling sing-song of a manisaur. The voice had a resonant timbre that made Peter think of a large dominant male. An instinct again, but something made such senses more true on this world.
Peter did not hear the response.
‘It was your sole purpose — you have failed even that. Humans have no honour, no loyalty, no family. If you can not give us your prisoner, tell us where he can be found.’
Another meaning underlaid these words but Peter felt more than understood it. And then in a flash, almost as if he heard the words again. ‘No whanau.’
Peter rocked back stunned. Whanau was a New Zealand Maori word for family, but more than family. If you grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand you just sort of knew what it meant. He glanced at Maggie who had a confused expression on her face. If he had to explain whanau to her what would he say?
That whanau meant the family you chose, as well as the family you were born with. Whanau might be your best friends, your team mates, or your parent’s friends. People you might call uncle, or auntie, but were of no relation. They were also your relatives, but those you chose to be with, close to. Your cuzzies — cousins, and bros, and — the good people in your life. Sometimes you were a lot closer to your whanau than some of your direct relatives. And that was a good thing. Maggie had become whanau — sort of.
But to hear the word from a manisaur? Here…
The manisaur was wrong though. Humans could have whanau… but what did it mean for manisaurs. What were their families? How did they choose them?
‘And your charge was not just any prisoner,’ the manisaur officer continued. ‘The most important criminal of the age.’ The voice rose to an authoritative volume that verged on anger. The clear meaning skewed red though Peter did not see anything, his senses confused. He rocked back.
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Then Berg dropped next to them, his shoulder pressed against Peter’s. How he knew it was Berg when it could have been any manisaur he could not tell. He found his hand gripped in Maggie’s, they glanced at one another as they calmed themselves.
Berg’s eye surrounds flashed in a complex flow of color and pattern. Peter sensed anger, frustration, and then resignation — even amusement but directed inwards. Somehow Peter seemed to have read the auras around the manisaur’s eyes. Maggie’s hand tightened, then she pulled at him. Peter turned and they locked gazes. He realized then how manisaurs spoke on different levels — emotion and nuance from the auras, overall meaning from the vocalizations. For some reason he and Maggie could now understand it a little.
Berg motioned them away, and Peter smiled. At last a familiar gesture that needed no translation.
‘I told you to stay in the cavern.’
Peter raised his chin and stared back at the manisaur. ‘Who is this prisoner they’re after?’
‘Me, or rather — who I was. He who stands apart was my jailor.’ Berg made an approximation of the Quardle sound, but the meaning of the name underlay that.
Questions consumed Peter now. Berg seemed to realize this.
‘I’m not going to talk of it. But yes, I will tell you later. The operative question is however… how do we get the old man away from these upstart…’
Peter did not understand the rest… he only heard the overlapping burbling warbles of Berg’s language. He waited for the meaning to come, like the flash of realization that had come with whanau. But nothing.
He settled on enemies, but that did not fit the way he sensed it should.
‘How do we understand what everyone is saying?’ Maggie said. ‘All of a sudden things make sense? And other manisaurs… and then there are times when it is all blah-blah-de-blah.’
‘Quaddle-oodle-ardle… more likely,’ said Peter with a scoff. ‘They sound like burping birds.’
‘Insolent brat,’ said Berg. ‘You forget I understand you quite as well.’
‘We need to see what they’re doing,’ Peter said. ‘If we are to plan anything.’
Berg grunted in assent and led the way forward. His eyes flashed, green-yellow — Calm. Caution. The three eased to a vantage point over the beach. The human stood near the hull of the skyship, the pattern of masts and rigging formed a net of shadows across him on the sand. An officer with broad shoulders, and large flashing eye auras, stood in the sun facing the human. The officer wore a black coat with iridescent bands on the shoulders. The colors glinted in the sun. In one hand he held a staff that might have been a weapon but for the bright blue feathers that fluttered from one end. The commanding air of presence, and the sense Peter read in his auras, confirmed what he had guessed from the voice. Obviously a senior officer. Perhaps even the captain.
The other manisaurs arranged themselves in a guard formation on the beach. Another manisaur with a complicated braided rope about their waist stepped from the shadows of an opening in the side of the hull onto a platform. Instead of a staff this officer held a ball — or maybe a club or boxing mitt. It too glittered with many colors in the light and now seemed intertwined with the manisaur’s hand somehow. The shoulder flashes of this officer were larger and were repeated on the cuffs of the black jacket. The captain.
Their aura flashed all the time but the leader made no sound and instead two junior officers shouted as they patrolled back and forth — with one eye on their captain and another on the beach.
The guards hauled the human forward and him led onto the keel platform, up a set of stairs onto the platform where the captain stood waiting. He glared at the human a moment, then the eye auras flashed once as if dismissing him. The old human disappeared, pushed into the shadows of the interior and out of sight. The captain surveyed the scene with flashing auras. The manisaurs rushed to obey the new orders and formed a perimeter on the beach protecting the skyship.
There were no animals accompanying the navy ship like they had seen with the human pirate and his crew. And an air of menace seemed to seep from the ship. Peter tried to shake the strange feeling by studying the sailing technology and the construction of the hull. A lot like the old square rigged ships he had seen in movies, except three lines of masts ran either side and on top of the flat main deck. If he held his hand over the lower masts it almost looked like any old timey square rigger. Except the extra rigging made the skyship a bit like a hedgehog tangled in a cobweb.
‘Berg?’ Maggie said. ‘Who is Red Back?’
‘No friend of mine. Though why he is here just when these naval punks come for me and he who stands apart is a mystery.’
‘That’s no explanation,’ Peter said.
‘No. I suppose not. Red Back is a pirate. And pirates such as they prey on ships, cargo, and their passengers. Those of important families, as well as those unfortunate enough to have lost their Whanau. Those who stand alone. They are blackbirders.’
‘Whanau,’ Peter said with wonder in his voice. ‘I know what you mean by whanau,’ Peter said.
‘Fah-now?’ Maggie said.
‘That’s right.’ Peter turned to her. ‘Fah-now. It’s Maori. Though you say it more like it’s spelt — W-H… with a sort of wh-f sound… not quite f and not quite wh.’
‘Yes okay. So... whanau,’ said Maggie with a roll of her eyes. ‘What’s it mean?’
Peter explained about the notion of whanau — an extended family that you chose. Berg nodded when he had finished. ‘Yes, yes… thanks for the social lesson brat.’
‘So Red Back is your enemy, correct?’ said Maggie. ‘Or perhaps he is the friend of your enemy… these navy people…’
‘Indeed no. Pirates such as they are no one’s friend. Which is ironic given upon whom they prey.’
‘I didn’t get that.’ Maggie’s frustration showed now.
‘Me neither…’ Peter turned to Berg. ‘So Red Back could be your enemy’s enemy. Does that not make him your friend?’
‘If you mean can we use Red Back…’
‘He’s a wild card,’ Peter said. ‘You saw him too. Right?’
‘You have a strange way of saying things. But yes. He who stands apart and I saw them cross the lagoon, as we paddled back to Black Spire from the outer isles you had stranded me on.’
‘That’s how you got here from the desert island… He who stands apart picked you up.’
‘Genius,’ said Berg. ‘The brat has brains. I said as much.’
A sense of vertigo consumed him. Then realization. Brat — but the aura flashed simultaneously and…
‘Not brat — little brother,’ Peter said. ‘So…’
‘Now perhaps Red Back has been hunting us,’ Berg continued. ‘Just as this navy crew are.’
‘If we could get Red Back to help… even if he does not realize it,’ Maggie said. Her frustration at the tacks and turns in the conversation evident in her insistent tone. ‘Get him to attack our enemies.’
‘Our?’ said Berg.
Both Maggie and Peter realized the truth of that. Somehow they had come to trust Berg. A burst of insight struck Peter. Sure now he did not want the human to be a captive of the alien manisaurs.
‘Whanau,’ he said.
Berg’s aura flashed in confusion before it settled into a calming beat of green-blue.
‘Indeed,’ said Berg. ‘You have a plan?’