..[ MATIVO ]..

It was in the middle of Universal Year 13. There was still an ongoing debate on when the Universal Year 0 should be. Some argued it should be the year we went on the first expedition, others the first year of the second expedition. What they all agreed on was the B.U. and A.U., or Before and After Unification, for eras before and after Universal Year 0. Though those where rarely used. I much preferred the start of the second expedition as when the new era truly began. It was then when we first travelled outside the Solar System, the first time we truly traveled faster than light, and when the Ũsumbĩ System was established. The ruling capital of everything we had discovered.

And while all those grandiose thoughts were going through my head, I was standing in the middle of a yellow canvas with a flock of birds dancing all around me. I could even hear the tune they were dancing to. An upbeat one that had them jumping and flapping their wings as they danced around me. Yes, I was the center of attention both in my daydreams and my reality. And I didn’t like it all.

The reality of the situation was; I wasn’t in the middle of a yellow canvas. The planet we were exploring just preferred yellow to green. And I was in the middle of a very expansive grassland. The grass itself thigh high, with a vibrant yellow color. I could never imagine it ever being another color. Though I could do without the glare though.

And my supposedly dancing worshippers? Well, they weren’t dancing or worshipping me. They were trying their best to kill me. They were just too pitiful I couldn’t even be bothered to do anything. And they were not birds at all. They had feathers alright, and wings too. But they had evolved, same as we had evolved. They had lost none of their feathers, when we had lost nearly all our hair. They looked humanoid enough; walked on two legs, long legs with a short torso, enlarged head to accommodate a bigger brain for the increased intelligence, and little to no beak to speak of. In fact, what would have been called a beak appeared to be the tip of the nose. They had a very human-looking mouth and teeth below it. Feathers covered every centimeter of their body, except for the hands and feet. And the red comb sticking up the top of their heads. They also had no visible ears. Their wings appeared too short for flight at first, but when unfurled they more than doubled in size. With the hands located two thirds of the way to the tip of the wing. They had small inconsequential claws on their hands and feet. Feet that still resembled those of birds. I wonder what kind of shoes they will wear.

But with all that, they still appeared frail. Slim legs, slim hands, slim body. Everything other than the head was slim. I guess they needed to shave off extra weight to stay airborne. The males were physically larger than the females, with large feathers made of more vibrant colors, and larger more reddish combs. At least I assumed those were the males; I also accepted that I could be wrong. They were slightly taller than me, the males, though that could have been the combs sticking up farther. The females were all as tall as I was. I assumed those smaller were the kids.

So, how did I end up in such a comical situation?

It all started three Days before when the groups separated from the main exploration team. In reality, it began way earlier, but the events leading up to the groups could be summarized by: I got tired interacting with people. So, I asked Jacy for a group that would not tax me emotionally and she had delivered. Andrew, Frea, Mũsango, Sylvia, and Jacy and me. They all knew me well enough that they would allow me a break. I had wanted Cindy included but Jacy said that all three top commanders couldn’t be out of the ship at the same time. I don’t recall ever including that rule. But I was too tired to argue.

The first thing I noticed was how yellow it truly was. In orbit the more than hundred Australia-sized islands scattered all over the planet made the planet appear more white than yellow. But close to the surface with nothing else to offer more contrast, the different shades of yellow were more noticeable. Some even closer to green than yellow.

“Wow! We are going to need massive eye recovery when we get off this planet,” Mũsango said. She broke the silence more than hour after the shuttle left us on our island. There was enough room for each group to get an island and still have more than enough left. A whole lot more. And they were all populated, mostly by large insects and a smattering of vertebrates. One of which appeared to be the most intelligent. Humanoid avians.

We had caught sight of a group landing over a kilometer away and were trying to sneak up on them.

“I don’t know, it feels kinda nice,” I said creeping forward while trying to staying low below the grass level. The avians might have better eyesight but I was sure they were hindered by the glare just as we were. Then again, they could have adapted to it too.

“You’re one to say, your eyes are the size of slits,” Jacy said, she was closest to me.

“My eyes are always small.”

“Keep it down,” Sylvia harshly whispered. “They are moving.”

“There’s no need to worry. With the size of this grass, we can easily keep track of them,” Mũsango answered her.

“Not if they fly,” Andrew reminded her.

“Oh, right. They can do that.”

You would think keeping track of flying animals would be easy, but the expanses of grasslands were surrounded by thick forests. And if we had to cross one of them, we would most definitely lose them. The little we heard of their communication was high pitched, either because that was the only thing that reached us or they communicated in high pitches.

We followed them for around two more hours as they went around eating any insects they could catch, all the while getting closer and closer to the edge of the forest. The group was made up of twenty-two individuals. Three had red feathers on their necks and wings with the rest of the body covered in feathers of a dull yellow color. The feathers extending on the back of the wings were a glossy dark bluish color, turning black at the edges. All the others were uniformly covered in dull yellow feathers. With the wings and necks slightly darker.

During that time, Sylvia had been busy tapping away at her Comms display. I wasn’t sure what she was recording, but if I were to guess it would be her opinions on the avians’ language. Andrew took notes too, though not as diligently.

“What are you recording?” Mũsango asked him.

“I’ve always been interested by birds.”

“That’s not –”

“Shh!”

And true enough they took flight and flew right over the forest. Or maybe they had heard Sylvia trying to shush the others.

There wasn’t any debate on whether to follow them. We made our way through the forest as fast as we could, glad that it wasn’t longer than three kilometers. It still took us half an hour to weave through the dense vegetation, but the less light reaching the forest floor gave us reprieve from the reflect glare of the open grasslands. Allowing us to open our shades.

Across the forest, we came across a less densely populated forest, or a grassland with enough trees to limit visibility to only two or three hundred meters in any direction. We had no hope of finding the flock again.

“Which way now?” Frea asked.

My instinct immediately told me to turn left and creep along the edge of the forest and I would find what I was looking for.

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“I say we go straight ahead. When they flew over the forest, they went straight ahead.” Mũsango was the first to offer an opinion.

“We slightly deviated to the right from the straight path,” Jacy said. “A slight leftward heading would be more accurate.”

“We didn’t deviate at all. I was keeping track of the trees.” Mũsango defended her option.

“Which trees? The forest is filled with them,” Frea told her.

“I agree with Jacy, we did deviate somewhat,” Sylvia said.

“We should have marked where we entered the forest on the world map, then we wouldn’t be having this debate,” Andrew said, looking at the star in the middle of the sky. Maybe he was trying to see if it could tell us if we had deviated.

“We didn’t know it would be a problem,” I told him. “And I think we should go left completely, keeping on the edge of the forest.”

“Your reasoning?” Jacy asked, her tone implying she already knew the answer.

“My gut.”

“We are not following your so called sixth sense,” she shot me down completely.

“But we have been following it for two decades now!” I half whined.

“I still think straight ahead is the right direction,” Mũsango said after a while of silence.

“Okay, how about this. We each go on our directions, if we don’t see them in two hours, we regroup at Jacy’s location.” I offered the group, hoping they would agree. A solo trip on an alien planet. Just what I needed.

“You want us to split on an alien planet?” Sylvia asked as Mũsango said,

“You also think we deviated!”

“I can run five kilometers in under twenty minutes. I think any of us is good enough to hold out long enough for help to arrive,” I told Sylvia, Mũsango’s statement didn’t deserve a reply.

“I’ll enjoy gloating it over you when we regroup in two hours,” Jacy said, she was openly laughing at me.

“You think you are right?” I asked her.

“I don’t need to be right; I need you to be wrong.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Sure. What are the stakes?”

I thought about it for minute before coming up with an answer, “I get a kick you don’t defend against.”

“Fine. I get a full on bout.”

“Fine.” There was no way I was going to lose. But just to be safe, I took off running. Two hours was a short time.

“Run all you want. I’ll see you in two hours. TWO HOURS!!”

…

And she had been right. I finally saw them fifteen minutes shy of the two hour mark. In the middle of a relatively flat large expanse of yellow grass. The woody grassland had turned into open grassland thirty minutes into my run. I had also slowly adjusted my direction as my sixth sense told me to. In my relief as I alerted the rest of the group, I had made my presence known.

So, the real reason why I was barely doing anything more than avoiding the most lethal of attacks was because I was dead tired.

When I had recovered enough, I started restraining them. Having access to Energy made it easier to knock the few that tried to fly away from the sky. I just hoped they didn’t bruise too much. But having to restrain flying creatures left me shorthanded. I resorted to herding the children like a flock of chickens. After I proved I was more than capable of keeping all of them in check, they settled down to cowering with their parents. That’s how the others found me, standing watch over a flock of birds.

“What did you do?” Sylvia asked as she went to check up on them. But they shied away from her.

“All yours. You can learn anything you want from them now.” I let myself drop down on the grass to get a proper rest. Running for close to two hours was no joke, and I think my sixth sense made me run in circles for a while.

I had won, and I would prove to her why she wasn’t ready for that bout she kept asking for.

..[ ANDREW ]..

Andrew had gone with Mũsango to make sure she didn’t go alone. And also because he knew Mativo would want to go alone. Not like he gave anyone a choice in the matter. So far, Mativo had been different on the second expedition. He was more himself, doing things regardless of what others thought more often than not. He also interacted with people less, but enough that everyone in the ship knew who he was. Andrew was of the opinion that was the reason he had participated in the three shuttle races.

An hour and half into their search for the missing avians, Mũsango had finally given up and offered to regroup with Jacy. Andrew hadn’t argued. They picked up the pace and were just catching sight of them when they received Mativo’s alert. They quickly alerted Jacy that they were close. And together, they ran to Mativo’s location.

Surprisingly, it took them less than twenty minutes to reach Mativo’s location. What they found was even more surprising. Most of the avians had ruffled feathers, all bunched together with Mativo standing watch a few meters away. Andrew first assumed he had restrained all of them. But when Sylvia approached them, some of the little ones moved about. He had beaten them into submission.

After they became receptive, Jacy and Sylvia went around attending to their injuries as much as they could. The downside to the group was that they lacked a dedicated physician. When one of the avians started responding to Sylvia’s prompt with their distinct high pitch voice, Mativo groaned and moved tens of meters before lying down on the grass again. The pitch was a little too high, but Andrew didn’t think it was that bad. Quite interesting actually.

There was a large twenty-meter radius circle of trampled grass. It appeared too large for the what Andrew assumed had happened. The size of the circle implied a lot more confrontation than he would have thought. With lots of running in circles. Maybe that came from the kids.

Sylvia would have to spent a lot of time with them to even begin getting the language down. And this group looked as good as they could get. If only they weren’t captives. Removing the restraints might allow them room to fly away, especially after they realized that not all of them where as capable as Mativo. Then again, they were here for another four Days, could they keep them captive for that long?

“What are you doing?” Andrew turned when he heard Frea ask in alarm, only to find Jacy busy removing the restrains from one of the avians.

“Releasing them,” was the only thing she said.

“I can see that. Why?”

“Sylvia won’t get enough linguistic exposure with them kept in restrains.”

“She’ll get plenty enough,” Mũsango joined the argument.

“They could try to get away,” Frea added.

“We have pulse guns. We will stun the few that try to.”

“They will still be captives then; what difference does it make?” Frea asked.

“Think of it as a courtesy. They are more likely to talk if they don’t keep getting reminded that they are captives,” Sylvia said.

Jacy was already done with removing the restrains. And the avians didn’t look ready to take off at any moment. They spent the next hour there taking a much needed rest. It was determined that they would find a source of water nearby and spend the rest of their stay on the planet around that area. It would give Sylvia enough time to get acquainted with the avians. Maybe learn their language enough to speak it. Andrew had already picked up a few of their words already. At least he thought they were words. The kids kept repeating them.

Jacy woke Mativo when they decided it was time to go. She looked defeated, she had been ever since they found Mativo. Andrew couldn’t understand why. And he didn’t pay it too much thought. He spent the time they went looking for a river, stream or lake shadowing Sylvia. He wanted to see if he could learn to pronounce the words he had picked up.

Normally, he wouldn’t be interested in the species. But they were avian. He had just never thought there would be avian intelligent species to be found.

It took them hours to finally find a stream. The planet’s host star was already low on the sky, with some of the leaves already taking on a reddish hue. The stream was edged at side of the forest, sometimes disappearing into the forest before coming back out again. They were in such of a waterfall after Frea had said she had heard the sound of it. And soon enough, the stream disappeared back into the forest and the ground dropped steadily for a few meters before evening out again. They followed the low level into the forest before finding the waterfall.

It was a small thing, around two three humans in height. And at its base, there was a large pond. More than sixty meters across and stretching for over hundred meters before the stream began again.

“Wow! That’s a small lake for you,” Mũsango exclaimed as she approached the pond. “I’m so glad we listened to you Frea. I should bring you with me more often.”

“I just got lucky this time.”

Andrew could see Sylvia gesturing from the avians to the pond. But most of them weren’t responding. Some of the kids were already drinking from the pond though. Andrew didn’t think they had understood what Sylvia had been trying to communicate. But it seemed to register to the adults then. Sylvia had spent the whole trek with the avians, and she had picked up a few words from them. Andrew hadn’t been so lucky.

“Jacy come with me,” Mativo suddenly said getting up from his resting placing by a tree near the edge of the pond.

“Why?”

“I have a debt to collect.”

And she followed dejectedly as they climbed to the top of the waterfall. Andrew finally remembered the bet, it explained Jacy’s dour mood for the whole of the evening. As if realizing something was about to happen, the avians cleared the pond and were guided by Frea and Sylvia to the top of the waterfall with everyone else.

“Mativo, wait! Let’s talk about this,” Jacy said as she stood at the edge of the cliff, with the pond behind her.

“Having second thoughts?” Mativo asked her.

“I was sure I would win.”

“Well, let this be a lesson: there is always a possibility of losing, no matter the odds.” Then he took up a stance, two meters from her. “I will allow you to use your bionic arm for protection. A show of my benevolence. Five seconds.”

Andrew saw it the moment Mativo activated the nanobots. And so did Jacy, “Mativo, wait! NOOOO!!!”

And off she went. He thought she might actually clear the pond; she nearly did.

“He has a bionic leg!?” Frea said in a noticeably high pitched breathy voice. “No. That can’t be. Jacy would have told me.”

Looking at the group, Andrew found them donning varying expressions of surprise. With the avians all slack jawed.

Well, this should be an interesting few Days.