Chapter 14

..[ MATIVO ]..

She was fast, and too flashy. If she wanted to be a fast fighter, then she needed to lose all the unnecessary movements. Speed came with a hefty price in terms of energy. But I was no master trainer; that could be the complete opposite of what she needed to do.

But the thing is, she was already huffing and puffing, five minutes into the sparring. It was the first time I was actually seeing her spar. The other times had been short sessions of her showing me the new tricks she had mastered.

She finally knocked out her foe ending the simulation. I would have preferred a kill. A knocked out foe can still regain consciousness and come after you. Better to be done with it once and for all. Still, she had won.

“You did great,” I told her as she joined me on the resting bench of the simulation room, my simulation room I might add.

She groaned as she took the water bottle I offered her and sat down, taking a long sip before asking, “What did I do wrong?”

“What? I said you did great!” I said in mock offence, only getting a get-on-with-it look in return.

“What did your trainer at the academy tell you?” I asked her.

“About?”

“Your fighting.”

“That it’s good,” she answered uncertainly.

I sighed at that, and soldiered on. “I think you make too many unnecessary movements. Especially with your speed.”

“I need to make fewer movements?”

“What does that mean to you?” If she already knew, then there would be no reason to waste my time and energy explaining. Also, I didn’t think I could explain it properly.

“I… don’t know.” She disappointed me.

“You… how do I say this?” I tried gesturing but even I didn’t know what those meant. “You need to save your speed for when it will be critical. Fight at a controlled pace, and when the opportunity presents itself, attack explosively. Enough that even if it were a feint, they won’t have enough time to trap you.”

“I see. I think I understand, but it might take a while,” she said.

“Of course. Nothing gets mastered overnight.” I waited a few seconds before I asked, “Are you used to the nanobots yet?”

“Kinda. I still get a tingling sensation when I activate them.” She ran her left hand over her right forearm a few times.

The nanobots I, Jacy and the hybrids had, were three completely different versions. I had been very surprised that the scientists hadn’t been able to get rid of the initial activation pains completely. Jacy hadn’t gone through them at all. We had given them the data necessary to get rid of the activation pain when we handed over the necessary research data. Maybe the hybrids themselves were the problem; it was what me and my personal scientists thought. One of the reasons why I had asked Mondhe to start visiting my lab.

She had had them for close to a Year, having had the chip implanted a Week after turning twelve with the nanobots introduced soon after. At the start of the hybrid project, I had wanted to have them start using the nanobots at ten Years of age. We had nearly suffered casualties with the first batch of hybrids back on Ũsumbĩ IV. The messengers reached the ship two Days before the ship’s hybrids were schedule for implantation at ten.

“Well, activate them. Time to see what you can do.”

“Okay,” she replied as she got serious for a second or two, before getting off the bench.

“Mondhe,” I called to her, making her stop and turn her head. “I was planning on having you join me on the next exploration mission.”

“Really?” she turned to me fully. Surprise and joy fighting for dominance on her face.

“Yeah. You passed the Grade Three Test, even if just barely. And—”

“I was one of five hybrids that actually passed.” She interrupted me, “And it wasn’t just barely.”

“To me it was. Anyway, the exploration will be the last one for the expedition, and I thought you might want to go on at least one exploration before heading home.”

“I want to,” she replied, before her look turned morose, “the ship is my home.”

“I know. But you will need to find something else for that. We don’t stay in one ship for long.” The look she gave me forced me to add, “This was an exception.”

…

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The look Mondhe wore when we confirmed the planet to be inhabited by an intelligent species told me she liked it very much. I decided not to ruin her mood by telling her that nine out of ten of all species we had encountered had been hostile. Maybe that was what she was happy about. A chance to prove herself in battle. Then again, she had had that same look for a whole month. She had been more expressive of her happiness than usual since I told her of her involvement in the mission.

We got dropped off a kilometer off one of the many settlements on the planet. On the shuttle ride across the continent, I had noticed a lot of animals grazing on what appeared to be plains. On closer inspection, the plains appeared to be covered by broad-leaf vegetation and not grasses. We had found grass on just about all the other worlds with any hint of plants on them. they had come in many forms, sizes and colors, but they could all still be classified as grasses. This planet didn’t appear to have even a single strand of grass on it. It felt like a universal law had been broken.

Because of our rookie explorer, we had seven members in the crew. I had wanted our group to visit one of the uninhabited regions on the planet’s single continent but I got out voiced. Instead, we were visiting the largest settlement we had spotted while in orbit.

Aside from Mondhe, I also had Jacy, Mũsonde, Sylvia, Xhalo and Yoshika. We slowly advanced towards the settlement. It soon became clear that they were aware of our approach. They had even sent a group to meet us. In what form, I didn’t know.

“If they ask, don’t say I’m the leader,” I told the group.

“Why?” Mũsonde asked.

“They could have a kill-the-leader-be-the-new-leader mentality. I don’t want to die.”

“You?” Xhalo asked.

“I’ll say I’m the leader,” Sylvia said, before I could ask Xhalo what he meant.

“As if they would believe you. You’re too pretty to be a leader,” I told her. And it was true, the pretty part, not the being a leader. That, they would believe.

“By that logic, you’re too pretty to be a leader too.”

“Aww! Stop it. You’re making me blush.”

“You’re impossible!” She walked faster, placing her a few steps ahead of the rest of us. I guess she was playing leader then.

When we made contact with the welcoming party, there was a lot of staring. Talking amongst ourselves, especially in an unknown language, would be considered rude. Even I knew that. So, I kept all my thoughts to myself for the time being. Especially the rude ones. Well, all my thoughts could be considered rude.

After a while, Sylvia started with the greetings. And I zoned out. I didn’t like interacting with people, it would be too taxing for me to try and pay attention to a conversation involving two unintelligible languages. Besides, we had two diplomat-linguists for that. I paid just enough not to get caught off guard. Like when the welcoming party started guiding us towards the village.

And that was what it was. A very large village, but a village nonetheless. It wasn’t surrounded by any kind of fence or protection barrier that I could see. And the housing were too minimalistic, giving the village a temporary feel.

Our guides were of average height, for a human. But they were small of frame. Something that had been established for all lower gravity inhabited planets. At 0.68G, 1G being equal to 10 meters per second squared, this planet had even less gravity compared to the Nugkuks’ planet. The avian planet. It was the only avian dominated planet we had explored. They had dirty brown skin, though the dirty part might be because they were actually dirty. They had no visible hair, except for the few strands on top of their heads.

Their facial structure was hard to describe. I would have called it human-like if I hadn’t met nonhuman species with a much more convincing resemblance. They had their noses and cheek bones as the most frontal part of their heads, with their chins receded too far back as to be virtually non-existent. Their whole head was overall more long than tall.

They wielded spears as tall as they were for weapons; as far as I had seen. Their only piece of clothing was a rough skirt tied around their waist with a thread of some kind. They had ornaments in form of beads around their necks for necklaces, and some had bangles on their arms. I couldn’t tell if they were made of wood or metal. The spears themselves were clearly stone.

Inside the village proper, we encountered our first females. And it became clear I wasn’t seeing things. The species clearly had two pairs of breasts. I had first noticed with our guides but choked it up to daydreams. But it was confirmed. They most probably gave birth to at least two kids every time. On Earth, that was what the number of breasts a female had meant. Otherwise, they looked undistinguishable from their male counterparts.

Up close, it was clear that the housing were simple tents made from the hides of the large animals we had spotted while in orbit. They were small cuboid constructions with one side slightly lowered to create a slight lean to the roof part. It must rain often for them to adapt that kind of a tent, I assumed. They weren’t that big, barely taller than the natives.

We were led to the most central and largest of the tents. By then, I estimated the population of the village to be shy of hundred. Outside of the large tent, one of the natives sat on a log. They had several necklaces while I had only seen the other natives with the one. Bangles on both hands too made them stand out. Some one important, most probably the leader of the villager. They appeared male to me.

The gesture to sit was clear even for me, but there were no logs for us. Some of the guides joined us while the others kept a watch perimeter. Then began the long process of trying to understand each other.

It took hours before a basic communication system could be established. All that time, words and gestures had been exchanged between the natives and Sylvia and Yoshika. Sometimes Jacy and Mũsonde joined too. Mondhe seemed to pay them her full attention the whole time.

“We are free to roam the village,” Sylvia said before turning back to the village leader and talk-gesturing something to them. She turned back to us and added, “As long as we stay within the village boundary.”

“This village has a boundary?” Xhalo asked.

“Just stay within the tents.”

The group began to disperse. I meant to leave before I noticed Mondhe sticking with me. “What are you doing?” she just stared at me. “Go find something to do.”

She looked around the village before turning to me, “What are you going to do?”

I looked around too before realizing that there was nothing for me to do here, “I’m going to find something to do.”

I started walking towards the edge of the village. I would study the surrounding vegetation; maybe I would find a strand of grass.

“Is that a good idea? She is barely thirteen.” Jacy joined me on my walk.

“She can take care of herself. Besides, all she has to do is scream and we will be on her location in seconds.” I had slowed down to try and finish the conversation before reaching the edge of the village.

“Still…”

“If you’re so worried, go keep her company.” Jacy stared at me for a few long seconds before she slowed to a stop. I stopped a few steps ahead of her. “She has been independent her whole life; I don’t want her to change now.”

And off I was, in my quest for the planet’s elusive grass representative.