Previously: Marie discovered that there may be other humans stranded on this planet. Bahr volunteered to help her find them.
Bahr and I left Ghara's home the next morning. I was surprised, and happily so, to find farewell hugs to be a universal gesture. We left with as many fruits and root vegetables as the two of us could reasonably carry. I had my duffel bag. Bahr had a bag that he wore like a backpack. I still had the yellow ring on my head; It had seemed important to Bahr's people, and he'd said nothing about removing it yet. I figured if it made me look like less of a stranger, like less of an alien, I'd wear it until someone told me I supposed to take it off.
The journey began quietly, but before long I had to fill the time and silence with something, even if we could barely understand each other. "Your words... they are different from Ghara's."
"Yes, we speak different ---. I know her --- --- and I ---- ---- ----."
"Teach me yours. Please." He started to translate, from Ghara's language to his own, a handful of common words. The two languages were similar, and I found his language easier to pronounce. The grammar was a bit different, however, and he kept correcting my word order. I was still trying to puzzle out the pattern in his corrections when we arrived in town.
We'd barely made in ten feet past the first building before a woman of Ghara's species rushed towards us. She said something quickly to Bahr, then handed him a few sheets of paper.
Bahr looked at me. "From the library," he explained. He passed the papers to me.
Most of it was in Portuguese, which I would have to comb through later. There was a small section in English, written in a cursive script that was slightly cumbersome to read.
"I have tried to communicate with the natives about my visions — I know so little of their language that the effort has been all but futile. My goal remains the same, to enter the mountain that was shown to me in my dreams. Discussions with the natives about the mountain have been difficult, beyond just the language barrier. I believe it holds religious significance to them.
They keep telling me about a creature or person in the jungle near the mountain's base, a being associated with wisdom. I've decided to go to the jungle first before addressing the mountain, due in no small part to the insistence of the natives (if I am understanding them correctly, that is). If the teacher there that they hold in such high regard cannot give me a good reason to not go into the heart of the mountain, then into the mountain I shall go."
"Thank you," I said to the librarian, as I continued to stare at the paper.
Bahr waited a moment before speaking again. "I have to see the ---- -----. My people have a ---- ---- ---- before we leave." I folded the paper, carefully, into my duffel bag, thanked the librarian twice more, then followed Bahr to the other side of town.
Yesterday's festivities were nowhere to be seen, but Bahr's people were still out and about. A few of them had tables with things for sale. A few were just sitting around. Some kids played in an open section between two buildings, occupied with a game that seemed oddly similar to hop scotch.
Bahr went straight to an older man wearing a dozen or so beaded necklaces. He looked like leadership, and had the posture to match. Bahr started talking to him, presumably about our journey. I caught only a couple of words, enough to be proud of myself for learning them so quickly, but not enough to understand anything. After Bahr had said his piece he knelt down on one knee. The older man began to chant. He took off one of his necklaces and waved it over Bahr.
I tried to read their expressions. I couldn't. It looked like a ceremony, perhaps a religious one - if they were human I would have assumed as much. But they weren't human, no matter how comforting it might have been to pretend they were. I double checked that the papers I'd just received were still in my bag, running a finger over the English script once before sealing it away again behind a layer of protective, waterproof fabric.
A moment later Bahr rose to his feet. Whatever had just happened was now finished. Some of the others nearby gave Bahr some more supplies including, to my relief, a small tent. We went through our inventory one last time, passing some of his latest gifts to me to divide the load. Then we were off.
"Who was that? The man with the..." I shook one hand to mimic the man with the beaded necklaces, hoping I wasn't disrespecting a sacred religious act.
"That was ----. He is the ---- who ---- ---- ----."
"I... I don't know those words. Sorry." Bahr nodded, then thought for a moment.
"I don't know how to say it with words you know."
"Okay." This was going to be a long journey, possibly in more ways than one. "How long will we be walking? How much walking?"
"I don't know. Maybe ----?"
I shook my head. Taru had tried to teach me numbers, but we hadn't gotten very far with that. I'd come to the conclusion that however they counted here, it wasn't with base ten. "We will walk today. Then we will find the ---- tomorrow. They go faster."
"Is that like a cart?" I hadn't even considered the possibility of public transportation, given how small the town had been and how rural everything seemed to be.
"Bigger," Bahr replied. He offered no further explanation. I spent a bit of time trying to picture what a large city might look like on the planet, given the level of technology I had seen so far.
The path disappeared soon after we left the town. Bahr lead the way through the woods towards a small stream, and then used that as our guide. We spoke little, but the walk was far from quiet. The hum of insects shifted from barely noticeable to oppressive as out path sloped downwards and we got further and further from the small part of this planet that had become familiar to me. Sounds like bird calls punched through the hum every few minutes, though I could see none through the thick canopy of trees above. The stream beside us was silent and gentle, for the first two hours of our journey.
Bahr noticed the change before I did and stopped abruptly. I almost ran into his back. He hushed me with a wave of his hand, his eyes fixed on a ripple in the water. He drew out a dagger. I took out my handgun and checked that the solar battery was still functioning, still charged. Not that I hadn't already checked it that morning. And the morning before that.
The stream rippled again, and a scaled head broke the surface of the water. It looked like a cobra, hood extended, until it rose tall enough that I could see its shoulders. The creature was shaped like a snake but with two long, spindly arms to carry it. Bahr locked eyes with the thing and held up his knife.
I fired my gun. The thing shrieked, writhing in the water. I shot again and it fell quiet. It landed in a shallow part of the creek, just shallow enough that the thing did not fall completely out of view and under the water. It was smoking slightly where I had shot it, just below the jaw. I smiled to myself, dryly. Not a bad shot, considering my lack of practice.
I glanced up at Bahr. A look flashed across his face, one he'd likely already seen me give him. A look of realization, that we didn't really know each other.
I put the gun away. I briefly considered showing him my empty hands, then decided against it. We had to keep seeing each other as equal partners in this.
We stopped for the night when the sun had started to set. We made out camp by the creek. I tried to wash my hair with the running water and a pinch of the soap I had in my duffel bag. I'd been able to bathe a couple of times while living with Ghara, but washing my clothes had proved quite difficult, not to mention I did not have much soap to spare and only one extra set of clothing. So I spread out the task as long as I could stand it. Washing my hair didn't do much to make me any cleaner, but it at least gave me the impression that I was doing something about my appearance and smell.
The tent was barely big enough for the two of us and our bags, which we stacked between us, both to divide our space and because there was literally no other place to put them. I wondered, briefly, if it was strange in his culture to share a tent with a woman he barely knew. He didn't bring it up, so neither did I. Either it wasn't strange to him, or like me he was just too dead tired to worry about it. I fell asleep as soon as I had lain down.