2015 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide Read online

  “Not it, Samuel, she. All the veoles are girls, you know that.” Veronica stroked her small hands over the creature. “I think she’s lovely. Hey! Don’t grab her!”

  “I wasn’t,” Samuel said. “I just wanted to roll her over to check out her claws.”

  “Well, don’t,” Veronica said. “You’ve frightened her.” She picked up the veole and began to make crooning noises to it. The veole’s nose twitched in response and it made some chattering noises.

  “Look, Samuel. She’s talking to me. Ain’t she just darling?”

  “Be quiet, Veronica. Someone’s coming over.”

  Samuel squinted into the hazy light until he recognised Berick, the leader of the Graviller boys. Berick walked with his usual confident strut. His wrinkled, moist skin glistened in the dying red light of the afternoon sun. Gravillers were Humanoid, or Humans were Gravilloid. It depended on your perspective. Berick’s okay, Samuel thought. He’s friendly enough.

  The Gravillers just did things a little differently from the people back home. Samuel looked at his five-year-old sister who was still babbling nonsense to the veole. “Berick’s coming over. Don’t show me up.”

  Veronica put down the veole, which scuttled between her legs. “Okay.”

  The only other kids on this planet were Berick and his gang. If Samuel was going to have any type of fun here, he needed to fit in.

  She could be a good kid — sometimes, Samuel thought.

  “Hey, what you doing?” Berick asked.

  “Not much,” Samuel replied.

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself a fighting veole.” Berick bent down to examine the creature. When Berick’s three primary fingers prodded the veole, Samuel was glad to see that Veronica kept quiet.

  “Yep,” said Samuel, playing it cool.

  “Your sister catch it for you?”

  “Yep, seems they like Human females, too.”

  Only females could catch the veoles. Samuel had found this out in one frustrating afternoon scouring the swamps behind the house. Veoles were native to this world, unlike Gravillers or Humans. The veoles were on home territory. If they didn’t want to be caught, they were able to evade even the most persistent hunter. It was annoying that Veronica had been able to capture one so easily. It only took her an hour. That was females for you; they were different.

  “You going to fight her?” Berick asked.

  “Are you challenging me?” Samuel replied, surprised.

  “Well, that’s what they’re for, ain’t it?”

  “I suppose.” This was fantastic. As the only Human boy in the colony, Samuel had never dreamed that Berick would challenge him to a veole fight. Berick was top dog, the leader of the kids. Yep, the Gravillers were an okay species, no matter what Ma said. They were fair. They didn’t discriminate. “Tomorrow suits me” said Samuel, ignoring Veronica who tugged on his arm.

  “Yep, suits me, too” Berick said. “But are you sure that she’s up to it? She looks kinda small.”

  “She’ll do fine,” Samuel said with a confidence that he didn’t feel.

  “See ya tomorrow, then, at noon?”

  “Yeh, great.”

  Berick ambled off.

  Samuel turned to his sister and whispered, “Did you hear that, Veronica?”

  Veronica looked at her brother. Her eyes were wide with accusation, “You’re not going to fight with her, are you? She might get hurt.”

  “That’s what they’re for. They’re fighting veoles.”

  “But . . . .”

  “Look, I’m glad you got her for me, but what did you think I wanted her for?”

  “But . . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Veronica. Veoles fight for fun. They never really get hurt.” Samuel grinned. “Pa’s going to be so pleased. He wants me to fit in here.”

  There were tears in Veronica’s eyes. “But she’s so little and cute.” She scooped up the veole and held it against her chest. “I’m going to tell Ma.” The veole wriggled until it found a comfortable position. Its ears twitched.

  “I’m doing it. It doesn’t matter what Ma says. That’s the way it goes here.” Why didn’t Veronica understand how important this was? Berick had challenged him.

  “I’m going to tell Ma what you just said.”

  Samuel ignored his sister and scrutinised the veole. It did look awfully puny. “Couldn’t you have captured a bigger one?”

  “She’s lovely.” The veole uncurled, revealing a small, pink face. It was about the size of a guinea pig. It regarded Samuel with bright, black eyes. Its claws waved in the air. They looked mighty thin, not like the solid looking blade-like claws that Samuel had admired on Berick’s veoles. Samuel wondered if Berick had challenged him just to make a fool of him.

  Samuel turned away and stated to walk towards the house. “Some fine fighting veole my sister finds me,” he muttered. “I’m going to be a laughing stock.”

  …………………………

  Ma was standing at of the stove, stirring a pot of unsavoury smelling food.

  “Not Graviller food again, Ma,” Samuel said with a scowl.

  “If you helped with the vegetable patch, we might have something else to eat.”

  “Earth vegetables don’t like the soil,” Samuel said.

  Ma whirled around to face him. Her voice, when it came, was tight and controlled. Had she been crying? “Samuel, you’ll just have to get used to it. We’ve nearly finished all the Earth food we brought with us. Graviller food is fine for Humans. It’s nutritious.”

  “It may be nutritious, but it sure smells bad.” Samuel sniffed the air. “Yuk!”

  “Just get used to it, alright? There’s a lot of things we’ve got to get used to. The food’s the least of our problems.”

  “But, Ma, can’t we just have . . .”

  “What’s all this? What’s all this? Can I smell dinner cooking?” Pa walked in. He was a tall man, dressed in Graviller leathers, which hung off his lean frame. He hitched up his trousers as he came into the kitchen.

  “Food’s nearly ready,” Ma said. She viciously stirred the pot. Ma wasn’t a great cook. On Earth, her job as a nano-biochemist had taken up most of her time. In fact, Pa had done most of the cooking back home. But women weren’t allowed to work on this Graviller colony. Graviller females took care of their kith and kin. Pa said that they were guests of the Gravillers and ought not to rock the boat. That was the reasonable thing. It was a Co-operation rule to follow the customs of the founding species on a colony. And whether Ma liked it or not, this was a Graviller colony.

  He didn’t like to think about it much, but Samuel thought it was as if something had withered inside Ma. Something else had taken its place: something hard, and something angry. Some days it was so bad that Samuel and Veronica were too frightened to hardly say a word around the place.

  Pa was thriving, though. He was an engineer, and the Gravillers respected his unique alien perspective on technical problems. Pa fit in well here. Samuel meant to fit in, too. Now that he had a fighting veole, he’d be able to take part in the veole fights with the other kids. And Berick had challenged him. It was wonderful.

  The front door opened. Veronica walked through the hall and climbed the stairs to her room.

  “I’m going upstairs to see Veronica. She’s caught me a veole.” Samuel said.

  Pa smiled and nodded, but Ma said, “A veole? What do you want one of those for?”

  “For fighting, of course, Berick challenged me.”

  “You’re going to fight those little creatures while you boys all stand around and watch?”

  “Sure.”

  Ma was going to say something else, but Pa put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Let the boy be, Sarah.”

  Samuel wanted to check on his veole. Funny how only females could catch them. That’s about all females were good for. He looked at his Ma stirring the stew, and he bit his lip.

  Pa said, “Get yourself upstairs, son. Ma will shout for you when supper’
s ready.”

  …………………………

  “Whatcha doing?” Samuel asked his sister as he walked into her bedroom.

  “Just talking to Chit Win. I think she likes me.”

  “You’ve named her?” Samuel looked at his sister incredulously. “That’s ridiculous. You know she’s fighting tomorrow. She’s a fighting animal, and you’ve given her a pet name?”

  Veronica didn’t seem worried. “The name just came to me. Popped right into my head. I think she’s cute, don’t you think?”

  Cute was not a word that Samuel would have applied to Chit Win. Bedraggled was more like it. She was a skinny rat with strange bags of thin grey skin flapping around her back. She was four-legged, each limb ending in a cluster of sheathed claws. In Chit Win’s case, probably ineffective claws. She didn’t look like much of a fighter. But, what the hey? At least his sister had got something for him. Samuel shuddered to think what would have happened to him if he hadn’t got a sister. He would never have been able to catch one of the veoles. It wasn’t quite fair: all the Graviller kids had at least a dozen sisters, all running around getting veoles for them.

  “. . . never wanted to come here in the first place,” the voice of Ma rattled upstairs.

  “It’s better here than on Earth. There was no space there. And no work for me. Anything is better than that.” Pa’s voice joined Ma’s. Veronica and Samuel sat in silence listening to their parents’ argument.

  “What about me? What about the children?”

  “They’ll be fine. They speak good lingo now. They’re fitting in fine. We’ll build a new life here as a family.”

  “What about Veronica? What about her life?”

  Pa’s voice became quiet. They had to strain to hear him, “There are no Human colony worlds, Sarah, and there won’t be for another fifty years. You know that. We got to make the best we can of it. Gravillers are okay.”

  “Normal Gravillers are okay. But not these. I don’t know if I can stand it here, Ryan.”

  “I couldn’t take it on Earth anymore, Sarah. I had nothing but the welfare for ten years. We’ve got to find a way to fit in here.”

  “We haven’t got much choice, have we?”

  “I don’t like it when they fight,” Veronica said.

  “Don’t worry, Veronica.” Samuel put his arms around her shoulders. Pa had explained some things to him; it was different here on this world. Men were expected to be strong here, to shoulder the burdens. That’s what Pa had done when he’d taken the difficult decision to bring the family to a Graviller colony world. Samuel kissed his sister’s forehead, “It’ll be all right. Ma just needs to get used to a few things.”

  …………………………

  Ma and Pa were quiet at supper and very polite to each other. Samuel had been thinking about how he could help the family, like Pa had said. “I’ll be fighting in town with my veole at noon, tomorrow. Maybe you’d like to come along, Ma. You could meet some of the Graviller ladies.”

  “Why, that’s a fine idea,” said Pa. “What do you reckon, Sarah?”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in it. Better to make the best of a bad job,” Ma said.

  Samuel noticed that Ma had hardly eaten any of her food.

  Pa was happy. “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying, Sarah. We can fit in here. We’ve just got to adjust a little. We’ve got to fit in with their ways. It’s only common courtesy.”

  “I guess you’re right, Ryan.”

  Ma looked worn out, beat down. Samuel had never thought of her as old until they came here.

  …………………………

  The next morning, the family walked to the town square. Samuel thought his mother looked a little better.

  Berick was waiting at the fighting arena, a makeshift ring surrounded with a small stone wall. Seemed like word had gotten out about Samuel and Berick’s match because there was quite a crowd gathered. Maybe a quarter of the colony’s five hundred inhabitants had turned out.

  “Pa, I’m nervous.”

  Pa gripped Samuel’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. These are good people. They just set store on gambling a little more than we did on Earth.”

  Indeed. Samuel could see many of the adult male Gravillers engaged in frantic negotiations. He wondered what the odds were on him winning. He glanced over to Chit Win, who appeared to be napping in Veronica’s arms. Pretty long odds.

  “There’s some women over there, Sarah. Why don’t you go chat with them?” Pa nodded over to a group of Graviller females,

  “I suppose I could try,” Ma said. “Are you coming too, Veronica?”

  “No, Ma. I want to stay with Chit Win.”

  Samuel raised his eyes to the sky, “Berick hasn’t got his sisters with him. Go on, go with Ma.”

  Veronica reluctantly passed over Chit Win, who stirred slightly before nestling into Samuel’s arms.

  “Looks like you’re fitting in well with these new ways, Samuel,” Ma said. “Come on, Veronica. Let’s leave the menfolk to their business.”

  Veronica said, “Just make sure to stop the fight before she gets hurt.”

  Ma and Veronica made their way to the Graviller females who were preparing snacks for their families. The unpleasant, pungent smell of Graviller food filled the air.

  Pa wandered off to talk to a group of Gravillers he knew. Samuel wondered if he would make a bet.

  Samuel walked over to the fighting ring. He tried to look confident, as Chit Win had fallen back to sleep in his arms. He nodded to Berick and looked enviously at the sleek fighting veole Berick placed in the ring. That veole was born to fight.

  “That’s not a very big veole. I don’t think that she’ll put up much of a fight,” Berick said.

  “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog,” said Samuel, waking Chit Win and placing her in the ring.

  “Eh?”

  “It’s an old Earth saying.”

  “Well, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Masher Slycher, the self-appointed master of ceremonies, made his way over to the ring. He took a long look at Chit Win, before uttering his harsh Graviller laugh, “Good luck, Human boy.” Masher took an ivory whistle out of his pocket and sounded the start of the fight.

  Pa and the Graviller males rushed over. It was noon. The fight had begun. Chit Win looked very small against the magnificent creature that Berick had selected.

  The Gravillers shouted encouragements in their own language, forsaking Co-operation lingo in their excitement.

  “Fight, Chit Win, fight,” Samuel shouted.

  Instead of fighting, both of the creatures chattered to each other. Berick’s veole unsheathed her claws, but withdrew them after listening to Chit Win’s urgent chitterings.

  “Looks like veoles caught by Humans like to talk, not fight,” Masher said. This comment gained a few sniggers from the crowd.

  “Come on, Chit Win,” Samuel said. This was embarrassing.

  Chit Win ran around the ring as if looking for something. The other veole curled up into a ball.

  “What are they doing?” Samuel asked.

  “Beats me. Usually they love to fight. They love a good scrap,” Berick said.

  The Graviller adults looked on. There was muttering. This wasn’t what they’d come to see. This wasn’t what they’d bet good credit on. The females came over and stood at the back of the crowd.

  Chit Win ran round and round the fighting arena, screeching in her chittering voice.

  Berick looked disgusted. He leant over the wall to prod his sleeping veole. “This is what happens when you let Humans join in, is it?”

  “I’m sorry,” Samuel said. His cheeks were stained red with embarrassment.

  Veronica pushed through the crowds, but she couldn’t quite get to front of the ring. “Is Chit Win okay? She hasn’t been hurt, has she?”

  “What’s it doing now?” asked one of the Gravillers.

  At the so
und of Veronica’s voice, Chit Win stopped running and raised herself up onto her back legs. Chit Win placed her front paws on the arena wall. She turned her head towards Veronica, and Samuel could swear that he saw a smile on that little rodent face. The two sacs on Chit Win’s back began to inflate. Everyone watched in silence, as Chit Win inflated at an unreasonable rate, growing bigger even than Berick’s veole, who was still sleeping by the wall of the arena.

  “What on Earth?” asked Pa.

  Chit Win said, “Veronica.” It spoke. It actually spoke. The sound came through an opening Chit Win’s inflated air-sacs, but it was clear Co-operation lingo, understood by all.

  The market place fell silent as they all watched Chit Win.

  “Chit Win will not fight. Chit Win will talk to Veronica.”

  “Veronica, come here, my love,” Pa shouted.

  Veronica squeezed through to the front of the crowd and leant over to peer into the arena.

  “Ah!” Chit Win’s face seemed to light up.

  That was definitely a smile, Samuel thought.

  “Veronica. Chit Win understands Veronica.”

  All at once everyone began to speak.

  “Why is it talking?”

  “It understands Co-operation lingo.”

  “Seems like it’s formed a bond with the Human female.”

  “All this time, and they could talk?”

  “You know what this means don’t you?” Ma’s voice was clear and cut through the males’ chatter. “It looks like there are three sentient species on this planet. Co-operation law means there’s going to be some changes around here. Native species customs take precedence.”

  Chit Win finally managed to scale the wall of the arena as she bounced over to Veronica, “Chit Win understands Veronica.”