Part Three

GT July | Stellar Allies | Part Three

They looked down, and he looked back. Jax and Cliff both felt their eyes widen as they looked down at the little alien's face for the first time. To their surprise, there were more humanistic elements to their strange house guest's features than they anticipated, but there were others that were unfamiliar and fascinating.

For one, the alien's eyes were completely black. There was flickering in his eyes, indicating some kind of iris within it. He had two little pointed ears, like that of an elf or pixie, that stuck out from a mess of what looked like midnight blue hair that looked like elements of it were under water or being blown by a wind machine by the way the ends moved even while the alien was motionless. There were also what looked like two antennae or possibly horns on the top of his head erupting out of that mess of dark hair.

A nose and mouth were set in between two slightly sunken cheeks, like that of a human face, but the alien's skin was a misty blue color which shifted to a darker blue by his cheeks and blended with what almost looked like a metallic teal color on his neck, which looked like it was ridged and scaled all the way down into his black flight suit.

What the boys thought was a covering for the alien's tail was simply the tail itself. Shiney, spiked, and ridged all the rest of the way down, the alien's tail ended in a jagged point and was about the length of his body. It also seemed like it functioned like a cat's tail, being an extension of the alien's spine because of where it connected to him and by the fact that it was twitching back and forth as the alien stood and watched them right back.

His little eyes flicked back and forth between Jax and Cliff, as if taking a measure of the boys, before raising his hands slightly in a surrendering motion, his four fingered hands splaying cautiously while his eyes evaluated them. As he did so, Cliff and Jax noticed that the blue complexion of the alien's features shifted to shades of black and gray.

"Woah," breathed Jax. "This… is… freakin'… awesome. Did you see that?"

"Yeah," Cliff breathed right back. As each boy muttered, the alien's eyes flicked to the boy who was speaking. "Do you think it's camouflage for his surroundings?"

"Maybe," hypothesized Jax. "It might also be a reaction to the light. He was mostly in darkness before."

"True," agreed Cliff.

Here it goes. Ol'oih took a breath and concentrated on each and every word, attempting to make it as clear and concise as possible. He understood their language, and now he was going to attempt to use it.

"Hello, my name is Ensign Ol'oih Namniels. I am on an informational expedition to learn more about humanity, specifically language analysis. I… assume you found me and my ship, and I have to say thank y-"

"Okay, so we should think about communication basics. Do you think he understands body language? I mean, his hands are raised like that, but is that out of instinct or intent?" asked Cliff.

"I'm inclined to think intent, but I have no basis for it," remarked Jax.

Wait… what? Ol'oih wondered silently. They're talking about communication. Is that not what I'm doing? He decided to try again.

"I do understand some of your language, at least what you are saying now. My hands are raised as a sign of 'good faith' as you humans may say. I do not want to fight and want to establish peaceful tal-"

"Are we going to have to establish basic linguistics and physical signs to communicate? Like how you would with a little kid? Or maybe like a sign language thing?" wondered Cliff. "If so, we might need to have a quick aside to look up some basics that we can both use."

"Woah, look! There's a shock of yellow with the grays and blacks," said Jax as he pointed at the little alien. Cliff had just noticed too, and his mind started working through what all of these new colors could mean.

At the same time, Ol'oih's mind was working through their interactions.

Why can't they hear me? I'm speaking their language. I can understand them. That much I'm sure of. I don't think they're ignoring me. They've expressed desire to communicate. I don't understand! There's nothing that should impede my pathing to them unless…

The realization hit Ol'oih all at once, hollowing his insides and making him feel sick. It wasn't confirmed until now, but there were dozens of theories on his home world about whether or not earthers could path – speak directly to one another without the use of vocal cords in the throat.

Now he knew for certain which was making him panic.

They can't hear me. They can't path! What am I going to do?

"Did you see that?" asked Cliff as he looked over at Jax. "His eyes widened."

"Yeah, I did. Is he trying to figure out what we're saying?" asked Jax.

"No! I'm not! I can hear you. It's you who can't hear me!" Ol'oih tried pathing to them again, concentrating as hard as he could on the connection and getting his words to them. Sadly, the boys continued their conversation with one another.

"Are we scaring him? I mean, we're kind of looming," pointed out Jax. "Plus, there's two of us and we have him in a hard plastic container that he probably can't get out of. Putting myself in his shoes, he's taking this well."

I don't know whether to be offended or flattered. No! Focus! This is bad! If they leave, I don't have a way to contact them. They can't path. Does this mean they're like the Mel'ol?

Ol'oih recalled the information from his various courses and remembered that the Mel'ol, another interstellar species, couldn't hear thoughts projected into the air. After many attempts, both species realized that communication required a physical connection directly to the Mel'ol nervous system.

He suddenly realized what he needed to do, and it was risky. More than that. It was dangerous. These boys didn't seem like "proper scientists" unless their survey teams were completely wrong about the human race, in which case they horribly overestimated human intelligence.

This is not what Ol'oih was going to go with. Based on his observations, these kids seemed logical, cautious, and curious. They hadn't hurt him and obviously wanted to communicate.

Ol'oih knew he had one chance, and he was terrified. His entire body thrumming nervously, he recalled his lessons in body language and communication and began backing away, hands still raised in submission.

"Oh, shoot. Cliff, look. He's backing up." Jax glanced nervously over at Cliff, unsure of what to do.

"Yeah, I see that, but I don't kn-" Cliff quieted when he saw the little alien looking directly at him and make a gesturing motion with his hand directly in front of him. It almost looked like the alien was miming lowing his hand into the container before raising his hand back into an open palm surrendering gesture. His eyes flicked over to Jax as he repeated the motion, even crouching a little to emphasize the hand lowering to the ground.

I hope they understand. I don't have much else I can do to get them closer. They won't understand, but it's the only way.

Ol'oih felt the thrumming in his body intensifying. This was going to be tricky, and he knew it. These two human boys were just going to have to trust him, something which he knew was going to be next to impossible if they decided to err on the side of caution and shut him away in the container once more.

If that were to happen, he feared his energy might run too low to make a second attempt.

One shot. I've got to make it count.

"Do… you think he wants us to put our hands in the container closer to him?" asked Jax, leaning over to direct his question quietly to his friend. Cliff's heart was pounding hard and fast, but he nodded without breaking eye-contact with the alien.

"I think so," he muttered. "The real question is why."

"Who knows," mumbled Jax. "Do you… think it's a trick? Like he's going to scurry up our arms or try to splice off our fingers?"

What? No! I mean, it's going to be a little painful, but nothing permanent. I can fix that. It's no trick. I can explain everything. Please! Trust me! Ol'oih's silent plea was only for him, and he could only hope these two would take a chance.

"Only one way to find out," Cliff muttered. Jax's eyes went wide as he watched Cliff slowly raise his left hand in the same kind of surrendering motion that the alien was making before slowly turning it and lowering it into the container until the tips of his fingers were nearly touching the bottom.

Thank Ove! Now… I just have to not mess this up. Just bear with me.

Keeping eye-contact with the human boy, Ol'oih carefully took one slow step forward. His entire body was thrumming, threatening to make him shake. Ol'oih knew his emotions weren't in check, but his priorities were elsewhere. He took another step, and then another.

Cliff watched, body shaking, as the alien slowly took several steps toward him. The human teen took controlled, shallow breaths as his excitement and nerves spun like tops in his mind. A thousand possibilities were running through his head and waiting in anticipation was killing him.

Another step.

Then another.

The alien was only a few inches from him when Cliff watched the alien's tail slowly curve around his body and carefully press against his skin along his thenar, which was the fleshy mound at the base of his thumb. It was cold, thick, and sharp like a freshly sharpened number two pencil. It was also the color of graphite, which brought the imagery full circle in Cliff's mind.

This is it. Nice and slow. I'm already here, and he's letting me touch him. Ol'oih thought as he lowered his right hand and rested it onto the base of his tail. Here it goes.

In one quick motion, Ol'oih pierced the tip of his tail into the boy's hand along the fleshy part below his thumb, following the ridges along his tail and twisting as he did so. Before Ol'oih could even begin to attempt to establish a connection, there was an ear piercing shriek.

For a moment, just a moment, Cliff was absolutely entranced by possibly being the first human making physical contact with an alien when, all of a sudden, the alien jabbed and twisted the end of his tail into the base of his thumb. Pain shocked him out of the moment, and he cried out purely by instinct.

"OW! AH! It latched on! It latched on!" Cliff jerked his hand and, to his alarm, the alien jerked along with him. Panic began to take over as he grabbed at his wrist and began constricting it. If this thing was trying to poison him like a scorpion, he didn't want the venom to infiltrate his entire circulatory system.

Meanwhile, the base of Ol'oih's addon tugged him harshly to the point he was actually lifted off of the ground as the human boy lifted his hand. Ol'oih was slammed back onto the ground as he listened to the boy he was attached to shout about "latching on."

On the bright side, his hypothesis was correct. Humans were like Mel'ol, requiring a physical connection to the nervous system to communicate. Already, he was feeling the boy's panic, fear, and, oddly enough, betrayal.

He had only a moment to try and get the situation under control, and he had to make the most of it. He concentrated hard and said the first thing that came to mind.

"It is not latching, it is pathing. And please do not jerk around like that. You might fracture my addon and hurt yourself!"

Immediately, Cliff felt his heart stop as he heard a male voice in the back of his head. He knew he didn't imagine it. It was too distinct – too direct – for it to be a mistake. The teen looked down at the alien and saw him staring back, desperation and intelligence in those dark orbs for eyes.

"Hang on!" Jax, before Cliff could utter a word, boldly reached into the container and grabbed the alien, his fingers pinning the alien's arms to his sides. Jax lifted the alien off of the ground as he began thrashing against the grip, grabbed the base of the tail that was imbedded into Cliff's hand, and tugged.

Cliff winced and cried out in pain as the tip of the tail tugged at his flesh, and then the voice returned.

"Ow! Wait! Please! I just want to talk! I am Ensign…"

Cliff's hand seized as Jax tugged again. To his horror, the tail pulled free from his flesh, taking a chunk of skin with it. Blood spattered onto the base of the container. Cliff could feel his pulse in his hand as he instinctually retracted it from the container, clutching it tight to his chest while continuing to try and keep pressure around his wrist.

Jax gave the alien a little toss back onto the ground and quickly locked the lid back on, missing how the six inch tall alien had turned and reached out toward the narrow beam of light as the lid encased him once again in darkness. Jax immediately grabbed the first thing he could find, which was a t-shirt from Cliff's laundry pile, and pressed it against the oozing wound.

"Come on!" Jax urged as he tugged his friend away from his room and to the bathroom. He cranked on the warm water and shoved Cliff's hand under the faucet as he darted around to the supply closet, filling his arms up with every medical bag he could find.

As he worked on his friend's hand by splashing alcohol into the open wound and snagging gauze to wrap it, he continuously muttered under his breath various curses to the miniscule alien in the other room.

"That little twerp! I knew we couldn't trust it. It's no better than a creepy face hugger. Hopefully that thing isn't poisonous. That turned bad fast! Holy smokes!"

Cliff, on the other hand, finally came back to his senses. His mind had been reeling with the experience as he replayed the incident over and over in his mind. Of all the sensations rolling around in his mind, Cliff finally pinpointed the emotion that he believed the alien was experiencing.

Genuineness.

There was nothing malicious in the jab. Everything leading up to that moment indicated that the alien was peaceful. His body posture, if it indicated anything at all, showed surrender and caution. There were also all of those colors shifting in the alien's skin. Did that really mean something?

At the same time, Jax continued to ramble on.

"I can't believe this. I shouldn't have let you do it. How could I be so stupid?! Both of us! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I mean, did you see what it did?"

"Did you hear what he said?" Cliff's question made Jax's blood run cold. He turned to his friend, gauze comically dropping out of his hand and hitting the ground, as his mouth hung agape.

"What… did… you… just… say?" Jax asked.

Cliff pulled his hand out from under the water now that the wound wasn't bleeding as much and, while applying pressure, looked at his friend in awe and repeated, "Did you hear what he said?"

Jax went from crouching by the medical packs that were strewn all around him like a girl prepping for a two week vacation overseas to standing, backing away a couple of steps toward the door while eying his friend suspiciously.

"You're joking, right? It didn't talk," Jax stated firmly.

"No… he did," Cliff said just as firmly to match his friend's tone. "He said a few things actually. I… can't explain it, but I know I heard him."

Jax looked genuinely torn. It was like he was straddling the barrier between adrenaline fueled excitement and gut-wrenching worry for his friend.

"W-what… did he say to you, Cliff?" asked Jax. It was clear he was being cautiously optimistic based on his tone alone. Cliff reached over and put down the toilet seat and sat down on top as he gathered his thoughts.

"Well, first he said that it wasn't latching, it was pathing. I guess that's referring to this," stated Cliff as he lifted his injured left hand while keeping pressure on it. "He also asked for me not to jerk around because I might fracture his addon and hurt myself. I guess the 'addon' thing is his tail; and, obviously, jerking around earned me this gash."

"You actually heard him? The alien? But… how? Was this just a feeling? Or did you hear actual words?" probed Jax. "Well, first and foremost, are you okay? Do you feel weird or anything? Do you still hear the alien?"

"I feel fine. A bit shaken, but I still feel like me. No burning sensation in my hand and no streaks. If he was going to poison me or something like that, I would probably feel the effects now. We'd see evidence. If science taught me anything, it's that stuff like this takes affect pretty quick," replied Cliff. "And no, I don't hear him anymore."

"Weird," mumbled Jax. He still looked uncertainly at his friend and then back to the gauze he dropped. "Well, I guess if you're infected I probably am too."

"I doubt it, b-"

"Shush! Otherwise I won't help you. Gotta be in this together or not at all, dude. Always how it's worked. Now, I'm bandaging up your hand and you're telling me anything else the alien said," stated Jax. He was obviously unnerved, but he took a few deep breaths and approached his friend, snagging the gauze from the ground and cutting off the segment that touched the ground before applying the ointment onto it.

"Not much else. Just that he was in pain and that he just wanted to talk. He started saying something about ensign, but I couldn't tell if that was his name or, like, the position. You know? Like how they have ensigns on naval ships and stuff like that?" said Cliff while Jax wrapped his hand.

"So, we were right? That thing he was on was just a pod and there's a bigger ship; or, rather, was a bigger ship?" Jax asked as he fastened the bandage tightly.

"I think so," mumbled Cliff, thumb absently rubbing the injured part of his hand as if it were some kind of fidget spinner. "And there's something else too. His coloration. It was changing. Did you notice?"

"Hard not to notice," stated Jax as he sat down in front of his friend and began packing away the rest of the medical equipment. "You think it means something? Like, he was trying to communicate with it like a mood ring?"

"Maybe. It's just an idea, but maybe that's what he was feeling. I mean, blacks and grays are stress, tension, and anxiety. Then there was that flash of yellow, which could be nervousness," rattled of Cliff. Jax rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Of course you'd know something like that," he teased.

"Hey! I have an older sister who's into that spiritual stuff. Her tarot card set is still in her room with all of those crystals and stuff too. She was always talking about these weird things. Hopefully college will straighten her out," Cliff grinned, knowing this was one of his main teasing points for his older sister.

Jax's eyes widened as he asked, "Oh, shoot! Will she be home soon? It's summer. I totally forgot."

"No. She's got an internship that helps with her college tuition stuff, so she has to plan her visits. We've got the place to ourselves until eight tonight." Cliff's news eased the tension in the air between the two boys.

Their pulses were finally easing and their minds were now kicking into high gear to solve their communication problems with the alien in the other room. It took close to twenty minutes for either boy to say anything, but what Cliff had to say made Jax's pulse spike once again.

"We need to try it again."

"Excuse me, what?" Jax demanded.

"We need to try it again. We need to start from square one and try the Ensign's method again," stated Cliff. "It's only logical."

"No! Nu-uh! No way. I'm not getting a plug taken out of my hand because of him, and neither are you. We're already going to have a hard enough time explaining the wound on your hand to your parents because you promised no science experiments. There's got to be another way," argued Jax.

"It's the only way I can think of. We don't have any kind of tech for him to use as a speaker to just plug into, if that's what his tail is for. Also, did you see that look of surprise. Taking a leap in logic and assuming our expressions for certain emotions are the same between his species and ours, he looked confused and then shocked right before he made that whole gesturing motion, leading to my hand injury," explained Cliff as he held up his hand.

"So, you want to put your hand back next to the alien, have the same thing happen, but this time possibly talk to him?" asked Jax disbelievingly. His friend gave a half-hearted shrug as he nodded.

"Something like that. He responded with the whole 'latching' comment by correcting us, and when you went to pull him off he asked us to wait since he wanted to talk." Jax listened to Cliff's words and contemplated them for a solid two minutes before nodding, a look of resignation on his brow.

"Okay, then I have something I want to add. If we're going to try again, he might not want to. I did yank him off of you pretty hard, and honestly I've been worried here for a minute that I really hurt him," stated Jax. "I propose we have some kind of peace offering. I mean, he probably needs food and water and it seems like he understands what we're saying, so his ears work. We give him some supplies, offer an apology, and then see if he still wants to talk."

Cliff nodded in agreement. "My sentiments exactly. Now, I don't know what he can eat so let's get a bit of a spread with some water and give it all a try."

It took another minute for the boys to push themselves to their feet before walking past Cliff's room toward the kitchen to begin preparing a meal for their alien guest.