Alien Oblation

By Kim McDougall

My name is Brogan. I took my walkabout in the year of the wasting winds. I nearly died on the plains of Am. As I lay in the grass through the searing days and freezing nights, I prayed for Reaia to spare me. I was meant for greater things than grass weevils. On the night that the stars came down to claim my spirit, the rain woke me, a rain so pure and dense that I nearly choked on its downpour.

Now I embark on my greatest journey. I will offer my seed to Reaia, the Devourer, in thanks.

Drip, drip, drip. One must be patient. Supper came and went before he answered me, and then it was only with the look that he reserves for untrained boys who ask questions they should be able to answer.

Others, like Cheote and his scrawny brother, Pin, scoff at my vision. Reaia has not been wooed for a hundred, hundred generations. She is a fickle lover and will not succumb to the bravest man without a gift. But what do you bring a goddess? Spruce gum and wintergreen are not enough. Reaia is unlike any other. She needs a gift to compare. She demands the undiscovered and the inconceivable, but these are only diversions for a lonely goddess. In the end, the courage in a man’s heart is all that really counts.

“We all know you’re courageous, Brogan,” says Cheote. He makes even this compliment sound like a sneer. “But how do you expect to open Her eyes. You look like any other man to me, a bit more pig-like in the face than others, I suppose, but that won’t impress Her.”

My beards tingle at the insult, but I refuse to be goaded.

“I will bring Her that which She has never seen, and then I will give Her pleasure like none She has ever known.”

I leave the summer camp with their mockery still in my ears.

My destination is clear in my head and my legs will not tire, even when I step onto the dry plains of Am. In the years since my walkabout, I have forced myself to return to these grasslands, to walk barefoot among the brittle shafts of grass and to lie down in the shallow pit that was almost my grave. Even now, when my beards are full and I have the stink of a man about me, the grasslands still make me tremble like a boy.

But the Plains of Am hold the secret that I have kept for years: the aliens. Frail little creatures, that think they invade our world in secret. But I found them. During my walkabout, I stalked their clumsy camp and watched while they dug in the earth with alien tools. At night I listened to their exotic songs, eerie wailings that curled my beards.

One of them will be a fresh bauble for Reaia. She will be flattered by this gift of the unknown.

I have brought enough food to see me through the dry fields, but I stop to snare a rodent if I can. I chew the brittle stalks of grass, draining them of their last bits of moisture. When I am lucky I catch a rattler and I suck the blood from its truncated body. In the evenings I am careful to keep my fire small and to douse it soon after supper. I brave the cold nights with only my beards to keep me warm.

When the highlands come into view, I begin to see signs of the aliens. They are sloppy hunters. I find their kills, scraps left for the buzzards. I smell fire long before I see their camp. As I approach the edge of the grassland, I walk like a  predator, low to the ground, listening to the stamp of their feet on the earth.

Their camp looks like it was built by spoiled children. The fires are unchecked, and burn on the edge of a small water hole. I want to laugh at their ignorance! How do they expect to hunt, when they pollute the best bait around?

I spend two nights watching these creatures. They are small stringy men, completely beardless except for their feet, which look more like flat camel hooves. They fight amongst themselves for bits of meat and animal skins filled with drink. These they pass around with great ceremony. I watch them piss into their water hole and throw dinner waste into the bushes behind the camp. I am amazed that the other predators have not yet picked them off. I suspect that only their meatless bodies save them from the carnivores.

At night they sing the tuneless songs that I first heard during my walkabout. “Rumheya, rummmm, rummmm.” Nonsense repeated like the drone of a bee. The song has haunted my dreams for months, has goaded me into this adventure.

I pick the biggest alien for my prize. It is still half the size of scrawny Pin and so feeble that I worry about breaking its bones during the catch. They sleep next to a blazing fire, with no lookout. I sneak into the camp, careful to keep my night-eyes averted from the glare of the flames. With stealth that my unborn children will sing about, I navigate the cluttered camp and snatch my target from its bed. Before it is even awake, I stuff a supple skin into its mouth and bind its hands and feet. Slung over my shoulder, it weighs no more than a fawn.

With this burden, I turn my back to the grasslands, and begin the climb into the mountains, to the home of Reaia.

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The alien watches me eat. Its eyes are windows to hunger, but I will not waste my fuel on the creature.

“Where are you taking me?” It asks. I do not answer. My fast broken, I sling my trophy over my shoulder again and continue to climb.

It talks to me endlessly, even though its lungs press painfully into my shoulder. “I am an historian,” it says. “You really must let me go. We mean you no harm. You are hunters, no? You are the Koanache clan? Right? Your clan came over the plains of Am, pursued by the lion-god. You see I really am an historian.”

I do not know this word, but I am grudgingly impressed with its knowledge of my people. I let it talk, though my attention is focused on the rocky ground under my feet. Only when I find the droppings of a mountain monitor do I choke my captive until it quiets.

The droppings are small. The lizard is only a yearling and would make a welcome feast, but its sire might be close by and I have no desire to become its prey.

“We stop here,” I say. I do not know why I talk to it. Perhaps the endless days alone have begun to affect me.

I make a careful camp. As the shadows deepen around us, the wailing starts, like the alien night-wailings, but louder and with a note of desperation.

“My clan is looking for me,” says the alien. Over the ruckus, I can barely hear the footfalls of the usual night creatures, but there . . . there it is. The faintest scrape of a toenail on gravel.

With a bit of dried fruit as bait, and my father’s knife, I catch the monitor lurking about our camp. When its skin has turned black in the embers, I split it open and eat the hot entrails. The alien watches me until pity weakens my resolve and I feed it.

“Is it true that even your girl children are born with pubic hair?” it asks, as the fire dies out. Feeding it has made me gracious and I answer its endless questions.

“Our beards grow in only when we are ready for the loneliness of the walkabout.” I lift my skirt to show him my full, lush beard.

“Yes, my sources may well be wrong. That is why we are here. We are Banshees. My people are historians and anthropologists. We seek knowledge of all cultures for the Great Reserve. We have been studying your people for some time. Do you understand?”

I do not understand its words, or want to. It is tainted by an implacable need to interpret each whisper of the wind–a dangerous quest, for every answer leads to new questions. Our shaman talks about this lunacy. Words have no power other than to heat the wind. Only deeds affect the spirit.

“You are a shaman,” I say.

“No. Well, yes, in a way. You would call me that.”

“I would call you bait,” I say, “for the pleasure of the Goddess Reaia.”

“Ah yes, Reaia. The Devourer. An interesting deity, if a bit simplistic, but then she was created by simple people.”

“You know nothing of Reaia!” I smack the alien for its impiety. It tumbles out of the firelight and lies in a crumple heap. Angry that the creature spurred me to bruise my offering, I haul in back to its frail feet.

“If I hear Her name on your foul alien tongue again, I will cut it out.”

“Right,” says the  alien, and we fall silent listening to the wailing of its clan in the night. The Banshee takes a rolled hide from its pack and marks it with an alien tool. I am pleased to find these trinkets. Reaia will thank me for bringing more treasures to her altar.

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