The day wore on. It was shorter than an Earth day since the planet had little axial tilt and rotated rapidly. The days and nights were each about ten hours long. It was getting close to dusk when we called a halt to our trek. Kasm had led us to a rocky area where there was a large outcropping with one particular rock that poked into the sky like a large thumb extending out at a shallow angle from the ground.
He indicated that we should spend the night on the thumb-nail. The access was gradual, but the back of the stone narrowed so that only one of us could clamber up at a time. According to Kasm, his people often used the rock as a lookout. He had determined rightly that we weren’t nocturnal creatures and would need to rest during the dark hours.
“You need not worry about being approached. We are high enough that even a night-stalker cannot reach us, and the back of the rock is narrow enough that I can defend against anything foolish enough to try and climb up,” he sent along with a hint of an attitude of superiority.
I realized he usually wouldn’t worry about holing up for the night. He could rest anywhere since his senses would alert him to anything approaching his location. Nevertheless, I decided to tell him a little more about us. “We normally sleep through the entire night, but we often have animal partners that will wake us if there is any problem. Our weapons allow us to deal with most surprises.”
“There will be no surprises tonight,” he responded as he carefully selected a comfortable spot on the rock and lay down facing the route we’d climbed up.
As we ate some of our rations, I sat down and took a moment to study our green-striped companion in the last rays of the fading light.
As I’d mentioned before, he was somewhat similar to an earthly tiger but stockier with a shorter back. From his movements and from watching him as we traveled, I realized that his spine was less flexible than one of our cats. This probably meant that he wasn’t as fast a runner proportionately. However, I definitely didn’t want to race him. His legs were heavy with muscles, and I judged that in a fight, the blows of his forepaws would be deadly. Both his hind and fore feet were armed with semi-retractable claws of a respectable size, and as a result, he seemed to have no difficulty climbing the rock on which we were laid up for the night.
Perhaps the most immediately noticeable thing about him was his rather lurid color scheme. He was covered in narrow yellow and green stripes. Under the bluish sun, they sort of faded together, and the net effect allowed him to blend into the grassy areas of the veldt perfectly. I could see that he would be almost invisible, even to a direct glance, if he were careful in his choice of locations.
The stripes also worked well in the jungle. The green blended with the vegetation, and the yellow looked like brief rays of light shining through the upper story of leaves.
As if the colors weren’t enough, his major difference from our mammalian forms was that he had an extra set of arms. I don’t know what else to call them. They were attached to a secondary socket on his shoulder blades, which was located behind the sockets for his forelegs. The socket was a little lower than the foreleg socket, and he normally held his second arms tucked up against his chest where they were out of the way as he traveled.
The second arms were also muscular, but less so than his legs. The interesting part was that the toes were somewhat elongated, and while not prehensile, they were flexible enough to provide him with a degree of manipulation ability. I’d seen him toying with a small stone that he’d picked up as he lay down, and he could use his paws (I guess you’d have to call them hands) quite well.
While we ate, I asked him about his extra arms, “Kasm?”
He looked inquiringly at me but didn’t say anything.
“I’m curious about some of our anatomical differences,” I started. “All furred animals on our planet have four limbs, like me. I’m interested in your two additional arms.”
He briefly considered and then answered, “I can see how you might be envious, but you’ve made up a little for your lack of hand-arms by walking on your hind legs and converting your forelegs to hand-arms. I don’t see how you live without claws, though. Those little flat things on your fingers are poor excuses for weapons.”
I responded, “Well, we don’t fight that way. Our fighting normally involves various types of blows and kicks, joint manipulation, and techniques of throwing opponents to the ground.”
“That wouldn’t work if you were fighting me. You must be helpless against naturally armed predators,” he observed.
I struggled to explain our use of weapons in a single thought, “That’s why we rely on weapons. Our kind developed weapons early out of necessity, and I guess you could say that we’ve made a virtue out of our helplessness.”
He snorted and gazed down at the base of the stone. A pack of wolf-sized creatures was snuffling around where we’d ascended. They, too, had the second set of arms, but theirs were used simply to augment their gait. They finally concluded that we’d climbed the rock and stared up at our location. Kasm stood up and stretched, then looked meaningfully down at them. In response, they made a low chittering sound and rapidly retreated into the darkness of the bushes.
Kasm sent, “The scavenger-beasts will not bother us. They would never challenge one of my people,” he looked at me and seemed to laugh somehow, “but they might try to see what you taste like.”
“Thanks for the warning. I don’t think they’d like our taste, and we certainly would resent them trying to eat us. Will they return?” I said as I stood and unhooked my gun belt, pausing momentarily with my weapon in my hand as I looked down toward where they had disappeared.
“No. They have gone elsewhere to seek out food. They cannot climb the stone, and it wouldn’t do them any good if they could. I believe that, between the two of us, we are more than a match for any beast in this world,” he sent, then he had a sudden thought. “Do you think that I could use one of your weapons?”
He stood and approached my location, stretching out his near-hand arm for my inspection. I looked it over, and he wiggled his fingers. They were easily capable of holding the grip of my handgun, but lacking a thumb, he would have some difficulty with the weapon.
“Here, hold this, and let’s see if you can use it,” I said. I removed the power pack to forestall any unfortunate incidents. Then, I handed over my anti-matter pistol. He took it gingerly.
He rather clumsily arranged it in his hand the way I would usually hold it, his four fingers curving around the front of the grip and holding it tightly against his leathery palm. I reached out carefully and asked, “May I arrange your fingers correctly?”
He signaled assent, and I lifted his top finger and placed it on the firing stud; the weapon didn’t have an actual trigger. “You have to grip it with the other fingers and use this finger to actuate the mechanism. When you depress this small stud, the device will destroy anything directly in front of it. The basic and most important rule for its use is never to point it at anything you do not want destroyed.”
He was able to pull the stud back and it made a slight click, but the weapon was pointing directly at Erin and Whistle as he did. I was glad I’d removed the power pack, but it gave me an opportunity to reinforce the point: “It looks as if you could use the weapon, but if the power pack had been in it, you would have just destroyed two of our party accidentally.”
“No,” he responded, “I intentionally pointed it at them to see if I could keep it steady as I depressed the stud.”
That seemed insensitive, but then I got the sense that he was embarrassed by his faux pas and was covering up. “That’s all right. There was no harm done. If you promise not to point it at any of us, I’ll put the power back in it, and you can see if you can shoot that thing climbing up the rock toward us.” I pointed at a creature that looked like an anaconda equipped with numerous pairs of clawed legs. It was like a cross between a snake and a centipede, but with a toothed mouth that reminded me uncomfortably of the thing that had eaten Ted.
“Now that can climb, and it is a nasty fighter,” Kasm said as he held out the weapon.
I replaced the power pack and handed it back. He accepted it like a pro and carefully aimed at the centipede snake, which had reached about halfway up the rock ridge. He depressed the firing stud, and the snake and some parts of the rock disintegrated. Without saying anything, he took the weapon in his other hand and passed it to me.
“That was a good shot,” I congratulated him. “Your ability to use our weapon has been very successfully demonstrated.”
“Yes, but it is almost too easy to kill,” he complained. “Doesn’t such ability predispose you to kill without thinking much about the act?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, it might in some individuals, but I personally try to avoid killing unless it is a last resort.”
“There!” he thought triumphantly. “You have shown that you, too, have an ethos about life. You just didn’t express it well before. I believe that, in many ways, we are quite similar.”
I replied, “I think that we are also. It is the basis for what we call friendship. That is a relationship where each is willing to aid the other.”
He responded affirmatively to this thought and re-composed himself on his lookout point, “Then, friend, I will watch the night and you will sleep. Tomorrow, we will reach the invaders’ fort, and you will be able to see what you can do.”
The rest of the night was uneventful, and I actually slept quite well. There is something about direct mental communication that makes it difficult to conceal one’s intentions, and I knew that he meant us well and could be relied on to alert us if there was any problem. I awakened once to see Kasm, his head on his paws, gazing meditatively out over the star-lit horizon.