The Tomb World Ch7 (Patreon)

Sons of A-dahm

At the beginning of the next day Fezzan, Foric, and a representative from the council named Veena, assembled around the white alien spaceship for their second meeting. Fezzan had been usure about letting council Goral tag along. But Veena had quickly changed his mind about her presence. She had immediately asked Fezzen a barrage of questions about the alien Dan-yalzz, and her enthusiasm had quickly won him over to her side.

Plus she was someone who had trained under one of the archivists and had spent a lot of time studying all the old languages of the homeworld. She was probably the best person on the city-planet to interact with Dan-yalzz since she had the knowledge to try and bridge the language gap.

It also hadn’t escaped Fezzen’s notice that she was a pretty female, with beautiful purple and blue colored skin. Like when oil was mixed with water. And a lithe and acrobatic looking body, that looked both strong and graceful.

They stood outside the entrance hatch to the alien spaceship waiting for Dan-yalzz to emerge. There were some ground troops today, but less than there had been yesterday. And these ones looked more intrigued than nervous. Word about the first contact was already spreading like a gas leak throughout Moulvus and the other cities, and Fezzen had found that he had become a celebrity overnight. His name and picture were already circulating around the intranet. He was starting to dread going home, because he was certain that he would be mobbed by people and reporters.

After waiting a long while the hatch to the alien ship hissed and popped open. Dan-yalzz stepped out and slowly climbed down the ladder, he dropped down to the ground and stepped away from the ladder as another figure darkened the hatch before turning to step out.

This one was shorter than Dan-yalzz, it shared a lot of the defining features Dan-yalzz had, but it was also different in a lot of ways. This Hyoomahn had pale colored skin, similar in color to the stems of Foortops, but less grey and more pink. It had much thinner proportions to its body, and the facial features were more smooth and less blocky like Dan-yalzz. The fur atop its head was also different, Dan-yalzz had dark black curly fur like steel-cloth, but this Hyoomahn had long straight fur that fell down past its shoulder. There eyes were different colors as well, Dan-yalzz had deep brown eyes, but the new one had stunning eyes that glittered like olivine or green tourmaline.

“It looks so different from Dan-yalzz.” Fezzen remarked softly as Dan-yalzz offered it an upraised hand. The thinner Hyoomahn took the hand a lighter hopped off the ladder, making a high pitched “hmph” sound.

Veena compared the two and leaned in to speak “It might be a female of their species. Look at its chest, those look a lot like breasts.”

Foric hummed “So the males have darker skin and broader features, while the females are smaller with pink colored skin.” He mused.

It occurred to Fezzen that he had been unconsciously been internally referring to Dan-yalzz more like an object and not as a person. It made him feel ashamed. He had been scowling at Shod for saying that Dan-yalzz wasn’t a person, but here he was referring to him like an object. If this new Hyoomahn was a female that made Dan-yalzz a male, a man of his people just like Fezzen and Foric.

The two Hyoomahnz looked at the assembled greeting party and gave them one of their unsettling, upturned greetings Dan-yalzz had called a ‘smiihll’, then Dan-yalzz lifted an arm and pointed to one of the black spaceships. A hatch then opened on one of the black ships for the first time and a rope ladder was tossed over the side to let a third Hyoomahn down. The ground troops shuffled uncomfortably as a third gigantic alien emerged and quickly strode over on impossibly long legs.

As the third Hyoomahnapproached Fezzen was struck with how fast it could move across the flat floor at what must have been an easy pace for them. The third Hyoomahn was a cross between Dan-yalzz and the potential female. It was shorter than Dan-yalzz and the pink female, but its skin color looked very similar to Dan-yalzz, maybe a few shades lighter. Their body proportions and facial features, however, looked more like the pink skinned female’s. Fezzan realized that this third Hyoomahnwas a female as well, but one who shared the same skin and hair color as Dan-yalzz.

Veena hummed “It seems that we should reserve any and all judgements and assumptions. We’ve only met one Hyoomahn face to face and shouldn’t make any deductions based on such a small sample size.”

Foric looked embarrassed to have his assumption proven wrong so soon after he said it.

Once the third Hyoomahn had joined Dan-yalzz and the pink female they stepped forward and walked towards Fezzan. Dan-yalzz took the lead and sank down to one knee and extended a hand forward “Fehz-in”

Fezzen extended a hand forward and put it in Dan-yalzz colossal hand. “Dan-yalzz”

The hand closed around Fezzen’s and pumped it once before letting go. Dan-yalzz held up a hand to the pink female “Ehl-ai-zah”

“Ehl-ai-zah” Fezzen said uncertainly, already knowing he had messed up the pronunciation.

Dan-yalzz lifted his shoulders in a gesture Fezzen had no context for, and moved his hand to the other female “Sahm.”

The dark skinned female scowled at Dan-yalzz and babbled something at him in what Fezzen thought was a dissatisfied tone. Dan-yalzz looked upset and shot something back in their language, the female just lifted her arms and twisted them in front of her chest. Dan-yalzz let out an exhalation of breath, he then lifted his hand up again and said “Sah-man-thah Jeff-ir-sin.”

The three of them blinked at the Hyoomahnz in confusion. Fezzen got the feeling that Daniels might have tried to use a shortened name for the second female for their sake, but she wasn’t too happy about it for some reason.

Foric tried to repeat the name, but he couldn’t replicate the soft hissing sound in the middle of the first name.

Dan-yalzz turned back to the female “seeh”

The female let out a sigh, unfolded her arms, and put a singular hand to her chest and said “Sahm” in what sounded like a defeated tone.

Dan-yalzz, El-ai-zah, and Sahm all began to crouch down and sat down on the hanger floor. They crossed their long legs over one another and then pulled them in close to their torsos. But even sitting like that they were still a head taller than the Foric and Fezzen, not to mention the shorter Veena. The Hyoomahnz turned their penetrating gaze onto Veena and looked at her expectantly.

During the last meeting Fezzen had often found his gaze drawn to Dan-yalzz eyes many times. There was something about them that pierced Fezzen’s chest and made him feel exposed. It reminded him of the first time he had seen one of the Swarm in person, it had burst past the colony’s defenses and wreaked havoc on the streets of Moulvus. And now Veena stood before one of these alien giants on her own, baring the full brunt of their penetrating gaze on her own.

She held up a hand to her chest and said slowly “Veena. I am a language expert.”

The Hyoomahnz looked down at the holographic screen of the translator. Fezzen and Foric had spent a lot of time with Dan-yalzz miming out words and concepts so that they could get the translation software up and running. But there was only so much that could be done in one meeting, and they could only cover the most basic words like home, dirt, and personal pronouns.

The fingers of Dan-yalzz hand flew across the touch screen with impressive speed, each finger knowing exactly where to be and what to do independently of each other. Unbidden Fezzen was reminded of Shod’s bard, calling the Hyoomahnz natural stenographers. It seemed somewhat insulting to reduce a whole intelligent race down to something that basic, but Fezzen had to admit they had an uncanny affinity for dexterous tasks.

The machine then croaked in its robotic and broken approximation of their language. “What is expert?”

Veena’s tail twitched as she tried to understand their meaning. “An expert is someone who knows a lot about one thing. I have spent a lot of time learning languages.”

The pink female turned to Dan-yalzz as they received the translation “Soh liak ah prohfesssir.”

Dan-yalzz made a rumbling sound in his throat “Maybee.”

The machine was only translating their language into the Hyoomahn one, and needed Dan-yalzz to type in whatever he wanted to say. So they had no idea what the Hyoomahnz were saying to each other.

Veena chirped to get their attention, their penetrating gazes all darted back to the council representative and Fezzen was impressed that she didn’t flinch at their sudden focus. It wasn’t that their eyes were very scary, but their was something unsettling about being the focus of such large and strange creatures.

Veena held her ground and pointed a single claw at their visitors “Hyoomahn,” she said while pointing to Dan-yalzz. She then pointed to the pink female “Hyoomahn,” then to the dark female “Hyoomahn.” And then made an open gesture and addressed them as a group “Hyoomahnz”

Dan-yalzz his head, “Yes” he said in their language after a pause to remember the word Fezzen had taught him.

Veena held a hand to the assembled group “Gotari.”

The Hyoomahnz exchanged glances with each other, they seemed to be expressing complicated ideas with only a few facial features. Just like tail flicks. Dan-yalzz typed something into the translator. “Did we change you?”

Veena looked confused, so Fezzen stepped in “Yes” he said firmly. One thing that stuck out in their last meeting was how Dan-yalzz kept trying to use the word person to refer to all people except himself, its what led Foric and Fezzen to realize he was trying to figure out a name for their people. There had been words for people of different continents and islands, and words for people of different nations, but never a word for them as a species. They had always simply been ‘people’. It was still strange to think of himself as anything else but a person, the new word Gotari still felt very foreign.

Dan-yalzz ducked his head up and down a few times before typing into his device again “What meaning?”

This time Foric spoke up “Gotal-anan was the father of our people. His sons were the first people, they were called the Gotari. We are the sons of the Gotari.”

“Liyk A-dahm” Dan-yalzz murmured.

“Who is A-dahm?” Veena asked.

“First hyoomahn.” The computer said for Dan-yalzz.

The assembled sons of Gotal-anan glanced to the sons of A-dahm and they exchanged a knowing look that somehow crossed the species divide.

Dan-yalzz then set to typing something on the translator again, but this time it was a short statement, nor was it a question. Instead he shared with them something very strange, and something told Fezzen that these words were very important to the Hyoomahnz.

“Adam, born from dust, and to it we return.” He then turned his gaze onto Fezzen “Why did you call this place our tomb?”