← Eflik–Gekir Border →
“Jennifer, send a report back,” Ranma said as the patrol lit on outcrop not far from the shimmering haze of the border. “Intruder looks humanoid stop moving across the border stop shows no sign of stopping stop will stop it there stop.”
The young warrior, who had been an American cheerleader or something before the shuffle, nodded and pulled flags out of her belt pouch and flittered away to a higher vantage point. Eflik was a semi–tech hex; restricted to gaslights and steam engine technology. For one reason or another, electric devices and the like just did not work. Neither radio nor telegraph could pass messages, but someone had come up with the idea of semaphore relays. With the warrior caste’s eyesight, it worked rather well.
The Maker caste were coming up with ways to make the best of things. Just because technology was limited didn’t mean they could not be innovative.
On three sides, Eflik was surrounded by high tech hexes, where everything worked, and between them three non–tech hexes where nothing not powered by muscle or the elements did. Gekir, the nearest neighbour to Ranma’s ‘clan’ was one of the latter. It was a swampy place, the landscape looking like the Triangulans had imported the Everglades for some reason. Ranma found the air there too thick and wet for to be entirely comfortable, which was probably why.
The hulking man mountain, or whatever it was, had trouble in the swamp too, but ploughed along with determination. As swamp suddenly gave way to forest at the shimmering division, it suddenly had an easier time of it.
“Hex, it’s big!” Ranma swore, as it heaved all the way out of the muck.
What ever it was it was not ‘native’ to that hex, which for Ranma was something of a comfort. He found the ‘natives’ to be some of the most frightening, nightmarish creatures he’d ever come across. This one was humanoid enough, though, so probably had once been human. In the southern hemisphere it would have been harder to tell. Even in the north you had to check twice.
The Gekir themselves were a race of six legged cats; the front two paws were prehensile so they technically qualified as humanoid, if you stretched the point. Most of the animals in the hex were likewise mainly six limbed, but mostly recognisable as animals; feathered, furred, or scaled. None looked to be built out of sandstone bricks or stand taller, or wider, than a worker caste Eflik.
“Lady Kasumi replies,” Jennifer reported back as she landed by his side. “Stop stop don’t start anything stop start by asking questions stop try using hand signs stop.”
Ranma sighed and rolled his eyeballs around their sockets. “Well, duh. Come on, let’s go.”
Even if the intruder turned out to have been Japanese it would not help with the language barrier. Whatever language Ranma spoke himself, though it sounded natural enough, wasn’t Japanese.
Brushing muck and mire from orange hide, the intruder sighed through the craggy slit in its face. The air on this side of the border was much hotter and dryer than on the other. No wonder the force field had been steamed up. The air was thinner too, though that didn’t matter as much. Breathing seemed optional; mostly as a way to cool down.
The heat would the problem, causing body and brain to become sluggish. Fortunately the forest looked like it would provide shade a plenty.
Reactions were fast enough to startle as a flock of winged beasts landed not far away. The intruder then quickly relaxed as most hung back and one approached confidently, though slowly enough to indicate a desire not to cause alarm. The first thought of giant bats was quickly amended as the humanoid forms between those wings registered. Light weight trousers where held up by belts to which some tools were attached, but the thick claws on the ends of arms and legs were probably all the weapons they needed.
Noting that the torsos where shirtless and displayed well developed pectoral muscles, the intruder’s eyes quickly lifted to their faces. These were somewhat reptilian but with recognisably human features. Which, the intruder found oddly disconcerting; somehow the features of its own kind, which looked like they were badly carved caricatures, seemed more natural.
The creatures hissed and snorted, which the intruder expected was an attempt to strike up conversation. It sighed. Why couldn’t anybody speak in the civalised rumble of rock grating together? At least the leader’s claw gestures seemed simple enough to interpret: “friend or foe?”
Squatting down on the rocky ground, the intruder began to go through the “me Ryouga, me friend, me really, really lost,” routine. This would probably take a while, and it was starting to feel the heat.
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(Posted Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:20)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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