A Three Edged Sword

Extra-solar Colony, 2085

Richard walked casually up the path to his grandmother’s house, doing a small pirouette every dozen paces or so to take in the surroundings. It was his first time away from Earth, and he decided a trip to visit grandma was as good a reason as any for his first chance to see another world. Looking around, he could understand why she had wanted to retire here, and why it had gotten the nickname ‘Eden’ by common acclaim. It was gorgeous. Gently rolling hills of green grasses covered in dozens of colors of little flowers as far as the eye could see, with cottages dotting the landscape here and there of others like his grandma who had been fed up with city life and moved to this little slice of extra-terrestrial heaven. He waved and smiled at a few other old folks who were sitting out on their porches also enjoying the view. It was strange, looking up into a sky that had two stars, not quite as bright as they should be for what passed for ‘noon’ around here, and of slightly different colors than he was used to.

After a little more walking he realized a lot of the ‘grass’ and ‘flowers’ he had seen were not anything from Earth, but actually native to this strange new world. He paused to crouch down and look at one, taking in its strange shape, with petals that were arranged in a lazy spiral outwards from the center in a slowly shifting rainbow, gradually going from a pink center to a teal outer ring. He watched with private delight as a strange insect landed on the flower and buzzed around it a bit; it had faintly glowing streaks of pink and teal along its back just like the flower. He wondered for a moment if they had some mutual relationship, not unlike bees and other flowers back on Earth, but decided to just observe rather than try to speculate. He watched this primitive alien life with silent joy for a moment until it flew off again. He watched it go, buzzing aimlessly with the breeze until it flitted out of sight.

He straightened up and continued up the path to his grandmother’s house, nimbly stepping over a few cleaning robots that were tidying up some fallen leaves — or perhaps petals — from what looked more or less like a blue-colored cherry blossom tree. He stared at it, realizing it also had needles like a Pine tree, and this strange combination had hundreds of the insects he had noted before flitting about it and resting comfortably in the branches.

He could see why his grandmother and many others like her had wanted to come here, and was glad he had decided to bite the bullet and take a ride to visit. It was a surreal little slice of heaven. He finally snapped himself out of his idle awe and actually knocked on the door. This cottage was designed to look like some old stone centuries old home, but he noticed the subtle details that the stones were just for show, not to mention the plasteel door itself which, after a moment, slid open to reveal his beaming grandma. “Richard! I’m so happy you came! Come here you!” She shouted, and gave him a big hug around the middle. He leaned down and over her — she being the sort of little old lady who seemed to shrink with age — and gave her a tight hug. “Good to see you too, grandma.” He said softly into her white hair. They both squeezed and let go, and she looked him up and down. “Well, don’t you look sharp today!” She said happily, “Sleek black suit, all nice and shiny! But come in, come in!” She waved him inside.

He walked in with her, looking around at the cozy little home. Like many of her generation, she had far more physical nick-knacks than he was used to. Dozens of little paintings, actual printed photographs and that sort of thing dotted the walls. Little recreations of famous statues were variously put on end-tables and the mantle over the fireplace. That one caused him to stare for a moment. He had never actually seen a real fireplace. It was a strange feeling, being both on another planet and somehow back in time as well.

She ushered him into a big squishy armchair and bustled off to make them some green tea, returning after a moment with two slightly steaming cups. She handed him one as he continued to gaze around at her home in amazement.

They sat and made small talk for quite a while, going through several more cups of tea as she asked him about his career, what he thought of this place, if he was ready to settle down and get married finally, and such usual grandma sort of questions. Eventually the tea was all gone, and she checked her watch. “Dear, would you mind coming out and helping me in the garden for a while? I’m sure with your help it’ll go much faster.” She said with that infinitely warm smile only grandmas were capable of generating.

Richard hesitated, but then smiled back. “Sure, I’d love to. But I’ve actually never been in a garden, well, besides the reservation parks. What do I have to do?”

She waved a hand airily. “Oh, nothing major. Don’t you worry about it. seeds go in the dirt, water goes on the plants, harvest gets plucked from the bushes. It’s all pretty straightforward.” She grinned at him and looked pointedly at his sharp, expertly tailored suit in comparison to her simple flower-patterned dress and apron. “As ‘civilized’ as you may be, young man, humans have been doing this for about a hundred thousand years so I’m sure a boy as bright as you can figure it out.” She said cheekily.

He grinned at her and followed her slow staggered walk out into the garden behind the house, her walking stick making a rhythmic tap-tap-tap as she moved. “A cane, really grandma? I thought dad convinced you to get those leg augs we talked about?”

She smirked. “Yes, he thought he convinced me too. But no, I like having more or less the same bits I started with in my body. No, a stick is fine for me, thank you all the same.”

Richard shrugged. To each their own. He wasn’t even a quarter her age and already had more artificial parts than he could count. But for some of the older generations, well, they could be like that. He let it go without further comment. Though he did gasp when he finally saw the garden.

It was beautiful, a kaleidoscope of colors from all sorts of weird alien plants he had never seen before. Those strange glowing insects from before were back here as well, flitting between the plants in swirls of glittering, glowing, shimmering waves of pink and teal that hung in the air. He was strongly reminded of watching an artist’s brush painting in mid-air as they zoomed about the garden. He walked with her slowly, occasionally offering his arm as a steady platform for her to grab if she stumbled as she told him all about the exciting strange new plants she got to grow here. She pointed to one flower in particular, which seemed to change color as he looked at it, tilting his head this way and that, glittering like a gem in the strange light of two alien suns. “Ha! If only I could bring that back to the orchid breeder’s club back home, eh?” She said, beaming with pride at her work.

“It’s all so wonderful, grandma!” He said earnestly. Then he realized they weren’t exactly alone in the garden. “Grandma, what the hell are those?” He said, pointing. There were about a dozen… creatures, in the garden as well, poking about and looking furtive.

“Oh damnit.” She muttered, and waved her stick at them, and shouted. The animals turned to look at her, a few of the smaller ones running to cower behind the bigger ones. Richard stared. They looked more or less like a sort of … dog, perhaps wolf, but also rather like something like a huge gopher or possibly a rat. Big though, the largest being bigger than a decent-sized dog back on Earth. They had long narrow tails, big teeth and uncomfortably sharp looking claws on their padded feet. They were furred and a bit fluffy, though covered in a fair bit of dirt. The biggest one, a male, was jet black, the second biggest he guessed was female due to her more sleek sort of general outline was a snowy white, and what Richard could only presume must be their… kids, or cubs, or whatever, were various splotchy patterns of grey. These creatures were all nuzzling around in his grandmother’s garden, and some had already pulled down a few of the gourd-plants off the bushes and began to munch on them.

He stared at these animals, most of whom stared back. “Don’t you have a fence?” He asked, glancing about. There was indeed a walled in fence, a little over a meter high made of the same fake stone as the outside of her house.

“Yes, but the buggers jump over it or just tunnel under it. I can’t seem to keep them out. And they keep ruining my fruits!” She almost wailed, pointing with her stick to the little ones eating the fallen purple gourds. She advanced on the creatures, waving her stick and shouting, “Shoo! Shoo!”

Most of the little ones ran off to hide behind their mother, but a few remained, determined to get as much of this fruit as they could. A couple tried to drag the heavy fruit along with them in their retreat. Grandma bonked them on the head with her stick, not hard, but hard enough to send the message. “Shoo! Damnit GET OFF! Go on! Get!” She yelled.

Richard heard a noise that made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. The mother-animal was growling a low, angry growl of violent intent, slowly advancing on his grandmother, her teeth bared. “Uh, Grandma?” Richard said hesitantly, watching the creature advance on his grandmother and not sure quite what to do. He took a few steps towards her, not sure what he’d do but certain he’d try to help. However, his path was blocked by the big alpha male he had noted before, its black fur raised and it too began to growl. It circled before him, pacing back and forth, clearly guarding Richard from the cubs. And his grandmother, who still wasn’t really paying attention to the advancing mother-animal.

“Uh, GRANDMA!” Richard said more loudly, locking eyes with the alpha male animal. It gazed back at him with narrowed eyes, and Richard was surprised to see their color was a mix of pink and teal like the insects and some of the plants he had seen so far. But even across planets and species, the expression was quite clear. Back off.

Richard tried to advance as slowly as he could, trying to keep on eye on the alpha-male and one on his grandmother. She was still prodding the cubs with her stick, yelling at them to go away, and the mother-creature was getting closer, her hair standing up and lips curled away to reveal teeth and let out her continuous low growl. His grandma gave one cub a good thump on the side which toppled it over with a whimper and sent it scampering off to join its siblings hiding under a bush. This appeared to be the tipping point. In shock, he watched as if in slow motion the female animal leap up and clamp onto his grandmother’s waving arm with her teeth. Grandma screamed, and fell staggered backwards, thumping the creature with her stick as best she could. The mother animal continued to growl, and scratched back with her claws. To his horror he saw blood sprout from her simple flowery dress, and she fell down to the attacks of the mother, landing hard in the mud of the garden. Even worse, as she landed there was the unmistakable crack of breaking bone. Grandma screamed, and for Richard, everything went red.

He ran past the big male and did the best punting kick he could manage right at the chest of the mother animal. His boot connected with a solid thud, eliciting a yelp and sending her sprawling across the mud. He continued his attack, chasing after her and landing a few more punches to the torso before she had time to get up. He didn’t want to kill these creatures, but he did want to send a message that now was time to go. As he had run past his grandmother he had gotten a quick look to see that while she was hurt, it wasn’t as badly as he had first thought. He gave a final kick that sent the mother skidding across the yard where she lay, cowering fearfully from him now.

He did not have long to gloat. A split second later he heard his grandmother scream again, and she kept screaming this time. The big alpha male had gone to attack her while Richard had been distracted, and was biting and clawing at anything he could reach. Grandma was curled up into a protective ball, but there was more blood now, and she was sobbing quietly, begging him to help her.

That was when the red mist truly descended for Richard. He lunged towards the beast, tackling it hard into the ground with a satisfying crunch and gasp of expressed air from its lungs. He wrestled with it, receiving a few bites and slashes from claws of his own, but the pain only made him angrier. He managed to get it into something like a head lock, one leg wrapped around its torso to prevent it from escaping in any direction, one arm clenched tightly around its neck as it snapped wildly at the air and clawed at his legs, trying to break free.

Richard had no mercy. He raised his fist and pounded it as hard as he could, right into the animal’s face. It yelped, and he hit again, and again, and again, and again. He punched its eyes, its nose, the mouth, its ears, hitting over and over and over, its yelps getting more strained and weaker as the beating went on and on and on. the scrabbling claws had stopped trying to cut him, and were merely pushing against him, trying to strain every muscle possible to escape from his grip.

Richard raised his fist high over his head, pulling his shoulders back, tightening his grip on its neck, ready to deliver a killing blow.

And then he paused.

As he had drawn back his arm, he had seen his grandmother, sitting up in the mud now, staring at him. She was bloodied, she was hurt, but she wasn’t dead as he had feared. He had one hand pressed over a bloody wound, but she was sitting up and, more or less alright. He looked around the garden. The mother animal was limping, even while trying to stand still, standing protectively in front of her children. He had clearly broken one of her legs. But she remained determined to protect her young. And there was a look in her eyes. A look that, despite being on a non-human face, despite being on another world entirely, was a look he understood.

Fear.

She was afraid of him.

Terrified.

He saw the cubs, cowering under their mother, mewling softly. a couple of them had managed to drag some of the fruits back to their hiding spot under the bush but were staring out at him and their father locked in combat, their gazes locked on him.

They were terrified.

He looked down at the big male in his arms, saw its face puffy from bruises, skin split open, leaking blood, one eye swollen shut. But the good remaining eye gazed up at him, and again, he saw it.

Fear.

He hesitated. It seemed the whole planet waited, wondering what his next move would be. The bugs had stopped flitting about, even the winds seemed to have paused, waiting to see what would happen. He could feel his muscles clenched along his arms and back, he was dully aware of the pain in his knuckles and sides, he could feel the primal urges in his brain, the animal instincts from billions of years of being a predator species that wanted to hurt and maim and kill.

But still, he hesitated.

There was a moment. A moment in time that for the rest of his life, he would never be able to explain properly. He took in the male in his arms, beaten and bloodied, he saw his own bloodied fist raised high above, he saw the mother, fearful, be determined to defend her children to the end. He saw the fruits scattered around the muddy garden, he saw the cubs cowering in terror behind their mother, protecting each other and the scraps of food they had managed to steal. He saw his grandmother sitting in the mud, bleeding. He saw the strange double suns overhead, he saw the alien trees around him, the wall of the garden. He saw the bit of dirt the animals had dug aside to crawl in here. He looked down into the face of the father in his arms, and truly looked into those alien eyes. One swollen shut from his beating, but the other gazed up at him with… a disquieting level of intelligence and… true emotion. He… saw it all.

And he hesitated.

After a pause that seemed to stretch all of time, nothing moving, everything and everyone staring at him, wondering what he would do next, he finally spoke. “Grandma.” He said, his voice cracking.

“Yes…” She said softly. She too was looking fearfully at him.

“Do these… animals have a home, a cave or something nearby?” He asked her, not taking his gaze away from the male still locked in his arms. It gazed back at him, just as resolute.

“Yes, I think so,” She said quietly, and nodded to a hill beyond the spot in the wall where they had dug in. “I think they have a burrow over there.” She stared up at him, unsure what was happening.

Richard stared down at the male still, fist still raised, his whole body held quite still as he, the animals, his grandmother, and seemingly the very universe held its breath.

Then, slowly, carefully, and very gently he lowered the male to the ground, and just as slowly and gently shifted his grip to carry it, cradled like a baby. It was perhaps a fifty-kilo animal, but he hefted its weight and looked to the hill she had indicated.

To his surprise, the animal did not react. It just watched him with its one good eye, as did the female and her cubs. He realized with a sickening cocktail of emotions of horror, and pride, and disgust, and confusion, that he was in control. He had to decide how this would end.

Silently, he stood up, and carefully cradling the big animal in his arms, he carried it towards the hill. He awkwardly hurdled the fence one leg at a time, and after just a moment saw the hole dug out of the side of the hill. It was dark, but a gentle sucking of wind told him it went in quite a ways. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom a bit, he saw a number of other eyes, pink and teal, glimmering in the dark peering out at him fearfully. More cubs. More of the females, more of these animals. Hiding, cowering in fear from him.

Carefully, gently, almost reverentially he laid the big male down in front of the entrance to their artificial little cave. It looked up at him, silent, motionless, waiting for him to decide his fate. Richard stared down at the male for a moment, and then walked back to the garden. He saw the female and her cubs still cowering under a bush, and took a step towards them. As one they took several steps back, eyes wide with fear and confusion. He paused, then changed direction and headed back into the garden. He approached his grandma. “Are you going to be okay?” He asked her softly, his voice as gentle as he could make it, but tears rand down his face and his throat trembled as he spoke.

She nodded. “I can be patched up, I’m sure.” She reassured him. She opened her mouth to speak again, but seemed to think better of it.

He walked past her then and approached the fruit bushes the animals had been scavenging. He pulled off his suit jacket, it was ripped up and muddied anyway, and tied the sleeves together to make an impromptu sack. He then filled this with as many of the fruits as he could, plucking them carefully from the bush so as not to harm it, and then carried his little bundle back over the wall to the burrow in the hill.

He laid out the fruits in a heap in front of the male. This time, the female and her cubs had followed him back, cautiously, keeping their distance. All watched his actions curiously as he put the bundle down and then stepped back.

After a long several moments of no one moving, eventually at some sort of signal from the mother the cubs walked nervously forward, their eyes darting between him, their father, and the food, and they began to eat in silence.

The male remained laying on the ground, watching all this quietly. It met Richard’s gaze again, and again he felt the strange, almost magical moment of understanding pass between them.

The female limped up to him, and sat down in front of her mate between the two of them, looking Richard in the eye. One paw was raised in the air, not wanting to put weight on the broken limb. They all sat in silence as the cubs ate.

Slowly, cautiously, Richard extended his bloody hand for her to smell. She recoiled at first, but then tentatively sniffed him. After a few moments of sniffing, to his surprise she licked his bloody knuckles. This sent a jolt of pain through his arm, as adrenaline had made him not really conscious of how much damage had been done, but he let her continue for a few licks. Then, again as slowly and gently as he could, he reached out towards her. She looked about to flee, but looked back to her mate. He met her gaze with a calm and steady one of his own, and she remained where she was. Richard very gently petted her on the head, feeling the soft fur there. She looked up at him, and he could see a strange cocktail of emotions in her eyes too. None of them, it seemed, really knew how to take this series of events.

A few minutes later his Grandmother showed up, carrying a medical kit. She had bandaged herself up well enough and her cane was being used rather more than before to walk, but she seemed, broadly speaking, to be fine. She wordlessly handed the kit to her grandson, and he took it gently and took out the right tools. A thought struck him, and he made a point of catching the animals’ eyes and then looking pointedly at his own wounds. He then used the various tools, a foaming quick clot, bandages, and so on to tend to himself. He then held out the items for the mother and father to sniff.

They did so, noses twitching wildly in silence. But eventually this seemed to pass muster and he slowly reached out towards the female and her broken leg. He took it gingerly, and used the appropriate tools to knit her bones back together, giving her a pain suppressing injection to be on the safe side. She mewled softly as he worked, but again there seemed to be unspoken understanding that he was trying to help. After a couple minutes of first aid, she gingerly put her paw back on the ground, and her eyes widened with amazement as the leg was perfectly fine again. She looked between him, his medical kit and her mate, and he could have sworn there was pleading in her eyes.

Richard scooted forward on his knees to approach the big male, who was breathing heavily and watching him carefully. He offered the medical kit to be sniffed again, and again after a pause he seemed to be given unspoken permission to continue. He mended the big male’s wounds as best he could, though some of the damage would have to heal itself over time. As it sat up and stood over by his mate, the two stared at Richard and his Grandmother. No one seemed to know what to say.

Gently, he reached out both hands and patted them on their heads. their eyes closed slowly at the caress, and some of the little cubs came over to see what was going on.

It was much later that evening now, and Richard and his Grandma sat in the dirt beside the burrow and watched the dual suns set on the horizon. A number of the cubs were slumbering in his cross-legged lap, and more were nestling in the warm folds of his grandma’s flowery dress. The big male and sleek female were sitting beside them, and several other females and a few dozen more little cubs had come out of the burrow to enjoy the feast and see these strange newcomers. The adults, for lack of a better word, all looked out at the sunset in silence.

Richard looked down at the male, who when they were both sitting was only slightly lower than his own head height. It looked up at him and caught his eye, and again he had that curious sensation of intelligence and understanding passing between them. He ruffled the hair on top of its head, and to his amazement the animal’s long tail wagged gently.

Richard smiled at the father, the mothers, the little cubs, and lastly at his grandmother. She beamed back at him, leaning against the faux-stone wall as they all looked at the setting suns. Richard sighed happily and let the silence continue. For now, he felt, he really understood.