(This story so far resides here: ofourmaker.com/2023/10/17/adolphus-search-and-rescue )

In the days that followed the screaming did not cease – rather, it changed from the animal uproar to human wails and cries, and continued unabated. Something must have gone wrong. After nearly a day and a half of this, Gibbsen went to investigate on his own.

The new human was still in the containment cage, though the restraining arms had been dismissed. She was still in the coarse gluckast garment. Though seemingly strong enough to stand, she crawled on the ground, distraught, grinding her teeth and weeping violently. The food offered her had been eaten, but clearly in a wild manner, which left much of it spattered and smeared like a wolf’s kill.

Dr. Kilver and Nurse Kley, who had apparently just witnessed such a scene to give the patient dinner, were discussing in undertones what to do.

“…Tranquilliser would work,” the nurse was saying, “now that she is a human?”

“It is detrimental in any case,” the doctor replied, “and a full examination seems invasive when we can see quite well that bodily she becomes healthier by the hour.”

It was quite obvious to Gibbsen that the woman’s pain was emotional. Humans ought to be more perceptive in such things. The doctor went on,

“I hate for their meeting to be this way for Moses, but by now it seems he is our only hope to possibly get a word out of her about what is ailing her so.”

Moses was sent for, and he came in, his shoes flopping awkwardly, being a size too large so as not to hurt his changing feet. The doctor and nurse respectfully left him alone. Gibbsen did not count: he stayed.

Moses began bluntly:

“I was Thakrut, you were Ugnaka; this time we are people. People!”

The woman looked at him with wide, tear-filled eyes.

“Thakrut? Do not see me. I am weak!” And again she filled her cage with a raging, hopeless cry. Moses attempted again when she had to catch her breath.

“I am Moses this time. And I will give you a name. I do not hate you, I love you, my mate.”

Her lip curled in a sneer of anger.

“You love me? You love me, and I am weak?”

“I love you, more this time than I love you that time.”

She turned or rolled towards him, raised herself on her hands, and paused a moment before saying clearly,

“Come, hold me, make me know what is you love me.”

Gibbsen’s hair stood out straight, and he gave a warning, “Chit-chit!” How could humans be so blind?

Moses stood so tall that he swayed, and the sweat ran to his chin. The foolish lock obeyed him, letting him through the outer door of the cage, and fastening again behind him.

As the inner door unlocked for him, and he stepped through, Gibbsen heard a banshee scream in the far-off map room.

To be continued.

#DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #AdolphusSearchAndRescue 2023/11/09

(This story so far resides here: ofourmaker.com/2023/10/17/adolphus-search-and-rescue )

They were solemn faces gathered at an empty table, a few days later. Under the table, hidden from all but Gibbsen, Raleigh’s heavily damaged leg was tended by masses of long, stringy air-fish. Moses was not trying to sit upright. Number One clung to his arm. The raging shrieks could be heard at intervals again, this time sung by the female gluckast they had captured: Moses’ mate.

Raleigh and another (named Elroy) had gone in a chopper, with Moses to guide them. They had returned shell-shocked by how near they had come to disaster. It had been a wonder that they achieved their goal with only an injury, great as the injury was.

“I dislike,” Raleigh was saying, “to kill gluckasts now, knowing they could be changed. It feels like murder.”

“It is not,” Moses said. “Uklag, I would kill her. Number One is my sister.”

“Moses is my brother,” Number One added.

Mundbern said, “To forbear to create human life is no more murder than it is murder to forbear to marry and have children. Meanwhile, if the gluckasts pose a threat to human life, it would be more akin to murder to allow them to live.”

“Would it not be best,” Raleigh said, “to release the contagion somehow, infecting the gluckasts en masse?”

Elroy said, “We still do not know how likely they are to survive the transition without care. And the gluckasts would kill the infected as soon as they began to smell like food. The banshee cried for a reason when Uklag turned to Number One.”

A particularly bestial yell from Moses’ mate drifted to their ears. Raleigh winced as if it had been loud.

“Why does Dr. Kilver not anaesthetise his projects?” It may have been a technically sympathetic statement, but Gibbsen was sure it would not be perceived as such by humans. And it was indeed strange that the doctor did not anaesthetise, or else that it was ineffective.

“I am sorry,” Moses said. Raleigh looked up, distracted from the pain in his leg for the first time perhaps.

“This isn’t your fault, Moses. Experiments go wrong, discoveries have a cost. As it is, I’m sure this will be well worth the trouble in the end.”

Raleigh’s sentence was punctuated by a brutal yammering from the captive gluckast.

A defective air-fish had come loose from Raleigh’s leg, and drifted near Gibbsen, who ate it. It was not crunchy, but at least it had only a little smoky taste.

To be continued.

#DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #AdolphusSearchAndRescue 2023/11/07

(This story so far resides here: ofourmaker.com/2023/10/17/adolphus-search-and-rescue )

Needless to say, everyone present was curious to go with Number One, but naturally only Gareth went this first time. Gibbsen didn’t count (which he often used to good advantage).

Her brother met them – standing erect, in a dark suit, with combed hair, and wearing shoes. He gave a toothy smile, which in his lined and weary face looked noble.

“Brother,” Number One said quietly. She went and put her head against him, and he stroked her tumultuous hair. “Haho,” she said, muffled in his suit coat.

“Haho, little sister. Number One they are calling you.”

“And they will call you Number Two!”

Dr. Kilver shook his head, with a smile under his moustache.

“I and the SAC took the liberty of naming him: we chose Moses, because we drew him out.”

“Yes,” her brother said, “I am Moses.”

“They named you!” Number One said in an awestruck voice, with her hands on his arms (which was silly behaviour to Gibbsen).

Drops of sweat were growing on Moses’ brow, and he stepped awkwardly away from his sister – but it was only to sit down in a chair, and slump forward as though he had been holding his breath until that point.

“I stand hard to stand so high for meeting you, Sister. So it is not easy to stand.”

“Your heart was beating hard not because I see you?” Number One asked, with some very human humour in her tone. Another smile was his only response to that. He spoke to the doctor:

“We will choose a next gluckast this time, and will take her?”

“We can hope for a good success in taking another in, yes.”

“Please, choose the one I want: she who was my mate.”

To be continued.

#DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #AdolphusSearchAndRescue 2023/11/05

(This story so far resides here: ofourmaker.com/2023/10/17/adolphus-search-and-rescue )

“You’re standing straighter this morning, Number One,” Raleigh said.

“Yes, I am worse each day,” Number One replied, though of course not as if unhappy.

They had been curious days – Number One had known much of human life, as an intruder and predator; living it was new to her. As well, memories of her human victims as Uklag hovered behind everything: it took great coaxing and comforting for her to use certain closets, and she absolutely refused to look at or touch any broom.

She was now making her way with them to the breakfast table, dressed in an actual dress, bought for her by Gareth in a very strange outing with Nurse Kley. It was burgundy, with eastern floral print, at once rich and simple; even Gibbsen didn’t mind it.

Dr. Kilver joined them at the table; while Number One always appeared glad to see him, she behaved very nervously when he spoke. The mention of her brother clearly made her so uncomfortable that they had ceased to speak of him or his progress in her presence. It had been hard even in the large station to avoid hearing her brother’s uproar when he was in greater pain. For some days now though, it had been quiet.

With her meals she took the doctor’s prescribed broth to help build her up, which she thoroughly relished (Gibbsen would have liked it better if she had slipped it to him to finish for her). Certain prescribed herbs she made faces over, but laughed (Gibbsen would not have eaten such strong tasting things if she had offered anyway).

After the meal, Dr. Kilver wiped his dense moustache, and made eye contact with Number One. She immediately looked away, as if thinking.

“Number One,” the doctor said, “it is at last safe to give you some certain news: your brother is fully conscious, and he wishes to speak with his little sister.”

Her hand began to tremble, and she quickly hid it under the table – where Gibbsen could watch it trembling clearly. She still looked away as she replied,

“Is he sick?”

“Yes,” said the doctor, with a glimmer of subdued humour, “he is very sick.”

#DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #AdolphusSearchAndRescue 2023/11/02

(The story so far resides here: ofourmaker.com/2023/10/17/adolphus-search-and-rescue )

Number One bowed her head in affirmation. Gibbsen could not tell how affected she was by the prospect of her previous kind and companions being hailed with bullets, but no doubt it had happened before. She followed without hesitation when SAC Gharial beckoned her to come with him closer to the silk screen, while movement could begin to be seen on the other side, connected with the nearing cries and breaking of undergrowth.

“Turn on the floodlights,” the SAC ordered.

“It will enrage them, sir,” the aide-de-camp said as he jogged to the light controls.

“She needs to see,” the SAC said. “Only long enough for that.”

As expected, when the blackness turned to the various shades of dust and dry growth, and the devilish gang stood out suddenly like huge, badly made puppets without a stage, they reared in anger, and their chorus was like an avalanche of slate. Their darts, hurled stones, and javelins striking the silk screen made it ripple like water; however, this did not affect the visibility nearly so much as seeing through water would.

Number One was about to point out one of the beasts, when there was a sharp clink, and one of the floodlights blinked and flickered, no doubt struck by one of the gluckast projectiles (these were not great cat’s eyes, but of some yet larger, reptilian creature). When Number One again found the one she had chosen, she pointed.

“There, is with the broken horn on his head, the left side. That one is my brother. I like him more than my mother.”

“Do you wish to leave before we begin?” the SAC asked. She said simply, “No.”

SAC Gharial gave his orders – the blackness returned, and was perforated with gunfire (the bullets peering from the goblin-arm-wielded guns could see in the dark).

An oblong cage rolled on wheels through the left-hand barricade. This cage’s operation could not clearly be seen, but Gibbsen knew it well: its open end was mounted with several long appendages, like cougars’ tails but at least twice as long. These pulled it forward, and it would snare the limb of a gluckast, holding it to be shot, or catch hold of any that came to succour the first. This it carried on until it reached Number One’s brother, when it employed all its arms to drag the creature inside the cage and immobilise it. Cables hooked to the rear of the cage began to draw it back to the barricade.

A gluckast managed to evade the wall guns, and charge the silk screen with an axe. On the inside Gareth walked to meet it, and when within five yards he put a rifle bullet between the beast’s eyes. The silk had followed the bullet the entire way, and when the fiend stumbled to the ground, the light from the bay glinted off the bullet, dangling from the exit wound in a transparent bubble of the silk amidst the hair and scales. The great ripple was still spreading across the screen. Gareth’s lips, grey as gun-smoke, did not move in the slightest smile.

The survivors became disgusted with the contest, and made off, cursing and gnashing their fangs over their shoulders as they went.

Yet the battle did not feel over, as the caged prisoner, shrieking and yammering, was now inside the barricade. It was a frightening thing, though the gluckast was enveloped in iron bars and pinioned by many living ropes. SAC Gharial’s horse wheels carried him across the bay towards the loud cage, with Number One and Gareth and Gibbsen behind him.

“Now,” he said with simplicity in the midst of the tumult, “let us see what we have for Dr. Kilver.”

#DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #AdolphusSearchAndRescue 2023/10/29