The Troop – Harris Tobias

The Troop

by Harris Tobias

The troop eyes me with suspicion. The leader, an alpha male the size of a compact car, looks me over before deciding I am no threat. He runs his sensing appendage over my body. I’ve learned to simply stand still and let him go through his little charade. God only knows what he makes of me. The slimy appendage travels up and down my leg and torso. If Alph senses anything, he senses my desperation to stay alive. I need these guys. Please Alph, just ignore me.

Alph is the head man, the big kahuna, the jefe, the king. He’s not only big, he’s tremendously strong. I have my side arm but I doubt it would be much use against him in a fight. The inspection over, Alph chitters to the others and they return to their foraging. We’ve been doing this little kabuki dance for several weeks now. Alph knows me, hell, the whole troop knows me. I’ve been shadowing them since we crashed on this no name rock. I feel like some extra-biological Jane Goodall following the chimps around trying to discern their behavior. Except I’m not observing these aliens to learn about their behavior. I’m hanging around them to stay alive. If anything is apparent in all this, it’s that it’s my behavior that’s changing not theirs.

The troop represents this world’s most evolved life form and my best chance for survival. They know how to survive—what foods to eat, where to find water and protection from predators. They’re wonderfully adept at climbing the tall thorny plants that pass for trees here. They know what fruits are edible and how to open their impenetrable husks. I wouldn’t last a minute here on my own. They’ve been my salvation since the emergency rations ran out about a month ago. Has it been a month already? Time sure flies when there is no hope of rescue.

No, rescue is out of the question. My flight was off the radar, sub-rosa, illegal, and clandestine. My crew of four killed, the radio smashed and there never was an emergency beacon. Smugglers and pirates don’t expect the cavalry to come to their rescue. It’s part of the bargain we make when we enter this business. The usual end for a pirate is either a quick death from eating vacuum or being forgotten in a damp cell on a prison moon somewhere. Getting stranded on an alien world, well, that just doesn’t happen. It’s an impossible long shot. Ain’t it just my luck. Shot up and disabled, running from the Feds. We lost them in the dust cloud but never gained control. Crash landing on an uncharted world is simply never heard of. I was the only survivor.

The troop is moving again. I follow a few discreet yards behind. First I look around for any edibles they may have left behind. I see a few half-eaten banana-quats. That’s what I call them. Long yellow fruits with a sour taste. Not my favorite as they often give me cramps, but beggars can’t be choosers, so I put the best ones in my bag for later. The troop moves fast and I don’t dare lose them. There are some nasty critters here and meat is meat even if it evolved a zillion miles away.

My troop seems to have a well-defined territory. In the month I’ve been following them, we haven’t encountered any other bands. That’s fine with me. I’d hate to be caught in the middle of a border war. These creatures are about twice the size of baboons, which is what they remind me of. They’re social like baboons and the troop has a similar organization. The troop is dominated by the alpha male, he has a harem with him, and the alpha female is at the top of the pecking order. Lesser females and young males round out the population. Counting the juveniles, there are about twenty-five of us.

They look nothing like baboons, however. Besides being bigger, these guys have eight limbs and can change color in an instant. In that respect they’re more like terrestrial cephalopods than anything else. The color displays are rich and varied and I’m sure if I was doing field research, it would be a major part of what I’d be studying.

I’ve learned to read a few of their color signals. When Alph grabs a female for mating he flashes a deep green. The female responds by alternately flashing from green to deep purple. My tattered old uniform is several shades of gray. I have no idea what gray is saying, but I’m pretty sure it’s not sexual attraction. I suppose they’ve gotten used to me. I know I’ve become accustomed to them. At first I found them ugly, frightening, but we all seem to have mellowed out over time. At least Alph isn’t making threat displays every time he sees me. He used to raise a couple of limbs high over his head, turn a bright red, and charge. I would have to show submission by falling to the ground. Then Alph would give a loud hooting cry and swagger back to his subjects. A few minutes later, he would do the same thing all over again. Sometimes this went on all day long.

I came close to shooting the old boy in the beginning before I realized he was just showing off for the home team. I’m glad I didn’t do anything hasty. Alph was only showing me who was boss. He can’t help what he is. After a week or two he settled down, got used to my presence and went back to screwing and eating; the two activities that occupy most of his waking hours. Alph’s a good guy. I don’t begrudge him scoring points by making me look weak.

I’ve taken to calling my troop the Babblers. That’s what their most common vocalization sounds like to me—babbling voices. The Babblers move from one part of their large territory to another. When we arrive at a likely spot, the subordinate males and females scurry up the thorny trees and begin throwing down fruits or nuts for the rest. The tree climbers have to go way out on the springy limbs to get the ripest fruits. It’s dangerous work. Sometimes they fall and injure themselves. The older females use their strong jaws or rocks to smash open the tough outer shells to get at the inner meats. I’ve tried it myself with rocks and I can attest for the toughness of the nuts.

When the troop moves on, I move in and hunt around for whatever scraps are left. I guess that makes me a scavenger or a gleaner as I would rather think of myself. It’s not a very dignified way for an advanced intelligence like myself to make a living but intelligence alone isn’t going to keep me alive on this world. When my emergency supplies ran out after the first couple of weeks and it was clear that there would be no rescue, I did what I had to do. I have nothing to be ashamed of: you do what you have to.

The crash was a terrible thing. I was knocked unconscious by the force of it and don’t remember all that much. I must have been thrown clear because when I awoke, I was twenty yards from the smoldering wreck and the rest of the crew was dead. The bitter irony is that this was going to be our last run. This was the big hit, the one every pirate dreams about. We’d ambushed and boarded an ore carrier in the Orion panhandle. We rounded up her crew and locked them in the hold. We threatened to space them one at a time until they told us something we wanted to hear. After we sent the third guy to his death, the captain broke down and showed us his hidey-hole. We found sixty-three pounds of pure tricium, the most expensive metal in the galaxy. At twenty million credits a pound we were set for life. We spaced the rest of the crew to cover our tracks, stashed the loot aboard our ship, and let the ore carrier drift. I never said I was a nice guy.

That night we drank to celebrate our haul. We drank to the end of a glorious career. We drank to our newfound wealth. We drank ourselves into a coma. Alarms woke us. A federal ship. We fled, we dodged, we used all our tricks until we lost them in the cloud. The chase proved to be too much for our battered old cruiser. We fried the nav system and most of the drive was shot. The captain picked the best crash site he could. This god-forsaken ball. The rest you know. Welcome to my home.

The troop’s third feeding yielded a half eaten blue fruit, my favorite edible. They are big and tough like coconuts except they’re blue and taste remotely like apples. I munch on it as I follow along. Suddenly Alph stops dead in his tracks. The troop stops too, sensing appendages erect, sniffing the air. We move ahead cautiously and it’s strangely quiet. I’m wondering what’s up when there is a sudden explosion of noise directly in front of us. Out of a thicket another troop emerges. There are considerably more of them than us. Their alpha male is a magnificent creature. He assumes the threat display as does Alph. Their color changes are awesome and in perfect sync, cycling through several shades of red. Both troops begin babbling and screaming as if rooting for their side. The two alphas put on quite a show.

The clash, when it came, was almost too fast to follow. One second the two alphas were flashing at each other and in the next, our Alph was on his back. Suddenly I was worried. How would regime change affect me? Probably not in a positive way. It had taken me weeks to be accepted by my Babblers. There was no telling how long it would take a new alpha to accept my presence. What if he didn’t? What would become of me then? As Jane Goodall always said, “Better to stick with the troop you know than to start up with a new one.” Actually, I didn’t care what Jane Goodall said. Her survival didn’t hinge on the outcome of local disputes, mine did.

The rival alpha appeared to be winning handily. My alpha was on his back for a second time. His colors flashed from red to orange to yellow while the rival’s colors remained several shades of red. It was time for me to step up and do something to help my team. I drew my side arm and put six bullets into the rival male. His color display changed dramatically as he died going from red to grey. Then he fell over dead. Alph picked himself off the ground with as much dignity as he could muster and examined his opponent. Alph poked at him with an appendage before flashing his victory display. I swear he looked like a boxing champ who just scored a knockout, both arms raised in victory.

I’m not sure the troop as a whole understood what happened but I suspect old Alph did. The dynamics of the troop changed almost immediately. I’ve been eating better for one thing. Alph makes certain that there is food left behind for me—and not half-eaten leftover food either, but whole, fresh, untouched food. He has assigned a female to me as well. At least I think that is what is going on. She’s one of the lower rank juveniles. I call her Jane. She gives me green flashes when she looks my way. I’m not sure what she’s saying but I find it sweet. I’m not quite ready for a relationship just yet but in a few months, who knows.

It’s not quite the life I had in mind. Me and my mates were supposed to be living the highlife back on Terra about now. Unfortunately they are all dead and I’m alive. There’s a moral in all this somewhere but I don’t have the luxury to think about it. My troop is packing up and moving on. Jane is lagging behind making sure I’m all right. I see a nice pile of nuts left behind. I scoop them up and put them in my bag. I give Alph a call of thanks and follow.

Harris Tobias was raised by robots disguised as New Yorkers. Despite an awkward childhood he learned to read and write. To date, Mr. Tobias has published two detective novels, The Greer Agency and A Felony of Birds, to critical acclaim. In addition, he has published short stories in Down in the Dirt Magazine, Literal Translations, Electric Flash, and Ray Gun Revival. He currently lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. http://harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com/

The Troop - Harris Tobias, 3.7 out of 5 based on 7 ratings