Page 27 of Corvak's Challenge

"Or he's choking."

I shoot him a look, because he's not being helpful. "He's communicating." I turn to the alien, and even though I feel like a doofus, I chirp at him.

The strange creature's head tilts, quizzical, and he makes a curious face, like I just took a dump in front of him. Okay, that wasn't it. I try again, repeating my name and touching myself before gesturing at him again. This time, he makes another chirp, but I notice he brushes his third finger over the top of his thigh. I do that, too, mimicking, and the reaction is immediate.

They all start hooting with excitement and gesturing.

I get it, now. It's not the sounds as much as it is the gestures, just as I suspected. "I think we're making progress!"

"Good. Now tell them to shut up," Corvak retorts.

Getting them to be quiet is actually more of a challenge. They don't seem to understand that they're making noise in the first place, and the more I gesture and learn some of their signals, the more I wonder if the hooting is involuntary, and they don't even realize they're doing it. Because the more I gesture and try to learn words with them, the less the hooting plays into things.

The leader is Finger-on-Leg. Behind him is a female with a darker stain on her arm, and from what I can tell, her name is Tap-Two-Fingers-Together. There are others that get excited and gesture to show their names, too—this one is a finger wiggle, that one is a different finger wiggle. This one is a foot scuff in the snow, but a very specific foot scuff.

It takes me a while to communicate that we want them to be quiet, because the more I gesture at my mouth, the more they think it's my name. Eventually I try a different tactic. I come up with signals for my name—a hand sliding down the arm, like I showed them at first—and for Corvak. His is a curled fist held near the heart. Then I show them "yes" and "no" so we can try to communicate more. From there, we move on to "no" (which is easy, a hand held up to halt someone), and then I hoot.

The combination of "no" and "hoot" finally sinks in, and they grow quiet. They don't leave, either. Even when we gesture that we need to go, they all file in and give us expectant looks, as if they're going to come with us.

Which is a problem. I detach myself from the group and move to talk to Corvak.

"You're good at this," Corvak admits, glancing over at the others. He's still purring, and so am I. Right now, we're louder than the snow-people, who are holding hands over their beak-like mouths to keep quiet. "How are you learning their words so quickly, Aidy?"

"I don't know," I confess. "I don't think I'm crazy good with languages or anything. Just that their movements start to make sense to me after a while." Even now, I'm starting to pick up on their smaller body signals without realizing it. The sweep of a tail towards what must be a mate. The stomp of a foot in the snow to tell another to hold back. It's like it's all unfurling in my mind and I'm picking up more of their words by watching them. "I feel like they're going to follow us if we leave."

"I noticed that, too," Corvak says, voice dry. "But we can't stay here, near the meteorite. If we do, someone is sure to head this way looking for it."

So we leave. Or we try to. We put on friendly expressions and gesture that we're leaving, and…they follow us. Because of course they do.

"Maybe they'll get tired of following us after a while," I whisper to Corvak.

"Maybe."

They don't, though. They follow us as we hike away from the meteorite and deeper into the snows. The landscape changes, with strange, frond-like pink trees foresting the ground. We avoid a river of running water that smells like rotten eggs. We trudge through the snow and look for a safe place to stop for the night as it grows dark.

And we know the snow-people are back there, because every now and then, someone gives a questioning hoot.

"There," Corvak says, and points at a rocky area up ahead. "We'll set up over there."

My feet are throbbing, so I love this idea.

We set up a lean-to with Corvak's spear and some of the biggest furs to use as a tarp overhead and then dig out a rounded nest in the snow to protect ourselves from some of the wind.Corvak makes a fire, and I peek out into the dark, only to see at least a dozen glowing blue eyes out in the snow nearby. "Still there."

"Maybe they're waiting for us to drop scraps."

Oh no. I hadn't even thought about the food issue. Now that I consider it, we haven't seen them eat anything all day long. That's not good. They've just trotted around behind us like stray dogs. We've got a dozen people clustered just outside our makeshift tent and I'm going to feel like a huge jerk if I eat and they don't. I pull out the bag of jerky we've been picking at as we travel, and eye Corvak. "How do you feel about sharing?"

He just raises an eyebrow at me. "If I tell you no, is that going to make a difference?"

The way he says it is kind, almost amused. It makes me smile, and I pull out several pieces of jerky and the cooking pouch we stole from the supply cave. "We can make a broth go a lot further."

So I make broth out of jerky, and shove some of the root vegetables into the coals. It's only been about a week since we got stranded here—dear god, how has it only been a week?—and yet I'm adapting. We picked up a little baggy of real salt from the supply cave, and I season the soup with it, then add a few flakes of vegetables. "By the way," I say to Corvak, "if I haven't said thank you yet, I'm saying it now."

"Thank you? For what?"

I shrug, feeling a little shy that he's calling me out on my comment. "For being kind when you don't have to be."

"Kind?" He looks surprised at my words, practically offended. "What makes you think I amkind?"

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