The Adventures of Tex & Blae-Lok – 6

After a while, I was able to rise again. I brushed off my jeans and looked around. Blae and I were alone. I turned to him. “I’m really sorry about that, Bl…” He waved me silent with an arm/foot/leg/whatever.

“That’s okay, Tex. I know you meant well, but please don’t do that again.” He saw my puzzled look and continued, “Tex, your ‘whistle’ sounded exactly like the war cry of the Midnight Raptor.” That’s the word I am giving it, because, from Blae I saw only a fuzzy image of something flying, and no word came at all.

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“I do not see it in your head. We thought it was extinct. We watched it happen.” Blae felt my puzzlement and continued. “We had been at war with them years ago. They ate many of my people.”

I was silent, enthralled and aghast. “Eww, that’s terrible! What did you do?” Blae threw a big grin at me. I deftly caught it with my fore-brain (oh, come on, I’m trying to write smarter here! Geez).

“We did what any intelligent species would do, Tex.” He paused for effect. Blae had obviously mastered talking to people now. Or at least to me. “We killed them, Tex. We killed all of them.”

“All?” I whispered. I felt myself go ashen.

“Oh, hell, no, T, those things are big and fast and scary! We ran, crawled, dug, and flew for our lives! That was in Arizona about two hundred years ago — or maybe twenty. We’ve never had a great concept of time. Didn’t need to. Things were much simpler before fooch.

“Well, how do you know about it?” I said.

“We have always had mental connections with each other, Tex. We just weren’t aware of it, but it was there and we used it — still do — to pass along anything the tribe might need to know. Each of us passes those memories along to our progeny. We all have memories of the dreaded Midnight Raptor.” I felt a shudder and shared it with him. Then I had another thought.

“Wait a minute! You just lied to me, Blae! About all those raptor things! I thought you couldn’t do that!”

“No, we just never had reason to lie, T,” my little friend said with a cocky mental grin, “Then I learned how. From you, Tex. I learned how to lie from you. Thank you. This may be a great gift to all of us.”

“Oh. My. God!” I whispered. I leaped to my feet. Then dropped to my hands and knees and peered closely at my hard-shelled friend. “Blae, please, listen to me now, more than you ever have listened before: DO NOT TEACH THAT TO YOUR PEOPLE!!” I had not been truly scared before, but I was now. “Please, Blae, you will regret that more than anything that has ever been done in your history! Please, do NOT teach your people how to lie!” I felt him look at me oddly. Then I swear I could feel a very slight “crackle” roll through my head. I even saw a small white flash sparkle past my eyes. Blae-Lok felt it, too. He had caused it.

After a long pause, Blae-Lok finally spoke: “Wow,” he said quietly.

“Wow, indeed.” said I. Then another pause, and I felt Blae-Lok nodding.

“I see,” Blae said quietly. Oh, Tex, I do see. Oh, my, you are right! I can never share this with the tribe. Never. Not Ever.” He paused, then added, “I shall never do that again.”

“Oh, good.” I sighed heavily. I felt much better. Of course, Blae could be lying now. He could tell everyone, ALL of his tribe, tell any one or any thing he wished. But I saw into Blae’s mind as he had seen into mine. He was horrified, and I was so glad it was me who had made him feel this horror. “Thank you, Blae-Lok.” I whispered.

“Thank you, Tex. And please,” he added, “call me Blae.” And there was that comforting smile again. “Now come, Tex. There is much to see and do. And you have people you must meet.”

“Great!” I liked the way he called his people “people.” It seemed to me that he was equating the members of his tribe with those of mine, and found them — in the most important way — equal. I felt great relief at that. “Okay, Blae, let’s get busy!”

We walked down the small rise we had been on, or I did the walking while Blae rode my shoulder (I had a quick moment when I saw him mounted upon me using a leather saddle just his size, then I quickly dismissed it; Blae saw it, too, and giggled in my mind). Now with a clear head, I saw that many of those who had run screaming from me before had come trickling back while Blae and I had been “conversing.” As they moved toward and beyond me, I could see by the mood they were “broadcasting” that they felt no fear nor anger toward me for what had occurred earlier. Everything was the same as before to them, as if nothing at all had happened, except now they were moving around. It soon became obvious that something Big was coming. Something Big was going to happen!

 A “Thrum” began among the crowd and I could see the wings of every June Bug start to vibrate. A rush ran throughout the crowd — and even through me — and all turned toward a small mound at the end of the very large glade we were in. The thrum grew louder. Leaves on the surrounding trees began to vibrate, slowly at first then faster as the thrum grew louder. Even the trees themselves, and then the ground, began to vibrate and hum; this incredible sensation and sound moved up my legs, into my chest, my head and even my hair! “Oh my God!” I cried, trying not to do so loudly, but it would not have mattered. Every June Bug there was humming and clicking madly, thunderously. The trees around me began to shake violently!

I was thrown to the ground by the sheer violence of this, this whatever this was! My hands were clapped to my ears, tightly. And then it stopped. The silence that replaced it was almost as loud. There was just nothing, the most nothing I had ever known; never was there so much quiet. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to disturb that quiet. It was … religiously quiet. That’s the only way to describe it. Then something caught my eye, and simultaneously, I heard Blae whisper to me.

“Now we begin, Tex,” he said, “Look.” Two small dots flew slowly from beyond the hills to our south, over the trees to my right, and landed on that small hill at the end of the glade. Behind them came a dark, undulating cloud — not like the one that had enveloped and carried me here, but a cloud, instead, very much like a murmeration of starlings. I know what that is because the little girl who lives in the estate next to ours — okay, she’s our next door neighbor in another double-wide a lot like ours. Geeze. She told me all about them when we saw a flock of other birds do something similar early this spring. But the Starlings, she said, use something called, “scale-free correlation,” which is more complex than other murmerations. Hmmm. Now how in the hell do I remember that? I’ve never been able to remember stuff like that before. I looked sideways at Blae, who was bowing low on the ground next to me, facing the two newest members who now stood on their back legs and blew metaphorical kisses to the cheerily buzzing crowd. Again, I thought, “hmmmm.” I think somebody’s been feeding me words and I don’t know if I like it. Isn’t that right, Blaeee? I felt him peek over at me.

“Not now, Tex,” I felt.

“Yes, now!” I said through gritted mental teeth. “What the hell did you do to me, B?”

“You need more mental capacity for all of this, Tex. More ability. I gave it to you. Don’t ask how, I don’t know. I didn’t know I could, I just did it.”

I felt anger surge in me and I started to just let him have it! How dare he! Then I felt a sense of shame from him wash over me. “Oh, Tex, I am so sorry. I know I should have asked your permission, but it was not something I thought about. The need for it, the how for it, too, suddenly came to me. And without conscious thought, I just did it. I apologize, Tex. Please forgive me.”

I was flummoxed. A good word, I thought. And I knew. I knew Blae was right, but it didn’t mean I liked it. I felt as if I had been skinned alive, then given a new skin, and I was definitely not comfortable with the fit. I involuntarily shuddered. It didn’t help.

“There is a good side to it,” said Blae.

I cast him a wary eye.

“It will wear off.”

“It will?” I said brightly. Hmm, a little play on words there, I thought. I wouldn’t have done that a while ago. I sighed heavily. “Damn, Blae,” I said softly. “I, … I don’t …know what to say.” My head was awhirl. Stop that! ‘awhirl’? Really? I told myself.

Blae’s sense of shame washed over him again — and me again, and I joined him in it with my own. “Damn it, Blae, it is what it is, so let’s just both try to understand and accept it and get on with our business, okay?” We both gave a kind of mental shiver. “Okay, Tex,” said Blae, with more brightness in his voice. “Let’s do this.” We trod toward the new arrivals.

As we moved forward, Blae whispered,“All is said mentally, Tex, and all can hear unless we whisper and direct what we say to each other. Remember this. Conversations between you and me can remain private — unless we are loud.”

“I’m whispering now, Blae,” I squeaked, “I’m too terrified to speak any louder.”

“You will need to speak more loudly when King GooChi-GooChi addressees you, Tex.” (Yes, that is his real name. How could I make that up? But I confess I snorted loudly when Blae said it. He threw me a dirty look — which is very dirty indeed when it hits you smack in the medulla oblongata.) Then Blae continued, “I will speak first.”

“Oh, thank you for that,” I replied, and meant no sarcasm. “I have no idea of what to say.”

The closer we got to the front of the crowd, the quieter it became, physically and mentally. By the time we reached the front of the queue, the silence was total. Even the blades of grass in the enormous glade were afraid to move. When we arrived at the front of the assembly, King GooChi-GooChi (snicker), an impressive JB at least three inches in length, and two in width, stood on his hind legs and stepped slowly to the front of his royal mound; he looked down at us. Well, he looked down at all the others; I, on the other hand, was still a good six inches taller than this gigantic bug despite his raised grassy mound; feeling suddenly very awkward, and mentally nudged by Blae, I dropped to one knee and bowed my head. I wished I had worn a hat so I could take it off.

“We have a rare guest this day,” I heard, in the most basso profundo voice I can imagine. Blae had told me that their king had been preparing for this meeting for many days now and wanted to be sure to impress this representative of all mankind. He had, therefore, chosen this particular voice especially for its ‘Bigness.’ “Please welcome ‘Tee-Ecks the Hue-Man’ to our Shlooper!” he said, so loudly and deeply my toes rattled.

“Shlooper?” I whispered to Blae with a bit of a giggle. “Is he kidding?” I felt another giggle coming on but it was stopped by a sudden buzzing that had risen from the ground; growing louder by the second, it penetrated my shoes, crawled up my legs, and settled in my stomach, churning the remains of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had devoured just before Blae and I had left my house. “I think I’m going to be sick, Blae.” I whispered meekly.

“Don’t do that!” Blae whispered. He jumped to my shoulder and inserted some very dark and disturbing images that gave me strength to fight off the nausea. How the hell did he get those pictures of the President? I wondered.

The buzzing grew much louder as every bug in attendance — fully two hundred thousand of them! — beat their wings against their shells in three-quarter time. The air itself trembled and I gritted my teeth; a filling in one wisdom tooth wriggled loose and I spat it into my hand, looked at it as it jumped around in my palm, then put it into the watch pocket of my jeans.

“Yikes.” I said out loud — at the exact moment the buzzing sound stopped. Blae was still on my shoulder, and I felt him cringe. “Oh, hell,” he whispered to me. “Oh, fooching hell!”

END CHAPTER SIX