On Earth, there are three Triads intending to integrate
not only the three peoples and stop the war that threatens to break loose and slaughter
Humans and devastate their world; but to stop the war that consumes Kiiote economy
and Yown’Hoo moral fiber. All three intelligences hover on the edge of extinction.
The merger of Human-Kiiote-Yown’Hoo into a van der Walls Society might not only
save all three – but become something not even they could predict. Something
entirely new...
The young experimental Triads are made up of the smallest
primate tribe of Humans – Oscar and Xiaomara; the smallest canine pack of Kiiote
– six, pack leaders Qap and Xurf; and the smallest camelid herd of Yown’Hoo – a
prime eleven, Dao-hi the Herd mother. On nursery farms and ranches away from
the TC cities, Humans have tended young Yown’Hoo and Kiiote in secret for decades,
allowing the two, warring people to reproduce and grow far from their home worlds
at great profit to Humanity. Then the war spilled over on to the Human homeworld
and all three are threatened with extinction…
Choral Reading
STAGE DIRECTION: (Spotlight falls on each as they speak
then shuts off, illuminating the next; then all three spotlights fall on them as
they chorus together.)
Yown’Hoo: “The literal decay of the fiber of Yown’Hoo morality
accelerated when we refused peace with Kiiote.”
Kiiote: “Interbreeding, internecine war, and ritual
cannibalism devoured us in resisting harmony with Yown’Hoo.”
Human: “Material gain from both Yown’Hoo and Kiiote fed
our greed, so concord held no profit.”
All: “We might do something none of us alone can do, we
might braid an unbreakable cord of unity.” (4/6/2019)
Natiel Henogledd shouted, “I’ve
done all the research I need to! Bakhsh is a traitor!”
“I disagree,” I said, staring at
him. I ruined my solid attack by swaying and spreading my legs farther apart to
steady myself.
“Your opinion doesn’t matter!” he
shouted.
“Why?”
He stared at me, sputtered, looked
down at the ground, then looked up again. “You don’t know him like I know him.”
“He raised me,” I said. “In every
way he’s been my mentor, my…if not father, my surrogate grandfather. He’s been
like a grandfather to all…”
Natiel turned away, then turned
back to me, “I’m glad he was a grandfather to someone, because he’s never been
the grandfather he should have been to me. He IS my grandfather.”
It was my turn to look like an
idiot, “He’s your grandfather?”
Nat repeated the last phrase, first
in SnarlSnap, “{long howl} yip, yip; /drawn out fart\.” That one literally meant,
“‘elder’ ‘sperm rub’ ‘close possession’.” In ‘Hoonish, he said, “/slapping arms
together three times\, #three shrieking whistles in the key of D#.” It meant,
literally, “‘it is MINE!’, ‘it is from time far beyond here!’”
When I closed my mouth and managed
to keep my insides there as well, I croaked, “How can you speak all three?”
He snorted then said, “How can you
speak all three?”
Scowling, I said, “We had to in
order to work together. We…”
“‘…couldn’t favor one language
over another’…”
Startled, I snapped, “Where’d you
get that from?”
“The same place you did: my
grandfather.”
“But…” I didn’t know what I wanted
to ask. I sat down on the ground, staring at Nat. “You speak SnarlSnap and ‘Hoonish
and Spandaringlish…”
I couldn’t believe it when he
said, “I speak English, too.” Me and Xiao could both speak our baby languages –
English and Chinese. We spent some time when we were younger messing around with
how both of them had gotten tangled up in the Spanish – or Spanglish, really,
that most people on North America spoke. There was even some French mixed in,
like critique, déjà vu, and voyeur (one Xiao accused me of once)…But how did
Nat speak it? Who was he? I stared at him for a bit, thinking about Retired and
decided where Commander Baksh had dark hair with lots of silver in it, Nat had
light brown – more like mine. He was built the same way though, almost skinny,
but with hard muscle that corded like cable. His nose was littler than Retired’s
and his chin was sharper. He also didn’t have much of a beard, like me, too.
“We could be cousins,” I said
abruptly.
He studied me and I was suddenly
aware of how I looked – mostly like someone who’d just crawled up from an
underground tunnel. There was something else, too in his close scrutiny that
made me blush. I wanted to rearrange myself, but that would be too obvious.
Instead I said, “So, Retired…”
“Who’s Retired?”
“Commander Baksh. He calls himself
that.”
Nat snorted. “He wasn’t retired
when I was little. He was always busy.” He shook his head. “What about him?”
“He sent me here. Specifically. He wanted me to find a
shelter that contained a wing I could use to fly, combining helium and a
hydrogen jet and head for a place called Saint Clodoald. He said there was a plane
or a tank there.”
“Why would he want you to do that?”
I didn’t know for sure if I could trust Nat, but he knew the
commander – he was Retired’s grandson, for God’s sake! Still, I was more
grandson than he was. And why was that? I pursed my lips, then said, “We need a
vehicle that can carry the Triad all the way to Grendl.” I was only a little
surprised when Nat stunned me again.
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