Ren's Tunglr Blag

“…Which is the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Captain Sunlight took the screen back long enough to point out the large river on the map. It spread in countless tributaries that spiraled through the residential area in a way that was clearly artificial. She said, “At this time of year, predators migrate downriver, but all research says they prefer to stick to the deepest areas without bothering anyone.”

“But,” I prompted.

“But while their preferred diet is waterborne creatures, they can in fact walk on land, posing significant threat if they choose to.”

“So what are the odds that they’ll choose to while we’re there?”

“Low,” she said. “Everyone I ask swears that it isn’t a concern — you never see the things; they’re more a curiosity than a hazard; so on and so forth. But I’d prefer that you each bring a stun gun just in case.”

I felt my eyebrows jump to my hairline, but I didn’t question her judgement. We stayed away from anywhere dangerous enough to need that sort of thing as a general rule. (That hadn’t always been the case in the early days, which was why we had them in the storage cabinet in the first place.) The fact that this wealthy residential area rated that honor was more than a little ironic. But it seemed like a reasonable precaution just in case.

* * *

“Oh great,” Mur said, pointing with a tentacle toward the sign on the guard station. “Look what they don’t allow here.”

I found the line that listed any kind of gun, including stun. “Dang it. Hopefully we won’t need them. And hopefully we don’t have to go all the way back to the ship to leave them behind!”

It would be a moment before we found out, since the guard on duty was busy talking to the person ahead of us: a large purple Strongarm on a ritzy hoverstool. She waved her tentacles with a casual lack of hurry that said she didn’t care a whit for the pair of couriers clearly waiting for her to get out of the way.

The large cylindrical cake box was festooned with logos, barely fitting on our new mini hover sled. It didn’t look like anything other than what it was. I wondered if this lady was going to the same party.

Then a trio of other Strongarms came scooting out of the neighborhood on their own hoverstools, moving at what looked like a pretty sedate maximum speed. They passed through the scan field without stopping or even acknowledging the guard, who barely glanced over at them.

Their conversation was what really caught my attention.

“I am not visiting again until winter!”

“If that’s their idea of safe…”

“Did you see the TEETH on that thing?”

“Of course I did; they were hard to miss!”

I watched them go, then turned to Mur, who was doing the same. He folded his tentacles and made the popping sound that I knew was a swear word.

I said, “Maybe the guard will let us make an exception? Or call for an escort?”

“Unlikely,” Mur said, and I had to agree. Exceptions would just get the guard in trouble. A couple of strangers with a cake probably didn’t rate a personal guard, especially since this was supposed to be a safe place to live. It wouldn’t do to upset the very important locals, now would it?

I looked at the well-trimmed bushes with suspicion. They were probably all too small to hide any sizable predators. And the river was a ways off, though of course we were going to make our delivery to the party area on the shore of a main tributary.

Mur grumbled, “We can just keep our eyes open for dangers, and retreat if we see one. Make the security guard actually do some security. Bet he’s got a stun gun, or worse. Pity we don’t have anything else remotely weaponlike. Throwing cake at them would be right out.”

I spotted an artful spread of decorative river rocks, and I had an idea. With a glance to see that the guard was still talking to the long-winded resident, I sidled over and grabbed a double handful. They were each the size of a healthy chicken egg, polished smooth, and very clean. Perfect. I hurried to pile them on a corner of the hoversled out of the guard’s eyesight, pulled a pen from my back pocket, and set to work.

Good thing I hadn’t bothered to put the pen away earlier. I’d used it for labeling boxes in the storage cabinet. Now I was giving each of these rocks a face and a personality.

In other words, plausible deniability.

“What’s that?” Mur asked, lifting up on his tentacles for a look.

“My new best friends,” I told him. “Who I carry everywhere with me, in case the guard asks.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

The guard did ask, a minute later when my pockets were weighed down and the scanner threw a question about it.

We’d already surrendered our weapons, prepared to accept them back after leaving, and now I was delighted to show this lovely guard my collection of Emotional Support Rocks.

He’d asked.

“This one is Smiley, because he’s the classic smile. This one’s Grumpyface for obvious reasons; he’s great to have along on bad days, you know? And this is Egghead because she’s shaped exactly like a chicken egg — that’s an animal from my planet — Oh, and this one is Spot because of the…”

The guard didn’t need to hear the whole rundown. He just told me to make sure I kept track of them, and to steer the hoversled along the side of the road instead of the center.

I thanked him brightly. Then I led the way into the gated community, heading for the party.

It was a nice place. I wouldn’t fit inside any of the houses without crawling on hands and knees, since they were built for the octopus-style Strongarms who didn’t have Mur’s tall squid head, but I could appreciate the rounded and elegant architecture. Everything was colored in pastels, which had to be several people’s full-time jobs to keep clean.

First we heard the music. I assume it was music. Sounded kinda like industrial bubble wrap synthesized into a drumbeat, then tone-shifted deeper with squeaky balloons on top. Not exactly my thing, but I’ve enjoyed worse.

Secondly, we reached an offshoot of the river: a carefully sculpted spiral of blue water and green floating leaves, with plenty of scattered platforms for sunbathing or whatever.

Thirdly — okay, second-and-a-halfly, we saw the wet footprints, but then we met the aggressive fauna. It strolled around a bit of topiary like it had every right to be there, and I could see why it might think that. It’s easy to have confidence in your own superiority when you’re fifteen feet of semiaquatic terror. If alligators and sharks had gotten together to create the scariest of both worlds, they might have come up with this. It was gray, sleek, four-legged, and full of teeth that it was happy to bare for us in an open-jawed growl.

I stopped. Mur swore. The sharkgator rumbled at us. The music thumped merrily along, and no one else was in sight.

Moving slowly, I pulled out a couple of my new emotional support rocks and silently pleaded with them to fly straight.

The first shot cracked the beastie across the snout, making it shut its mouth and regroup. The second hit near its eye. It reared back and hissed at that, making my next shot go wide. But then it opened its jaws again for a proper threat. Rock number four smacked into the roof of its mouth with a sound like hitting bone.

The sharkgator shook its head vigorously, retreating towards the water and hissing at me.

I hissed back. Two more rocks were ready to throw, and I knew how to make threat displays too. I waved my arms and lunged a bit. There was no way I was actually going to chase this thing, but it didn’t need to know that.

It turned toward the water, hissing and moving slowly, then another rock to its hindquarters made it abandon dignity and scramble away to disappear with a splash.

“Woo!” I declared, fist in the air and heart beating wildly.

“Nicely done!” Mur said. “I’ll tell you, I was ready to run for it and hope that thing liked cake.”

“It probably doesn’t,” I told him. “Unless this cake is fish-flavored, actually; I didn’t ask.” With thoughts of not wanting anyone to step on rocks where they shouldn’t be, I grabbed up my projectiles. The first two were easy to spot on the street, though the third was down a ways, and I’d heard the last one bounce into the water.

Rock number four lay on alien moss near the shore, with a touch of what looked like blood on it. I winced. Then I gave it a salute and kicked it into the river. “Farewell, Eyebrows McGee. You made us proud.”

“You’re going to keep all the rest of those, aren’t you?” Mur asked, pushing the hoversled.

“Heck yeah, I am. These new pocket friends are the best. They can live on my bookshelf back at the ship.”

Mur just rolled his eyes and pushed industriously. I hurried along. The delivery spot was right up ahead; hopefully we weren’t about to be late. There had been something of a delay, what with the lady at the gate and the monster just past it.

But the timing ended up perfect. When we arrived, someone with an air of authority swept up to us and made a big production of the cake as if he had planned to have it delivered at the last moment for the most dramatic entrance.

I was glad our new hoversled was stable. The cake hadn’t slid against the box even a little bit. And this model had a gravity platform for transferring the cake to the table flawlessly, not that any of the assembled rich folks needed to know that we’d never tested it before. Whew.

As Mur discretely handled the payment tablet and the guests made a big deal of portioning out the cake, I took in the curious sight of the music setup. Those were clearly speakers, mounted next to the swimming grotto that connected to the main river. But the things under the water next to them also looked like speakers, just a slightly different model for underwater use. Colored lights glowed around them and all throughout the grotto. Strongarms appeared to be dancing underwater.

Alligators would hate that, I thought. So would sharks.

I looked around some more at the way all the recreational water areas connected to the deep river, and I was certain that I knew why the migrating predators had decided to leave the water today. These partiers were unlikely to take my word for it, but I was going to have words with that security guard on the way back. And I’d make sure Captain Sunlight found someone to complain to if that wasn’t enough.

Maybe she’d do that anyway. Two of her best employees had nearly been eaten, after all. A narrow escape thanks to some pocket friends and a good throwing arm.

Something tugged on my pant leg. I looked down to see the smallest Strongarm I’d ever encountered: a little blue guy about the size of a kitten. I immediately crouched down to talk. “Hi there!”

“Where did you come from?” he asked in the voice of someone very young indeed.

“I helped deliver the cake,” I said. “I came from a spaceship.”

“But where did the ship come from?” he insisted.

“A planet called Earth.” (The ship itself had come from somewhere else entirely, but I could tell that wasn’t what he was asking.) “We have rivers and parties there too.”

“Oh,” he said, thinking about it. Then he said, “This party is supposed to be for me, but it’s not very fun. It’s all the grownups talking.”

“That’s a pity!”

He continued, “I thought a land party would have more fun stuff to do on the land, but instead it’s just talking like they always do. I guess they’re proud of me or whatever.”

Going on what I knew of Strongarm life cycles, I made the educated guess that this was something like a birthday party to show off the young one who had fully grown out of the swimming stage. I thought they usually had more kids at once than just one, but I wasn’t certain.

Poor kid, though.

“I’m sure they are proud, but it’s sad that your party isn’t more fun,” I told him. “Would you like a present?”

“Yeah!” He bounced in place while I dug into a pocket, checked which one it was, then held out the rock.

“This is Smiley. I carry him around with me, and now he’s yours. See how these marks look like a face? Two eyes and a mouth?”

He made an awestruck noise as he accepted the gift, needing several tentacles to hold it. “Thank you! What does he do?”

“I like to think he brings good luck,” I said. “And can I tell you a secret?”

He was 100% on board with secrets.

I leaned down further and whispered. “You know those big scary animals that live in the river, with all the teeth?”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes wide.

“He helped me scare one of those away. I can throw really well, and I threw this guy at it, hitting it in the face. It ran away.”

“Wow!” He clutched the rock like it was the most valuable thing he’d ever been given. “That’s amazing!”

“It was pretty exciting, that’s for sure,” I agreed. “You know, I don’t think those animals like it when the grownups play music this loud. I think it’s why they keep leaving the water to walk around scaring people.”

“Really??” He looked around frantically. “I’ve got to tell them. Thank you!” he clambered away awkwardly but quickly, holding the rock with as many tentacles as he could spare.

“You’re welcome! Have a good land party!” I got to my feet, and Mur immediately walked up to me.

“There you are! How am I supposed to find you when you suddenly get shorter like that?”

I laughed. “Sorry. I was having an important conversation. I think I figured out why the predators are wandering into the roads.”

“Great! Tell me all about it as we hurry out of here. I’m not going to feel safe until we’re back on the ship.” He moved toward the hoversled and added, “Plus this music is terrible.”

I followed with a smile. “I think the predators would agree with you, actually.” I readied a rock in each hand — one smirking and the other sticking its tongue out — and I was all set for the walk back.

~~~

Good news! Volume One of the collected series is now available in paperback and ebook form! (Everywhere except Amazon. Check your local store, or this handy link hub.)

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.