Orion Colony Complete Series Boxed Set J.N. Chaney (books for new readers .txt) 📖

“Mountains? East?” Tong blinked his large yellow eyes at us, clearly confused.

“Mountains,” I said as Stacy searched for an alternate way to ask her question. I made the design of large upside down V’s on the ground to try and simulate a mountain range. “You know, big mounds of earth.”

Tong came closer to look at what I was doing. I tensed involuntarily as he approached, despite knowing he was a friend. He had never made any kind of aggressive act toward us at all. Still, with an alien only a few feet away, my fight or flight mode kicked in.

Easy, Dean, easy, I coached myself. If he tries anything, you’re the one with the blaster. Plus, his anatomy is close enough to a human’s that you could beat him in a fight. Probably.

Tong didn’t seem to notice me tense up. He stared down at the ground as I traced the mountain range, trying to make sense of it. Finally giving up, the alien shrugged his tiny shoulders, looked at me with an almost sorry expression, and shook his head.

“Here, this might work,” Stacy said, rummaging through the pack at her feet. She came out with a large smart pad, then scrolled through the device before offering it to me. “You can draw on it with your finger.”

“We’ll give it another shot. He understands more now than when we tried two days ago, so who knows, maybe it’ll work,” I said, accepting the pad.

Drawing things for Tong to grasp was something we’d tried twice before with limited success, but he was learning quickly.

I created a square with my finger in the center of the white screen. Tong peered down at my seated position, edging down for a better look. Uneasy again at his close proximity, I rethought my position and rose to my feet. Tong didn’t seem to notice or care. His eyes were on the smart pad.

“This is us, here,” I said, pointing to the square again. I pointed to myself, then Stacy, and then to him. “Dean, Stacy, and Tong, here.”

“Shtacy, Great Dawn, Tong,” Tong said, nodding along and using his names for us.

Stacy laughed then lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle the giggle. “Sorry, but come on, the way he calls you Great Dawn is a little funny.”

I ignored Stacy, going over to the left side of the pad and creating a mountain range with large upside down V’s. It was to the east of the square in the middle of the map, just like they would be in real life.

“And these are mountains,” I said, pointing to the mountain range I’d drawn. I wasn’t proud of them, but I’d never be a world class artist. In truth, a little kid could have done a better job.

“Ahhhhhh,” Tong said in a long exhale of breath. “Mountains.”

“Yes,” I said, seeing a glimmer of recollection in those large yellow eyes.

Tong searched the ceiling in thought. He bit his lower lip in a very human show of concentration. “In your words, Remboshi name Mountains of Death.”

I looked over at Stacy with a deadpan expression on my face. “You hear that? Mountains of Death.”

“Why can’t they be the Mountains of Eternal Peace or the Mountains of Hope?” Stacy wondered, shaking her head. “I guess this place has it out for us every time we stop to look around.”

“Sleeping Remboshi,” Tong said, pointing to the southern portion of the map. “My people sleep here.”

“He’s pointing to that mist swamp place to the south, isn’t he?” Stacy said, shaking her head. “Of course, he is.”

I let a long exhale escape my lips. I’d never been to the mist swamp, but I remembered the story Doctor Allbright told of her escape ship landing there.

“Well, how about over here?” I asked, pointing with my finger to the opposite side of the mountains we knew nothing about. “What’s over here?”

Tong took a step back. If his face could have turned pale, I got the sense it would have. He shook his head from side to side. A mixture of fear and sadness in his eyes.

“Bad Remboshi,” Tong said. “Bad Remboshi called Rung. Rung fight my people. Rung create the Zyg. Zyg spread over planet try and kill us all.”

“Zyg?” I looked over to Stacy. “Do you think Zyg means…”

My voice trailed off. Stacy lifted a finger into the air, asking for silence. She pressed the pointer and middle finger of her opposite hand into her left ear. “Iris, can you translate the word ‘Zyg’ for us?”

“Certainly,” the Cognitive’s crisp voice came through loud and clear in my own earpiece. “A rough translation for the word Zyg in English would come back as Legion.”

“Holy bananas,” I said, piecing together the story Tong was telling us. “Tong, can you show us a picture of the Rung or of the Zyg?”

Tong nodded. He traveled over to the circular pedestal-type desk in the center of the room and placed his right hand on the stone pillar. A moment later, a holographic yellow control panel appeared in front of him.

“Hey, Iris?” I asked.

“Yes?” Iris answered.

“How come we’ve been working with Tong for a week now on communicating, and all of a sudden, today he can nearly have a conversation with us?”

“He has been showing improvement day by day. His race may learn at a different rate than we are used to,” Iris said through my earpiece. “Perhaps his kind learn through studying and thinking internally then show outward progress at once.”

“Right,” I said, gripping my blaster. I made my way with Stacy over to where Tong had activated the control section of the pillar.

“Did you know it could do that?” Stacy asked, pointing with her chin at the images popping up from the stone cylinder.

I noticed she was also holding the weapon tighter.

“Not a clue,” I said. “Tong’s been holding out on us.”

If Tong understood we were talking about him, he didn’t show it.