Page 42 of Caveman Alien's Touch

Noker has his spear in one hand and the pack on his back. I notice he’s still wearing the shorts I made for him, and it makes me strangely happy.

We’re supposed to be quiet in the jungle, to not attract dangerous predators. Noker walks silently on his bare feet, and I try to not step on dry twigs with my sandals.

I keep an eye out for plants that might be useful, but the only one I know what it looks like is sugarcane, and my last attempt at finding that ended with an icky mouth.

I’m still pretty new to walking for hours in the jungle. During the years in the tunnels, we only went out when we were running low on supplies. And we tried to not get too far away from our safe holes in the ground. To a tunnel girl like me, this feels almost irresponsible — we’re visible to everyone and everything that lives in these crazy woods. But I know that Noker can protect me against anything. I catch myself hoping we’ll be attacked by some moderately dangerous monster, so I can watch him easily defeat it.

We get to a clucking stream and drink our fill of water.

“Can you see Bigs ahead?” I ask and nod at Noker’s head fan.

“I see none ahead,” he says. “But I don’t think I can see them as well down here as I could up on the Mount. All these trees block the view. Still, it should give us early warning if some predator were to lurk around us.”

I try to empty my mind of worries. The worry about never going home to Earth is always there, but it was worse in the tunnels. This life here, above the ground and in a somewhat safe village, makes the need to go home a little less gut-wrenching.

The worry about my future in general is also not as scary. I’m here on Xren, and in all likelihood that future won’t be that long. Still, I feel safe with Noker, and he has shown that he’s a compulsive protector.

He sometimes stops and looks around, then closes his eyes and rotates on the spot like a radar dish on a ship. Sometimes he turns to the side, as if he senses a danger he wants to walk around. And sometimes he doubles back, probably for the same reason.

He’s clearly on top of this, and I really appreciate that he’s avoiding dangers, instead of barging into them to show me how good he is with his spear. This makes me feel safer than any skill with his weapon ever could.

We cross many narrow streams until we get to a wide one that continues down a valley in small waterfalls and rapids.

Noker waits for me to catch up, smiling. “We can talk now. The water makes a lot of noise.”

It’s an idyllic riverbank, covered in tall, soft grass and bordered with white flowers. There’s even an opening in the dense canopy of trees over us, so that sunlight sparkles off the water.

I breathe out, glad to take a little rest. “Are we close to the camp?”

“Not far now,” he says and looks around. “I don’t usually come here, but some of the boys go here to bathe. Not right here, but further down the stream. Brak doesn’t like it, because it’s dangerous to be this far from the camp. But we haven’t lost anyone yet. Not in that way, at least.”

I sip some water straight out of the stream. It’s as cool and clear and fresh as anyone could wish for. “Did you come here when you were boy?”

“When I was a boy, the camp was far away from where it is now. We only came to this part of the jungle recently. But we had other places like this. Sometimes Sprisk and I would leave the camp for the whole night and spend it in some more exciting place. Brak, too, although he usually went alone. Or with Dexer.”

I sit down on a perfectly placed boulder, two thirds into the stream. “Some tribesmen say being Foundling is bad. But sounds like you did fine.”

Noker laughs, his head fan taking on a golden tinge. “We didn’t know any other way to live. Perhaps life in a tribe would have been better. But we can’t change it now. Let’s eat something.” He takes off his backpack and hands me a handful of dried berries that the Borok tribe uses as a snack because they’re really sweet.

I pop them in my mouth and enjoy the sweetness. “Thanks. Maybe could use this to make sugar.”

“Chugga?Yes, use it for anything you want.”

“If dry it like this, then dry it more until is hard, then turn it to small sand… maybe is like sugar in a cake.”

“Chuggain akekis nice,” Noker deadpans. “Or is it? I don’t really know what akekis.”

“Oh, it is nice,” I assure him. “Some would say is necessary. Sorry, Noker. I’m using alien words. Sugar is sweet thing, but very very sweet. On Earth, we use it to make food better. Cake is a food that is better with sugar.”

“Likevas,” he says, naming a type of spice the tribe uses to season meat. “It makes food better.”

“Likevas,” I agree, “but different.”

He puts the backpack on again. “We must keep going.”

“Is heavy?” I ask as I get down from the boulder. “Looks like many things in there.”

He walks on. “The Borok tribe is kind, and gave our clan a lot of food so that we don’t have to hunt while moving the camp to a new place.”

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