Chapter 2: House Call

The group left the building and took a right, heading up-spin of the torus as they followed the red markings on the floor that led to the naval quarter. The Krell were housed in a specialized barracks near the gym, so that they might have access to the Olympic swimming pool when they pleased. When they weren’t training at the range or socializing with human and Borealan troops, notoriously friendly as they were, they could usually be found around there. Kate had never been inside their housing facility before, unlike the Borealans who were basically analogous to humans where their basic needs were concerned, the Krell were truly alien. She wondered how their barracks might differ from those of the human troops.

They passed groups of recruits and marines, headed off to perform duties and functions, the occasional alien towering above them as they went about their business. The naval quarter was by far the most densely populated of the four sections of Pinwheel’s torus, as the station was primarily a military base and housed both troops that were deployed here and those who were just passing through, on their way to far off planets or taking shore leave from docked vessels. The crowds were a sea of UNN blue uniforms, humans and Borealans wearing tight jumpsuits and the Krell sporting hanging ponchos covered in pockets. They had internal genitalia, and so modesty was less of a concern for them. Kate found herself wondering briefly if female Krell had breasts, she had never seen one before, the entire population of the aliens stationed on Pinwheel were all military aged males. Probably not, reptiles and amphibians did not nurse their young.

They arrived at the door to the Krell barracks, a squat, square building that was built into the wall of the Pinwheel. There was more foliage than usual surrounding it, almost jungle-like, with an emphasis on ferns and palms in contrast to the flowers and deciduous trees that were favored in the rest of the station. The door was unusually large and wide, so that the tall and stocky Krell could pass through it easily, and there were a few of them milling about near the entrance.

Although she knew them to be benign and friendly, Kate never really got used to their sheer mass. They were like gigantic, bipedal crocodiles, dinosaur throwbacks with limbs like tree trunks tipped with too many fingers and toes, their paddle-like tails trailing behind them to drag along the floor. Their bodies were covered in armored scales, more prominent down the back and tail, their bellies paler and softer in texture. They had pronounced snouts lined with jagged teeth, their small yellow eyes were set beneath heavy brows, unsympathetic with their reptilian pupils. They turned to peer at the scientists, their multiple eyelids blinking to clear their vision as they rumbled a greeting, their baggy necks hanging below their jaws and vibrating.

Webber stepped forward, this was her area of expertise, the tiny blonde woman was absolutely dwarfed by the Krell who lumbered over to meet her. They were clumsy on land, far more graceful in the water, though their immense resistance to damage and injury made them invaluable to the UNN’s military operations. As slow as they were, a formation of Krell could weather fire that would eviscerate a human soldier, often acting in defense of their smaller and weaker mammalian counterparts.

Translation software had a difficult time interpreting the odd, multi-frequency language of the Krell, and so Webber had to do her best using her own limited vocabulary. She made a series of vocalizations that sounded like someone trying to sing while afflicted with a severe head cold, and in turn the alien uttered a burst of guttural barks. They seemed to have come to some sort of understanding, and so Webber waved them forward as the Krell turned to walk towards the building.

“What did you ask him?” Sousa asked, jogging for a moment to catch up to her.

“I asked if we could come inside ... I think.”

The Krell waited for a moment, allowing the automatic door to open, then stepped inside. His broad shoulders skimmed the frame, and the team followed after him, careful not to step on his long tail as it trailed behind him on the floor.

The corridors and rooms of the building were also Krell-scale, the main hall wide enough for two of the larger examples to pass eachother without colliding, and as soon as the team entered the doorway they were hit with a wall of humidity. It was like stepping off a shuttle into a jungle, the air was clammy and full of moisture, immediately everyone began to sweat as the heat washed over them.

“God, I feel like I’m in a damned vivarium,” Sousa complained, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his lab coat. The place stank of Krell, their scent wasn’t unpleasant, but it was ever present and somewhat overpowering in its intensity. There were rooms off the main hall, these appeared to be the barracks where the aliens lived and slept. Rather than sleeping on beds and bunks like humans or Borealans, the Krell seemed to prefer sleeping in recesses in the floor, like foxholes lined with pillows and bedding. There were three or four to a room, dug into the ground and piled with soft material, it occurred to Kate that some looked large enough for more than one Krell.

The large alien led them down to the end of the corridor, where it opened up into an expansive common room that was packed with Krell. This seemed to be the source of the humidity, and Kate pulled at the collar of the shirt that she was wearing beneath her lab coat, the fabric sticking to her skin with sudor. There were pools of water in the room, not as deep or wide as a swimming pool, more like shallow ponds where the aliens lounged like sleepy alligators with their bodies half submerged. There were massive vents on the walls that pumped in the moist air, circulating it through the room with a mechanical whir. Kate found it too noisy to be relaxing, but the Krell didn’t seem bothered by it, there was the occasional splash as one of them shifted position or a new one fell to its belly and slid into the water to join its fellows. A few of them opened one reptilian eye to peer at the intruders, but they didn’t seem to care, their lethargy more powerful than their curiosity.

Sousa leaned over and whispered into Kate’s ear, perhaps having noticed her confused expression.

“They’re amphibians, cold blooded, they’re prone to short bursts of speed and activity but this is their most common state. They may resemble Earth crocodiles, but they’re actually a lot closer to our frogs or newts than our reptiles. Convergent evolution works its magic, though.”

“So they’re just ... sleeping?” Kate asked, watching the creatures as they relaxed in the water. They seemed to have no concept of personal space, many were piled one on top of another as if they weren’t even aware that they were sharing the pool.

“Not really, think of it more as a low metabolic state to conserve energy. They look slow now, but when they need it they can be as fast as lightning, in short bursts of course.”

Webber walked up to the Krell who had shown us inside, and loosed another series of odd, throaty calls. She and the alien took a minute or two to talk, perhaps having some trouble understanding eachother. When they were done she turned back to the group of increasingly uncomfortable humans, sweat pouring down their faces.

“Well ... I asked him if he knows anything about what’s going on, as far as I can tell he says he doesn’t. I asked if they kept pets, though the Krell seem to have no word for that, and as far as he knows none of his people have brought anything unauthorized onto the station. He isn’t the leader though, I can’t seem to identify one, they have a very communal social structure. To be honest it’s almost impossible to parse much of what he says, and I don’t think I was able to make myself very well understood. I don’t really feel like I’m doing my credentials credit...”

“Trust me Doctor Webber,” Kate said, placing a hand on the small woman’s shoulder, “that’s a hell of a lot further than anyone else on this station could have managed.”

“We should search the building for contraband,” Dubois added, his arms folded as he stood near the door in an attempt to escape the humidity that permeated the room. “If Webber can’t make herself understood then we ‘ave no guarantee the alien answered her question at all.”

“I agree,” Sousa replied, “my pet theory is still the best one we have, let’s fan out and take a look around. We don’t need their permission, this is a UNN facility.”

Kate couldn’t argue with that, and soon the team had spread out into the building to look for any evidence of the little lizards. Even if they found something it could just be evidence that the infestation had spread to this barracks rather than proof that the Krell were to blame, but she had to agree that the DNA match was incriminating. Whatever the source of the creatures was, they had a pretty high chance of finding it here.

Everyone went off in a different direction, some to search the rooms with the recessed sleeping areas, others began to examine the common room. Sousa milled about the large space, walking between the pools and stepping over the sluggish Krell as they lazed in the warm glow from the heat lamps in the ceiling. They were truly fascinating creatures, the only example of an amphibian species that had evolved sentience so far encountered by science. Their seven stubby fingers were tipped with dull claws that they could use to grip and manipulate objects, and despite their low level of native technology their capacity for intelligence was very high, especially intelligence of the emotional kind. They were not great thinkers or problem solvers, but their capacity for empathy and social organization was impressive, even by human standards. It was a shame that communication was so limited, there must be a wealth of culture and history here that humans might never be able to truly appreciate.

There were half a dozen of the shallow pools spaced out around the room, each filled with Krell jostling for space, some stacked on top of one another. Occasionally one of the giant creatures would scramble forwards with a splash of water, powering itself along with its massive tail in order to reach a more favorable spot on top of the pile.

One rolled over onto its back as Sousa watched, exposing its pale belly, yawning and opening its jaws to reveal its purple tongue and similarly tinted mucosa. Where the lining of the mouth and mucous membranes in humans was pink, in Krell it was varying shades of blue, due to the hemocyanin their species used to transport oxygen to their tissues. It was an odd choice for a vertebrate, but must be a holdout from their evolutionary past.

“Wait, what is...” Sousa stopped, turning to look at the alien again. There was something off about it, something was wrong. Its snout was stunted, shorter than those of its fellow Krell, and now that he was looking more closely its body shape was strange too. The shoulders were narrower, the thighs and tail were fatter and thicker than those of the aliens that were lying around and on top of it. He couldn’t get a very good look, as the specimen was buried in the heap of scaly bodies, but it seemed deformed. If Clayton were here he might be able to confirm what Sousa was seeing, but he was back at the lab working on the specimen.

“Hey guys,” he shouted, turning back towards the corridor that led to the sleeping areas, “you’d better come see this!”

Before long the whole team was crowded around one very confused looking Krell, Webber crouched in front of it and tried to communicate, urging it to leave its spot at the bottom of the heap and slink out of the pool to stand before the humans. It was short, far closer to human height than a hunched Krell or even a Borealan. It couldn’t have been more than a hair over six feet, and it was standing more erect than the others of its ilk who tended to stoop like dinosaurs when they were on land. It was shorter, lighter, its body configured differently with the fat seemingly stored in entirely different places. While the Krell usually stored most of their fat reserves in their gargantuan tails, this one seemed to store it in the thighs, belly and chest, giving it an almost feminine figure. Not to say that it didn’t sport its own impressive tail, but it was overall doughier and meatier than its more lithe counterparts, giving it a kind of pear-shape that drew the eyes inexorably towards its hips.

“Some kind of dwarfism?” Sousa posited, looking the creature over as it waited patiently for further instructions, its yellow eyes moving between the human scientists. Even its facial features were softer and less jagged, the odd snaggletooth protruding from its stumpy snout rather than the rows of wicked teeth common to its fellows.

“Could it just be a juvenile?” Webber suggested, walking around the alien to examine it from the back. “We don’t really know how long they live for, or much about their life cycle at all, it’s possible those that we have seen so far have simply been older examples of their species.”