Chapter 6: Rest and Conjugation

“Oh, my muscles are burning,” Lena complained as she sat on the muddy shore and rubbed her legs through her suit. Her thighs and calves were on fire, the stress of struggling through miles of bog in an unusual and unwieldy gait had taken its toll. The pain had taken some time to hit her, but now she felt like she had run a triathlon. She had done more exercise that morning than she had done in the last six months combined.

“I hope you like girls with strong legs Sleethe, because by the time we get back to the Pinwheel I’m going to be able to squat you.”

Her reptilian companion lumbered out of the lake, the dark water sloughing off his scaly shoulders as he made his way onto moderately dryer land. There were a few natives milling about nearby, one of whom was floating just off the shore, his pale belly turned towards the suns as he drifted lazily. The stranger opened one yellow eye to watch them for a moment, before losing interest and closing it again.

At their apex Lena could really feel the heat coming off the system’s binary stars, despite how gloomy the sky was and how dim they were. She kept expecting to look up and see a blinding, yellow ball, but all that she could make out were sickly clouds and two faint points of red light that just barely shone through them. The disconnect was messing with her head.

“This suit is killing me,” she complained, making a futile attempt to loosen the collar as Sleethe came to a stop beside her. She reached down and tugged off one of her yellow boots, so caked in mud that the brightly colored rubber was scarcely visible. She upended it, watching in disgust as what must have been close to a pint of sweat poured out of it, grimacing as she flexed her toes inside her sodden sock.

“Alright, this ... this isn’t working.”

She tugged off her other boot and did the same, then struggled to remove her socks, the damp fabric clinging to her skin. Fortunately she couldn’t smell herself over the pungent stink of the surrounding swamps, but it couldn’t have been pleasant.

“New plan Sleethe, I’m taking a bath.”

She stood, wincing as her thighs burned, and unzipped her hazmat suit. She slid her arms out of the sleeves and pulled it down around her waist, transferring her wrist-mounted computer from the outside of the suit to her bare forearm. She danced on the spot in an effort to escape the clinging plastic, made all the more difficult by her feet sinking into the mud, until finally she succeeded in freeing herself. She let the restrictive garment fall to the ground, stretching her arms above her head, now clad only in her high cut shorts and her sweat-stained tank top. It was liberating, she could feel the soft mud between her toes, pleasantly cool against her skin after her feet had been jammed into those rubber boots all day. Her shorts and top hadn’t fared much better than her socks, but she wasn’t ready to go full nudist just yet. These aliens might have no concept of nakedness or modesty, but she had a litany of human hangups and she intended to adhere to them.

Lena made her way back towards the lake, Sleethe pausing for a moment before following behind her, probably wondering what she was doing. Her feet were sinking up to the shin in the damp soil, and it was sticking to her legs in clumps, but without the hazmat suit she was much more nimble. It didn’t make walking easy, but it was a hell of a lot less tiring this way.

Why had she been so squeamish about the mud? So what if it got on her skin, or her clothes? She could wash it off, there was water everywhere on this planet, she was never more than a hundred meters from a lake or a river. Who cared if there were creepy crawlies in the mud, or slimy fish in the water? She had wrestled a giant salamander, tangled with eels and spiders, they didn’t pose any real danger to her. Her trek through the mangrove swamps had almost been a form of exposure therapy.

She stopped at the water’s edge, dipping a tentative toe into the murky liquid, hesitating for a moment before taking the plunge as she remembered the giant blips on her sonar. They wouldn’t hurt her, nothing of that size could swim in the shallows and Sleethe was always nearby, ready to pounce on anything that threatened her safety with his inhuman strength and speed.

As she stepped into the lake, the dirt that caked her feet melted away, turning into a dark cloud that soon dissipated and vanished. The water was cool and soothing, contrasting with the hot air, and Lena wasted no time wading up to her waist. She let the water soak into her shorts, feeling the gentle current wash away the sweat and grime, leaving her feeling renewed. She proceeded a little deeper, her breasts floating on the surface of the lake as they bobbed beneath her loose top. She ran a hand across her belly and under her arms. This was the closest thing to a bath that she had gotten since leaving the Pinwheel. There was some body wash and shampoo in her bag back at the temple. Trying to get clean might be futile if she had to then walk through mud to get back to the village, but at least it would feel good.

She waded deep enough that her toes left the muddy lake bottom, and she took a deep breath, letting herself float on the surface. The wrist-mounted computer weighed her down, but not enough to make her sink. While the risk of getting alien microbes in her ears when she dunked her head was certainly a concern, she had immuno-boosting medicine that she could take if it became necessary. She lay back, letting the cool water flow through her hair, her golden locks spreading into a straw-colored cloud around her head. She had cut it short prior to her expedition, but there was still a fair amount of it. It might have been more practical to shave it even shorter, but Sleethe liked it long. He played with it, combed it with his claws, smelled it. Krell didn’t have hair, and it seemed to fascinate them.

Feeling a displacement in the water beside her, Lena opened her eyes and turned her head to see Sleethe’s green snout peering back at her. He was floating alongside her, his massive body like a small island on the calm water. He had shed his pack near her hazmat suit and had elected to join her.

“You know, I’m starting to think there’s something to floating around in water all day,” she said. Sleethe repositioned himself, remarkably stealthy, his massive form barely disturbing the water. Being sixteen feet long from nose to tail, the best that he could do was keep his head level with her, his skull alone was nearly as long as she was tall.

This planet was quite peaceful, despite being an eyesore and being covered in mud and mist. She watched the green clouds roll across the sky, like a puffy blanket in shades of apple and honeydew, the low light tricking her senses into thinking that the sun was setting despite the system’s stars being at their highest point.

Did these clouds ever clear? Could the Krell even see the night sky? It might go some way towards explaining their lack of interest in exploration.

She could almost tolerate the muggy heat of the atmosphere with so much of her body submerged in the comparatively cool lake. While murky and dark, the water was clearer than the river had been. There was less floating scum, and the depth meant that whatever weeds and plants must inhabit the water were deep beneath the surface.

“So is this what you do all day, Sleethe? Float around in the water and bask in the sun? That’s why you like your heat lamps and the Olympic swimming pool on the Pinwheel so much, huh?”

He grumbled affirmatively, his eyes closed as he drifted. There were other Krell around too, a handful of them floating about further away from the shore, and she could see one basking on the mud with only its tail trailing into the lake. Cold blooded animals had to regulate their body temperature using their environment. When they were too cold they would bask, when they were too hot they would retreat into the shade or submerge themselves in cool water. The aliens were perfectly suited to their surroundings, while Lena was a mammalian furnace, constantly cranking out her own heat that was very hard for her body to dissipate in this atmosphere. It was hot and humid, the moisture preventing her sweat from evaporating from her skin, which was a human’s primary method of cooling.

She ran her fingers through her floating hair, getting rid of any grime and sweat that still lingered. It had been days since she had felt this clean. She was absolutely going to do this a couple of times a day. Perhaps if she wore just her boots when she walked to and from the village, she might be able to stay relatively clean of mud.

But what of their expeditions into the surrounding swamps and marshes? Now that she was free of it, she didn’t want to don that hazmat suit ever again, it was so hot and it made walking in this environment so much harder than it needed to be. Could she wear her shorts and tank top for the rest of her stay? Could she even go barefoot? While walking barefoot through a forest would have been begging for a serious injury on pretty much any other planet, Krell seemed to be entirely blanketed in mud and wet soil. If worst came to worst and she did hurt herself, or if she encountered terrain that she couldn’t cross, Sleethe could carry her.

The hazmat suit would also protect her from poisonous plants and animals, but she hadn’t encountered anything like that so far. There didn’t seem to be any biting insects, and she hadn’t reacted badly to any of the plants that she had handled. There was an epinephrine injector that she always carried with her that she could use in the unlikely event that something stung or bit her and she reacted badly. It was probably safe.

Yes, it was the best choice. In an environment like this, her clothing and technology was only hampering her. Like the native people she would forego shoes and suits. When in Rome...

Lena tried to relax. She knew in the back of her mind that her time was limited and that she must try to explore and catalog this planet as much as possible, but the gentle lapping of the water was hypnotic. It made her want to sleep, but she kept sinking, the threat of breathing in a lungful of dank swamp water keeping her alert. Sleethe had no such problems, he was incredibly buoyant and his nostrils were evolved so that they were always sticking out of the water.

An idea crossed her mind, and she turned onto her front, paddling closer to him as he opened one eye to watch her lazily. She moved down his long body and patted his leathery hide.

“Turn over big guy, you’re gonna be my pool float.”

He seemed to get the gist of her request, slowly rolling onto his back, exposing his pale belly. Lena tried to clamber up onto it, but there were no scutes or spikes to hang onto here, the fine scales of his underside were as soft and as smooth as human skin. After a moment she gave up, frustrated, and then she felt something scaly on her butt.

Sleethe lifted her with one hand cupped under her rump, depositing her on his chest. Lena rose precariously to her hands and knees, but then lowered her center of gravity when she realized that she might slide off him, lying prone with her head resting between his pectoral muscles. He was so soft despite how powerful he was, his pudgy fat layer as pleasant to lie on as any mattress. Her arms were just long enough for the tips of her fingers to dangle into the water as she hugged his barrel chest, her legs trailing down his belly.

He was warm, but cooler than the hot air around her, his body shedding its excess heat into the conductive water even as the suns beat down on him. Lena shifted her weight a little in order to get comfortable, her hands sinking into his doughy fat layer until they met hard muscle, a pang of arousal tickling her senses as she felt him flex.

One of his massive hands came to rest in the small of her back, pushing aside the damp fabric of her tank top as he stroked her skin with his fingers, the sensation soothing and hypnotic. She sighed into his chest, her eyelids fluttering as his dull claws slid up and down her spine.

“Oh Sleethe ... that feels nice. Like that...”

A sauna and a massage, she couldn’t have expected more from a five star resort. Lena let the tension melt from her tired muscles, Sleethe’s placating stroking lulling her to sleep.

Lena was roused by the sensation of movement, opening her eyes slowly and blinking as they adjusted to the light. There was mud beneath her, Sleethe was carrying her in one of his strong arms as he made his way towards the village, her discarded clothing and the rucksack in his other hand. He was walking her back to the temple, keeping her clear of the dirt.

She felt butterflies in her stomach, overcome with a sudden powerful love for him as she craned her neck to look up at his face. He had somehow managed to get her out of the water and half way back to the village without waking her, and she wasn’t a heavy sleeper. He was so inhumanly gentle.

Noticing that she was awake, he rumbled a greeting. The stilts and trees of the Krell village were now visible through the lingering mist, and as they approached the gangplank that let to the first level he set her down gently on the damp wood. She expected to slip, clinging to his scaly forearm for purchase, but then realized that her bare feet were able to grip the material far easier than her rubber boots could.

She was far more nimble without the restrictive suit, and so the danger of falling was lessened, the short woman skirting closer to the edges of the platforms to catch a glimpse at the support structures below. It was so intricate, appearing haphazard and makeshift at a glance, but the evidence of careful planning was everywhere if one took the time to look.

They made their way across rope bridges and rickety planks, Lena letting the water that was constantly raining from the structures above them fall on her skin. She had tried to avoid it on her first journey through the elaborate village, but now the idea of trying to stay clean and dry seemed absurd to her. It just wasn’t possible here, and it had only taken her a day to come to terms with that fact.

Her sparse clothing was sticking to her now, heavy and impregnated with lake water, unable to dry out due to the moisture that always lingered in the atmosphere. She would have to find a convenient rock, or a piece of wood that she could drape them across. Perhaps the suns would dry them out, but it didn’t seem likely. She had clean clothes in her duffel bag of course, but she didn’t want to burn through them too quickly if washing them was going to be an issue.