The Nature of Predators - Krev Exchange Program (7/7)

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Memory Transcription Subject: Flevi, Krev Opinion Columnist

Date [standardized human time]: March 31, 2160

As I was preparing subtle microphones in props for Indrek, I noticed the human fidgeting from nerves. We talked a bit about Earth’s television industry, though I imagined he was preoccupied worrying what to say to the camera. He commented that his people used tiny devices called lapel mics, which they could hook to or hide under their shirts; I couldn’t believe even their audio equipment was cute, and clipped on them! There could be an entire segment just of my exchange partner talking about Terran daily life products, but I knew he’d want to share something more serious, rather than cute. If I was going to put forward a suggestion, it would be to tell his story the way he wanted it to be written out. 

Regardless, Suvrel fastened within the chest carrier was enough to get cuteness clicks, even if I hated sitting across from that obor. Peculiarly, it was almost like Indrek wanted the pet to be separated from him for the interview, with his hands on the critter’s fur and his eyes darting around for a place to put him. Was he tired of toting around the nonsapient primate, with how touch-averse humans could be? I tilted my head at the miner, trying to judge what was going through his head. There was a hint of the look, from when he’d been upset with himself for getting attached to me at all and not hating the Krev enough, in his blue irises. Perhaps Indrek was having second thoughts about whether to look cute to the Avorian audience, since holding the obor would play into that perception.

He agreed to this to get a message out about the miners’ oppression. You want him to be comfortable, so just ask what’s bothering him, Flevi.

I poked my head around the camera, where I was situating it atop a tripod. “Is something wrong, Indrek? You look like you don’t want the obor with you for the interview. I’d be totally supportive if you realized your folly, and wanted to return Suvrel to the shelter.”

Indrek glared at me, unamused by my jest. “Suvrel isn’t going anywhere. I’m just worried what my…friends will think of me, when I go back to Tellus. There’s those videos of me getting pressured into skipping around your fucking streets, and now, I’m literally carrying around one of your cute monkeys while we chitchat on camera. They’ll think I’m a Krev pet.”

“If the miners are going to see this interview, maybe you should talk to them. You were the leader of the strike! You have clout and influence. What did you go on strike to gain? What was your goal?”

“Freedom, obviously.”

“That’s not an endgame, Indrek. What would you do with that freedom? What life do you envision as the ideal one?”

“A life where we aren’t subservient to aliens, and don’t have to live in constant fear of them killing us all! To actually be ourselves, as we are and as we want to be…”

“Then I think I should tell who you are, and who you want to be. Set out a vision for the ideal Tellus, how it should be. Your movement has gotten what you wanted, and it’s your job as its leader to propose what to do with that victory. You’ve suffered too much and for too long to not make things better.”

“The fuck does that have to do with holding Suvrel or not?”

“Well, you have the freedom to have an obor now, and you’ve made his life better; that’s who you want to be, right? Don’t be ashamed of that just because others might judge you. You have no problem telling them where to get off if it’s Krev casting aspersions.”

The human snorted. “Because I don’t want you people to like me. I’ve buried my own, and I have to go back and live among them.”

“It’s not like you won’t be bringing Suvrel home anyway. Quit wanting the other humans to like you; you should want them to hear and accept you. Be yourself, like you said was the entire goal of freedom—not whoever you think you have to be.”

“Hear and accept me. Huh. That’s halfway profound, Flevi, for a ragebait columnist.”

“That isn’t who I want to be, you big goof. Let me reinvent myself too, alright?”

“You see, I’d accept your rebranding, if your whole vibe wasn’t, ‘Aw! Look at the precious wittle human! I scratched his beard and lived to tell, so now I can’t wait to do it again!’”

“You prefer me calling for your extermination than doting on you? The new Flevi should be a net positive!”

“I didn’t say that. All I’m saying is two wrongs don’t make a good journalist. Let’s get the cameras rolling, before I change my mind about this shitshow. I’ll…start from the beginning, so ask about…Earth. Leaving Earth.”

My claw tapped the record button on the top-notch cameras in the Tonvos Tribune studio. This wasn’t a live feed, and could go through editing, though I’d minimize any changes to the tape to avoid Indrek feeling that I was censoring him. We could always start over with a new take, but I was hopeful that he could get this in without having to redo it all; it was obvious the human had cold feet just shooting this once. I had to ask the right questions to keep him focused, especially when it’d be easy for him to break talking about Earth. I was curious to hear about what it was like for him to leave on the ark ship, and how he grew up on Tellus, back when he was a young boy playing with LEGOs. The fact he’d had to sneak the building blocks onto the spacecraft was heartbreaking of itself.

Indrek’s story could be a real tearjerker, and whether he wants us to or not, the Krev will definitely like him. The viewers’ hearts will go out to him, but I don’t want to reduce my friend to a cute, broken primate to feel sorry for. It’s important to see who he is, darkness and all.

I was horrified to think Indrek might be ostracized by the other humans, just for cozying up to me; his people hated us, wishing up to be boiled alive like pangolins until a few days ago. If anyone could persuade the Tellish miners it was worth moving past that loathing, it’d be one of their own. I knew even my exchange partner didn’t trust that we could help the ark colonists, and make amends in any meaningful way. Was I sure that we could do enough to rectify the harm we’d done to these primates, after adding to the suffering of an endangered race? That type of justified grudge wasn’t going to evaporate overnight. All the Krev could do was ensure that Indrek’s goal, of not living in fear of aliens slaughtering them, was a reality. We had to protect them from the Federation, because they’d never be truly free if we couldn’t. 

“Hello there everyone. I am pleased to say I have been given this opportunity to interview my exchange partner and my friend.” I directed my attention to Indrek, my time addressing the audience complete. “Thank you for sitting down to share your experiences. Could you please introduce yourself to the viewers, and tell us a little about who you are as a person?”

“I’m Indrek Saar, originally born in a country called Estonia on Earth. We had untamed forests that covered a lot of our territory, and many islands that belonged to us and brimmed with wildlife.” The human offered a taut smile, trying to decide whether to look at me or the camera that watched us both. His lips seemed extra plump and squishy under the pristine lighting, and I couldn’t help but notice the dimples on his cheeks; as his mouth curved upward, his skin folded into the most adorable indentation, like a pocket! “Who I am is someone who sees how Avor is still untouched, with woodlands unfurling on the land below. I ask myself why we deserved to have ours taken away.”

“You didn’t deserve any of that. We would’ve loved to see your home, Indrek. It sounds gorgeous, like primate heaven. Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself?”

He laughed bitterly. “I’m a miner who toiled through long, unfulfilling hours just to have the right to exist. I’m a survivor of both Earth’s desecration and the drilling explosion that claimed several of my friends. Who knows, and who cares, what I would’ve been otherwise? Maybe a tattoo artist, an action movie stuntman, a toy set designer, or a thumb-twiddling IT staffer working a boring job at a local startup. Perhaps I’d go hiking in the forest, or ice-sailing the frozen waters in my spare time. The place where I could’ve been or done any of those things is gone.”

“You still remember it. There’s nothing to stop you from recreating as much of it as possible.” A sharp pang stabbed at my chest, though I tried not to let my pity show; that was an excellent segue to talking about how he was brought onto the ark ship. “I can’t imagine it was easy for a child to understand why they were leaving their planet. How old were you, when you departed from Earth?”

“Twelve. I was old enough to see what was said on the internet, and to understand the aliens wished us all dead. It didn’t feel real. They were people…creatures that were far away. We’d talk to them, I figured, and they’d see the empathy tests, like the Venlil did. Us being predators—monsters—we weren’t. My idea of hunting was walking to the refrigerator, and grabbing a kohuke bar for breakfast.”

“We’re happy to hear about your home customs. Could you explain what kohuke is, for us uninitiated aliens?”

“Sweet, chocolate-covered dairy curd bars; it came in all sorts of flavors. That rich creaminess that melted on your tongue, a treat we loved as a part of home. It’s life’s simplest joys that I miss the most.” Indrek closed his eyes, trying to whisk himself back to a time and a culture that he barely remembered. “If there was a product I wished we brought with us, it was that. We were the only Estonians on the ark, and kohuke wasn’t a well-known item overseas. My family weren’t food manufacturers, so we couldn’t craft them ourselves.”

“What did your family do?”

“I mentioned IT as a potential job for me, despite gagging at the thought, because that’s what my dad did. The utter disdain he expressed for the stupid sh…er, things his fellow employees asked him was hilarious! He was certainly the cool dad, but that had a downside: nothing got past him with my online exploits. Mom worked as a check-in clerk at a local hotel, so she saw people from all across Earth. That might’ve made her the most prepared of us all to join the ark, seeing that blend of all cultures. To think we were plucked up as the representation of our whole nation…the one family that remains.”

I was relieved to catch the implication that Indrek hadn’t been separated from his family, though I wondered what became of them. “It must be a lot of pressure to carry on your traditions, especially when they aren’t shared by anyone else you live among.”

“That’s the scary thing. Had I been the one to die in the mining accident, that’s a whole culture gone.” The human smacked his thumb and a central finger together to make a clicking sound; it was likely for emphasis, but creating such a brief noise with all the digits huddled together sent my internal cuteness meter skyrocketing. The way they used their primate hands, it was all too much! I didn’t want to lose such adorable cultures, when we could’ve learned hundreds of them. “For each miner that died, maybe they’re the last of their nation. It wasn’t just that individual we lost. It was all of that history and heritage that they kept alive.”

It’s unthinkable. Tragic! “I’m so sorry.”

Indrek nodded, eyes welling up with heart-wrenching tears. “So am I.”

I gave the human a moment to breathe, finding it difficult not to get choked up myself. In my opinion, he was doing a phenomenal job at talking about home, and his life before first contact. The miners back on Tellus had to see how much he missed Terran culture, and how much he mourned the tangible and intangible losses from that drilling incident. They could no doubt relate to his feelings on aliens, and the absurdity of the cute humans being savage predators; every Krev viewer would be scoffing at that insane notion right along with the primates. I figured now was a good time to transition to how Indrek’s family was selected for the ark ships, and what it was like when he found out they were leaving Earth. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to depart from Avor, with no one who knew anything about the entire region I grew up in.

Indrek can share some global phenomena with the other humans, like earrings or those “tattoos”: or as I call them, skin doodles. He hasn’t lost everything, so long as we keep the overarching traits of his species alive.

“I know this is hard to talk about. I’ll try not to make you linger on it too long, but tell us about how you found out you were boarding the arks. What was it like as you were leaving? What did your family have to say to you?” I prompted.

Indrek bit his lower lip. “I didn’t hear the announcement that the Krakotl were attacking us, because I was playing football with my friends in the park; we loved doing that, running around and kicking that stupid ball after school. I remember being a sweaty mess, wearing my cleats, and then the other kids’ parents started acting funny. Dad shows up and grabs me, and told me we were ‘leaving.’ Mom was at home, packing everything in the one fu—freaking bag we could take with us. I didn’t understand w-where we were going. I kept asking, over and over. Then he told me, in a fraught voice, that we were leaving Earth. Not our neighborhood; not Tallinn, not Estonia. Earth.”

“How did you react to that?”

“I was crying, and begging him to tell her to pack my stupid, stupid LEGOs. I was a dumb kid, I guess. He got frustrated, and said it wasn’t important, but I started screaming and punching the window with my hand. He worried I’d break the glass and hurt myself, so he had Mom grab a box and hand it to me to calm me down. I think they intended for me to leave it behind, not knowing I’d stuff it under my shirt and ‘sneak’ it in when we got there.”

“What was your mother acting like, when you saw her?”

“To catch the UN’s regional flight to the ark launch site, we had to make it to F-Finland by nightfall: quite the drive. Mom was disheveled, sad. She threw the bag in the trunk, gave me the LEGOs…and cried in the passenger seat. I asked to go take a shower, change out my cleats, just use the damn bathroom, but Dad said we didn’t have time and floored it. If we’d missed the flight, with all the panicked traffic clogging the roads…we’d have died. We got out because we were the lucky random picks that were on it fast and matched the criteria. How is that fair?”

“Nothing about what happened to Earth was fair, Indrek. Your family did what they could to keep you safe, and we’re all happy they did. I hoped it made the ark’s travel time a bit more manageable, to have your parents with you.”

The miner slumped his shoulders, morphing back into a scared kid more and more by the second. “I hated the ark. I hated how it was always nighttime, and there was no internet. Even with all the entertainment and data saved, there was nothing new, no social media, nothing like what was left behind. I was happy when our hydroponics failed, because that’d mean we’d have to get off of that stupid craft. Of course, the Krev came swooping in, as soon as we’ll have to land on a planet. Being contacted by herbivore aliens…everyone on that ship thought we were dead, and that we would join the rest of Earth then and there. Oftentimes in the mines, I wished we did get killed that day. What was the point?”

I gasped in horror. “You don’t mean that. Humans…have to survive. You said how much culture you have that’d be lost forever. You’re…amazing, and worth preserving!”

“No, Flevi. We’re a cosmic mistake. Everyone, the Krev included, looks at us and sees dumb, violent apes. It’s not like we preserved a damn thing of what matters about us. My dad did a little tech work, setting up those vaults and some wireless networks in the cavern, then he’s more worthless than dirt! Once Hathway could send a phone call to his minions, it’s to the mines with the old man! It gave him a heart attack—killed him anyway.”

My heart clenched, at the thought that the mining work we forced the Tellish into had taken Indrek’s father too. No wonder he hated the Krev, and led the strike when he got sent off to the labor camps too. I couldn’t even offer a meek apology, since it felt so hollow. The only people he had in the world, that he loved; one of them was gone, because of us. I didn’t know what had happened to his mother, but I was too afraid of a horrifying answer to ask. The human scowled, pressing ahead to tell me anyway.

“Mom got done just as dirty, stuck sweeping the streets and working in sanitation from the moment we landed. People used to love her back on Earth. She could’ve been one of Hathaway’s little puppets, reading the colony’s pulse and juggling various cultures, but no. The jobs had to get done, for humanity, and we all had a part to play, right? Someone had to do it, lest we live in squalor and a blasted plague wiped out the whole damn cavern!”

“Was disease a real concern?”

“Oh for sure, I mean, the UN sent inoculations for newborn babies so that they don’t die of meningitis or other awful crap. Influenza runs through our group in the cramped caverns every year, and we don’t have enough doctors to deal with it; dozens of guaranteed deaths every year. Quite a few pathogens decided to hitch a ride on the ark—oh, that’s another reason I hated it! Within a week of boarding, norovirus had spread through the whole ship. That’s a bug that’ll make you wish for death more than even the mines. Makes your stomach have a lot in common with a tube of toothpaste.”

I shuddered. “That’s…certainly an analogy. Sounds like Raptic Fever. We always had a potluck in school, to celebrate Harvest Day—to make a long story short, it’s a Krev holiday where we give thanks to the soil for bearing crops, and share our bounties with others. It’s biggest in rural areas with lots of farmers, like where I grew up. Anyhow, let’s just say some Krev must not have washed their claws or their kitchen utensils, and half the kids in the school got the Rapts. Myself included.”

“Then you know what it’s like to have a day where you curse having a stomach,” Indrek laughed, more good-naturedly this time. “Suffice to say, we were always one disaster or one slip of the tongue away from death. Life was hard, and at some point, I decided it had to end. I led people to stand up for us. It’s weird to have that burden lifted, but I haven’t forgotten what we’ve been put through by the Krev. If Tellus’ settlers are tuning in, I’d tell my fellow miners that forgiveness must be earned.” 

“We’re happy to help with everything you’ve mentioned. We have researchers and doctors who can help with diseases. Cutting-edge science will be on your side, I’m sure, if others are moved by your story like I am.”

The human tilted his head. “That’s exactly what else I want them to hear. Humanity isn’t in a position to turn away help, and our circumstances can’t get worse than they were. It’s not saying much, but the Krev at least hate the Federation and aren’t genociding us for our eyes. We should let them improve things for us. Tellus can be strong again. We can have a little bit of Earth back, and live in the open for our own goals! We can be what the Federation never believed we could be. That’s what matters more than any grudge, or any number of decades of pain.”

“Really, Indrek? Your suffering doesn’t matter to you anymore, at all? You don’t resent the Krev?”

“Of course I do, but I don’t want an alien enemy any longer. There’s more to life, and years left ahead of us. There’s hope for the future now. It’s time to let go of the past. We must. We have to.”

“Thank you, my friend. I always knew who you wanted to be.” I turned toward the camera, feeling my throat constrict and my eyes water; I was so proud of Indrek. “You have a good heart. A heart of blossoms, as us Krev would say.”

The human huffed. “Blossoms? I don’t want to be called anything so flowery and happy! Heart of thorns seems more right, if you insist on using some goofy plant metaphor. Turn off that camera. We’re done here, artichoke.”

Indrek flashed his teeth, before reaching out and covering the camera lens with his palm. I giggled, racing over to shut off the recording. The human let his arm fall to his side, and it was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders; just having the perpetual scowl off his face made him look years longer. Hearing that he no longer wished to be enemies with the Krev was all I had wanted, because I knew we’d offer our penance to the end of time. Brimming with hope and joy for our personal future, free of the hatred that held us back, I leapt toward the primate and embraced him. This time, I wasn’t hugging him because he was adorable; I threw my arms around the prickly miner due to the love I felt for him in my heart.

The interview had left me certain of one thing: for all of the suffering he’d endured, Indrek Saar’s story wasn’t over yet.

A/N - Krev Exchange is over! Indrek recounts what his home country was like and things he misses from Earth, after Flevi tells him to address the miners. He also describes what it was like the day his parents brought him onto the ark, and how their culture hung in the balance, as the only family from Estonia. The human describes what his parents did, and how the labor on Tellus took them down several notches and destroyed them; he also describes the hardships of disease that began with the ark, which was only one of the reasons he wanted off the ship. 

Indrek goes on to describe the hatred for the Krev, and the thoughts meeting them at first. However, he ends with a plea to his fellow miners to let go of the past, and not to turn away the Krev’s help; he wants Tellus to be strong and humanity to live openly, rather than continue on with old enemies. How do you feel about the story of what it was like to board the ark ships? What do you think of Indrek deciding he doesn’t want animosity and hatred with the Krev anymore, and how that plea will go over on Tellus? What do you imagine the future holds for Flevi and Indrek?

Thank you for reading and supporting! I hope you enjoyed this story, I was happy to see Krev content voted for by your guys. A Venlil one-shot, and an Arxur collective miniseries are next, so stay tuned!