A Dreamer's Worlds

In the City of the Dead (Part 2 of Mother Nature)

Ritir led the chief and Alkar to the kidri. Alkar seemed interested in the autos, though she didn't let that slow her down. Ritir figured that, like him, her species simply hadn't taken that path for transportation. Nothing happened when they reached the kidri. It was still unconscious, pressed up against the tree. Alkar crouched down to examine it.

The chief moved close to Ritir and whispered in his lower ear.

"I've never seen a ridini in person before. Are they all so big?" Ritir gave her an odd look. Couldn't she have asked Alkar herself?

Then again, she was the chief. Chiefs were supposed to be on top of everything. Maybe she'd been worried about her image.

"Yes," He whispered back, "they're some of the largest species I've seen." And it was true. Ritir was tall for a daikin, and he barely reached the average ridini's knees.

There was silence for a moment. The only sounds were that of the kidri and the flying animals chatting with each other. Ritir wished those animals would be quiet, but it wasn't as if they were trying to kill him. He could live with the noise.

When he focused back on the situation, Alkar was looking at him. He motioned for her to speak.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Carry it."

"Him." Oh, so the kidri was male. Alright. Ritir started to flick his ears to each other, but stopped and shrugged. Alkar frowned at him.

"Carry him. You're big enough." Alkar was still frowning, but she picked up the kidri and cradled him to her chest. The sight reminded Ritir of a child feigning sleep because they didn't want to walk to their bed. Of course, this was much worse than that.

"Do you know his name?" Ritir asked, tail twitching.

Alkar began a shrug, then thought better of it and shook her head. Ritir shrugged and began leading the group deeper into the city. It had fallen into disrepair, more so than the store that had been prepared for the meeting. Vegetation grew through cracks in the sidewalk and road. Any building built with organic material was rotting now, or was being eaten by whatever ate such things on this planet.

It was a wreck. The chief jogged to catch up with Ritir. She was looking around wide-eyed, as if she hadn't seen such ruin before. It was like this all over the planet; all the humans had been eradicated by a potent virus, specialized to only kill humans. It would've only taken a short time. The human population was gone within one of their days.

This wasn't the first planet the Union had euthanized. When a species was entering the space age with too much social turmoil, the Union made the decision to simply kill every member of the offending species and let some other species evolve to be intelligent. It apparently worked, seeing as a species that just joined the Union came from one of those 'cleansed' planets.

Still, Ritir glanced back to see Alkar as shocked as the chief.

"It's Union procedure. The citizens here were savages. They had to be destroyed." It was some attempt at comfort. Ritir didn't think it worked.

Something moved in the bushes. Ritir stopped and pricked his ears to listen. Nothing happened. The thing in the bush moved a bit more. Ritir listened more closely. The heartbeat was tiny; even if it was hostile, Ritir could easily fight it. He moved on.

Once they were in what appeared to be in a less ruined area, Ritir began checking in buildings. He need cloth he could use for bandages. There wasn't a worry that bad blood would go back into the kidri's body. All the blood was gone from there anyway.