Blorgscht

Lubic slowly turned, coming face to face with a wicked grin. Sure enough, there was a shark in front of him. But this shark was unlike anything he had ever seen before. For one thing, antennae grew out of the shark’s forehead, two esca with bioluminescent tips. But besides the esca, Lubic could barely make out the shark’s outline; the shark’s body was camouflaged, blending in with its surroundings.

Lubic took a deep breath. “You are the Camathu Starlord?”

“Yes,” the voice said. “I am Blorgscht.”

Lubic stared at the creature in front of him. Blorgscht was not exactly what the Camathu’s name was, but it was the closest thing that Lubic’s mind could make out. “Well, Starlord,” Lubic said after a moment, deciding not to offend the shark by attempting to pronounce his name, “will you tell me your version of events?”

“Now wait a minute!” Azalyn interjected. “You can see it as plain as the sun through the waves! A shark bit him, and so the Camathu are at fault! There are no other sharks on Immezza!”

“Hey, you asked me to look into this, Azalyn. Let me do my job.” He turned back to the Camathu. “What do you know about the death of this Immezzan?”

“Not why I come here now,” Blorscht began after a moment, talking rather slowly. “The carcass, he was a friend. He brought us things we cannot make ourselves. He was friends with two Camathu. They always met here.”

“After which they killed him!” Azalyn snarled. “It was no yaash that ripped his insides out!”

“What is a yaash?” Lubic asked her.

“A yaash is a tiny predator fish. They have sharp teeth and usually swim in schools. They will swarm fish that are a bit bigger than themselves.”

“No, it definitely couldn’t have been them,” Lubic mused.

“Of course it couldn’t have been them! They’re tiny!”

Lubic ignored her, turning back to the Camathu. “What did you come here to talk to me about?”

Blorgscht regarded Lubic with an eye that was black as shadow. “The Camathu friends of the carcass are dead.”

“How did they die?”

“By Imezzan hand.”

“Lies!” shrieked Azalyn. “We would not violate the treaty!”

“We would not either,” Blorgscht stated.

“Okay, let me get this straight. Both of your people only met with very specific members of each other’s races. Now all of them are dead, and it looks like they killed each other?”

“Yes,” said Blorgscht.

“Before this gets too far out of hand, will you take me to see their bodies, Starlord?” Lubic asked Blorgscht.

“Yes,” said Blorgscht. “Follow.”

“Oh, and Starlord, I needed to ask you another thing. Are you an average sized Camathu, or a large one?”

“I am biggest.”

“Thank you. Lead the way.”

“Lubic, what are you doing?” Azalyn asked him. “His people attacked and killed one of my own! Why are you looking into the deaths of his people?”

“Azalyn, I want to know what happened here. It’s a little hard to believe that your one guy killed two of them at once.” Lubic started to swim after Blorgscht. “And anyway, I’m not entirely convinced this is as simple as it seems.”

Azalyn stared after him in amazement for a bit, and then had to hurry to catch up to their disappearing forms.

The Body

The treaty lands were relatively barren. At first Lubic wanted to refer to them as a desert, but he quickly revised that thought. The barrens were a wasteland. In deserts, life is still present; in this wasteland, there was nothing. No colour. No movement. No life.

“It’s just a little further,” Azalyn called back to him.

“How can you tell?” Lubic was swimming hard, trying to keep up with her. “It all looks the same to me.”

“Remember what I told you about being able to feel where your people are?”

“Never mind. Forget I asked.”

Suddenly, Azalyn stopped, pointing ahead of her. Lubic was still looking around and almost ploughed into her. Luckily her attention was riveted on the area her webbed finger indicated. “He is there.”

Azalyn was indicating a hill, much like all the others they had passed. Lubic moved forward cautiously. As he came closer, a body gradually took shape before him. It was humanoid, but like Azalyn, rather fishlike. The scales on the body were a dull brown. Even the hair was a mousy brown colour.

“Do your people turn brown when you die?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course we don’t! Are all humans the same colour?”

“Look Azalyn, I have no idea how things work with your people.”

Getting a little closer to the body, he was able to see the mess of the torso. There were gashes across the man’s chest, where something had ripped chunks out of him. The left side of his body was a torn up mess. His right foot was almost severed.

“Wow. Whatever did this must have large teeth!” Lubic exclaimed after taking a closer look. He was amazed that everything looked so well preserved; being under the sea, he thought it would have decomposed a lot more by now.

“The Camathu are sharks. What do you expect?”

“Just because they are sharks doesn’t necessarily mean they’re big, Azalyn.” The marks from the teeth were relatively clear. Whatever did this knew exactly what it was doing; this man died very quickly. “Wait, you told me about some kind of war. Did the Camathu eat your people? Or did they just kill them like this?”

“I’m honestly not sure. Like I said, the war was before my time.”

“Can the Camathu see very well?”

“As far as I know, they smell better than they see.”

“Have you ever seen a Camathu attack anything before?”

“We try to leave them alone so they’ll leave us alone.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“Look Lubic,” Azalyn was darting back and forth in a controlled line, like she was pacing. “Why don’t we go and talk to their Starlord? He can answer your questions better than I can.”

Lubic took another look at the body in case he missed anything important. “Okay. Where can we find him?”

“I am here, Spacelord” said a voice from right behind Lubic.