Challenge #00661 - A296: Strange Encounters

Pre-Amity, a human and other cogniscient get stuck in some relatively small space together, say a room that both find out the hard way only opens from the outside. Rescue is on its way, but until then…

They tell some pretty wild tales in Scavenger Bars. This is just one of them…

Hor'tik had been stripping wire. It had been a long trip already and it was that or mass credit. If he stayed out any longer, he’d have to siphon air from the hulks, and that could get messy if the mother species felt protective.

But some primitive species paid good trade for gold, and one never knew one’s luck.

But when she came across another scavenger in a dead-end chamber, and the only door shut and locked behind her… she knew that luck was bad.

The other scavenger was human!

Remembering her training, Hor'tik dropped the tools in her hands and showed the open palms to the human. Digits splayed.

The human did the same.

It was a very long, very quiet, very tense space of time. Hor'tik very slowly opened her comms to all frequencies.

“I know you can’t understand a word I’m saying,” she said in a soothing voice. “But if I say it in a calm and rational tone, there’s a chance you’ll understand I don’t mean you any harm.”

From the sound of things, the human was saying the same thing. But by the gestures towards the only door, she could guess the human wanted out.

“Fine. Okay. I’m taking my things…” Hor'tik dragged them along the floor. Out of the way.

There was no handle on the inside of the door. And it was a re-enforced chamber designed to stop anything from breaking in. Not a survival room. A safe.

They’d both locked themselves inside a safe.

But that didn’t stop the human from attempting to cut the bulkhead around the door. Which was ridiculous. There was no way any tool known to intelligent kind could–

The human was making progress!

“If anyone can hear me, I am trapped in a locked room with a human… and it’s helping me. It’s cutting our way out.”

“Hor'tensss,” said the human, banging its suit’s chest.

“Hor'tik,” said Hor'tik, copying the gesture.

By the time help arrived, the human had gone back to whence it had come.

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