"Why are you here?"
It was the first thing she thought of, the answer she wanted most. The morning had come very shortly after she had finally gone to sleep. She had half expected Jar-hidda to be gone in the morning. But he was there. He had put his metal thong armor over his loincloth first thing after he awakened, then had simply faced her and waited.
She had thought of what she would say or ask. There were so many questions, not all pertaining to Jar-hidda personally, but to the far reaches of space; she wanted to know the 'how' and 'way' of things in addition to the, perhaps more complicated 'why.'
But 'why' was what she had asked first, after the two of them had settled in the kitchen for breakfast. He was having his usual, she had gone for a bowl of cereal.
Jar-hidda didn't answer at first, though he had paused at the question, before seemingly thinking it over a strip of meat.
Never in a million years would she have thought to be sharing a metaphorical table with an alien. There were scientist, xenobiologists, entire governments and thousands of nerds who would have killed for a chance like this, and she couldn't help but continue to think of how nice her life was going to be once he was gone.
"I was… looking for…," he began to gargle, "my friends…."
"You were looking for your friends?" she repeated to clarify.
Jar-hidda rattled in disapproval and opened his hand, "… of my… friend."
She looked at his open hand with a furrowed brow, "you were looking for something that belongs to your friend?"
"Something," he repeated in her gravelly voice.
She lifted her bowl, "thing," she said, then lifted the spoon from the bowl, then the salt shaker from the counter, each time saying 'thing.' He gave a curt nod.
"I was looking for my… friend's thing."
His grasp on English wasn't as good as she had thought. She could tell that the word 'friend' wasn't exactly the word he wanted, but it was probably the closest word he had.
"Why are you no longer looking?"
"I found it."
Hannah slowly put her spoon back in her bowl. That was why Weyland was after him, wasn't it? They had stolen some alien technology, probably imprisoned or killed the alien in question, otherwise she was certain she would be having this conversation with an entirely different brute rather than Jar-hidda. Then when Jar-hidda retrieved the thing, and was making his way to leave, they shot him out of the sky, and by luck he had crash-landed on the one mountain owned by one of the few people in the world who hated Weyland.
"I see," she said, coming back from being lost in thought. She looked into her shredded wheat cereal and continued to eat it. She couldn't afford to throw it away.
"With how long you've been here, will someone come looking for you?" this was her second greatest fear, inadvertently aiding in causing H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds to be filed into the non-fiction section.
"No," he gargled, eating another strip of meat and she felt very relieved. They had time to get him off this planet and safely home. But a new sense of urgency filled her. She fell silent, planning the next few days ahead. Today, she'd go into the city and get enough supplies that she wouldn't have to leave the mountain for as long as it took Jar-hidda to repair his ship, on the assumption that it wasn't badly damaged enough that it could be fixed.
She hastily finished her cereal and put the bowl in the sink, she would wash it later. She moved outside and put her coat on. Jar-hidda came out of the kitchen, holding a swaying strip of meat, no doubt curious about her sudden rush.
"I'm going to get some things Jolly, I'll be back in an hour or so," she said simply as she forced gloves onto her hands. She was out the door and to her truck. The snow was still above her knees, but her truck would be able to make it down; she had learned quickly after actually living in this part of Montana that one never took the plow attachment of one's truck.
It wasn't a quick drive down, riding the brakes nearly the whole way to the bottom, but once she was down, she was on her way to the city, generously plowing the seldom-used road on the way. The snow and winter didn't really seem to have an effect on Troy. It was a city whose business was the wilderness. In the spring and summer it lodged hikers and campers, and in the fall and winter hunters and skiers.
She made her way over to Mike's shop and walked in.
"Good— oh Hannah! what a surprise! Twice in one month? Are you alright?"
Hannah looked over at Mike who was setting down a catalogue that had a barn with several elk in a pen pictured on the front. He had wanted to get into the domesticated wildlife business for a while, raising up trophy animals to make money on guided hunts. It was one of the things she always bit her tongue on. To her, that wasn't hunting, it was intricate livestock slaughter. Hunting was stalking an animal, in its natural environment, bred through the laws of survival of the fittest not through scientific-genetic selection; raised and tempered by merciless nature not bottle-fed and carefully monitored.
But Mike was about the only person on earth she had a good relation with, she was not going to ruin it by a conflict of ideals.
"I'm fine," she said going around and gathering up non-perishables and food for her pets. She piled her purchase on his counter, glancing at the television, half expecting something about Weyland to be on the news. He already cured cancer, perfected prosthetics, solved the energy resource crisis, ended global warming, created actual artificial intelligence, and pioneered the mechanics for eventual deep-space travel. What more could he do?
But no, the news was talking about how this was one of the coldest winters in Montana's history, and it was probably only going to get worse. But for now at least, it seemed to have leveled out for a while.
"You'd probably get a better selection of these at an actual store," Mike said as he rang her up.
"You can't get gas at a normal store."
"You'll be getting gas too then?"
"Four cans, my truck and your wood," she said taking out her card and swiping it.
She inputted her pin even before she saw the total. Housing Jar-hidda was going to make a dent in her carefully saved funds, this she knew even before he had awakened.
"Oh, uh, couple of your friends came by asking about you the other day."
Hannah's dark eyes flashed up at Mike who glanced at her as he continued to bag her things, "couple of nice gentlemen, dressed up like Mormons."
"Mike," she interrupted, "I don't have friends."
"I know," he said, passing her her bags, "that's why I told them that I haven't seen you in years."
She had one friend.
Hannah was silent as she looked into Mike's laughing eyes. Her surprised frown turned into an amused smile, and she took her bags.
"Take care Hannah!" Mike called after her, picking up his catalogue again.
She piled the bags into the passenger seat and started tossing the bundles into the back of her truck. She pulled up to the pump and began filling up the cans and then her truck. She could feel the cold creep in now that she was standing still. She patiently waited, observing the cloud of breath she was breathing out, watching the numbers on the digital screen go up.
Well there's one thing Weyland hasn't done. Killed the gas companies and effectively switched the world over to nuclear energy.
Once the nozzle clicked, Hannah pulled it out, set it back in its place and turned to get in her car.
A bright shiny black truck caught her eye, parked on the opposite side of the street just down the road. She blinked, looking at it and frowned. She slipped into her truck and got in. She had two options: gun it, or pretend like nothing was happening. She wasn't one-hundred percent sure that the truck belonged to Weyland in any way; she may just be being paranoid.
So she decided on her latter option, started the truck and went on her way, evening out the road as she went.
She checked her back mirror often, but the truck hadn't followed. Good. She turned up her road and made the treacherous climb, going much slower than she wanted on some parts, but paranoia was no reason to get herself killed. Sliding off the mountain was not on her list of plans for the future. It took about a half hour uphill to get to her house, maybe longer, but finally pulled in and put it in park.
She sat for a moment, looking at the house, knowing what was waiting for her inside. She sighed and grabbed her bags and slipped out, loading one of the piles of wood under her free arm and started towards her house.
Jar-hidda watched as she unpacked her things with the same kind of curiosity she would have expected of a two year old. She glanced at him every now and then as she took the items out of the plastic bags, but didn't speak up. She had to remind herself that she was as alien to him as he was to her; she would do things that he didn't understand.
"What is the spoon for?" came his voice suddenly and she looked up at him.
"What?"
"The spoon, what is it for?"
It took her a moment to register then looked over at the spoon in her bowl, "for eating liquid food."
"Liquid?" he repeated in her voice.
"Um… watery, like soup or cereal."
He gave her a tilt of his head and rattled in confusion. Maybe he didn't understand, or maybe his species didn't have liquid diets. They seemed fond of meats, broths and stews could be made from meat, though maybe the thought of 'stew' never occurred to them? Who knew.
"Where did you learn English?"
Jar-hidda had picked up and was inspecting the spoon that had likely spurred his question. He seemed to be ignoring her as he was no doubt looking at his upside-down reflection in the surface of the metal utensil. He held it up high, then low, looking down at it.
"I have travelled here many… years," another substitute word.
"How many years?"
"Many," he repeated and her shoulders sunk. Maybe he didn't know numbers, or numbers high enough? One thing was for certain, she was more frustrated with this partial language barrier than the previous one using made-up sign language.
"Why do you travel?" she decided to ask, busying herself with putting things away.
He rattled, setting the spoon down, "to kill."
She felt ice go through her veins, but she shook it off. He was substituting a word, but he seemed so sure of that one, not hesitating like he would with other words. She slid another can of instant mashed potatoes into the cupboard and she swallowed past the lump in her throat.
"To kill animals?" she tried to keep her voice even.
"Yes, animals, like you" he growled. She felt instantly better. He had been substituting a word. She shut the cupboard and gathered up the excess items to go to the storage. Jar-hidda watched her and rattled in intrigue as she made sure that her back wasn't to him on her way down. She did this for two trips, and on the third trip he laughed.
"What's funny?" she asked accusingly.
Jar-hidda regarded her for a moment, mandibles clicking together behind his mask, "you are too careful."
She blinked, narrowing her eyes, confused by what he meant. She looked back up at him and was startled by how close he suddenly was. He was very silent for such a big creature. He grabbed her shoulders and moved her a few steps back. She blinked, unsure of what he was doing but he wasn't hurting her so didn't fight back. When he let go, he took a few deliberate and slow steps back, before deliberately turning his back to her, looking at her over his shoulder.
She frowned, getting angry over this hypocrisy issue again and held tighter the things in her arms.
"Here is okay," he said turning back to her and pointing along the short distance between them, "here is… not nice."
Not nice? She looked at him, then at the space between them, then back at him. She slowly puzzled it out and turned her back to him.
"Yes," he said without anger.
It was the distance! She had been violating some sort of custom whenever she was immediately turning away from him to go somewhere, but at a certain distance, about six feet or so it looked like, then it was okay to turn. This entire time, he had been laughing at her for that reason, and hadn't even attempted to fix it when he was pretending not to speak English.
She was the butt of so many of his personal jokes, it was getting her a bit flustered, and as she made her way downstairs she muttered under her breath, and from behind her, her own gravelly voice repeated, "dick?"