There is a Human Here!

Tarka:
 
 The branch under Leeps swayed up and down as he landed upon it to
 look downward along with the other Lemurs.  "What is it?
 Why is everyone calling?"  He looked over at Eepy.
 
 Taffy was leaning into her mate and looked over Eepy's shoulder.  "Eepy
 and I found that down there.  We didn't know what to do, so we called
 everyone in!"
 
 Leeps nodded and looked down at the forest floor.  It was a long time
 before he saw what it was that had given them such a fright.  There was
 a human lying down on the forest floor!  He seemed to be sleeping though,
 so he was not a danger right at the moment.
 
 Tanya landed on the limb next to Leeps and licked his cheek.  "Hello, mate.
 What is it that Eepy and Taffy found?"
 
 Leeps pointed his muzzle down.  "That."
 
 Tanya gasped.  "Is t-t-t-that a human?"
 
 Leeps nodded. "Yes. I have seen them before."
 
 Eepy finally looked up from staring. "What should we do?  I am going to go
 down there for a better look."  He started to climb down the tree, with
 Taffy following him close behind.
 
Lillieth:
 
 Eepy and Taffy moved quietly and carefully down the tree and then
 across the grass to where the human lay.  They walked all around it and then
 sat down a few feet away when they were sure that it was not awake.
 
 Eepy looked up into the trees and motioned for the other lemurs to
 come down, too.  Quietly he told them, "I think that it is okay... this human
 is asleep or sick.  What shall we do with it?"
 
 The others joined Eepy and Taffy cautiously, just a few at a time.  Soon they
 surrounded the human and discussed it in soft tones.  They decided to tie it
 down to be safe, so they scampered back up into the trees to gather vines.
 When enough vines had been gathered, they returned to the ground and
 tied the human securely.  Leeps chuckled, "Just like when they captured us..."
 
Spaceroo:
 
 The lemurs stood curiously around their bound prisoner, not quite sure
 what to do next. They'd never encountered this sort of happenstance
 before. Humans in the forest were generally observed from a distance, as
 close examination of the creatures was all to often an invitation for
 some sort of violence. Up close to the large furless creature, they
 marveled at the nearly sublime ugliness of the thing... every part of its
 body merely functional. It was nearly painful to look upon, quite
 honestly.
 
 The furless creature moaned softly and rolled, tugging at its bindings.
 The skittish observers scattered to the trees instantly, but crept back,
 seeing the human still both tightly bound and asleep. Eepy, summoning
 a somewhat falsified courage, came forward and placed a paw upon the
 person's face gently. Brushing softly across the dry skin and cracked
 lips, he came to the conclusion that they were likely in little danger.
 "This human is sick... it is probably dying. Perhaps its fellows drove
 it away from its home to die here." He pulled his paw away and wiped it
 in the leaf litter on the forest floor, his skin recoiling at the alien
 touch he'd inflicted upon it.
 
WalksFar:
 
 Slowly, the others slipped down from their lofty perches and warily made
 their way across the dusty forest floor to where the human lay curled.
 
 Leeps came forward, head high.  His gaze encompassed the whole of the
 still body that lay before him.  Something was not right about this human.
 It seemed smaller than others he had dealt with, and he instinctively
 understood what he saw. "This is not an older one. It is young. I am
 fearful for it."
 
 Taffy slipped over alongside Eepy and stared wide-eyed at it.  "It IS sorta
 little. . . ."
 
 Leeps summoned his courage and put his paw to its head and delicately
 explored with his fingertips.  After a few moments, he withdrew and
 closed his eyes.
 
 Eepy blinked and looked at his friend.  "What is it?"
 
 "It is dying. . . ."  Leeps took a breath.
 
 "Sad," said Taffy softly, "...what is wrong with it?"
 
 Leeps shook his head.  "I don't know.  I know it needs water, but . . .  I
 don't know. . . ."
 
 Eepy scampered across the clearing and trotted back with a large snail shell
 in his mouth.  He dropped it by Leeps. "We could bring water. . . ."
 
 Leeps nodded.  "It is wrong. . . .  It dies all alone, far from anyone
 of its kind to care . . .  it isn't right. . . ."
 
Tarka:
 
 Tanya came up to Leeps' side and nuzzled him on the cheek. "We have to
 help the little human."
 
 Leeps looked toward Eepy, both appearing to be a little pained. "We saw a lot
 of humans once."
 
 Eepy nodded and looked at the little one.  "Some of them were nice though."
 He reached down and took the snail shell in his mouth and went to get water
 from a nearby stream.
 
 Taffy later helped to hold its mouth open a little as they dampened its
 bare small lips.  They gave it little bits of water and it swallowed
 by reflex.  They kept this up, one snail shell full of water at a time, all
 afternoon.
 
 -----------
 
 Steve was dreaming.  He was in the camp with the evil men.  They were
 looking through the cages again and poking at the people within them
 with huge sticks.  They laughed harshly and marched down the line of cages
 from one end to the other.  Steve tried to hide under the sparse straw on the
 floor, to no avail.  He was in a nightmare... and far too real.
 
 Something was touching him.  Something with a very soft hand ...of fur.  A
 very small hand in fact.  Or maybe not a hand at all.  He could still
 remember the escape.  He put it out of his mind again.  Better to remember
 later. Think of the hand again.
 
 Eepy was touching its forehead and wondering why it was so very hot, when
 suddenly the eyes flutted open.  He found himself looking at the grey eyes
 of the little human. "Hello."
 
Lillieth:
 
 Steve opened his eyes to find a small furry animal staring at him,
 it's hand, or 'paw' touching his forehead.  He blinked in surprise and smiled
 weakly when it made a noise.  He tried to move and was unable to, then licked
 his dry lips with a sigh and thought, "At least I'm not with those evil ones
 anymore." Steve's eyes fluttered shut again, and he lost conciousness once
 more.
 
 Eepy brushed his hand over the little human's forehead again and
 turned to Taffy and Leeps. "He was awake, but not anymore.  I think we need
 more water for him."
 
 Taffy nodded and grabbed up the empty snail shell and made her way
 to the stream, then brought it back full.  The lemurs sat down and waited
 to see what would happen next as they tried to give the human more water.
 
Spaceroo:
 
 Taffy sat upon her haunches and scratched her nose nervously, which she was
 prone to doing, as she watched the others mill about the prone human. They
 had grown more bold as the situation became less tense. While Eepy and
 the some of the others were showing honest concern for the sick person,
 a number of other members of the troupe were now starting to enjoy the
 novelty of the situation, sideling up and touching the creature, and
 tugging on its ragged fiber coverings, to the point where Leeps was having
 to shoo them away. Overheard was talk of building a cage to keep the
 strange animal in, should it awaken... a sort of turnabout to the treatment
 that rumors abounded of, about the way humans would treat lemurs.
 An uneasyness grew within her, and despite her concern, she couldn't help
 but wish that perhaps the human had gone another way earlier. She hopped
 up and took Eepy's paw, and sitting by him as he pondered what more could
 be done.
 
 Leeps sat to the other side of the human, the water shell clenched
 thoughtfully in his paw, and observed how the troupe was becoming more
 excited and stimulated by the moment, and worried about what might
 happen should the human awake. "Perhaps we should construct a cage for
 it... not to hold it forever, but to protect it." Leeps sighed deeply,
 a bit discouraged by the excitability of some of his peers. "If it should
 wake up and panic, the others might feel the need to quell it if they
 think it could be dangerous."
 
 Eepy nodded gently, and voiced his agreement. "It may react badly to us
 when it awakes, and that could trigger... bad things. And," he paused,
 "It'll give the others something to do, at least. Shoo!" Eepy made a
 threatening gesture at an adolescent lemur, who had decided to yank upon
 the odd vines crisscrossing the ragged coverings over the creature's
 feet. Eepy's discipline caused the taunting lemur to hop back with a playful
 grin, and join its cronies in a nearby low branch.
 
 And thus, construction began on a cage nearby, the fabrication being
 organized by a scruffy old lemuress who'd once witnessed the building
 of a hunting leanto by humans in the forest, and thus considered herself
 an expert. Lacking much in tools, it ended up primarily a dense tangle
 of willowy branches of random length sunk into the ground, woven together
 at the top, with rocks of various sizes piled around the perimeter.
 Unsure how to get the human into it, Eepy, Leeps and the others in care of
 the human encouraged the builders to continue refining their construction,
 until the thing looked roughly like a cross between a beaver lodge and
 an igloo, about five feet in diameter, and three tall, with a large door
 roughly hinged on one edge.
 
WalksFar:
 
 Once the cage was built and covered loosely with leaves, it looked more
 like a leaf pile with a hole in the side.  Leeps looked down at the little
 human and scratched his brow.  "How we gonna get him into the cage?"
 
 "We wake him and he goes in?" questioned Taffy.
 
 Leeps bent close to the little human's face and listened carefully.  He
 shook his head.  "Still sick.  Too weak, maybe."  He turned to the troupe and
 called them down.  "We carry him, pull him inside."
 
 The struggle lasted all of fifteen minutes, but slowly, the little human
 was pulled inside, out of the sun, and into the cooler interior.
 
 "Now what?" asked Eepy, who staggered away from the entrance half exhausted.
 
 Leeps hadn't thought of that. "What would they do?  This was interesting.
 
 They had never done this before.  What DID one do with a human once they
 had it in a cage?  At least it was out of the hot sun and safe.  Several
 members of the troupe returned from the river a short distance away with 
 snail shells filled with water.  The stream had become muddy with all their
 frenetic activity and it had become undrinkable, even for a human.
 
 Leeps surveyed everything carefully.  He ordered leaves and vines tossed
 over the entrance, with only a hole left for them to come and go.  At least
 nothing else could find the human and harm it.  It was protected.
 
 One of the troupe loped into the clearing near the cage, tail held high
 in urgency... It shrieked an alarm!
 
 The troupe gathered quickly.  The word was passed on.  More humans . . .  not
 little . . . big and angry, dangerous looking.
 
 Leeps wasn't about to give up the human they'd caught.  He thought and
 thought.  If these men found the little human, they'd take it.  That was NOT
 gonna happen!
 
 "I've got it!  I've got it!"  He leaped up, startling the others.  "Remember?
 Remember back long time?  The humans who looked for the other?  Remember?
 
 They found part of its body covering by the river and all went fast down
 river to find it.  Remember?"
 
 "Yes, but they found it dead!" Eepy pointed out.  The rest of the troupe
 agreed solemnly.
 
 "We gonna kill it and throw it in the river?" asked a younger Lemur.
 
 "NO!" shouted Leeps, frustrated.  "Wait!"  He scampered into the
 enclosure and stayed there for a few moments.  He backed out and
 dumped shoes and socks on the ground.
 
 "You peeled it?"  Eeeps was horrified.
 
 Leeps frowned.  "No!  It's fine!  Grab stuff.  We take it to the river by
 the rocks where the water goes fast and roars!"  He grabbed a shoe and
 bounded down the trail.  Others grabbed items and followed.
 
 When they got back, it was none too soon.  Four big humans appeared shortly,
 sniffed around the clearing, and continued on.
 
 "MATT!  Quick!" shouted one of them near the river.
 
 The other humans followed hurriedly.
 
 They all gathered around the rocks where the shoes and socks had been
 dumped.
 
 "DAMN!" shouted one of them angrily.  "Quick!  Down river.  I hope we find
 him alive.  He ain't worth ransom unless he's alive!"
 
 The whole gaggle of humans vanished down the swollen river.
 
Shadow:
 
 Eepy looked at the others. "Well, it worked; I just wonder what all that
 was about..."
 
 Leeps nodded. "Me too. Still, crisis averted, let's go back."
 
 Eepy nodded agreement, but when the others left, he stayed where he was.
 Something was odd about the human's behavior, he thought. Best to
 make sure they were really gone.
 
 Back at the clearing, no one had enough attention to notice Eepy
 missing. The little human had awakened again. He looked confused by
 the cage, but not scared; on the other hand, the lemurs were a riot
 of confusion. No one was sure what they really wanted to do with it.
 Some wanted to help. Some wanted to leave. Some wanted to do horrid
 things to the poor young one as retribution. Leeps sighed. Such was
 Lemur nature...
 
 There was a rustle of leaves and a new outbreak of a different sort as
 Eepy burst into the clearing. He'd obviously been running full tilt.
 "They're coming back this way!" Eepy panted. "They'll be here in a few
 minutes! We've got to do something!"
 
 Leeps thought fast. "We've got more coverings; we could try it again..."
 
 Eepy shook his head. "I don't think it'll work. We've got too... um.. try
 ..something.. *blinkblink* else? Yes!" Eepy was looking at the cage,
 partially covered on three sides. "We can just make the human disappear!
 If they can't find him, they'll have to leave!"
 
 Leeps' gaze followed Eepy's, confused. Then comprehension dawned.
 
Tarka:
 
 All of the lemurs rushed around the forest floor looking for and finding
 bits of leaves and twigs and such and then ran back to the cage with them
 in their mouths and let them drop.  Soon enough the little structure
 disappeared into the forest floor, just a mound of leaves and other
 things.  When the human's finally got to the clearing, the lemurs all waited
 up in the trees looking down.  Soon the visitors left again, and started
 looking again, farther upriver this time.
 
 Steve held very quiet when he heard the voices.  All around him was a
 kind of mini-hut made by lemurs, of all creatures.  It had saved his life
 this time.  He was very grateful.  He lay down in there and wiggled his toes.
 His shoes were missing.  He frowned.  'How the hell did that happen?'
 
 Eepy looked down from his branch as the last human left, and then made his
 way down the tree again to the cage.
 
 Steve was looking around at the birds-nest-like job around him, when a
 furry head poked into the hut.  "Hello, fuzzy," he said.  "You helped me.
 Thank you very much."
 
 Eepy nodded to the human.  "You are welcome."
 
 Steve looked at the animal as it made some sounds.  He grinned and thought
 about what he should do next.  In the background he started to hear the
 chopper.  They were still looking for him.  If he could only get to a
 phone and call for help.  "You wouldn't happen to know where a phone is,
 fuzzy?"
 
 Eepy blinked.
 
Spaceroo:
 
 Eepy tilted his head at the human in the cage, perplexed at its question.
 "Phone?" Perhaps it's some sort of foodstuff. No way to know. It was a
 bit of a shock to see the creature that seemed so near death not long
 ago seeming so bright and awake. Perhaps it'd been stunned by some
 fall that left no mark, or was out in the sun too long. Strange. Eepy
 smiled ingraciatingly at the human, showing of front teeth under his
 black lip, and nodding gently with a motion showing he planned to return, then
 ducked backwards out the hole through which he'd entered, which
 was far too small for the human to use, and tried to find Leeps in the
 milling about of lemurs, which was heightening again, as the sound of the
 humans faded. A strange chopping noise could now be heard orbiting off to 
 the horizon, slowly approaching. He didn't want any of the more excitable
 crowd to know yet that the human was awake ...and he had no idea what to
 do next.
 
 Back in the cage, Steve somewhat painfully sat up, his head just
 clearing the bottom of the rough low ceiling, and listened to the
 going-ons outside while examining himself for injuries. He reached
 behind his neck, and rubbed at the large welt that marked where the
 drugged dart had momentarily stuck before glancing off. If it had
 stayed even a fraction of a second longer, he would never have made
 it far enough into the woods to have hidden as he did. Every joint in
 his body ached, something like the dull heat of a hornet sting, and
 his face felt feverish and dry even now. *sigh.* At least he knew those
 sensations wouldn't last /too/ long, having suffered them following
 his initial capture. The pain from the shot was nothing compared to
 the torture that followed anyway.
 
 His mind still fuzzy, he didn't quite fully grasp the oddity of being
 entrapped in a structure constructed by the... what were they here...
 lemurs?... the raccoonish-looking monkeys that populated this place. He
 listened to them chattering outside, and through a small crack managed
 to see several of them sitting and standing in a group outside, almost
 as if they were discussing him. In the distance, he could still barely
 hear the occasional shout, which caused him to shrink against the
 rough wall of the hut, and the helicopter's distant 'fwupfwupfwup'
 did all the more to keep him from questioning his hiding place too
 strenuously.
 
WalksFar:
 
 The sound of the helicopter remained constant in the distance.  He listened
 in silence.  There was yet an uncharacteristic sound... distant shouts.
 Gunfire!  The 'copter sound became more distant, and the shouts and curses
 faded.
 
 Stevie listened, unwilling to take a chance.  Suddenly, a furry head stuck
 into the cage and Eepy dropped in a banana in hopes that the little
 human wanted one.  "You want?"
 
 Stevie picked up the banana slowly and smiled.  "Thanks.  I was hungry."
 
 Eepy pulled back and dropped to the ground.  All the troupe had gathered in
 the brush along the clearing.  Scouts that had followed the humans returned
 at a heart-stopping pace.  All wanted to know what was going on.
 
 Leeps stood before them.  He nodded for them to begin.  The three
 scouts spoke rapidly:  The men that had been in the clearing had gone up
 stream.  They encountered some others, and then what looked like a fight
 started.  Then the noisy flying thing arrived and the first group of men
 scattered and ran with the others in hot pursuit.  It all looked like a
 wonderful game ...if it hadn't been so noisy.
 
 Leeps wanted to know where they went. One of the scouts admitted they
 didn't know.  A final scout had followed, but hadn't come back yet.
 
 Eepy sat near Leeps and leaned to him.  "It's awake and okay.  I gave it a
 banana.  It was hungry.  It asked for a phone."
 
 Leeps blinked curiously.  "Phone?"
 
 Eepy nodded.
 
 "What is . . . Phone?"
 
 "Food?" ventured Taffy.
 
 Eepy nodded rapidly.  "It ate the banana!  Get more 'phone' for it!"
 
 The troupe scattered into the brush to look for food.
 
Shadow:
 
 Steve watched in puzzlement as he was brought another banana. 'Guess the
 little lemur didn't know what a phone was. Oh, well.' He noticed that the
 noise had died down quite a while ago. He turned to the lemur, eating
 the banana, as he was hungry anyway. "Can I go," he pointed out the
 door, "outside?" The little animal seemed to consider this, then made a
 chittering sound and zipped out the door. Steve hoped that was only a 'wait a
 minute' gesture.
 
 Eepy had just finally managed to get the others to accept letting the
 young human loose. In the end, he appealed to their pride in having
 scouted the other humans, reasoning that they could obviously handle
 this little one. He turned to go back and open the cage/hiding place.
 
 Steve hadn't known how to get home right away, and the would-be rescuers
 had already moved on. But here he had shelter in the form of the little
 hut, and food to eat, and friends, if odd ones. So there he stayed for
 several weeks, hoping he'd eventually find a way home.
 He also found with some astonishment that, after being with the lemurs
 for some time, and watching them, he found that sometimes it was almost
 as if he could understand partially what they were trying to say. He'd
 known that the lemurs, or at least the first one he'd met, could
 understand him somehow, but it surprised him that it was becoming mutual.
 
 Soon thereafter, he picked up a true understanding of the language, so he
 could listen, if not talk to all of them. The days passed.
 
 Eventually, Eepy figured out what Steve had been trying to tell him,
 about where he lived and that he didn't know the way. Eepy passed the word,
 and soon they had a tentative route to the nearest city. They'd wait 'til
 the end of the Winter season, and then they'd go.
 
 Steve would be home again.   If he wasn't already.
 
 
 To be continued...
 
 In another place, another time.