"A Past Unknown, A Future Uncertain" (closed)

[AngelEyes1994]

"A Past Unknown, A Future Uncertain"

CLOSED​

Lara had lost track of time, the fear overwhelming her senses. Her arms were beginning to tremble as the many seconds passed. How long had she been aiming the arrow at the creature that had fallen from the sky?

Two voices competed in her head. One told her to kill it, kill it now, kill it before it killed her. The other voice told her to find out what it was, where it had come from, why it was here, and, of course, whether it really did want to kill her. Then, maybe, just maybe, then she would kill it.

If she even could!

It looked like Lara in many ways, with two legs, two arms, a head, and a similar torso shape. But it was also different, with clothing that covered every inch of it, clothing that didn't look natural, didn't look like the dried leather from a Slitherer's body or the intricately woven Long Grass of which most of her own clothes were made. It looked hard and shiny like the Glass Rock from which her tribe made jewelry and arrowheads when they didn't have enough pliable metal for the same purpose.

Maybe it wasn't clothing at all. Maybe it was a shell. Maybe it had arms and legs and a body like Lara's own but had an exoskeleton like so many of the arthropods, amphibians, and reptiles who were the highest evolved creatures aside from her Lara's own species, simply called the Beings.

What if she loosed her arrow and it only bounced off the creature's clothes or skin or shell or whatever it was? The creature would surely charge and kill her, maybe even eat her.

Lara had to make a decision as her arms were about to give out.

But, before she did, the creature acted.

(closed)

 

[HornyDog2017]

Inside his pressure suit, Remo Cole stood unmoving and still at the sight of the woman with the bow. His reaction was partly due to the fear that she was about to put an arrow through him, of course. But it was mostly due to the fact that there shouldn't be a creature like this on this planet, let alone one dressed like Sheera of the Jungle, pointing aiming an arrow at him.

Oh, for a moment, Cole had seriously thought he was still in stasis, dreaming about the sexy, 20th century movie heroine who ran through the now-gone, thick foliaged jungles of Africa barefoot or rode across the open plains -- which were now either desert or vast cities -- on a bridle-trained Zebra, pursuing and punishing poachers, polluters, and other such environmental criminals.

But REM-sleep didn't happen during cryo-stasis, let alone dreaming. So, this was very real.

But it wasn't possible.

Cole had been expecting life down here, of course. The conditions for life on New Terra had been detected and verified more than 500 years ago from a multitude of sources either on Earth and positioned about the Sol System. But the consensus had been that the planet would have no life more evolutionarily advanced than that of Earth's Permian period, which had lasted between 250 and 300 million years ago and included only the basic beginnings of mammalian life.

There shouldn't be a bipedal, upright-standing, mammal-appearing creature like this woman with the intelligence and manual dexterity to fashion clothing that, to Cole, appeared to have been made from animal hides and plant materials, let alone create and deploy a projectile weapon that might very end this first mission to an Earth-like planet by killing Cole before he ever made his first report.

Woman... Cole thought as he again allowed his gaze to shift for a moment from the presumably-deadly arrow to the being about to fire it. Most definitely a woman. He shouldn't be thinking such thoughts, of course; he should have been trying to figure out how to communicate with this woman, to prevent her from ending his life before he could explain who he was, where he'd come from, and why he was here, all questions which the was ironically asking herself unbeknownst to Cole.

Sheera of the Jungle he again thought to himself. Cole couldn't even begin to count the number of times during his woken hours between cryo-sleep periods that he'd watched the HMI productions from the Sheera franchise. The holographic motion images made the sexy woman from five centuries earlier appear so life like that Cole had almost forgotten she was real as he'd been masturbating to fantasies of being there in her jungle hut with her.

This woman was Sheera, of course. She didn't have the same body shape or even the same hair color. So, Cole knew he wasn't having some cryo dream. But she was very much the kind of woman men like Cole dreamed about when they were hundreds of miles from Earth spanking their own wanker.

But, fantasies needed to be set aside. Cole very slowly raised his hands up and outward in what he was desperately hoping was the universal sign of don't shoot, I surrender, I'm not going to hurt you. When she didn't fire, he continued to reach upwards, to his helmet, then to the latches that held it in place.

After landing, Cole had run all the necessary tests with all the fancy and handy sensor machines, and he'd determined that the air was breathable, though with a 20% higher oxygen content than that to which he was accustomed. He'd been through almost three years of immunizations and other treatments that -- supposedly -- would protect him against whatever killer viruses, bacteria, and other microbes might want to infest him and kill him from the inside out. According to the doctors, Cole had a better than average chance of surviving here. Better than average. Thanks, Doc.

He flicked the latches, disconnected the seal, let the pressure equalize, and slowly lifted the helmet from his head to reveal his face to the unexpected woman-like thing.

He gave her a moment to study him, then said slowly, "Hello. I'm not going to hurt you. I am Cole. My name is Cole. Remo Cole. I am from Earth."

 

[AngelEyes1994]

The bow string had begun to weaken a bit in Lara's tiring arms. But when the thing before her began moving its arms upwards, she pulled back again. But, its movements didn't seem threatening. They looked like the Peace Be gesture. She watched as his arms continued upwards and did something with his head. No, with his hat. It was a hat, not like their ceremonial hats, but a hat all the same. And he removed it.

And he was like her!

Oh, he wasn't a Birther, of course. He was a Breeder. But he was a Being nonetheless! Like Lara. Not an alien at all. It didn't make sense. Why was a Being dressed as he was? And what was this thing that had brought him here, this flying boat from the sky that was not made of rock or fiber or hide?

After a moment, Lara realized that she had let most of the tension out of the bow string, the arrow tip no longer aimed at this Being-not-Being.

And then it spoke!

"Hello. I'm not going to hurt you. I am Cole. My name is Cole. Remo Cole. I am from Earth."

And Lara understood it! Or him?

Not all the words. The first word and the last escaped her. But she understood enough of the rest to understand that it, he, was greeting her. And without threat. Maybe even with friendship. She continued to study it for a moment before speaking back to it.

"You are Being? Like me? A Being," she asked. She saw his reaction to her words and knew he recognized them just as she had his. She let the fingers of her right hand hold the arrow against the bow shaft as the left hand reached up to tap her sternum. "Lara. I, Lara. A Being. Like you?"

 

[HornyDog2017]

"You are Being? Like me? A Being," she asked.

Cole was probably as shocked as the woman before him was. She was a Human; he had no doubt as she was speaking English, one of only 4 Authorized Languages -- including International Sign -- that were used in the New Terra program. Her lack of proper grammar didn't surprise Cole. After all, his usage of Chinese, Russian, and Sign weren't exactly the best either.

But that still didn't explain what the fuck she was doing here. He was the first Human to reach New Terra.

"Lara. I, Lara. A Being. Like you?"

But, no, that wasn't true he suddenly realized. Cole was the first person to have left Earth for New Terra. That didn't at all mean that he'd been the first person to reach the distant planet. A smile widened his lips as his brain reached an obvious conclusion: another FTLS ship that left after him, one that was far faster, had reached New Terra sometime during his 300 year long cryo-stasis period.

His mind was simply spinning with the possibilities when he remembered that the woman had asked him a question. He told her, "Yes, I am a human being. I am a human … from Earth. You know of Earth … right?"

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Lara didn't know this word, Human, but she understood Being and she assumed that Human Being was this strange man's way of saying the same thing. She smiled with delight, the first time she'd done so since this whole affair began with her spotting his sky boat passing overhead hours earlier. She still didn't understand what was happening here, though. She looked to his clothing, then tugged at her own, asking, "What you wear?"

As she listened to his response, she would return her arrow to its quiver. She was no longer in fear of this Human.

 

[HornyDog2017]

(OOC: Please note that the pic below in which Cole is shirtless, you should consider that he is actually covered from neck to toe in a wet suit-like pressure suit. This is the closest picture of the man I using to stand in as Cole that I can find that suits the context.)


Cole noted that Lara skipped answering his question about knowing of Earth when she went on to ask, "What you wear?"

He also noted that she disarmed herself, putting the arrow back into its case and letting the bow dangle at her side. He held up his helmet, then turned it to her as he lifted the face plate. He described what it was, how it worked, and why he had it.

Still moving slowly, despite no longer being in imminent danger, Cole leaned to set his helmet down. As he began explaining what his suit did for him -- providing protection against pressure changes, biological threats, radiation, and more -- Cole began flipping and turning the fasteners to remove the outer guards: shoulders, arms, legs, chest, front torso, back torso.

Soon, Cole was surrounded by a dozen outer guards and -- after stepping out of his boots -- was dressed in only the suit's pressure skin. It was designed to offer him flexibility of movement yet remain sturdy and unchanging when pressure conditions changed, such as in a decompression event in the void of space.

Cole had never liked the suit with all of its outer guards. Despite excellent design, it had always felt awkward for him. But stripped out of the guards and standing there only in the one piece neck-to-ankles, wet-suit-like skin, Cole was more comfortable. And he couldn't help but smile a bit now, because he's always thought the body hugging skin showed off his muscular form well.

"This is me," he said, holding his arms out wide as if to say See, just me.

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Lara didn't understand most of what Cole was telling her. Pressure, viruses, bacteria, radiation, void? She sort of understood that the suit he was shedding was for protection. But not understanding any of the rest of it left her wondering why he needed protection when she didn't. They were both just Beings, right?

Her own clothing wouldn't have protected her against any of those unknown dangers, mostly because there wasn't too much to it. The uninformed -- which now included Cole -- might have thought the reason for the skimpy outfit was comfort in the rain forest's heat and humidity. But the real reason was a little more complicated than that. A little more dangerous than that. And a little more gruesome than that.

The leather from which her clothes were made came from an animal they called a Slither, for the way it moved. It had legs but most of its forward propulsion was snake like, on its belly with an "S" movement over the ground. It was a 16 foot long creature that, evolutionary, lay somewhere between a cold blooded reptile and a warm blooded mammal. On Earth, it might have been mistaken for a Komodo Dragon wearing a short-hair fur coat. The fur covered all but the Slither's underside, skull, and the last half of its tail, all of which were covered in scales with a strength similar to Cole's outer guards.

Getting the leather was a bloody affair. The Slither was caught alive and tied to the ground at his feet, tail, and snout. Then, armed with razor sharp, stone knives, the Beings rapidly skinned the Slither from skull to tail, sometimes by as many as a dozen blade-wielding Beings. The work had to be performed quickly because the moment the Slither's heart stopped beating, a fluid -- a sort of sweat -- within the creature's lower dermis would begin leaking out severed pores. This liquid was poisonous, and to remain in its presence more than a couple of minutes could cause permanent lung damage, even death.

But to kill the animal before skinning would cause the sweat to pollute the animal's entire body, including the treasured leather, scales, high protein meat, and vitamin rich internal organs. It had to be harvested while still alive. Because getting the leather was so difficult, it was used sparingly. Because of this, Lara's top enclosed only her bosom -- a B-cup in Cole's culture back home -- and most of her rib cage but very little of her back and none of her belly. Her skirt covered her from just above her hips to just beyond her ass cheeks. And below that was what Cole would have called a thong. Other than that, Lara wore nothing else but arm guards.

Once the Human had shed his outer layer, Lara got a much better look at his body. He was a very fit specimen of Human or Being or Human Being or whatever they would decide he was. And Lara couldn't help but imagine Cole out of the red layer of form-fitting cloth that so perfectly showed off his rippling muscles.

"This is me," he said.

Lara smiled, the laughed at the stranger's humor. She mimicked him, holding her own arms out and saying, "This me!"

They laughed together, and Cole said something she didn't quite catch because her attention had shifted. She stepped a bit closer to him, then off to the side for a better look at the shuttle that had brought him down to the surface of what he knew as New Terra.

"Sky boat?" she asked, using her only method of describing an object that carried people. "You come sky boat?"

The Beings didn't have flying objects like this or like anything else. In fact, it would never have occurred to Lara that things like this -- or Beings like Cole -- could fly through the air. There was a proto-bird here in the forest that was still evolving the ability to flap the front legs that would one day become wings. But right now, it did little more than jump from limb to limb in the forest's canopy. Lara had seen them catch a strong wind from time to time and soar off hundreds of yards. But it could hardly be called flying.

 

[HornyDog2017]

Cole shared the laughter following Lara's mimicking of him with, "This me!"

He was surprised at how at ease he was with the situation. This was not the landing for which he'd trained for more than four years. There hadn't been any training for a meet and greet with an intelligent, indigenous species because no one had ever imagined that such inhabitants could exist.

Of course, if he was going to have company where none was expected, Lara was the company he would want. She was beautiful from head to toe with delicious curves. Just as Lara had imagined him without his suit's skin, he had imagined her without her lizard skins.

"Sky boat?" she asked about his landing shuttle. "You come sky boat?"

He laughed aloud, repeating, "Sky boat. Yeah, I guess it is."

Cole knelt down and began reassembling the outer guard using both the clips that connected the pieces to his pressure skin and the clips that were specifically for reassembling the suit. When he was finished, he lifted it all as one unit. It was surprisingly light, less than 7 kilograms.

Cole looked to Lara to find her studying the landing shuttle. He asked, "Do you want to see it?"

He walked toward the shuttle, gesturing her to follow. He smiled and said reassuringly, "It's okay. Safe. I won't hurt you."

Cole set the bundled shell parts on a rock near the shuttle and entered the shuttle through the still opened hatch. He kept his eyes on Lara the whole time, studying her expressions, ready to reassure her that it was safe if he saw signs of fear or alarm.

"You'll have to excuse the mess," he told her once she was inside the door. "The housekeeper doesn't come until Wednesday."

He smiled and laughed, knowing that she didn't understand. How could she know that the reason the deck was covered in cases, bags, tools, and more was because the shuttle's landing had had an element of crash landing in it.

"I don't think I'll get it back in the air again, let alone safely into orbit," Cole continued, talking more to himself than to his guest. "I was supposed to come down farther to the north, on the plain … not here in the hills."

Cole picked a few items up as he continued to ramble, putting them where they belonged in some cases while in others just setting them on the almost level table of the almost level shuttle.

"It's smaller inside than it looks on the outside, of course," he continued, mostly just wanting his voice to calm Lara. He didn't know her well enough yet to know whether her expression was one of wonder or fear. He continued rambling on, "The space between the inner and outer hulls provide pressure differential changes and also..."

Even though he knew it meant nothing to Lara, Cole described some of the aspects of his craft. Again, it was mostly done in the hopes that his voice might give her comfort while she cautiously wandered about the creation that had to be very strange to her.

From the outside, the shuttle looked very similar to the first reusable shuttles built clear back in the 20th century. It was much smaller, though: those original shuttles had had a length of over 37 meters whereas Cole's was just under 22; his had a wingspan half that of the American-made vehicle's 24 meters; and the empty weight of the one he and Lara were standing in was just 42,000 kilograms, far less than its ancestor's 78,000 kilos.

Cole explained some of the things laying about the deck, attached to the bulkheads, or still secure behind cupboard doors. He ripped open a small tubular package of goo and squeezed some of it out onto his fingers. He ate it, then explained, "It's food … high in protein, vitamins, anti-oxidants … all the other good things that keep us alive and happy."

He squeezed out a bit more, ate it, then held the tube out to Lara. He didn't know whether or not she'd take it, but if she did she'd discover a substance the consistency of thick pudding with -- thankfully -- a delicious chocolaty flavor.

"It might not look like it, but its pretty much everything I need to survive down here for up to three months," he continued about the shuttle and its contents. "Of course, I wasn't supposed to actually be down here for that long. I was supposed to be down here a couple of days … land and take some readings, samples … to take back up ... mostly biological stuff but some environmental as well ... bugs you could call them…"

Cole lifted his hands with his thumb and forefinger close together to indicate small size and continued, "...you know, microscopic life ... viruses, bacteria … the kind of stuff that we can't detect from orbit but which could kill us dead in an instant because we don't have immunity to them. You probably never read The War of the Worlds, did you...? H. G. Wells...? Yeah, probably not."

Then Cole reminded himself that although he didn't yet have proof -- and her reaction to him and the shuttle seemed to contradict it -- there was still a pretty good chance that Lara and/or her ancestors had come to New Terra on an FTLS ship just as he had. He was so very conflicted on this topic, though. Why was she looking about at things that he thought commonplace in his day and age if she'd come from an age decades or possibly even one or more centuries after his own era. Should he and the shuttle and its contents really surprise her all so much?

It was time to learn more about Lara and her people, if any existed. Cole gestured to catch Lara's eye, then gestured to his sleeping rack, his table, his storage facilities, and then the general interior.

"This is my home now," he told her. He thought to himself, If I can't get it back into the air and orbit, and if I can't get a replacement down safely, this might be my home for a very long time. He tapped his chest, gestured about himself, then at the end of his next words pointed to Lara. "My home … where I live … understand? Where is your home, Lara? Where do you live? Can you show me?"

If she told him yes, Cole would tell her he needed to put together a pack, some supplies like food, he would tell her. His suit skin regulated his core temperature and other vitals, so it required a power supply, which was built into a back pack which already had some supplies in it but to which Cole would add some more things.

Inconspicuously, he would also slip his power pistol into a pouch of the pack. It was a non-lethal hand weapon that had been designed for use against any potentially aggressive animals Cole might encounter once he was on the ground. Of course, the designers had had lizards and crocodiles and snakes and such in mind, not Human Beings!

The weapon looked sort of like some of the ray guns of early science fiction movies. He hoped he didn't need it or the power refills he would pack away as well. But Cole was in just as much of an unknown situation in Lara's world outside this shuttle as Lara was here within it.

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Cole asked about his shuttle and Lara's interest in it, "Do you want to see it?"

He picked up his red shell covering things and walked toward the shuttle. Lara didn't immediately follow. The big thing was so very foreign to her, and with the door open as it was she imagined it eating her. That was silly, of course. It was about the size and color of the whale-like creatures that she sometimes saw in the sea when she sat on the cliff at sunrise. But it was here on land and not alive, or so Lara hoped.

"It's okay. Safe. I won't hurt you."

She followed cautiously, and after some obvious hesitation, Lara was peeking inside and then stepping inside the shuttle. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before. Cole began talking about the craft, its inside, its things. Lara only understood a small portion of what he was saying, despite their speaking the same general language. Some of what he showed her was easily recognized: a cup, a bed. And she understood enough of what he was saying to figure out some more of the things, although she didn't always understand why someone would need those things.

She didn't understand the specifics of what he was saying about getting the shuttle back into the air but Lara understood that that was what he wanted. He was planning on leaving in his sky boat, and surprisingly -- or maybe not so much so -- that saddened Lara a bit. She had been shocked and fearful upon seeing the shuttle cross the sky and hit the ground, and again so when after she'd neared it the alien in red emerged. But now that she understood that somehow he was a Being and not a threat, she wasn't at all eager to see him go.

Cole opened a tube and ate from it, offering it to Lara. She was hesitant initially, but after the Human had twice ate some of it, she took the package. She squeezed it, and the goo as he called it leaked over the edge onto her fingers. Lara laughed, surprised. It was thick and cool to the touch. She looked to Cole, who directed her. Lara lifted her hand, the tube, and the goo to her face, first sniffing, then touching her tongue to it.

Her eyes literally opened wide at the flavor. It, like the shuttle, was like nothing she'd ever experienced. She licked some of the paste from her fingers, then more, then took a larger wad of it into her lips. She purred, then laughed as she realized she sounded like on of the toddlers getting their first taste of late season Better Berries.

Lara squeezed more of the goo out, eagerly eating at it until Cole tried to explain that she shouldn't eat too much of it at one time. She couldn't know whether the tube was intended to last a person a full day, several days, or even longer. She only knew that after she handed it back, she eagerly licked every last bit of it off her fingers and thumb.

Cole explained that the shuttle was his home, talking about more things she didn't understand before asking "Where is your home, Lara? Where do you live? Can you show me?"

Lara understood what the man was asking, and she was hesitant to give him a positive answer for reasons she couldn't and wouldn't explain until the right time. But Cole had shown her his home without hesitation, and Lara felt it only appropriate to show him her own. Besides, she wasn't done getting to know the alien in the sky boat.

"Yes … show home," she said, already backing toward the door and gesturing Cole to follow. "Come … through forest."

Cole told her he needed to pack some things. Lara understood that as well, and she had no concerns about what he was packing … except for asking if he would bring more of the black goo. Even though he tried to conceal it, Lara caught sight of the weapon he slipped into his pack. But to her it was just another strange tool.

"Come," she repeated when Cole made it clear that he was ready. They headed outside, Cole did what he needed to so concerning the shuttle, and they headed off with Lara saying, "Not far."

It actually was far, though, almost 20 kilometers as might be measured in Cole's culture. Lara rarely went half that distance from the village. She had no reason to do so. Within two hours walk or slow jog from her home, Lara could find all she needed: plains and hills, forests and swamps, edible flora and fauna, and all the resources necessary for her and her own to build, create, house, feed, and more.

The only reason she was this far from home was the shuttle. She'd been just over the south ridge when she'd seen it coming in low over the horizon. Lara couldn't know whether or not any one had seen it from the village. She hadn't waited to chase after it, her curiosity piqued from the moment she'd seen it.

They followed the edge of the forest for a while, then cut through the woods until they reached an animal trail. She tried to describe the animal that had made the trail, naming it, "Slither. You understand, Slither?"

Lara took her bow out again and kept an arrow notched though not pulled to fire. They followed the trail for an hour or more, only once halting when Lara heart jumped at the sound of an unseen Slither hurrying away through the thick undergrowth. They turned up a sharp rise to what became an open, grass covered plateau that, in turn, became a treeless soggy bog.

Lara tried to keep them on dry ground as much as possible, but it simply wasn't possible at times. She explained as they walked that to go around meant more danger from Slithers. The truth was that to the west and east of them were dangers she didn't want to explain yet.

The sun was about to reach the forested horizon a couple of hundred kilometer to the west when they entered another forest. Lara explained that there were no Slithers here and that was why it was safe to camp here overnight. She'd hoped they could make it all the way to the village before nightfall, but she hadn't realized just how far she'd traveled to reach the downed sky boat. She now understood that they should have stayed at the shuttle until tomorrow's dawn, but it was too late to correct that error.

"Here," she said after she located a small clearing where she'd camped overnight in the past. "Stay night here."

The clearing was roughly circular, about 20 meters or 10 heights across at its narrowest. There was a stone encircled fire pit in the center, as well as some branch-made racks for drying meat and plants that could then be eaten or taken back to the village. A lean-to made of limbs and palm-like fronds extended between the only two trees near the otherwise cleared space. The lean-to was big enough for the two of them both but only barely.

"Help," Lara called to Cole from the edge of the clearing. "Help carry."

She had him take one end of one of four 2 meter long log that had been chopped to length from a single tree months or years earlier. Setting it in the middle of the fire pit, Lara picked up a heavy rock that, after having been split either naturally or by Beings, had a seriously sharp, ax-like edge on it. Lara struggled to lift it high above her head, then brought it down with great force into the log, the sharp edge parallel with the log's length. The log split, not entirely or neatly, but enough so that she could then pull the two halves open by hand.

Lara would gather other things for the fire, too. She dug up a dark colored root about the length of the log and laid it inside the opened split. Then she covered the rood with a specific leaf material that she also dug up, this time from around the base of a giant, elm-looking tree. Once she got done, the split log, the dark root, and the leaves almost had the look of a Earth hot dog: bun, meat, and condiments, all layered for consumption by some giant creature.

Lara opened a little leather pouch dangling from the belt about her waist, removed two objects, and with just five quick strike -- each spitting out bright sparks -- the hot dog began burning. The resulting fire would burn well into the night, after which Lara or Cole or both would add a second log which they split now in preparation.

"Stay here," she told Cole once the blaze was assured and he'd begun unpacking some of his gear. She hurried to the clearings edge, her bow and arrow at hand again, then looked back with a smile and commanded again, "Stay here! Danger forest."

She disappeared into the woods.

Less than half an hour later, Lara reemerged, her bow put away and a dead animal dangling from each of her hands. One looked reptilian and the other mammalian, though neither was anything Cole had ever seen before. Lara sat on a rock near the fire and under what was now only the light of two of New Terra's three moons, very swiftly gutted and skinned both animals. She pulled a small organ from the innards of the reptile and plopped it into her mouth with a smile.

"Eat," she told Cole, pulling out the second of the kidney-looking organs and offering it out. She tried to recall what he'd said about the goo, telling him with humor, "All things keep live and happy."

If Cole chose not to eat it, Lara would with another laugh. She would put the meat on the stakes that reached out above the flames now, but while they waited she would pick out more of the edible innards and offer them to Cole or eat them herself. She's also foraged some edible roots, fungi, berries, nuts, and flowers. She showed each to Cole, named it, ate it, and then offered him one or more. If he tried each, he would find some to be as delicious as his chocolate goo and some as bitter and nasty as anything he'd ever had.

"Good for..." she say after each, indicating her belly or brain or hair or skin or whatever other body part that particular edible goodie was for. For some she only said, "Taste good."

The reptile was the first animal over the fire to be ready for consumption. Lara pulled a blade made of obsidian-like rock from her belt and easily severed a leg from the now charred animal. She handed it to Cole and cut one off for herself, eating it quickly in just a few bites. She cut off a front leg and began chewing on it, watching Cole closely in the combination of fire and moon light.

"You know Breeder?" Lara asked with a casual tone. "You call Breeder and Birther where come from?"

It was obvious to Lara that Cole wasn't understanding what she was asking. She reached both hands up to cup her breasts for a moment, then lowered one to cover her crotch as the other hand pointed very obviously to Cole's own groin.

"I Birther," she explained, adding, "You Breeder. Understand?"

Cole's reacted in his own way to the rather odd turn in the conversation. Lara continued just as casually, "You breed many Birthers...? How many? Many baby? Where baby now? Not sky boat."

She laughed at that last statement. She hadn't seen or heard a bunch of children hidden around the shuttle. So, where were Cole's children? He had to have children, after all. He was well into his breeding years. And it was the responsibility of every healthy Breeder with quality physical traits to pass those traits on to the next generation.

 

[HornyDog2017]

Cole had thoroughly enjoyed watching Lara eat the Supplement Paste. It was partially due to her obvious enjoyment of the strange and flavorful goo; it was also partially due to his imagining that tongue and those lips working as hard as they were to lick and lap at his cock, which had harden to full stiffness while he watched.

"That's enough," he told her after she'd squeezed out severa more millileters of the very intensely nutritious paste. "Too much will make you sick. That tube can feed three people for a whole day."



The trek for Lara's home was a bit more than Cole had expected, in both distance covered and type of terrain. He'd known roughly what the geography was like before he'd ever left orbit to descend in the shuttle. But honestly, he'd never expected to be walking through kilometers of it. His original Program had had him remaining within eye sight of the shuttle almost the entire time.

He'd been growing concerned with the falling sun when Lara finally stopped them at a well used site and said they would be staying the night here. He helped her build a fire; she fed him some interesting foods. Cole had never been a raw meat kind of guy; he'd had sushi a couple of times but had never really taken to it. But he tried the internal bits of the two animals she'd gutted with obvious skill. The kidney and heart had been pretty good, but the texture of the liver had resulted in him handing it back to Lara, who gulped it right down.

Then, without warning, Lara took Cole into an area of conversation he hadn't expected on his first day -- on any day -- down here on New Terra when she began asking him about breeding. When she literally groped her own breasts, then touched or pointed to their respective breeding features, Cole's cock leaped once again inside his pressure skin and he was sure that his face had gone white.

For a moment, Cole even thought Lara was propositioning him to breed, aka fuck. But he quickly realized she was only asking him about whether he had children of his own.

"No, I don't have any babies … children," he answered. "I'm not married. I, um … oh, how do I explain this...? I don't have a Birther where I come from … a female … with whom I would have a child … a baby. Where I come from, traditionally a male…"

Cole tapped his chest with his fingertips. He nearly pointed to his groin, as Lara had, but chose not to. "We call Breeders males or just [/I]men[/I]. When a man … one man is just one of men … men being more than one man--"

Cole laughed, realizing that he was probably just confusing the crap out Lara. He decided to use her own terminology. "Where I come from, Breeders typic-- Breeders usually form a union … a marriage with one Birther before they have children … make babies."

He presumed that the husband-wife bonding custom was the norm here on New Terra as well and that he didn't really have to explain this to Lara. Cole wasn't explaining marriage as a topic so much as he was explaining why he wasn't married.

"I'm not married to a Birther," he continued. He could have explained that he'd done his share of breeding with the intention of not producing a baby, but Cole figured that explaining his extra-marital sex life would only complicate things. He went on, "One day, when I return to where I came from, I will find a Birther who wants to make babies with me I'm sure."

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Cole was indeed confusing Lara with all the words he was tossing out. He must have seen it in her face, even under the low light of the moon augmented by the dancing flames of the fire because he reverted back to her own vocabulary.

He finished with, "One day, when I return to where I came from, I will find a Birther who wants to make babies with me I'm sure."

That struck Lara as both disappointing and confusing. She'd only just met Cole and yet she didn't want to see him leave any time soon. Even though he said he was a Being, he was still an alien in some respect. He wasn't anything like her people, and yet at the same time he was. And yet Lara was already thinking that it would be nice to have him stick around for a while … if not forever.

That was the disappointing part. The confusing part was what he'd said about finding a Birther … as in one Birther and one only!

"You breed only one Birther?" she asked, sincerely surprised. "I not understand. Your seed … you share with many … yes?"

She listened to his response, then filled in a bit about her culture, "Birthers take seed from many Breeders. Make many Babies different one each … one another. Better blood. Stronger Breeders … smarter Birthers."

Lara didn't know whether or not this was making any sense to Cole. It might have been easier to understand if he knew that her people had built a diverse gene pool from an originally small group of males and females by having the females birth many children by multiple men. For generations, it had been considered a waste for a woman to birth a second child by the same man. Sometimes, if there was no other appropriate male with whom to conceive a child, a woman would again breed with a male who had fathered a previous child. But this was only done in the hopes of producing a child of the opposite gender as the previous one.

"I am Birther," she repeated after having explained early. But then she added, "But I not have Breeder in me. Understand?"

Again she wasn't making herself clear. She fumbled for the words, saw Cole still didn't understand completely, then leaned forward and literally laid her hand upon his crotch … onto his cock. She pressed her other hand to her own crotch, and explained as she gripped his erection for emphasis, "I not have Breeder in me. Not yet. Only bleed soon ago. Now breed ready. Soon."

As she rocked back to her previous position, Lara thought she saw in Cole's reaction that he understood what she was saying: she was a virgin.

There was something about New Terra that caused female Beings to begin their menstruation cycle years after female Humans on Earth did. Lara was the equivalent age of a 20 year old Earth girl, and yet she'd experienced her first period just 35 days ago. Her second bleeding -- which by custom allowed her to begin having intercourse -- had only ended the day before she left on this hunt.

 

[HornyDog2017]

"You breed only one Birther?" she asked, sincerely surprised. "I not understand. Your seed … you share with many … yes?"

A quick, sharp chuckle escaped Cole's throat before he could prevent it. He wanted to tell her that most single men -- as we he -- hoped and prayed not to share their seed, as she put it, with many women. But he had already deduced that diversifying their genetics through widespread, multiple partner breeding was part of Lara's culture.

"Birthers take seed from many Breeders. Make many Babies different one each … one another. Better blood. Stronger Breeders … smarter Birthers."

She was right about that, Cole knew. Contemplating how different her culture was from his, Cole found himself again wondering about the origin or Lara's culture. If they had been on an FTLS ship that got here 10 time, 20 times, even 100 times faster than he had, could that explain how her seemingly primitive culture had come to be. Lara hadn't expected to see someone like him; she didn't know her people came from Earth; she had never seen a landing shuttle; she wore primitive clothing and carried hand made weapons and tools; and her language skills...?

In the midst of contemplating that, Lara dropped an A-bomb: she was a virgin.

That surprised Cole indeed. She looked to be in her early to mid-twenties, and she certainly looked healthy enough to bear children. She certainly look healthy enough for Cole to want to help her bear children! So, in a culture that put pregnancy at such a premium, why hadn't she already had two or three or four children.

Cole couldn't know about the planet's effect on a Human female's reproduction cycle. It might have been something about the solar winds, the magnetic fields, the dust in the air, the microbes in their food … anything. But while Cole had caught the part about Lara being a virgin, he hadn't understood the part about her only just having started her period less than two months ago. He would come to the understanding soon enough; before the night was out he would realize what she had been saying, presuming she didn't clarify sooner. But right now the only thing going through his head was Oh dear God, I've been praying to take a cherry since I was 16 years old!

Cole repositioned the way he was sitting to relieve some of the pressure on his throbbing cock. He tried to change the subject, asking Lara about her village, her culture, and what she knew about their history.

"I think that you are a Human Begin, like me," he told her at one point in the conversation. "If that's true, you or your ancestors came here from the planet on which I was born … Earth. Do you know anything about Earth?"

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Cole asked Lara about her village, her culture, and what she knew about their history. She thought it a strange question at first, until she reminded herself that Cole wasn't of her Tribe or even of her planet. How could he possibly know?

"I not know how to tell about village," Lara said with an apologetic tone. She's never had to described it before, and honestly, she'd never really considered it worth explaining. She contemplated some words, and began, "Village is round ... and leans … leans in to middle."

She described lean-tos made of grass fiber weaved tightly through tall, slim logs, arranged in a circle with just enough space between their adjacent bottoms to allow Beings to use them as portals. There were no walls, she explained, because the in the high winds of the seasonal storms, the walled lean-tos blew away to the forest's edge.

Explaining the family organization was just as hard for Lara. The eldest female of each line was the matriarch of her family. They were called Elders and they ran the village as a sort of council. There were currently 12 Elders.

An Elder's male offspring lived with her until they reached puberty, which unlike the New Terran females was not delayed due to unknown circumstances. After reaching puberty, these males spent the next four years or even more living apart from the female village. They lived in a village of their own deeper in the forest and were overseen by a selected group of older males who were responsible for teaching these future Breeders their place in the village.

"Birthers make charge of Breeders," Lara said before trying to clarify that their village had a Matriarchal hierarchy. She added with a matter of fact tone, "Birthers smarter. Breeders stronger. Birthers make charge. Breeders do what told."

She continued her explanation of the males. After their time away from the village, these virgin Breeders returned to the village on the full moon. They were assigned one or more Birthers who were in heat and who previously had had at least one child. This introduced their seed to females who had already proven themselves fertile and capable of carrying a child full term. These young Breeders would remain in the village until each of the Birthers assigned to them was showing signs of being pregnant.

They sometimes partook of intercourse with these assigned Birthers morning, noon, and night, every day through the female's ovulation period. If the Birther failed to become pregnant that first moon, the Breeder was returned to the training village until the next moon, when he returned to give it a second try. If after three tries, none of the Birthers assigned to him conceived, the Breeder was banished from the community. It didn't happen often, but it did happen.

Once they had fulfilled their duty as Breeders, these young males left again, this time to live in one of six much smaller, all male villages that encircled the main village. They protected the main village from other Tribes and from predators, such as the Slithers.

The Elder's female children were a different story all together. They lived with the Elder all their lives, as did their children, with the obvious exception of males who had reached puberty. This sometimes made for a very crowded lean-to. But since New Terra's average life span for a female was about 45 Earth years, and since the males generally left the lean-to around age 13, the number of occupants was much smaller than it might have been in an Earth situation.

"When rain, get wet," Lara said when she'd tapped out the conversation about the family units. She gestured over her head, indicating falling rain. "But dry soon."

She did her best to explain that the village was built on a slight mound such that rain falling in the center of the village or on the rooves of the lean-tos all flowed. A large trench that encircled the village guided the water away downhill to a small pond behind a levy, which Lara called a water wall.

"Have water most year," she said about the pond. "Water in village fill pond … water in pond fill ground around pond … water in ground fill well … water in well fill bellies, cook pots … wash bodies."

Lara talked about the history of the village, but there really wasn't much to tell. She had been educated to believe that the Beings had always been here, that they were indigenous, and that they had a sacred bond to the land, sea, and air.

Cole asked, "I think that you are a Human Begin, like me. If that's true, you or your ancestors came here from the planet on which I was born … Earth. Do you know anything about Earth?"

Lara only shook her head. Then she smiled and laughed. "Maybe you come from here … not Earth. Maybe you come back … from other side."

She pointed to the mountains that were only a silhouette now. "Earth that side … you here now, again. You, me, fly sky boat back over mountain to Earth. When I see your village."

Suddenly, the realization that Lara hadn't grasped Cole's explanation about his having come here from another planet was there. She'd misunderstood, and all along she'd believed that the Human had flown from a far distant location … on this planet.

 

[HornyDog2017]

Cole listened closely to Lara's description of her village and her people, specifically their culture in regards to reproduction. And again, he found himself inconspicuously shifting his position to deal with a throbbing cock. The thought of being a young, virginal male coming back to his village after four years away from females and then being assigned two or three or five or ten experienced women to fuck every day for a week or more, several times a day...! It was every young man's dream.

Of course, that four years away during the height of puberty, and then the exile to a hunting lodge afterward doing his deed sort of made Lara's culture regarding men a bit hard to swallow.

There was one aspect of her tale that Lara failed to explain, though, and Cole couldn't help himself and asked about it. "You said the new Breeders … they passed their seed to Birthers who had already had children. But--"

Cole paused for a moment, hesitant to proceed because he was asking Lara about women like Lara … and sitting here in the dark with her after she'd earlier cupped his long-ignored cock and balls to explain Breeders and Birthers … well, it was going to sound a bit suggestive or even downright opportunistic.

"The Birthers like yourself, who haven't had children or--" Again, Cole hesitated, already chastising himself. But he went on, "--haven't been with a Breeder before … who comes to you...? Which Breeders breed with … will breed … with you?"

Cole wanted to badly to pop up tall, raise a hand high into the air, and holler repeated, Me! Me! I'll do it! I'll breed with you! But instead, he sat there and listened patiently -- with a throbbing cock -- as Lara explained that the Elders would pick an older, experienced male to breed with her. The choice would be a man whose seed needed wider distribution and whose offspring had been strong, healthy, and intelligent.

That made Cole wonder just how old a male would be the first to put his cock inside this young, naïve virgin. If his offspring had been born long enough ago for the Elders to have already determined that they were worth the sperm, then this or these guys had to be in the late thirties to even their forties, fifties, or sixties. Cole didn't like that idea, putting this young woman with a man like that. But then, he didn't know their culture and hadn't met any of their Breeders. For all Cole knew, they were very respectful of the Birthers they were fucking, even paternal to them, not old perverts chasing after jail bait.

Then again, maybe he was just upset because he was only in his late 20s and -- even if he weren't from a distant place, Earth -- the Elders wouldn't pick him to claim Lara's virginity and impregnate her for her first go around at motherhood.

She continued explaining her village, and although he thought he understood well enough, when Cole finally saw the village he would find himself surprised that it wasn't at all like he'd been imagining. But nevertheless, it was fun to watch Lara in the dancing fire light try to describe her community to a man who'd never seen anything like it.

When he asked her about Earth, though, Lara's own understanding was in question. Cole thought he'd explained well enough that he'd come from another planet, but now -- listening to the young primitive -- he realized that she thought he'd only come from somewhere beyond the distant mountains.

"Earth that side … you here now, again. You, me, fly sky boat back over mountain to Earth. When I see your village."

Cole wanted to explain it again, to make Lara understand what he meant by Earth and landing shuttles and … had he mentioned the Mother Ship in orbit? No, no he hadn't, so he didn't now. In the end, he only said to her, "One day. Maybe. If I can get the shuttle … the sky boat to fly again."

Lara began asking questions about Cole's village. But he wasn't really in the mood to spin an untrue lie right now. And he was tired, too. "I need to sleep. Is that okay? Sleep?"

He didn't know what sort of sleeping arrangements Lara had in mind. The lean-to was big enough for the two of them, but it would be tight. The shuttle had had 4 sleeping bags -- each with a self inflating pad and climate control -- and he'd brought two of them with him, just in case. Would she want to use one, or was she going primitive tonight as Cole assumed she had done so often in her life.

 

[AngelEyes1994]

"Which Breeders breed with … will breed … with you?"

Lara diverted her eyes for a moment at the mentioning of her imminent introduction to breeding. Becoming a true Breeder was an honor, and it was a sacred duty. But it also frightened Lara a bit. Normally, virgins didn't witness member of their Tribe copulating. There was one lean-to at end end of the village's slightly elliptical shape that were specifically for breeding, and although they didn't have full walls per se, they had stick and woven grass fence like walls around all three open sides to give a bit of privacy from the rest of the village.

Nevertheless, a younger and more curious Lara, as well as some of her friends and family, both female and male, had often snuck over to the breeding lean-tos to peek in on the copulating couples. It had all looked very silly to her, all that thrusting of one body against another, the strange expressions, the grunting, the crying in pain, pleasure, or a combination of the two.

Lara knew that her time was at hand. The moon would be full in about six days, and the next batch of virgin Breeders would come home to breed with the already-mothers of the village. Within days of the end of their time in the breeding houses, the older males would begin making visits to lead the virgins into their honored phase of life, as well as rebreed the still-to-conceive young Birthers who hadn't gotten pregnant during their last cycle.

Within this next moon, Lara would no longer be pure of body. She would no longer be a girl. And it frightened her a bit.

They changed the subject to Earth and Cole's origin, but he said he was too tired to speak of it now. Lara was okay with that as she, too, was forcing her eyes to remain open. She went to the lean-to, pulled out a torch made of a branch and a flammable pitchy root, and lit it. Handing it to Cole, she gesture him to follow. They went to the forest's edge where Lara began checking the perimeter.

The clearing had a sort of trip wire alert system that Lara and some of her female hunting party members had created. It wasn't much, just limbs and cut saplings set horizontally across the trunks of the encircling trees and shrubs in such a way that a large animal like a Slither would make a racket coming into the clearing.

When they'd made the full circle, Lara and Cole returned to the lean-to, where she used the light of the torch he held to fluff up the soft bed of leaves, moss, and other cushioning and insulating things upon which they would sleep. He showed her the sleeping bags, and Lara was intrigued. She slipped into one and found it very comfortable, but she felt restricted of movement. If a Slither or other creature did slip into the camp at night, Lara wanted to be able to roll out quickly and put the dagger she slept with right through its skull.

"You sleep bag," she told Cole, gesturing him inside the one already open. "Me watch."

Even if he chose to sleep outside like she intended, Lara would demand that Cole get inside. More than anything, she just wanted to see it done as it was a unique sight for her. Back in the village, the members of an Elder's household all slept cuddle up together for warmth, like newborn puppies in a litter, not that she'd ever seen a puppy, of course.

Lara watched Cole intently as he shed the outer garments he'd donned over his red skin and the boots that he'd changed into that were better for the hike than the hard, red pressure boots he'd had on when she met him. She smiled, then even laughed as he crawled into the bag. She understood the reason for the bag, and it made wonderful sense. Lara couldn't help but wonder why her people hadn't adopted a similar idea. Then she reminded herself about the need for quick movement, the rarity of Slither leather from which to make such a wrapping, the time involved in making a soft, fiber blanket like what was used for infants and the infirmed, and the warmth that was provided by all the many bodies that would surround her at night.

"Sleep," Lara said, almost as if an order, once Cole was comfortable.

She turned and put one half of the second log they'd already split onto the fire to make it burn through most of the night. Then she tossed the torch onto the ground and used her hands to cover it with dirt, putting it out. Again, the camp fell into the low light of the dancing flames and the nearly full moon, which being so much closer was four times the brightness of the full Luna back in the Earth system.

Lara stood between the fire and the lean-to for several minutes, checking her surroundings one last time. She then looked to the sky and began chanting a prayer in little more than a whisper. The moons of New Terra were her people's Goddesses. There were six of them in all, though only three were visible at this moment. The nearest wasn't the largest but it appeared to be because the next largest was the fourth moon out. It was called Mother Moon, and behind it in order were her children: Venus, Cassiopeia, and Athena, who represented the already-mothers, the soon-to-be mothers, and the female children who would one day become the Tribe's future; and Jupiter and Mars, who represented the older, experienced males and the younger virginal ones respectively.

No one here knew where these names came from. No one here knew they'd come from Earth, because to the best of Lara's knowledge, no one here knew of Earth. No one knew that the names had been Goddesses and Gods of ancient Earth or that some of them had had planets or constellations names for them. They were just the names of the Goddesses and Gods who protected the Tribe.

When she finished, Lara reached to between her smallish breasts and untied a leather thong. She let her Slither-skin top slide off her shoulders and down her arms, then half turned to hang it over one of the poles that was part of the lean-to's structure. Then she removed her belt, hanging it; then untied her skirt and did the same with it. When finished, Lara was standing in silhouette with the moon behind her in nothing more than her her leather thong with its soft plant fiber inner layer. She laid down next to Cole, atop the bag in which he was sleeping, and pushed back into him in what his culture would have called a spooning position.

But Lara couldn't feel his body heat through the very efficient energy-conserving bag. She rose to her knees, figured out how to open its strange fastener, and slipped inside. Again, she snuggled up close to Cole, her back to him, her eyes on the fire just a meter and a half away. She could feel his body heat now because his red skin was cooling him by expelling the unneeded heat. She purred a bit, wiggling for more comfort against him.

It was very unusual for a virgin female to lay with a male with whom she wasn't breeding, regardless of his status in the Tribe as a Breeder. But it wasn't unheard of. She had once been on a mixed gender hunting party that got caught in an unexpected downpour, and all of the members, male and female, virgin and not, huddled up together under a makeshift cover made of giant fronds. Another time she'd been very ill and the man she called Father had been called to lay with her in case she died during the night. It was the only time Lara had spent more than just a few minutes with the man who was responsible for her being here today.

Lara wasn't at all concerned that Cole would do anything sexual with her. After all, it was forbidden. And the Human certainly wouldn't disobey the customs of the Tribe … would he?

 

[HornyDog2017]

Cole may have laid down, but he certainly didn't go to sleep. He watched Lara as she just stood there in the fire light, which silhouetted her petite form. She began singing or chanting or praying or a combination of the three. Cole had never heard anything like it before; he couldn't hear all of the words as she was facing away from him, but he could tell that the language was a very evolved -- or devolved -- version of English. And he thought he heard one or two words from the Chinese and Russian languages, too. And some of her movements almost looked like the International Sign that was the fourth official language of space exploration.

Then … Cole got the greatest shock of all. Lara began undressing. In no time at all, in silhouette, she looked to be entirely naked! She had turned and continued to turn this way and that, revealing the various curves of her delicious body as she continued stripping.

And then … the next greatest shock of all. Lara crawled into bed with him! Cole wasn't sure how to react, so he simply lay on his side unmoving to see what she would do. And she moved back into him, spooning her ass back into his groin and her back into his chest. She reached around to take hold of his hand an pulled it around her body until she was clutching it right between her naked tits.

He didn't do anything overt regarding the proximity of their bodies. He knew it was just part of her culture. Wasn't it?

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Lara fell asleep quickly, particularly considering the circumstances. She didn't sleep too soundly, though. That was partly because of the circumstances and partly because she lived in a world where huge reptiles could kill and eat a deeply sleeping person before they knew what was happening.

Occasionally, Cole would shift a bit behind her. And more often than not, Lara would shift as well, pushing herself back closer to the warmth behind her. Sometime during the night, Cole had rolled to his back and Lara had rolled to lay up against his side, her arm draped over his torso, her head in the crook of his shoulder and chest.

When dawn began to make itself known, they finally awoke, almost simultaneously. She sat up over the top of Cole, her firm breasts on full display just inches from his face, smiled, and said, "Happy morn."

She slipped out of the bed and began donning her clothes again. She did so with her back and thong-draped ass right there for the Earthman to see. When she was finally dressed, Lara announced, "I'll go for food. Build up the fire."

She took her bow and quiver and headed into the woods.

 

[HornyDog2017]

It had been a rough night for Cole, too. He was essentially in bed with a beautiful, nearly naked woman he'd only just met who was from a different planet and maybe even a different time ... and, to boot, she was a naive seeming virgin who -- on Earth -- would have been fucking like a rabbit by now, which made the little voices in Cole's head scream out Give her what her body needs!

He awoke often through the night, every time she shifted in his arms probably. Twice, he found the hand of his hand that Lara had pulled over her body firmly planted on one or the other of her young, firm tits and had to casually pull it away. He didn't want to pull it away. He had to; it just wasn't right to be groping her, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Cole finally fell into a sound sleep, probably because he had rolled away from Lara, but he awoke with her laying almost atop him for warmth. And then she sat up and gave him a daylight view of those beautiful, youthful tits. His eyes widened at the sight of them, and his cock -- already more solid than not -- sprang to full consciousness as well.

She slid out of the sleeping back and presented her equally beautiful, equally perfect backside to Cole as well. It was almost too much to resist, and he wanted to badly to just pull her down to the sleeping bag and take her, for right or for wrong.

But he resisted, and a moment later she was dressed and running off for the forest -- as barefoot as ever -- to go kill something for breakfast. Amazing. Absolutely, unbelievably, unimaginably, incredibly amazing.

Cole needed to get his rocks off, and he had time probably. But he again resisted. He tried to just lay there while his erection dissipated. But it didn't. He finally just got up, put his outer wear back on, and just tried to ignore what he'd seen and what he thought.

Oh, and what she'd said ... about breeding. So much was floating about inside his head regarding her culture and how they'd gotten here and why they were primitives.

That was the part that baffled him. He had left the Sol System 300 years ago. Imagine that, oh, 20 years later, let's say, a ship 10 times faster was designed, built, and dispatched along the same route. It would have gotten here ... do the math ... 30 year trek, 20 years after ... so 50 years after he left ... or 250 years before he arrived.

So what the hell happened in those 250 years that now, that Lara and her people were the Earthly equivalent to 15th century Amazon natives being discovered by Christopher Columbus. Okay, okay, not the Amazon. But still, Lara reminded Cole of the ancient Amazons of books and movies.

While he waited for her to return, Cole got into his pack and removed his Comm Device. It was rectangular in shape, just a little bit larger than his open, flattened hand and about a hand thickness as well. He turned his back to the sun to cast shadow upon it, activated it with his thumb print, and waited to see if he could raise a connection.

A 3D hologram appeared; it was a woman's face. She chastised, "About time you checked in, Lieutenant."

"Sorry, Major," he said to the woman who he knew was sitting at one of the many Communication Stations spread throughout the transport ship in orbit of the planet. "I tried earlier, but--"

"Yeah, yeah, we registered the attempts," she cut in with impatience. "You're working on the Tower?"

Until Cole set up a Comm Tower -- the parts of which were back at the landing shuttle -- the device in his hands could only connect with the Mother Ship when it was in line of sight on its twice daily pass around the planet. And although Cole had tried to contact the Major before he was discovered by Lara, this was the first time he had since.

The Major asked for a report, and Cole lied his little ass off.

"Not much to tell at the moment," he started in a feigned tone of confidence. "The landing was a bit rougher than we'd expected, and there was some damage. Most likely, you'll have to send another shuttle down as well as a refueler."

The refueler was essentially a spare gas can with wings. The landing shuttles used a form of solid fuel that was stored on the transport in an inert form for safe transport to areas with potentially harsh terrain, like that of New Terra. Once here, the two fuel ingredients were activated individually, liquifying them for pumping into the landing shuttle, which then used the fuel for escaping the planet's gravity and returning to the Mother Ship. It was all a lot easier than it sounded, a lot easier than Cole's landing had been the say before.

The problem Cole was having was that during the walk with Lara the day before -- and after her explanation of her culture last night -- he'd begun to question whether or not he should be reporting their presence here. Cole knew his Earth history very well, and he knew what happened to primitive, indigenous peoples when more advanced cultures arrived in their homelands.

Cole verbally activated the transmission of data he'd collected thus far without any real effort. It didn't include anything about Lara or about Beings; he would have to add that himself, and he hadn't yet. The Major told him they'd look at the data and tell him if they saw anything of concern, such as biologicals.

Biologicals... Cole thought to himself, remembering Lara's tits and ass. I could tell you something about biologicals on New Terra ... fuck!

"We're going to lose your transmission in less than a minute, Lieutenant," the Major said. "Anything more you want to tell me?"

Cole caught movement and looked up to see his hostess emerging from the forest. He smiled, and when the Major asked him what that was about, he told her there was a proto-bird on a limb watching him, and that he thought it was interesting.

"Let me see," the Major said. She wanted him to activate the 360 viewer so that she could see all that was surrounding Cole. But before he could even figure out a way not to do that, the officer said, "Oh, we're losing you. We'll keep getting whatever data you've collected and get the rest on the next pass. Keep safe, Lieutenant."

Cole signed off, deenergized the unit, and slipped it back into his pack before turning to face Lara with a smile and a polite, "Good morning."

 

[AngelEyes1994]

When she returned to the clearning, Lara was carrying a meter long lizard-like creature by its tail in one hand and a fruit that look like a triple-length whole pineapple in the other. She hesitated for a moment when it looked like Cole was talking to himself, but then continued onward when he looked to her with a smile.

"Good morning."

"Good morn," she responded again, sharing the smile. She set immediately to tending to the reptile and fruit but asked, "You are Mess Mind?"

It was obvious he didn't understand. She tried to explain and couldn't immediately find the words. But she must have finally gotten through to him that she was asking him if he was schizophrenic because he'd been talking to himself.

As he responded, Lara continued working on their breakfast. She gutted the lizard, again offering Cole some of the raw innards and, if he didn't eat them, ate them herself. She'd stoked the fire before leaving, and by now it was roaring once again. She once again dangled the creature over the fire from the end of a stick which had its other end stuck in the ground below at an angle.

For the fruit, she pulled out her knife, sliced it lengthwise, opened it, and grasped a stringy piece of fruity flesh at one end. She pulled, and the seeds all came out neatly on that stringing flesh, looking almost like dull sequins on a piece of thread. She hung the string over two poles to let the seeds dry out, then bent one half of the fruit in a curve with the inner fleshy side outward. The meat splintered into segments, almost like an orange or grapefruit, and after she bit into hers, she nodded to Cole to do the same with his.

They would finish breakfast, including the slightly rare lizard, put the fire out, pack up Cole's things, and take off once again. The trek from here on was on well beaten paths as opposed to slight Slither paths and open terrain. They traveled two hours or so before Lara stopped them again.

"Take off," she told him indicating his outer clothing. She tugged at that clothing, which no one would confuse with something locally made but was less obviously foreign as the red skin, which was so very obviously and literally made out of this world. To the outer clothes, red skin, and then outer clothes again, Lara said, "Take off ... take off ... put on."

She tried to explain that she feared his red skin might frighten the people of her village, but she wasn't sure whether or not she was explaining well. When he figured it out and set his pack down, Lara would pick it up and move it toward the undergrowth, telling him, "Hide. Come later get."

 

[HornyDog2017]

"Mess Mind?" Cole asked, finally figuring out that Lara had seen or even heard him talking to himself and thought he was a schizo. He laughed. "No, no, no ... I was just ... thinking out loud. Understand?"

She apparently did, because the subject was forgotten and they moved onto breakfast. Again, Cole found himself eating raw lizard guts before then biting into the most incredible fruit he'd ever had in his life. It was like a pineapple, guava, and peach all in one bite. He showed his appreciation for the fruit in words and actions as he ate the entire thing right down to the hard, spiky outer skin.

They were off again toward her village, but then Lara stopped him and told him to undress. He didn't understand at first, not for the first time. Once he did, though, he dropped his pack, sat on a rock to step out of his boots, and peeled off the shirt and pants. He hesitated before removing the pressure skin, wondering whether or not Lara was going to turn away and give him some privacy.

She didn't. And she didn't appear for a moment as if about to. He made a little spinny spinny gesture with an extended finger, but her only response was to give him the same confused expression he had given her often over the past day.

Finally, he simply began releasing the fastener. It was a unique invention that combined advanced versions of the 21st centuries Velcro and Ziplock with a micro-sealing adhesive. Essentially, when the two sides were put together, nothing was going to tear it apart, and yet when you activated the switch at the top and tugged, it opened as easily as turning the page of a book.

The suit was actually two layers, with the first covering him from collar bones to ankles. He removed and set it aside, leaving him in the under layer. It was a two piece ensemble that was a key piece to regulating his body temp and monitoring other vitals. It looked like a sleeveless muscle shirt/knee length boxer briefs combination, fitting his form tightly like literally a second skin.

Too tightly in one particular location, Cole thought as his cock was very nearly hardened to its fullest and very much on display, it's thick 8 inches running along the front inside of his left thigh.

"I have to take this off, too," he told Lara.

He tried to explain that without the portion he'd just removed, the portion he still had on would have him overheating in minutes and, ultimately, passing out. He again gestured her to turn around so he could have some privacy to strip and put on a pair of regular jockey briefs in his pack and the outer clothes now stacked beside him.

"You should turn around," he went on. "To give me some privacy. I have to take every thing off. I'll be naked. You need to, you know ... spin 'round."

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Lara watched Cole undress with obvious interest. She came from a much different culture than did he, and she was still a virgin so she didn't have the first hand personal knowledge of being with a man. And yet, her instinct told her that what he was doing should be of interest to her and that she should watch it closely.

She found it interesting that he wore so many layers of clothing. She had one layer on top and two below, and together they covered less of her own body than did just Cole's undershirt once he was down to it. She didn't know anything about body temp and perspiration control, of course, but even if she had she would have thought it odd that a man would wear so much.

"I have to take this off, too," he told Lara about his last layer.

She didn't understand what he was trying to say, and when she finally did realize that he was asking for some privacy, Lara only responded with a sincere, "Why? Some thing wrong with you … not want me to see?"

Unless Cole gave her a compelling reason for turning away, Lara wanted to see the rest of this procedure of his. And, though she still didn't fully understand why, she wanted to see what all was below this last layer.

 

[HornyDog2017]

"Why? Some thing wrong with you … not want me to see?"

Cole couldn't help but laugh. "No, there's nothing wrong with me. It's just..."

How did he explain to her that where he came from -- his place, his culture, his time -- men didn't simply strip to the skin in front of women he didn't know? Particularly virgins. Though, did the status of her sexual experience matter? No. It just wasn't proper, unless you were getting ready to fuck, which they weren't.

He peeled the shirt up over his head, leaving him in only the package hugging boxer-briefs. Cole tried again to indicate that propriety dictated she turn away, but Lara just stood there looking at him. He thought maybe he could manage a bit of modesty if he donned his over shirt first and did so. Then, turning away from Lara, Cole began pulling the briefs off, giving her a view of his ass side instead of his cock side.

 

[AngelEyes1994]

The Human peeled off his shirt, revealing a fit, muscular torso. Lara was impressed and knew he had probably been a very hard worker back in his home territory of Earth. It was probably how he earned the right to fly the sky boat over the mountains to this place, which he had called New Terra during their walk and at other times.

She was expecting him to removed his lower garment, too, but he donned a shirt and turned away, to shield his front side, Lara moved around to see him. She even leaned conspicuously to look past the hanging front hem of his shirt to see what was at and between the front of his thighs.

"Stop!" she said when Cole turned away again for privacy. Lara even reached out to grab his elbow to turn him back, a bit annoyed. "Why not want to show? What you hide? Earth male not Being male?"

Cole stopped, and Lara stepped around directly before him. She stared him in the face with an expectant glare, then gave his chest a little push as if to indicate that she wanted him to stand tall, which would fully expose his groin area.

 

[HornyDog2017]

Cole's cock and balls were hanging out in the wind when Lara demanded, "Stop!"

He was all hunched over, trying to hide his manhood. He didn't know exactly why. It just ... it just seemed strange.

"Why not want to show? What you hide? Earth male not Being male?"

"No, no! Of course not," he told her. After a moment of just staring at her, Cole surrendered. He stood tall, knowing that Coleman the Barbarian would be on full display. That was what one of his previous lovers had called his penis. It was impressive in size, 8 inches long with a big more girth than average. She'd said it looked fierce because of its thick, winding blood vessels and dark color, which wasn't as consistent over its full length as some cocks were. And he had a hairier bush than most men did, making his bush appear as if an Afro surrounding his base.

And, of course, be was hard. Oh, not stiff and a board, but hard enough to cause it to lift outward a bit toward Lara's feet as she stared at it.

 

[AngelEyes1994]

Lara stared without shame at Cole's semi-swollen cock. She saw nothing wrong with it, as she'd feared when the Human seemed to be hiding it from her. It wasn't as though she'd seen a lot of them, of course. The ones she had seen had been thrusting in and out of the bodies of Birthers in the daytime shadows or deeper dark of night during intercourse, so she didn't really have much to which she could compare Cole's cock.

It did look bigger, though. Was it just because she was so close to it? Naw. It was bigger than the others. Curious about that, she asked innocently, "Is big bad...? Is big. Is why you not want show me? Big bad?"

She would listen to his answer, then make it clear they needed to get on the trail. Within ten minutes, the camp was secure, the fire was out, and they were heading for her village again. They had only a mile to go, which was the reason she'd stopped them where she had. She stopped them just short of a ridge, telling Cole, "Walk side."

She moved him to her right and walked with him over the ridge and into a piece of terrain that was cleared of its diverse forest and was replanted with only a few species, all of them fruit or nut bearing. They covered less than 50 meters when a loud, long call filled the air. It didn't immediately sound human, though Lara knew it was. Similar warnings from almost every direction began filling the air.

After another 50 meters or so, other Beings began to emerge from the forest. They were all armed with spears, no bows, and they were all male. They wore very little, a covering that looked something like a cod piece and a butt flap, though some also had leather or fiber thongs around their bodies from which were hung various tools for harvesting food or cutting up animal carcasses.

"Is safe," Lara told Cole confidently. "With me. Is safe."

She spoke to them in a language that was only slightly recognizable as being mostly English based. They were wary, of course, but they showed deference to Lara and let her lead Cole down the trail. They rose an incline again and crested a another slight ridge. And then there was the village on the slight hillock sitting at the bottom of and in the middle of a little valley, almost as it were built on the reemerging cone in the center of a volcano that had blown its top off millions of years earlier.

She stopped him here, smiled, and said, "Home. What you call? New Terra?"