The Scent
"They can smell dangerous heat."
The simple statement carried no context and Ch'rill curled his secondary legs up underneath him in frustration. Not because he didn't understand Quilx'tch. Far from it. The bizarre situation their expedition had found them selves in provided constant context. 'They' meant the strange biped giants and no amount of utter grammatical absurdity was cause enough to say that such an utterly ridiculous statement was false.
"I think that you should give me more details nutritionist," Ch'rill stated calmly.
After the incident with the 'snow' and the nearly miraculous preservation of the exploration team due to the 'warm blooded' nature of the bipeds Ch'rill wouldn't directly question Quilx'tch's sanity if he said that a paron beast of legend was politely asking to borrow a cup of nin juice.
"Yes," Quilx'tch visibly shook out his feet as if he was clearing his mind and stiffened to a more rigid posture of attention. "One of the bipeds, the one called Tom, discovered that the third coil on the dorsal ridge of Twitch team's hovercraft was overheating and warned us of the danger."
Ch'rill had never before this expedition wished he was less educated. If he were a happily ignorant brat of some royal family, given his position based on his parents' wealth rather than the years of effort he had put in, he might not know how utterly impossible that statement was. He curled his legs again and forced himself to relax and focus on the obvious problem.
"Has the coil been repaired?" Ch'rill asked evenly.
Quilx'tch raised one leg in confirmation. "The technicians saw to that. The biped helped."
"Now," Ch'rill asked patiently. "You day the biped 'smelled dangerous heat'?"
"I don't know how they separated the heat differential from the other temperature differences in the open air!" Quilx'tch said excitedly, scurrying across the room to stand beside the team leader. "But they...he... did! He was just walking past. His eyes weren't even pointed at the craft and you know how important that is for binocular vision species! He just stopped and his head came up - it is so peculiar when they do that and I think it has significance - and he contorted his face and then scouted around until he came to the coils and he hovered his face over it and asked if it was supposed to be that hot!"
"But how did he know that what he sensed was dangerous?" Ch'rill asked sorting through the files on his desk. "Tom is listed as a biologist. He is not supposed to have any specialized mechanical knowledge."
"I know!" Quilx'tch said happily. "I can't wait to learn more about them. Isn't it fascinating?"
Ch'rill let his abdomen sink to the floor with a tiny sound of distress. It was something .... something he was not looking forward to reporting to his superiors.
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