The Gorn's Tale

Posted on May 05, 2015 @ 7:36pm by Ensign Chaucer
Edited on on May 05, 2015 @ 7:37pm

Mission: The Lights of Hyperion

= The Gorn's Tale =

(cont'd from "A House Full of Strangers")



LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Cargo Bay/Refugee Camp

STARDATE: [2.15] 0504.1357



The cargo bay had been hastily repurposed as living spaces for the mass of refugees who had escaped LIMBO. The bay was large, but there were so many creatures that space was necessarily limited, and tensions were already running hot. Even with the cramped conditions, though, most of the refugees were still keeping their distance from the lone Gorn in their midst.



The camp was mostly Terran, but there were groups of Vulcans, a handful of Klingons, some Andorians, Orions, and at least half a dozen other species, all of whom had seemed to instinctually gather in clusters throughout the camp, but the Gorn had no other of its kind with which to congregate. He sat alone on his cot, yellow eyes lowered to the floor. He couldn't speak, and no one was in a hurry to strike up a conversation at any rate. So he sat, perfectly still in that way that only reptiles could manage, and listened.



The fear-stink was bad in here, but it wasn't so far removed from what he'd grown used to on LIMBO. The camp was practically swimming in Terran pheromones, a heady mix of anxiety, hope, and the initial stirrings of restlessness, but it was easy enough for him to tune out. He focused instead on what he could hear. He'd found that, because he couldn't speak, many other biologics (especially humans) seemed to assume he was deaf as well. He could sit, perfectly still, and they would fire conversation past his snout as if he were little more than scaly furniture.



"They say we're leaving the Triangle."

"This is that ship from the news."

"These people aren't Starfleet, they're traitors."

"Tella Yavin won't just let us go!"

"David? Where's David? Has anyone seen my son?"

"They have to feed us, right?"

"We outnumber them at least 10 to 1."

"I say we take this ship."



So many voices, all talking at once, so it was hard to follow any particular conversation. Most of these people were just scared, but some of them sounded like trouble. The Gorn did not like trouble, and he wanted none of it, either with the other refugees or his new Federation hosts. He hoped they would land somewhere soon, somewhere he could start to rebuild his life, before whatever trouble that was brewing in this cargo bay finally came to a head. Otherwise, the trouble would find him first.



He wasn't like the Terrans, or the Vulcans, or Andorians, or even Klingons. He had two eyes, yes, but they were inscrutable yellow eyes, impossible for most organics to read. He had ears, but they were recessed in small holes on either side of his head. He had blood, red blood like the humans that surrounded him, but his blood wasn't hot like theirs. His blood was cold.



He was different. He was a great, scaly, green thing with clawed hands and needle teeth, and they would hate him for it. All they needed was an excuse. Fear, coupled with hunger and exhaustion, was about as reliable an excuse as they come. And so, he sat, still as a statue, and simply tried his best not to attract attention. Casual observers could be forgiven for thinking the Gorn had fallen asleep. That was good; a sleeping Gorn was not a threatening Gorn, and they would be more likely to leave him be if they found him non-threatening.



Usually.



=[/\]=



LOCATION: S'sgaron

SCENE: Hatchery



TIME INDEX: 22 years ago



In the city of B'skra, capitol of the third continent of S'sgaron, the creature who would one day be known as Chaucer smashed his way into the world through a thin membrane of rubbery eggshell. There was no sight, his eyes were still filmed over with a protective layer of mucous, but there was sound. At least a dozen little snarling things surrounded him, shrieking in confusion as the universe they had each come to know shattered, spilling them out onto warm sands. The hatchlings, still unaware that's what they were, clawed over one another, biting and scratching in instinctive defense of their young lives.



Clawed hands reached down to scoop him up. The little Gorn's mouth yawned open in a silent scream. No sound came out.



"Runty," some big thing hissed, in words the little Gorn didn't understand but somehow still recognized as speech.



"Defective," said another.



The little Gorn gave another silent roar, and then he was tumbled end over end back into the sand, where he was promptly forgotten.



=[/\]=



TIME INDEX: 19 years ago



Gorn mature quickly. Only three years old, most of the brood already stood nearly 4 feet tall, and were walking, talking, and fighting with the rambunctious certainty of youth. The little Gorn hadn't grown as fast, standing at least a full head shorter than the next shortest of his broodmates. Part of this was genetics, and part of it was nutrition; when the time for feeding came, his larger brothers and sisters would push the little Gorn easily aside, snatching up the tastiest morsels of food for themselves, and leaving the little Gorn to pick over what scraps remained.



The little Gorn might have complained, might have shouted in challenge or protest when his broodmates shoved him aside. But try as he might, no sound would emerge from his throat, not even three years after his hatching. He understood he was different, even though none of the elder Gorn that cared for this particular clutch had bothered to take him aside to explain it to him. The difference was obvious: his broodmates could talk and hiss and roar, and he could not. In his silence, it was easier for all of them- his broodmates as well as his caretakers- to overlook the little Gorn.



The little Gorn preferred to be overlooked. When they noticed him, his broodmates would snap and claw at him, eager to assert their dominance over the weakest of their number. Already the little Gorn was covered from snout to tail in scars left by the attention of his brothers and sisters. And so the little Gorn learned to stay out of the way, to take what he needed when he was sure he could get away with it. He learned to move quickly and decisively, and to retreat when he needed to. He learned to observe. He learned patience.



=[/\]=



TIME INDEX: Present Day



A pair of Terran hatchlings were darting quickly between the rows of cots, the smaller of the pair in hot pursuit of the larger. The Gorn didn't move, but shifted his eyes towards them as their chase brought them closer and closer to where he was sitting. He could see that the older of the pair was holding what appeared to be a small stuffed animal in the shape of Terran mammal with long, floppy ears. The Gorn had lived among humans for many years, but never on their homeworld, and he could not remember the name of the creature, but he understood the significance of small plush toys to human youth and quickly realized that the larger human had taken it from smaller.



The two humans had similar physical characteristics: eye shape, hair coloration, even the same ears. The Gorn recognized the similarity as a sign of blood relation, and decided the two human hatchlings were siblings, a brother and sister. The brother, it seemed, was finding entertainment in keeping the sister's toy from her, a form of petty cruelty that the Gorn had observed to be common among youth of many species.



Cruelty among siblings was something the Gorn knew a thing or two about.



=[/\]=



TIME INDEX: 11 years ago



At ten years, the Gorn had reached sexual maturity. But mating would be denied to him. His growth had never caught up with his broodmates; he stood a meager 6'3, several inches shorter than the next shortest of his brothers and sisters. He was thinner, too, more wiry. This helped him to move fast, faster than most of his fellow Gorn, but he still was routinely beaten in sparring and battles for dominance. His diminutive size, coupled with his inability to vocalize like his fellow Gorn, made him a less than desirable mate.



And so instead, the little Gorn had joined the technical caste, spending his days working on Gorn ships, repairing damage and optimizing systems, learning everything he could about technology. Despite their fearsome appearance, the Gorn were not particularly warlike... they defended their territory jealously against incursion, and placed a great deal of emphasis on personal combat ability, but in general they had little taste for real conquest. But the Gorn maintained regular patrols of their space, pursuing pirates and criminals with ruthless efficiency, and their ships often came back scarred with the signs of fierce battle. As a result, the little Gorn had plenty of opportunities for practice, and he'd found he had a knack for engineering.



And so it seemed only fitting that engineering should be the skill that would save the Gorn's life.



Though the Gorn were not warlike, they could be as petty and intolerant of difference as any organic race. The little Gorn had gotten used to taunts and bullying, even as he'd matured. Though he was far from a physical match for most of his brethren, he'd also taught himself how to fight well enough to discourage any other Gorn who tried pushing him around. He was lithe and quick, able to strike fast. It wasn't enough to put down a fellow Gorn, especially not one of the warrior caste, but it was enough to at least bloody them up a little and make the reconsider their target.



But it hadn't worked on T'skar. T'skar was a huge even for a Gorn, towering over the little Gorn at a height of over 7 feet. His arms were thick, green trunks covered in the scars of battle. He moved with the confidence of a warrior who had never met his equal, had never lost a fight. T'skar's battle prowess had been recognized early, and he'd been given command of his own patrol ship at the young age of 11.



T'skar's ship came in covered in fresh wounds: carbon scoring, shredded sections of ablative armor covering over still-sparking components. T'skar disembarked with his crew, still exalting in the thrill and glory of battle against what the little Gorn guessed to have been a band of pirates. The little Gorn ignored the commotion as his fellows rushed to T'skar, eager to hear his account of the battle. The little Gorn didn't care for such things, and so he busied himself scanning the hull of T'skar's ship, getting ready to fix the damage so it would be ready when T'skar went out again on patrol.



The little Gorn was so wrapped up in his work that he didn't notice T'skar's cold stare. T'skar, mighty captain, was surrounded by his admirers, but it seemed he'd fixed all his attention on the one set of eyes in the maintenance bay that weren't on him. The huge Gorn lumbered over to where his little brother was working, a low growl rattling around in his broad, muscled chest.



The little Gorn didn't notice T'skar's approach until the larger Gorn's shadow spilled across the little Gorn's workstation. The little Gorn turned, thinking T'skar would be there to chastise him for sloppy work or to berate him into completing the repairs quicker. Such things happened often, and they were always only for show- the little Gorn was the best engineer in their clutch, probably the best one in all of B'skra. Public shaming was a way to assert dominance over the little Gorn, but all Gorn knew who to come to when one of their machines went on the blink.



But T'skar did not seem to have shaming on his mind. With an almost snakelike speed, T'skar's hand shot out, clamping around the little Gorn's throat. T'skar lifted the little Gorn easily into the air, and brought his face close, so that their snouts were almost touching. T'skar opened his mouth and roared at the little Gorn, a clear and unmistakable challenge. The little Gorn knew what he was supposed to do next, that he was expected to respond with a submissive squawk, as a way of deferring to T'skar. But, of course, the little Gorn could make no such vocalizations. He opened his mouth, as if to try, but nothing came out.



T'skar, still intoxicated from battle and encouraged by the eyes of his supplicants, roared again and threw the little Gorn against his workstation. Tools clattered loudly to the floor as T'skar came on, snorting loudly and flexing his claws.



"Ssssubmit...." T'skar hissed as he loomed over the little Gorn. "No more of thissss ssssssilence. You will sssssubmit."



The little Gorn, of course, could not make the necessary gesture. He held up his hands, spread wide to show they held no weapon. He averted his eyes, not wanting to risk T'skar seeing any kind of challenge there. But T'skar would not be satisfied. His claws flashed again, raking matching wounds down the little Gorn's chest. The little Gorn would have cried out then, if he could, but instead he only thrashed around, still pinned to his workstation by the larger T'skar.



"Sssssubmit!" T'skar roared again, his claws now slashing at the little Gorn's face. The little Gorn was slick with blood, and he was able to wriggle out of T'skar's grasp and began to backpedal, keeping his gaze low and his hands held up, hoping it would be enough to satisfy T'skar. But T'skar wasn't thinking any more. The bloodlest had rekindled, and he advanced on the little Gorn, teeth gnashing in anticipation of the kill.



The other Gorn were trading uncertain glances. Of course, such battles for dominance were common among the same caste, but for a warrior to challenge an engineer was uncommon without some sort of offense to justify it. The little Gorn failing to show the proper respect to T'skar's victory could have been such a justification, but the display had gone far beyond a show of dominance. The little Gorn kept retreating, T'skar kept advancing, and there was no mistake what the larger Gorn intended for the smaller.



His back hit the side of T'skar's ship, and the little Gorn realized he'd run out of room to retreat. T'skar snapped his teeth, a mock bite that was sure to be followed by a very real one as soon as T'skar was close enough. The little Gorn steeled himself, waiting for T'skar to get closer, closer...



T'skar lunged, and the little Gorn was ready. He leapt to the side, quicker than T'skar was expecting. T'skar slammed against the hull of his patrol ship, harder than he'd intended. He shook his head, turned, and saw that the little Gorn was holding a small control pad that had been sitting on his workstation only a moment before. The little Gorn didn't hesitate. He activated the pad with a clawed finger, and the power system to T'skar's patrol ship kicked instantly back to life. The shields reactivated suddenly- T'skar had always had a bad habit of rushing his vessel's shutdown procedures before docking- and T'skar was blown across the room by the surge of energy. He impacted the opposite wall with a sickening *crunch!*, leaving a spray of blood across it, and slid to the floor in a boneless heap.



A chorus of hissing rose from the other Gorn, and they rushed over to where T'skar lay. It was obvious that T'skar was dead- his head sat at an impossible angle on his neck, and blood was running down from an obvious fracture in the larger Gorn's skullplate.



One of the Gorn swarming around T'skar's body turned to look back at the little Gorn, who had remained where he was standing, still holding the control pad he'd used to take T'skar's life. The little Gorn watched as his fellows all turned to look at him now, hissing and snorting at him for the base way he had answered T'skar's challenge. All Gorn must expect to face challenges from their siblings, even when the challenge wasn't exactly fair... but these challenges were to be settled with tooth and claw, not with weapons. The little Gorn may as well have gunned T'skar down where he stood.



It wasn't exactly murder, but that was how they'd see it. The little Gorn had killed their conquering hero, just to protect his own wretched life. As far as the rest of the Gorn were concerned, it hadn't been a fair trade.



=[/\]=



TIME INDEX: Present day



"Give it back!" the smaller human shouted as the larger rounded and bend and began jogging right towards the cot where the Gorn was sitting. The larger (and older, the Gorn guessed... he wasn't very good at identifying age in humanoids and had long ago defaulted to correlating size with age) human was laughing, occasionally looking behind him to wave the stuffed toy at his younger pursuer. As such, he did not see the Gorn. He tripped over the Gorn's feet and went sprawling, the stuffed toy dropping from his hands to land at the Gorn's feet.



The boy turned and looked up into the Gorn's face. The Gorn slid his lips back to show his teeth, an expression that humans often made when they wanted to convey friendliness. The Gorn wasn't good at it yet, though; half the time, humans seemed to avoid him when he performed the gesture himself, and the ones who didn't flee usually looked uncomfortable. In this case, the young human's eyes widened and the color drained from his face. He scrambled back to his feet and ran off, the stuffed toy left forgotten at the Gorn's feet.



The Gorn watched him go, then turned to look at the younger human. She had stopped in place, and was staring at him with what the Gorn assumed was considered wariness. The Gorn showed her his teeth in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture. The young girl didn't flee, but she didn't approach either. She simply stood, staring at the Gorn, without moving any closer. The Gorn rolled his eyes down at the stuffed toy laying by his feet, then back to her.



Reaching down, the Gorn picked up the stuffed toy with a large, clawed hand. He then turned and held the toy out to the girl. She looked down at it, then at the Gorn, and then she mirrored the Gorn's expression, drawing her lips back to reveal her teeth. She reached out to take the stuffed toy.



"Thank you," she said.



The Gorn nodded once. It was another gesture he'd picked up from humans, which they seemed to use interchangeably to mean a positive response or simple acknowledgement.



"I'm Marie," the girl said, hugging the tiny toy to her chest. "This is Baxter Bunny."



The Gorn lifted his wrist and pressed a button on his Vox.



[[My name is Chaucer.]]



The girl looked at the Vox, then back at the Gorn.



"What's that?" she asked.



The Gorn couldn't reply, so he only stared at her. The girl looked at him, her expression changing into one that the Gorn guessed was confusion, or suspicion. The two often looked the same, but one was usually more dangerous than the other, and the Gorn had long wished they were easier to tell apart.



"Aren't you gonna say anything?" the girl asked.



The Gorn reached up with his other hand and tapped his throat once. The girl didn't seem to understand, so he repeated the gesture, until her eyes seemed to brighten with understanding.



"You can't talk!" she said.



The Gorn nodded once.



"So that's your voice?" the girl asked, pointing at the Vox on the Gorn's wrist. The Gorn pressed another of the Vox's buttons.



[[Yes.]]



"That's cool!" the girl said. She took a few steps closer to the Gorn. "Can I try?"



=[/\]=



LOCATION: LIMBO

SCENE: Dungheap Slums

TIME INDEX: 7 years ago



And so, the little Gorn had left S'sgaron, his homeworld. His family, his eggmother and the rest of his clutch, did not come to see him off. He was outcast, hated for what he'd accidentally done to T'skar, hated for his disability, hated for being different than the rest of them.



The little Gorn took work aboard a Ferengi trade ship. It was hard labor, moving crates of cargo around, cleaning, basically any job the Ferengi considered themselves too important to do on their own. Because he couldn't speak, the Ferengi treated the little Gorn as if he were some great green idiot, berating and insulting him to his face as if he were too dim to understand what they were saying. The little Gorn bore it in silence- he had no choice- and was satisfied that at least the Ferengi didn't physically hurt him. Their jeers and insults, he could take, but never again did the little Gorn want to be in a position where he would have to hurt someone to protect himself.



He spent a few years with the Ferengi, eventually graduating from hard labor to engineering work. His skill was quickly noticed, and before long he was the unofficial chief engineer, the first point of contact any time some system aboard the ship broke down. The little Gorn even came to enjoy the work, getting lost in the repair, the predictability of routine maintenance, the exhilaration of independent problem solving.



But it was too good to last. The Ferengi eventually came to LIMBO, their holds full of secret cargo that they'd hoped to slip through the security checkpoints to avoid Tella Yavin's taxes. They were caught, of course, and the Ferengi captain and his command staff were executed. The ship was confiscated by Tella Yavin, as were all their profits, and suddenly the little Gorn found himself stranded aboard the great space station LIMBO, with no credits, no contacts, and no way to interact with the creatures around him.



Dungheap was LIMBO's poorest district, though such a simple description could hardly do justice to the filth and squalor of the place. People lived in improvised, ramshackle buildings, far below the reach of the main station's power/water/heating systems. It was not uncommon to see desperate people burning trash for warmth, or young children venturing bravely into the shadows, armed with sharpened sticks, hoping to hunt done some scuttling vermin so that they could eat for another day. The Gorn quickly came to think of it as "the forgotten district", a bed of suffering from which the rest of LIMBO could grow and thrive.



Even there, among the most wretched of LIMBO's citizens, the little Gorn was met with suspicion and hostility. Dirty men dressed in rags would shout at him, throw things at him, hoping to drive away the "monster" who'd come to take what little they had as their own. The Gorn tried to show he meant them no harm, but most of them didn't notice or care.



The little Gorn kept to himself, and kept himself busy. He would dig through the trash, finding scrap and broken electronics, and he would fix them if he could. Sometimes, he could trade these for food. Other times, he simply gave them away. As long as he was fed, and safe from harm, the little Gorn didn't mind the work. It kept his mind off how lonely he was.



He didn't make friendly, exactly, but the Gorn eventually built a rapport with some of the other Dungheap denizens. People would come to him to fix things, and would pay him with food or credits or scavenged bits of tech. The gangs that patrolled Dungheap gave the Gorn a wide berth, probably due to his rather fearsome appearance, and so the Gorn was rarely confronted with violence. Most times, it would be suspicious shopkeeps shoving him away from their carts, or Black Stars threatening to arrest the Gorn if he didn't stop loitering. That became the Gorn's life: scavenging, fixing, doing what he could to help, but usually being met with suspicion or scorn. It wasn't too different from the life the little Gorn had had on S'sgaron, but at least it was familiar.



One day, going through some discarded scrap from a deep-space colony ship that had docked at the station, the little Gorn discovered the Vox. It was broken, looked like it hadn't worked in years. The little Gorn didn't recognize what it was, at first, but simply kept it as another project for himself. It wasn't until days later, as the little Gorn was fiddling with the unit's power pack, that he was able to bring the Vox back to life.



[[Mmmmmmy naaaaaame...]] the Vox drawled.



The little Gorn blinked. He hadn't expected that. He pulled the power pack out, reconfigured it, and plugged it back in. The Vox lit up.



[[My name is Chaucer,]] the unit said.



The little Gorn worked on the unit all night. By morning, he'd gotten it to say all that it would say. It wasn't much: an affirmative, a negative, a request for help, and the unit's name.



[[Yes.]]



[[No.]]



[[Help.]]



[[My name is Chaucer.]]



But it was a *voice*. The little Gorn cycled through each of the four responses, again and again, imagining the flat voice of the Vox as his own. He thought of the way the other citizens of the Dungheap looked at him, how even the ones who pitied him seemed to always view him with mistrust. Dunheap's great silent dinosaur, lumbering among the trash, staring with his predator's eyes, never speaking. No way to know what was *really* going on behind those eyes, deep in that lizard brain.



Perhaps the Vox could help him bridge the gap, at least a little.



=[/\]=



TIME INDEX: Present day



The girl took another step closer and repeated her question: "Can I try?"



The Gorn hesitated. The Vox was the only possession he had left in the world, aside from his ratty clothing. She'd described it perfectly when she'd called it his voice. Human beings seemed to have a rich, secret language comprised of body positioning and facial expressions, but it only seemed to work with other humans. When dealing with creatures like the Gorn, spoken language seemed to be the only reliable way to interact with them.



Slowly, the Gorn held out his wrist. The girl took another step, her fingers hovering over the Vox's faceplate, deciding what button to press first. The Gorn didn't smile, not the way humans did, but he couldn't help but be amused at the look in the girl's face. But before the girl's fingers descended, someone was coming up behind her.



"Marie!"



The Gorn looked up. A larger, and therefore older, Terran female had appeared behind the girl. The Gorn quickly assessed her appearance- hair and eye coloration, facial structure, etc.- and decided the larger Terran was the girl's eggmother. The Gorn drew his hand back quickly, knowing how protective Terrans could be towards their offspring.



"Hi mom," the little girl said casually. "This is my friend. His name is Chaucer."



The eggmother stared at the Gorn. The Gorn slid his lips back over his teeth and pressed activated his Vox.



[[My name is Chaucer,]] the Vox said.



"He was going to let me play with his voice machine," Marie said.



"No," the eggmother said, finally looking down at her offspring. "No, we need to get back, Marie. It'll be dinner time soon."



"But mom..." the girl stated.



"*Now*, Marie," the eggmother said, and then she was leading her offspring away from the Gorn. The girl looked back over her shoulder and waved at the Gorn. It was a gesture that the Gorn had seen many times, used interchangeably as a form of greeting or farewell. It seemed easy enough to mimic.



The Gorn raised a clawed hand and waved back at the girl. She mirrored his expression, pulling her own lips back over her teeth as she continued to wave.



"Bye Chaucer!" she called.



The Gorn called Chaucer watched her go.



=[/\]=



NRPG: There's Chaucer's backstory. I also added his bio to the website.



Shawn Putnam

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX



and sometimes



Chaucer

A Big, Scary, Silent Dinosaur Monster

Who's Actually Very Nice