The human was quiet while it concentrated on carrying my sister through the door, holding Elbi’s feet as it walked backward. It was strange to think that a primal could be compatible with such civilized amenities; electricity lit the path over a clean, tile hallway, with various sitting fixtures and appliances in the adjacent rooms. Finley bobbed its head toward its right side and began to adjust its pathing, glancing over its shoulders on occasion. I followed its lead, and squeezed in through the bedroom door.

  This is exhausting, and I’m drained of energy. Thirsty, hungry, tired. The primal is clearly intelligent, but is it intelligent enough to care for a species with different needs? Being too demanding could make it angry.

  I stumbled, wincing as I noticed the chipped patch in my leg. Finley’s concern was immediate, with the human hurrying to pull my sister the last few steps onto the bed. Its hands steadied me when I swayed from dizziness, and it sat me down on the side of the bed with a grimace. Its green eyes flitted up to my asymmetrical skull, which was skewed toward the right side. The primal noticed I was still shivering, and with more certainty to its actions now that it’d made a decision, it retrieved a mountain of blankets from a closet.

  “Here.” Finley placed them in my grasp, accidentally stumbling against the bedpost and landing on me for a brief second. “Ow. S-sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I could feel the animal’s little heart beating out of its chest, and debated whether to ask it for anything else. I really needed something to drink though. “You’re safe. It might help to take a minute to calm down.”

  The human blinked in agreement, wandering into the hallway and leaning against the wall. I decided we weren’t in danger of an immediate attack, and let myself collapse into the mattress. The blankets were…something, at least. It was a foolish idea to ever come here, but Elbi was wrong about not being able to reason with them, wasn’t she? Finley had listened and helped! Maybe these primals could be bargained with, once they were made to put down their weapons. The weapons just seemed like…the first part.

  Finley nodded to itself, seeming to pep itself up before it returned. “Okay! I’m better now. I just was not expecting aliens to break into my farm today. I’m still testing my eyes to see if this is…real. You…didn’t abduct my cows, did you?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Never mind. I’ll take that as a no. A-are you hurt, Craun? I mean, you just walked out of a shipwreck too, right? You seem a little, uh, weak. No offense.”

  “I’m uninjured, as far as I can tell. It’s this planet: the cold is weakening me. Reducing my body to its most critical functions.” Admitting weakness might be a good thing. The human would feel more in control, unless it’d be angry about having another alien to tend to. “I…hate to impose, but I’m parched. Very parched.”

  Finley smacked its forehead in a strange gesture. “Oh, right; duh! Sorry! Let me get you something to drink.”

  I didn’t have time to stop the primal before it scurried off excitedly; it was almost adorable how excited the animal was to help. I hadn’t expected it to be falling over itself to bring me what I asked for. Finley was…trying. Humans were nicer than a creature with their sort of violent, early-stage-evolution tendencies had any right to be. It made me a little sad to think that it had to live, believing it was a person yet lacking control of its mind.

  Could they understand that they’re animalistic in that way? I know they can’t help it, but it’s just a cruel joke to develop self-aware intelligence and still be subjects of rage. Finley could lose control with a single trigger, couldn’t it?

  I kept that thought in the back of my mind, when the human returned with a glass of water. I didn’t want to rebuff its efforts too harshly, but I couldn’t ingest poison just so that it wouldn’t be incensed over its wasted attempt. I held up my hands and backed away, not wanting the toxic substance anywhere near me. Finley’s lips curved down, and it furrowed its eye fur. The primal stood holding the glass, its pupils shimmering with confusion at my reaction.

  “I can’t drink that, Finley. Water is poisonous to me,” I attempted to explain, studying its reaction. “It’d kill me. Do you understand?”

  Finley squinted. “I hear what you’re saying, but I…don’t understand how water can be poisonous. Alien or no alien.”

  “I’m a silicon-based lifeform. You’re carbon.” Do humans even know about that?

  “Oh. I think I heard something about us being carbon-based before, but I…don’t really know what it means. Silicon, like computers?”

  “Sure. Let’s go with that, except I’m biological. Silicon is the primary building block of our anatomy, as carbon is yours. Carbon forms molecules and proteins in your body, okay?”

  Finley nodded. “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I remember that from school.”

  I noted to myself that human education seemed to teach things dumbly. “Silicon is a different element than carbon. Silicon is heavier, so our systems require more energy. That means we need environments with high levels of heat and pressure, and a different solvent—what we drink, I mean—that works in those hotter conditions. Okay?”

  “Ummm…totally! Yeah. I’m…gonna google all that and get back to you. The point I’m getting is you drink something else. You said water’s toxic, though. It kills you.”

  “It destroys silicon bonds. Like radiation does with yours.”

  “Oh. Holy shit.” The human’s expression changed to a mortified one, and it hurriedly moved the water onto a dresser, away from me. “My bad there. Maybe we really should’ve called the authorities—”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Finley. No. We can’t do that. You’re learning just fine.”

  “I almost poisoned you, ten minutes after you got here! Shit!” Agitation crept into the primal’s voice, self-directed though it may be; my breath hitched in my throat. The last thing I wanted was for Finley to become angry. “Let me try again. Uh, what do you drink?”

  “Ammonia.”

  “Oh, I’ve got plenty of that in the fertilizer! To drink though…I’ve got some under the sink for cleaning. I’ll fetch that!”

  I rubbed the sore, dry part of my throat, desperate to chug down some ammonia and soothe the thirst. I’d been through a lot of exertion and stress on my body from the climate. Finley hadn’t taken my scientific correction that hard, and it seemed to react with logic over anger for the most part. I just had to remember not to make it feel hopeless, before it got any more ideas about calling the feral government for “help.” The human returned, teeth displayed through its open lips—it seemed proud. It handed a jug of sloshing liquid to me, eyes agleam.

  “Ta-da!” Finley exclaimed. “You can have it all.”

  “This…shouldn’t be liquid. Not in this environment.” I eyed it skeptically, despite my pressing need, and read the back of the label with suspicion. “Human, this has water in it. Are you trying to kill me?”

  The primal’s ears turned red, and its hands shot to its mouth in horror. “No. Are you kidding me? I…I don’t know where else to get liquid ammonia, I…what do I do?”

  I held onto the jug, thinking to myself. “This can work. I have a device on my ship that can extract ammonia from other compounds and keep it highly pressurized, so it’s drinkable. Only thing is, I’m too weak to go get it, and it got thrown in the crash.”

  “I’ll get it. Just tell me where your ship is, and what this thingamabob looks like.”

  I unclipped my own electronic device from my waistband, pulling up a picture from the safety instruction manual I had downloaded. “That canister. And the ship’s at the bottom of the hill, by the creek.”

  “It crashed that close by? Aw shit, Craun, why didn’t you tell me that?!”

  “I was trying to get you not to shoot me in the face.”

  Finley pressed a hand to its head. “Right. That’s fair. Look, the Feds are gonna be crawling all over this place. If we don’t want them to find you, we have to hide the ship. I’m gonna run off, clear it of any stuff that might be useful—for sure the canister—and push it in the river. Sound good?”

  “Yes.” I pawed at my throat, but deciding against telling the primal to hurry. That could come off as bossing it around, and I doubted it’d like that. “You’re right about the ship. Thank you.”

  “No problem. Hey, look, I’m so sorry about the gun and the poison and—I’ll be right back. One cup of ammonia coming up!”

  Finley scampered off by itself, and I took the opportunity to check Elbi’s vitals. I found myself replaying what the primal had said: most notably, that it apologized for being brutish and mistaken. I…hadn’t known they had the capacity to evaluate animalism as wrong. It was a little cute how eager it was to help, even if it had more limitations than sophonts. It really wanted to understand, I thought.

  Humans aren’t that savage, at least minute-to-minute. You can communicate with them, and they clearly have some scientific understanding of the world.

  Elbi coughed weakly, looking up at me with half-open eyes. “Craun…where…you can’t go staying inside a primal’s dwelling! When they find you…”

  “No, it’s okay! This primal is helping us. It’s named Finley, and it let me explain everything. It’s going to hide us from the savages who shot our ship.”

  “You can’t be serious! They’re all savages who can’t be trusted. They shot our ship down. You’d place our survival in the hands of a primal? Have you lost your reason? Why are we here, hiding with them?”

  “Look, you can judge my decision to come to Earth, but we’re here. We might as well make nice with the one helping us!”

  “We need to get out of here. This is the worst planet: this is the only one where the primals have guns! They’re worse than the ferals. You got me into this, Craun, with your moronic plan to walk up to an animal’s den. We have to fix the ship and go anywhere else.”

  “Yeah, Elbi, about the ship…”

  “Hi!” Finley exclaimed, prowling back through the doorway with happy eyes. It sounded a little winded, like it’d been running. It had a bunch of scraps in its arms that it unloaded onto the bed, before handing me the canister. “The ship’s in the river! I went as fast as I could. Glad to see you’re awake, Elbi.”

  Elbi shrieked at the sight of the human, switching to its tongue. “Get away from me, primal!”

  “Finley is a very nice primal. This is Finley’s home—don’t speak to the human like that. I’m sorry for her behavior, Finley. Thank you,” I placated the creature, worried by how she spoke to it.

  Elbi’s head rolled back and she slipped back into unconsciousness, while I hurriedly poured the ammonium hydroxide into the extractor. I gulped down the entire container with gluttony, paying no mind to Finley watching me like I was the most fascinating thing it’d ever seen. Somehow finding the energy to sit up, I made another serving and poured some down my sister’s throat.

  Good job, human! You found the right device. Maybe we can get by with some careful instructions.

  Finley’s face tightened. “What’s a ‘primal?’”

  “It’s, uh,” I fumbled for a reply, knowing the truth wasn’t a good idea. “A carbon lifeform.”

  “Oh! Yeah, I am one. Primal. That’s pretty cool.”

  I forced myself to give it an encouraging look. Well, it doesn’t know what it really means. “Don’t let Elbi hear you say that. She needs to use your name, or your species’ name. You’re just frightening to her, but I’m sorry for her behavior.”

  “I’m frightening to her? I knew you were scared of me. The gun and the getting shot down might do that; humans, uh, we don’t always leave the best first impression. Don’t hold that against me, Craun. I’m harmless. I swear it!”

  “That’s…okay. You didn’t know any better. You couldn’t,” I said groggily. “I’m very grateful to you, Finley. Sorry for all the bother.”

  “Nonsense. Why don’t we all get some rest, and we’ll figure some more shit out in the morning?”

  “Yeah. Sounds good.”

  There was a kind twinkle in Finley’s eyes as it ducked back out of the room, sealing the door behind itself. Despite my exhaustion, I laid awake for a few minutes mulling over my first impressions of the humans. I felt a little bad for deceiving it about what primal meant, but that was Elbi’s fault for lobbing the pejorative at it. Still, I knew if she wasn’t critically injured and startled, she would’ve thought better of letting the human know that word even existed.

  It was tough not to look at a primal and think about how it could snap at any second, but I didn’t want to see that side of Finley come out. I hoped the creature would forget my sister’s insult, and that our first day living together could get off to a smoother start.