He mans up!

Time was up. He saw the strange natives approaching the rover. The ground started to shake left and right. The rover rocked side to side before the naked natives even touched it. This time the earthquake in the hills felt every bit as rough as it had in the snowy plains, maybe worse. Snipher suddenly recognized the moment where the rover's balanced left-right wobble changed to a motion, a rotation. It was tipping over. He realized it was too late to fasten a safety belt and landed on the side window as it cracked against the rough ground. The metal roof supports had already been strained too much and gave way. Time was up.

He leapt out of the openings in the cracked windshield and began swinging his two new weapons in figure-eights on either side. The tribe got the idea and backed up from him. He shouted and growled at them.

Fighting for his life, maximum shrinkage

Only the woman who had emasculated his beard earlier seemed to think his weapons impotent.

"Don't kill me!" he shouted, swinging the two clubs wildly.

"You speak English!" she blurted and took a step back.

"I... You see... There's a ... The expedition you," he stammered. Where was he to begin? There were easily a dozen things he had to get across after, "Don't kill me."

It showed clearly on her face that her estimate of his intelligence and literacy was rapidly declining as his disjointed partial sentences dribbled out of his mouth.

"Bind him," she told the others with a shrug of her shoulders as if she was trying to keep him from hurting himself until she could figure out what to do with him.

"No, don't. I can speak. Really, I can talk," he begged.

She told him, "That is what we call an Informed Attribute, not a demonstrated one."

He knew it would sound a bit melodramatic, but it was sincere to say, "I do not intend to become a corpse for you to feed on!" But then he realized **** would come for him some day, so his conviction was not as ironclad as he had tried to sound.

"You are conflicted and weak of spirit," she said, sounding objective, not insulting, "Put down your decorations."

"I'm going back to my shuttle," he countered. definitely not putting down his weapons. It occurred to him how naked he was at the moment. His wrist devices and mop were back at the MEMS cannister, so he could not contact any of his technologies which could even up this fight.

"Mallory planted two bodies like yours when she arrived. We did not make them corpses. She offered them to us."

Clearly she was engaged in a completely different conversation than the one he wanted to have, and his attempts to give the orders were doing nothing.

"They died in the landing?" he asked, hoping she would listen to him if he joined her topic of conversation.

"That is what I have heard," the leader said, "Captain Mallory's body is still with us," looking to the only other woman in the hunting party. He openly gawked at her. How was this possible?

The nearly nude woman introduced as Captain Mallory of the lost expedition said, "We became self aware after growing inside their waste. The dead bodies, hair, dead skin. People like you provided our only intelligent food. We call you brain-food. We can feed you trimmed herbs to make your hair grow longer faster," and looked his body up and down for nutritious hairs.

Several of the males smirked at that.

Negotiations(?)

"But you are the Captain's body ... reanimated?"

She seemed genuinely sad to say, "The Captain was dead when my microscopic ancestors impregnated her. Her awareness and memories were already gone. After five generations my ancestors needed brain food. Most of the expedition were still alive and able to provide new dead cells. First Mate Kipler is different. She is still partly alive."

He was not certain he understood most of that. Snipher had to ask, "So just for the record, you don't intend to kill me?"

"Are there others of you?" Kipler, the leader asked, conspicuously not answering his question.