"Aw, shiv. Btsa's this?" Pearl-furred hands slid more rapidly across the plasmaboard control panel, and the lone silvership swung around in an arc to inspect a discarded cargo bundle. The relatively small box had the peculiar shape and markings to suggest fragile or living cargo, but it floated motionlessly amongst scattered chunks of what used to be a spacecraft of some sort; if there had been something in there, it was unlikely if it was still intact. So much for salvaging some valuable piece of technology.

"Jhee-bred!" the pilot muttered to himself, urging his ship closer and scanning the bundle. Visual sensors picked up the digital markings and symbols of the language of the Jhee, a race of geneticists that loved nothing more than to tinker with other creatures' DNA, with no regard to ethics, morals, or sentience in their experiments. Even the more thorough scanners could not penetrate the cargo box and determine what was within. "Better salvage... wh'ever's in it." Clawed fingers slipped across the controls, deftly guiding the silvership close enough to use weak gravity beams to snag the box. Once it thumped softly against the underbelly of his craft, the pilot drifted out of the debris field, smaller chunks of jagged metal and twisted plastics bouncing harmlessly off the low-powered shield that protected his silvery hull.

An hour's worth of effort later, the pilot had managed to get the twenty-by-thirty-by-twenty box into his own small cargo bay. Humming under his breath, the pale-furred Olashi circled the cargo bundle, two separate scanners in his outstretched hands and his eyes on the read-outs. A buzzer brought him trotting around to one of the two smaller faces, eartips curling upwards in curiosity and slit-pupiled eyes attentive.

A loud creak echoed from the box, and the pilot had to fling himself backwards to avoid being crushed as the face of the box simply... fell off, clattering loudly on the corrugated metal floor. Feathered wings half-flared, as though ready to take flight despite the lack of room, the Olashi stared at the interior of the box.

It was lit with soft lights that hid behind a very strong plexiglass, and all the walls looked to be padded with some kind of elastic rubber lining. Embedded into the far wall were two machines, both flashing with tiny colored lights; they looked like dispensors of some sort, judging by their list-like control panels and the empty slot below those controls. Near the wall that had fallen off was a third control panel, but there was no dispensing slot below this one.

The most fascinating of all of this, though, were the two shallowly-breathing lumps near the middle of the box, one grey-silver and one tawny. The pilot could make out the curve of spines and folded limbs in seemingly-awkward positions, and he could watch as they rocked in the rhythm of lungs inflating and deflating. They looked furred, and they smelled... wait, what? He sniffed again, more carefully; Olashi noses are not the most distinguishing, but he was only about thirty feet from them. They smelled... familiar. Too familiar, and yet strange, not-quite-right.

The tawny one stirred and moved, uttering a low whine as it began gathering its limbs beneath its body. The pilot caught sight of a loop of tail as the creature awkwardly tried to push itself up, but the face was hidden behind the greater size of the silvery lump. Eventually, slowly, the tawny one lifted its torso into plain view, and the Olashi exhaled, almost in relief. They were Taroks - the face and the chest, the arms and hands, they were all right. A tan and a white, then, just Taroks...

The tan creature further stood, and for a moment, the pilot thought it was straddling a quadrupedal creature of the same fur color-- but then it turned, inclined its chest over its companion and lowered its hands to the white body, presenting its flank to the watching Olashi. It was... it was a hexapod, a strange creature that looked like the unholy child of a Tarok and a Korat, with a Tarok's torso and head and arms replacing the Koratian neck, the spine curving at an angle as though to go into the coiled neck, but instead simply extending into another stretch of flank and back, then shoulders, then smooth Tarokian neck. A long, streamlined, bladed tail extended behind Koratian haunches, completing the wholly unnerving picture.

The Olashi was shaking, and at the faint sound of feathers rustling, the tawny one looked up. He watched as its eyes fastened on its face, watched as it took a surprised step back, lifting longclawed hands as though to ward off an assault. With effort, the pilot pocketed his scanners, brought his own hands up, and slowly shook his head. This was the second time Jhee had taken and abused Koratian genes; the first time had resulted in Taroks, bipedal and tech-oriented versions of the hardy Lavanian natives. Now, here was a six-legged creature, an anatomy never seen on Lavana except for those whose middle limbs were wings. As much as blasphemy existed in the pilot's mind, this, here, was blasphemy.

He stepped forward, slowly, pace by pace, until he stepped onto the still-frigid fallen piece, then past the metal rim onto the warmer rubber-like padding of the inside wall, then onto the same floor on which the Koratian beast stood.

So close, now, he could smell fear and pain and hunger. His eyes glanced over the dispensors on the back wall, now identifying them as food and drink. He didn't know the Jhee tongue well enough to read any of the words scrawled near the images of items, and he didn't know how to speak to this creature and tell it that he would help it. Instead, he opted for Kalash, Lavana's interracial common tongue. "My name is Fyji Tigoh. I'm an Olashi, pilot of Wingrunner's Prime. I won't hurt you."

The face, eerily familiar and yet so strange, attached to the genetically designed mutation of a body, tilted at him, eyes narrowing in concentration. The blade tipping the tan's tail suggested that it was a male, but Fyji could also spot a triangular blade on the white's tail, as well. Jhee didn't often create same-sex pairs; they were usually more interested in rapidly breeding their new creations to see how their descendents would turn out. The scent was too disconcerting; he couldn't make out genders before his brain refused to analyze it any longer.

Fyji raised his hands in a gesture of peace, again, then pointed a clawed finger at the unconscious white. He made a gentle shaking motion, then lifted his hand upwards. "Can we wake him and help him walk?" he queried gently.

The tan didn't understand his words, of course, but he put as much patience and warmth in them as he could manage. The creature was following his tone and movements closely, eyes and ears flicking with each syllable and gesture, and Fyji had to assume that the Jhee hadn't made something of Korat blood nonsentient. However, the tan proved its cleverness by figuring out what the Olashi had meant and crouching, leaning its upper torso over its companion and attempting to rouse it.

Fyji stepped back a pace, showing his palms again when the tan glanced up quizzically. It resumed trying to bestir the white, and a few moments of shaking and muttering in its ear brought success; the white's eyes flickered open and it groaned. The tan helped the larger beast up, bracing all four legs and wrapping its two arms around the long-furred torso to lever the white onto its own legs.

The grey-white Koratian eyed the Olashi warily, and Fygi repeated his I-am-not-enemy speech and hand gestures.

"I understand you," the white intoned in a gravelly voice, and Fygi's ears nearly twisted erect in shock.

"You know Kalash?" he asked, stunned.

"Yes."

Fygi forced himself to nod and to breathe evenly, but his heart was racing. This would bypass ten kinds of difficulties, then, if one of the strange duo could speak with him.

"Please, what may I call you?"

The white tilted its head, then glanced to its companion, who looked almost eager as it watched the exchange. "We have Jhee-given names, but we do not want them anymore." The two hexapods spoke briefly in a tongue that Fygi could only assume was the Jhee language. Then, the white looked back up. "You may call me Chriank. This yellow is Kubrin."

Fygi noted the disparity between 'yellow' and 'tan', but he had more pressing questions. "Please, what is your species called, and if I may, what genders are you? Olashi senses of smell are not so keen," he lied politely. It wouldn't do to tell them how disconcerted he was just be inhaling near them.

"We are... Kaurians, I think they called us." The white, Chriank, tilted its head and looked heavily puzzled. "Kaurs, or Kaurians... I am unsure." It lifted a thick hand and waved off the matter. "We are both males." His black nostrils flared, "And you are male, yes?"

"Ai." Fygi caught the look of questioning in the white's pale eyes. "Ah, yes, I am. 'Ai' is an affirmative, like 'yes'." He paused, seeing how Chriank was braced to keep standing, his tail hanging and coiled on the floor; Kubrin was a nervous attendant to the bigger Kaur(ian), little hands almost dancing in the air as he kept his lean frame pressed up against Chriank, as though to hold him up.

"Please, allow me to show you to a place where you may rest. I have... food, but it is not meat. I do not know what you eat, but you are welcome to what I can provide. I will take you to a place where you can be introduced to authorities of my people and properly welcomed as Jhee survivors. Is this acceptable to you?"

The Kaur(ian)s conferred in the other language, then Chriank nodded. "Food first. Then rest. This is a spaceship, yes?"

"Ai," Fygi nodded, then turned and beckoned them to follow him out of the Jhee capsule. They did, slowly, Kubrin keeping Chriank from stumbling. A soft thump behind him brought the Olashi about-face in concern, only to find that the two had dropped to all sixes and were walking that way, their longclawed thumbs awkwardly angled on the flooring. "...is this an auxiliary method of locomotion?" he asked, head tilted.

Chriank grunted. "It works as well as walking the other way. But we cannot walk like you."

Fygi tried to hide his fascination, which was swiftly overcoming and consuming his unnerved revulsion of the alien bodyshape. He turned again and led them out of the cargo bay and to the social quarters, which functioned as a recreation area, an exercise room, a kitchen, and an eating space. One of the three curving walls was lined in holographic display modules, one was lined in cooking and food storage apparatus, and the other was blank.

Inviting them to sit or lay on the thick, foam-padded flooring near the blank wall, Fygi got to work making vegetarian food for the two presumed-to-be carnivores.