Chapter 27 - Trading

Inky saw them coming, and quickly talked first, robbing them the opportunity of accusing them of bringing trouble.

Inky: "we welcome the tribe leader and 4 elders" they had practiced, so Erik bent a bit too in salute.

2nd Elder: "I hope you at least know you have brought trouble for your tribe, that's not the way of dealing with big prey, it should be done quickly and as a group, what you just did right now could have attracted an abyssal to the village, the guts of big prey should be disposed of far away and the gills cut so the prey bleeds out before taking it to the village! it's basic knowledge any hunter should know! but well, what else could be expected from a mere scout!"

Inky: " Hmph, I'm not a scout anymore, my mate has admitted me into his tribe, now I'm Inky!"

Third Elder: with curiosity "and what's that supposed to mean?"

Inky didn't know either, so she made it up.

Inky: " Inky translates, I learned a bit of their language"

Third Elder: "interesting, that would make trading easier"

Fourth Elder: interrupting the second elder who was about to talk again "then tells us Inky, what trade have you come for today?"

Inky: "it's some new fishing traps my mate has created as well as the prey behind (she nodded to Erik) please look at the screen"

in the screen it showed how to set up the 'palangre' and how to bite the hooks, and also that weird fish who fell for one"

Inky: "as you can see it attracts and restricts prey with minimum effort, so this could bring extra meat to the village".

First Elder: " well, we can always have some more fresh meat~~~"

Inky: " don't try flirting with my mate First Elder, he's mine"

First Elder:" oh, silly girl I was just joking~~"

The second elder was looking angrily, then Inky just looked at her and said frowning.

Inky: "what? you have a problem with me?"

Second Elder: " yeah, my problem is that a lowly scout, is occupying the position that should have belonged to the strongest in the village, and that's me!"

Inky: " well, it's mine now and only mine so get over it" 🤷🏻‍♂️

the Second Elder was getting angry but the other elders took her to the back to calm down and the Fourth Elder continued the negotiations.

Fourth Elder: " so, tell us little one, why have you come?"

Inky: "yes..., my mate wants to enter his 'space ship' (while pointing at it), and also needs help carrying some containers to his new home"

That calmed and earned an excited expression from the Second Elder though.

Second Elder: " well, if it's just carrying things, of course, we can help, in fact, I will help to carry personally anything necessary naturally" her words seemed nice but she was flapping her fins, and had a wicked smile and slightly narrowed eyes.

Inky:" yes..., that would be our honor..." Inky just couldn't afford to offend them now.

Inky:" then, can you let us through?"

Second elder:" but of course, go on inside" she said stepping aside, Inky nodded to Erik and they both swam inside the village.

Erik saw Inky nodding at him and was relieved, it seemed the negotiations went well, he swam inside the village with Inky as well as the Elders, Leader, and some warriors following closely.

Inside the village, the houses he saw were basically huts made of bones, skins, and rocks, some used sewn algae, and bones, he also saw small octopeople kids with their mothers, looking at him with curiosity and some with reverence, he arrived at his spaceship and using his body as a shield he introduced the code and let Inky inside and then he entered himself, followed by the elders and Leader as the warriors waited outside.

He quickly swam to the agriculture module, it was prepared to be deatached from the spaceship and landing on the colony, so he decided that it might be better to just carry it back to base, also it would have no problem fitting through the garage doors as they could even fit a submarine inside.

He activated the unlocking mechanism and the module separated and started falling silently, the Elder gave an order and warriors came to carry it out, then he went to the most important module, the genetics modification, and life extension module, it dropped and more warriors appeared and took it away, and then for the last module for today, the cloning module, it had frozen mother cells of hundreds of types of animals and cattle to create babies from them inside the incubators that were tubes full of fluid that imitated a womb.

when they came out with the last third module the other 2 teams were ready, also a side hunter team was cutting up the meaty fish and carrying it back, then he chained the module to his transport, unchaining the big fish, and started driving back to base, the elders so strong they carried an entire module between the 4 of them and the third one was carried by lots of warriors and the leader, they went slowly as the modules weren't designed to be underwater and he had to make sure no leaks happened, took them 3 times more time to come back.

When they came back, a big crab was banging uselessly the garage door with his claw, trying to get in, probably smelling the meat inside, and they quickly killed it and stepped inside.

Cranes quickly appeared from the ceiling and helped transport the module inside and on rails to 3 of the guest rooms on the first room as all the furniture either dissolved or walked away as all were made of nanobots, it was really convenient, even the hallways expanded themselves as the modules were big, then Rose set them in place and nanobots covered their exterior, connecting to their cables and pumping out any existing water, like if they had always belonged to that wall [transportation finished, modules operative]

"Thanks, Rose"

[ no problem : ) ]