Crunch. The screaming stopped. Fredwin wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sat down on the straggly green plant that covered the ground. The rest of the tour group followed suit and sprawled out, patting their bellies, smiling in satisfaction under the weak light of a lone sun.
Except for Damuel, Damuel was coughing. Choking? Fredwin hurried over to him and punched him heartily in the diaphragm.
Damuel spat out a small shiny thing. “Thanks,” he said to Fredwin, “That must have gone down the wrong pipe.”
“What is that thing?” asked Slymi, squatting down to get a better look.
“Oh!” cried Elizar, her small hands moving wildly, “I think I know! It's one of those...thingies. You know it's one of those...umm...”
Fredwin sighed. His associate Elizar knew a lot about alien technology, unfortunately, she didn't know a lot of, well, words.
“I've got it!” Elizar exclaimed, “It's some kind of recorder!”
She said the last word in one of the breathy native languages of the planet.
“A musical instrument,” Damuel read from the small screen of his translator, “Sometimes known as a fipple flute.”
“No, no, no, no,” said Elizar, “Your translator must be wrong. This thing, it records images...and sound. I think you can play them back on a different whatchamacallit. Or sometimes...” Elizar picked up the recorder and turned it around in her hands, she coaxed out a small screen with a delicate claw and then pressed a button. The recorder made a whirring noise.
Damuel jumped back.
“Sometimes,” Elizar continued, “you can watch it right on the...the camera! That's it! The..the.. video camera! That's what they call it.”
The whirring sound stopped. Elizar motioned the others to move closer to the screen. She pressed another button and familiar images filled the screen.
“Look!” cried Slymie, “It's our food!” The tour group watched their recent meal sit around and communicate with each other in their breathy tones.
“What are they doing now?” Damuel wondered, as the aliens on the screen threw around a bright green disk. Fredwin saw the disk out of the corner of his eye and picked it up off the ground. He held it in his hands as they watched the next part of the tape.
“Hey! Look! There's our ship!” Cheers and hoots sprang up from the crowd.
“Haha! Take that!” The aliens in the video began to make a shrill, keening sound as they were picked off one by one.
"Helloooo Lunch!"
“Oh right, like that tiny weapon can save you!”
“Oh, hey! It's my mouth! Wow, my acid-sacks look really big from this angle.” Damuel said.
“This must be the part where you eat that one alien,” Slymie commented.
“You think?” Damuel replied rolling his eyes. The image went dark but tinny crunching and gurgling sounds emanated from the screen. Then, with a big thud, the screen showed scraggly green plants and dirt. Elizar pressed a button and the screen went dead.
“Can we keep it?” Damuel asked.
Fredwin nodded his head. This could only help his tour business. He'd make it part of the premium package and charge twice as much. Who wouldn't want such an amusing souvenir from their exotic dining trip?
As they crowded around the camera, Fredwin pulled Elizar aside.
“I want more of those, can you get them?” he asked.
Elizar nodded, “It should be easy. From what I've read, they have these things, called..umm. I don't remember, but they're places you can go and buy cameras and other stuff.”
Fredwin laughed, “I don't think you'll have to buy them.”
“True.” Elizar grinned and wandered off towards a large clump of alien buildings.
Fredwin smiled. His business was about to take off in a big way, he could just smell it. As the tourists giggled over the recorded images of their dinner once more, he took the green disk in his hands and attempted to throw it like the aliens in the video. It wobbled and fell to the ground.
He walked over to it, and stomped it into the mud.
