He watches patiently.

The largest of the creatures turns toward him and chirps interrogatively.

He taps his chest with his hand deliberately.  "Alec Holland.  Alec."

"Lk lnt?" it attempts, gamely.  "Lk khh-lnt?  Lk?"

He smiles.  "Lek."

"Lk," the creature says agreeably.  It points at itself, and at the two others of its kind clustered around him, then makes rapid pointing-stabbing motions in various directions, where other creatures are working.  "Ktk."

"Ktek," he attempts.

It points at itself.  "Mk ktk."  It points at itself and one of the other ktk.  "Nk ktk."  It points at itself, the ktk to its left, and the ktk to its right.  "Nklk ktk."  It repeats the pointing-stabbing motions.  "Mkmkt't ktk."

It points at him.  "Mk lk."  It gestures expansively at the forest behind him.  "Nk lk?  Nklk lk?  Mkmkt't lk?"

He's pretty sure he's following this, but to be sure:

He counts on his fingers.  "Mk, nk, nklk?"  Then he unfolds all his fingers, waggling them as he spreads his hands, in an attempt to mime many: "Mkmkt't?"

"Tsl!" it exclaims.  " - tsl ktk," at itself, "sss ktk," at him.  At his hand: "tsl."

Grin.  "Mk lk."

After a moment's consideration, he points at the sky, then makes a fist with his hand and mimes a meteor falling, hitting his other palm.

Another conference of chittering, among the three ktk.

 - but their conversation is interrupted by a commotion; two of the smaller ktk have gotten into a fight.

The largest ktk spreads wings and scrambles toward the fight with a motion somewhere between running and flying; it grabs the two small ktk, one in each hand, and wrenches them apart.

Left-hand ktk is scrabbling for purchase on big-ktk's arm.  Right-hand ktk flops limply.

Big-ktk examines right-hand ktk with eyes and antennae and mouthparts.

It tosses the corpse aside, then holds left-hand ktk in front of its face, hissing and chittering and chirping in outrage.

After a moment of this, it whips its arm and pitches the little creature away from the city.

It buzzes wings to land lightly and scrambles away into the forest.

The three ktk who'd been talking to him gather around the corpse.  One picks it up by one limb and shakes it; it flops.  The big one, the one who broke up the fight, chirps back and forth with the one holding the corpse, and then, working together, they rip off one of the corpse's arms.  The big one starts eating it.

It's not trivial to read alien body language, but everyone involved seems pretty nonchalant about all this.

Well.  If that is their way, he supposes.

He doesn't approach, in case an outsider involving himself would be horribly offensive.

Chirp chirp chirp chitter click chirp?

The one holding the corpse approaches him.

He waits somberly to be addressed.

It makes a series of gestures:

First it points at him, then it makes a sort of handing-something-over gesture towards itself, then it points at one of the mammal pens.  It pauses.  Then it points at the city, then it makes the handing-something-over gesture away from itself, then it points at him.  Then it shakes the corpse indicatively.

...he holds out his hands.

It places its folding mantis-claws around the joint connecting the corpse's head to its body and, with a crunch, severs it.  It tosses the head lightly to him.

It's small enough to hold in one hand.  He looks at it.

He can't tell living eyes from dead ones, in these species.  But the little mouthparts are limp, and the antennae are lolling, inanimate.

Some blend of Alec Holland and the Green thinks that this can be appropriate, for the dead ktk to be returned to the plants of its homeworld.

He presses the head gently to his chest.