Nineteen

Next morning, the Grugell base camp 

Clomonastik regarded the captive with some distaste. Odd-looking creatures, these aliens were. This one was awake now, but still tied, and regarded him with a distinctly hostile gaze, hate positively glittered in its eyes. It was lying on its side in the back of the command hut. Clomonastik had only just arrived from his personal quarters to find the thing had been brought in during the night. The capturing officers had been duly awarded half of the reward offer, and dispatched to find the other one. Apparently, it had killed a transport technician. The things were nothing if not resourceful.

“So, what manner of creature are you?” he asked it, somewhat rhetorically. The thing really was hideous. Its skin was an odd, pinkish color, its hair a hideous pale yellow. The creature was short, less than half the height of a typical Grugell, but massively muscled. “It wouldn’t do to have you get loose, would it?” he asked it. “No doubt you’d cause all sort of trouble in my base camp.” The creature obviously was native to a high-gravity planet like this one.

The creature made an odd, strangely musical series of sounds, not at all like the clipped, precise Grugell language. Still, it communicated verbally, that was a start. He pulled up a stool and seated himself in front of the thing.

Pointing at his chest, he slowly enunciated, “Clo-mon-a-stik.”

The creature looked puzzled. He repeated his name, tapping his chest for emphasis.  “Clo-mon-a-stik.”

Suddenly the creature’s eyes, opened wide, and it repeated the syllables in its guttural voice: “Clo-mon-a-stik.  Clomonastik.” Followed by a burst of unintelligible gibberish.

They were getting somewhere now. Clomonastik pointed at his chest, repeating his name again, and then pointed at the creature. Its eyes widened in comprehension again, and it spoke.  Clomonastik did his best to repeat what was apparently the thing’s name; “Jen-nycrider?” It nodded its head up and down, repeating the syllables. “Jennycrider!” he burst out, laughing. Well, they knew each other’s names, now. That was a start.

For her part, Jenny was more than a little confused. This thing, whose name was apparently Clomonastik, was trying to communicate with her. Up until now, every one of the aliens she’d seen had been trying to kill her.

Of course, she was still hog-tied and lying on the dirt floor of some sort of hut. When Clomonastik had opened the door to come in, she’d seen outside long enough to at least know where she was–just outside were the familiar trees that bordered her and Mike’s adopted home meadow in the mountain. The aliens had set up shop in her front yard. As much as this angered her, there were greater issues concerning her.

Where is Mike now? What happened to him?

Jenny knew Mike had been right beside her when the stun charge had hit, and figured he’d been knocked down too. Then again, they knew he’d killed several of their friends. Had they just killed Mike outright? Was he being held somewhere nearby? Had he escaped?

The alien was chattering at her in its weird tongue again. “Gru-gell,” it said, motioning to itself and then all around at the building and, Jenny supposed, the camp around them. She thought she understood the gesture.

“Grugell,” she repeated, rolling her head at the sounds of a group walking past outside. The alien laughed again, and pointed at her, then made the sweeping, inclusive motion again. “Human,” she told him. It leaned over closer, jet-black eyes glittering like marbles. “Hu-man?  Human.” It sat back, apparently satisfied for the moment.

There was a clattering noise on the outside of the building’s metal wall, lasting a minute or so, and then another alien came in. This one was carrying some sort of…

…No, she thought, it couldn’t be…

But it was, most definitely some sort of collar. 

Clomonastik chattered at the second alien, who chattered back.

“Ah, Apportamattid; the confinement collar. Good. The leads are attached to the outside wall?”

“Yes, sir, as you ordered. The creature will not be able to leave the building without receiving a considerable stun charge.”

“It has a name, Apportamattid, and its name is Jennycrider. Let’s show it how the collar works. The field is turned on?”

“Yes, sir, and full strength. These creatures are strong. The other one apparently broke free by breaking the cargo tie-down cord it was tied with.”

“Very well, but all the same, a full stun charge will knock one down.”

Clomonastik walked to the doorway, extending the collar through the open door. A blinding flash of electricity snapped across the open inside of the collar. 

He turned back to face the alien.  “See, Jennycrider? You can’t go outside with this on,” Clomonastik explained. He handed the collar to Apportamattid, with an order: “Put this on it, and remove its bonds. Have we any food left from the morning meal?”

“Yes, sir”

“Very well, bring food and water.”

“Sir?” Apportamattid was a little confused.

“It talks, Apportamattid,” Clomonastik explained. “If we can communicate with it, we may be able to learn much. If it is, as you say, an outcast for some reason, treating it decently may well convince it to talk more freely. We can always,” he pointed out, “dispose of it later.”

Jenny flinched as the second alien – ‘Apportamattid,’ the first one called it – fastened the collar around her neck, and then untied the cords holding her wrists and ankles. She sat up, rubbing the circulation back into hands and feet. The message was clear, as clear as the skies past the open door, Clomonastik had showed how any attempt to leave would earn her a nasty shock.  Apportamattid left, and Clomonastik busied himself at a desk on the other side of the room. 

Jenny stood up, somewhat unsteadily. A chair of sorts was nearby. She seated herself gingerly on the flimsy-looking thing, but it held her weight.

So, she thought, they are called Grugell – the Grugell. This one, Clomonastik, seems to be in charge. He sure barked enough orders at the other one, Apport – Apportamattid. Why is he trying to talk with me? What does he want?

Where is Mike?

Clomonastik looked around once, saw her seated on the chair. He grinned his pointed-tooth grin at her and returned to his work. After a few more minutes, Apportamattid returned with a dish of some kind of stewed meat, and a cup of water. He set the dishes down on a small table near where Jenny sat, and after looking reflectively at her for a moment, picked up both dishes, taking a small bite of the stew and a sip of the water before setting both down again.

He’s showing me they’re OK to eat, she thought. Stupid! Why would they bother poisoning me when they could just shoot me?

Well, she was hungry, and needed to keep her strength up. The stew wasn’t at all bad, and the water was very welcome. The inevitable need followed, but was easily solved by a peek behind some sort of screen that stood in the corner. A privy of sorts stood there, and was close enough to human dimensions to allow easy use. Fortunately, Clomonastik seemed to feel she was no threat wandering loose in the small building, and since she clearly couldn’t leave, attacking him would serve no purpose anyway.

She had little to do but wait.

Several kilometers to the south

Traveling light and fast, Mike had covered almost half of the distance back to the mountain meadow in the first night. After grabbing a two-hour nap under an overhanging bank, he’d set off again, risking daylight travel to make time. He ate up the distance in a long, loping pace, a pace his mountain-hardened legs could keep up for hours if necessary.

It was necessary now.

He was certain he was still being hunted, but the aliens must have assumed he’d continue on south. There had been no scout ships, no flying platforms, and no foot troops since he’d killed the platform driver the previous day. 

A large fern prairie loomed ahead now, a good two and a half kilometers across. Mike paused, checked carefully for aliens and rocs, and set off at a run. As he crested the slight rise in the center of the open ground, he saw a female roc with a single chick a kilometer or so off, both raised their heads from where they lay comfortably in the ferns. They watched him but made no move. A half-eaten boser carcass lay between them, they’d be no trouble. At least, not until the food was gone. Relieved, he jogged on into the trees, angling now up the first of several heavily forested hogbacks that would take him to the meadow. If all went well, he’d get there about nightfall. He carried the Parks in his right hand, his longbow was slung across his back, his Colt holstered low for a fast draw. When the time came, he’d be ready.

It was late afternoon when he came on the first alien outpost. He’d slowed his rate of travel, slipping now like a wraith through the woods, using skills developed over a lifetime of stalking wary, wily elk, deer and bear. Before cresting a ridge, he’d crawled to a low point and poked his head over, scanning the area ahead with his binoculars. There. Two of them. They’re guards, he realized, I was right, their camp is up there. That’s where my Jenny is.

He couldn’t afford to be detected. Killing these two, personally satisfying though it might be, would no doubt cause some alarm. They no doubt were required to check in at intervals; he’d let them continue to do so. The night would be falling soon, and darkness was his friend. He bared his teeth in a snarl of rage. “You messed with the wrong guy, you bastards,” he whispered to himself, “And it’s going to cost you.”

A clutter of rain clouds was scudding in from the east, out of the setting sun. The wind was freshening, bringing with it the smell of rain. Perfect, Mike thought. Rain made things quiet. The first big drops came down just as the woods were growing dark. Mike dropped below his ridgeline vantage point for a moment, thinking.

He’d been planning stalks all his life. This wouldn’t be any harder than sneaking into an elk herd, past a dozen or so alert cows for a shot at the herd bull. Probably easier, he told himself. These things sure don’t have an elk’s sense of smell.

By the time the light was completely gone, the rain had settled into a thin drizzle that would likely last all night. He slipped over the ridge, angling well off the spot where he’d seen the two guards, and then looping in behind them. He watched them from fifty meters away for a while. The two had moved closer together, and were huddled miserably under their black cloaks, chattering to each other. Good, they don’t like a chilly rain. I don’t mind it at all.

Slipping away from the guards, he crept into a ravine that led to the high meadow. Mike knew this stretch of woods intimately. The ravine would take him to the edge of the meadow, about eighty meters from where the cabin had stood. The rain dripped off his Stetson. The big hat kept his head dry, but the cold water dripping from the rear of the brim fell on his back. He ignored it; he’d be warm enough soon. It was an easy hour-long stalk, by-passing one other pair of guards, he came to the lower edge of the meadow. 

There were several buildings in the clearing now, and four of the spidery ships parked a few meters away. A dozen or so of the flying platforms floated just outside the largest building, tethered to a railing to keep them from drifting. One of them was a big cargo platform. 

He lay in cover for a while, watching and thinking. A thought occurred to him, if Jenny was in the camp, there might be a way to let her know he was nearby.

In better times, he had confided in Jenny that one thing he missed about his Idaho mountain home was the nocturnal singing of coyotes. He’d learned to imitate the yapping howls quite well and could get the local song-dogs howling in reply whenever they were in the vicinity of his Salmon River Range cabin. The two of them had hit on a compromise here. The mimicking grilfens were still active at dusk, and they copied Mike’s yaps and howls with characteristic accuracy. It had been a fun and nostalgic game for the young lovers.

But grilfens weren’t active at night. Better still, the invading aliens wouldn’t be familiar with all the local wildlife yet. They wouldn’t know they were hearing the song of a nocturnal predator from a world hundreds of light years away. If Jenny had been brought here, as he suspected, she’d know he was coming for her. He tipped back his head and pealed out a series of yapping howls.

The Grugell base camp

In Clomonastik’s headquarters, the language lessons continued. Jenny was seated uncomfortably on a stool built for a Grugell. Clomonastik relaxed on a larger chair in front of her, with a variety of objects. Apportamattid stood behind him, watching curiously. 

He held up a cup, shaking it to splash the water inside. “Water,” he intoned in the Grugell tongue, it sounded like a squeaking rat to Jenny.

She approximated the sound as best she could, then pointed and said “Water,” in English. 

Clomonastik repeated, “Wa-ter? Water.” He was smart, Jenny realized. 

Just then, from outside, came the unmistakable howl of a coyote.

Clomonastik and Apportamattid looked towards the door. “Sir, have you heard that animal before?”

“A night hunting beast of some sort, I suppose,” Clomonastik shrugged. “Nothing of consequence Apportamattid, just some animal. We have guards out if it gets too curious.”

  Jenny sat up straight suddenly, trying to conceal the leap her heart had just taken. Thinking furiously, she motioned to the cup Clomonastik held. “Water?” she asked in Grugell. She pantomimed drinking.

“See that? It’s asking for water,” Clomonastik pointed out. “It’s talking to us!” He handed Jennycrider the cup, watching as she drank thirstily. It held out the empty cup, making an inquiring noise.

“More? More water?” Jenny asked in English. Clomonastik chattered something to Apportamattid, who retrieved a bottle from the desk next to the door. The bottle only held a trickle.

“Apportamattid,” Clomonastik ordered, “Go to the field kitchen and bring another bottle of water. We’re getting somewhere now.” 

“As you command, sir.”  He took the empty bottle and stepped outside. 

As the door opened, Jenny leaned around Clomonastik and stole a look outside. She could see nothing but drizzling rain and the distant tree line, barely visible in the darkness. She knew she hadn’t imagined the coyote call. Mike was out there somewhere. She had to find some way to let him know where she was.

Mike was indeed out there, only fifty yards away from the door, wriggling prone through the ferns. He saw a brief glow of interior light from an opened door, and peeked through the fronds to see one of the aliens open a door to a small building. It stepped outside, and in the brief moment before the door closed Mike caught sight of a familiar moccasined foot, and the side of a familiar face peering around another alien seated facing her. Jenny!

He was inside the double ring of guards, and there was almost no activity in the compound. The aliens were all apparently indoors, out of the drizzling rain. The one that had left the building Jenny was held in had walked off towards a larger building a few meters closer to the cabin site. It went inside and the door slammed shut behind it. Mike seized the moment and sprinted for the side of Jenny’s prison. He threw himself prone just around the corner from the door, on the side of the building that faced the trees. 

The rain continued to drizzle down. Mike lay still for a moment, shielded from casual observation by a tall clump of ferns. He listened intently to sounds from the interior; one of the aliens was chattering unintelligibly, and from time-to-time Jenny’s soft voice would reply.  She sounded calm and unhurt; so far, anyway. 

I’ll wait a few minutes, Mike reflected, in case that one that walked off comes back. Sure enough, moments later the door slammed, and two alien voices chattered away at each other inside.

He crawled around to the rear of the shed, looking for a way to have a peek inside; sure enough, these aliens put windows in their buildings like anyone else. Trouble was that the window was eye-level for one of them, which meant he had to stand on his tiptoes to even peek over the bottom ledge. He did so regardless, first removing his rain-darkened Stetson and leaning so that only one eye peeped over.

Jenny was seated facing one alien, who was holding up – what, a light of some kind? Yes, he was holding up a globular thing that emitted a beam of light when squeezed. A flashlight. The second invader was standing behind the seated one; Mike had the impression that the first one was the boss.

The seated alien played the light beam on the floor between itself and Jenny, repeating a word over and over. Jenny slowly repeated the chittering word back to him.

It’s trying to talk to her, Mike realized with some surprise. Then a realization: It wants to interrogate her.

Time to move. He crawled around to the corner by the door and lay there for several minutes, watching. There seemed to be no roving patrols, nobody was wandering around the compound. Satisfied that they wouldn’t be interrupted, Mike slowly got up, slid to the door, and stood next to it, listening. The voices inside went on unchanged.

Now or never, boy, Mike told himself. He took a look at the door. It didn’t look like much, just a thin metal panel with a cheap-looking latch. Raising one long leg, Mike gripped the Parks tightly by the stock and fore-end, barrels held high, and kicked the door open.

The door gave way, slamming into the interior, hinges and latch shattered. Mike took one long step inside, Parks raised. The standing alien let out a squawk, reaching for something attached to his belt. One of the rod-like weapons! Mike acted faster, ramming the Parks double forward, smashing the alien in the forehead with both muzzles. It dropped as though pole-axed, black blood flowing from a cut in the snow-white skin.

The seated alien tried to leap aside, but Jenny grabbed him by one arm and swung him around, pulling him fully upright and stomping one tiny foot down hard on the thing’s instep. Bones crunched, and the alien sank to the floor with a groan of agony. Before he could regain his wits, Mike relieved him of his holstered rod-weapon, tossing it to the side. He stood then, and as the alien’s eyes fluttered open, Mike shoved the twin barrels of the Parks down on the creature’s mouth. The thing looked up at him, glittering black eyes wide. Mike placed one finger over his own lips in an easily understood gesture: Keep quiet. He glanced over to the other alien, but it was either dead or out cold.

Only then did he look to Jenny, who was standing a meter away, face radiant. “I knew it was you!” she burst out, leaping to kiss him. “I knew you were out there when I heard the coyote call!” 

“Good idea, huh?” he replied, returning the kiss with a quick one of his own. “But now that I’m here, what do we do with these two?”

Jenny went to the alien Mike had pole-axed with the Parks. “It’s alive,” she reported, “but I bet it’ll be out for a while.”

“Good,” Mike snorted. He grinned evilly down at the second alien, who stared at him now almost reflectively.

“That one you’re covering there is called Clomonastik, he seems to be the big boss around here. This one’s Apportamattid, he’s Clomonastik’s second banana. They’re either called Grugell, or they’re from a place called Grugell, I’m not sure which. They’ve been trying to speak with me for hours.”

“Didn’t tell you why they’re here, did they?”

“No, but that’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Mike had to admit that it was. “Yeah, sure enough. They want the planet, and I imagine they want to kick us off. That’s why they made their base way up here in the hills away from anywhere the security troops or the provisioning droids go.”

“So, what do we do now?” Jenny wanted to know. 

“Get out of here. Think Gomer there can help us?”

“Not until he gets this collar off me,” Jenny growled. Mike hadn’t noticed the smooth, black metal collar around Jenny’s slim neck.

“What is it?” he asked.

“If I go through that door with this on, I get a hell of a jolt – probably would knock me flat.” She turned to the alien, who was still prone under the blue-steel stare of the Parks double.  “Clomonastik!” she barked at him. “Get this off me!” She pointed to the collar, gesturing unmistakably.

Clomonastik got to his feet slowly, as Mike covered him with the Park’s cannon-like barrels every inch of the way. He sidled over to Jenny, glancing sideways at Mike and holding his empty hands up, palms forward, in what Mike correctly assumed was a gesture of peaceable intent. He fiddled with the collar for a moment, and then dropped it to the floor.

“You know, baby,” Mike offered, “Clomonastik here can help us. I bet he can fly us out of here on one of those big platform things. If it stops, or anything funny happens, he gets a 15mm solid in the ear. If not, we take him back to Settlement with us, let the Company figure out just who the heck he is.”

“I guess we could give it a try. We’ve got to get out of here somehow.”

He nudged Clomonastik with the Park’s twin muzzles. With one hand, he pantomimed twisting the controls of a flying platform, and pointed at Clomonastik, at Jenny, and then at himself.

“You’re going to get us out of here, pal,” he informed the alien, somewhat rhetorically.

Clomonastik was indeed an intelligent Grugell. You didn’t get to be an Occupation Commander by being stupid. It was obvious what the creatures wanted, to be flown out of here on a scooter. The worst part of it was that it just might work. The camp was shut down for the night, the guards on the two perimeter duty lists would probably be hiding from this wretched rain, and with Apportamattid apparently knocked out cold, nobody would notice his absence until morning. Clomonastik’s one mistake had been in ordering minimal security, and that mistake was about to cost him his Governorship. 

The larger creature prodded him with its weapon again. There was nothing else for it; his choices were obviously to comply or be killed outright.

Well, Governor or no Governor, Clomonastik was one who valued his own life rather highly. Besides, something might come up that he could turn to his advantage. He nodded agreement and made for the door; the parked scooters were right around the corner.

They followed the alien outside into the rain. It led them to where Mike had seen the flying platforms parked. Mike motioned him towards the one large cargo carrier version, and the three got on board.

Jenny seated herself on the wet, somewhat slippery surface, wrapping one arm around a post for the railing. Mike handed her the Parks, and drawing his Colt, stood immediately behind Clomonastik. He motioned off to the south. “Get going,” he told the alien commander.

Clomonastik looked back at him once and complied. The platform buzzed only slightly as the alien, apparently realizing his life depended on stealth at this point, guided the craft slowly out of the camp and into the trees.

They evaded the guards easily by slipping through gaps in the coverage Mike had passed through earlier, moving at the pace of a slow walk. The machine was almost noiseless at that pace, and the dripping water more than covered the slight buzzing sound. Once Mike figured they were clear, Mike motioned Clomonastik to stop, ordered it to sit on the platform opposite Jenny, and took over the controls himself while Jenny covered the alien with Mike’s Colt. He bent on some more speed and aimed for the rock outcrop where he’d stashed their gear. It took about two hours to reach the cache, by which time fatigue was hammering Mike hard. We’ve got to keep moving at least until morning, he told himself, we won’t get any longer than that, and they’ll be tracking us. It was the work of moments to retrieve their gear and load it aboard. The rain had stopped, yet low clouds were scudding across the sky, breaking occasionally to allow glimpses of Forest’s three moons. Water still dripped from the trees, but otherwise the woods were silent, the usual nighttime creepers and crawlers apparently silenced by the wet. 

“OK, let’s get to disappearing,” he announced, climbing aboard once more. He turned to Jenny before grabbing the controls. “I’m gonna see how fast this thing goes. I’m going to have to sleep before long, but we need some serious distance between us and them. Hang on, now!”

He was rapidly gaining skill in handling the platform. He aimed it south again and wrenched the throttle open. Buzzing madly, the contraption leaped like a spurred horse and raced off. 

They raced at a reckless pace through the trees, Mike kept the machine opened up as far as he could, canting and dodging through the woods. They came at last to a series of open areas.  Mike remembered one fern prairie from his map studies, it ran almost ten kilometers north to south and forty east to west. He aimed the machine in that direction, covering the distance in about three more hours.

He stopped on the edge of the clearing.

“Jenny, I’ve got to get some sleep. There’s a length of rope in my backpack. Let’s tie Clomo here up to a tree and crash out for a while.”

Morning was at least three more hours off. Jenny looked up at Mike, eyes red and swollen from exhaustion. “Sounds OK to me. I’m wiped out. How long do you think before they start looking for our friend here?”

“We’ve got a five-hour head start, and I figure it will likely be morning before they start looking. That means eight hours. Still, I’ve got that little alarm clock in my pack. We’ll get about four hours and head on out just after sunrise. That ought to get us into Settlement by the end of the day, as fast as this thing goes.”

They lashed Clomonastik to a stout pine, arms and legs securely trussed with the nylon rope from Mike’s pack. Jenny laid out bedrolls while Mike checked his knots one last time and then they lay down, wrapped their arms around each other, and fell almost instantly asleep.

Clomonastik was almost as exhausted as they appeared to be, the Grugell required sleep in a similar daily ration to humans, and the events of this night had been telling on him as well. But the scene before him was intriguing.

They’re lying there like that, wrapped around each other, he thought. That’s out of affection. They’re mates! Of course! That’s why the big one came after the small one! 

He scrutinized them with new intuition now. The Grugell were similarly sexually dimorphic, with male and female genders. This gave Clomonastik a frame of reference. The smaller, rounder one, that’s the female, he thought, and the larger more muscular one is the male. Amazing!

Maybe I can use this to my advantage, he reflected. Many a Grugell male has taken a stupid risk to protect one of his females. Perhaps these ‘hu-mans’ are much the same.

Fatigue claimed him then, and he dozed for some time. He awoke to feel a tugging motion. The male human was using some sort of blade to cut through his bonds, while the female – Jennycrider – held another of the noisy projectile weapons aimed at his chest. 

Once his bonds were cut, the male human jerked Clomonastik roughly to his feet. Rubbing his cramped wrists, Clomonastik regarded the scowling human impassively. Well, it worked with the female, he thought; why not try to start with the male? He tapped his chest, repeating his name, “Clomonastik.” Pointing then at the female, he stated, “Jennycrider.” The male’s eyes opened wide at that. Then, with what he hoped was a questioning look, he pointed at the male.

Mike turned to Jenny, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear. “Baby, you told him your name was Jenny Crider?”

“Honey, just because we haven’t stood up in front of a Magistrate and signed a paper doesn’t make us any less married. You’re the only family I have now, aren’t you?”

Mike nodded, still grinning. “Well, maybe we’ll have to take care of that when we get to Settlement, huh?” Jenny dimpled at him. She had referred to him as her ‘husband’ before, but hearing her use his surname was better than any ceremony. Shaking his head, he turned back to Clomonastik, who was obviously a bit confused and waiting for a reply. “Mike Crider,” he answered the alien, tapping his own chest.

“Mikecrider?” Clomonastik repeated, then pointed at Jenny. “Jennycrider,” and then, pointing back at Mike, “Mikecrider?” Then, he spat out a few chattered syllables in his own language, ending by looking intently in Jenny’s direction.

“He’s asking for water,” Jenny told Mike.

Mike picked up a canteen and tossed it to the alien, who unscrewed the top and drank thirstily. He went to hand the canteen back, but Mike motioned for him to keep it. “I guess we got us a prisoner, huh?” he asked Jenny, somewhat rhetorically. “Now we’ve got to feed and water the bastard.”

Clomonastik was thinking furiously. Their names end with the same sound. They’re either mates or siblings and they don’t act like siblings. I’ve got to think of some way to take advantage of this. Nothing, unfortunately, came to mind. The creatures had grabbed him with no time to leave a clue of any sort, no chance to secret away a weapon or tracking beacon, no clues left behind but the unconscious Apportamattid and a missing cargo scooter. For the time being, he had little choice but to do what he was told, and there was little doubt as to where they were headed. The Occupation’s first orbital survey had detected one fairly small city south of their current location, and Clomonastik was sure that was where the humans would want to take him.

He wasn’t wrong in that assessment. 

Mike prodded Clomonastik, motioning him towards the cargo platform. Clomonastik boarded the craft obediently, encouraged by Jenny’s rifle muzzle, which varied no more than a centimeter from the center of his chest. The alien seated himself as before on one side of the platform, Jenny took the other, while Mike stood at the controls. He twisted the throttle and they set off, following the tree line east for the moment. “They’ll be expecting us to go south,” he explained, “so we’ll head east for a few kilometers. Maybe that will throw them off a little.”

From her seat on the platform, Jenny regarded Clomonastik coldly. This creature had given an order, she was certain now, to have her and Mike either captured or killed. She wasn’t sure what would happen to them all in the end, but her mind was made up then and there, if we are going to be re-captured, she thought to herself, it won’t be before I put a bullet through his chest.

They carefully skirted around a sight Mike hadn’t seen before and had wondered about. A female roc, seated on what was obviously a nest of piled branches and debris. The heaped, two-meter-high nest was placed in the shade of a huge, overhanging pine at the edge of the clearing, and the roc appeared to be dozing as she sat on the nest, as Mike correctly assumed, brooding eggs. Amazing, Mike thought, the thing’s got to be fifteen meters long, and you could easily walk right up on it without noticing. Especially if you weren’t paying attention to what you were doing. A moment’s slip on the plains here, and you can be history. He filed the observation away in his hunter’s mind. Opening the throttle a little wider, he sped them on east.

  The morning sun was warm on Mike’s back as they sped east. It was pleasant after the chilly rain the night before. All the colors were bright, the yellow-gold and green fern fronds in the opening, the darker green of the pines to Mike’s left, the flashes of brown and gray from deeper in the trees, bark and branches. Then Mike noted a flash of light, oddly, from the front, above the trees to the left.

Suddenly cautious, Mike took his hand off the t-handle. The flying platform slowed suddenly. The flash showed again, above the trees, some hundred meters to their left front. A flash of light? Mike wondered. A reflection? 

A reflection off of what?

A sudden mental image pounded into Mike’s mind as though driven through his forehead with a spike, an image of one of the Grugell’s flying spider-ships, gleaming polished silver. He shouted, “Hang on!”

Yanking the t-handle to the right, he twisted the throttle around full. The platform spun neatly and accelerated hard, a buzzing roar rising as Mike drove it back west at full throttle.

To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.