The Dirrillill lumbered back into the kitchen. Jasper Dash was still frozen in place, unable to move, unable to yell out to Katie and Lily.
The creature smiled. “I have destroyed your little friends. Lulu and Kaylie. I blew up the ground they were standing on. They fell to their death. A pity they didn’t have a hand or two more to grab a railing. But then, Kaylie never did like my extra hands. Remember her, my boy? When she was alive, ha ha?”
Jasper Dash’s head swam in horror. He wanted to fight—to scream—to hurt the Dirrillill, like he’d never wanted to hurt anything. But he couldn’t move.
The Dirrillill thumped over to Jasper and picked him up, grunting. He dropped the frozen Boy Technonaut on the kitchen counter. He straightened out Jasper’s arms and legs. The joints creaked like cheap hinges.
“You must learn to submit,” the creature of many eyes and mouths demanded. “You will serve me. You will go back to Earth and enlarge that teleporter booth so I can go through with my gear. And Earth will be the first world to be captured by the new Dirrillill Empire. My new Dirrillill Empire.”
Jasper tried to budge an inch. He tried to shift one arm, then the other. He couldn’t even grunt with effort.
“Do you see,” said the Dirrillill, “you are nothing more than furniture to me, ha ha. I may use you like I do a chair or a table.”
The alien trundled over and picked up some of the food. He brought it back to Jasper and laid it out on top of Jasper’s belly, face, and knees, as if the Boy Technonaut was just a bumpy place mat.
The Dirrillill said, “Now, isn’t this a quaint way to dine? Off a human being?”
The alien picked up a forkful of some hideous, furry, gravied beast. It dripped its sauce on the Boy Technonaut’s faceplate.
As one mouth chewed the morsel, another said to Jasper, “You’re not important to me at all. I can always do without anyone.”
He ate his feast on Jasper’s face.
It was many courses. Hands shoved different dangling globs into waiting mouths. The Dirrillill, being somewhat rude, leaned his elbows on the table while he ate. That meant six elbows, all of them pinning Jasper down. Jasper couldn’t shift to make himself more comfortable. He couldn’t roll away. He had to just sit there with Styrofoam plates on his belly and two sodas perched on his shanks—and these were supersize sodas.
When the Dirrillill was done with his disgusting degustation, he announced, “Now for the pièce de résistance, ha ha. Maybe I will eat you yourself. Yes?” He reached down with two of his hands and began to gently pull at Jasper’s helmet. “For that, I am afraid,” said the Dirrillill, “I will have to remove your oxygen mask. Sorry: The atmosphere on my planet will not agree with you. You will choke and die. But luckily, you are frozen, so I will not hear a miserable peep out of you.”
The alien started to unclip Jasper’s air hose.