When I opened my gritty eyes, I was moving. The crate I was in jostled and jolted. Brown dust still filled my nostrils and throat and I gagged, trying to stay silent. The top had been replaced, and light filtered in through the cracks. When the whole crate tipped diagonally, I realized I’d only been knocked out a few minutes. Aliens were unloading the crate down a ramp.
I didn’t have to worry about making noise. Even through the thick metal crate walls, the noise of wherever we were hammered into my head. Metal squealed under the crate as it was hauled onto bumpy ground. Cries of unfamiliar beasts, sharp defined cracks that resulted in more wordless screaming, and yelling voices in no language I had ever heard echoed in the little box.
At least there was air. I tried to take a deeper breath but had to choke back another round of gagging coughs.
One of the cracks in the side of the crate was a bit larger than the rest. I eased myself over to it, trying not to jostle the moving box and alert the aliens to my presence, and pushed my face up against the edge. Images flitted by the tiny slit.
Huge, lumbering beasts, too large for me to see their length through the crack.
Scores of other boxes.
Hurrying shadows of all shapes against a dull gray sky.
And right next to me, one of the green alien creatures I’d come to loathe and fear.
The sky darkened, and the crate stopped moving. Through the little slit, I could see the aliens move away, and a relative quiet descended in the box. I thought from the echoes that I was probably in some kind of shelter, maybe a warehouse. There were noises all around, but nothing right up next to my crate.
No decent slits to see out of on the other side—I’d have to chance it.
Fast or slow? Fling off the top and run for it, or try for stealth?
Like a descendant of some tiny mammal that hid in the shadows of dinosaurs so many millions of years ago on the long-gone planet Earth, I opted for stealth. Pushing up with my shoulder against the top of the crate, I braced my legs against the sides. It slowly slid away to reveal a draped gray cloth far overhead. I was in some kind of tent.
Just a little farther and I’d be able to get out.
The crate lid overbalanced and crashed to the floor with a huge clatter.
Voices shouted. I couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable.
I leaped from the crate and bolted away.
My eyes took in the scene of chaos around me as I wove through heaps of stacked crates, barrels, and piled-up foods. A thick rope cordoned off what must be my familiar aliens’ merchandise area from the rest, and I tried to vault over it, but my foot caught and I tumbled down.
The voices were closer, shouting and squeaking. None of them sounded human.
I scrambled to my feet and pushed off. Shapes closed in around me, large, lumpy things I didn’t dare stop to stare at. They were bigger than I was, and slower. I ducked away, sliding under the curtained edge of the tent, and came up squinting into the brighter gray light.
As I ran, my mind started to process the sights that streamed by. Other huge tent-buildings off to either side. Makeshift stalls of what looked like wood closer in. Dirt under my feet.
And aliens. Everywhere I turned, aliens.
How could there be so many? I raced down the crowded street, knocking creatures out of my way. Hairy legs and smooth tentacles, tiny squeaking things underfoot and great lumbering beasts that shadowed the gray light.
Run. Hide.
With no idea where safety might be, much less help, I careened on. The shouts behind me turned to shouts ahead, and the crowd around me parted. Thick hands grabbed me from behind and spun me around by the shoulders.
I looked up into a face. It had eyes and open-holed nostrils in roughly the right places. The mouth was a lipless slit full of large, square teeth. Short, bristly hairs poked out of every surface, and the huge sloping shoulders reminded me of gorillas from the Delta’s nature videos.
Three similar faces crowded around me, and more hands grabbed me. Each hand had only four fingers, but each was as thick as my wrist.
The first face barked at me. It waited a moment, then barked again.
It’s trying to talk to you. Tell it. Ask it for help.
I opened my mouth to answer, but all that came out was a gurgling hack. My throat and nostrils were still raw from the brown dust. I looked down at my arms to see I was still caked head to toe in the green algae slime swirled with brown filth.
They’ve never seen a human before, and even if they have, you don’t look human, my logical mind offered, but my panicked brain screamed, drowning it out.
I tried again to speak but just gagged out a gob of brown goo.
The huge things barked to each other. One of them picked me up and slung me over its shoulder. I beat at it with grimy fists and feet, but it was like beating a wall. The crowds parted to let us through and re-formed behind the beast. Alien faces glanced up at me, then turned back to their own.
The beast carried me through what must have been a marketplace, out to the edge of the tents and stalls. In the distance sat shuttle after shuttle, parked around an open piece of ground. I thought I recognized the one I had ridden down on right in the middle. Was it that one with the round nose? Or was it the other one on the left?
My mind was nearly shut down with panic, and this was the last straw.
You don’t know which shuttle. How are you going to get back to Shane?
I slumped over the creature’s back.
It didn’t matter where it was taking me. Didn’t matter what it planned to do with me. I’d lost the green aliens’ shuttle, and I’d never find my way back to the invisible black ship that must be orbiting somewhere far overhead with what remained of the human race inside.
I had risked everything to escape captivity and save them.
I had failed.