The beast carried me into a wooden stockade with thick walls and metal mesh over the top. It threw me down, knocking the wind out of me, and retreated through a heavy gate that squealed shut. As soon as I could breathe, I rolled over onto my hands and knees and hacked and wheezed, coughing up thick blobs of brown dust phlegm. My throat was raw, and my eyes still full of grit. The dirt of this place was settling on my skin, mixing with the flaking green and brown.
I must look like an alien myself.
And I guess I am.
This wasn’t the Delta. It wasn’t Earth. It wasn’t far-off Chara d, where we had dreamed of our descendants landing in another hundred years.
It was just . . . somewhere. And to whoever lived here, I was the alien.
I became aware that I wasn’t alone in the stockade.
Small, slimy creatures slithered around my ankles. There were a dozen of them in here, skittering around the dirt ground, climbing up the walls, and hanging from the mesh overhead. Each one had a hundred tiny legs and was as long and thick as my thigh. They were all varying shades of orange with brown heads. At least, I assumed they were heads. When they slithered and climbed, the brown end went first. They appeared to be climbing out a tiny hole in a large crate near my cage.
There was a small group of four-legged creatures huddled on one side of the fenced-in pen. Long necks held narrow heads with small, pinched muzzles. Thick, shaggy white hair covered them from the eyes down, and they pushed against each other, clearly trying to hide behind each other. They climbed up the sides of the mesh as high as they could before dropping down, screaming shrill, grating cries.
Hide with them.
But when I approached, they scattered, bolting around me, their huge feet crushing some of the orange slitherers on the ground. They re-formed their huddle on the other side. I stood alone in the middle of the pen.
Outside, a smaller crowd flowed by.
No creature got too close to the mesh fencing with the loose orange things dangling off it. My pulse throbbed in my skull as they all gave the pen a wide berth, pointing with clawed hands or blunt appendages but not approaching.
I bet these orange things are venomous.
One of them slithered across my foot, and I jumped back, squishing another under my heel.
“Help!” The word came out in a scratchy, grating squawk. “Help! Get me out of here! Those things are getting out!”
The noise of my cries blended in with the cacophony all around me. Other pens surrounded the one I was in, holding other creatures I couldn’t identify. None of the rest had wire mesh over the top. But it didn’t look like any of the other beasts could climb.
“Someone! Anyone!” My voice was starting to come back. I could almost understand myself. But no one stopped.
I kept yelling, standing stock-still in the middle of the pen, afraid to move too close to the walls where the orange things dangled overhead. I bet they bite.
The gate opened and one of the gorilla-beasts lumbered in. It carried a large bag with a long, thin neck, and a long stick with pincers on the end, and it wore tall, thick boots and a heavy cloak. Yeah, the orange things are venomous. The white shaggy things bolted away from it, and I danced aside to avoid getting trampled. I raced for the gate, but another gorilla-beast closed it.
The first one reached out with the pincers and grabbed one of the orange things, sticking the pincer down through the neck of the bag and pulling it out empty. The bag wriggled in the beast’s grasp as it grabbed another of the orange things and stuffed it in.
“Help me! You have to help me!”
The gorilla-beast looked up at my shout, then dropped its eyes back to the ground and grabbed another orange thing. It didn’t even seem surprised that they were escaping through a hole in their crate.
Gotta get out of here.
I shuffled forward, kicking away the slithering, hundred-leggers. “Please, you have to get me out of here.”
When I had almost reached the gorilla-beast, it grabbed another orange thing and thrust the pincer with the wriggling thing straight at me. I jerked to a halt, the horrible brown head inches from my face. It whipped on the end of the stick, its hundred little legs writhing at me.
The gorilla eyed me for a moment, stuffed the orange thing into the bag, and turned back for the gate. I rushed up behind it, and without looking, it swung a fist out and shoved me back away from the gate. Its friend opened the gate, and the beast slipped through, slamming it shut right in my face.
The whole structure rattled, and something plopped right onto my head. I screamed and flung my hands up, scratching at the fat orange bug crawling in my hair, sending it flying into the wall.
A gargling scream tore from my throat, and I felt the crust on my face crack. My hair was stiff and standing up as I frantically beat at my head, certain I could still feel the thing slithering around my ears.
Outside the mesh, the gorilla dumped the contents of the bag into a large box. A tall, thin creature with a pointed head and two huge, yellow eyes handed over a few bright silver stones and took the box from the gorilla.
It just bought those creatures. This is a market, and they’re for sale.
I looked out into the crowds passing between the fenced-in pens.
All these things were for sale.
And so am I.