Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,26
have to tell you about it later. If I’m around to do it. Right now, I’m figuring out what to do next. Here’s the thing.”
I try to collect my thoughts. But there are very many of them right now, going in all kinds of directions. I have to focus on the important things.
“I wanted to get back to Earth. But there’s a good chance that won’t be great for me. The Bululg will certainly be aware that I’ve been gone, that I was taken by a poacher. I can’t imagine they’ll let me return just like that and go about my life as if nothing happened. They’d probably think I know too much about space and the galaxy. They’re certainly not telling us more than we need to know about space society and other aliens, and there must be a reason for that. Also, there is the factor that I was abducted. That could be a sign that some aliens find me attractive, maybe attractive enough to be worth selling...”
I look up at the ceiling. I don’t know any of these things with certainty. And I really want to believe that going back to Earth is possible. But cold logic tells me that the chances for that are slim.
“I think my best bet right now is to go with the flow a little. See where it takes me. There have been encouraging signs since last time. I should have died at least twice, but the abductor saved me with great danger to his own life. His name is Zaroc, by the way. The last of the Lancefer species. He’s worth a whole documentary of his own.”
I turn the camera off. These little sessions are good for forcing me to both face facts and stay optimistic. When the camera is on, I turn into Journalist Averie, even if nobody will ever watch it. And Journalist Averie is braver than plain old Scared-Out-of-Her-Mind Averie. She’s a clearer thinker, too.
I make more bland food and get the machine to dispense something that looks and smells like fruit juice, then bring it up to the control room.
Zaroc is awake. He’s even standing up, staring out at the swirling pattern.
I put the food and drink on a console. “Why does it look like that?”
He glances at me. “Hyperspace. Nobody know why the swirls. They always change.”
“That is how you can travel between stars, right? Because they’re just too far apart, you kind of have to duck out of regular space and fly under it to come out somewhere else?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Not bad way to describe it. Except most people say, you fly over regular space, not under. No reason why. Both descriptions are correct and also completely wrong. How you are so informed?”
“Years of reading science fiction books,” I confess and sit down. “It prepared me well for space travel. I got some food for you. I think you probably need it after our adventure.”
He takes the juice and sips at it, carefully. “Need to fill holes in body, yes. Tell me if juice leaks out of me somewhere. Would be embarrassing.”
His red color is strong and vibrant, the scales are shiny, and he carries himself as powerfully as ever. He still has a myriad of little cuts and bruises, but they’re not bleeding.
“You look much better now,” I inform him. “No juice leaking that I can see.”
He looks down himself. “Right. The holes been plugged. I wonder if hole you made in IruBex has been plugged this well.”
“IruBex is the centipede?”
“The Gurandu leader. Well, not their king. But almost. He leads hunt.”
“Then I’m glad I stabbed him a little. I really didn’t like him. Do you think I killed him?”
Zaroc eats a little from the plate. “No, no. The Gurandu extremely hard to kill. One little stab with vibroblade, barely noticed.”
I breathe out. It had been weighing on my mind. He was an ugly alien, and probably really evil too, but I wouldn’t have liked to straight up kill him. “Well, he deserved it.”
His blue eyes are just about pinning me to the wall. “Did he? Why you stab him and help me, your abductor? He may well taken you home to Earth.”
I look away so I can think straight. “I don’t think he would. And even if he had, the Bululg would have made my life even worse. Now tell me, was that a stupid thing to do? Helping you?”
He finally takes his dagger-like gaze off me. “Only you can answer