Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,81

floating platform, and the lights in the sky don’t have to be huge spaceships. They could equally well be something like that. Or drones or whatever.

I carefully lean back over the staircase, just to check. And sure enough. The aliens down there are weakly illuminated by the light as they look down in the same way I am. I see the backs of their heads, but there’s no doubt about it. The loose skin, the giant eyes, the three spindly legs… They are Bululg.

A cold and grim determination grips me. The monks’ defense was too simple, too primitive. If you have access to flying machines, why climb up inside the tower? Much easier to enter high up and walk down.

Well, they can’t know where I am. They may think I’m on a lower floor.

Eager to distance myself from the enemy, I run swiftly up another flight of stairs. This is the last floor before the roof, and the stairs stop except for a thin, wooden ladder that continues up past the flat, stone ceiling.

There are no rooms up here, nowhere to hide. If a Bululg sticks its dirty head up, it will see me immediately.

The only way is to get up on the roof and pull the ladder up after me.

The thought sends a sucking motion to my stomach. I’m at least a thousand feet up, and I was never a big fan of heights. I doubt there’s anything to grab on to up there. If there’s even a little bit of a breeze, and if the rock up there is slippery, then I could well fall to my death.

And if there is light so that the flying enemies can see me, then the game is up anyway.

I carefully peer down the stairs again

The Bululg have gone one floor up, and they’re about to explore it. If I’d still been there, they would have had me by now. Maybe three more minutes until they are on this floor.

I actually have no choice. I can only hope that the ladder is solid and that it doesn’t creak too much.

I grip it and climb all the way up as fast as I can. The ladder is well made and makes no sound.

The cool outside air hits my face before I’m up, and I can see moonlight. There’s a couple feet of intricate stonework, and then I’m on the roof.

Which is not flat at all. It’s tilted like the roof on a cheap shack. Not sharply, just a few degrees. Probably so rain and maybe snow will run off. I don’t even know if it snows on this planet. But I would really, really have preferred a level roof. With some railings, which this one doesn’t have. Nor does it have an elevator or even a fireman’s pole to slide down. I’m pretty much trapped up here.

I slowly climb out on all fours, then grab the ladder and pull at it.

Nope. It’s too heavy. It has to stay where it is. The roof is slippery like marble – I can’t use any force to get the ladder up to me.

And I throw three sharp shadows, each of a different color. Because of course, there are three freaking moons, illuminating me like searchlights from a cloudless sky.

Yeah, this plan totally collapsed before it had even begun.

The only bright side is I can’t see any hovering platforms or spaceships or drones anywhere. They may all have landed.

My only hope now is that those Bululg won’t come up here. Even if I lie down flat on my stomach, at the very edge of the roof, they can’t avoid seeing me.

I grab the ladder again, hoisting at it with as much force as I dare use.

No. I guess something like that can either be solid or light, not both at the same time. And it is really solid.

The first Bululg that sticks it ugly head up here will see me right away.

I get up on my knees on the cold, hard stone right next to the opening, out of sight of anyone coming up the ladder.

The broomstick is pretty long, but light like bamboo. It most certainly won’t kill, but it will make an impression on anyone coming up here. I suppose all I can do now is play for time, hoping that the silly little monks win quickly and then come up here to save me.

I look around quickly. Still no spaceships or blinking lights— oh, there’s a shooting star. A slow shooting star. But I