The Hidden Treasure of Darfor

by David Shewring

Patrick awoke with a start to the sound of yelling. He quickly picked himself up and stood in his cage. With a grimace on his face he used his right hand to rub his aching back – how he had managed to fall asleep on the rocky, uneven floor of his prison was anyone’s guess, and no one was more surprised than Patrick himself. He made his way to the edge of his cage and grabbed the bars with his dirty hands. He turned his head so that his ear was nearest to the entrance of the room and listened hard. There was a commotion coming from outside the room and he did not know what was causing it. People were running around and shouting but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Then he felt it – a blast rocked the walls of the room and a few particles of earth trickled down from the ceiling. The human gulped – he did not like the thought of being buried alive if the ceiling were to cave in. What had caused the explosion? Patrick didn’t know but he felt his blood running cold and unfortunately he was getting rather used to that sensation as of late. The human’s first instinct was to escape and get away from the danger but as he tried to open the door to his cage once more he remembered how strong the lock was and how it refused to budge. Cursing under his breath, Patrick gave up fiddling with the lock and started to pace around the cage. Then another explosion could be heard which caused the ground to tremble and more dirt to fall from the ceiling. The last time he had been captured by the oomlocks, it was the semloids who had attacked them and caused the chaos and carnage that Patrick had witnessed back on Antorii Two. He only hoped that a similar situation was not occurring now. Just then, a couple of aliens ran into the room, looked around quickly and darted back outside again.

  ‘Hey! Wait! What’s going on? Please let me out!’ called Patrick to no avail.

  No reply. Patrick strained his hearing and just about made out parts of a conversation between the two aliens just outside the room.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ said one alien.

  ‘Dunno. Might be Saleek tryin’ to rescue his friend,’ said another.

  ‘Vallan never said he had this much firepower! What are we gonna do? We can’t compete with a ship like that.’

  ‘We don’t have to. He can’t get inside ‘cause we got people guarding the entrance. And Saleek can’t rescue his friend from out there. If he’s stupid enough to try and come in here and take him, we’ll kill him and capture Saleek instead. The lyan is the bigger prize, not the hoo-mann.’

  ‘But still-’

  ‘I said don’t worry. Yuloffi has called his friends in the next town over. Should be sendin’ a ship any time now to help us.’

  ‘Man, I sure hope this Saleek is worth all the trouble.’

  ‘He’d better be. Just as long as Vallan pays us what he promised, I don’t care. C’mon, let’s head back up.’

  Patrick was shocked, excited and scared all at the same time after hearing that conversation. He was excited that he might actually be rescued and relieved that Saleek had not forgotten about him. However, he was scared that if Saleek got close to rescuing him, the other aliens might march in and kill him with their weapons at point-blank range. Locked in a cage, he had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Patrick took a deep breath, closed his eyes and prayed that somehow Saleek could get him out of there safely.