“You heard him. He will do anything to escape the pain. Now, watch him closely. He may attempt a trick.”
“I am ready for any deviousness,” Z17 said. “I will pain him greatly if he so much as twitches the wrong way.”
Without another word, the driver returned to the front, slammed his door shut and revved the engine. With a lurch, we started moving again.
I had no plans of trying to escape for now. But what did the driver mean I was going to deliver a ship into his hands? What kind of disguise did he think I maintained? Had he called me a Galactic agent?
Clearly, he’d taken me for someone else. Probably, this was the only reason I was still alive. I had to use that against him. I believed I could. Because from what I’d heard so far, the aliens had stopped impressing me. That gave me hope—and I needed something to give me an edge. Otherwise, I was never going to survive the next few hours.
-8-
The rest of the car ride proved uneventful. None of us spoke further. I slept in a half-dazed state, hungry, exhausted and shivering at times.
I wondered what would happen to me once I failed to deliver this ship to them. What were the other aliens doing in Nevada? Why had they appeared at Western Sunlight, Station 5? These two hadn’t sounded as if they belonged to an alien invasion force making a beachhead on our planet. What did that make them then?
I noticed that bright lights shone through the windows. I tried to roll over to see where we’d arrived.
“Remain still,” Z17 told me.
“How about telling me where we are then,” I said.
“Do not interrogate me or I will prod your flesh.”
I hated being a prisoner, but it was better than being dead. How had the Good Book put it? Even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
I felt like a dog, all right. Back at Station 5, I had been a lion. Maybe if I lived long enough, I could reverse the situation again and roar once more.
Even as I told myself that, I began shivering uncontrollably. I imagine it was due to shock from the broken ankle, maybe shock at my predicament as well.
The jeep stopped. The engine quit. The driver’s side door opened. He must have opened a back door, too, because I still felt Z17’s feet on my back.
“We will move him to the plane,” the driver said.
Z17’s feet stepped across my back, over my butt and across the back of my legs.
“Sit up,” he said from outside.
I rolled over and worked up to sitting position. We were at a well-lit field, with massively bright lights shining down on us.
Z17 grabbed an arm, hauling me out. His grip was hot and he was inhumanly strong.
I groaned as I bumped my bad ankle on the jeep, but I managed to balance on my good leg outside the vehicle.
“He is weak,” Z17 said.
“Bring him,” the driver said.
“I dislike touching his cold flesh,” Z17 complained. “It reminds me of the Doppler fish on Quintus Five.”
“Prod him then,” the driver said. “Just make sure he is in the plane by the time we leave.”
With that, the driver walked away toward what looked like a large warehouse.
I had a second to scan my surroundings. For a wild moment, hope flared anew, as I thought we were at a local airport. That was wrong. Past eleven bright lamp-poles that circled a large warehouse, there was nothing but more Nevada desert. I saw several Learjets and an old WWII Mustang parked nearby.
“Go,” Z17 told me, pushing against my left shoulder.
I hopped, crashing down onto my good foot, barely managing to stay upright. He shoved again, and I hopped again, barely staying up a second time.
“Hey,” I said, turning toward him. “Why not point to where you want me to go. I’ll hop there as fast as I can. If you keep shoving me, I’m going to fall down.”
Z17 looked at me deadpan.
As he did, I studied him. He was taller than me by a few inches. He was rail thin and wore a dark silk suit and the fancy hat. The face was too round and the eyes too dead-seeming for him to pass as human. I was betting the hat hid something monstrous. His facial color was passable as a too-white Russian or Canadian. His hands were gray, though. He should have worn gloves if he wanted to pass as human.
“You are inquisitive,” Z17 said. “I find it distressing. Therefore, you will not look at me.”
I averted my gaze from his face.
“You are properly docile,” Z17 said, “and you are quick to heel to my commands. That is prudent. I wonder, though. Why do you continue with your Earther disguise?”
I shrugged.
“Go that way,” Z17 said, pointing.
I hopped toward a Learjet. As I lurched one hop at a time, I realized that an eerie whine was emanating from the warehouse. It set my teeth on edge and made the hairs on the back of my head stir. I tried to ignore the sound, but it drained much of my remaining strength.
Halfway to the jet, I sagged to my knees, panting from the strain.
“This is not the destination,” Z17 said behind me.
I peered back at him. Had I clubbed him earlier with the .44? Had I—
He drew the prod from under his suit, clicking it on so a spark of discharge played on the end.
I groaned as I straightened, hopping again. My good leg had become shaky, the knee sore. Sweat drenched my clothes. My vision began to narrow, never a good sign. I wondered if I was close to passing out.
That seemed likely. As much as Z17 didn’t want to feel my cold skin, I didn’t want to feel his hot hands. It wasn’t a pleasant heat, but like a creature let out of Hell for a season. The alien didn’t belong on our world.
As my vision swam, and my hops grew shorter each time, I became convinced the aliens were here to steal some precious resource from the planet. They were thieves, plundering our world of items we would need in the future. They did this in a greedy manner, the way strip-miners tore apart a beautiful mountain for several pounds of gold, leaving nothing but ugly rubble.
At last, my hands crashed against the side of the jet. That made me twist away because of my sprained wrist. I’d forgotten about it. The pain caused me to fall onto my back.
“Get up,” Z17 said.
I stared at him from the ground.
He pulled out the prod.
I closed my eyes, exhausted, having given my all. A second later, I bolted upright as a jolt of electricity coursed through me. I crashed against the jet, managing to hold the position, resting the side of my face there.
“You are a remarkably lazy creature,” Z17 said.
I had no comebacks. I simply breathed, sweated and trembled.
I heard something click and looked up to see that he had unfolded a staircase from the plane.
“Go inside,” he said.
I worked around on my good leg, hopping up a step at a time, finally sliding onto the carpeted floor. I dragged myself to a cushioned seat, standing and plopping into it, exhausted.
The interior was plush, with expensive-looking equipment, but nothing out of this world.
Z17 climbed in, pressing a switch to bring up the stairs and closing the entrance. He regarded me, waving a hand before his face.
“Offensive odors radiate from your being.”
“You overworked me,” I said. “That makes me sweat, which releases an odor from my sweat glands.”
“Earth creatures are biologically suited to this low gravity world,” he said. “Therefore, your statement is illogical.”
“You can move around as easily on a broken leg as on two good ones?”
He pulled out the prod.
“That wasn’t an interrogation,” I said. “That was a statement answering your question.”
Z17 stared at me with his fish-eyes. “Explain your remark more fully.”
“My ankle is likely broken. That means I can’t use it. If your ankle was broken, you would be limited in mobility as well.”
“That is illogical. My ankle would
never break.”
I blinked at him stupidly. “Maybe you don’t have bones like we do.”
“You liken me to an Earth creature?”
“Not if you take that as an insult,” I said.
“They are vertebrates,” he said. “They lack healing speed and are easily immobilized. How could likening me to an Earth creature be anything other than an insult?”
“How about we change the subject,” I said. “I’m famished and thirsty. I’m not going to be able to deliver any ship to you unless I…replenish my strength.”
That seemed to freeze him as he considered my words. Finally, “You claim to be an Earth creature indeed?”
I could see where I might have made a mistake. If they thought I was a Galactic agent pretending to be human…
Z17 shoved the prod into a holder under his suit and took out a communicator. He watched me as he pressed a tab on the communicator. Then, he opened his mouth and buzzed words.
Seeing and hearing it up close made my flesh crawl and my vision narrow again. I opened my mouth and tried to hyperventilate so I wouldn’t pass out. It worked just enough.
As my vision expanded to something normal again, Z17 put away his communicator. “You have attempted a sly play, Earth creature. We will have to rig you for the next phase. Put your arms on the two rests.”
I blinked at him, debating my chances for a last attack. I realized they were less than slim. So, I put my arms on the rests.
He pressed something in his pocket. Tentacle-like bands flew around my forearms, securing them in place.
Z17 promptly went forward, passing a curtain. A few moments later, he returned with something that looked like bolt cutters.
“This will hurt,” he said.
“What are you doing?” I asked, alarmed.
Without further ado, Z17 knelt on one knee, opening the pseudo bolt cutters and reaching for my bad ankle.
“Hey!” I shouted, kicking my leg.
That didn’t help. He neatly caught my ankle with the sheers. The cutting parts weren’t metal, but two crackling lines of power. He snapped the handles inward. The crackling, buzzing power-lines sliced through my flesh and bone, and my foot and part of my ankle dropped to the floor, separated from the rest of me.
My eyes bulged in shock and dismay. A terrible groan slid past my lips. Blood poured from the ankle, and I began to buck in my seat, trying to tear my arms loose from the metal tentacles.
“Desist in that,” Z17 said.
More blood leaked out of my half-cauterized ankle.
Z17 drew his raygun, grabbed my maimed leg and beamed spots around the ankle. Pain exploded, causing me to black out.
I jerked upright what must have been seconds later. This time, I howled in agony, continuing to thrash in the seat.
Z17 was on his feet, staring down at me as he held my bloody foot in his hot hands. He reopened the Learjet entrance and jumped outside, heading for the big warehouse that made the strange whines.
Where was he taking my foot, and why? I frowned as I realized something else. My right triceps throbbed. I stared at my triceps and saw a growing spot there. Spurts of blood leaked. If I were to guess, I’d say Z17 had shoved a needle into my arm the few seconds I’d passed out. What had he injected into me?
Before I could derive a conclusion, existence faded from my consciousness as I blacked out a second time.
-9-
I came to by slow degrees. I was aware of vibration and a loud noise. My position lurched then, seeming to go up and down.
My vision was foggy and it felt as if someone had stuffed cotton balls in my mind. I’d been in trouble. I’d…gone somewhere in the dark, with bright stars overhead—
Nevada. I had gone to Station 5 to check up on the two latest hires. Yeah, my jeep had stalled, and—
Aliens!
The last few hours came flooding back. I lurched upward and stared down at my foot.
It was there!
I checked the other foot. It was there, too. I had both feet.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, grinning like a maniac. I checked my hands then, rotating both wrists. They were good. They were strong. Neither was sprained.
In fact, I felt invigorated. As my mind began to chug into a higher gear, I realized I had never felt better in my entire life. As the fogginess departed, a new feeling of strength and well-being filled me.
That made no sense at all.
I closed my eyes and opened them, repeating the procedure several times. Finally, I gathered my bearings.
I was inside the Learjet. It droned loudly as midsized airplanes do while in flight. It was dark outside so I could clearly see the stars. There was also a bottom glow along the darkness.
I looked across the aisle. Z17 or his twin sat in a seat. He wore darkly tinted goggles with buds in his ears. Was he watching an inflight movie?
The alien turned toward me, making a clicking sound with his mouth. Maybe that was his way of acknowledging that I was looking at him.
I turned away, moved my arms—the metallic tentacles no longer secured them. I slid over a seat and stared out the window.
I wished I hadn’t.
I stared down at the Earth. We were high up here, what NASA might call low Earth orbit. I knew Learjets did not fly this high. Big jumbo jets did not fly this high. Nothing other than the Space Shuttle and satellites had reached this height.
How could the Learjet be up this high?
The answer was obvious. The aliens had modified the plane. Maybe they had gravity control, or something.
I turned from the window and grabbed my foot. Z17 had used power-line cutters to snip it off and a raygun to cauterize the wound. I examined the foot. There was a hairline scar all the way around my ankle.
I rotated my ankle. It felt fine. I put my foot down and put weight on it. There was no pain.
“Can I speak to you,” I shouted over the engine noise.
Z17 turned toward me. He removed the earbuds and took off the goggles. For just a moment, his eyes were a glowing red color.
Just like a demon, I thought. Had the aliens been on Planet Earth before? Were the people who believed in UFOs correct? Had aliens visited Earth in the distant past and managed to get into our myths?
Z17’s eyes turned from red to dark black. It was as if he made the change through an act of will.
I shoved my unease aside and pointed at my foot.
“You will soon need your full strength, Earthling,” he said loudly.
“You just cut if off. Now, it’s there.”
“I am not a veterinarian or a xeno-surgeon,” he said.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You Earthlings possess crude mechanical bio-machines for bodies. You claimed a part of your body was broken. I took it to the fabricator. He repaired it for me. I simply reattached it afterward.”
I blinked several times, taking in his implications. “You might have given me painkillers before you did that.”
He made a gesture that seemed to indicate my words were meaningless.
“You are disposable,” he said. “We use pain to prod you to correct action. Why would I bother giving you pain-inhibitors? I would rather give you pain-heighteners so you would leap to obey me the first time.”
His frankness surprised me. I filed away the “You are disposable,” and decided to ask him more while he was in a talkative mood.
“Why do I feel so much better?” I asked.
“Interrogations will—”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Do not interrogate you. I’m not.”
“You dare to correct me?”
I grinned.
“Now you bare your incisors at me in a hostile gesture.”
“Z17,” I said.
His face rippled as if worms moved under his skin. It was ghastly, and it made me gag in revulsion.
“Do not pronounce my designation,” he said. “I find it…distasteful in the extreme. You will obey promp
tly in this.”
I figured he meant I wasn’t supposed to call him “Z17,” again.
“Yes,” I said.
That seemed to settle him, as his skin stopped rippling. After sitting still for a few seconds longer, he asked, “Do you mean to suggest that you feel intensely healthy?”
“Yes,” I said, realizing that’s exactly how I felt.
“When I reattached your ankle, I found your body infested with a vast array of diseases and malfunctions. That would hinder the reattachment, which would degrade your usefulness to us. Thus, I gave you a booster shot. It has given…” He seemed to consider what it had given me. “You now have perfect human health. You may be the only creature on this dirt ball to possess that. It has aided the healing, and it will aid in the ship-recovery.”
“Okay—”
“You will now remain still and silent for the remainder of the journey. Otherwise, I will prod you for a prolonged time and lock you into your position.”
“Yes,” I said. “I understand.”
He looked at me with his dead eyes.
I faced forward to show him I would do exactly as he said.
Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull the goggles over his eyes again. He put the earbuds in place and settled back in his cushioned seat.
I looked out the window.
The modified Learjet continued to drone through space. I wondered if the aliens had done something to the outer skin, giving the jet stealth ability. If not, what did the various tracking stations on Earth make of us?
I leaned against the interior skin, peering out the window. I shuddered to see the northeastern edge of the North American continent. I could make out the upper edge of the U.S Eastern seaboard, New Brunswick and Newfoundland of Canada and then the vast wilderness of Quebec. We left the landmass and headed out over the Atlantic Ocean.
A lurch caused the Learjet to shift. The engines droned louder, and it seemed as if we increased speed. The jet began to shudder, and I pressed my nose against the glass, leaning as far back as I could to try to see the front of the jet.
The darkness around us rapidly dwindled as we began to reenter the blue of Earth’s atmosphere. Before we did that, though, I spotted a new landmass. Most of it was ice-white. That made sense. It looked to me as if we were headed for Greenland.
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