by E M Gale
“Here? No bed or tent or anything?” worried Jane. She was looking at me.
“It’s all we got.” Mark shrugged. “It’s warm and better than walking any more.” He yawned.
Since the rest of them had made themselves comfortable on the forest floor, I decided I might as well do the same. The ground was soft enough and it wasn’t like I hadn’t slept on the floor before. I stared up at the unearthly trees. The bizarrely purplish-blue sky reminded me of a night’s sky. I couldn’t see any stars, but at least the sun wasn’t in my face. I knew roughly where it was somehow, even with my eyes shut.
It reminded me of napping in the woods when I had been out exploring. I loved to explore. Remembering the tree-filled triumphs of my childhood made me feel like drifting off to sleep.
Now that I was lying down I realised I was truly exhausted. There was the physical exhaustion, but there was something else, a deep mental exhaustion that I’d been somehow unaware of. Or rather, I had been aware of it, but never having felt it before, I didn’t know what it was. It could only be described as a weariness in the soul.
‘And tomorrow doesn’t look like it will be fun. How will we get back? What if I turn into a vampire in front of my friends? That will take some explaining.’
And That’s Why You Should Pay Attention To Trees
I was aware of something, a motion, a rocking like a boat upon the sea, or a tree in a hurricane. As I surfaced from sleep my head was banging against the ground as my shoulders were being lifted up and dropped back down. Someone was lifting them. Their warm thumbs lay against my neck, their hands gripping my shoulders, their nails digging in hard enough that I could feel them even through the thick velvet jacket.
‘Ah, someone’s shaking my shoulders.’
My curiosity answered, I let sleep take me. It was like a deep, crashing wave pulling me down to unconsciousness.
* * *
I was aware of something, a motion. My head moved to the side and I heard a noise, skin on skin. It happened again. My head turned to the other side. Then speech:
“I’m not sure that’s helping.”
‘Ah, someone’s slapping me. Well, that’s nice.’
Again, sleep took me. All I wanted to do was sleep. I was so unutterably tired and anyway the sun was still up.
* * *
I was aware of something. This time I realised I was lying on the ground, my eyes shut. I could smell the strange acidity of the soil. I could feel the cool, wet mulch of the leaves in my hands.
“She won’t wake up.” It was Anna. She sounded frightened. I mentally yawned.
‘I guess I gotta get up then.’
“I’ll try shaking her again,” said someone, Jane, I thought.
“I don’t know, you were pretty rough last time, but it didn’t work.” That was definitely Mark.
‘Argh, goddammit. I guess I gotta get up.’
“I’ll try it,” said Anna.
She grabbed my shoulders. My eyes snapped open. She yelped and jumped back. I sat up. Anna looked shaken. I leaned forward, running a dirt-covered hand through my leaf-ridden hair.
“Gargh…” I growled.
‘Is this being a vampire then? You end up spending the whole time accidentally scaring your friends?’
“I’m up, I’m up. What’s the matter?”
“We couldn’t wake you up!” Anna was close to tears. “We tried and tried, but you wouldn’t wake up!” She moved forward and threw her arms around me, sobbing. “We thought you were dead!”
‘Shit, am I?’
Then the check: teeth, still normal; pulse, well, I didn’t have to put my fingers up to my neck to know it was racing with fear. But I returned her hug and then patted Anna on the back.
“Sorry if I worried you. I think I was just really, really tired.” I moved away from Anna, who seemed calmer now. There were no mirrors here, so I looked down at my hands. They were covered in thick peaty mud, and it was deep under my fingernails.
‘What have I been doing? Gripping onto the ground?’
I started trying to brush it off. I did relatively well, but it was rather ground in. However, under the dirt my hands were not corpse-pale or anything. They still felt warm to me, although perhaps a vampire’s hands would feel warm to a vampire. Shaking my head slightly, I stretched my arms out and yawned. Then I slammed my mouth shut when I realised that was exactly the sort of gesture that would show my teeth. I tongued them again.
‘Yup, still normal.’
“You OK?” asked Rob with concern.
“Yeah.” I yawned again. “Just sleepy.”
“You were really still,” muttered Anna. “I mean really, really still…”
“I’m OK, I was just really tired.”
“And so cold!” She gripped my hands in hers. “You’re warmer now.”
‘I’ve really had enough of this line of conversation. Time to change the subject.’
“What did you wake me up for anyway?” I asked, extracting my hands from hers.
They looked at each other.
“Well, nothing really, no big emergency or anything,” said Mark.
“It was just that it’d been about twelve hours since we camped for the night, and we’d all already woken up,” said Rob.
‘Twelve hours? It sure doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels like about ten seconds has passed since I went to sleep.’
“And we needed to move on and gather information, like you suggested,” said Jane, “and breakfast, like I suggested.”
“But the sun’s still in the sky,” I muttered, pointing through the thick tree canopy to exactly where it was hidden.
“Well,” said Rob, “it looks like you were right and this is an alien planet. Why would an alien planet have days of the same length as Earth?”
‘A fair point.’
“You guys ready to go then?” I asked. There was an answering chorus of yeses.
I pulled myself to my feet, stretching again. My body felt fine, but my spirit still felt tired. I didn’t need to try to use the enhanced senses to know that they wouldn’t work. I thought that was the cause of the unnatural tiredness.
‘Is this what turning into a vampire feels like?’
“You guys find any water near here?” I asked.
“No, and anyway, wouldn’t we get some horrid alien disease if we drank it?” asked Anna.
“Maybe, but we could get some horrid alien disease just by breathing the air or sleeping on the ground.”
Anna looked worried again.
‘Oops.’
“But don’t worry,” I continued, with a comforting smile, “humans have good immune systems, so we’ll probably be all right, once we get over the alien version of ‘freshers’ flu’.”
Anna was nodding, reassured by my nonsensical logic.
I found my handbag and took a bottle of water out, pouring some on my hands. I cleaned off more of the dirt and then wiped my hands on a tissue. I had to make a special effort to think of it as dirt and not home earth. I ran my fingers through my hair, removing most of the leaves. Then I found a compact mirror and used that to check my face.
‘Phew, it seems I still have a reflection.’
I washed my face with the water and tissue. I still had the eyeliner around my eyes, but it wasn’t smudged so I just left it. I guessed I would have to spy on the creatures here to find out how eyeliner would go down.
‘In fact, how will we go down? There’s nothing to say that the aliens will look anything like us.’
Musing on this, I took a swig of the lukewarm water and then I realised that I felt under scrutiny.
“What?” I asked. Jane was watching me intently, not unlike a cat watches a mouse.
She just shrugged, not taking her eyes off me. “You ready yet?” Everyone was waiting for me.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m ready, let’s go.”
* * *
After a few hours of walking the path we left the forest. Now, for the first time, we
saw something that suggested an advanced race was on this planet. On either side were things that looked like fields. They were squareish and filled with a strange, very straight, green plant. There were what seemed to be paths around the edge that were, oddly, raised up above the fields rather than lower than them like they were in England. I was quite bemused. The fields looked like crops, but there was no one working in or watching them. Not even a scarecrow or anything similar, just some ducks. And I couldn’t figure out how anyone could harvest them either–there was no entrance for a tractor.
I looked twice at the ducks. A large robot duck led a couple of smaller ducks around. I looked around for Rob, anticipating his glee at alien robotic ducks, but he and the others hadn’t stopped.
Shortly after that, we found ourselves on the edge of some sort of conurbation. The road had widened and we were standing at a bridge looking down at an almost dried-up river. It was more humid down here than it had been up on the highlands or in the woods. Brightly coloured insects danced over the water, filling the air with the hum of their song.
“OK, let’s go and look for food,” said Rob, taking charge again.
“I’m not sure we should all go,” I said, watching the alien insects. “It could be dangerous.”
“But I’m hungry,” whined Anna. “I’m going. I want breakfast!”
“We need information first; we can’t just wander off there.”
I had my back to them at this point. I was standing in a relaxed posture, my arms resting on the railing of the bridge, talking slowly to them as I watched the insects fly up, wheel around and fly down to touch the water.
“We’ve got to find out what they look like. Think of the commotion a group of aliens would cause walking randomly into a city on Earth,” I said.
There were red-, blue- and green-bodied insects. Their wings came in four different shapes, the colours a multicoloured shimmering caused by diffraction of light, not unlike a dragonfly’s wings.
“So what do you think we should do, Clarke?” asked Jane. She sounded annoyed.
Suddenly, the surface rippled, and one of the insects was snagged by a long tongue coming from under the water.
“Oh, look, there are fish down there as well,” I said dreamily.
“Clarke!” said Mark.
“Hmm? Well, we should split up–one person is less conspicuous than two–and try to find out where we are.”
I heard a harrumph and a scuffle of feet on the ground, but I didn’t turn around as I was waiting for the fish to snag another dragonfly so I could see what it looked like.
‘Some frogs have long sticky tongues, but I don’t think fish do. It would be interesting if an alien fish had evolved a frog’s tongue, unless it is a frog after all.’
“I wonder whether it is a fish or an amphibian?” I mused. “We will need to arrange a rendezvous point somewhere…”
The surface rippled again. This time I saw the creature the tongue belonged to. It was similar to a carp. Its tongue rolled out but missed a scarlet-bodied insect.
“Wow, it is a fish, after all!” I turned round and saw that I was alone.
‘Oh, bloody hell, where’ve they gotten to?’
I thought I could see them, but it was hard to make out distant forms with the heat glare rising up off the white stony road. I could have caught up with them, but I was too annoyed.
‘What’s the rush about? We need information but we really need to be subtle about it.’
Shading my eyes from the sun, I squinted. It looked like they were all together as well.
‘Great, a gaggle of four strange aliens. And what if they get captured? I suppose they’ll expect me to come and rescue them.’
I ambled along the road after them. It was a nice day and there were lots of strange creatures to stop and watch. The oddest one was a small, purple lizard that I scared out of the grass-like plants at the edge of the road.
Squinting into the distance again, I saw something next to the river. A low bench placed in the shade of a tree, with some sort of creature resting on it. I stopped and regarded it. The creature was still. It didn’t move or react to me. At this distance I couldn’t tell what it looked like, but it was about human-sized. I sneaked up on it, hoping that the aliens of this planet rested on benches like humans did, and that it wasn’t something completely different that just looked like a bench.
‘Like, I dunno, a vampire trap or something. Not that I’m worried about one of those… Why am I starting to think of myself as a vampire anyway? I’m pretty sure that I’m not one. Yet.’
After sneaking up on the bench, I quietly peered over the top. The creature resting there was, well… he looked human. He was wearing strange, wide trousers and his tanned chest was bare other than a few necklaces: coins on leather thongs. I couldn’t see his face, as he had a strange conical straw hat over it and he seemed to be sleeping. I didn’t lift the hat up to check, but the rest of him looked human.
I crept off.
‘Well, these aliens are definitely humanoid.’
Five minutes later I was on the edge of a city. The road got even wider and, following it, I was suddenly within the city. Now I walked slowly, looking around me, but trying not to draw attention to myself. Some people walked around. They looked human, and they didn’t react to me in any odd way at all.
‘Yup, humanoid or human.’
Whatever these aliens were, they seemed to consist of the same races as humans; I saw Africans, lots of Japanese, a few Indians and enough Caucasians that I didn’t stand out. They were dressed in various odd fashions, including the wide trousers and tops that reminded me of martial arts garb, highly revealing skin-tight catsuit things, skirts, trousers, shirts, jackets. I even saw some men in suits that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the financial district of London, but then I would see someone dressed in some odd materials I’d never seen before. In my red top, black combats and velvet jacket, I didn’t look too out of place really.
It was all a bit overwhelming. The roads were very wide and light in colour. The sun beating down on my head was unpleasant and the glare from the roads was hurting my eyes. I was now walking in an area with shops and it occurred to me that I had no money I could spend here. I needed something.
As I was eyeing the crowd for easy marks, I walked past a dingy storefront and then returned to peer through the grimy window. There was a collection of watches, some electronic gadgets with what looked like price tags next to them. The prices were written in some sort of alien language I couldn’t read, but the shop did look like a pawn shop to me.
‘What would I pawn? What would an alien want?’
I sorted through my handbag.
‘A nice compact mirror, perhaps? Though it’s probably only worth twenty pounds new. It is an art deco copy. Now if it were an actual antique, perhaps I could get something for it.’
‘The most valuable things I have are my phone and my watch.’
‘Well… I don’t want to sell either, but then again, I need money.’
I pushed open the door to the shop, and I was distracted by the clutter of brightly coloured packaging of various electronic gadgets.
“Eeeterash I,” said the shopkeeper.
‘So… they don’t speak English here. Damn.’
I walked up to the counter and smiled at the shopkeeper. He was a Japanese-looking middle-aged man. For all I knew he could have been speaking Chinese or Japanese. I said ‘hello’ in English and Japanese. He looked confused and shook his head.
“Komeeeenisai, wakariiimaseeeen.” His language seemed big on drawn-out vowel sounds.
‘Great.’
I took the watch out of my bag and held it out to him. He took it and examined it.
“Ooooo, sab’kika?”
I guessed it was a question, so I looked confused. He seemed to understand my facial expression. He put the watch down and retrieved some money from somewhere, laid it on the counter in a pile and pointed to the watch.
&nbs
p; “K’no.” Then he pointed at the pile of grubby notes. “K’re.” Then he nodded at me and smiled.
‘Well, I am probably being ripped off. How could I not be, not knowing what that pile of money is worth? However, I do know pawn shops.’
I picked my watch up, sighed, shook my head regretfully and turned to go.
I had only half turned when the shopkeeper called something like: “Matay, matay, matay.”
I turned back to see him add some more notes to the pile, then he looked at me. He didn’t smile encouragingly this time. I raised an eyebrow at him and then I looked at his offer like I wasn’t impressed. He knew pawn-shop customers as he waited me out and didn’t lay down any more money. So I sighed, then nodded my head and smiled as I put the watch back down.
He was all smiles at that. He even bowed at me. I pocketed the notes, bowed back and turned to leave the shop. He called something like, “Ad you,” after me. When I looked back he was just smiling, so I left.
‘Now, at least I have some money.’
I wandered around the city for a bit. The streets were dusty and the houses were either pushed right up against the roads, their facades shut up by slatted dark wooden screens, or set back in acres of land behind high wooden walls. The sun was pounding on my head like a drumstick. It was far too bright and I was getting a splitting headache. I turned off the wide street I was on and down one of the smaller streets that ran off it. The city seemed to be arranged on a grid so it was easy to navigate. The side streets were more shady and far more interesting. There was an eclectic mix of things I understood, like wooden brooms and spinning mobiles made of plastic bottles, and things I didn’t, objects made of strange materials in odd shapes.
Walking down the narrow street, I came across a park with many white benches under purple-leafed trees. The air was filled with the sound of running water and the din of insects. I thought it might be cooler there. Entering the park, I noticed it was full of people. They were moving slowly because of the heat or resting on benches, eating their lunches, reading papers or PDAs, palm-sized computers.