Project U.L.F.

by Stuart Clark

  Gon-Thok stopped dead in its tracks. He looked into the creature’s eyes to find them looking straight back at him. It had seen him and it clearly had not expected him to be up and about. Par didn’t know what to do or say. For a minute they looked at each other like a couple of strangers who had just woken up to find they had shared the same bed. Both deeply suspicious of the other, but both curious as to what the other would say, or do, or simply how they would be. Both absolutely desperate to find out what the hell was going on.

  “Par,” Par mumbled nervously, patting his chest again. Then he pointed to the alien, “Gon-Thok.” The creature made a quick head motion which Par didn’t really like the look of. He turned his back on it to show he meant it no harm and hobbled back into the cave. He heard the alien coming up fast behind him and stopped. Regardless of whether this thing had saved his life or not, he was still none the wiser as to its intentions for him. Better to be careful. He turned back to it to find it only a couple of feet away from him. Its proximity startled him.

  “The, er, the drawings,” he stammered. They’re very good.” The alien cocked its head to look at the wall Par had indicated. “Drawings,” Par said again, holding an imaginary pen and sketching in the air. At this Gon-Thok began to make a series of deep, guttural croaks. Par had no idea what the alien was doing or saying, but the noises sounded excited. He smiled to himself. They were getting along famously already.

  Tired, Par lowered himself slowly to the ground, falling the last few inches and landing heavily on his rump. The pain in his leg made him wince.

  “There are others,” Par said. He needed to communicate with this thing and at the same time hoped that it might comprehend the idea of reinforcements, just in case its plans for him were not that savory. The fact that those reinforcements would not come anywhere near this place was privy only to him. “I must get back to them.”

  Gon-Thok turned its attention to Par’s face, looking curiously at the human’s mouth as if seeing it for the first time. It was clear it did not understand a thing that he was saying. Par sighed in frustration. He would never make it back if they carried on like this. It could take days, even weeks, to make himself understood, by which time the others would be long gone or dead. He needed to represent what he meant graphically and he looked around the cave for whatever the alien had used to etch the images onto the surrounding walls. There was nothing. As he sat there, frustrated at his inability to make himself understood, he realized that his finger could be his paintbrush and his canvas was right beneath his feet.

  Par cleared an area of the sand with his hand. He drew a stick man with his finger. “Bar,” he said pointing at it. Next to it he drew another.

  Gon-Thok, who had until now been watching intently with its huge eyes, leaned across and dragged a claw through the second figure, bisecting it. “Nie-dum,” it said. Par looked at the alien, trying hard to figure out what it understood. Did it know about Byron? Is that why it had crossed out the second figure? Maybe, but he needed to communicate that there were more of his kind. He drew the second man again. Gon-Thok crossed it out again. “Nie-dum,” it insisted, its voice firmer. “Ban-chi mog-wump ki-too-allaa.”

  “Ban-chi,” Par repeated quietly in wonder. It sounded remarkably similar to banshee. Gon-Thok, hearing him, mimed what it meant. It spread its arms wide like wings. “Ban-chi,” it repeated.

  “Banshee,” Par said, excited that they had added a new word to their shared repertoire. “Yes, yes! The bird. I understand!” He returned his attention to the drawings in the sand, re-drawing the second figure. Gon-Thok crossed it out once more. “Nie-dum,” it said again.

  “No!” Par moaned.

  “Ro!” Gon-Thok croaked, raising its arms to the position it associated with the word.

  “Yes, no!” Par said, raising his hands too to show that Gon-Thok had understood correctly. It would help if the alien continued to associate gestures with certain words. “No,” Par groaned, slapping his hand into his forehead. Yes, no. What was he talking about? What a fine teacher he was turning out to be. There had to be a way around this problem. He pointed to the crossed-out figure. “This is Byron, yes?”

  “Nie-dum,” Gon-Thok croaked again.

  “Exactly. That’s what I thought.”

  He left the image representing Byron and drew four more stick men in the sand, one slightly shorter than the others to represent Kate. “There are others,” Par explained slowly. “Oth-ers.” He pointed to the four new figures in the sand. Nothing. Not even the faintest glimmer of comprehension. What did he have to do? He pointed to each of the figures in turn. “Bar, Bar, Bar,” he said slowly and then when he reached the smaller one, “Er…….Kate.” Still no response. One last thing might do it.

  He sketched the tree in the sand and drew a crude square in the branches to represent the shuttle. “Ship,” he said, pointing to it. Slowly, Gon-Thok rubbed the square from the picture with its webbed hand and drew an even cruder representation next to the four stick men. Par watched, stunned, unsure what was really going on.

  “Mi-greb,” it said, pointing to its version of the ship, and then it pointed to the other figures. “Chee-men-wi.”

  “Mi-greb. Chee-men-wi.” Par whispered the words softly, repeating them out loud so he might better commit them to memory. He looked at the picture again. Gon-Thok had put the shuttle on the ground next to the stick men. “You…you…you know this?’ he stammered. “You’ve seen this?” he asked of it, pointing to the drawing, then at the creature’s eyes, and back to the drawing. “Have you seen this?” he demanded, his slightly raised voice carrying a lilt of excitement.

  He made as if to grab the alien and shake the answer out of it. Then, realizing that there was nothing for him to grab, he clenched his hands into fists of frustration. “I must go to them,” he said. He put two fingers over the depiction of himself and walked them over to the others. “Bar. Chee-men-wi,” he added in his broken alien dialect, and somehow he knew that it understood him.

  * * * * *

  “What am I going to do with you?” Kate looked into the depths of Furball’s sorry eyes. The way she’d asked the question it might have been a joke, but inside she realized it was a question that she would soon have to find an answer to. When Byron and Par returned with the parts for the hyperdrive, either later today or early tomorrow, it would only be a matter of hours before Chris completed the repairs and they could leave.

  For a while she felt genuinely sad that the end was in sight. Regardless of how bad things got, Kate believed that there was always a glimmer of hope or something that made the bleak times more bearable. Furball had been that something for her. When she was sad the animal had made her laugh. When she had been lost in her thoughts it had been there to take her mind off things. Part of her wanted to take it with them back to Earth but she knew that was entirely selfish. She would have to leave it behind, she decided. It would probably break her heart to do it, but it was for the best.

  Sad at the thought of it, she looked back into Furball’s eyes to find them even more mournful than before. “Oh, knock it off!” she chuckled and then sniffled.

  Considering what they had been through already, it was incredible that she never even considered the possibility that something could have gone wrong.

  * * * * *

  It was not later that day that Par returned, nor was it even the day after that. It was three days after Byron and he had left for the DSM that he finally made it back to the shuttle.

  Gon-Thok had indeed understood Par’s drawings and mimes and had carried him out of the cave shortly after their pantomime of a conversation. Par knew that they were going back to the shuttle. Somehow, he sensed it.

  However, Par, a full-grown man, was no light-weight and the alien, although strong, would tire. At times, when it was forced to stop, they would rest or Par would try to struggle on, hopping on his good leg until the alien, seeing he was in difficulty, would come to his aid, supporting him as it walked alongside h
im.

  Par had put his arm across the alien’s shoulders and felt the warm, clammy skin under his hand. He found its texture somewhat repulsive but in time he learned to accept it. He had to.

  * * * * *

  Anxiety was high at the shuttle the day Par returned. When the away team had not returned after the second day, Wyatt had begun to suspect that something had gone wrong. It was unlike two of his most experienced personnel to be late. The others suspected it too, he knew. Although none of them would admit it, he could see the worry on their faces as clearly as though they had spoken the words.

  The responsibility he felt towards them all also played further on his mind. What was he to do? If Byron and Par had failed, then sitting here waiting for them to return was wasting them time. What if they hadn’t failed? What if things had taken longer than they had first thought? If he sent another away team after the DSM then he could be putting people at risk unnecessarily, and they would then have to sit and wait for that second team to return, assuming they did. The thoughts spun around in his head and churned his stomach. He was touchy and on edge, and maybe that was why he was acutely aware of a presence before Gon-Thok even stepped into view.

  He scanned the trees, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. He was staring right at the spot that Gon-Thok occupied just as the alien emerged from the trees. Without a second thought his gun was drawn and trained on the unexpected visitor as it walked confidently towards him. He thrust the gun forward in veiled threat. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all.

  Suddenly, something else burst from the trees and Wyatt saw that it was Par. He staggered and hopped around and waved his arms wildly. “Don’t shoot!’ he yelled. “It’s friendly. Don’t shoot!” and with that he collapsed in a heap.

  The alien turned and gently picked him up. Then it turned back to Wyatt and continued to advance on his position.

  “Hey, kid!” Wyatt hissed into the shuttle door behind him. “Kid!” he said again. “Get out here, will you?”

  Chris appeared at the door, wondering what was so urgent. “What is…?” he began but then he caught sight of the alien with Par in its arms. His voice ceased to function and he just opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

  “Help him out, will you?”

  “Me?” Chris quickly turned to Wyatt. “Why me?”

  “Cause you’re the medic, stupid.”

  “I really don’t think….”

  “Just do it, kid. I’ll cover you,” Wyatt said as if that was all the reassurance he should need.

  Chris gulped and stepped out of the shuttle. Slowly he walked towards the approaching alien.

  When they were about four feet apart both he and the alien stopped. Chris looked up at the creature. It stood about four inches taller than him. For a moment he was so mystified by the features and appearance of the alien that he completely forgot why he had initially come out here. The alien held Par out to him. “Bar,” it croaked.

  Chris, more than a little surprised, could only manage, “Er…thanks!”

  “It’s okay,” Par reassured him, but his voice was distant.

  “And what about you? Are you okay?” Chris asked, taking Par from the alien’s arms but not once taking his eyes off it.

  “Broken leg, but other than that I’m fine.” He laughed as though he were drunk.

  “Let me be the judge of that,” Chris said. Par was clearly not firing on all cylinders.

  Chris backed away from the creature and then, when he felt he was safe, turned his back on it and headed back towards the shuttle.

  “How is he?” Wyatt asked as they passed him.

  “Broken leg,” Chris reconfirmed, “But he’s suffering the effects of exposure and malnutrition. They only took rations for two days, didn’t they?”

  Wyatt nodded. He looked at Par’s drawn and dirtied face. The eyes swam in their sockets. “Par. Par! Can you hear me?” The Swede weakly lifted his head, his eyes stopping long enough to focus on Wyatt and register a look of recognition. “Par. Where is Byron?” The eyes drifted away again. Wyatt grabbed Par by his jacket and shook him.

  “Uh?”

  “Where is Byron, Par? What happened to Byron?”

  Par said nothing, just shook his head before it fell back.

  “I’d better get him inside,” Chris said quickly. He didn’t want to be in the presence of Wyatt for a second longer than he had to be now, but Wyatt didn’t hear him anyway. Slowly he let Par’s jacket go and turned away, his eyes distant and filling with tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried and when the first tear hit his cheek he brushed it away and looked at his wet fingers as if they were the strangest things he had ever seen. Then, clenching the hand into a fist, he turned and smashed it into the unyielding side of the shuttle. He did not feel the pain. He was too caught up in his grief.

  He fell to his knees and cried for a long time until Kate, hearing the news, came and put a consoling arm around him, adding her tears to his own.

  Behind them, the alien stood silently and watched.

  * * * * *

  Chris laid Par down on the shuttle floor next to Bobby. He immediately set up a drip to start pumping fluids back into Par’s dehydrated body. If he could bring him around then he could get him eating solid food, and if he could do that, then Par would soon get his strength back. He inserted the needle into the back of Par’s hand and then taped it in place before hanging the bag of fluid on a nearby hatch handle. That done, he immediately began to tend to Par’s leg. The Swede moaned in pain as Chris removed the splint and then cut the pants off his leg up to his knee. The fracture was serious, and the youngster had to feel along the leg and then move the bone into place before encasing the leg in exo-mold.

  That finished, he moved across to Bobby to check on her condition. He pressed the palm of his hand against her forehead and was relieved to find that it was not moist with sweat. Her fever was passing at last. He breathed a small sigh of relief.

  Looking at Par, it was clear to Chris that the other man was exhausted. His condition was serious but not critical. Once his fluids were replaced he would make a full recovery. Exhaustion was probably as much of a contributing factor as anything else. Par would probably sleep soundly until tomorrow morning and then he would be back on his feet, at which time the rest of them would want to hear his story of what had happened to him and Byron.

  Leaving his two charges sleeping soundly on the shuttle floor Chris returned to the cockpit and the tangle of wires that he had been working on before Wyatt had called him away.

  * * * * *

  Bobby’s run slowed to a walk. The closer she got to the other presence, the greater the sense of foreboding came over her. The corridor of fire spread away from her and the walls of flame fanned around to mark the boundaries of a circular room, a room now occupied by her and whatever it was that sat in its center. She looked behind her to find that the flames that had pushed her on had now filled the last remaining space in the wall. The corridor had gone; there was just one unbroken circular wall of flame.

  “Welcome.” The wicked voice seemed to come from the figure in front of her and yet from everywhere at the same time. Bobby looked towards it. Whatever it was it sat on a pedestal which was high and at the same time not high. She did not have to look very far up to see the figure but she felt immense power emanating from it and it was that which made the gulf between them seem larger. She felt tiny in comparison. Its seat was not visible, for the figure sat with its back to her and wore a long black cloak which fell over the top of the podium. From what material the cloak was made she could not tell, but it seemed blacker than pitch. It was less an item of clothing and more a hole in the fabric of time and space. The cloak was fastened around the figure’s neck and a high, stiff collar covered most of the back of the head. All Bobby could see was what looked like the top of a bald head and a pair of small horns.

  “Where am I?” she asked, and her voice sounded pathetic in comparis
on. She was unsure that whoever it was had heard her, all she could hear was the crackle of flames, but she sensed that this being was omnipresent in this realm, that it sensed everything.

  “You don’t know where you are?” The voice sounded surprised.

  “No.”

  “Is it not everything you imagined it to be? Does it not look familiar? The flames? The colors? You came here of your own free will and you don’t know where you are?” The voice mocked her.

  Bobby struggled with her thoughts. She remembered Wyatt saying something about the Devil, a long time ago now it seemed. She refused to believe that she was in that realm conversing with the mythical master of Hell. There was a loaded pause and then the voice came again.

  “Do you know who I am?” the voice said patronizingly. A hand appeared above the collar and the fingers, each tipped with a dirty, broken claw caressed one of the horns teasingly.

  The only answer Bobby had seemed ludicrous. It simply couldn’t be so. Unwilling to speak the word she stayed silent.

  “You do.” The voice said. “You do know who I am.”

  With that the pedestal began to rotate, turning the figure around to face her. Horrified, she tried to look away, but her eyes remained glued to the figure, stuck to the point in morbid fascination. The rest of her head fought a mortal tug-of-war with her eyeballs.

  As the chair swung around she saw a huge gnarled and ugly hand hanging limply over the end of the armrest, every finger tipped with a blackened, unkempt nail. She had been right the first time.

  She took a deep breath and then looked Satan directly in the eye. She screamed. The Devil had Par’s face.

  CHAPTER