“Like what?” said Antaska. “Anyway, even if there’s consequences, we have to try it. I won’t be able to live with myself knowing that I selfishly left these people to this horrendous fate when I could have done something. So I guess I can’t go unless you try this for me.”
“Oh fine, if you’re going to be like that,” said Potat, with a big cat sigh.
“And don’t pretend to do this but not really do anything,” said Antaska. “I’ll know.”
“All right, all right,” said Potat. “Let’s go out in the hallway and get this over with.”
Antaska pulled on her soft ankle boots. She reached for her gloves hanging on the wall and began pulling them on as well.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Potat insisted impatiently, not understanding the reason for this delay.
“These are mine,” Antaska answered her telepathically.
Potat understood possessiveness very well and made no argument to that.
In moments, the gloves were on, and they went to the door. Antaska pushed it open and carried Potat out with her. They paused to look down the hallway in both directions. Except for the small creatures who made it their home, no one was there. They looked at each other, and at once, both nodded. Time to do this.
Potat focused her mental energy. She reached her mind out to detect the sleeping minds of hundreds of humanoids in the huge barracks. Now what? Potat considered her options for performing the unfamiliar mental task.
While she was thinking, the silence in the hallway was broken by a loud buzzing noise. Potat and Antaska looked up and saw the large bug with the face of Marroo hovering in front of them again.
“A bug!, a spy bug!” Potat shouted telepathically.
Spooked, the large bug flew away in the direction of the exit door. Potat dove from Antaska’s hands and raced after it, mentally shouting, “It’s a spy bug!, I’ll get it!, I’ll get it!”
Antaska rushed after her, yelling, “No!” telepathically, but Potat ignored her.
The bug’s progress was stopped at the door to outside. Potat caught up and leaped with all her might high into the air. She grabbed big bug with the claws of an out flung paw.
“What! Skunks can’t jump!” shouted the bug telepathically.
“Thunk!” Potat landed back on the ground. She stuffed the bug into her mouth. It tasted as bad as it looked—even worse than the two bugs she had just ate, but she had to do her duty.
Those mold-produced clothes will give me indigestion for sure, she thought just before taking the first bite.
Potat stuck a claw in her mouth, ripped off the clothes, and spat them out.
Now Antaska was standing over her.
“No! Let it go!” Antaska insisted. “It has a face!”
Potat released the bug. It flew away back toward the center of the barracks, dripping tiny drops of bright yellow blood from the wounds made by Potat’s claws.
“It’s going to tell Nestgorm!” said Antaska. “We have to do this now!”
“OK,” said Potat, but this is a big job for one small cat. I’ll need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?” Antaska asked her, picking Potat back up in her arms.
“I’m going to poke some holes in the mental fog in all their brains. But that won’t be enough. We need to get a message through. At the same time I do that, I need you to yell telepathically as loud as you can, ‘Wake up! You’ve been hypnotized! Wake up! You’ve been brainwashed!’ stuff like that. Can you do it? You’ve got a really loud telepathic voice.”
“I’ll do it,” said Antaska.
“OK,” said Potat. “On the count of three. One…two…three!”
Potat collected every ounce of energy she had and threw it at the clouded sleeping minds around her. At the same time, Antaska’s telepathic yelling blasted into her small head. Ouch! Antaska’s telepathic voice was even louder than the last time Potat heard it.
Then, her job done, Potat slumped down in Antaska’s arms, in complete exhaustion.
Wailing and screaming, both telepathic and vocal, filled the air. Doors burst open, and female humanoids and semi-humanoids of all species crowded into the hallway.
Antaska looked down at Potat.
“Potat! Potat! Are you OK?” she asked.
“Humm mummm hmm,” Potat mumbled in answer.
Then ancient Nestgorm, disheveled, appeared in the hallway too.
“Nestgorm! Nestgorm! Help us! Save us! Save us from this witch and her skunk!” the female slaves all shouted at once.
“Wait!” shouted Antaska. “He’s not going to help you! He hypnotized you so he could use you for cheap labor. We woke you up so you can escape! Come with me, and you can be free! You can return to your homes!”
“There’s room for all of you to ride in cold storage in the space ship cargo bay,” said Potat helpfully.
“No! No! We love Nestgorm!” shouted many of the females.
And Nestgorm shouted, “She lies! Get her!”
The crowd of angry females turned, shoving each other in their rush to get to Antaska.
Antaska pushed the barracks door open and ran outside with Potat.
“Go that way,” said Potat, mentally pointing her in the right direction.
The night sky was lit only by bright stars and the soft glow of the Woogah planet’s two moons, but with her enhanced vision, Antaska could see her surroundings clearly.
“Wait! Wait! We want to go with you!” Antaska heard someone calling behind her.
She looked back and saw two female humanoids running after her. Antaska recognized them as the two who had sat on either side of her in the cafeteria! She slowed her pace, and they caught up with her.
“I’ll go with you, but I’m not going in cold storage,” said the one with orange fur.
“I’m not going in their either,” said the other one.
“No problem,” said Antaska, not really knowing if that was true but knowing that she would go in there herself in their place if she had to.
About a half mile away, in the direction they were heading, Antaska saw what looked like a doorway opening up, but as if from another dimension, it was surrounded by nothing but desert. Although he was just a tiny figure at that distance, she recognized M. Hoyvil standing and waving in the doorway. A flood of happiness and relief rushed through her, and she pushed herself to run faster.
“There!” she shouted telepathically to the other two escapees.
Antaska slowed her pace so they could run ahead. The alarm went off as the two passed through the force field, but they were unharmed. Joy filled Antaska as she watched M. Hoyvil reach out and pull them into the spaceship.
Chapter 28
Nestgorm had been most irritated when his spy bug woke him from his well-deserved and needed sleep.
“The new slave is causing trouble! She’s trying to escape!” the spy bug had buzzed in his ear.
After roughly shoving on his boots, Nestgorm had rushed out into the hallway to find utter chaos. Somehow, that blasted Earth human female had destroyed all of his slaves’ perfectly set hypnotic trances! And now she was attempting to escape with two others who had been contaminated just from close proximity to her!
The escaping slaves had been genetically enhanced to run fast, and working in Nestgorm’s plant had made them even faster. But he still had the speed to overtake them despite his advancing age. Using all possible speed, Nestgorm caught up to Antaska before she reached the force field. Anger flooded him when he saw that it was too late to capture the others. He tackled Antaska hard from behind, throwing her to the ground. The little skunk-like creature she had been carrying jumped from her arms, landed on its feet, and turned to hiss at him, but he ignored it. It pleased him that Antaska didn’t resist the fall but crumpled down as if in compliance.
Nestgorm, more than a half foot taller than Antaska and much heavier, dropped his full weigh down on her.
“Oooff!” he said.
He was surprised to find he
r feet pressing into his stomach. Somehow, on the way down to the ground, she had twisted her body around and pulled her legs in. She had landed on her back with her legs up in kicking position. Those leg muscles were genetically enhanced and powered by strong muscles built from working in his factory--running hundreds of miles and climbing ten stories hundreds of times each day. Antaska shoved, sending him flying. Nestgorm soared at least fifty feet and then landed with a hard “thunk.”
On the ground, Nestgorm shook his head to clear it and was back up and running in only moments. Antaska was picking up the skunk. She turned and started to run to the spaceship. Nestgorm caught up with her again right next to the force field. This time, he grabbed her upper arm and spun her around to face him.
Nestgorm looked into her eyes and began the Woogah hypnotic mind-control technique.
Yes! I still have the power! thought Nestgorm.
Antaska was stuck in his gaze, unable to look away.
“Let her go!” Nestgorm heard the mental shout from the green adolescent Verdante he had seen standing in the doorway of his invisible spaceship. “Let her go, or I’ll come get her!”
“Cool your heels, young whippersnapper!” Nestgorm answered him. “If you step foot on this planet, you’ll be cooling them underground in the Woogah jail! Hahaha!”
Caught in Nestgorm’s cloud-spinning gaze, Antaska felt a familiar dizzy sensation and nausea—just like looking into the eyes of Marroo when he kidnapped her. Darkness was returning; the sick mind-filling cloud was forming. This time, Antaska fought tried to fight back, but the spinning kept increasing, and the nausea kept getting worse. With a sense of panic, she felt her mental clarity slipping away.
And then, something dark crossed in front of her eyes, and the spell was broken. Little Potat had climbed up the preoccupied Nestgorm and raked her claws in his eyes, blocking his gaze from Antaska. He screamed and took one hand off Antaska to swat at the little cat who flew through the air through the force field and toward the spaceship.
Antaska screamed too. Her mind had cleared from Nestgorm’s hypnotism. In horror, she watched Potat’s flight toward the ship. Then something bigger and orange bounded out of the spaceship’s doorway, caught Potat, and dropped to the ground--the orange-furred humanoid female. She sprang back into the ship with Potat up in her arms.
Nestgorm’s free hand clamped tight again on Antaska’s arm, and he caught her eyes in his gaze again. Hot anger scoured her mind and entire body. She thought about kicking him again but knew that she wouldn’t be able to physically overpower him. But the anger demanded to be let out somewhere. In a hot blast, Antaska released it all at once through her eyes into the cloudy staring eyes of Nestgorm.
“Aaaahhhh!” Nestgorm screamed in pain.
His hands flew to his eyes, and he dropped to his knees on the ground. Antaska dashed through the force field and toward the open door of the stealth ship. M. Hoyvil helped her in and quickly led her to an empty berth. The entrance was crowded with Verdantes, two rescued females, and Potat! There was no time to talk as everyone rushed to strap in at their stations.
“All hands prepare for immediate takeoff!” Antaska heard a deep telepathic voice say.
The spaceship door closed, and the invisible ship soared up and away from the Woogah planet.
Chapter 29
Back on the ground, the sharp pain in Nestgorm’s eyes had dulled to a prickly irritation caused by that small creature’s scratches. He cautiously opened his eyes and peered around with blurred vision. His escaped slaves and the doorway that had been floating in the air were gone. Nestgorm could see nothing but empty desert all around his plant.
Inside the force field, the throng of his remaining slaves had come out of the barracks and crowded together still crying and wailing, “Nestgorm! Nestgorm! Help us!”
“Yes, yes, in a minute!” Nestgorm shouted at them in an irritable telepathic voice.
He squinted up at the sky, stilling see nothing, and then raised both fists above his head and shook them at the empty heavens above.
“I will demand a full refund for this shoddy workmanship,” he shouted into the emptiness, while knowing full well that the terms of the sales agreement made this loss his responsibility.
Nestgorm stood up slowly, feeling the aches and pains received in the fight with the Earth female slave. With a deep sigh, he turned and limped slowly back toward the waiting slaves crowed in front of the barracks.
“Beeeepp! Beeeepp!” the force field alarm sounded.
What? Nestgorm wondered as he looked around his plant’s perimeter.
There! Just ahead of him a small unmasked space shuttle had flown through his force field. An automatic spotlight came on and lit up the ship as it touched ground between him and his slaves. It was tree leaf green—a Verdante shuttle! The slaves stopped their wailing and stood staring open-mouthed at the shuttle. Nestgorm stood still and stared too.
A door opened, and a ladder extended to the ground. Then three bizarre creatures came out. Nestgorm stared unbelieving through blurry eyes. The first one looked like a young Verdante, an adolescent, or an older child. No! Definitely an adult with a human-shaped head but much taller and greener than any human Nestgorm had ever seen. Then two more even stranger--a male and a female. Shorter than most humanoids, their reptilian tails, lower bodies, and snouts classified them as semi-humanoids at best.
“Where is Antaska? We know she’s here! We’re here to rescuer her!” Shouted a strange, squeaky voice out loud.
Nestgorm’s head pounded. He grabbed it in his hands.
Have I gone mad? he wondered. Did that slave destroy my mind?
“Who’s that?” he heard a slave say. “He’s gorgeous,” said another. “Nestgorm, who’s your friend?” said another.
The slaves had stopped crying and pleading. Nestgorm wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The crowd surged closer to the newcomers. Nestgorm started to make his way over too.
Hmm, he thought. Three slaves escaped, I asked for a refund, and now these three appear. Perhaps my prayers were answered.
He rubbed his bony, wrinkled hands together, and a calculating grin pulled up the corners of his thin-lipped mouth.
Nestgorm approached. The tall part-Verdante humanoid paid no attention to Nestgorm. His eyes were too busy taking inventory of Nestgorm’s inventory.
Odd, thought Nestgorm. They were able to travel through space, but they’re not telepaths? What are these creatures?
“We’re here for Antaska,” said one of the two small reptilian semi-humanoids. “Where did you put her?”
“Who’s Antaska?” Nestgorm asked them out loud.
“Young female Earth human,” answered one who appeared to be male. “About this high with bright pink hair, tan skin, gray eyes.” He lifted one hand to about Antaska’s height.
“Kind of skinny, heart-shaped doll face,” said the other one who appeared to be female with a sniff of her snout.
“Oh her,” said Nestgorm. “I’m sorry, but you just missed her. She was snatched away by those sneaking Verdantes!”
“Oh no! Oh no!” the two small creatures wailed. “Eegor will be so upset! Furious even!”
They turned to the tall greenish one who was primping and preening in front of Nestgorm’s slaves. The slaves hooted and howled their appreciation.
Could he be telepathic? Nestgorm wondered.
The slaves shouted questions at the attractive male. He rubbed his ears with a confused expression on his sculpted face, but he didn’t answer.
Abnormal artificial handsomeness, just like those blasted hunters, but even more so, thought Nestgorm. It must be genetic engineering. Hmm. I could sell his genes to the Woogah doctors!
“Eegor,” did you hear that?” said one of the two reptilians. “We missed Antaska! She’s gone!”
“Antaska? Who?” asked the muscular man still taking in the rainbow colors of females from all over the universe.
“Antaska! You don’t
remember her? Your nemesis?” asked the male part-reptile. “The reason we stole the spaceship and crossed deep space so you could take revenge?”
The tall man tore his attention away from Nestgorm’s slaves to address his smaller companions.
“Young dudes,” he began. “A mature person like myself lets go of hate and the need for revenge. Those things only hurt the person who holds the grudge. I’ve moved on from that.”
“Do you mean we came all this way for nothing?” asked the female part-reptile.
“Not at all,” said the bigger humanoid. “Solitary confinement wasn’t helping me. What I needed was a change of scenery. Coming here was exactly what I needed, and now I’m cured.”
He lifted a well-muscled arm and waved a hand at the crowd. The slaves answered with whistles, cat calls, shouts, and sighs.
“That’s so beautiful!” said the small female, sniffing and hugging the other small one.
“You’re the man!” said the male.
Nestgorm suppressed a derisive snort.
“That’s wonderful,” said Nestgorm. “I’m so glad you like it here. You can stay here as my guests.”
The handsome part-Verdante finally noticed Nestgorm.
“Hey!” he said. “How did an old guy like you get all of these fine, fit women?”
“Well,” said Nestgorm, “if you look over here, I’ll show you.”
The muscle man looked into Nestgorm’s eyes. Nestgorm’s hypnotic power had been weakened by the encounter with Antaska, but he still had enough strength to do the job. He began spinning the clouds in his Woogah eyes.
“Me! Me! Show me first! Show us first!” interrupted the other two smaller ones, jumping up and down and waiving their hands and tails in the air. The hands and tails passed in front of the bigger man’s eyes, blocking Nestgorm from setting the trance.
“Very well, if I must,” Nestgorm grumbled at the maddening fools.
He turned to look down into the eyes of both part-reptiles at once. Obligingly, they stood still and looked back into his eyes. He stared into their yellow eyes slashed with black. Nestgorm spun his hypnotic clouds.
hypnoSnatch (Xeno Relations Book 2) Page 17