Alien Caller

by Greg Curtis

  Her skin underneath was a little pale, almost grey, though that could have been a trick of the artificial light and shadows. Other than that however, it felt pretty normal to his touch, not slimy or scaly or anything, and not particularly alien. It just looked pale and felt far too hot.

  Once the skin was clear he could see the shape of the object underneath quite clearly. It was a barb, like an arrow but with only half the point. It had entered her thigh from the front like a projectile and had nearly made its way all the way through. It couldn’t be pulled out backwards without causing a lot of damage. But at the back of her thigh it was almost poking through and he hoped that he would be able to pull it through the rest of the way without causing too much more damage.

  A bottle of 95% alcohol sterilized the skin, and he used a couple of packets of frozen peas to numb the area. He hoped it would make an adequate pain killer, because this was going to hurt. But at least she still hadn’t woken up. If he could get this done before she did, that would help. He guessed she’d been close to the end of her resources by the time she came to his door. She’d been desperate, and she’d come to him for help while he was busy arming himself. It was a shameful thing to have done and he felt more than a touch of guilt wash over him. He couldn’t fail her.

  Five minutes later he was ready with the scalpel, feeling more nervous than he had since his first combat mission. Yet despite his nerves it went smoothly.

  With a single incision he opened the back of the wound enough so that he could see the tip of the object and was relieved to see that it wasn’t that deep. While it was nasty and painful at least it was not life threatening. A single quick pull with some tweezers, and it lay in his hands, while her orange blood barely seeped out. There was no nicked artery at least. And she hadn’t even moved.

  Three or four stitches on both sides, and a lot more alcohol and iodine spread liberally around, and he was ready to bandage. The whole operation was over within five minutes, and he congratulated himself on a job well done. Of course the surgery was the easy part. It was infection that was the real worry, and the wound had become infected long before she’d made it to his door. His living breathing alien was a long way from out of the woods yet, and as anyone who had ever seen The War of The Worlds knew, Earthly bugs could potentially do her a lot of harm, perhaps even kill her.

  He decided to leave her on the couch for the night, and to treat her as he would any other, except that he kept her handcuffed. Though in a moment of weakness he decided not to cuff her feet again. She might have some nasty toe claws but he couldn’t see her using them for a while. Instead of feeding her antibiotics he used a cold compress of tea and antibiotic dosed bandages to try and draw the infection out. He figured if they didn’t enter her blood stream the antibiotics would be safe enough and he had to use something.

  Finally he covered her with blankets to keep her as warm as possible and sat down beside her to watch his patient. As he did so he wondered about her. There was so much he wanted ask and so much he knew he couldn’t afford to know. Not that she was about to tell him any time soon. Not with that injury. She might not wake for days - if she woke at all. And that bothered him.

  It wasn’t just professional pride though he would always be disappointed if a patient died at his hands; it was curiosity. He was itching to know so many things about her, like where she was from, why she was here, and even her name. But none of that would be possible if she died. And the thought that this alien had travelled from somewhere surely many light years from Earth only to die in his care, well that was tragic.

  She slept fitfully, tossing and turning and every time she awoke, he gave her some fluids with a bit of sweetness for energy until she passed out again. But at least she seemed to be sleeping relatively normally and was not comatose. Her breathing was good and every time he changed the poultice, the wound at least seemed no angrier than before.

  Throughout the night as she tossed and turned, he studied the devices she’d carried on her belt, wondering what they were and all the while trying to decide what he should do when she awoke.

  Of the seven devices there was only one he could truly understand and that was the compass. It might look strange and have weird numbering and strange symbols but the way the digital display moved as he turned the device told him its purpose. And why should an alien compass look like an Earthly one anyway? Yet it was more than just a two dimensional compass as it also gave him the third dimension as it also displayed vertical. What purpose that served anywhere other than in a plane or a rocket he didn’t really know, but maybe that was where it was meant to be used. And at least he could understand it.

  Another device he thought might be a laser knife. Certainly it had a three inch beam and it cut things as would a knife, but he couldn’t figure out why she’d have a powered knife that could run out of energy at any time as opposed to a real knife which would last forever. Also, the beam had a strange tendency to change colour regularly, suggesting it had other less obvious uses.

  Of the others, most were without any obvious function. Several were damaged, the obvious dents in them surely not part of their design. A couple had lights and glowing symbols that moved over strange displays, but they had no buttons and there was no obvious way of activating them. It was just as well since he was sure at least one of them would be a radio, or whatever her people used. He assumed the button activating the radio was damaged. It was probably one of the damaged bits of equipment, or else she would have called for help days before. Then again, perhaps she had and just maybe it would be a while before her help arrived. How long did it take for her people to travel the stars? Or perhaps they were already in orbit and she had crashed here from a shuttle. He couldn’t begin to guess.

  The fragment of metal that he’d removed from her leg also came under his scrutiny. It was made of what looked like a magnesium metal alloy, was bright and shiny, very light and terrifically hard. It looked like a piece of an aircraft, and it had clearly been torn loose from something much larger. A flying saucer perhaps? Perhaps it had come from her space ship? Had she crashed nearby? And if so, had it been an accident or had the air force finally managed to shoot down a UFO? That led in turn to the next obvious questions. If she had crashed nearby then where? And why hadn’t he heard it or at least heard about it? Did he have a flying saucer sitting somewhere in his back yard? Logic told him it couldn’t be far away as she couldn’t have walked that far. Of course it could be in the lake itself.

  But as always his most pressing questions were about her intentions. Was she here just to seek help? Had she just come to the closest house which just coincidentally happened to be owned by a retired agent? It seemed unlikely. Or were her plans something darker and if so did those plans involve him? And then of course there was the problem to come. What would he do with her when she recovered? He could let her go but then she might well be an enemy agent. Or he could hand her over to the authorities and pretend he didn’t know what they would do to her. But he knew. Bright lights, electric shock, sleep deprivation, dehydration, drugs, and ultimately dissection.

  David felt deeply uncomfortable with both options and there didn't seem to be a third. He also didn’t know if she was alone, or whether he could expect company soon. He dearly wanted to know what if any intentions her people had in regard to Earth.

  They were questions that greatly troubled him and for the second night he rocked himself to sleep in the hard rocking chair. This time at least he did sleep more deeply, waking only occasionally to check on her as she slept before nodding off again. It was something about the security of her being in hand cuffs that let him relax. Besides which he knew it would be days before she was strong enough to get up, assuming she recovered. And he had her weapons.

  He was safe.

  Chapter Four.

  In the morning David found that all his precautions had been for nothing.

  It began with a slight tickling sensation around his nose that annoyed him even as he slept.
It was followed by the feel of something cold and hard rubbing across his cheek, which brought him the rest of the way back to consciousness in a hurry. He opened his eyes to discover his own gun being pointed at him from a distance of about an inch. Behind it was his patient, looking distinctly unhappy.

  Years of training helped him to suppress his immediate urge to bolt and let him assess his situation instead. From the start he knew he didn’t stand a chance if he ran, he was simply too slow and trapped in an awkward position, so instead he just sat there and listened as she ranted at him in some foreign language and studied her. A truly alien language, with almost no vowel sounds he’d ever heard. The other sounds were stranger still.

  He stared deep into her eyes as she raved at him, looking for some sign that could tell him what her intentions were, but he found none. Instead he realized she was angry, and in equal measure frightened and probably more than a little confused, but mostly she had no idea what to do. No more than he would have in her position.

  She’d woken up, found herself in a strange house, her wound cleaned, and her hands in cuffs. Which reminded him; how had she gotten out of them? He risked a quick glance to the bed and saw them there, still intact and still locked shut, which meant that somehow she’d simply squeezed her hands through them. Her hands might be more flexible than a human woman’s, something he hadn’t considered. Or being too soft with her because she was hurt and female he might not have fastened them tightly enough. Either way he guessed he’d been too trusting. But now wasn’t the time to beat himself up about it.

  She didn’t know how to use a gun he guessed, for which he was truly grateful. She clearly knew what it was and was holding it loosely in one hand, while she waved it around like a pointer to express her obvious anger and fear at him. But the safety catch was still on and her finger - make that claw - wasn’t on the trigger. But in the other hand she held one of the mechanical devices he’d removed from her belt. A grey mechanical thing that looked most like a tiny transistor radio. But it could also be a weapon, a ray gun of some sort. Or a travel clock. He had no way of knowing.

  In time she ran out of words and he managed a quick smile at her, teeth definitely not showing. Many animals he remembered would find exposed teeth threatening. But then he wasn’t even sure she would understand a smile.

  “Ahh, do you speak English?” He felt silly for asking, especially after having listened to her telling him off in an alien tongue, but then the previous day he had heard her asking for his help. There was at least one English word she knew.

  The answer was not what he wanted, as she babbled even more angrily at him, and the gun waving became more alarming. He gathered that the answer was a definite no and decided not to say anything else for a while, perhaps a long while.

  Quite quickly though he realized that no matter what else happened he would have to act. As time passed she was becoming distinctly more wild, eyes bulging and fangs gleaming, and he had the horrible feeling she was simply working herself up into a killing rage. If by chance she ever found the safety or if the transistor was actually a weapon, he was in a lot of trouble. And without speaking her language he couldn’t calm her down.

  “Ohh thank God!” He spoke to no one, just sighed and let his eyes wander to the door behind her. A simple and ancient ruse but in this case enough. She spun, far too quickly and was immediately off balance while also having made the cardinal mistake of no longer having her eyes on him. That was far more slack than he needed. Before she’d even completed the turn he had risen and chopped at her left arm just below the shoulder. In a man the chop would stun the arm causing the weapon to drop, and it did the same for her, the gun hitting the wooden floor with an almighty racket. They weren’t entirely dissimilar.

  But she was fast, flexible and unexpected. Instead of turning back and firing the other weapon which he was already dodging, she completed her spin, and he had just time to see one set of her glass claws coming at him and flinch before he felt them rake across his chest. Fortunately he was quick too, even when caught by surprise, and he managed to get out of the way. His shirt was ruined, but his skin was barely scratched. Fast as she was, he knew she had overplayed her hand, as with only one arm in action she couldn’t defend herself. A second chop to the other shoulder left her with no working arms and the second device slid across the floor a heartbeat later.

  She howled, more out of anger than fear, and tried to kick him, but her feet were nowhere near as fast as the rest of her, and he easily eluded them and then tripped her. She fell backwards onto the floor, still howling, and immediately he leapt on top of her, trying to tie her down with his body weight. As a tactic it left a lot to be desired, but at least it gave him a few moments to work out what to do next. All the while she struggled, life quickly returning to her arms, and he had to spend valuable seconds just flicking the various devices away so she couldn’t reach them.

  Soon there were no more weapons, other than their own bodies, and he could relax a little. Physically, he knew he was outgunned by her claws and her speed. If he let go he would either have to incapacitate or kill her or she would tear him into shreds; very small ones. Yet he didn’t want to do either. Instead he just hung on. Lying on top of her he had her wrists in his hands and was using his knees to cruelly pin her legs. Her injuries and his body weight easily made him more than a match for her and no matter how much struggling she did she couldn’t roll him. More importantly the more she struggled the weaker she became, her adrenaline boosted energy fading away as she realized she wasn’t going to die.

  In time things quieted down, as she realized she was going nowhere, and gave up struggling, at least for the moment. It was time to breathe again, and to recover what strength she could. Then too she had to know that he had had the upper hand, at least for the moment, and he hadn’t used it. He hoped she might have accepted that he wasn’t going to kill her. Instead of struggling she just lay there and stared at him as he stared at her, and no doubt they both wondered what to do.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” It was all he could think to say, and again he knew it was useless since she spoke little or no English, but at least it was the truth. As they lay there he repeated it to her, a lot. He tried to be calm, to sound sincere and mild as his training said he should. Perhaps she understood some of his words, or perhaps she understood the tone of his voice, but whichever it was she seemed to relax a little more, to stop struggling, and those dangerous looking fangs retreated further behind her lips.

  In time two sets of racing heart beats and two sets of heaving lungs slowed and they became almost comfortable as they lay there, or at least David did. On a hard wooden floor with well over two hundred pounds of his body weight bearing directly down on her, she couldn’t be happy. But at least she wasn’t in deathly fear of her life any longer. She surely knew he could have crushed her neck, strangled her, or simply snapped her like a twig, and he hadn’t. That had to count for something.

  That still left him with a problem. What did he do next?

  He knew even then that ultimately he was going to have to get up and let her go, but he was worried she’d take a swipe at him the moment he freed her arms and those claws still looked decidedly nasty. But he couldn’t just keep her pinned on his cold wooden floor forever, he couldn’t seem to cuff her, and he didn’t want to kill her. Worse he knew that she knew what was going through his mind. How could she not?

  The most shocking thing of all was that in time as he lay there on top of her he began to feel other sensations awakening in his flesh. Concepts that were bizarrely out of place. But undeniably, the intimacy of their position and the fact that he had her totally at his mercy in such an intimate position had brought out the male in him. Then there was her natural musk and the feel of her warm flesh yielding under his. It had been too long. He squelched down on the inappropriate thoughts, and tried to concentrate on the problem at hand. He wasn’t however, entirely successful. He just hoped she didn’t guess his distraction.
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  A clicking sound brought his eyes back to her teeth, and he watched her open and close her mouth several times, the jaws snapping shut with a bone crunching snap. For a second he thought she had injured her jaw. Then he understood. She was telling him that even pinned like this she could make a bleeding mess out of him with her bite. His neck felt distinctly vulnerable. But was she threatening him, or telling him that even though she could have, she hadn’t? So far? Either way it wasn’t really a choice.

  “Okay. You win.” He nodded to her, hoping she understood he was simply agreeing. If she even understood a nod.

  Very, very carefully he took away his right arm from her wrist, dreading the thought of her hand swinging towards him like a bullet. But she did no such thing. Instead she let her arm lie there pretty much as it was, just opening and closing her fist as she returned the circulation to it. Encouraged he released her other arm and was rewarded again. No strikes at his face, no bites, no violence. It was like a slow motion car chase in a movie where the audience waits for the inevitable crash, but for once it just didn’t come. Finally he rolled off her, allowing her to move and breathe, while he headed directly for his gun.