Lost Cargo (9 page)

The creek gurgled. A hawk screamed in the forest.

I knew it. We were fools to come out here
. He pulled Lexie behind a small boulder and steadied the gun, wondering if the leaves and the damp earth would be the last things he ever smelled.

The thing rushed up the hill. Scratched in the bramble. Stopped. Moved again. More claws on rock. He prepared to shoot, his blood roaring in his ears. Then a wolfish German shepherd bounded into sight, running off leash, followed by its master, a dour man in a dark blue parka. The man stared at them, clipped the leash on the dog, and passed by on the trail.

Travis put his arms around Lexie. “I almost blew that dog away. I almost did it.”

Finally the buildings on Connecticut Avenue appeared. Streetlights were coming on as the grim sky fast faded into night.

She looked back at the woods. “So we didn’t find him. He’s out there another night.”

“We’ll keep going back until we find him,” he said.

They flagged a cab that rattled through the darkness to her house. When they pulled up to the curb, Lexie leaned across the seat, put his muffler back around his shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek. “I know we just met, Travis, but I feel like you’re my best friend in the whole world. I feel like we’ve known each other forever.”

Stunned, he took her hands.

“I’m afraid to be alone,” she said. “Could you stay here tonight?”

He stayed on the hard blue couch in the alcove off her bedroom, the loaded gun on the floor, and watched her sleeping figure. She lay on her side, dressed in jeans and a sweater, ready to leap up if anything happened. One of autumn’s last crickets sang its slow nocturnal song below the window.

Maybe she likes me
, he thought with wild hope.

He reminded himself that she’d said
best friend
and turned the familiar words over and over to see if he could find any magical crumbs of meaning in them. Good words in one way, painful words in another. Words that could change, his heart insisted. Words that seemed to have a road through them, leading places. There would be more early mornings together over coffee, long mornings that stretched into night. Words that one day might hold an ocean of meaning.

Her boyfriend seemed to be staring at him from the photos around the room. To hell with that guy. Exhaustion washed over him, but he couldn’t sleep. He was too big for the couch. The arm dug into his neck no matter how he shifted his weight. It was a hideous piece of furniture.

The initials on the camera bag appeared in his mind. Who was JF?

He gave up on sleep, clicked on a small book light he found on the desk, took the alien device out of his coat, and wondered if he should show it to her in the morning. The smooth silver device gleamed in his hand. It weighed as much as a rock.

Why did it have a hook, but no opening? Who made it and for what reason? What world was it from?

Better to keep it to himself until he discovered its purpose. He put everything away, turned off the book light, and watched her sleep.

Her brother was out there in the dark.

What if they couldn’t find him again?

Travis lay down. The arm on the couch bored into his neck. He got up again, moved the pillows around, parted the curtains to check the street, and went back to the couch. He listened for tiny sounds, a thump on the roof, a scratch across the window, but the house was quiet. Finally his eyes grew heavy. Fighting sleep, he noticed a spider on the wall. The spider moved with blind purpose, never changing its speed, but by the time it reached the window, he was dreaming.

In the dream he was in the dark bedroom, kissing Lexie. She slipped her arms around him and kissed him back. But a spider was in the room, and it wasn’t a spider, just pretending to be one. The pretend spider crept out with long legs, crawled up the wall and turned to him with one glaring eye.
You don’t know what I really am
, it seemed to mock. Its shape began to shift and swell and grew so large it ate up everything in the room, all the furniture, all the space, all the darkness, until there was nothing left but one enormous yellow eye.

The face of the flesh-eating giant pressed against the window.

Travis woke up with a terrified jolt, breathing hard. Moonlight slipped between the curtains. No monstrous giant was at the window, but the wind had blown away the clouds to reveal an enormous golden moon. The moon was so huge for a crazy moment he wondered if it had swung down out of the sky to peer in at him. Maybe the whole solar system had gone mad.

The numbers on the desk clock jumped to midnight. Shaken, he closed the curtains, remembering the creature’s demonic leap onto a rooftop the night before. How did he fall asleep with the curtains open? He must have disturbed them with all his tossing and turning.

“It doesn’t matter,” he told himself. “She doesn’t know where we live.”

W
ho took my equipment?
Tech 29 directed his thoughts toward his unwelcome visitor, but the man’s hostile outbursts had given way to dreams. The injured local rolled over on his side, eyes closed, arms and legs drifting in a sea of luminous blue. The local would sleep until the ship’s skin regenerated itself and shouldn’t remember anything when he woke up. Still, the alien felt bad about holding him.

I have no food
.
The crash jammed the supply doors. You can’t walk, and I can’t leave you outside, so you’re going to be my guest for a while
.

The local didn’t seem to hear the speech and slept on. The alien had a more immediate problem. He needed something to eat himself. The ship’s manual warned against local food and drink, but he was going to have to find something fast.

Lightheaded, Tech 29 climbed out of the hatch into weeds over his head and blinked his cluster of eyes in the sunlight. He sized up the black triangle, the only home he’d known in his adult life. He’d never been in a situation like this, cut off from the GAC, the ship down, cargo lost, nothing to eat or drink. Time to get on with it. He couldn’t stay and starve to death. He drew off enough energy for his personal camouflage and vanished with a shimmer under the trees.

The intruders must have stolen the tracker. They wouldn’t know what to do with it even if they managed to bring it to life. The consequences of the crash were spreading like a solar storm.

He found traces of the Elemental’s skin in a trail that headed through the clearing to the water, which meant the creature had mutated into a form that could climb rocks. It must have grown legs, an ominous development.

The alien waded into the creek. Golden leaves drifted over the tranquil banks. The falling leaves and cool air said winter was coming, but the transformation was beautiful. Whatever else this planet had in store for him, it was just as majestic on the surface as it had looked from space.

More traces of the Elemental’s skin showed up on the opposite bank along an overgrown path that wound away to the west. He stared into the woods. The creature had headed toward the city, as he’d thought it would. He would never be able to find it without the tracker once it adapted to a civilization with conflicting smells and thousands of hiding places.

Moments later, he came across fabric scraps lying under a thicket. He folded the scraps into the pack on his belt. Either a storm had blown them there by chance or the intruders had tried to mark the area. Now there was a faint chance he could sense them if he came across their path.

The Elemental’s trail followed the creek for miles and grew stronger around small burrows hidden in the underbrush near the water’s edge. Tech 29 knelt down by the trampled ground. No rustles, no heartbeats. The Elemental had probably sucked the creatures out of their holes.

Eventually the trail descended into the gorge, passed through the tall grass along the banks, and crossed the broad brown creek back and forth several times. The Elemental had pursued something else here. Traces of its skin in the woods said a struggle had taken place, but the messages on the ground were too old to decipher. Then the trail wound up a rugged slope behind an ornate stone building. The sounds of the city rumbled beyond the building’s walls.

The trail grew stronger here, and wider, suggesting the Elemental had gone in many directions over several days and returned to the same place.

Tech 29 stood at the edge of the woods, trying to decide where to go next, when he sensed something else: food. The tantalizing smells wafted through the trees. Starving and dehydrated, he crept across the grounds to a terrace with open glass doors.

Somebody’s home. An overweight local moved from a round table loaded with food to a large brown chair made of animal hide where he plopped down and stretched out his thick legs. Locals in bright uniforms sprinted across a huge screen. Nothing new there. Locals were in love with their screens and games all over the galaxy.

And the game made a good distraction.
I’m invisible. Go on. Be bold or be hungry
. Tech 29 slid the screen door back, slipped inside, and peered over the top of the table, but he was too short to reach the food with the incredible smell. He grabbed a shiny green cylinder and popped it open.

Some kind of fizzy liquid. Good enough.

The alien pulled off his mask and took a swig. His cluster of eyes bugged out. Amazed, he swigged the rest. Fabulous, the most delicious stuff in the universe. Seconds later, his insides erupted, gas shot out of his mouth, and he shrieked just as cheers erupted from the game.

“Keisha, the quesadillas are getting cold,” the male local called.

“Okay,” a female local called back from another room. “I just want to finish this post.”

“You’re missing the playoffs.”

“Two seconds.”

“Keisha, you better get off the internet.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Just get off my case.”

The male noticed Tech 29, slowly put his food down, and gripped the arm of the chair. His mouth fell open. More cheers and a roar from the crowd came from the game.

“There’s an alien in the dining room,” he said.

“Yeah, right.”

“There’s an alien from outer space in here and he’s trying to get the quesadillas.”

“Terrell, you’re so full of bull. You’re the king of bull.”

Still parched, stomach grumbling, Tech 29 grabbed another shiny green cylinder and a colorful bag from the table.

The male’s voice rose. “I’m telling you, there’s an alien in here. He’s three or four feet high with a big head and a bunch of eyes and he’s got a Mountain Dew. He just belched. Now he’s stealing the Doritos!”

Tech 29 couldn’t understand the local’s words, but he understood the meaning. His camouflage wasn’t working. He could sense the man’s excitement and greed. Somehow the local wanted to profit off him and one-up his wife for all time. The local crept around the table, hunched down with his arms spread wide, and angled in front of the door.

“Hey, little alien guy,” the local said. “You hungry? You want some ice cream? I got Rocky Road and Frosty Freeze, and it’s blue just like you. I got barbecue ribs and cold shrimp and potato salad and potato chips and lemon cake and cheesecake. You like those Doritos? Take some more. Take the whole bag. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll bring you a nice big bowl of ice cream.”

The local was going to grab his arm. Tech 29 skittered into the condominium, looking for a way out, but the dark hall didn’t feel like it connected to the outdoors. The local pounded after him. When the hall ended, the alien rushed into a narrow room with smooth blue tiles and slammed the door.

A key rattled in the knob.

“Okay, so where’s this famous alien?” the female said.

The male laughed. “I locked him in the bathroom.”

By the time Tech 29 crawled up the wall, ripped the screen, and leaped into the shrubbery below the window, he could hear them in the bathroom.

“I’m telling you, he ran in here,” the male shouted. “I’m telling you, I saw him.”

Tech 29 scrambled away from the building toward the woods. His camouflage was back, but he didn’t know for how long. The damage to the ship must have stopped the camouflage from working indoors. He slid down the steep slope, panting, splashed across the creek, and followed the Elemental’s trail for over a mile until the scent left the woods and disappeared in the dust of the streets.

He found himself on a broad boulevard lined with shops and tall buildings. Change the color of the sky to crimson or deep gold and it could have been a street on thousands of planets throughout the spiral arms. Traffic rumbled by. Nobody paid any attention to him, which meant his camouflage was working as long as he stayed outside. His stomach growled. Locals in a restaurant window dug into plates of food. More locals hurried with bulging bags of food out of a market. Surrounded by food and he was starving.

Then he noticed a street cart with a festive red awning and large letters on the side. He couldn’t read the words, but he could smell the wonderful food. He took a chance and turned off his camouflage in front of a parked car that screened him from the street.

The local in the cart gave a sheepish smile as though he was sure he was being had and looked around. “You a spaceman?” he finally asked. His uncertain smile grew bigger. He had beautiful white teeth and muscled forearms beneath rolled up blue sleeves and a white apron.

Tech 29 couldn’t understand the words, but he sensed their meaning.

“Where you from, spaceman? Me, from Chile. Long way from here. You hungry? Here, I’ll take care of you.” The local reached down with some food in a shiny silver wrapper.

The alien took one bite. A delicious brown tube inside soft bread with sweet green chips and tangy yellow paste. He felt his strength coming back.

“Hot dog. You like hot dog?” The local pointed to the sky. “You from up there, spaceman? Going back?”

Tech 29 sensed more about the local in front of him. The local was an immigrant. He’d come across the planet to this street corner to find a better way of life, but he’d traded a few rooms back home that he shared with eight brothers and sisters for a few rooms that he shared with five impoverished roommates. A dusty street for a dusty street. He owed money on the cart. Business was not as good as he’d thought it would be. Winter was coming, and customers were falling off, and he didn’t know how he would make his payments. He would lose everything if he lost the cart. The alien sensed his desperation.