Space Rocks! (6 page)

Y
es, we Xotonians have a stink-gland. Just like our camouflage, at some point in the distant past it must have evolved as a natural defense mechanism against predators. These days we mostly use it to clear out parties that have gone on too long.

I only discharged a little. At first, I worried that humans lacked the olfactory sensitivity to notice. If the condition of their footwear—the rubbery coverings that all four had kicked off upon entering the room—was any indication, they had a much weaker sense of smell than Xotonians.

But soon the odor wafted toward them. First Little Gus crinkled his nose. Then they all began to retch and gag and cover their faces and shout. They pointed at one another in accusation.

But my plan worked. They all cleared out of the room, each believing one of the others responsible for the stench.

Now was my chance. Quietly, I slid the grate from the wall and crept out into the empty, darkened chamber. As I made my way toward the exit, something caught my third and fourth eyes.

The box of sticky-sweet bars was right where I had left it. Surely I had time for just one more. This might be my last chance ever. . . .

I plunged my thol'graz into the box and pulled out a bar. I quickly unwrapped it—by now I was an expert at unwrapping them—and took another sublime bite. Outside, I heard someone coming.

I managed to scramble back into the vent and replace the grate just in time.

It was Hollins. He'd tied a red cloth over his nose to block the smell. He plopped back down on the couch and continued to watch the screen.

Becky followed him, aggressively spraying some sort of cloyingly sweet gas from a pink metal canister—an artificial counter-stink. To me, it smelled even worse than anything I had secreted. But Becky evidently found it preferable.

Next Nicki entered carrying a small motorized fan that she kept pointed right at her face. She went to the wall and fiddled with a console. A strong gust of air blew from the vent behind me. She had adjusted the pod's life-support system to increase ventilation.

Finally, Little Gus came bounding back in. He was now wearing the transparent helmet of his spacesuit over his normal clothes and breathing his own air supply. He settled on the couch beside the others.

The humans had effectively stink-proofed the room. So much for my not-so-brilliant plan. I needed another option.

Perhaps I could follow the ventilation system to a different grate and exit from there? I turned and headed deeper into the duct. The airflow grew stronger with each meter I walked. Soon, I came to a massive spinning fan blade covered in a sturdy metal grate. It completely blocked my path. I turned back.

Only ten minutes left until the quake. Why hadn't I left when I had the chance? Why had I even come here in the first place?

I watched the screen helplessly from behind the grate. Now it showed a completely different scenario: A human male and female bickered over the preparation of an elaborate feast. Every few seconds there was a loud burst of ghostly, disembodied laughter (that neither the man nor the woman seemed to notice!). Somehow this was even more disturbing than the previous broadcast.

Just then, there was another one of the short interrupting transmissions. New footage, at an increased sound volume, showed several grinning juvenile humans running around and playing outside on Eo. They laughed in a strange, artificial way. Now they were eating something. It was the sweet pink bars! One of the on-screen children held up the box and said, “Feeney's Original Astronaut Ice Cream.”

That was why I hadn't exited the craft: those accursed, delicious pink bars. They had entranced me with their sugary magic. While the pod was empty, I'd wasted several seconds trying to get another sweet, sweet fix. I shook my head ruefully at the box, still clutched in my thol'graz.

“Curse you, Feeney's Original Astronaut Ice Cream,” I said under my breath.

Wait. I was still holding the box. Why was I still holding the box? In my panic, I had accidentally brought it with me into the grate! On a day full of mistakes and miscalculations, this was my greatest.

Now the juveniles were up from the couch. They were looking for something. Of course they were. The console had reminded them that they had a box of Feeney's Original Astronaut Ice Cream bars lying around in the pod somewhere. Why wouldn't they want to eat them?

They searched under furniture, behind electronic equipment, on top of shelves. Nicki held up a shiny discarded wrapper. Hollins held up another. I'd left a trail right back to my hiding place.

Kalac often said that I lacked common sense. At that moment, it would have been hard to argue.

Becky picked up the last wrapper, right outside the vent. I was frozen in terror. I dared not move for fear of making a sound.

She turned to look at the others; then she pulled the vent aside. The humans found me hiding inside their ventilation system. All four stared in silence, mouths hanging open.

First contact. Two intelligent species, human and Xotonian, meeting one another in the infinite void of the cosmos, against all odds. If the circumstances had been different, I might have commemorated this historic occasion in some way. A moving speech, say, or maybe just a simple gesture of peace between our two peoples.

Instead, I discharged my stink gland. And this time I discharged all the stink I had left, right in Becky's face.

As she shrieked and tumbled backward, I somersaulted over her.

“Stop!” cried Hollins, and he dove at me. I sprang high into the air, and he crashed into the green table, taking it down.

At the height of my jump, I grabbed onto a light fixture on the ceiling and clung there.

Little Gus took a running go off the couch and leaped, straining to reach me. But his jump wasn't quite high enough. Or maybe he just wasn't tall enough. Either way, he crash-landed right on top of Hollins, who had just managed to get back on his feet. Somewhere Becky was still screaming.

Just as I'd feared, the second they'd seen me, these humans wanted to kill me!

I dropped to the floor and ran hard for the door. My path was clear now. I was going to make it.

At the last possible instant, Nicki reached in from the side and slammed her fist on a button beside the door. As I hurtled toward it, I never heard the expected hiss of automatic opening. She had locked it.

I slammed hard into the door, face first, and slowly slid down to the floor.

As I lay there, losing consciousness, a strange jolt ran through me. For a single instant, I felt that an energy of unimaginable power had just been unleashed . . . somewhere nearby. It crackled on my skin and flowed through my body and even into the spaces between my molecules.

The next instant it was gone, and the whole world began to shake.

All was black.

I
awoke with a powerful face-ache. My bones were still rattling. Or maybe everything but my bones was rattling?

I blinked. Four human faces blinked back at me. They were talking to each other in hushed and fearful tones.

I shrieked in panic, and they all jumped back. I struggled hard, but something held me fast. While I was unconscious, the humans had apparently tied me up with some sort of strong plastic rope.

What were they going to do? Torture me? Kill me? Eat me?

Hollins was talking to me now. He was saying something in human about “alien” and “prisoner” and “no escape.” I strained to understand. He brandished one of the rubbery red paddles from the green table and tried to keep his voice steady.

My thoughts were still fuzzy. Everything around me seemed to be shaking. Loose objects were skittering around the room and falling from shelves. Even the human children seemed to struggle to stay on their feet.

That's when it dawned on me: the asteroid-quake had already begun. Somewhere, under the surface, Kalac and the others had fired the Q-sik. They had vaporized the solid rock that supported the ground beneath us. Now caverns and tunnels below were collapsing.

“Us need go,” I said in words that I thought were human, in a tone that I thought was reassuring. Apparently not. All the humans jumped back again. Hearing me try to speak their language seemed to terrify them even more than me screaming.

“Asteroid-quake,” I said, again in human. Was “asteroid-quake” even a word in their language?

Then a new voice came from . . . nowhere. It was loud and female. It carried no inflection, so it was easier for me to follow. “Warning. Hazardous seismic event detected. Moderate damage to outer hull has occurred,” it said. “Automatic takeoff procedures initiated.”

The starship's sensors had realized that the asteroid-quake was happening. This had triggered some sort of preprogrammed launch sequence that would carry the ship to the safety of space.

Good, I thought, that means the humans won't be hurt. They'll be in space before the ship is crushed or swallowed by the ground. It took my addled brain another half second to realize that I would be going to space with them.

“Please. Chorkle go. Chorkle go,” I pleaded in human. Nicki stared at me. After a moment, she made a slow move toward me. Hollins stopped her. The humans all looked as confused and afraid as I was. Apparently they'd never been through “automated takeoff procedures” before either.

In addition to the asteroid-quake, I now felt the mechanical rumblings of the ship preparing for launch. Its inner workings began to churn and shift behind the walls. Out the viewports, the scenery of Gelo began to slide sideways. The whole pod was now rolling, further inhibiting anyone's ability to stand upright. Little Gus fell backward onto the box of Feeney's Original Astronaut Ice Cream.

I guessed that the mothership was retracting all her pods inward—and collapsing their connecting flexible tubes—before she blasted off.

Becky ran out the door of the room. She returned shortly. I gathered from her rapid report that the pod's access to the mothership had been restricted for takeoff.

“Please take your seats,” said the always calm voice of the ship. “Make sure your seat belts are securely fastened low and tight around your waist.”

Just then the tele-visual screen blinked to life. It was an adult male and female, huddled into the frame.

The young humans crowded in front of the screen, and everyone began talking at once. The adults looked frightened, but they were telling the young humans not to worry. Everything was going to be okay.

The young humans kept interrupting. They were trying to tell the adults that there was an alien—seriously, a real, live alien—inside the pod. Were they talking about me?

The adults were confused. At last Hollins physically rotated the screen so that it pointed right at me. A new shade of terror spread across the adults' faces as they saw me. I wriggled uncomfortably on the floor.

Then the tele-visual screen flickered. It was now showing a video about procedures in the event of a crash; oddly placid people folded their heads toward their knees. Nicki punched the remote frantically. Becky banged on the side of the screen. It was no use—they couldn't get it back to the adults.

“Launch sequence in twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight . . . twenty-seven . . .” the computer voice said. Outside, I could see the surface of the asteroid roiling and shaking like water in the quake.

“Chorkle go,” I said faintly.

The juvenile humans looked at one another. At last, they all sat down on seats that folded out of the wall. They securely fastened their seat belts.

“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

There was a blinding light and a sound like a hundred stars exploding at once. I felt myself getting heavier, crushed into the metal floor of the chamber by some invisible force. It was hard to breathe. It was even harder to think.

I turned to look at the humans. All their eyes were closed tight, and their skin sagged. Tears streamed down Little Gus's face. Outside, the surface of the asteroid fell away in a cloud of fire.

“Warning! Warning! Class G foreign organic matter detected in pod sixteen,” said the ship's computer. Her voice was barely audible over the launch. “Quarantine protocol executed. Pod sixteen . . . ejected.”

There was a new sound now, a loud pressurized rip. Suddenly I wasn't heavy anymore. In fact, I weighed nothing at all.

For a few beautiful moments, I floated weightlessly through the air. A pristinely wrapped bar of Feeney's Original Astronaut Ice Cream slowly twirled past my face, a fellow traveler on the same fantastic voyage. I tried to grab it, but I was apparently tied up. When had that happened?

Through the viewport outside, I saw the human mothership shrinking away into space. She was trailing fire like a comet. Goodbye, human mothership!

The surface of Gelo was growing now. Familiar craters and canyons were rushing right toward the pod. Hello, asteroid!

“Brace for impact,” said the ship's computer. Wow, I completely understood that, I thought. My human language skills certainly were improving.

And then I smashed hard into the wall, which for some reason was also the ground.

So that's why you need a seat belt, I thought.

And for the second time that day, I lost consciousness.