Authors: Maxine Millar
Alien Alliance (22 page)
Stella was thinking hard. “The zoo is on the
far side of the city and the animals the Priskya most want to know
about are over by those really screeching exotic birds. How about
if just Li and I go? We could look for some of the big plastic-like
bags and put them over us if the planes come. But we wont be
anywhere near the people in the city.”
“Some of us tried twice to get back into the
city yesterday to try to find our people. Both lots got gassed,”
said Sarah. They’re dead!”
“But we’re not going into the city. The
Priskya could tow us and we’ll stay real low.”
After a lot of discussion, Mathew won the
day. “These kids were in the city last night and weren’t attacked.
Maybe because it was night. Maybe because they are a bit smaller.
No one else here knows the zoo like these two. And I think they
should go but stay out of the city. I would not recommend going
into the city to look for anything. Land at the side of the zoo
furthest away from the city.”
Sarah held back what she wanted to say. She
felt disloyal to Kelly and the girls and that this was wrong. But
Mathew kept insisting every person had to be involved if they were
to survive this. And their chances were abysmal. He said he was an
expert and he did seem to know what he was saying. One person had
to be the military leader. It was not her forte. Reluctantly, Sarah
resolved to leave the military decisions to Mathew and back him.
All their lives were at stake here. She would take a back seat and
let him lead.
Stella and Li were a little stunned,
especially Stella. They hadn’t expected to be allowed to go. But Li
was determined. “We have to go,” she hissed. “It’s the most likely
place for Mum to be.”
“Oh. Good point. Now lets get out of here
before my mother stops us!”
Quickly, before Kelly found out, Li and
Stella left, towed by one Priskya each. They stayed as low in the
water as possible. As they got fairly near to the shore, they let
go and told the Priskya they would swim. They swam most of the way
underwater. They kept going until they found some trees by the
water so they could sneak out under cover but it then took nearly
an hour to get to the zoo. Li had been thinking hard.
“We need to let all the smaller and non
dangerous animals out first and try and scare them away. Then let
the carnivores out last, smallest to largest.”
“OK.”
But first, they ran around the zoo looking
for Li’s Mum. There were bodies everywhere and some Humans but not
Dr. Chieng.
They split up and both worked separately as
fast as they could opening cages and pens. They also kept looking.
They passed the tanks and pools with regret. They could do nothing
for them. Anything that lived under water was safe from the gas but
would starve to death. Another problem was that many of the
released creatures wouldn’t come out and they wasted a lot of time
shooing them out. They then closed the cages behind them. They kept
searching for Dr. Chieng but she was nowhere to be seen.
“What’s going to become of the animals,”
worried Li. “There are all these exotic species here too including
a lot of birds. Will they starve to death?”
“I don’t know. There are no native birds on
this planet. What will they eat? The lizards should be OK and there
are a lot of them.”
Finally, there were just the carnivores
left. They stood and looked at them.
“How are we going to do this,” Stella asked.
“Is it my imagination or do they look hungry? I don’t want to be
lunch.”
They studied the creatures. They had dark
purplish fur, four legs and two smaller limbs that might be arms or
legs. They were large, about the size of a small polar bear but
thinner and shaped more like a tiger but not quite. And with no
visible ears. They did have long tails though. Their eyes were
violet and very alert. Their heads were large. So were their teeth.
There were seven of them in one very large enclosure. They were all
very close, on the other side of the clear perspex-like cage
wall.
“Why are they all looking at us?” asked
Li.
“Could we feed them, open the cage and run
away while they’re eating?” asked Stella.
“Brilliant idea!” said Li, “and that will
give these idiots more time to get away.” Many of the released
creatures still didn’t seem to know where to go and were milling
around. The girls ran off to where goop like food supply tanks were
and pulled the lever. They ran back to the cages. No goop. They ran
back to the levers, puzzled.
Looking around the lock Stella noticed some
wires. “Are these electric?” She asked.
“Oh God. I think you’re right. The power is
out. Now what?”
They worked at the lever but could find no
way to get the goop out.
“Now what?” said Stella.
They walked all the way back to the cage and
looked at the animals.
“We promised,” said Li. “This species will
die out if we don’t. Mum said they think there are only these seven
left on this continent. None others have been seen for years.”
They looked at each other. Li looked at
Stella, then struggled to open the gate manually. Between them they
managed. Li opened it a crack, then they ran full speed back to the
control room and slammed the door. They looked at each other, then
out the windows.
“What if they wait outside for us? Can they
climb? Can they run faster than us.”
“Yes and yes,” answered Li.
“Are there any weapons here?
“Yes there are but I don’t know where or
what they’d look like or how to use them.” She stopped and looked
at Stella who was laughing at her.
“What’s so funny?”
“We saw weapons on those entertainment films
for kids they showed the little ones! And how they worked! In that
museum, remember?”
Li looked sheepish. They searched the
control room and nearby offices and forced open some cupboards.
Nothing. They looked around thinking.
“Weapons would be well hidden or well locked
up.” Stella looked around. She saw a lock on a large cupboard that
looked like a cage lock. She opened it. The cupboard was full of
weapons! She looked at Li. “All the locks were electric! I bet if
the power was on we wouldn’t have been able to open the cages. Of
course!”
“These are the stunners!” yelled Li. “And
these are gas weapons,” she kept looking and grabbed, “gas masks!”
Li held them up in triumph.
Now well equipped, they felt invincible.
They walked out, very carefully, through the zoo towards the sea
walking almost back to back. There was one of the large carnivores
in the distance. It walked towards them.
“Go away. We don’t want to hurt you.
Scram.”
“Get away from the city, well away. Go into
the hills. Stay away from People and the gas. It’ll kill you. You
have to live. We think you are the last of your kind,” added Li.
“Stay away from us too cos you frighten us and some of us might
kill you.”
Like Li, Stella had been watching the beast
in front. She suddenly had a bad feeling and turned around as one
of the beasts landed on her back, flattening her. She screamed.
Li swung around with her weapon but another
beast they hadn’t seen leaped onto her. Terrified, she looked up at
it. It knocked the weapons away from her. She looked up into the
rather ugly face and cringed. A funny feeling of a mix of disgust,
and amusement flittered through her mind. Also a smugness, a ‘got
you that time’ sort of feeling. It seemed external; not her thought
at all. She looked across at Stella. A peculiar look was on
Stella’s face. The beasts on both of them pulled back and sat down.
Stella and Li were too scared to move a muscle except for their
eyes. The other four beasts were ambling towards them. They too sat
down.
All of them looked at each other. Several
minutes passed. Very slowly, Stella sat up. None of the creatures
moved a muscle. But she could swear the animals were amused! Li sat
up. No reaction. One of the beasts held out a paw towards Stella.
She looked at it. The paw opened showing five fat fingers plus an
opposable thumb. Open, the paw was large and circular. If there
were claws, they were sheathed.
Tentatively, she reached out her hand and
touched the paw. Images and feelings flowed into her mind. ‘Smug’,
‘gotcha’, ‘I like you’, ‘you good,’ ‘you smart/not smart’, ‘ugly’,
were some of the ones she could put a name to. Images also that
astonished her; the creature assured her it (she) was very grateful
to be released, she acknowledged Stella had released her despite
fearing for her own self; a flurry of images, not words, before
words, behind words, words came after the image, words were a poor
attempt to explain the image! Yes, she’d got it right. She felt the
agreement, also words were inadequate, pathetic communication?!
Yes, that was what was meant. Silly way to communicate. Not
accurate, words can be imprecise and can mislead, images can’t. Yes
she’d got that right, that’s what she meant, the creature was
criticizing Human communication. Why? Again came the images, this
time slow and patient.
Stella’s thoughts were an image, translated
into a word(s), then spoken. The words were strung together like
picking up a lot of objects and putting then in a particular order.
Then saying them. But this process lacked speed, accuracy and
clarity because the symbols or images had to be translated into
less precise, less accurate speech, for someone else to understand
them.
The creature wanted to know why Humans used
language instead of images.
intelligent?>
can’t use Translators. They killed so many of us (Anger,
Bafflement), but most of us survived and went underground where
they didn’t programme their scanners to find us. (Disgust, Stupid
Aliens. What a cowardly way to hunt. No honour.). We made sure we
disappeared gradually so they wouldn’t be suspicious. (Idiots; all
that technology and no brains to use it correctly). We’re like you
in that we can live underground or up trees and can swim but only
if we have to. We don’t like water but we can swim and we adapt. So
can you. Now we know we can also talk to you. That is rare. I heard
what your sister was saying, and what you were saying. But you
couldn’t hear us.>
scanners to find a specific type of life not just any life. Because
they are lazy. Because it is much slower to do it properly and
check each type of contact. If they programmed them correctly they
would then have to sort out the life signs to determine which is
which. They can’t be bothered. So they never found us.>
as the Priskya. Never as many as them.>
An image or teeth and claws; so they did
have claws!
Stella turned and looked at Li who was
talking to another one. “Are you getting all of this?”
“Yes.” she giggled, “What’s Mathew going to
say when we turn up with weapons, stunners, gas masks and a few
million allies?”
“Not a bad day’s work.” Stella replied.
On the way back to the boats, Stella and Li,
separately, tried to talk to the Priskya about the creatures they
had seen and talked to but the Priskya would not discuss them and
asked that they not tell the others. They begged the girls not to
tell. Both Priskya were clearly very uncomfortable. The weapons had
been stashed under the trees near where the girls had gone into the
water. The girls were towed back to a furious Kelly. The Priskya
wisely scrammed.
After several minutes of a spectacular and
loud tirade from Kelly, the girls were rescued by the arrival of
Mathew, Sarah, Dan and Alan. Mathew was amused at the situation. He
did look a little abashed when Kelly turned her attention to him
but a few words she normally reserved for Mathew were very
conspicuous by their absence. Both girls noticed. Kelly was mad at
the risk and the fact she hadn’t been told. Mathew reasonably
pointed out the girls were the best qualified to go and she would
have tried to prevent their going. He apologized but added if she
kept reacting like this he would have to do the same again. The
wind blew straight out of Kelly’s sails. Mathew, being open,
reasonable, logical and dealing with human emotion. He was also
right. It was like the man had gone under the water and come up a
different person.
In a sense, he had. Mathew felt like his
whole life had led to this point. This was his time. His moment. He
had never felt so alive, especially now that he could breathe
again! For the first time in his adult life, he cared what others
thought and was doing his best to include everyone and mould them
into a cohesive force every way he could. His only choice was to
use everything he had to win. Nothing and no one was going to
restrict this. Kelly rounded again on the girls.
“Next time he asks you to go on a suicidal
mission you come to me!”
Stella looked at her mother. “Mum we are at
war. All of us. We have to use everyone. If our General gives me an
order and I go running to my mother first, the chain of command
will be busted. We completed our mission. Besides, we found gas
masks, gas weapons and other weapons in the zoo. We hid them.”
