Alien Alliance (30 page)

“What’s your name?” I’m Kaswa, he’s
Aswin.”

“I’m Stella, she’s Li.”

“How come her eyes are like that?”

“She’s Asian.”

“What’s Asian?”

“Same planet, different country.” Stella
wondered how that would translate and would it be accurate? Maybe
that was the misunderstanding. Maybe the Translator was wrong. It
had been programmed on Terra and on the flight here on the brief
visits of the linguists. They had been told that the more they used
the Translator, the more accurate it would become. The Translators
all updated once a day. But only when the power was on. They were
told they needed to plug them in overnight. They would update
first, then charge. The power was off. She wondered how long the
Translators would last. They must have batteries. She thought she
should be talking, getting Intel. But she was exhausted. Li was
quiet. Stella looked over. She was asleep. Li was one of those
lucky ones who could sleep at will. Stella was a chronic insomniac
like her mother. Good idea though. Stella yawned, then so did
Kaswa. They laughed, softly. Stella lay down. Far sooner than
usual, she went to sleep.

Kaswa reached over her and carefully turned
the Translator off. Aswin and he looked at each other and down at
the girls. Aswin was now lying down, Li held protectively in his
arms. He looked down at her in awe and said softly, “She’s so
beautiful. And look at her hair. It’s gorgeous, so long. She’s like
a midget but taller. I wonder if she will grow taller?” He sighed.
“I never thought I’d hold a girl in my arms again. She’s young too.
Do you think we’ve got a chance?”

“Aswin! We won’t live long enough to find
out! And she looks too young! She doesn’t act it though,” he added
puzzled looking at her. “Maybe she’s a tall midget? She definitely
isn’t a dwarf. But how could they send girls into a war zone? And
unescorted! This doesn’t make sense. And they don’t seem to mind
that we are naked. That’s weird. They didn’t even seem to notice!
And look what they’re wearing? Or not, in their case!”

They both looked at the two girls. Their
bodies were covered but most of their arms and legs were not. And
both had bare feet. Kaz had never seen bare feet on an adult jare
and never even on an adult woman. They had seen no women among the
Niseyen slaves. He stared with a slight sense of guilt at
inappropriate behaviour. Their feet were pretty, so perfect. So
were the girls. It was difficult not to stare and would be very
rude if they were awake. Why were they wearing so little and why
were they not embarrassed because of it? But a few weeks in a slave
locker had altered both their views, a little, on clothes! Kaswa
looked back at Stella. He could hope. She looked pretty good. Pity
about the bare skin. Carefully, furtively, he tightened the loose
fabric around her chest. The profile he sought was there. She was
old enough. She might be too young to have Chosen yet or
cautious.

Kaswa got up and paced restlessly around the
room. He carefully looked out the window. The search was continuing
through the city. The bodies were being removed at full speed. He
shuddered as he thought that there were very few other Niseyen
among the slaves. The girls could have been among those bodies.
Most other Races would have promptly killed them. Probably just
thrown them out the window alive. He shuddered again. All was quiet
and his bare feet made no sound. He came back and looked down at
Stella. She was curled up in a ball. Maybe she was cold. She wasn’t
wearing much! Maybe they’d lost their clothes or had them ruined in
the attack. Carefully, he lay down beside her and cuddled up next
to her. After a few minutes, she turned and snuggled into him in
her sleep. He looked up at his brother and they both smiled.
Eventually, they were all asleep.

Stella woke first with a familiar need. She
eased herself away from Kaswa but he woke up.

“Sorry,” she whispered. She wandered around
the building until she found what passed for a toilet here. Kaswa
had followed her. She closed the door on him and balanced over the
hole. The water was off here. No water, no paper. Yuk, she felt
filthy. Oh well couldn’t be helped. She walked out and Kaswa smiled
at her and walked in. He made a point of closing the door on her.
He was soon out again. She noticed he had brought the Translator
with him.

She said softly as they started back, “We
have to wait until it gets dark. My people will come back for us.
Will you be missed? Will they search for you?”

“Definitely not. They told us the food has
been poisoned so we can only survive if we go back to the ship.
It’s a very good way to ensure obedience.” He sounded bitter.

“How were you captured?”

“We took a risk we shouldn’t have. We are
both pilots. We were ferrying supplies to a war zone when the fight
ended and the side we were working for lost.”

“Was it your Race?”

“No, the Zeobani. We get on with them well
enough and it was well paid. All that’s lost now.”

Stella went back to Li. As she bent over
her, Aswin looked up. She shook Li awake. Sleepily, Li stretched
and looked startled as she realised Aswin was there snuggled into
her. Aswin rolled away and got up. Li looked at him and blushed.
She looked at Stella. Stella shrugged. “Get up. It’s nearly dark.
I’ll take you to the bathroom.”

A few minutes later, having checked that
there were no Aliens or planes in sight, they softly walked down
the ramp. It was dark by the time they got to the ground floor.
There were still some bodies lying around. The girls shuddered as
they walked through them. Li and Stella led the way to the sea. On
the way they discovered Donny and Mahmoud also on their way to the
sea. There was a joyful reunion.

Mahmoud said, “We had just started back to
tell you to get a move on but we forgot how fast daylight comes on
this planet and we didn’t know where you were. So we ran for it but
we were too late too. We’re sorry. We thought we’d lost you when we
saw the planes. We ran back into a building and hid. Wait till you
hear what we found! We…” He spotted Aswin and Kaswa, “Who’re
they?”

The girls introduced everyone. They
continued down towards the sea, Donny running forward as he spotted
the Priskya and saw another towing a boat. As the girls walked into
the sea, Aswin and Kaswa came to an abrupt stop as the Priskya came
swimming up.

“What’s wrong?” asked Stella as they both
leaped back. In the moonlight, their fear and loathing was evident.
“It’s OK, these are the Priskya. They own this world.”

“But they didn’t develop it,” added Donny,
“The Ridianit did.”

“What’s wrong?” She repeated.

“On our planet, things like that pull us
under the water, drown us and eat us.”

“Oh. Well we have some fish on our planet
that do that too but the Priskya are intelligent, very nice and the
reason most of us are still alive. They’re helping us.”

“And these Terrans have helped us too. They
saved most of us that were in the city. They didn’t know they were
saving themselves as well.” Aswin and Kaswa looked startled to hear
the fish speaking.

It took considerable time and effort to get
Aswin and Kaswa into the boat. They didn’t like water. They hated
getting wet. It took ages to get dry. They would be cold all night.
This was unnatural. They didn’t trust water. They didn’t trust what
was in the water. They didn’t trust boats. There were no floatation
coats. They would drown. They would fall out and get eaten.

Finally Li said, “Were going. Suit
yourselves.” She got into the boat. Donny and Mahmoud followed.
Stella looked back at them, then she got in too. Aswin was in agony
but he couldn’t bear to be parted from Li. He struggled clumsily
in, dragged into the boat by the others. He cowered, miserable, in
the bottom of the boat. Kaswa followed, desperate not to be parted
from Stella and his brother. The two refused to get up onto the
plank like seats. They huddled in the middle of the boat, their
backsides in water. Li got down beside Aswin and hugged him.

Mahmoud laughed, “Two wet Wookies.” Everyone
laughed except the Wookies who failed to get the joke. On the way,
the girls told their story. Donny, busting to get his story out
then said,

“We found Helkmid and his staff! They were
hiding behind a false wall. They built it years ago just in case
something like this happened. They had disconnected the
ventilators. They even had a spy hole. One of Helkmid’s staff saw
me and they opened the panel and let us in. Boy, were we pleased to
see them! They’re going to join us but not on the water. They say
the city should be vacated soon and then abandoned. Then it will be
safe for them to come out. Helkmid thinks he may know how to get
the power back on too. He says the invaders have been turning it on
and off. The Healing Machines have back up batteries. Helkmid says
there isn’t much they can do at the moment but there is enough
power to treat Alan unless someone else is injured. He wants me to
fetch Alan and bring him straight back!”

The Priskya towed them to the biggest boat
where Stella’s mother Kelly and the Nedri’s, had spent the day in
agony. There was a joyful reunion and lots of tears as they were
helped on board. It was a minute or two before the foursome
remembered their guests. They were then carefully helped on
board.

Kaswa and Aswin looked curiously around
their fear easing. This bigger boat wasn’t so bad. At least it
didn’t rock so much. But some of these People were also wearing
hardly anything though most were decently clad. Some of them were
soaking wet! There were more women than men. And so many different
colours! Where were these people from? Why were so many of them so
small? Such small adults, yet some of the children were bigger than
the adults and looked like they would reach normal size. And all
were jare. Why?

Stella asked for Mathew but he was somewhere
else. She pulled Dan aside and said, “Get Mathew. These two are
part of the invading force. They have switched sides. And they say
they are Human.” Dan looked startled but headed off to find
Mathew.

“Mum,” she said grabbing both of them and
pulling them forward, “They say they are Human. Can you check that?
They saved our lives,” she added. Kelly looked at them.

Aswin was still wearing the Translator Li
had given him. Embarrassed he said, “Could someone please get us
some clothes.” It wasn’t what anyone expected to hear first. But
now that people looked, his discomfort was obvious in his posture.
Obligingly, someone found some clothes. The two got dressed with
great relief. Unconsciously, both of them now stood taller. Ever
observant, Kelly noticed. She also noticed they immediately looked
Human if you didn’t notice their neck, feet and the backs of their
hands.

“Would you like to come with me. Who’s
who?”

“I’m Aswin, he’s Kaswa.”

The two followed her and Bert into the
surgery. Kelly and Bert had a quick discussion then Kelly took
Aswin and Bert took Kaswa.

“Thank you for not killing my daughters,”
said Kelly. “They mean everything to me.”

Aswin looked horrified. “We didn’t kill
anyone,” he said. “The gas did. We didn’t expect anyone to be
alive. Apart from those in the conference hall, no one thought to
disconnect the ventilators. The filters aren’t designed to keep the
gas out. They aren’t programmed to. All the bodies we found were
dead. But many hid and died as they inhaled the gas. So we had to
search for them. I got a heck of a shock when I saw Li was alive.
Then Kaswa saw another one and hauled Stella out. He didn’t expect
her to be alive either. We thought they must have been immune until
Stella said they had been away from the city earlier and had run
away from the conference hall. We wouldn’t have killed anyone and
especially not our own race. We didn’t find anyone else alive in
that building. Not after they killed the ones in the hall.”

Kelly decided first things first and
subjected Aswin to as thorough an examination as she could manage.
Bert studied the physiology of Kaswa while Kelly checked out the
social, psychology and linguistic side of Aswin. While they were
busy, Mathew came in with Dan. Aswin and Kaswa looked as if they
had never seen anyone who looked like Dan. Kelly noticed.

“Have you never seen a black Human?’

“No, nor anyone with brown hair and blue
eyes like yours. We do have some with white fur, pink skin and blue
or pink eyes.”

“The pink eyed ones are albinos. We have
some too. But very few albino-looking but with blue eyes. Though I
have seen two.”

Mathew walked in. “Have you found any
indications that they are Human?”

“Other way around,” said Kelly. “We haven’t
found any indications that they aren’t.”

“But they don’t look Human. Not with all
that fur. I’ve never seen Humans that look like them.”

“It’s hair not fur and I have.”

“So have I,” said Bert.

“But they don’t look Human.” said Mathew
stubbornly.

“Mathew,” said Kelly, exasperated at his
concrete thinking, “If these two came to see me on Earth, I would
not consider they weren’t Human. People who look like them just
wear clothes and shave exposed areas or use lasers to get rid of
hair on their faces. Or they join a circus. You must have heard of
the bearded ladies and children in Barnham and Bailey’s Circus. I
wonder if their bodies were hairy too though I could be wrong. This
isn’t a mutation; it’s a throwback. As Aswin has been telling me,
this makes perfect sense. Anyway scram for a few minutes so we can
finish. Then we’ll give you a report.”

A while later, Kelly, Bert, Aswin and Kaswa
emerged to find almost everyone outside, highly curious, waiting
for a report also.

Kelly started. “Aswin and Kaswa say they are
considered normal for their race and age. Compared to Humans, their
height, circumference, and weight are within normal human range,
although they are tall. Blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration
rate are normal. Their body temperature is almost two degrees lower
than our average but only just under low normal. This makes sense.
On a frozen world, the body needs to put less effort into staying
warm.”