Extreme Difference (26 page)

‘Good God, look at those hands,’ exclaimed Ben, pointing at the first figure, whose arms lay stretched out before him. ‘Sandy was right after all!’

The alien’s hand was twice the length of theirs, and the fingers were considerably shorter, but apart from that it bore no resemblance to a foot.

‘What do you think happened to them?’ Ben said quietly. ‘Can’t be old age, as all three snuffed it at the same time.’

‘What I think happened,’ Sandy began, speaking slowly so that he could have time to think, ‘is that this ship lost its way in the cloud or developed a fault, and tried to land here. Something went wrong, and the craft hit the sands outside and the whole thing skidded in under the lava overhang.

‘It looks as if these three had their necks broken by the impact when the front edge of the craft hit the solid rock of the cliff.

‘Even if a search craft was sent out, it would have difficulty in locating this one, tucked up under the overhang as it is. Only a ground search would find it, and they obviously didn’t do one of those.’ He felt pleased with his analysis of the situation, and he was getting better at it.

‘Do you think it has anything to do with the Great Lights?’ asked Greg, wondering if yet another mystery would now be cleared up.

‘Could well be.’ Sandy answered, looking around the control room, searching for anything which would help him determine what the vessel had been used for. ‘Let’s take a look at the rest of it.’ he added.

On the opposite side to which they had entered, another doorway beckoned and Sandy soon had it open. A short passage led to a flight of steps, and they cautiously went down them to another small room, which looked out onto a large area below. Row upon row of coffin like boxes lay in neat lines, transparent covers allowing the visitors full view of the gruesome contents.

‘Poor sods,’ muttered Sandy, ‘on their way to a new home, and never made it.’

‘You mean, we came like this?’ asked Ben, catching on quicker than Sandy thought he would.

‘Almost certainly, I know I did, although I don’t remember this part of the journey.’

‘What do you remember?’ Ben asked gently, aware he might be treading on dangerous ground.

‘I remember a ‘nothingness’, which is quite different to being asleep, and then falling and hitting the sand with a thump. Nan was there to help me up, and took me in to meet you lot. Bits of memory from my former life come back to me sometimes, especially when I’m trying to work something out. I know I've lived somewhere else, but I don’t know where at the moment.’

‘Look down there,’ Greg was peering out of the window of the despatch room, ‘there’s a clear space in the middle with a piece of machinery to one side of it. Do you think that’s what they used to throw us out?’

‘I don’t think they throw us out exactly, we’d break our bloody necks falling that distance. It’s probably some device which lowers us down, and then tips us out when we’re nearer the ground. That’s what it felt like to me.’

Ben found the door leading down to the storage room floor, but they were in two minds about going down to view the unfortunates who lay there.

‘We may as well,’ said Ben a last, ‘they can’t hurt us.’

As they walked up and down the rows of transport boxes, they noticed there were many different types of people entombed in their containers, some of which looked barely human. All their bodies had dehydrated to a mummified state, disguising their true likeness.

‘Look, here’s three like that bunch who tried to annihilate us,’ Greg called out, ‘just as well they didn’t join the others, or we may not have been able to get ’em all in the tunnel at the same time.’

They returned to the main control room, glad to be out of the morbid atmosphere of the holding store, and looked around for anything else which would add to their fast growing reservoir of knowledge. It was Ben who found the clinching detail which proved Sandy’s theory of what had happened to them all.

He had idly lent against the control console, and in doing so touched the activating button. A screen lit up showing a perfect outline of the crater, and around its edge were the various positions of the groups which inhabited it.

It was Greg who located their old home site in the crater, remembering the rocky promontory which jutted out into the sands, the only one he knew of in their area.

‘This certainly gives you a good idea of how big the crater is,’ said Sandy, ‘and it’s a damn sight bigger than I ever thought.’

They all stared at the illuminated crater map, and then Ben notice a series of small markings, one against each cave site.

‘I’ll bet if we compared those marks with the ones on the boxes down below, we’d know who was going where, if you see what I mean. There might have been some for us.’

‘There probably were, but it’s academic now, they all died long ago.’ Sandy had lost interest in what had passed, and plans for the future were already beginning to form.

‘I wonder if we could get this craft airborne again?’ he mused out loud.

A look of horror crossed the other five faces, finding the ship was enough, flying it was certainly not on the menu.

Sandy was a little surprised when he saw their faces, and decided to back track a bit quickly.

‘Just kidding men. I doubt this thing would ever fly again anyway, something must have failed to bring it down in the first place, and we certainly don’t have the know-how to repair it.’

They went to the exit door of the craft, and found the light outside had dropped to a point where they could hardly make out details of the distant desert, the ground below them being in complete darkness.

‘How do you feel about making camp in here for the night?’ asked Sandy, ‘it’ll be a lot safer than going outside.’

They all agreed, and soon a meal was laid out from the various containers each had brought.

‘Sure could do with one of Mop’s stews right now,’ Ben said, spitting out crumbs from one of Mop’s somewhat hardened grain buns, ‘damn good cook, that woman.’ Sandy grinned, he knew Ben was trying to make a point about something, but was unsure exactly what it was.

None of them felt tired after their meal, so they continued to explore the alien craft, finding doors which led them ever deeper into the workings of the vessel, but finding little they could understand, except Sandy, and he was saying nothing for the time being.

The three mummified figures were unceremoniously removed from their seats, allowing three of the team a reasonably comfortable sleeping place. Fortunately two of the team were a little squeamish about occupying the dead men’s last resting places, so they were quite happy to sleep on the floor of the control room. By next morning, they had changed their views, but a quick meal and the promise of going home cheered them up considerably.

The group left the alien ship under the lava ledge and headed out into the bright light of day. Sandy and Ben were a little reluctant to leave it behind before they could learn more about it, and Sandy fully intended to return as soon as possible.

They discussed what they had found as they walked along, Sandy being the only one to whom the implications of their discovery rang true to any great extent. Ben and Greg could see the logic of it all, but still found it difficult to accept.

Conversation dwindled somewhat as they struggled across the soft sand area, a wind adding to their difficulties as it whipped up the finer grains in a series of flurries, getting in their eyes and making breathing arduous. Ben suggested they make masks from some of the fine cloth they had acquired, if they ever came this way again.

Feeling greatly relieved when the sand gave way to the more compacted ground of the plain, they took a break. Greg removed his footwear to get rid of the sand, and found it had cut into his skin creating sores on his feet, and suggested that the others do likewise.

‘I wouldn’t have expected sand to have done this,’ Greg announced, carefully wiping the last few grains from the angry red patches, ‘the crater sand never cut into our feet.’

Sandy then had a close look at the raw places on his feet.

‘You’re right, it shouldn’t have done this, must be something different about it.’ He took a few grains from his crudely formed foot coverings, and examined them closely.

‘Looks like this sand is a lot sharper, the edges of the grains are like little knife edges as though whatever it came from has shattered instead of being worn down like normal sand.

‘We’ll have to take extra care when we come back, this stuff could cripple us if we’re not careful.’

The others exchanged glances, Ben being the only one who knew for certain Sandy’s intention to return.

‘Make sure you’ve got every little bit of this damn stuff out of your foot coverings,’ Sandy instructed, ‘we’ve a long way to go yet, and we can’t afford any delays with the water running low.’

Once they were under way again, the sore feet were soon forgotten and they returned to their normal marching pace, the kilometres speeding by.

They stopped for another break when they reached the fringes of the forested area, retrieving the huge nuts they had left where the forest spilled out onto the plain.

‘These should make a good addition to our diet.’ Sandy said, sharing out one of the broken nuts. ‘I didn’t notice any adverse effects when I tried it earlier, so it should be all right for the rest of you.’

‘You know, it reminds me of something,’ Ben said, chewing on the firm but succulent flesh of the nut, ‘but I'm damned if I can recall what.’

‘Know what you mean,’ one of the others replied, ‘pity we can’t get our memories back.’

I’m not so sure we can’t,’ Sandy said firmly, ‘I have recovered quite a lot, and I intend trying the same method on you lot, when we have time.’

They were about half way back between the forested area and their home valley, when Greg drew their attention to something large and dark, flying high in the sky above them.

‘I don’t like the look of that.’ he exclaimed.

‘It looks like a bird of some sort,’ Sandy said, and then had to explain to the others what a bird was, although Ben seemed to know after his furrowed brow relaxed a little.

The dark shape wheeled overhead, watching them.

‘I think it’s coming lower.’ Greg sounded nervous, and moved a little closer to the rest of the group.

Six pairs of eyes were hypnotically locked onto the ominous shape as it spiralled around, gradually losing height and getting bigger by the minute.

‘It’s difficult to tell just how large it is as there’s nothing to use as a reference point up there.’ Sandy was getting a bit edgy now, as with a twitch of its huge wings, the flying creature corrected its flight path to home in on the watchers below. ‘I think we’d better take cover, if we can find any,’ Sandy added, ‘it’s coming down quite quickly now.’

They turned as one, and ran for the rock strewn border along the cliffs, hoping to find a small cave or a pile of rocks in which to hide.

A deep whistling sound was just audible above their panting lungs as they reached the cliff face and scrambled in among the rocks, looking for a cavity large enough to hold them all.

‘This looks all right.’ Ben gasped, pointing to a small opening in the otherwise solid rock face. As they dived in, a small four legged furry creature shot out between Greg’s legs, bringing him down to his knees. Ben turned around, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him into the cave just as the whack whack of huge wings announced the arrival of the flying creature.

Sandy wriggled himself to the front of the petrified group, the laser weapon in his hand, and gingerly peered out of the cave. There was nothing to be seen except the nearby scattered rocks and never ending desert beyond, so he leaned out a little further. A metre long black curved beak slashed down from above, missing his head by millimetres and buried itself in the ground with a thud.

‘Bloody hell,’ Sandy exclaimed loudly, wriggling back into the sanctuary of the cave, ‘the bastard nearly got me.’

‘Shoot it,’ screamed Ben, who was next in line after Sandy should the beak reach into the cave.

Sandy took careful aim at the black scythe like mandible of the creature as it wriggled to free itself, and when the red dot showed clearly on the middle of the beak, pressed the firing stud a bit harder.

The faint hiss of the laser weapon was drowned out by a scream of pain and anger from the monster, accompanied by a loud crackling noise as the beak splintered into many fragments.

‘Give it another one,’ yelled Ben frantically, pushing Sandy forwards, ‘that won’t have killed it.’

‘I know,’ said Sandy calmly, ‘just wait a minute, and get back in. If we go out now, it could still get us, but if we wait it may move away, and then we’ll stand a better chance.’

They waited, huddled in the little cave, with barely enough room to move, not that they could move much as they were still paralysed with fear.

Sundry scratching and scraping noises drifted into the cave from time to time, but none dared stick their head out to see what was happening. Eventually the external noises died down, and Sandy drew his knife, using the polished blade as a mirror to see if the creature had moved far enough away for him to take another shot at it.

‘Can’t see anything,’ he said, ‘so I suppose it’s all right. I’ll crawl out a little way, and if things get hectic, grab my feet and pull me back in.’ First he poked this head out, looked around, and then quietly wriggled forward a metre or so, ‘Can’t see anything yet, but it could be hiding behind any of these large rock,’ he whispered huskily.

Sandy picked up a small stone and threw it at the nearest pile of rocks large enough to hide the creature. The stone rattled and clattered its way from rock to rock, but that was the only sound, and no ugly head reared up to see what was causing it.

‘I think it must have moved away,’ Sandy said cheerfully, hiding his inner fear, ‘you can come out now.’

One by one, the group emerged from the cave, each taking a good look around before exposing his body to possible attack, and straining Sandy’s patience almost to the limit in doing so, as he wanted to eliminate the possible threat to their survival and get back to the valley before nightfall.