Red the First (17 page)

“
Whoah!” Nate cried out, his
own weapon torn from his fingers. Both men watched it whisk toward
the retractor plate. It gave a dull clang when it hit
metal.

Red clutched his own gun with both
hands. Even when the force dragged him along the ditch bed, and up
the steep bank, he refused to let go. No, it wasn’t a rational
thing to do, but since there was no chance of outrunning these
alien thugs, at least the gun would give him the chance to die
fighting.

Nate grabbed hold of Red’s ankles. “Let
go, Bossman!”

The gun floated five feet in the air,
with Red hanging onto it like a zip-line. When the aliens were a
few feet away, he squeezed the trigger. The spray of bullets shot
up at the two Celeruns patrolling the bank, but the gun stopped
firing before he’d released the trigger.
Out of
bullets—damn.
He let go of the gun and landed on the slope of
the drainage ditch. The gun hit the retractor with a thud. Red
found his footing as he came face-to-face with the Celerun holding
the retractor plate.

“
Get off of our planet!” he
ordered.

Celeruns wrestled him and Nate to the
ground, their resistance laughably ineffective. In less than ten
seconds, his hands were bound in front of him with some kind of
stretchy cord.

Nate said, “Shoulda let
go.”

Chapter 17

The Celeruns forced Red and Nate to
walk across the highway, through a field, over a county road, and
into another field. This one was harrowed into the finest dirt he’d
ever seen. Neatly plowed furrows, ready for planting, disappeared
over the crest of the hill and off to the horizon. His countdown
watch showed the time as 9 p.m.

The shortest alien among them was a
head taller than Red. There were no nipples on their chests or any
sign of belly buttons. Wide at the shoulder, narrow at the hip, the
only clothing these particular Celeruns wore was utilitarian—arm
bands, leg bands, and belts—used to hold impressive gadgets with
blinking LEDs. He still wasn’t sure if they were male or female.
Hell, maybe they were genderless. Was that even
possible?

“
They’re big dudes, aren’t
they?” Nate commented. “And what’s with their hair?”

He pointed to a Celerun with a head
full of black almonds—that’s the only way Red could describe the
weird bumps. From the tip of each almond, a fuzzy white wisp of
hair sprouted like a firework frozen in space. From a distance, her
head reminded him very much of a dandelion gone to seed. Another
one had a thick mop of yellow at the crown. Some of them had bald
heads that looked like green golf balls covered with
divots.

A Celerun with yellow hair spoke.
Without a translator between them, the alien sounded like a
squeaking hinge, with a few drawn-out tongue rolls, and clicks. He
hadn’t a clue what she was saying. He twisted his wrists to free
himself, but the bindings clung like spider webs.

“
What do they want with us?”
Nate asked.

Red realized that he had made a mistake
in going toward the bunker. Traveling in the opposite direction
would have confused the aliens and led them away from the rest of
Hewego, but that would have meant certain death for both him and
Nate. “My guess is they want us to lead them to the
others.”

“
I hope they made it to
the...”

“
Shhh!” Red chastised.
“Don’t say anything we don’t want them to know. They’re probably
translating everything we say.”

“
They can do
that?”

“
In a heartbeat.”

“
How do you
know?”

“
This isn’t the first time
I’ve tangled with the Celeruns.”

Nate’s eyes widened. He looked
impressed. “Whoa.” His eyes got even bigger as he lifted his bound
hands to point straight ahead. “When did that get here?”

A gleaming sphere made of metal grids
and green, slightly iridescent glass, came into sight. It looked
like a twelve-story high, glittering Christmas ornament.
Apparently, the Celeruns were already making themselves at
home.

The force of his resentment took him by
surprise. How dare they violate Earth with Celerun architecture! It
was as if each pore of Red’s body was crying out for retribution.
He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.

The aliens forced Red and Nate to sit
on the ground just outside the round building.

Humans separated from their guns
weren’t much of a threat to the aliens, so Red and Nate were all
but ignored. He listened as the aliens held a discussion amongst
themselves. The tone was urgent, but the words were indecipherable.
Elizabeth would be useful to have around about now.

A weird non-Celerun creature, as big as
a man, with skin as white as virgin snow, scurried over the sphere
like a like a four-legged spider, busily wiping it clean with an
advanced-looking squeegee. Nate’s mouth still gaped. He was looking
around, eyes wide as he watched its every move. If Red hadn’t had
time to absorb the idea of aliens in their midst, he’d probably be
wearing the same bewildered expression.

Now that he was so close to the
Celeruns, Red was able to study them in detail. They had three
fingers and two opposable thumbs. The general had said they were
half plant, half animal, and it certainly looked that way to him.
Their fingernails looked like woody thorns. The surface of their
skin looked like ribbed celery. Each of their irises were layered
like a rose in bloom. In a way, they were beautiful and gruesome at
the same time.

Occasionally one of the aliens would
point a digit at him, making squeaking and clicking sounds at her
comrades. The tone sounded agitated, and a lot of gesturing was
traded back and forth, so he guessed the conversation was a heated
one.

“
I wonder what they’re
saying,” Nate whispered in his ear. “It can’t be good.”

All at once a large number of aliens
climbed aboard hovercrafts and took off toward the east. Please,
let it be coincidence that they had left in the direction of the
bunker.

Four stayed with Red and Nate. The
others who had remained behind wandered out into the freshly tilled
field. Red watched with interest as they circled around the field,
studying the ground, occasionally stopping to pick up a handful of
dirt, letting it rain through their fingers. His countdown clock
said 1 a.m.

One of the guards got Red’s attention
with a sharp kick to his thigh. She took out a palm-sized metal
wafer and held it a few inches from her mouth.

There was a barely detectable lull as
the device translated alien squeaks into monotone
English.

“
Where were you going when
we apprehended you?”

A second alien held a different
translator to Nate’s mouth.

Nate replied, “The North
Pole.”

A Celerun flipped open a hand-held
case, grunting into the device. A multi-dimensional map of the
western hemisphere floated in the air above the device.

“
You lack the means to
journey to the North Pole,” a Celerun with divots on her head said
evenly. “How do you intend to accomplish such a feat?”

Red and Nate couldn’t help but laugh at
her for taking the sarcastic comment so seriously. This seemed to
confuse the aliens and the conversation with them ended.

The hostages sat next to the green
sphere a long while. As long as Red and Nate remained quiet, the
aliens seemed mostly disinterested in them. As the buttermilk moon
sank lower and disappeared below the horizon, and the stars winked
at Venus, he wondered how long it would be before human eyes gazed
upon such beauty again—if ever.

Right now though, the aliens were
fascinating enough to hold his attention, despite the danger they
presented to him and Nate. Their movements had slowed down, their
bright eyes had faded several shades, and their postures began to
droop. Many of them, except the ones guarding Red and Nate, went to
the plowed field in groups, then found a spot to dig their toes
into the dirt. Tendrils covered by hairy fibers wormed out of the
end of their toes, stretched, then thrust into the ground. Anchored
by the toe tendrils, the alien leaned backward at a steep angle
without falling. With their eyes closed, and their arms crossed
over their chests, they almost looked peaceful.

“
That is frickin’ weird,”
Nate said.

“
Maybe they get their
nourishment from the ground the way plants do—from
roots.”

One of the guards pointed a pulse gun
at Red. “Oh, crap,” was all he could say. For a moment, the
surroundings turned into dripping watercolors. A nanosecond later,
his skin felt like it was on fire. He cried out in pain. Nate
writhed like a worm on the ground. The sensation was over in
thirty-seconds, but while it had lasted, his brain had drowned in
an ocean of pain. “Son-of-a…”

“
No talking,” a Celerun
guard said through the wafer. “Or I will phase you
again.”

Red collected his thoughts and pulled
his knees up to his chest, wondering how the rest of Hewego had
fared. He watched aliens still roaming the field, moving from row
to row. One found a spot, spun around in place several times before
rooting into the soil. It reminded him of the way Zena settled down
for a nap on the rug, how she’d spin in circles before settling
down. Good ole Zena. Knowing she was with Elizabeth and Michael
made him feel better. She was a fierce protector.

The longer the Celeruns rooted in the
field, the deeper green they became. He resented how they were
feeding off the earth. They were not invited and they had no right
to

dine here.

“
I draw my superpower from
the ground, too,” Nate quietly commented. “I’m absorbing it right
now.”

Red wished he’d shut up. Idle
conversation wasn’t worth risking another heat pulse.

More non-Celerun aliens began to appear
on the scene. A puma-like creature with sleek black fur, yellow
slit eyes and perky ears arrived, pushing a floating cart full of
gleaming metal garden instruments. It walked upright and a metal
collar circled its elegant neck.

“
Whoa,” Nate commented.
“What the hell is that dude?”

A second creature with one large eye
lumbered on all fours, pulling a floating wagon full of red goo.
Shaped like a rhino, it rippled with muscles, while it glared
hatefully at the Celeruns. It also wore a collar around its neck.
One of the Celeruns spoke at the strange pair through the
translating device. The cat-like creature showed its teeth and
growled in a show of defiance. A moment later, it grasped at the
collar and fell to its knees in pain. Its large muscular companion
bellowed mournfully in a show of concern for the puma-like
alien.

“
I bet they’re some kind of
slaves,” Nate commented as the pair found their feet and began
spreading the goo on the field with shovels. “From some other
planet.”

“
And I thought these
Celeruns were so advanced,” Red frowned. “Slavery—it’s such a
primitive concept.”

Four Celeruns returned from the field
to relieve the four guards. The first one appeared to be in charge.
Her hair wasn’t wispy at all. It was shaggy yellow. She used a
translator to speak.

“
How is it that you’ve
managed to elude our sensors for so long?”

“
Magic.”

The word
magic
sent them to
their electronic tablets. They held an un-translated discussion
full of squeaks and clicks, but quickly returned to address
Red.

“
There is no such thing as
magic.”

“
Says who?”

The Celerun pulled out a heat pulse
gun. Red cringed. Nate held up his arms in defense just before they
were blasted. The two of them screamed and writhed on the ground.
In a moment it was all over, but the incredible pain would be
something he could never forget.

“
Why did you kill my
siblings on the highway when your defeat is inevitable?” the lead
Celerun continued as if there hadn’t been a pause in the
conversation. “Killing without any chance of gain makes no
sense.”