The shuttle keeps going into the hangar, sinking gradually towards the floor.
The hangar is a huge, sterile hall of shimmering, vein-like walls that glow with liquid light, too smooth for metal, too alive for stone. Its ceiling looms high, studded with sparse handholds, while the air hums with an alien chill, faintly scented with exotic alloys.
There’s a new hiss, and I hear voices echoing in the big space.
“Are you on, Vera?” I ask. The AI strap is still on my wrist inside the suit.
“Sure,”she chirps, voice muffled by the thick sleeve. “We’re inside an alien spaceship. We’re weightless in a big room. Your heart rate is at the top of its range, and the air is breathable for you. Do you have any questions?”
There’s movement down by the floor, far below me. A hatch has opened, and two beings are standing in the opening, looking up at me and holding on to handholds on the wall. They’re talking in deep voices, using some alien language.
“Yeah. Can you make any sense of that language?”
“I’ve never heard or read a language like that,”Vera says. “It’s not from Earth. I don’t like it, Umbra. That rhythm, thosesounds — it’s a predator’s language. If they’re sentient, they’ll be warlike. I’ll listen and analyze it.”
I’m still drifting upwards, being weightless.
The discussion between the aliens is intensifying. Then one of them slowly makes his way into the hangar, holding on to several handholds on the wall, before he launches himself towards me.
I freeze. He looks really big and strong. He’s wearing a pair of pants and some kind of skin-colored top with blue stripes across it. I swear he has a big sword strapped to his waist. He looks most of all like a caveman.
A caveman in a spaceship? My mind struggles with the concept.
He comes towards me fast. But his aim hasn’t been good and he’s not going to hit me.
He reaches long, muscular arms out towards me as he passes, but his fingertips are at least three feet away. He snarls with frustration, predator eyes narrowing and shooting blue fire.
I notice that he’s basically humanoid, but his face has the wrong proportions, those stripes are actually a part of his skin, and I think I see fangs. So yeah, absolutely an alien. And absolutely dangerous.
“A caveman alien,” I mutter. “Who’d have thunk it.”
“I can’t see anything,”Vera reminds me.
When the caveman hits the ceiling, he bangs his head on the alien material, then his feet. He’s so clumsy about it that I can immediately tell he’s not used to being weightless. In fact, it may be his first time.
“Not as easy as you thought?” I mock as I slowly spin in the air and land on the ceiling with my feet first. There are some handholds up here too, spread out. They’re probably not intended to be used much.
I can just reach one. Grabbing onto it, I catch my bearings.
The caveman is struggling to move this close to the ceiling, and he doesn’t have a handhold. He growls something to the other one, sounding dismayed.
The other one laughs, a deep sound that resonates through the hangar. He’s being smarter, using handholds and other features to make his way up the wall towards the ceiling.
He’s very different from the caveman. This one is just as big and strong, and he’s also only wearing tight pants with a sword strapped to him. But the rest of him is a deep indigo shot through with gold. A shudder goes through me when I realize that he’s not wearing a fool’s hat, which I thought at first. Instead of hair he has several thick, colorful tentacles growing from his head. They seem to be alive with movements, writhing and coiling with a subtle, independent energy. Each tentacle has a pattern of vibrant hues — crimson swirling into gold on one, emerald green chasing sapphire blue on another, and even a shocking burst of electric yellow edged with stark black. Some of the tentacles are tipped with black. All of them taper to delicate, almost prehensile points that twitch and explore the air around him with unnerving curiosity.
His eyes give off a red, laser-like light. He’s much more alien than the caveman. And he gives off an even more dangerous vibe.
“Yikes. We may be in really bad trouble, Vera.” The sight is so weird and chilling that for a moment I forget to move.
“I can sound my alarm, if you think it will help.”
“I don’t think it will.”
Still, I find that I like his voice. It’s loud, but there’s a warmth to it. He’s talking to the caveman, and I’m sure he’s saying something funny. It sounds like he’s making fun of both himself and his friend. But of course I can’t be sure. They may be discussing which recipe to use when they cook me, for all I know.
When I think the time is right, I crouch down, aim well, and launch myself towards the open doorway they came out of.
The caveman yells a warning and tries to follow me, but he struggles organizing his limbs and only manages to push himself away from the ceiling, flailing wildly as he tumbles slowly away in the wrong direction.
