Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It (3 page)

What followed was an odd sort of stand-off—the alien captain, staring at her through slitted purple eyes; and Eris, standing shakily before him, trying hard not to burst into tears.

The creature leaned forward again and clacked its jaws open and closed, as if simulating speech.

“Do you want me to speak now … uh … sir?” Eris ventured.

The alien waved an arm grandly as if to indicate that she should go on.

“Okay, well … my name is Eris Miller. I’m a high school student. Um … I really don’t know what you want from me.” The captain gave no indication he understood her, so Eris decided to risk speaking her mind.

“Since you can’t understand what I’m saying anyway, I think you ought to know that your tongue bath was absolutely disgusting. And I wish you’d reconsider this whole kidnapping thing, because even though I doubt anyone cares I’m gone,
I
certainly care, and I’d really like to get back to Earth, because no matter how dull my life was, it would be infinitely better living it out on Earth than being a prisoner on this impossibly blue ship of yours!”

The captain hissed at her.

He sounds angry, but it’s not like he can understand me—can he?

Just as Eris was preparing to be hit on the head again, she noticed that one of the aliens manning the consoles was approaching the captain’s chair. Compared to its companions, this creature was short and slender and had a purplish tinge to its scales. A glowing white gem like the ones on the foreheads of the captain and guards hung from its neck by a silvery chain.
A female?
Eris wondered.

The captain gestured at the purplish alien, who removed the necklace and offered it to Eris.

“You want me to put this on?” Eris asked. The creature thrust the necklace forward again, hissing something.
I’ll take that as a yes,
Eris thought, grabbing it and putting it on.

Looking back at the captain, Eris wondered what she was supposed to do.

“Talk,” the captain said in a deep, scratchy voice. “Talk. I talk. You orb translate.”

Eris gaped. “You can speak English now?”

The captain made the
phhh
sound again. “Not. I talk. You orb translate.”

“Um …” Eris pieced the sentence together. “The gem on this necklace can translate your language into English?”

“You orb link brain pattern language to translate. New species take time to network link. Understand?”

I think it means this orb links directly to my brain and translates for me,
Eris thought.
And the one on its head must translate English for it.
It’s still speaking its own language, but I understand it as English. That’s actually pretty cool.

“Do you understand me, human?” the captain demanded.

Eris nodded. His English did seem to be improving the more he spoke—or perhaps the orb was simply getting used to her brain patterns, as the captain had said.

“I hate encountering new languages,” the creature scowled. “My time is too valuable to be wasted on such nonsense.”

“Captain, sir,” Eris said hesitantly, “why did you abduct me?”

“I ask the questions here, human, not you,” the captain said. “I summoned you here to state the rules of my spacecraft. Standard protocol. Give us no trouble, and you will survive until I meet with my Vekrori agent and trade you for lucrative monetary compensation.”

“Vekrori agent? What’s a Vekrori?” Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to ask questions and shut her mouth.

Luckily for Eris, the captain just
phhh
-ed again. She suspected the
phhh
sound was the alien’s equivalent of laughter.

“You amuse me, human,” said the alien, confirming Eris’s suspicion. “I forgot how little you pathetic terrestrials know. It is a wonder you did not die of fright when my crew collected you.”

“I’m not pathetic,” Eris mumbled. She gulped when the captain’s nostrils flared. “Uh … sorry … I mean …” she stammered, backing away, her eyes widening in fright.
What is
wrong
with me? Shut up, Eris!

Luckily, her flustered attempts at groveling seemed to amuse the alien.
Phhh
-ing again, it said, “You are lucky I
do
find you so pathetic. Inferior creatures unaware of their own inferiority amuse me. I will not answer your questions—this will be the punishment for your insolence. If you cannot learn to hold your tongue in my presence, I will sell you to a Glorgishen hunter instead. It should be easy enough to replace you.”

I don’t know what a Glorgishen is, but I’d rather take my chances with an agent than a hunter,
Eris thought.

The captain dismissed her with a commanding gesture, and Eris was marched off the bridge.

As they walked back through the ship, Eris asked her guards, “So can you understand me now too?”

“Yes,” the taller guard hissed.

“Oh.” She thought for a moment. “The captain, does he have a name? It’s a
he
, right?”

“Captain Hroshk commands the ship,” the guard said coldly. “He is male, as am I. Females are smaller—and weak.”

“We are
not—
” She stopped herself before she gave her guards a reason to hit her again. Still, the questions battling in her head prevented her from staying silent. Picking the least offensive question, Eris said carefully, “Do you know what a Vekri or a Glorgy is?”

The alien
phhh
-ed.

“Are you laughing?” Eris asked uncertainly.

“Laughter. Yes,” the reptile replied. “Your words are amusing. Vekrori and Glorgishen, you mean to say. And no, I cannot tell you. So decreed Hroshk.”

“And you do everything that Hroshk says?”

“He is captain,” the alien replied.

Eris was confined to her gum ball cell once again. Emotionally drained from her encounter with Captain Hroshk, she sprawled across the spongy bottom of the sphere and closed her eyes.
Go to private school, Mom told me,
she thought.
It’ll be so much fun! You’ll meet new people, learn exciting things. Oh, yes, and there’s a slight chance of alien abduction. Be safe, honey! Make good choices!

Eris wondered if she’d ever see her mother again. It seemed unlikely. Then again, she had never gotten along all that well with her mother, so maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Will anyone besides my mother even care I’m gone?
She didn’t have any friends at school, although she supposed Lisa came the closest.
And isn’t that a sad commentary on my life?

A few minutes later, the cell door spiraled open. A scaly alien hand reached in to tip a covered bowl and a plastic bottle on a metal tray over the door’s sill. As the portal spiraled shut, the tray slid down to Eris.

Pushing aside her depressing thoughts, Eris grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the lid. The container was filled with a transparent, odorless liquid. Hoping it was water and not poison, she took a gulp. It tasted like water, although it left a fishy aftertaste in her mouth.

The bowl was filled with a mess of slimy, blue, unappetizing sludge. Eris poked it tentatively. It wiggled.
Space jelly. Of course.
Although the blue jelly looked disgusting, Eris was so hungry that her survival instinct won out over her squeamishness. She dug her hand into the cold, gooey substance and stuffed a handful into her mouth.
It tastes like cinnamon!
Eris slurped up the rest.

Not long after her meal, Eris realized she had to go to the washroom. She held on as long as she could, but when her bladder couldn’t stand it anymore, she rapped her fist on the cell door.

The portal soon spiraled open to reveal one of the reptilian aliens. “I need to use the washroom,” she said.

The alien stared at her.

“The toilet,” Eris clarified. “I need to use it. Now.”

The creature reached in, grasped her arm, and yanked her from the cell.
They must be getting fond of me
, Eris thought.
Now they only leave yellow bruises on my arms when they grab me, not purple.

The guard dragged her across the cell block’s central room and shoved her toward a cell while hissing, “This is the cleanser. Be quick.”

Eris ventured inside the cleanser. It was a small, circular room with various metal protrusions on the walls. Not sure how to proceed, she muttered, “Where the heck is the toilet?”

A narrow basin swung out from the wall, situated around knee-height.
Okay, so clearly this is the toilet,
Eris thought.
This place must be voice-activated. But how do I use it?

She ended up kicking off her pants and squatting over the basin, using some of the metal protrusions—which turned out to be handholds—to keep herself upright while she did her business. There was no toilet paper, but when Eris straightened up, the basin blasted a wave of air at her that somehow accomplished the same job.
Alien toilets are weird,
Eris thought as she pulled her pants back on and hurried from the strange little room.

The guard was waiting for her outside the cleanser, and he returned Eris to her cell. Looking around the empty room, Eris found she was exhausted. She had no idea what time it was, so with nothing better to do, she curled up at the bottom of the blue sphere and fell asleep.

When Eris awoke and asked to go to the washroom again, her guard hissed, “I will leave your cell unlocked. Use the toilet as often as you wish. But do not mistake me, human. You will be disciplined harshly if you attempt to escape.”

Judging by the look in his cold, reptilian eyes, Eris felt certain he wasn’t kidding.

Now that she was allowed into the central room, Eris decided to take the opportunity to learn more about her captors. Cautiously approaching the two aliens sitting at the control booth, Eris said, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?”

“Ask. I may answer,” the taller alien said, not looking up from his computer.

The other alien
phhh
-ed.

“What should I call you?” Eris asked.

“Grashk.”

“Your people are called Grashk?”

“No. I am Grashk. My species is the mighty Ssrisk.”

Eris found the name oddly fitting.
They sound like Ssrisks, the way they’re always hissing
.

Grashk indicated the other Ssrisk, who was ignoring the conversation. “This is Tarsis. He dislikes terrestrials. Stay out of his way.”

“Trust me, I will,” she assured him. “So where exactly are we going? You can tell me that, right? It’s not top secret?”

“We travel to the binary Sirius star system,” Grashk replied. “There, you will be held in the slave market until the Vekrori purchases you. We will arrive in three days.”

Eris gaped at him. “That’s impossible! Sirius is, like, ten thousand light-years away!”

“Your words prove tiresome,” Grashk snapped. “Silence yourself.”

Sensing that she wasn’t going to get any more useful information from him, Eris was about to retreat to her cell when she made a startling discovery. She wasn’t the only captive in the cell block.

4

E
ris spotted her fellow prisoner as it clambered over the sill of its cell door. The alien was about three feet tall, with brownish skin, shockingly large blue eyes, and a messy mop of white hair. It looked humanoid except for its long, furry white tail. It wore a brown, knee-length tunic belted at the waist, and its feet were bare.

Another alien!
Eris thought, eyeing the little creature curiously.
It’s kind of cute, like a cross between a monkey and a garden gnome.

The tiny alien didn’t appear to have noticed her. Chittering softly to itself, the creature made its way across the central room toward the washroom. Eris watched, fascinated, as it scrambled into the cell, using its tail as a spring to propel it over the door’s ledge.

Unable to hold back her curiosity, Eris decided to chance asking her guard about her fellow prisoner. Approaching the control console, she said, “Excuse me, Grashk. Who’s the little alien?”

The Ssrisk hissed derisively. “He is of Claktilla.”