The sky had fallen half way down into darkness and Phohlet was reclined on the porch of his house, his pod-feet all sprawling in every direction, all four of his arms were folded along his back and his chin rested against the railing of his porch.
The air was warm and stirring, the breeze plucking at the mane that ran from the top of his head along his back. Perhaps tonight he would sleep out here again, listening to the chirpers cry their songs in the distant scrub trees.
He closed his eyesets and prepared to drift away into dreaming.
He was on the edge of falling away when the breeze changed direction, blowing his hair the wrong way and into his face.
Phohlet shifted his head and resettled his pod-feet, preparing to ignore the shift in the air and return to sleeping. But there was a buzzing building up in the back of his head. A noise like an engine being pushed to its limits.
And it was growing in volume and it was not actually in his head. Phohlet opened his eyes and looked up as a star detached itself from the roof of the sky and plummeted in a curving arc towards the horizon.
The fire trail seared into Phohlet's vision, and the explosion of light as the fallen star impacted in the hollow lands beyond the edges of Phohlet's gardens.
He shook his head to clear away the after images and leapt off the porch. Puffs of dust floated up behind him as his pod-feet carried him in a shuffling gallop towards the glowing smudge that marked the crash.
Unfolding his arms Phohlet vaulted the fence that marked the end of the growing places and the start of the hollow lands.
His pace slowed to accommodate the rough terrain. The stone ran in sharp ridges, from small enough to leave an unnoticeable cut to large enough to sever thorax from abdomen if one made the wrong move.
The ground sloped down and inwards, slowing Phohlet even more, until the ridges rose to slice at the stars and to dance in the shadows thrown from the burning spacecraft.
The craft itself was suspended above a pit in the ground that fell away out of sight into shadow. Shattered wings pierced through by jutting formations of basalt, the body teetering on the rim, perilous streams of sand falling where it touched the earth into the un-seeable depths. Every stir in the air threatened to send it falling into the throat of the pit.
Phohlet stopped, blinking each set of eyes in unison to clear away the smoke that stung like bitter sand. Was there a pilot? Was it unmanned? Why had it crashed?
His planet had a small spaceforce, but the spaceport was located on the opposite side of the planet. And it was above the atmosphere, orbiting in permanent freefall.
But it was small, the make and shape of it unfamiliar. Long, thin, and cylindrical, rather than the rounded and spherical shape that was better suited for the pilots of his species.
There was a shuffle. A quiet cry of pain from beyond tinted cracked windows. The whole spacecraft shifted as the wings tore and the body sank a little closer to obliteration.
Phohlet reached out towards the sound, peeling back a pane of broken space-tempered glass, each shard just clinging to each other so that it came out in a sheet. He let it fall to the ground at his feet as he leaned out further to look through the gap.
The creature inside was cocooned within warped metal and twisted plastic. Its body was clad with a heavy gray suit that obscured any injuries it might have sustained, but even the suit wasn't enough to hide certain peculiarities about the pilot.
They were very small, small enough for Phohlet to cradle in the crook of a single arm. Their head was small and set directly top a single set of shoulders. They had an awkwardly rectangular central body that made Phohlet think they would have to walk upright on their two thin legs.
He could not see their face, if indeed they even had one beneath the sheer visor of their helmet. But the rapid rise and fall of their chest hinted at their distress and though they had survived the crash, Phohet doubted they would survive a second trauma.
He reached in with two arms, past the razor edges of the shattered window, and scooped the alien out of the cockpit. He withdrew them gingerly, trying to lift them clear of the broken glass and slip them out without disturbing the spacecraft further.
But something caught, a loose piece of fabric or a loop on their belt maybe. Phohet tugged against the resistance, hoping to dislodge them without any consequences. But that tug was too much for the strained balance between the ship and gravity.
Something snapped.
The body of the ship broke away from the wings, which stayed shredded across the stone above, while the rest of it fell with a screech of metal and a groan of displaced air.
Phohet scrambled backwards, pulling the pilot of the doomed craft closer to him. But he wasn't quick enough. A piece of debris fell and struck him across his back. With the pilot held against his front, he was off-balance and he pitched forwards over the brink, his vision filled with fire and falling metal, his pod-feet scrambling to regain steadiness.
But it was too late and he was too far. Phohet fell, still clutching the alien pilot.
The air roared in his ears and the darkness screeched as it was filled with metal. Phohet flailed.
He reached out with every available limb, grasping at the empty with every finger, every eye sweeping back and forth as the world rushed away as he searched for salvation.
From the very corner of his left eye set he caught a glimpse of something below that was rapidly transitioning to something above.
He reached for it and with jarring relief his fall was halted. The breath driven from his body and his shoulders wrenched and joints popped, starbursts went off in his vision, but he was no longer falling and he still had a hold of the alien. They dangled in the air from the grip of a single hand but he had them.
A horizontal jutting spire of basalt had been his salvation, he had snatched the very edge of it with three hands. With aching and trembling muscles he hauled himself and the alien over the top of the stone, which towards the base, was just large enough to support both of them.
Phohet settled the alien where the stone met the wall of the pit, then he curled over, heaving as he tried to catch his breath and hope away the pain.
He was battered and the alien was even more so than he. But they weren't dead.
All he had to do was climb them both out. His hands were bleeding.
He looked up and realized that the sky had been blocked by distance and stone.
