TK Special #1 - AngusEcrivain... Apparently He Writes Sci-Fi, Too!

HYBRID HONEY

Reaching out tentatively with a single, misshapen and grubby digit, she gently prodded the object that had fallen from the sky. It was cold to her touch and she recoiled instantly, crouching to the ground several feet away with her fists balled ready to run or to fight, whichever she deemed necessary.

For several moments she waited, her breaths almost silent as she watched, waiting for the object to make some kind of move, to show its true colours and attack her and when it did no such thing she scampered over to it and studied it once again.

When she touched it for the second time with the tip of the same finger she did not recoil. It did not appear to be any threat to her and she stroked it gently.

Still there was no reaction of any kind from the object and so, confident that it was going to do her no harm, she wrapped her fingers around it and picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy and unbalanced yet her strong fingers held it tightly. She turned it over and over in her hand, cocking her head this way and that as she did so until she realised that a small part of it was different. The vast majority of the object's surface was dull and boring yet a small section was quite the opposite; it was shiny and reflected back at her more colour than she had ever seen.

The object emitted a strange noise, unfamiliar to her primitive ears. She tried to release the item, to drop it, yet she found that even though that should have been a simple enough task, it was quite impossible for her to do so.

Panicked, she realised that her fingers were gripping even more tightly. Every single fibre of her being told her to run, to get away from the object as quickly as possible, yet her feet were firmly rooted to the ground.

A light, more focused than the colours that the object had until that point shown her, shone directly into her eyes. Her ocular organs wide with terror she released an incoherent wail as she saw unfamiliar images in her mind and her ears filled with strange, unusual sounds.

She lost all concept of time and had no idea for how long the light shone into her eyes, however when the object fell free from her grasp she staggered forwards, the weight of her own body temporarily too much for her to take.

"That was..." She stopped mid-flow, shocked by the sound of her own voice making noises that it had never made before. "Whoa... head fuck..."

...and then she fell heavily forwards, her body hitting the ground with a dull thud and there she lay, unconscious.

***

She awoke and without even opening her eyes she could tell that she was somewhere different. It was the smell, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She could hear words, too. More to the point, she could hear words that she understood quite clearly.

"She's awake."

"You sure?"

"Yes... look at the screen. That's not the readout of one who's still sleeping."

"It seems our girl learns quickly."

"She's not our girl though is she, Banks?"

"She's what we've got to work with, Sir."

"If you had been more careful with the time capsule then it would have done as it was supposed to and buried itself half a mile below the surface of the planet to be discovered sometime around two-thousand five which, as both you and I are well aware, would have been ample enough time."

"I wasn't entirely my fault, Sir."

"You were in charge of the operation, Banks. The buck stops with you."