Ram-Jack

Chapter Six

Hisses erupted on all sides followed by a string of round vowel sounds. The onslaught of alien voices oozed with displeasure. The alien that had revealed their shape to me had made a grave error according to their comrades. They made mistakes, simple everyday mistakes. I logged that fact firmly in my assessment.

They were humanoid. Bipedal. And they breathed air. In temperature and gravity, they enjoyed very Earth-like amounts. They must have made the same assessment of those first humans they came upon. A new world so similar to that which had given them life would be a tremendous treasure. Their motives stood unmistakably clear: they wanted Earth itself.

Humans were simply in the way.

They hadn't planned on revealing themselves at all. This bubble screened them from me. Wait. That made no sense. The only risk to them from my seeing them would be if I should ever escape or be rescued. Did they fear us? I had given them reason to doubt with my speech about having better technology. Still, if it became a danger, they could just pull me apart with their prehensile cables.

This nagged at me while I continued following their light. Several times it would wink off only to begin shining from another direction, prompting me to change course. Was the bubble only a blindfold keeping me from seeing their ship and the details of their race?

I posed a danger to them. I mean, I know I posed a danger, but I had yet to reveal my teeth. Were they quick and lethal in hand to hand combat? Were they stronger than humans? The thought of testing my skills at killing against them made my pulse quicken with warmth. Perhaps all their precautions were because they were fragile. That wouldn't do. Were they afraid of me from just what they had seen?

Nonsense.

There had to be another danger. Were they religious zealots with taboos against being seen by anyone unclean? My step faltered at the thought. They weren't zealots at all. Instead they were very smart. I was indeed unclean. They'd washed me when first taking me aboard their ship. My body would still be full of microbes and bacteria that could be lethal to them, and vice versa. I was under quarantine.

They'd take the time to make sure nothing posed a risk to their conquest. That meant securing themselves from every danger. They had the smarts to know that they hadn't paid their dues against the plagues mankind had endured through the ages. We'd cleaned up a lot in the last century, but that didn't mean many biological systems that were completely harmless to us now, weren't still around.

The light winked out again and I turned about to find my new direction. So far they had all been ninety degree turns. No new light shone.

A door ground shut behind me with their distinctive squeal of metal.

"The barrier will dissolve soon," the synthesized voice said. "Once it does, you have sixteen of your hours before the air will be drawn out of this chamber. After that, the temperature will decrease incrementally each hour."

What? Why would it matter that the temperature was going to decrease after they asphyxiated me? Did they not know I couldn't survive in vacuum?

"You intend to kill me?" I said.

"We test. More tests will follow."

They weren't killing me immediately. They were giving me time. Time for what?

"I need sleep. I need food and water."

"Beyond a wall is food and water, access it when you are able. Sleep when you are able. Testing will not halt."

In other words I could sleep all I wanted, but they wouldn't stop counting down. In sixteen hours, the air would be pumped from the room. I would be tested on whether I could survive this. If I did, they'd begin dropping the temperature. If I survived that, they'd come up with some other test.

It made no sense. Did they expect me to hold my breath? Even if I could hold my breath indefinitely, a vacuum would still kill me.

I opened my mouth to protest these facts, but the bubble surrounding me began to thin and dissolve. First it evaporated into a fine hexagonal mesh, then the mesh too thinned and broke up into dry white flakes.

This exposed a high and wide chamber, nearly the size of one of the Katrina's hangars. One entire wall appeared open to space. Transparent panels made up the wall to the right of the space window. On the left stood the typical flat black expanse of another wall. Behind me stood a second black wall. Alien machinery dotted the floor, some raising as high as the ceiling. An identical set of machinery could be seen through the transparent wall, as could one of the aliens.