'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 11: Gemma & Irvn

Gemma followed Irvn cautiously into the second room and looked around. There was a low table, a couple of easy chairs and a row of small screens set into the walls. Each showed a different photograph which she instantly recognised.

They were from a series taken by a talented amateur photographer in the 1930s. They showed scenes from schools - children in playgrounds, classrooms, assembly - their expressions frozen forever as they stared back at the camera. These glimpses from the past never failed to remind her of what had drawn her to teaching in the first place: the hope and, sometimes, the despair.

Despite herself she crossed the room to look more closely at two of them, one showed a group of girls skipping, the other a small boy leaning against a playground wall.

“I’ve never seen these ones before. I thought I had them all,” she said, turning towards him.

“Yes, it took a while to track them down,” he replied.

“You mean you just beamed down and bought them?” 

“Something like that,” he said. 

“They’re really good,” she replied, despite the intense antagonism she felt towards him.

“I’m glad you like them. They’re yours.’ he said quietly. 

She looked directly at him but said nothing. There was no question he looked strange. One moment he reminded her of any man she might have met or passed in the street, the next he looked nothing like any of them at all. Familiar…yet…she couldn’t avoid the word…alien. 

What she most needed, was more information.

“Tell me more about your - your - kind,” she said, regretting how patronising that sounded.

“We’re pretty much like humans,” he answered, “in fact, we would think of ourselves as ‘humans’ and you as ‘aliens.’ It’s just a question of perspective. There seems to be surprisingly little life in the universe, but where it does exist, it tends to follow similar paths.”

“So no little green men?”

“None that we’ve encountered so far,” he replied. “Your Earth is the first planet we’ve found with life nearly as advanced as our own.”

“How different are we then?”

“Not very different at all.  We share about 90% DNA.”

“So what’s the ten percent difference?”

“Nothing very much,” he answered vaguely, “skin colour…eyes… average height… that kind of thing.”

For a moment she felt he was being evasive, but it was hard to read that unusual face. She changed the subject:

“Who are these other women? Where are they?”

“They’re nobody you know. Different women, from different walks of life. They’re nearby in quarters like these.”

“Quarters?” she said. “Interesting word for a prison cell. I want to meet them.”

“You will,” Irvn replied, “tomorrow.”

“When’s tomorrow?” she asked, realising she’d lost all sense of time. 

“That’s one of the problems on a spaceship,” he said. “No change of light ‘outside’ to provide any clues. No sunrise or sunset. So we dim the lights when evening comes - like now - and then bring the lights up fully in the morning. You’ll quickly get used to it.”

“I don’t intend to be here long enough,” she retorted.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, ignoring her jibe.

Now that he mentioned it, she realised she was. Her last meal had been lunch in the school cafeteria and lord knew when that had been.

“I am,” she said, “Very.”

“Then I’ll get us something,” he answered.

She stared coldly back at him.

“I’d prefer to eat alone. Let’s make no mistake: there’s no relationship starting here. As far as I’m concerned you’re an abductor and nothing more.”

“Very well,” he answered as coldly as she had. “I’ll bring you something in about an hour. That should give you enough time to clean up and change. There’s a shower there - ” he indicated a doorway behind her - “and there are fresh clothes here - ” and he opened the door to a small closet.

A moment later he was gone, stepping into the outer room. A moment later she heard the hiss of the outer door. To be sure he’d left, she checked the space herself, trying the swipe-pad on the door. 

It didn’t open.

© Adriana Nicolas 2014