Sarah assumed they were related to one another. They were squat and strong-bodied New Manchurians, with the look of the land about them. Sarah was reminded of the farmer’s wife, Sasha. A cloud passed over her face and she shivered in the sweaty cell, thinking about the bloody mess the aliens had left behind after attacking the farm. Could Sasha and Timmy still be alive down here somewhere? The thought cheered her a bit, although she didn’t know why, given the grim situation.
Bili soon had had enough of her mothering and pulled away from her embrace, moving to the entrance. He circumnavigated Daddy and inspected the seal the aliens had made.
“It’s like safety-glass,” he said over his shoulder to Sarah. “Like inches-thick safety-glass.”
Sarah joined him. “It’s some kind of transparent resin. A polymer, I would imagine. It’s quite amazing that they can secrete it from their bodies.”
“It was only that special little one that could do it. The big table-like types just put the door into place.”
Sarah pressed against the surface experimentally. It was as hard as rock, as unforgiving as iron.
“Well, I hope they don’t let us suffocate down here.”
Bili then raised his fist and pulled it back to pound on the surface.
“NO!” screeched someone behind them.
They turned to see the skald racing toward them on all fours, his thin arms and legs pumping like a scuttling crab running from the surf. Sarah almost screamed herself as she caught sight of his face. It was an image of extreme insanity. The mouth hung lax; spittle flew from the quivering lower lip. Odd croaking noises bubbled up from his throat. The eyes were the worst: two wild staring glints of blue inside a stripe of livid red skin.
Sarah pulled Bili back, away from the sealed entrance. She put her hand out to stop the skald in case he attacked them.
Seeing them move away from the entrance, his charge faltered, slowed, stopped. Aimlessly, he wandered to the nearest section of wall and propped himself against it. He slumped forward, resuming the same posture he taken before.
“Jeez,” said Bili, frowning fiercely at the skald. “He’s nutso.”
Sarah only nodded, moving to a new spot from which she could watch everyone in the chamber and the entrance, too. It was clear to her now that these people had been stressed to their limits. They had stepped past the thin veneer of civilization and become barbarians. In the case of the skald, it seemed to have gone as far as insanity.
Time passed. She had almost dozed off when she realized that Bili had left her side to go exploring again. He was leaning over the prone bloated figure of Daddy and the sight of him, so near to those deadly hands that had strangled her just hours before, brought her instantly awake. She stiffened, but didn’t want to just start screaming at him, in case the man was really asleep and not just laying for him, for her baby. She rose up into a cat-like crouch.
Bili noticed she was awake and crawled back to her. With intense relief, she gripped his shoulders. “Don’t ever go near that man again, Bili,” she whispered fiercely.
“Awe, come on, Mom. He’s out cold. I think he’s poisoned, too. One of those killer things cut off his some of his fingers, you know. I think they must have venom on their blades or something. He’s sweating real bad and he stinks.”
Sarah looked Bili over briefly, then looked toward Daddy’s dark bulk. “Stay right here.”
With infinite caution, she crept to where she could see his face. He did indeed resemble a victim of poisoning. He breathed in shallow gasps, his body was bathed in sweat and his arm was red and swollen. The stumps of his fingers had stopped bleeding, but were discolored and raw-looking.
“I think you’re right. Still, you must promise me that you’ll go no closer to him.”
Bili nodded and promised.
A few more minutes passed during which the Asian women began to weep for some reason, speaking quietly among themselves.
“What have you all seen? Why have these monsters imprisoned us?” Sarah finally asked the group aloud, tired of moping in this dark hole. She was feeling better now and thoughts of escape were running through her mind.
It was Rodney Zimmerman who came forward to answer. He approached them warily, but smiled insipidly the entire time. Sarah was reminded strongly of a reptile. The stench of his clothes-she thought that he must have befouled himself-added to the image.
“You haven’t been to the throne room then?” he asked, his eyes shifting from her to Bili and then back to her. He gazed frankly at her breasts, which were only partially covered due to her struggles with Mudface and Daddy.
Self-consciously, she shifted her clothing, but it did no good. Bili came to the rescue by placing his head back against her chest. She was grateful. Together they glared at the Governor of Garm. “We just got here, Zimmerman.”
“Ah, please, call me Rodney,” he said with a leer. “Then you haven’t witnessed one of their feasts, yet?”
“No.”
“They’re quite a spectacle,” he said, a shadow passing over him. He was silent for a few seconds, then coughed wetly. “They, the aliens, that is, have a big queen-mother alien. A whole group of them, actually. They seem to be the ones who lay the eggs, or whatever.”
“Go on,” said Sarah, intrigued despite her disgust with the source of information. She felt a desperate need to know what was going to happen to them.
“The trick to survival is to go unnoticed. I have been to the feasts three times, and still I return to my cell, unnoticed. Our fat smuggling friend over there,” he nodded toward Daddy’s limp form, “is currently my greatest hope. They seem to have an affinity for the fat ones, you see.”
They followed his gaze. Sarah tried to find pity in her heart for Daddy, but couldn’t. “So that’s why all these people are cracking up. They’ve all been to a-feast?”
“Correct.”
“Is that all they like, the fat ones?” asked Bili with hope in his dark eyes.
“No, they seem to like the young as well,” he said with a wicked smile, “and the females.”
Bili seemed to shrink. “You’re second in the fatso contest, you know,” he said defiantly. Then he turned up to Sarah. “We got to get out of here, Mom.”
“You really are a prick,” Sarah told Rodney. “First you hand us over to killers, then you work hard to scare a little boy.”
“Ah, please excuse me. My trips to the feasts have been very stressful. And as to the presumption of your guilt, all I can say is that I made a mistake. I thought you were murderers, you see. So when those wretched smugglers threatened to kill a lot of good people to capture you, well… I guess I made the wrong assumption,” he gave her a winning smile that didn’t quite cut through his greasy stench. She didn’t believe him, but somehow just the possibility that it was all a mistake made her feel more trusting. After all, why would he lie now?
“So, how do we get out of here?”
As if he had been waiting for those exact words, Rodney came alive. “Now we are thinking along the same lines. I have a flitter, out in the forest not far from here.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “How do you know where we are?”
“It has taken me some time to piece together our position from various sources, but after interviewing a lot of cellmates, I feel confident I know what part of the Polar Range we are under. What helped is that I keep a hunting lodge not far from here. That’s where the flitter is stored.”
“But where, exactly?”
A calculating expression came over his face. “Can you pilot a flitter?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Of course,” he echoed, smiling, wrapping his thin white arms around his knees and rocking back. “I’ve waited what seems like an eternity to hear those words. You are the first qualified pilot I’ve come across in three trips to the feasting room! I suspected it, of course, as you are a smuggler.”