Free Alien Velocity by Robert Appleton Page B

careered backward off his feet. With a huge lunge, it went to snatch Christina. Charlie kicked the brute’s legs from under it. Scrabbling through slaps from its tentacles, he pummelled its stomach and head. It finally desisted when he spat saliva and the words, “I’ll kill you,” into its eyes.
    Exhausted, Charlie watched the thing flee, its tentacles flapping, its right side crouched low, until it vanished behind a rocky rise. The last sound it gave was an ear-splitting screech. He figured it was heading for the lighthouse.
    “You’re coming with me,” he said to Christina. He gathered his breath and lifted her onto his shoulders. “You can thank me later.”
    In the corner of his eye, he spotted a narrow passage in the rock opposite. It appeared to be the bottom of a crevasse in the mountain, potentially a much easier route through. If he hadn’t ventured so far off course to rescue Christina, he would not have seen it. He managed half a smile. There was still a long way to go, and what else would they come across?
    “I’ll tell you what,” he said, not quite believing what he’d just done, “Saint Christopher never had to go through that!”
    “Thanks for the advice,” he said to Marley. “I missed with the dropkick but what made you tell me to do that?”
    “I heard the creature’s voice. What you would take for wheezing, Charlie, is in fact a form of communication. I heard what you heard, but I understood it. The creature wanted you to fear it.”
    “It did a good job.”
    “If your dropkick had hit its head, you would probably have broken its neck,” she said.
    “How do you know that? You didn’t even see it.”
    “I have seen them before.”
    “Here? On Baccarat?”
    “Yes. Charlie, did you not recognize its features? The arms, the head, the eyes, the feet?”
    He pouted, pensive. “Yeah, it kinda looked like you but it was about seven feet tall and brown.”
    “I am not fully grown.”
    “So—that thing was one of you? I thought you said there was just you and your parents.”
    Marley stared at him with still, dull green eyes. She seemed to be waiting for him to catch up. “What about—”
    “Ah, now I remember,” Charlie interrupted her, the lighthouse forging a link in his mind. “You said these evil bastards were once like you, from your home planet. Then they left and while your world went downhill, they must have prospered here, lording it over every Tom, Dick and Harry that made the wormhole trip.”
    “Exactly.”
    “You guys turn brown when you get older?”
    “No. They have lived here for millennia. The pigment of their skin has been transformed by the suns’ rays. Sunlight on our world was much less concentrated, and they have survived without the need for bionic enhancements. They are physically superior.”
    “Not to me, they’re not. That son of a bitch won’t mess with me again. I kicked his arse!” Charlie shouted over the valley plateau. Rising to continue the trek, he patted Christina’s metal legs and delighted at the ping.
    The descent was straightforward. Charlie avoided the steeper stones and, whenever possible, led Marley through the gaps between rocks. They were almost across the plateau when she said, “We think that loner was exiled from the city. That he made so vociferously for Christina suggests desperation. Perhaps the only way they will accept him back is if he does something that greatly pleases them. Capturing one of us—their ancient kin—would no doubt rank highly. They have not seen us for millennia. We, therefore, expect him to tell them of our existence here. For his sake, it may or may not assuage them, but for ours, it is a dangerous turn of events. Sooner or later they will come for us.”
    “You’re basing all this on supposition. The bastard might have been given a death sentence. He knows that if he goes back, they’ll kill him on sight.”
    “Perhaps. But in any event, he left in that direction. The odds are not in our