Free Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments by Brian Yansky

exactly the word I’d use, but I have to admit she’s something.
    “Another ship will be very helpful,” he says.
    I hesitate. Sam didn’t mention our brilliant steal-a-fleet-of-ships-from-the-alien-headquarters-in-Austin plan, which makes me wonder if she was serious about it.
    But there’s no use trying to hide my thoughts from Doc.
    “Out of the question,” he says before I’ve spoken a word. “They’ll be heavily guarded.”
    “We have to do something,” I say. “Something that makes them see us.”
    I know I’m right as soon as I say it. We have to make the aliens see us. The aliens who are not part of the company or whatever it is. Those aliens who would care that we can hear. That we can dreamwalk. Or I can, anyway. We need them to know about us.
    “It’s too risky,” Doc says.
    “We could train for it,” I say, surprising myself. “I could teach people how to fight, and Sam could teach them how to fly.”
    “They’re too strong.”
    “We’ve got to make them see us,” I repeat. “We’ve got to do it before they start landing more settlers. The company knows we’re not product and they don’t care, but from what the smuggler told me, some of the other Sans
would
care. They wouldn’t settle here if they knew.”
    “That’s assuming that these settlers are, indeed, coming,” Doc says.
    I start to protest, but he holds up a hand. “I’ll think about it,” he says. “In the meantime, I would like you to do something for me.”
    “Sure,” I say without thinking. I know better. Saying “sure” without thinking can lead to bad places.
    “I want you to sweat with Running Bird,” says Doc. “He is ready.”
    “Sweat with him?”
    “In his sweat lodge.”
    “I don’t really need to sweat. I’ve been sweating a lot.”
    “Running Bird believes you have the Warrior Spirit in you. He’s a powerful priest in the House of Jupiter, and if he believes it, then it’s probably true. But I need to know. I need to know what you are, Jesse.”
    I’d like to know what I am,
I think.
    “Good man,” he says. “Follow the path you took this morning, but take the very narrow path to the right just before that cliff you foolishly climbed. It will lead you to Running Bird’s sweat lodge.”
    Someone else comes in, a guy about my age or a little older. He speaks to Doc in Spanish, and Doc rattles off Spanish back. Doc waves as I leave. I’m halfway to the path before I wonder how he knows I climbed that cliff. Maybe he read it in my mind even though I wasn’t thinking about it. Or maybe he has someone watching me.
    I do a quick search with my mind. No one. I’m probably just being paranoid. Still, as I pass through camp and beyond it up the mountain, I keep looking around just to make sure no one is following. As my dad used to say, it’s only paranoia if it’s not true.
    I’m so fixated on the task that when the memory comes I nearly slip, because it’s like I walk right into it. Physically I’m standing on the path just a few yards from Running Bird’s sweat lodge — I think. But mentally, I’m pulled back to the circus. It’s like I’m in two places at once again.
    I felt bad for the animals because they were locked in cages. The cats were especially disturbing because of the way they paced back and forth and back and forth. You could see they longed to run. You could see how their bodies were made to run somewhere, but the best they could do was pace, and that best wasn’t enough. Anyone could see that. Not near enough.
    They weren’t the only ones who looked like they longed to be free, though. The monkeys swung restlessly around in their cages. The elephants stomped their mammoth legs, which were chained to each other.
    I wanted to swing open the doors and unlock the chains and set them all free. I wanted to do something to help them.
    “And where would they go?” a man next to me said. He was tall with long white hair tied back in a ponytail and very blue eyes. My