Free Different by Tony Butler

them and they were all wearing strange one-piece suits that looked as though they were made of some kind of thin metallic material. Each of the visitors’ suits was a different colour to his companions, and the one wearing red had the red lights swirling around him, and the blue lights danced around the figure in blue, and so on. They all wore long silver coloured boots but didn't seem to be wearing space helmets.
    "Hello Adam,” the voice was inside his head, but somehow he knew it was the figure in green who had spoken. It was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman because of the suits and their hair was closely cropped, but they were all about the same size as an average grown-up. Except for the fact that their foreheads seemed slightly bigger than normal and the suits they wore, they looked like normal people. Adam knew though, they were aliens from another planet, the one he'd visited in his dreams. These aliens, unlike most of those on TV, were old friends and didn't mean him, Ben or Eve any harm.
    "Come,” the voice said. “We have much to do and very little time."
    Adam glanced at Eve and Ben and then climbed out the window and stood barefoot in the grass.
    "No! The night is to cool.” It was the one in red who spoke this time. “Go back and put on your clothes, Adam. Tell Eve and Ben to get clothed too, but hurry."
    Eve was already halfway through the window but Adam pushed her back inside. “They say we need to get dressed first,” he said.
    They changed their nightclothes for the red plaid shirts, jeans and trainers and Adam led them back through the window and over to the waiting figures.
    "Come,” the man in blue said. He and the others seemed to float across the grass and Adam, Ben and Eve had to jog behind them to keep up.
    "Where do you think they're from Adam, Mars?” Ben asked.
    "No, we come from a world much further away than that,” the yellow suited man's voice said. “We have been searching a long time for you, Adam, Ben and Eve."
    They stopped at the edge of the U shaped marshes that were half a mile wide and ran north for eighteen miles before they started to curve in a seven mile arc. Then they ran back parallel to the first eighteen mile stretch. The doctor had explained a freak seam of coal that had been mined in the nineteenth century caused its shape. The coal had been excavated to a depth of sixty foot, when the miners breached an underground stream that had flooded the workings. Later they had tried to fill in the mine with rubble, earth and sand and created the marshes.
    The men stared at the marshes as though looking for something, then Adam noticed that the surface of the marsh was beginning to glow a luminous green, and it was growing brighter.
    "Look!” Eve said and Adam saw that a gigantic mushroom shape was rising up out of the marsh. It seemed to be spinning and to be covered in coloured lights. It rose high above their heads to reveal a huge glowing white cylindrical core beneath it. Two curved panels at the front of the cylinder slid apart in opposite directions and a flat beam of silver light about three foot wide shot across the surface of the marsh towards them.
    "It's a flying saucer,” Ben said. “A real flying saucer."
    The beam spanned the surface and the men started moving across it.
    "Come children,” the man in red said into Adams head. “Keep in the centre of the beam and you will be safe."
    Ben tentatively put one foot on the silver path and then the other. “It feels solid,” he said, and started following the men. Eve was next and Adam followed behind, it was just like walking on the floor, he thought.
    They went into the cylinder section, which was bigger than their room and about ten times as high as their ceiling. The silver path retracted and when it blinked off, the curved doors of the cylinder slid shut behind them.
    There was a faint humming sound in Adam's ears and he became aware that they were travelling upwards. With a barely audible click