Page 4 of Alien Peacock
“Let me go!” I yell, my voice cracking because this is starting to look really bad. “Help!”
The aliens move quickly through the corridor towards the hangars. If they have a ship there, and I can’t get away before then, their abduction of me will be successful. And nobody will know where I went.
I guess I’ll have to activate the very final option and hope it works.
I just manage to reach my right wrist with one finger of my left hand. The implant is a hard square right underneath the skin, where the Bululg population control chip has been replaced with something even more nasty that the Resistance offered me.
The aliens suddenly freeze in place.
“Leave that little thing right there, friends!” a bassy voice booms through the corridor.
With one finger resting on the implant, I raise my gaze.
Something huge and immensely colorful is coming towards us. It’s a parade, like something you might see at the carnival in Rio de Janeiro, all feathers and movement and ostentation. Itfills the corridor from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. All that’s missing is the deafening sound of samba drums.
In the middle is a man, muscular and blue, dressed in some kind of shiny, metallic leotard. It looks like a humanoid alien, a really big one, with a huge grin on his face.
The aliens are as stunned as I am by the newcomer. It takes me a good few seconds to realize it’s not a carnival parade at all — it’s a single alien.
My brain locks up in protest. Surelyoneperson can’t fill a room and grab all the attention like this, to the point where my deadly peril fades into the background.
“I will unburden you,” he booms in smooth Interspeech as he comes towards us. “These little females are all trouble anyway.”
“Not,” one of the mummy aliens finally manages to bray. “Not take. Is ours.”
“Of course,” the parade says soothingly like a father to a toddler. “Was yours. Now is mine. And I will make sure she is put to good use. Make no problems for me here, friend.” The last words have the merest hint of an edge to them.
“We found,” another alien says. “Is ours.”
The net has stopped contracting, and there’s not much I can do except to take in the newcomer. He’s taller than the aliens, wider and stronger. His skin is an iridescent blue. Enormous wings grow from his back, as colorful as a fireworks display and seeming to glow and change like a kaleidoscope. They are what makes him look like a parade. He’s topped off by a shiny comb of feathers on his head. He’s the most extravagant, over-the-top thing I’ve ever seen. And it’s not a costume. That ishim.
It’s completely impossible to take my eyes off him. He’s a caricature of a peacock, all colors and spectacle and beauty. But where a peacock on Earth is always faintly ridiculous, you’d never laugh at this guy. He may be all ostentation, but he has a deadly center that I sense with the most primitive part of my brain. That part also signals something else that I’m not even going to acknowledge, but which has something to do with procreation.
My gaze drops to his midsection. He’s wearing pants, tight and shimmering in a silvery white that complements the rest of him perfectly. Whatever it is they’re hiding, it’s something pretty big.
“Areyou theirs, little female?” the peacock asks, coming to a halt with an elegant flourish that sets his feathers rustling. I swear it sounds like tiny bells playing a dainty little melody.
“No,” I manage weakly. “They’re trying to abduct me.”
He tilts his head, yellow eyes shining as his humanoid face takes on a puzzled expression. I notice that apart from his wings and feathers, there’s nothing bird-like about him.
“She says you gentlebeings are trying to abduct her! Surely that can’t be right?”
“We found her,” the mummy leader tries again. “She ours.”
“Ah!” the peacock exclaims, his face brightening. “You found her. But nowIhave foundyou, and so you are all mine. Come, I will take you to my ship.” He steps to the side and raises his fine eyebrows, gesturing as if to usher the aliens ahead of him.
And such is his sheer force of personality that they take a couple of steps before they catch themselves and stop. “No own us! Not found us. Get out of way. We go now.”
The peacock fills the corridor again, and his feathers have definitely gone darker, less cheerful. “I am confused, gentlebeings. You say you found the Earth female, and so she is yours. But I have foundyou, and so you must be mine.”
The mummy leader waves his spindly arms. “Not yours! We traders from Krunku. This Earth female without owner. But now we is owner.”
The feathery alien frowns and manages to make it heartbreakingly attractive. “You ownher. And I own you! So I ownher, too. Yes? By your own reasoning?”
“Yes… no! Not own us, alien!Weown us! And the Earth female.”
The peacock gives me a little glance and sends me a lopsided smile as if to saycan you believe these guys?“And I say I own you. And her. What doyousay, little female?”