Page 56 of Alien Peacock

There’s four of them, all men. They stare at us, understandably shocked by what’s going on.

“We’re here to get you out,” I repeat, going towards them. “This is Arelion. I’m Maeve. That one over there is Virlu.”

The men look at each other, still apprehensive.

“Where will you take us?” one of them asks. I detect a little bit of an accent, but I can’t place it.

“First to a base he owns.” I point to Arelion. “Then anywhere you want. I’m guessing you don’t want to go back to Earth.”

They’re still not convinced. “What happens at his base?”

“You can rest and enjoy your freedom,” I tell them, looking around, nervous about guards. “We’ll break you out. Those guys look scary, but they’re our friends. I’m with the Resistance!”

The four captives come closer. “We can hear you’re American. But we’re not sure about the other ones.”

“Virlu, give them some weapons!” I call over to the furry alien. “They’re not sure if we have good intentions!”

“Ask them about the guards,” Arelion says. “We have to know.”

“Are there guards here?” I ask. “Who are they? What kind of weapons do they have?”

“There’s about twenty,” another Earthling says. His accent is different again, and he looks Asian. “They have guns.”

Virlu hands them each a weapon like mine. “A ray gun shoots beams of energy. It is highly destructive and lethal and must be considered loaded at all times. Only point a ray gun at objects that you truly want to destroy.”

“Be careful with those,” I translate. “One press of the trigger, and they’ll kill anything. How many workers are there?”

“About three hundred,” they tell us as they handle their weapons. “About a third are asleep.”

“Why so few guards for hundreds of workers?” I ask, getting more and more nervous. The stakes were just raised when I discovered Earthlings here. This is a more important mission than I ever thought.

“They don’t need more,” says the first one. “That elevator won’t work without a Bululg to unlock it. And when the Bululg come to get the ore, they won’t unlock the elevator without knowing for a fact that we’re all inside our cells. They use cameras and sensors. Even if we defeat the guards, we can’t get out and we’d starve to death. I wonder howyouwere able to use the elevator without a Bululg to unlock it.”

I wonder about that, too. “Do you speak Interspeech?”

“Some,” the first says. “Enough to deal with the guards.”

“Then let’s stick to that for now, so Virlu and Arelion can follow this. Can we defeat the guards and rescue everyone?”

14

- Arelion-

The four captives look at each other. “If these weapon work, we can defeat.”

“Are the guards Fresks?” Maeve asks in Interspeech.

“All twenty,” they reply without hesitation.

“How doyouthink we should do this?”

I nod to myself, trying to hide a smile. That’s what I would ask, too. Those men know the mine, and we don’t. They will be able to tell us how to do this.

The captives talk among themselves for a while. Maeve quickly fills me in on what has been said.

That these men are Earthlings had already become apparent to me. I’m not thrilled about it. Certainly there’s a danger that Maeve would feel closer to them than to me, to maybe pick them over me, to go away with them. It’s natural for the female of a species to prefer her own. And I know her kind doesn’tunderstand the meaning of the Mark, so that won’t hold her back.

The Earthlings look up. “This how we would suggest doing…”