by Adam Benson
And hopefully they’ll do it before our cloaks run out! Thalia added.
They trudged over to the rocks and, to their great relief, there was an almost cavernous formation down along the base of one of the larger boulders, just large enough for the two of them to fit. It pressed up against a monolith of stone that rose up out of the ground, covered in a dark desert patina. Along either side of the formation grew a number of tall grasses, cholla and prickly pear cactus. It was an ideal hiding spot, and they crawled into it, and Dayk wiped away the traces of their crawling into the thing.
They anxiously listened to the sound of the ship being hoisted onto a truck in the distance, and the quickly approaching sound of the eager dogs that were enthusiastically looking for them. The barking grew louder and louder, and before they knew it, they could clearly hear the footfalls of the men's boots following the barking dogs up toward them. The men had stopped most of their chatter some time well into the night and had only been speaking when the dogs seemed to be onto something, so no voices came along with the sound of the boots as the search party quickly approached.
Suddenly, they saw the body of a dog move quickly past their hiding place, sniffing the ground as it went along. Then another dog passed them. Both dogs had only been a few meters away. Dayk felt his eyes open wide in terror, locked onto the beasts as they ran past the rocks. Their loud barking piercingly echoed in the rocks.
It became painfully obvious that the search party had slowed its pursuit. One of the dogs came circling back the other way, sniffing the ground as he went. The sound of the men running also stopped, but their presence could be heard clearly around the rock formation.
"You got somethin', boy?" Came a voice just a few meters away. Dayk and Thalia both held their breath anxiously. Two more dogs could suddenly be seen just a short distance away.
Suddenly a large dog popped its head into the opening of their hiding place and barked painfully loud in their face!
"I think we've got something!" One of the men yelled. Dayk couldn't see past the dog barking only centimeters from his face, but just beyond the dog's legs he could make out the sight of boots gathering around them. He could feel Thalia's body trembling hard next to his own, and he noticed that his own body had begun to shake violently in the terrifying face of the barking dog! It had been far too easy for these men to discover them, and the fear that gripped them both was unbearable. He wanted to scream and to fight, and to run away as fast as he could, but here they both were cornered by men hunting for prey, and now they had their quarry surrounded.
In the blink of an eye a tall man leaned over the dog and pushed aside the covering of tall grass that lie between them and the rest of the world. The barrel of a gun quickly protruded into the small cavern and the large face of a man came down directly behind it.
"What do you have?" Came a voice from behind the man.
"Ah, there's nothin' in there." The man with the gun pointed directly at them said. As quickly as he came in, he was gone. The dog continued to bark loudly in their face, until the man grabbed its collar and pulled it back out of the rocks. "C'mon you stupid mutt!" He said, dragging the dog away from the entrance to the shallow cavern. "There's nothin' down there." The dog looked up sheepishly at the man, licking its lips, asking its handler for forgiveness for its mistake, and then quickly bounded off in another direction with its nose trained on the ground.
"They must have come this way pretty recently." Another man said. "The dogs are all over the place."
"I think they lost the trail again." Came the voice of someone they had heard earlier in the night.
"They can't be far. I think we've had them on the run for a while now." Said another man.
"It looks like they're trying to head back toward their flyin' saucer."
"Yup." Said someone else, who sounded like they were standing on top of the rock they were hiding in. "It's a fair bet they're trying to make it back that way. Git th' dogs and lets head off in that direction. If they don't pick up the trail soon, we'll circle back around this way."
Like a reckless parade the men and dogs started running off again leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. The din of the barking dogs quickly became more and more distant as they trampled off toward the ship.
As soon as the search party was out of earshot Thalia suddenly reappeared and started sobbing loudly into her rebreather mask. Tears were pouring down her face and her body shook violently. Dayk de-cloaked immediately after her and let out the breath he'd been holding since they arrived. He, too, was having a fit with the tremors, and Thalia's open emotional state had sent further shivers down his spine. He was worried that the men would hear her crying, but then tears of his own started welling up in his eyes and both of them collapsed down on their backs.
"I don’t want to do this anymore!" Thalia cried. Her sobs grew louder as she decompressed from the fear that had gripped them both.
Dayk tried to quiet and console her with his trembling hand. "That was.... too close..." he panted heavily, almost hyperventilating. "We... We have to... get out of here." He said. "I don’t want to do this anymore either."
The sound of the men and dogs continued to move off away from them into the desert. Thalia's tears slowly died down, and Dayk's body soon stopped shaking. They lay there in the small cave, utterly exhausted and terrified. A night of running in fear, constantly coming far too close to danger and utter failure, and then it was over. After almost one hundred kiloChrons of hiding and running from men who kept coming closer and closer, now the men were moving further and further away. The trail had gone cold and the search party moved on. They could see the sky above them start to glow brightly with pink and blue morning hues, and then, suddenly.... They fell asleep.
Trying to Catch the Chronis
Thalia woke suddenly to the sound of a low flying airplane zipping over the desert. The noise of the engine echoed loudly in the rocks and created a jarring vibration that penetrated deep into her skull. The Doppler Effect had kept the propeller noise as a low din until it was almost directly overhead, and then it whirred off into the distance with a steadily declining note.
"Ow!" She yelled, smacking her forehead on the rocks as she quickly sat up. Even after the crash she had continued to sleep in the comfortable beds of the Chronis, and now for the first time in her life she had woken up on rigid uncomfortable stone to the sound of a loud mechanical beast in an unfamiliar place. For a moment, she had almost forgotten all the previous night's excitement, but it didn't stay forgotten for long.
As soon as she regained her senses, she began frantically trying to collect herself and get a handle on their situation. How long had they been asleep? What had become of the men and the dogs? What had become of their ship? Dayk was still sleeping beside her. He was thoroughly unconscious and looked as though he could sleep for another megaChron.
In the distance, she could hear the plane circling back around for another pass over the desert. She crawled the very short distance to the opening of the cavern and looked up into the sky. It was obvious that most of the day had passed them by. In the distance, she could see the small craft circling around against the deep blue of the afternoon and heading back toward where they were hiding. It had to be a search.
She quickly ducked back into their small cave and started trying to wake Dayk. She shook him, but nothing happened. She shook him harder and he grunted in his sleep. "Dayk!" She said loudly in his ear while shaking him one more time. At last he began to stir. "Dayk! Wake up!"
"Unnnggg!" He grunted, clearly enjoying his slumber.
"Come on!" She said. "Get up! You have to wake up."
"What time is it?" He mumbled out to her.
"It's already after sixty-seven kiloChrons." She said. "They've got an aerial vehicle looking for us."
"Sixty-seven!" He said with a start, bolting up from his sleep and hitting his head on the rocks above. "Ow! Dhregh!" It took him a moment to collect himself, rubbing his sore head and his tired eyes
. "How did we sleep so late? Most of the day is gone!"
"Well, we were up for over a hundred kilos. I'm honestly not surprised." She replied.
What about the dogs and the people? Dayk asked with sudden terrified concern, shifting to telepathic communication. The way he asked it, and the sudden silence made Thalia feel like maybe they had been overheard by some unknown observer. Giving each other a startled glance they both quickly opened their palms and watched as the holographic displays suddenly appeared above their hands. Almost immediately images started to appear before them. As they both widened out their images, they could clearly see the plane flying overhead, and then off in the distance there appeared a single remaining ground vehicle with only a small contingent of men wandering the area around it.
I guess the ship is gone. Thalia said with an air of defeat in her thoughts. I wonder what the remaining men are doing there?
"No idea." Dayk said aloud, no longer concerned that some unknown person was just outside listening for them. Continuing that train of thought he moved his holographic image in as tightly as the resolution would allow on the four remaining men and the truck that they were standing around. They were all actively engaged in search like behaviors as far as he could tell from the hologram. "One has some sort of device pressed up against his face. Could be a viewing instrument or a scanner of some kind. It's not putting out any kind of radiation or energy pattern." He said while studying the hologram closely. "Two of the others seem to be walking around, looking at the ground."
"Maybe their looking for additional small pieces?" Thalia added.
"Perhaps. The last one just seems to be standing there with a small device of some kind. It's emitting radio waves. Transmitter of some kind. Bidirectional."
"There is a weak low spectrum EM wave on the atmosphere." Thalia said. In her head, she began listening to the signal while Dayk kept studying the hologram. "He may be communicating with the craft flying overhead." She said. " Hard to make out, their technology is really limited, and their accents are difficult to understand. I think some of it is in some kind of code as well. I'm not sure what an 'echo niner bravo' is. There's a lot of that kind of talk."
"The ship is already a hundred and twenty-seven kilometers south east of us. Doesn't appear to be moving anymore." Dayk informed her as he homed in on the ships residual signature that pulsed out from the hull with a micro vibration that was built into the ship’s materials. "There's a city or something nearby, but at this distance my resolution is junk. That might be Roswell." He continued.
"So, what do we do?" Thalia asked him.
"We follow the ship. There's no reason to go back to the crash site. But we're going to have to stay hidden." He said.
"It's pretty hot, and with that craft flying overhead it will be difficult to move and stay hidden during the day without draining our cloaks." Thalia added. "How do you suggest we get there? A hundred and twenty-seven kilometers is a long way to go over terrain in the desert."
"Agreed." Dayk said. "We're going to have to find a way. Dhregh! I wish we could have made it back to the ship."
"What about that vehicle that's left behind with those men?"
"Awfully risky. One, they're looking for us, and two, like you said, we don't have a lot of power left in these cloaks. I don't know how long we can stay hidden there, and I hate to waste these."
"If only the ship's teleporter was working." Thalia said.
"Ha! Yeah, but then we probably wouldn't be in this situation in the first place,"’
Dayk said with an entertained jovialness to his voice that she hadn't heard in quite a while.
"I know." She replied. "I'm just ready to be done with all of this, and I want the short way out."
"So do I." He said.
“If I never sleep on rocks again, I certainly won’t complain.” Thalia said, briefly looking down at the life marks on her arm. She sat there deep in thought for a moment, weighing alternatives as the sound of the small plane came flying back over their heads low to the ground. It passed over them without seeing them and kept on about its search. Dayk watched it in his hologram and Thalia listened to the low frequency radio transmission in her head as she considered ways to get out of the mess they were in.
"Hey..." She said suddenly. "What about the other man. The first man. He had a vehicle, and I'm pretty sure he's not actively looking for us anymore. In fact, I think he might even be scared of us."
"What exactly are you suggesting?" Dayk asked her inquisitively.
"It's got to be a much shorter walk there and we might actually have better luck with a local than with the military. He will either have less of an agenda, or less means to do something about it." She said.
"Wait, are you suggesting that we actually talk to this primitive?" Dayk said with some alarm. "That is out of the question."
"No, no." She said, dismissively. "But we might be able to hitch a ride with him until better prospects come along. Look, it's not a perfect plan, it's just an option we have. He's got a vehicle, we need transportation. He's not military and he's not hunting for us. That's all I'm saying."
"Well, I guess that is certainly an option, but even if we got there how would we get him to pilot that thing to our destination. We're ill equipped for any kind of mind control. That was all destroyed in the crash. We can't just ask him. To him we're alien monsters. He's just as likely to shoot us with that weapons he carries around as he is to do anything to help us."
“The weapon is still laying in the dirt a kilometer from here.” Thalia said.
“It may not be the only one he has.”
"Well anyhow, what if we pilot it ourselves?" Thalia interrupted. "Their technology is incredibly simple, and I can't imagine that those things are difficult to pilot."
"Steal it?" Dayk said questioningly. "Seems like that might draw a lot of attention to ourselves."
"Except there's nobody out here. All of our scans show this place to be barren for hundreds of square kilometers in every direction." Thalia said. "If we take it in the middle of the night, I'm sure we wouldn't be seen."
"Hmmm. You may be onto something." Dayk said, pondering the possibilities in his head. He could see a number of scenarios working both for and against them, but all in all the odds seemed to be in their favor, and with little more than a quick thought he could see no foreseeable damage to the timeline if they proceeded. "I guess if we keep our cloaks on us then we can abandon the vehicle if we get noticed. More than likely whoever finds us wouldn't be looking for invisible people."
"We can't drive around with the cloaks activated!" Thalia said. “That’ll blow through the power too fast.”
"No, no, I just mean for us to keep them at the ready." Dayk said. "Well..." He paused to listen for the craft flying overhead. "Now all we have to do is make it through the desert, passed primitive men who are actively looking for us. We’ll have to find his domicile, and plan the safest, fastest route."
"It won't be easy." Thalia said.
"The problem now is, it may take us all night to walk there, but it’s probably best that we pilot that craft at night. That means we lose a day right from the start." Dayk said. "Unless...."
"Unless what?" She started to ask, but his thoughts transmitted into her mind before she could finish.
“Unless we just risk it and pilot it in broad daylight,” Dayk said.
“And use the cloaks if anyone sees us?” Thalia replied.
"Exactly." Dayk said.
"Perhaps the pilot is just short and couldn't be seen through the view screen." Thalia suggested.
Dayk started thinking about that for a moment. Measuring only about a meter in height, they stood only a little more than half the height of their primitive counter-parts. "That could be a problem." He said. "We might be too short to operate these-vehicle effectively. I mean, other than the fact that their piloted from a seated position we don't really know much about the operational parameters of these craft."
"That's true." Th
alia said. "Well, it's still our best option, and it doesn't do us any good to sit here under this rock pondering it without more information."
"Agreed." Dayk said. "Let's see how it's looking outside."
Thalia opened her palm and examined the surroundings. The four men were still hovering around their vehicle. Moving around in uniform paths that looked like they were hunting for debris. The plane had flown further and further away from them as it combed the desert for signs of alien life hiding out below.
Dayk stuck his head out of the small cave and looked out over the horizon. He could see the small speck of an aircraft flying off away from them. It was making a wide banking arc in the sky and coming back around, not entirely toward them, but back in their general direction.
"That thing's still flying around outside. I guess there's really no good time to do this." He said with his head out of the cave.
"The four primitives haven't really moved from where they were." Thalia told him. She zoomed out her display and looked at the wider area surrounding them. She was looking for signs of civilization amongst the rocks and cactus of the desert. She was hoping to find where the first man lived. From their limited information, it had to be a small building of some kind, probably made of inferior materials and from the looks of the rest of the desert, it was probably a lone establishment resting like a blemish on the face of the land. She kept zooming out kilometer after kilometer but was only loosely meandering fences that showed up in her display; no buildings. Eight kilometers, nine kilometers; nothing. At last, just a little more than twelve kilometers out a small speck showed up in the display. It was a building of some sort. But was it their target? Her resolution at this distance was poor, but she focused the holographic image in as far as she could onto the speck.
