He fell

Somelsewhere

Peter hit a hard polished surface. Blind.

What the heck?

The huffs of surprise and cries told him that others had also fallen with him.

‘Peter?’ A voice came to him from close by.

‘Tiz!’ Peter said. ‘Jan? Walt?’

‘I can’t see.’

‘Where are we?’

‘The tides coming in. We need to get out of here before it gets flooded,’ said Tiz.

Peter crawled towards the voices. The ground underneath slick and artificial.

There. A light.

‘Ow,’ said Jan. ‘Careful.’

He reached the others who had come together. The light blinked at regular intervals in a deep purple color just on the edge of his senses.

‘I don’t think we’re in danger of the tide coming in.’

‘Why not?’ said Tiz ‘We fell, there should be water here already.’

‘We’re in some sort of room,’ said Walt. ‘The floor is too hard and level.’

‘Grab hands. We have to stick together. Then I want you to follow me towards that light.’

‘What light? It’s totally dark here. I mean it’s like there’s something over my head its so dark.’

Peter slid his front foot forward, stepped up to it, then slid forward again. He led the others towards the light that for some reason only he could see.

‘What happened?’

‘One moment we were in Cave Rock, then next we’re here.’

‘Somelsewhere,’ said Peter. ‘But can we keep our voices down?’

‘What? We’re in danger?’ said Tiz.

‘I don’t know. But…’ Peter froze and his hand tightened on Walt’s.

A rumble echoed in the space and something brushed Peter’s face. He breathed out.

Just ventilation.

The ghost of other buttons shimmered around the single light now he had got close.

A light switch?

He pressed it.

Nothing happened, so he flipped it sideways.

The ceiling above him lit up with a uniform low glow that ramped up. He turned and saw in the growing light they were in a square space.

No. Five sides.

The cousins stared at him then all around at the strange room they had all landed in.

On the floor, the center had been inscribed with a green circle. A fractalized chandelier of metal and glass hung above the green ring.

Peter pushed against the door next to the light switch, opened it, and stepped into a corridor lit by the same dim glow from the ceiling.

As the ceiling ramped up to brightness alarms rang out followed by the pounding of a group of people running towards them.

A troupe of manisaurs clad in complicated webbing across their fur-feathered chest ran at them screeching an interweaving chant as their steps hit the floor in time with one another. In their two thumbed hand each held a shiny gun across their chest.

Peter lost his grip on Walt’s hand as the cousins stumbled backwards into the room.

He knew there would be no escape that way though.

The security troupe rounded them up. It’s leader thrust his dark aura at Peter and hissed.

‘Who are you? And what are you doing in the way-room?’

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It took a moment for Peter to understand the words. And then recognize the language.

These are not manisaurs.

‘Blackbirders,’ Peter said. He realized he said it in English to the cousins.

‘Aliens,’ said Tiz.

‘What are they saying?’ said Jan.

‘Peter? How?’

The blackbirders had the same rangy look and quiescent auras that he had seen in the Air Lord and the other blackbirders he had seen on Eoth. Their language had none of the pleasant warbling he had got to know years before.

‘Come,’ the leader screeched.

And he remembered that then he had pretended to not understand it so their guard would slip and perhaps they would reveal more than they intended.

‘I don’t know. Something strange has happened. But understand this. We’re really here, this is not a dream. Take all they say seriously.’

‘I can’t understand anything they’re saying,’ said Walt.

‘No. Well. I mean. Cooperate with them. We’ll be safe as long as we cooperate.’

The troupe leader screeched at them. ‘Silence.’

The security detail grabbed each of the teens and dragged them forward.

‘Are aliens invading?’ said Walt.

‘I don’t think we’re on Earth any more,’ said Peter. ‘We’re…’

‘Silence,’ the leader pulled Peter around and brought his eyes level with Peter’s. ‘If I here another peep out of you I will gut you with my own claws. And don’t think I won’t enjoy it either.’

Peter nodded. ‘No talking,’ he said in English.

The trouper’s aura flashed anger then fell dark again as Peter dropped his gaze and tried to act submissive. He found that easy to do.

This is one scary bastard.

The troupe half dragged, half pushed them along at a run. Out of the corridor and into the dark. And cold of a snowy compound.

‘It’s night time. How?’

‘Quiet Tiz,’ said Peter. He ducked his head as the troupe leader swung his fierce dark gaze at him.

And they ran on across the hard packed ground. Peter’s bare feet made him hobble while the cold seared his bare arms and legs. Across the compound they came to a large stone and wooden building thatched with a roof of snow.

Inside the technology fell a couple of centuries at least. Except for the glowing light panels hung from the ceiling, and the guns.

Peter realized then.

This is not Eoth. We’re somewhere else.

Peter stamped his feet to warm them up. Jan stared wild-eyed at the aliens. The boys huddled together with the older boy rubbing Walt’s shoulders.

The transition from the beach in the middle of the day to the cold dark of night on a distant planet had shocked them all to silence.

I don’t blame them.

He wanted to tell them it would all be okay. But if his experience with blackbirders held true here then nothing could be guaranteed.

‘It will be okay,’ Peter said to Jan who looked close to tears. He put his arm around her. She shivered in the cold.

At least she’s not in shock.

‘Silence,’ the leader screamed again.

‘What do we have here?’ Another blackbirder strode in twirling something in his two thumbed hand. ‘And why did you need to wake me? Dawn is not long away. Couldn’t it have waited?’

‘Humans. In the portal room.’

Peter stared then. He had first heard them say it as way-room. But the connexion sense had begun to work again. Long dormant after so many years he had figured it would have faded but the last few minutes had proved him wrong.

‘How did humans get in there?’ screeched the new arrival. An officer Peter guessed. ‘What were they doing?’

‘They were leaving,’ said another blackbirder.

‘Look at them though,’ said the officer twirling the metal objects in a complicated way between his two thumbs. ‘They did not come from the human camp outside the boundary. Humans do not have the resistance to cold unless they have clothes on. These are nearly as naked as all proper beings should.’

‘But the portal had not operated. All circuits were off. We are still storing charge for the next passage.’

‘Check it. Check the charge. If they have messed up the schedule there will be dire consequences.’

One of the security detail ran off, bumping into another manisaur that blinked back the lights as they entered the room.

‘Do you think they came through?’

‘Where else? If they did not come from the human camp. Then they came from somewhere else. A place hotter than this pestilential place.’

‘They cannot have portaled. Surely? The energy levels are still being charged.’

Two blackbirders returned, one with the webbing of the soldier or security detail. The other a larger but more stooped figure.

‘The power levels have discharged,’ said the older blackbirder. ’Not entirely, but enough. These humans…’ They gestured at Peter. ‘Have somehow come through an open portal then triggered the buffers to close it again.’

‘Which is protocol,’

‘Which is protocol, but which is impossible.’ The old blackbirder paced. ‘Our system has not been switched on.’

‘Check the visual recordings,’ the officer said.

‘I did sir. Inside the portal we can see the transition frame as the impinging hypergraph interfaces, and then nothing.’

Peter started at that.

Hypergraph? Did they just say what he thought they’d said?

All eyes with their dark auras swiveled to Peter after his movement.

‘Does it understand?’ one said.

‘It appears not.’ The old blackbirder stepped closer and said directly to Peter.

‘Skir nusyar tre?’

Peter stared back at him. But the tulanvarqa sense meant he knew their words.

I understood you alright

But too much interesting information came from him feigning ignorance. Even if the strange words meant — Do you understand me?

He stared blankly back into the face of the blackbirder, letting the alien’s dark aura remind him these had little in common with his manisaur friends. And they might be human words, but he knew Thaluk when he heard it. This sounded nothing like.

‘What are they saying?’ said Jan. ‘That almost sounded like words.’

Peter shook his head. He had the terrible impression this old one had tulanvarqa. Even if he spoke in English the creature would understand him. And his advantage would be lost. He knew these blackbirder types, the guttural sounds sounded chillingly familiar.

‘Bah.’ Said the officer. ‘It is clear they are not from one of the primitive tribes in this area. No pigmentation applied to their faces. Their warm weather clothing.’

One of the soldiers plucked at Peter’s shorts.

‘They wear synthetic cloth not hide and felted fibers.’

‘It appears they came from elsewhere,’ said the officer. ‘From another hypergraph.’

‘Intriguing,’ said the old blackbirder. ‘Put them in a pen. And give them something warmer to wear. We may not need it so much ourselves, but these warm planet mammals will perish.’

‘As you command,’ the officer said.

Peter opened his mouth, but he could not even protest. As soon as he said anything they would know he had connexion and all advantage would be lost.

Even if it meant being tossed in prison.