Damon Knight - Orbit 21

Auntie hooted, “Don’t you think they have food on the ship?”

“Now, now, Kiloma,” said Mr. Goldstein. “We may want to give them a dinner before we leave. A predator like land-lobster might be a treat for them.”

“Suppose it takes them a week to find us?” said Gregory.

“God sent them. They’ll find us. Let’s sing!” The believers chanted until they ran out of breath as we clambered up the rocky cliff.

The plateau was a windy place, with stunted plants spaced about eight meters apart. Broken spaceship walls rose jagged against a flat horizon. We walked to the shade of one wall and sat down to rest. The believers joined hands and chanted, “Come, come, come, rocket. Come, come, come, starship.”

My aunt began to cry. “Think of it, dearly beloved. Fruit trees!”

“Amen,” moaned Able.

“Foam rubber beds!”

Suzannie clapped. “Soft beds! Soft beds!”

“We’ll have paper and pens instead of dirt and sticks!”

“Concentrate on it!” shouted Francis.

“Aspirin and antibiotics!”

“Amen, amen.”

I turned away and prayed by myself. The other nonbelievers grouped in the densest part of the shade and pretended to ignore them. An hour dragged by. So did another hour. Mr. Goldstein and Gregory had been the only ones to think of bringing any food, so all of us shared their meager meal of hard-get crackers and dried lacy-leaf root.

The sun crawled across a sallow sky. The air hung like a heavy curtain. The sun was nearing the rim of the world when a spear-point streaked across the sky.

“They’re here!” screamed Suzannie.

We leaped up and poured into the open. The spear-point banked and slowed. It seemed to float toward us. We burst into tears and shouted and hugged each other.

Mr. Goldstein took my hand and said deeply, “Thank God.”

The craft touched down in front of us. Fear rose in my throat and choked me. Some mechanical sounds came from the ship. I turned and ran away.

“What’s the matter with you? Afraid to be proved wrong?” shouted my aunt.

Yes, I thought as I skidded behind a thrust-up wall, I’m afraid to be wrong!

I peered through a rent in the tortured metal as I cried to myself, What’s wrong with me? Help me, Jesus! They won’t leave me behind, will they?

The door opened. A ramp slid out. A figure about two meters tall appeared in the shadowy doorway.

“Thank God you’ve come!” shouted my aunt.

The figure stepped out and everybody froze.

The creature had a rat’s pointed nose and lustrous auburn fur. It walked upright and wore a compartmentalized belt, nothing else. Four more creatures followed it.

“Angels!” Auntie shouted. “They’re angels come to rescue us! Get down, everybody!”

The believers flopped down and the rest stood uncertainly. The lead creature walked down to where my aunt was groveling in the dirt. It looked at her and chittered something to its companions.

“This is ridiculous,” said Gregory. “They’re aliens and we need to communicate with them.” He snatched up a stick for writing in the dirt and strode toward them.

An instrument was in the creature’s hand. It pointed at Gregory. And there was a hole in his chest. His mouth opened, his eyes glazed over, and he fell down,

Suzannie jumped and flung her hands into the air and screamed. It shot her down.

My aunt looked up—”Why?”—and her chest exploded.

The other creatures took out instruments and began to point them. Down went Mr. Goldstein, Able, Caruso, and Fortune. The rest scattered, screaming. Down went Marylee and Edgar.

I ran toward our camp, not able to think of anything but the screams. I threw myself over the edge and slid down the cliff, dust and rocks clattering after. I ran between boulders and into the forest. I ran.

I reached the pit, panting and snorting. There was a hole on the far side of the covering. I stumbled around and fell beside it, crying, to see the meal we would never eat.

My heart froze with another terror. Pacing the bottom of the pit was a dread-for-all. Its tentacles above each clawed limb curled and uncurled in animal wrath. Its broad jaws opened and shut like traps. A sixth sense caused me to look up and roll at the same time. The ground smoked where I had been and I saw the alien point at me again. I fell behind a many-trunk. The creature ran after me. It saw the change in ground color too late, and plunged into the pit. The alien’s shriek was strangled.

The sound of footsteps told me another alien was coming. This time I knew where to go. I broke off what leaves and branches I could as I went. When I ran around the circle of grand-daddy ground-joint, I dropped the leaves on the path so the alien would not see that we never walked near the small puckered thing in the center of the clearing. I waited on the far side.

The alien came around the grove of banshee trees. I threw a rock at it and ducked behind a boulder. The boulder scorched, I dared not look for fear of having my head burnt off.

The alien walked into it. The ground-joint’s radial ribs crackled up and sliced the alien. The puckered thing enlarged to feed on the pieces.

I listened for a long time as a wind shifted through the forest and made the banshee trees moan. No one else came. The sun set and it grew dark.

“How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? Forever?” I cry silently as I shiver in the cold. “How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?” Everybody is dead. What will I do? What will I do?

It is too cold for me to sit any longer. If the aliens have gone away, I can start to bury the bodies. And then what will I do? I stumble along the path toward the crash site again.

“How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”

I reach the cliffs and find them hard to climb. It is now completely dark. Night insects sting my arms and face.

“Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.”

I reach the plateau and plod toward the crash site. I come close, and stop. The aliens are still here. The aliens have lights!

I hide in a curl of metal and quietly place whatever I can reach in the entrance. Now I wait. . . .

Because the lights are on the plateau, it takes longer than it would in the forest. The three aliens pace (nervously?) the perimeter of their brightly lit field. One takes out a flare and shoots it. Red sparks trail down like a fountain.

The swarm hits with a buzz-whine and hundreds of dark flitting bodies. Tiny razor teeth rip through auburn fur. The aliens snarl and bat at the night-bites. One alien stumbles into an anemone-thorn. The thorns pierce its leg. Its blood coagulates instantly and it falls under a flurry of black wings. One alien falls by the ramp. The last alien almost makes it to the doorway of the ship before its eyes are torn out.

I am fortunate. No night-bite notices me, huddled in my makeshift cave. While they gorge themselves on alien flesh, I fall asleep.

I wake in the morning, after the last night-bite has flown back to shelter. I see that I have no bodies to bury, only bundles of bones to straighten out and pray over.

Good-bye, Aunt Kiloma. May God have mercy and send you to His place better than Earth.

Good-bye, brave Gregory.

Good-bye, glad Suzannie.

Good-bye, kind Mr. Goldstein.

Good-bye, quiet and good Marylee.

Good-bye . . . Good-bye . . . Good-bye.

I wipe my eyes, for I am finished. I have nothing left but my name. I kick the alien skeletons off the ramp and enter the ship. After trying several combinations of buttons, I find one that makes the ramp slide in and the doors shut. I find the bridge. If this ship is like human ships, I won’t have to fly it—the computer will. All I have to do is tell it where to go. I find a rack of circuits and randomly push them into slots. Once a screen lights up with a picture of a variety of ships and a human. It is a human not marred with scars, ulcers, dwarfishness, and swollen necks as we were. Did the aliens kill us because they are at war with humans, or because they are allies and we didn’t look human? I take a break, scrounge around, and find a huge locker of food. If our nutritional requirements are the same, I won’t starve for a few months, anyway. Then I go back to work again.