Ancalagon - 101. Chapter 101

Our beautiful home was being violated, which made me sick and furious at the same time I felt relief that every moment they spent searching in vain for us there, they weren’t out scanning the jungle.

We’d been walking for what felt most of the day, and the trees were starting to thin. Sweat had slicked every inch of my body and matted my hair until it started to stand up on its own. A hum, almost on the edge of my ability to hear, and the scent of ozone, made my nose itch.

Where were we? If I was lost, did that mean no one else could find us either?

Bouncer and Ases had kept looping me, one keeping to an inner track and the other wider, often taking turns and switching, both popping up unexpectedly to make my heart race until I’d grown too tired to jump and curse. Now they both appeared through the gap in the trees I was making my way toward. It looked darker, as if night was falling or a storm was approaching.

“Oh shit, a storm.” But not a natural one. Had we come that far?

We had. Without planning it, we’d moved perpendicular to the city from Garjah’s house and made our way toward the port. There was a wide field with a yellow carpet of plants dotted with pink fronds that spiked above it. The dying sun glinted off the arches of orange and black rocks dotted here and there rocks glinted in the sun like geometric bridges going to nowhere.

The trincophants were flying over the canyon collecting the last of the energy from the sun before they returned to bulbous bulge of their nests anchored to the ground with matte green strands. Each poky tip spiked into the sky.

This could actually be good. The electricity from the manmade storm would block the scans of anyone looking for us. I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to cross the short plains or how to get over the ravine and storm to the port, though. Exhaustion and fear dragged at my steps, and I faltered under the canopy of one of the last big trees.

I sank down to a squat, the collapsed onto my butt on the ground. We needed to take a break. Bouncer came back first, nuzzling against my shoulder and then laying down with a sigh. His ears stayed upright, and he didn’t put his head down across my lap like he usually would. “I’m sorry, buddy. You probably would’ve been safer back on your home planet, huh?” I rubbed at one side of the thickened scales that ran over his spine. He arched, his only indication he was paying attention to me as he stared to my left.

My muscles tensed, I relaxed when Ases called out. “I’m coming out, naked. Close your eyes if you don’t want to be jealous.” He pulled back a bush so it wouldn’t whack him in a delicate place, then stepped into the small clearing under the large tree I’d picked to stop.

I didn’t stare, but I didn’t hide my eyes like a child either. “Dork. Like you didn’t used to enjoy stripping and changing just to freak out the newbies all the time.”

“You’d think more people who were into science, diplomacy, and politics would be exposed to aliens who didn’t look like themselves.”

I snorted. “Why? Outside of diplomats, or first contact scientists, those people are the blindest of all. Stuck in their ways, only able to focus on what their goal is, they don’t understand what they can’t envision controlling—be that the lab, or the people they hope to lead.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

It was, and I blinked, my hand slowing on Bouncer’s back where I’d resumed scratching his scales. “Stars.” That had to be it. Garjah kept saying it wasn’t them, that it was too clumsy, too obvious.

“What?” Ases jerked his head around, pausing with his hands on the waistband on his pants.

“It’s the Kardoval. They might have all the memories of all the people, but they don’t leave the planet. They don’t have any experience with aliens they don’t control; the few they do trade with, they do so off-planet or at the port.” I waved my hand toward the crackling storm and wide ravine that cut off the rest of the world from that space.

“When Garjah explained how that security feature worked, and how they had to have special shielded vehicles to get past the storm and the trincophants, I was amazed at their technology and ability to protect their people. But it’s not as much protection as fear.”

“Fear of aliens like you, me, and Bouncer?” Ases cocked his head. “That would set them off.”

“Sort of. But we’re not that scary, you know? We’re not invading, we’re not a danger in and of ourselves. It’s what we represent.”

I could see the realization dawn on Ases, just as it had on me. “We represent change. Loss of control. Loss of power.”

“Exactly. The factions of people who oppose them before were small and no one who was respected paid them attention. But now Garjah, the head of security for the entire planet, has. Others are looking. Others will benefit from an alliance with the Galactic. They’ll see that, and push for it to continue. The near total control the Kardoval had over their people and what they were exposed to is over. New people, new ideas, new ways… it’ll change everything about them.”

Ases sank down beside me. “And there’s no way they will allow that.”

My stomach churned. “Not if they can stop it. Prove we’re dangerous. That’s why they wanted to capture us. To make up some sort of scenario to paint us as the bad guys. ” Stars, where was Garjah? What were they doing to him?