A Saucerful of Death (Starlight Cozy Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Chapter 6

  Jeannie

  The men in the raft started talking to me. I smiled and shrugged as I had no idea what they were saying. I was going to need a much larger linguistical sample and a few more hours before my mimicry ability would enable me to make use of their language well enough to carry a conversation. One of the men knocked on the hatch and soon my two fellow space travelers came out to join us on the raft. The man who’d knocked on the hatch door said something to them while glancing in my direction. The one I had waved at looked startled. Uh oh. Was I the first alien they’d ever seen? This could be dicey. First contact with more primitive cultures has been known to end up with unpleasant outcomes. Like when the Yrgops first encountered my kind. They took a sample from one of our nursery ponds and thought the morphing semi-liquid biological material they isolated from within the water sample was something they could use to manufacture malleable plastics and metals. When they ran temperature related experiments they were disappointed of course. They had no idea they’d killed incubating younglings. They quickly found out, though and even a hundred and twenty-two years later, still hold an annual memorial service by that pond and in every village, town, city, and starship of theirs.

  I decided my best course was to remain silent. I mean, they weren’t going to understand a word I said anyway. The male pointed to his eyes and then at me. Okay, that I got. He was watching me. I batted my eyelashes at him. He was rather cute, I decided. He was observant and obviously quite intelligent and brave if his society had chosen him to fly in their primitive vessel in order to lead them to the stars. The raft began to move and I gripped the sides. If I had a stomach, it’d probably be lurching right now, in the same way, that the raft was. Not that any of these males were. I was proud to be able to hold my own. I gave the male watching me a small smile. He narrowed his eyes at me.

  Then the raft was towered over by the larger vessel. Ropes were attached to anchor points and then we were aloft as they brought us up to the deck. The deck was a hive of activity and the handsome male from the spacecraft grasped my arm and gave a gentle, but firm tug. He wanted me to come with him, to wherever he and his companion were being led to. This turned out to be some sort of room with a sharp scent to the air. I watched as the male let go of my arm. He appeared to be agitated and spoke in an urgent whisper to his companion from the spacecraft. His companion’s eyes widened and he looked at me, mouth agape.

  “Hoe kae ahll doo et,” he said to his friend. He turned to our escort. “Tahp seekrit muhterial neads sekuring. Kin shee goe to kwartrs?’

  I tried to focus on more of the verbal exchange but found it too hard. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Holding shape while adhering to their craft to avoid being flung into space or even worse, into the atmosphere to freefall? Yeah, that took a lot of energy. I yawned. Whatever it was they were talking about, it was a no go. I watched the companion sit in a chair. That’s when I began to understand their concern as what was most definitely a medical exam took place. I watched closely as they measured something by squeezing their arms with some kind of inflatable band that appeared to be a pressure gauge of some kind. I took note of the reading so I could mimic the result. When they placed a listening device onto their chests, I knew I had a problem. I had no way of reasonably laying my head on a chest to hear what their hearts sounded like. Well, I reasoned, they looked a lot like Yertlys, so they probably had a lot of the same characteristics. I decided to go for it.

  It was the wrong move. The medical staff became alarmed and began garbling at me. I focused harder on trying to appear normal, to appear to be Yertlys. The antennae popped up and my skin changed to a lovely dusky lavender. By now the men from the spacecraft were yelling and pointing. I willed the antennae to reabsorb and changed the hue of my skin once more to the pale tones I’d held earlier.

  “Ah tohld yew wuz tahp sekrit!”

  An armed guard appeared along with a man I took by his bearing and the difference of everyone else in the room to be the captain of this water vessel. “Reemahrkbul butt uhbuv ahr paigrahd. Wee shaw nutheeng. Shee wuz nevr heer.”

  They seemed to agree with whatever he said I was then hustled along with the two men from the spacecraft down a hall and into a small room with two beds, one stacked on top of the other. “Ahm soree bught sheehl hafv toow stahe wivth yoo.”

  “Hoe kae,” they both replied. The door closed and I heard it latch as if being locked. I gave the two males a friendly smile.

  The first one, the one I’d waved at first, pointed to himself. “Ahm Mmajur Dahrun Nelsohn.” He then pointed to his companion. “Heez Mmajur Steevn Heehlie.” He turned his hand to indicate me with his finger. “Yoo ar?”

  I pointed back at each of them in turn, repeating what I assumed were their names, then pointed at myself and burbled. They both tried to make the liquid sound that was my birth name. I had given them that as I had yet to have chosen a static name as I had not yet begun to work among a set of statics. Names were usually chosen from among the predominant species in the grouping we worked with. Just as well, as if I had chosen such a designation, it no doubt would have sounded odd to these beings. I would need to pick a name from among their people. It would help me blend in and assimilate.

  Mmajur Dahrun Nelsohn threw his hands up, huffing in what sounded like frustration. He and his friend were having no success at all with pronouncing my name.

  “Wheel hafv to chal hur somtingk lss,” Mmajur Steevn Heehlie said as he looked at me. “Ah noe.” He began to hum and do an odd little dance, shimmying his hips around, moving his head side to side, his hands held together in front of his chest while singing. “Doot do doot doot doot tooh!” He grinned. “Git eet? Blahnd gurl, astronot?”

  Mmajur Dahrun Nelsohn groaned. “Ohkae.” He pointed at me. “Weee whill cahl yew Jeannie.” He poked a thumb at his chest. “Mmajur Dahrun Nelsohn,” he said before tilting his head to his friend. “Mmajur Steevn Heehlie.”

  This was excellent! This important person had granted me a name from among his people and from the ritual that Mmajur Steevn Heehlie and performed, it was one of great significance. I tried to convey how touched I was by my smile. I clasped a hand to where my hearts would be if I were of their kind. “Jeannie.”

  Mmajur Steevn Heehlie hopped in the air, one hand in a fiist that he raised in the sky before lowering it in a rapid motion. “Yehss!”

  Chapter 7

  Darren

  I couldn’t believe I was going along with calling her that ridiculous name. Okay, it did kinda make sense, in the weird sort of way Stephen was pointing out. But, this was no genie and I wasn’t a 1960s fictional astronaut who found a bottle on a beach in a sitcom. I was a 1990s real life astronaut aiming for a spot on the Mars colony and I had somehow picked up an actual hitchhiking alien from who knows where in the universe.

  I pressed a hand over my chest. Man, if Dr. Bombay saw me now, I’d be moved off the roster for the way my heart was threatening to pound its way out of my chest.

  “Cool. Jeannie it is, then,” Stephen chuckled. He raised his hands to the back of his head and put up two fingers of each hand into the air, wriggling them at Jeannie. “Can I see them again?”

  She widened her eyes and looked away. I didn’t blame her. “Dude, don’t ask her that. For one, I don’t think she understands what we’re saying and secondly, for all we know, that’s an impolite reaction in public.”

  “Oh, yeah, didn’t think of that. Like getting a huge boner while wearing Class A’s in formation and the general can see you because you’re in the front row, huh?”

  “That’s oddly specific,” I replied, arching an eyebrow.

  “Well, you know,” he answered, shoving his hands into the jumpsuit pockets. He gave a low whistle which appeared to surprise our guest, causing her to jump. ‘Silver fox you could bounce a quarter off the butt of.”

  “Uh huh,” I said. I really should have known it would be something like that with him.he was incorrig
ible. “Err Right, we need to decide what to do about her.”

  “Huh? But they bought the whole ‘she’s top secret’ thing. Come on, they saw she’s an alien. They tell anybody they’ll be laughed at. Besides, they’re probably scared shitless that if they do so much as mention her at all, that someone will come and put their lights out.”He made a downward motion with his right hand. “Sleep with the fishes and all that.”

  I cut my eyes towards Jeannie. She was now walking about the room, examining whatever caught her eye as she made her way around. I looked back at Stephen. “You think so? Because I don’t want to go to sleep with any fish. I don’t want to get locked up in a CIA facility either while they cart her off to Area 51 to do any unpleasant examinations, either.”

  “She doesn’t seem dangerous. Maybe we can hide her with us in Hawaii, tell everyone she’s my girlfriend.”

  And there it was. I knew sooner or later the fact she was drop dead gorgeous was going to get him interested in her in more than a scientific manner. “And after that? What are you going to do, move her into your one bedroom condo with you?”

  “Maybe. Why not? She might really like me, too, you know.”

  “You’ve only known her for less than an hour!”

  “Maybe it was literally foretold by the stars. “ He laughed. “Get it, foretold by the stars and she’s an alien?”

  “I got it. I’d like to hand it right back and beg you to not pull that one back out ever again.”

  “Geeze Louise. What happened to your sense of humor?”

  “It’s taken a back seat while I keep us all out of mortal peril- oh my! What did she just do?” My mind tried to parse what my eyes told it I had just witnessed. One moment Jeannie was was tipping opening a desk drawer, pulling out a notepad and a couple of black Skilcraft government issue pens. The next she just sort of flowed into the desk. I don't know any other way to describe it. Oh, lord, I felt lightheaded just thinking about going to see what she looks like crammed into the drawer. I could hear my breath starting to come in pants.

  “What’s the matter with you? Calm down, man. No one’s going to take us away. We’ll think of something.” He turned his head to see what I was looking at. His brows knit together and he turned around in a circle. “Hey, where’d Jeannie go? She was just right over there.”

  I licked my lips and pointed at the still open drawer.

  “Yeah, I know she was there. She’s not there now. Did she climb in the locker maybe?” he stepped towards the locker. I grabbed his arm to stop him and pointed at the drawer once more.

  “You okay? Oh! She put something in the drawer before going, poof?”

  I took a deep, steadying breath, nodding. I let go of him as he moved away to go peer inside the drawer. He looked down inside. “What is this? Looks like that stuff they pour over heads on that kid’s channel.” He poked at it. “Doesn’t feel slimy though. More like Silly Putty, only wetter, kinda.” A tendril of the stuff chased after his hand and gripped his finger. “Hey, look! Whatever it is, it likes me!” It unwound from his finger and became thicker. “Oh, my God!” he shouted, jumping back as the ball of stuff reformed into Jeannie’s smiling face. “That’s, that’s…”

  “Jeannie,” I finished for him.

  He blew out a breath. “Ohhh, wow. That’s weird. Seriously weird.” He took a breath and let it out again. He shut his eyes for a brief moment. Reopening them, he tilted his head to look at Jeannie. Her head bobbled on a flowing column of lavender viscous something. It was more than a little unsettling. “Also kinda cool,” Stephen continued. He smiled back at her and waggled his fingers in greeting before turning to face me. “Yeah, we can’t let them get their hands on her. Who knows what they’d do to her. Besides, she’s such a sweet girl. Just look at her. Smiling so happily even though we probably just woke her up from a nap.”

  Jeannie’s head reformed into a ball of the…stuff…and poured itself back into the drawer. That was definitely going to take some getting used to. I knew one thing, though. Stephen was right. There were too many people who would think the worst of her or see her as something to try to weaponize. We had to keep her safe until her people came to find her. I mean, surely she was lost? Or maybe she was a scout and something happened to her ship? Whatever the cause of her finding herself sitting outside our capsule, and here my blood ran cold as I realized that while we were still in orbit, she’d worn no suit so had not been breathing any air, surely her people would come looking for her when she didn’t report back in. Maybe there would be enough of them to start First Contact proceedings and we’d all sing Kumbaya together and go glomming off on five year missions while terraforming Mars and other worlds with the push of a button. Or maybe not. Most likely, they’d just come down and sneak her offworld, hopefully, while avoiding detection. Either scenario required her to remain safe. I sure as hell didn’t want aliens attacking us because some boneheads decided to do a real alien autopsy. You know how bad the movies make an invasion look? Well, somehow I think the reality would be much, much worse.

  Chapter 8

  Jeannie

  I rested in a semi-liquid state. It wasn’t necessary for me to rest in this way, but it was certainly the most relaxing. Just letting myself go boneless and not have to think of anything else, well, that is sheer nirvana. Unfortunately, this was not the stone basis or the pool back home. It was a drawer in a room I’m sharing with two male aliens. Two noisy male aliens at that. Even in this state, I can hear and process thought. It was, after all, a necessity for my ancestors. They had needed to be able to hear predators and such.

  Not that they are predators. They're rather nice, though I’m not sure why they didn’t simply ask me my name or anything. One of them decided to give me a name and the other wants me to pretend to be his girlfriend. I mentally shrugged. Probably for the best. This way, I seem to be one of their kind. A soul deep giggle burbled through my consciousness. They both really are rather cute, I think, especially the one called Darren. It will be so easy to pretend to be in love with him. Oh! What if he suggested I pretend to be his girlfriend and not Stephen’s because he thinks I’m cute too?

  Overcome with excitement, I began to transform into the blonde human female form I’d adopted as I leapt from the open drawer.

  “Oh, look, she’s like, becoming a tidal wave of alien silly putty stuff,” Stephen said, catching sight of me and pointing. “And now she’s a girl.”

  “Yes, and I’ll do it!’ I shouted happily.”

  “Do what?” Darren asked her.

  “Please don’t say lead an alien invasion,” Stephen stage whispered.

  “Pretend to be your girlfriend while living together,” I replied to Darren, ignoring Stephen.

  “Oh, thank God,” Stephen breathed. ‘I’d totally stood up for you and if you’d turned out to be bad, well, it’d have been terrible.”

  “It is terrible!” Darren said. “Not you, I’m sure you’re great. You seem a great gal so far, but when we talked about you pretending to be my girlfriend, it was only while you stayed in our suite while we’re here on leave. “

  “It’s like a vacation,” Stephen added helpfully, placing a hand on his chest and stroking his shirt nervously. “We stay and do fun stuff to relax and then go home and go back to work and stuff.”

  I deflated. “So, you do not want to have me stay with you? You will leave me here and I will have to find a new place to stay?”

  ‘Well, we’ll be here for two weeks. Surely your people will have come for you by then,” Darren replied, smiling in reassurance.

  I looked at him quizzically. “Why would they? I am of an age where many of my kind go and live among other races to experience life among them. My father was reluctant to see me go, so much so that he didn’t even allow me to get my own craft. I bought in secret. It will be believed that I decided to go as I had wished to. Which I did. Wish to, I mean. I didn’t mean to enter your area of space and crash, but I definitely meant to go for a ride and see where
I might go because I had decided I was going to go and learn just as my friends did.”

  The two human males stared at me. “So no one is coming for you?” Darren asked, exchanging a meaningful glance with his best friend.

  “Nobody,” I emphasized. How many times was i going to have to say this? I gave a small frown. Was I still not using their language properly? Was my understanding faulty?

  Darren looked floored, his hands flying up to his head and grasping his hair as he tugged at it. “We've brought an alien down to Earth with us and no one is coming to take her back home and she has no ship to get back.’ He tuned wild eyes to hers. “There’s no more ship, right?”

  “No more ship,” I reassured him, again. “It burned up during reentry as I had to disable its shields in order to cloak it.”

  “That’s an unfortunate trade off,” Stephen muttered. “What if you needed to sneak in a landing?”

  “It was a budget model personal pleasure craft and rather old.”

  “Oh, right, so, a college kid’s old banger, basically.” Stephen eyed me, his glance filled with speculation. “We are talking college intern type learning, right? Not high school kid foreign exchange stuff?”

  I tried to parse his meaning. He thought I was a juvenile of my species? “I have reached my full maturity if that is what you are asking,” I said, hoping I understood him right.