My Cousin, the Alien (9 page)

Our track ran along the bottom of a small canyon. On either side rose piles of squared boulders covered with vines. The road widened, and we began to run, then grabbed at each other, stumbling to a stop. A few feet ahead of us, the road ended. Beyond it and way below it, moonlight glinted on water. Green, deep-looking water.

Inching forward, we peered over the edge. The pool was large with squared, rocky sides. In fact, all around and above us, rock cliffs and ledges looked oddly even and blocky. Suddenly, I remembered a field trip from last year.

“An old quarry,” I whispered. “That’s what the road must have been built for.”

“So the way
out
of the woods will be the other direction—where the light’s coming from.”

I looked around. The shadows among the giant stone blocks were inky black. “Let’s hide. Maybe whatever it is will go past.”

We skirted the edge of the drop-off and took shelter behind a wall of huge tumbled stones. Several leaned together to make a tent of darkness. Ethan dashed toward it, but I whispered, “Wait! There might be snakes.”

Grabbing a stick off the ground, I rattled it around in the dark space, though whether this would make snakes leave or get mad, I didn’t know. When nothing happened, we stepped inside.

Crouching in the dark, we listened. An owl called not far away, and frogs or insects with big throaty voices creaked and chugged from the water below. The smell of wild roses drifted through the night. Time oozed past. I was about to suggest we go, when the rhythmic chugging from the pond stopped. Ominous silence was broken by a faint crunching of gravel.

I peered out of our shelter. On the pale stone around us, I could see a faint violet glow. Quickly I drew back. Shadows moved eerily over the rock as the light slowly shifted. They must be using some sort of weird flashlight, I realized, one that helped their alien eyesight. Then a voice broke the stillness.

“No need to hide any longer. We know you’re there. Come out now and make this easier.”

“No way,” Ethan muttered behind me. I shook my head, afraid they might have super-alien hearing. Apparently they didn’t.

The voice came again, from further away. “You can’t hide—we’ll find you. And you can’t fight because you haven’t learned to use the power yet. If you give up now, we’ll let you live. We’ll take you away from here—back where you belong.”

I tensed up. Ethan just might fall for that. But he didn’t. “I don’t belong with murdering monsters like them,” he muttered. “Let’s find a better hiding place.”

He slipped away before I could stop him. But he was right. It wouldn’t be hard to track us down here.

Ethan had disappeared around another square-cut boulder. I followed to find him scrambling up a crevice in a rocky cliff. Might as well quit worrying about snakes, I decided. At least snakes were from Earth.

Vines and tree roots made it easier to climb than I’d thought. Nature had been busy reclaiming the sides of this quarry. I joined Ethan on a shallow ledge, then pulled us both down flat. A circle of violet light was moving from behind a rock.

Like lizards, we crawled along the ledge to a shadowed corner. Then, wedging ourselves between rock and the trunk of a young pine, we worked our way up to the next ledge.

This ledge was deeper, and at the back a cleft in the rock made a small cave. Crouching there, I wished I’d some clue what this place looked like in daylight. All we were doing was taking the first route we saw to get higher and farther away. But we could be trapping ourselves as easily as escaping.

The silence stretched on. I peered down at the quarry below. In the moonlight, the limestone looked ghostly white, with sharp rock edges outlined in deepest shadow. We could have been in some ruined jungle temple. And I wished we were. I’d take cobras, panthers, and angry tribespeople any time.

“If we can climb to the top of the quarry hole,” Ethan whispered, “maybe we can lose them in the woods.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave this hiding place. If only the enemy would give some sign of where they were. But Ethan was already scuttling along this one ledge and pulling himself up to another one.

Just as I reached that second ledge, the air above us quivered. With a splintering crack, a rock overhead shattered and rained down in sharp, hot chunks.

We huddled together, arms thrown over our heads. Again the voice echoed over the quarry.

“If you make it easier to kill you than capture you, we will! But if you want to live, come down. You might as well. You know you don’t belong here. We can take you where you do belong. We can take you home!”

In a shadowed corner of rock, Ethan suddenly stood up. “Forget it, turkeys! I belong here! Maybe this wasn’t always my home, but it is now. Go back to wherever you come from and leave me alone!”

I felt proud of him and wished he’d shut up at the same time. But I didn’t have much time for either thought.

Violently, the air quivered. The far end of our ledge exploded into stinging gravel. When I could open my eyes against the dust, I saw Ethan fumbling at the pendant around his neck.

“They said I hadn’t learned how to use the power yet. But I’ve tried. If only I had more time!”

Beyond his crouching figure, I saw that the blast seemed to have opened a new escape route.

“Forget the pendant. Move!” I barked, pushing him ahead of me down a narrow channel in the rock. After a few feet, he squealed and stopped dead.

“Whoa! End of the line!”

I peered around him. There was nothing there. A sheer cliff dropped down to water. Dark, silent water, too dark for even the moonlight to knife into.

For seconds, I felt hopelessly trapped. But neither of us was the giving-up sort. The rocky groove that we’d followed was slightly higher than our heads. Ethan fumbled at its rough sides, trying to find footholds. I knelt down, let him stand on my knee, and gave him a boost up. He flailed and shoved but finally pulled himself out. Then he swiveled around and reached down for me.

After I’d made the top, we crouched low and ran across this new ledge. It ended suddenly. A dozen feet below was another ledge. Between the two stretched a pine tree growing stubbornly in some shallow pocket of soil. For a moment, Ethan looked frantically about. Then, like a panicky squirrel, he leaped across to the tree and started clambering down.

I crouched, ready to follow. Again a wave of quivering air shot toward us. It slammed into the base of the tree. Sawdust and splinters billowed upward. The tree toppled onto the ledge below us.

Ethan’s scream was short and terrified. Its echoes died, and the quarry settled into silence. Deathly silence.

I don’t know how I got down there. I was too scared to think. Somehow, I just scrambled down to that lower ledge. Ethan had rolled away from the ruined pine, almost to the rim of the ledge. He was lying very still.

I crouched over him. He was still breathing, but his pale face was flecked with blood, and his eyes were closed. At least the broken pine branches hid us from below, not that they would do much good against the enemy’s pulverizing gun.

“Ethan,” I whispered frantically, “wake up! Please. Don’t let them catch you. You can still get away!”

Nothing. Not a flicker. He lay there pale, bloodied, and still. Like a little dead bird.

If only I’d believed him, really believed him, earlier. Maybe I could have done more to protect him.

“Come on, Ethan, wake up. I won’t let them get you! I love you, Ethan. You’re my cousin. It doesn’t matter that you’re an alien. Your mom and dad love you too. You’re family! You belong with us. Please, wake up!”

I ruffled his hair and patted his face, but nothing changed. Anxiously I looked around. Maybe I could carry him. The ledge we were on stretched to the left, then turned a sharp corner. Maybe . . . I froze.

On the far side of the quarry something was moving along the cliff face, something with a faint violet light. One of those fat guys climbing a cliff? Still, under all their seeming flub might be alien muscle.

I flattened myself on the ledge beside Ethan, but soon the figure would be high enough to see us. Could I drag Ethan farther behind the fallen pine? I reached for him and caught sight of the chain around his neck. Quickly I slipped it and the pendant over his head. It glinted like fire in the moonlight. There had to be some way to make this thing work!

I held it away from me, frantically poking the little knobs. The violet light on the opposite cliff was climbing higher. I looked again at Ethan. It might not be safe to move him, but it wouldn’t be safe much longer leaving him here. I rose to a crouch and grabbed his shoulders.

Crackling air skimmed over me. Fallen pine branches burst into a rain of needles and sawdust.

“Time’s up, kid,” the alien’s voice boomed. “Guess you’ll have to stay here dead.”

I spun around, about to yell back something when another voice called sharply, “Guess again!”

A beam of blue-white light shot across the quarry into the climbing figure. Something screamed, something not human. Seconds later a charred, twisted shape fell to the dark waters below.

Stunned, I looked toward the source of the beam. Someone was standing on the rim of the quarry. A slender figure. Rescuers! The police had finally tracked us down. But that weapon. . . what was that?

The new figure was moving our way. Then it left the rim and began climbing down the rock face. Whoever it was, he was a very good climber. Nervously I looked around. There was still one fat alien left.

At one end of the quarry, our rescuer reached a ledge and leaped from it to an angled block of stone. Just then, a shaft of wavering air shot across the quarry and smashed into that block. It heaved sideways, and the person clinging to it was thrown backwards. That last shot, I realized, had come from almost underneath us.

Crawling to the rim of our ledge, I cautiously stuck my head over. The other alien and his violet light were moving below and to my right. Sitting back, I looked to the far end of the quarry. Our rescuer was still there but seemed to be caught in a rock crevice or something. I could see arms flailing.

And here I was, helplessly watching! Desperate, I grabbed at the pendant again.
It’s got to work!
I yelled in my mind.
It’s supposed to have some power, so let’s see it!

Clutching the metal disk, I leaned over the rock edge. As if it were a gun, I aimed the disk at the figure silently climbing below me. My mind was yelling orders as I jabbed randomly at the crystal and knobs.
That power, I need that power! I’ve got to save our rescuer! I’ve got to save Ethan! I need help!

I squeezed the pendant so hard my fingers tingled. No, it was the light, the light that made them tingle. My whole hand was glowing with pale blue light!

My fingertips glowed brighter and brighter, throbbing with pain, burning pain. Then, like glowing needles, the light shot beyond them. It shot down the cliff. The climbing alien shrieked. I couldn’t see beyond the flare of light, but something splashed into the water far below.

Stunned, I pulled back my hand and stared at it. The glow was gone. So, almost, was the pain. There were no scars, no burns. The pendant hung dully from the chain wrapped around my wrist.

That’s when I began shaking. Shaking uncontrollably. I’d used an alien weapon. I’d killed an alien. I’d saved my cousin. I’d saved that other person. I was going to be sick!

Dizzily I rolled over and retched. Again and again, my body convulsed. Nothing much came out, but finally I felt better. Weak and dizzy, but better.

Minutes passed. I was lying on my back staring vaguely at the stars when a figure came between me and them. Someone helped me sit up.

“So, you learned to use the power.”

“Yeah,” I said weakly. “But it’s not my. . . Ethan! Will he be all right?”