Page 65 of What Makes an Alien a Dad?

But how?

Jumping back into the aircraft would do little to help me escape. It was now clear that the aircraft belonged to Egus. It wasn’t a taxi. I couldn’t operate it, and even if I could get it airborne somehow, Egus might be able to change its course remotely. Or I might crash.

Doing my best to keep my panic under control, I slowly sidestepped Professor Hezer toward the door to the room he’d come out of. If I made it there, I could possibly use the AI to call for help. Every building in Voran was equipped with AI. They should have one here, too.

“What kind of tests?” I had to keep them distracted while progressing toward the door.

Hezer waved me off. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Sure I wouldn’t,” I scoffed sarcastically, shifting just a little more to the left. “I only have been subjected to a million of tests in the past eight and a half months, or longer, if you count my five-month journey to this planet and all the preliminary tests I did while still on Earth. How could I possibly know anything about the procedure?” I threw my hands up in the air, dramatically, while gaining a few more inches around Hezer on my way to the door. “Kear... I mean Professor Thormus has measured anything and everything possible already. And he’s just made his latest results public. What could you possibly still be missing?”

“Not all results have been made public, sweetie,” Hezer muttered. “The fucking crook is holding some things back. But we will find out what it is.”

He moved toward me, and I dashed for the door.

With my belly in the way, “dashing” wasn’t nearly as fast as I wished it to be.

The space behind the door opened up into a huge room. Set with long narrow stands with screens and work areas and divided by shelf units with tubes and vials, it looked like a lab. It was similar to Kear’s workroom in his apartment at the hospital, only about ten times bigger from what I could see.

I bumped into a stand, knocking it over. The screens shattered. A few vials of liquid spilled on the floor.

The stomping of hooves behind me halted.

“What are you doing?” Hezer yelled. “You wrecked it!”

“Good. Serves you right.” I shoved against another stand. A screen device fell off, cracking on impact with the floor. A pyramid of glass tubes shook, clinking ominously.

“Don’t break it!” Egus pleaded.

“You’ll pay for it, wretched human,” Hezer growled.

I kicked with my elbow against the glass pyramid, sending it off the stand.

“Stop it!” Hezer screeched as the glass exploded into shards, spraying the clear liquid over the green floor tiles.

“Oops,” I mocked, shoving yet another stand their way.

Hezer cursed loudly while Egus scrambled to catch whatever he could from the stand before it keeled over. He looked ready to cry, but it failed to stir any sympathy in me. If he didn’t want the destruction, he shouldn’t have brought me here.

Shoving shelf units aside, I made my way through the lab, searching for the exit.

A drone whirred by me.

“Welcome, Professor Egus, Professor Hezer.” It turned its milky-white screen toward me as I ran by. “Greetings, visitor.”

“Call Professor Thormus,” I yelled at it.

The name came to me automatically. I had no time to consider whom to call for help. But even if I had, Kear would be my best bet, considering the circumstances. They all were colleagues here. There was a good chance that Kear’s name and contact information were stored in Egus’s drone’s database.

The connecting signal sounded, sending a jolt of hope through me.

“Yes?” Kear picked up immediately.

His voice sounded strained. Even that one word conveyed to me that he wasn’t at the dinner party having fun. He was stressed.

“Kear!” I shouted.

“Cut the call,” Hezer ordered, and the drone fell silent, my one connection with the outside world severed. “Get over here now, human, or it’ll be worse.”

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