Page 6 of An Alien for the Future

You know what else is impeccable? My aim.

I don’t say it out loud, of course, but my hand tightens around the stone still gripped in my palm. Wouldn’t want to spook the poor creature, even if he does look like he could wrestle Gertrude on her worst day and win.

I can already tell this male is a problem. It’s that same feeling you get when you lock eyes with your best friend across a crowded room, the one that says,Girl, this one’s trouble with a capital T.

And I’m the fool that is going to help him.

3

TOVAN

The signal screeches in my earpiece, a piercing whine that cuts through even my sound dampeners. Frakking crukks. It isn’t just interference; it’s a deliberate, rhythmic pulse, like someone is using a sonic disruptor to scramble my long-range scanner.

“Report,” Arnak’s voice crackles through the comms. “Yourimpressiondistorted just now, Tovan.”

I’m sure he meant ‘signal’ not ‘impression’.

My scanner is going haywire because of an unknown frequencyandmy translator chip is choosing this moment to act up. I give it a light tap where it’s embedded behind my ear and there’s a faint hum that tells me it’s functional again. That should fix it. I’ve been meaning to get it looked at, but the occasional misinterpretations…well, let’s just say they add a bit of humor to an otherwise humorless life.

“Aye.” My brow tightens as I look down at my scanner. “Some kind of sudden interference.”

“What is it?” I can hear Arnak moving around, trudging through the tall grass-feed. I tilt my head in his direction and I can barely make him out in the distance. Almost hidden in the pasture far away.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s…erratic. Unnatural.” My brow tightens some more as I glance down at my scanner again. “Almost like someone’s playing a melody on it.”

Arnak grunts. “Don’t tempt fate. We’ve already had enough surprises on these surveys. For just one sol, I’d like to have an uneventful shift.”

He’s probably talking about the group of tilgrans that chased us across the plains in the last pastures we were surveying. Or maybe even the malfunctioning farming bot that almost took a few scales off himandme.

But this is different.

I can feel it.

“Maybe it’s a beacon,” Arnak’s voice crackles over the comm. “You know, one left behind before the settlers moved away.”

“Possible,” I grunt, but I doubt it. The signal is too strong. Too sudden. It feels less like a dying gasp and more like a challenge.

“Just keep your scanner locked. Identify the source of that signal and determine what the frakk it is. And Tovan—”

“Yes, I know.” I cut him off. “No engaging without backup.”

The comm goes blank as I tuck it into my trouse. If there’s another surveyor out here jamming my signal, it’s likely sabotage. Some other being who is intent on deterring others from discovering the treasures lurking beneath these soils. He is no ally, but a foe.

I must tread carefully.

My scanner’s beeping intensifies as I approach a cluster of zimi bushes, their fruits stripped from the branches as if raided by a herd of hungry tilgrans.

I’m about to push through when a sound stops me cold. Years of training take over; I drop low, my scales instinctively dulling to blend with the shadows of the zimi bushes. One claw findsthe scanner’s mute button without a thought, plunging me into sudden silence.

But the silence isn’t complete.

There, carried on the soft wind, is a sound unlike anything I’ve encountered in my orbits of surveying. It’s…a melody.Music.

My ears flatten against the sides of my head as I crouch low. Still hidden by the bush, I inch closer to investigate. The thumping grows clearer with each step, but instead of grating on my nerves as the scanner readings suggested it would, the rhythm vibrates right through me. A deep, rich melody that quickens my core-beat.

“Tovan?” the comm activates in my ear, but I can’t answer Arnak. Not now. Because I’m frozen. There, just beyond the ravaged berry patch, is a sight that makes my breath catch in my throat.

A female. Of a species I can identify anywhere across Hudo. Ahuman.

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