From the moment Slone knocked the
uniformed man clear across the cabin with a simple swat, the
people treated them with fear and apprehension. All during their
trip inside the land vehicle, Embrie listened as the three
adults spoke with increasing agitation, sometimes yelling at
each other, and always with a glance back at her and Slone as
they remained huddled in the back seat. She remembered very little about
that trip. There was a parade of taking them from one place to
another. She and Slone never remained too long anywhere. The
longest wait was when two men wearing the same uniform as the
men who’d taken Slone’s mother away brought their big boxes to
confront Embrie. At first, Slone tried to protect her, but the
Donna managed to calm them enough to where the men were able to
set Embrie’s broken arm. Donna also brought them more water
and something else to eat. Except this time, whatever it was
upset Embrie’s and Slone’s stomachs, and they ended up vomiting
up their meal. Fortunately, another woman brought them another
object she called a banana, and the children were able to keep
it down. Several times, Slone asked them
about his mother. What had they done to her body? Could he go
see her? Unfortunately, the language gulf was too vast, and
there hadn’t been enough time to build any bridges. Nor did it
seem as if anyone cared to try. The nighttime became day.
Exhausted, she and Slone fell asleep in their chairs. A woman in
a uniform woke them up and led them to another room where there
was a small bed. There, Slone wrapped himself around her, and
they slept until someone else woke them up again. This time they were taken back
outside and put into another land vehicle. What followed was a
blurring series of buildings, rooms, cabins, and endless trips
in land vehicles, until they found themselves inside a big empty
room. Four big men entered it, and two of them started to take
Embrie away. Slone tried to follow her, but the other two
stopped him. By their gestures and actions, they made it clear
he wasn’t going to be allowed to go with her. Embrie panicked. Crying out, she
held out her hand for him. Slone tried again. This time when the
two men barred his way, he gave them a shove with his hands. The
men rolled and tumbled across the hard floor, and the two men
holding Embrie pulled devices from their pockets, aiming them at
Slone. Believing these men intended to
hurt him, or Embrie, or both of them, Slone charged the men.
Slamming them against the wall, he grabbed Embrie and lifted her
up into the air, taking her to a spot in the crossbeams overhead
where they were safely out of harm’s way. The people below began shouting at
each other. At one point, Embrie turned to him with tears
running down her face. “What are we going to do?” Slone glanced around. The only way
out of the room was through the one door where they’d entered.
However, there was one window high up on the opposite wall. It
was small and narrow, but large enough to accommodate two slight
figures. On the other side of the glass they could see
vegetation and a road. He nodded in that direction. “We go out.” “And go where?” “Anywhere but here. If we don’t,
they’re going to want to split us up again.” He gave her a
worried look. “You’re sick. You can’t fly when you’re sick. You
don’t have any strength when you’re sick, either. So I’m going
to have to do all the fighting, all right?” Embrie nodded. Her arm had never
stopped throbbing, and other than wrapping it, no one had given
her anything to help her deal with the pain. Wrapping his arms around her, he
launched himself toward the window and ducked his head so he’d
take the blow across the back of his shoulders. The glass
exploded outward as they passed through as the people yelled
behind them. Slone took them above the
vegetation and kept flying. Like her, he had no idea where they
were going. All they knew was they had to get away from those
people in uniforms. He didn’t land them until they
spotted a source of water below. There, they drank their fill
before cuddling again to sleep. When they awoke again, it was
beginning to get dark, and the strange sounds around them were
getting increasingly louder. They took to the sky again, keeping
close to the tops of the vegetation. By this time they were
beyond tired. They were long past being frightened, and they
were starving. So when they approached the outskirts of what
looked like a village, their main priority was to find something
they could eat. They found a cabin that was empty
and broke in through a window. Their noses led them to a room
where they could smell food, but were unable to find it.
Frustrated, they left the cabin to continue searching.
Inevitably, they found a building where people were coming and
going. Those who were leaving carried bags that reeked delicious
odors, and Embrie and Slone realized the building dispensed
food. Leaving Embrie hidden a short distance away, Slone ran
inside, quickly grabbed the first thing he recognized, and ran
away from the store. The quick dash prevented anyone from
spotting him or the theft, so no one chased after him. Taking the two bananas back to
Embrie, they gobbled the fruit, which somewhat assuaged their
hunger. Embrie licked her fingers. “I wish we knew more about
this planet’s food.” “There is a lot in there,” Slone
told her. “I can get us a little of everything to see what we
can stand.” Over the next couple of days, he
regularly ran inside the store to steal whatever he could get
his hands on, mostly fruits and vegetables, although at the time
they didn’t know what the objects were called. And he only took
one or two of them. Just enough to feed them, like they had on
their ship. They didn’t know they had to pay for the items. Some of the items were too tough on
the outside, but the insides were edible. Sometimes the food
made them throw up, but most of the time they were able to
stomach it, even if the taste was less than pleasant. Two more days passed. She and Slone
made a small home for themselves in a part of the vegetation
outside the village. They took great care to avoid being seen,
but they also knew that sooner or later someone might spot one
of them. In addition, the creatures which inhabited the
vegetation were sometimes vicious, but neither could they seek
shelter in one of the empty cabins. To them, someone had built
it, which meant at some point that person would come back to it. Inevitably, the day came when Slone
was approached by a man in a uniform as he was about to take a
bottle of water from a shelf. From that moment on, more men in
uniforms lay in wait at the store for Slone to appear again. And
since Embrie’s arm hadn’t completely healed, she wasn’t able to
run inside in his place. It was time to move on and find another
place to stay. Crawling underneath their blankets, they made
plans to leave come daylight, and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, they
were awakened by the sound of footsteps approaching their site.
Lying still, they watched and waited to see whoever it was. If
it wasn’t so cold, Slone would have taken them immediately away
from there. If they were lucky, the person would walk past their
makeshift home and keep going. A light suddenly appeared. Its beam
struck Slone and Embrie right in the face. Slone reacted
immediately and grabbed her to take them up into the sky, when a
gruff voice spoke. “Slone? Embrie?” They froze in surprise, when
another voice, a gentler voice, repeated. “Slone? Embrie?” The light dipped, and they were
able to see the people who’d found them. It was the same man and
woman who had taken them in at the large body of water a week
ago. The woman knelt and held out her
arms as she gave them a warm smile. “It’s Mary. Remember me?”
Embrie saw tears glitter in the
woman’s eyes. Climbing out from beneath the blankets, she
approached the woman, who wrapped her in a comforting hug. Slone
followed, and the woman embraced them both, not caring that the
children were dirty and bedraggled. The man said something, a sense of
urgency in his voice, then bent over and hefted Slone against
his chest as the woman lifted Embrie onto her hip. Together they
took them to where a land vehicle was parked. Together, they
left the vegetation, left the town, and went far away to where
no uniformed men ever came after them again. And thus Embrie and Slone came to
know, accept, and love their new parents, Cyril “Pugg” and Mary
Jones— camping enthusiasts, expert hunters, superb trackers… And registered bounty hunters for
the state of New York.
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