Lost Cargo by Hollister Ann Grant, Gene Thomson Page A

world was it from?
    Better to keep it to himself until he discovered its purpose. He put everything away, turned off the book light, and watched her sleep.
    Her brother was out there in the dark.
    What if they couldn’t find him again?
    Travis lay down. The arm on the couch bored into his neck. He got up again, moved the pillows around, parted the curtains to check the street, and went back to the couch. He listened for tiny sounds, a thump on the roof, a scratch across the window, but the house was quiet. Finally his eyes grew heavy. Fighting sleep, he noticed a spider on the wall. The spider moved with blind purpose, never changing its speed, but by the time it reached the window, he was dreaming.
    In the dream he was in the dark bedroom, kissing Lexie. She slipped her arms around him and kissed him back. But a spider was in the room, and it wasn’t a spider, just pretending to be one. The pretend spider crept out with long legs, crawled up the wall and turned to him with one glaring eye.
You don’t know what I really am
, it seemed to mock. Its shape began to shift and swell and grew so large it ate up everything in the room, all the furniture, all the space, all the darkness, until there was nothing left but one enormous yellow eye.
    The face of the flesh-eating giant pressed against the window.
    Travis woke up with a terrified jolt, breathing hard. Moonlight slipped between the curtains. No monstrous giant was at the window, but the wind had blown away the clouds to reveal an enormous golden moon. The moon was so huge for a crazy moment he wondered if it had swung down out of the sky to peer in at him. Maybe the whole solar system had gone mad.
    The numbers on the desk clock jumped to midnight. Shaken, he closed the curtains, remembering the creature’s demonic leap onto a rooftop the night before. How did he fall asleep with the curtains open? He must have disturbed them with all his tossing and turning.
    “It doesn’t matter,” he told himself. “She doesn’t know where we live.”

Chapter 7
Tech 29
    W ho took my equipment?
Tech 29 directed his thoughts toward his unwelcome visitor, but the man’s hostile outbursts had given way to dreams. The injured local rolled over on his side, eyes closed, arms and legs drifting in a sea of luminous blue. The local would sleep until the ship’s skin regenerated itself and shouldn’t remember anything when he woke up. Still, the alien felt bad about holding him.
    I have no food
.
The crash jammed the supply doors. You can’t walk, and I can’t leave you outside, so you’re going to be my guest for a while
.
    The local didn’t seem to hear the speech and slept on. The alien had a more immediate problem. He needed something to eat himself. The ship’s manual warned against local food and drink, but he was going to have to find something fast.
    Lightheaded, Tech 29 climbed out of the hatch into weeds over his head and blinked his cluster of eyes in the sunlight. He sized up the black triangle, the only home he’d known in his adult life. He’d never been in a situation like this, cut off from the GAC, the ship down, cargo lost, nothing to eat or drink. Time to get on with it. He couldn’t stay and starve to death. He drew off enough energy for his personal camouflage and vanished with a shimmer under the trees.
    The intruders must have stolen the tracker. They wouldn’t know what to do with it even if they managed to bring it to life. The consequences of the crash were spreading like a solar storm.
    He found traces of the Elemental’s skin in a trail that headed through the clearing to the water, which meant the creature had mutated into a form that could climb rocks. It must have grown legs, an ominous development.
    The alien waded into the creek. Golden leaves drifted over the tranquil banks. The falling leaves and cool air said winter was coming, but the transformation was beautiful. Whatever else this planet had in store for him, it was just as majestic on