7. Bungler Pilot

The trails led to a cave. The longer they went on, the more they meandered. Piponre had clearly fallen several times. The intruder had too.

They worried they were walking in circles. But they had made no mistake: the footsteps also walked in circles. An attempt to confuse them?

Dusk came. It allowed Jassia to see a pinprick of light in the distance. It wasn’t on their path, but they still decided it was worth checking out.

They found another lightbulb. This one didn’t have a single scratch from its fall. It also shone more brightly than the others and was covered in beautiful ancient symbols, expertly scratched into the metal.

Her pet bear went wild.

It jumped on top of the lightbulb and touched every part. This amplified its brightness. Tears formed in his eyes, which fell on the glass and sizzled into steam.

“Erm, my lovely bear, we have to—”

The bear grabbed the lightbulb and refused to let it go. As her pet led the way, the light helped them find the final footsteps on the trails. As soon as they entered that cave, they were practically blind, for stones did not leave footprints.

In the distance, just past the corner, a faint shadow was cast. Tibre thought he heard shuffling.

“That’s Piponre,” whispered Tibre, softly enough to prevent an echo against the cave walls. “Would recognize his shadow anywhere.”

“Me too,” whispered Jassia.

Tibre frowned at her. “We have no other option. A surprise attack is our best hope. Defeat the intruder before they can grab their Flashweapon.”

They crept to a dark alcove just before the bend. As close as they could get before giving themselves away.

Then they silently leapt towards the light.

Piponre had been attached to a heavy metal piece of wreckage, covered in wires. His skeleton was visible underneath his skin, as he shivered and looked seriously ill.

The intruder was … not much better off. It was one of the wolf-like beings who could stand on two legs, as they’d seen in a memory. A mixture between human and dog. He leaned against the wall and held onto his ribcage, as if it could fall out any moment.

The wolf had a large headwound. A small but razor-sharp piece of their spaceship was still lodged into his body. The only reason Piponre hadn’t escaped yet was his own starvation, for the wires around his wrists hadn’t been tied too well.

Jassia worried about him and easily cut the wires.

Tibre snuck up on the wolf from behind, made a fist and swung it—

The wolf reacted blazingly fast and bit at Tibre’s fist. His gigantic tail hit Tibre’s stomach en cast him against the other wall. The wolf instantly dove onto its prey and bit at Tibre’s face.

But Jassia hit the wolf with the first stone she could find.

The intruder swerved and sought support from the other wall. But he stayed on his two feet, and took a grey-blue object in his other paws. Faint lights glowed around the edges.

Away. To freedom. Jassia lifted up Piponre, but the wolf blocked the exit. He pointed his weapon at the Dwellers. It had to be the weapon that made flashes of light.

They raised their arms.

“Mercy! Mercy! We want to talk!” yelled Jassia.

“As if they speak our language!” protested Tibre. “This is useless. Shoot us then.”

The wolf pulled a flat, round object from the wreckage that had tied Piponre seconds earlier. He threw it in their midst, which made the object flash and beep.

The next time the wolf spoke, they could understand him.

“Filthy, ugly humans,” he growled. “Should’ve exterminated you when we still could.”

“Erm, well,” stammered Jassia. “We’re sorry?”

He stepped closer, the weapon still pointed at their heart. “I must shoot you all. The entire tribe. Zandir’s fate for all!”

“We can work together,” said Tibre. “Now that we can understand each other, we can—”

“But that would be too kind!” roared the wolf. “You must suffer. Filthy humans. A virus in the galaxy.”

Jassia pointed at the wreckage. “Did … filthy humans shoot you out of the sky?”

“Yes.”

The wolf’s eyes glazed over and twisted. He almost dropped the weapon, as his headwound started to bleed.

“I … I remember little of the crash landing. But you remember nothing, do you? Do you?”

The Dwellers searched for a response. Surprisingly, Jassia’s bear found one.

“Don’t pretend you’re any better,” said her bear, speaking regally. Like one of those kings her mother once spoke about. “The thousands of lightbulbs around this planet are proof of that.”

“What is going on?” screamed Jassia.

The wolf had steadied himself and bared his teeth. “They fight. They fight around this planet, for as long as I can remember, and entire species have gone extinct by now.”

“Like … like yours? Where do you come from? What is your goal?”

The wolf remained stern. “I have forgotten, ever since the crash landing. But my fiery hatred for humans will never be extinguished.”

“Clearly, you see,” said Tibre carefully, “that we are not the same as those others?”

The wolf smiled bitterly.

“Indeed. When I landed and survived, to my surprise, I sought you out in search of answers. Finally! I’d receive the secret to traveling at the speed of light! Humans must have amazing technologies and societies! But you are stupider than stupid and live as you did millions of years ago, when life only just started.”

He spit at Tibre’s face. The Dweller didn’t dare show his anger while a gun was pointed at his head.

“I want to trade,” said the wolf after some time. Even the speed of his brains seemed to have been hurt since the crash landing. “You find all the lightbulbs and give them to me. I will give you any food I have left.”

Jassia breathed a sigh of relief. That sounded … reasonable. Maybe he was right: humans were horrible, and all the other intergalactic species were more kind and reasonable. It would take her months to recover from talking animals and everything, but she felt much safer now.

The Dwellers nodded eagerly. They reached for the lightbulb that her bear was holding, as their first gift to the—

“Roarrr!” he bellowed, as he pushed the lightbulb even deeper into his fur. The lamp refused to go out, even though it had no battery.

“Dear, little cute bear of mine,” said Jassia nervously. “We made a deal. Please give the lamp to the kind wolf there.”

“They are my lamps! He may have all of them, but not this one!” he screamed. He kept talking, but was too far removed from the translation device now, which means Jassia only heard random animal noises.

Tibre swallowed. “Is one fewer lightbulb a prob—”

“Tsk. Typical. Humans. Come on, get to work!”

The wolf left and returned a while later with food. Pots, flasks, boxes filled with meat, all of it wrapped in that strange protective material that also wrapped around that box they found before. He gave them just enough to survive and execute his mission—but no more.

As the Dwellers left, Piponre leaned on Jassia. They whispered amongst themselves, snuggled close to each other, caressed each other’s hair.

“Well, Piponre,” said Tibre with a light tone. A slab of meat, his first food in days, was still in his hand. “To honor your safe return, we will obviously play a game of Rockball with the family tonight, eh? Puckle?”

“I think,” said Jassia, who nearly kissed his son. “That he has other plans tonight.”

“I think he can talk for himself.”

“Well,” said Piponre’s broken voice, “at this moment—”

“Of course!” yelled Tibre, turning red. “Even my own children walk away from me!”

“If your wife and children and everyone walk away,” said Jassia sternly, “then you might need to consider the problem is with you!”

“You know what? You have a husband, Jassia. He deserves to … to … know this. I am going to tell him!”

“Oh, oh, sure. You give up life, except when you can hurt your best friend, who has helped you and supported you for ten caving years?”

During their argument, lightbulbs fell from above like apples. By the time Tibre left, they were surrounded by a circle of light.

“My entire life I told everyone to look at the sky! At the stars, the lightbulbs, and see a bright future!” roared Tibre. “And now even the sky is falling down!”

Tibre threw away the meat in his hands and stomped back home.

Jassia could not hear him anymore, but she was certain he mumbled about how meaningless it all was and how he would give up again. Her belly, however, only filled itself with good food … and butterflies for Piponre. And the fear that Tibre was right: she had to tell her husband she’d rather be with someone else.

As they entered the underground tunnel, that resurfaced at their home, she received the shock of her life. Her husband suddenly appeared before her.

“Dear! I was worried sick! Tibre returned as if he wanted to personally smash all the caves, and—”

Piponre stepped away from her. He left the tunnel quickly, without looking at anyone, no matter how much his body protested.

There, in the dark, Jassia was left alone with her husband. Her loving husband, who had given her nothing but a warm bed, and care, and kisses, but for whom she simple didn’t feel anything.

There would never be a better moment. But there would also never be a good moment to destroy something beautiful for someone else.

“I have to tell you something.”