After ten minutes, the sand storm seemed to surprise Zarah from every angle. The whole vision was blurring and the flying particles hurt against her sensitive skin. But she didn't care about that, more important was to shield the respiratory organs. In such a storm, anyone could easily suffocate to the flying sand. She quickly undressed the flimsy silk shirt she had over her tank top and put it over her mouth and nose. The goggles she turned back over her eyes.
She was in the middle of the tornado, since the sand whirled in a circle around her. It was a bit easier to see forward, and for her luck she spotted an indistinct shadow somewhere in front of her. But then the wind veered and began to blast straight against her face. She had to get there, to the shadow! It was her only hope! A fear of death filled her heart, a panic, a disturbing memory beyond half a year... in her thoughts she was again in that electric chair in that disgusting chamber, feeling the needle-sharp gravel just as if that current had raved in her body. Why had she been so stupid to come here? It would be totally her own fault if she'd die here in the middle of this wilderness. No one would ever find her here; her memory would be buried into the grit.
As she fought herself forwards, she hit her forehead against something. A solid stone. Was that the shadow she had seen? No, there was something more. With her palms, she groped the rock that seemed to continue to her right side. There! There was the shadow, leading into something! A cave! She bowed and groweled into the man-sized hole. Now she was able to take the shirt away from her face and leer around where she was. "Oh, boy..." she sighed and noticed that she stood in a tunnel of some kind. The walls of the cave looked quite peculiar for to be formed just by the forces of nature. They were like cut straight from the stone wall. She went more in as the wind howled and dusted the sand in. Luckily, she had a crystal torch with her, so she could get some light into the murky cavity she entered downwards. "Where the heck am I?" she wrinkled her brows and kept taping. "This is certainly dug here by a limb of an intelligent life form. Could this be some kind of a mine tunnel of the former science colony that lived here?" she pondered. Suddenly in front of her was an impasse. Dumbfounded she touched the rock ceiling and sat down to lean against it. "This ain't a mining tunnel... maybe a temporary shelter against the weather for researchers? Odd..."
She decided to take a snack as she was sitting there. No sign was announced, that the storm would end. It could take hours, even a day until she was able to get out. She had water and a compass along with her research implements with, but she cursed that she had left her communicator in her ship. There was no way to call for help, if something else less favourable would happen. "Ah... why did you have to be so desultory? You stupid lass!" she scolded herself as she gnawed her ration.
"Wrrrrrrhssssss..." a hiss out of the blue came from somewhere.
Zarah startled and pricked up her ears.
"Now what the blast was that? That wasn't produced by the sand storm!"
"Srrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhsssssssssssssss---wrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssshhhhh" the mechanical noise continued.
Now she saw what had caused the abhorrent buzz. Beside her, an electronic eye scanned her and the rest of the tunnel. It had come from a small hatch in the wall.
In panic, she screamed and stood up from her position. The surveillance camera-looking device blinked nastily and began to peep as a yellow light ignited in it. And then, Zarah heard another noise. The ceiling opened and a net was dropped upon her. While trying to get away from the trap, she got tangled up to the mesh so badly that she soon was not able to move at all.
A few minutes she laid there her every body part pinned and tied in a tight packet. "Great! What next? A couple of cannibals gather around me and put a cauldron to warm up for my pleasure...?" Her question was completed as the dead-end wall opened. It was just decorated to look like a stone surface, but actually was a metal door with an automatic open-close-system. Two sturdy men stepped from it into the cave.
"Well, well! What have we got here?" the other one wondered crudely.
"A spy!" the second one interjected.
Zarah began in a calm tone: "Would you gentlemen please help me out of this thing. I'm not a spy, I just came to search for shelter from the sand storm."
But the answer was not goodly-natured at all. "Don't toy with us. You're a spy. What else would no one do on this planet?"
"I guess Zurg has sent that chick. It has been a long time since espionage has been going on from his side. But I guess it has started again..."
"I was not sent by..." she sighed.
"Ya shut up! You're in a big trouble, gal!"
She was grapped from her arms and dragged in through the door, the net still around her. Next she found herself in an elevator that in a flash went down into the mysteries underneath the ground.
--------------------
The net mess was ripped off Zarah with a pocketknife.
"I pity the good meshwork! We gotta go and install another one to the booby trap", the other man growled. Now Zarah saw strictly who was with her. The lastly spoken was a purple-skinned alien with human-looking body. He was extremely strong and robust, but a bit short for a grown-up. Then she attached her eyes to the second one. He was a human, black, and alike his company, sturdy and shabby. Both looked like crooks angled from some backstreet.
"Would you at least kindly tell me where I am?" she snapped. She was now brought to some kind of a control room where different kinds of monitors beeped and flickered.
"Ha, Neder, didya hear what she said? Would ya kindly tell me where I am?" the black guard raised his voice to falsetto and burst into horselaugh after his poor imitation.
"Asking stupid questions. Just like spies do when they try to convince they're innocent!" the purple one responded.
"Now you come with us!" the other guard bawled and gripped Zarah's arm quite rudely. She twitched and was forced to follow the men.
They left the room and next walked long through murky corridors where air-conditioning pipes crossed the ceiling and small, green lamps glowed dismal light.
"With what have you tangled up again, Zarah..." she cursed in her mind and was very nervous of the future. "Last year you managed to get captured by Zurg... now you're again in trouble and this time there may be no way out of this... Choi, Choi, why do you have to be so heedless...? You wanted an exciting holiday, now you get to enjoy it... this, however, seems to be a bit too dangerous. I should have decided the destination when still being in Star Command HQ... craters, if Team Lightyear now knew where I am, I'd have some kind of light in the end of the tunnel..." Then the words of the guards cut short her mind-play.
"When does this Zurg-guy learn not to bring his spies here? He shoul' get the point that they never find outta this place, once they descend the dungeons..." the man leading her commented to the other alien.
"Sheesh, Eisley, what did he enrol this time? A teeny bopper wearin' overalls!"
Zarah's brains boiled and she spat back to the highnesses: "Darn it, I'm not a teen gal, I'm a highly educated scientist and a spy of Zurg just when chicken have teeth!"
Eisley, the human, poked her and blurted angrily: "Ya just shuddup! You should be at school at this time of the day or writing fluffy poems on pink papers! A highly educated scientist... hah! There ain' no scientists on this planet any more, so dontcha claim any nonsense. Glad they left the colony so we can live here in peace."
"By the way, Eisy, what are we gonna say to our boss...? He was having bad tantrums already today. He ain't gonna be happy to hear that we have a spy here..." the second guard noted worried.
"Blasting pulsars, Neder, ya're right! We're gonna get big scolds about this... hope he unravels his anger to this irritating gal!"
Zarah bit her lips. Now she was very troubled. It did not sound very tempting to step in front of some fierce boss who had a bad day, already. "And what was this planet supposed to be? Unpopulated? Oh, my, are the legends of this place really true...?"
After an endless time, travelling in corridors, the group came in front of a large metal door. Neder opened it and nudged her in. They entered a totally new world: the room in sight was a large hall, several doors on both walls. On the opposite wall was also a way in to somewhere. The decoration and furniture were all luxurious, far, far away from the cheerlessness of the aisles. Soft mats covered the floor; large indoor plants conquered the corners. The men dragged her straight to the opposite door and Eisley knocked it cautiously.
"Yeah, what..." a disappointed and harsh voice answered from the room as the guard opened slightly the door. The question was continued with a couple of hackles.
"Um... Boss, we're pretty sorry to interrupt your dinner, but we have som'thing..." While Neder explained further, they all went in. Zarah got now her hackles up. At the rear end of the room, a huge figure sat back against them at a table, obviously eating something. He wore a black cloak, whose hood was put over his head. His wide shoulders looked tensed and she could sense crossness in him. She was absolutely right. Straight ahead, the robust figure shrugged and hit his left fist onto the table.
"We have problems, again, do we?" he groaned. "By thundering quasars, at first the sand storm puts half of the surveillance cameras black, then the radars go dim, whoosh, one of the crystal reactors blows up and then I get this smoke in my lungs from that dratted explosion! The last drop was that my meal was burned!" he stopped to couch. "And... I guess you brave guards tell me there's a spy!" he nearly yelled and did not even mind to turn around.
Eisley was just delighted that their leader had guessed so right. "Yea, that's true! How did you know?"
The man at the table sighed. "It doesn't need a sixth sense... well, who is he?"
" She's a spy of Zurg! Definitely!" Neder magnified with a bombastic voice.
"She? Ya won't tell me you brought some Gravitina here?" the boss lost his temper more and more.
"No, well, she's some teeny bopper..."
"A teeny bopper? Guys, don't banter with me. I wonna (cough) eat my black mess... in peace."
"Well, If you'd turn around, you would see..." the other guard began.
"You brought her here? Just perfect." was the sarcastic answer. But then he sighed and started the next sentence with a softer accent: "Look, guys, I know that you do your best. I jus' am tired to this day an' ev'ry setback. Well... what do you have to say for yourself? Why did ya come here?"
Neder poked Zarah with his elbow quite painfully. "Hey, he talks to you! You go on now and figure out what ya say!"
She inhaled anxiously but began with a determined voice: "First of all, I am not a spy of Zurg. I came on this planet, because..." But she never got her sentence finished. Something odd namely happened in front of her.
Just when he heard those words, the mysterious boss stood stormily up from his chair. The movement was so hard, that the table jerked and half of the dishes on it fell onto the floor and shattered into tens of pieces. The chair he had had was thrown to the wall and also it went to matches. Now it was visible how huge the man was as he posed with his full height, his head almost in the ceiling, the hood covering his face. Zarah screamed in sudden fright and took a tap backwards with the guards who were at least as scared.
---To be continued---