Chapter 14:

Flashback

He had no idea what had happened to him, neither how it had happened. Actually he hadn't much of any thought anyway right now. The one thing he did know, was that he felt awful – sick, dizzy and without capability of detecting anything that was going on around him.

Feeling on the other hand was a thing that worked, it worked pretty good actually – much too good for his liking... There was nothing positive about his feelings – he was confused and afraid, he was in pain and shivering to the bone. What scared him the most, was the fact that he had no control about his physical reactions. He was barely able to breathe – taking shallow gasps of air – he wasn't able to see, only seeing indefinable shapes of grey and he had no strength to get up on his feet – even thinking about it was too much of an effort...

It had been close this time – it hadn't been that close since... She couldn't even remember the last time she had actually see the sky open up above her. Must've been some 20 years ago when she had still been a child.

Normally the place her house was standing at, was safe. The skyparting occured hundreds of miles away from here and nobody ever came close to this place. There had been a good reason for chosing this spot – it kept her out of trouble. But something had happened – probably some change within the waves' properties or some mistake on the other side of it. She was just hoping it would stay temporarily limited. She had no interest in being the landing place for all the scum that ended here. She had no wish for any danger... or moving to another place.

This time she would've to take care of it, would've to take the trouble. It was too dangerous to give whoever had landed down in the valley time to adjust. The first 20 to 30 minutes after the landing left everybody helpless, unable to control oneself. It was her best chance to solve the problem and get rid of the intruder.

He was sure he had broken something – probably cracked a few rips due to the hard landing. It was extremely painful to breathe, but maybe the lack of oxygen was due to the atmosphere of the planet he was at. At least his sight was slowly getting back – he was able to make out colors by now. But there wasn't much of any interest to see. The dominant colour was yellow with some shades of brown and black in it... and it was hot, unimaginably hot. He could feel the sweat pour down his back and the burning sun was making his dizziness even worse.

Getting up still wasn't an option – his body was heavily protesting against the effort. He still lacked of the ability to use his extremities and the dizziness caused a swirling sensation as soon as he was simply moving into any direction. He knew he couldn't stay here, he needed to get out of the sun as soon as possible.

She had taken a primitive rifle and a sharp bladed knife with her. She hoped she wouldn't have to use the knife – she just wished to get over with her unlovable task. She didn't like to do it, but she had to – it was for her own safety. Rather the newcomer, than her...

She was approaching the valley carefully and tried to be as calm as possible. She didn't want her opponent to hear her – she would give her tactical advantage away if she did. She kneeled down into the warm sand, peering over the edge of the sand dune down into the valley, scanning it for the stranger.

She hesitated – she just knelt there aiming at the stranger and waited. The funny thing about it, was the fact, that she had no idea why she did so. At least not immediately... Her subconscious seemed to have activated all of its' alarm bells and had ordered her not to shoot – she obeyed.

The stranger still hadn't detected her presence – he obviously was still trying to deal with the after effects of his approach, but he at least had managed to stay alive. She had seen this before – this wasn't the fact that had caught her attention. It was his appearance that had done so.

He wasn't a prisoner, he was not even belonging to any species, that was living on one of the planets of the Talian federation. He was someone else, some other species and he obviously belonged to a certain group of people – at least that's what she believed he was wearing that kind of uniform for. An inner voice told her that he meant no harm to her, that he was actually belonging to the same category her parents had belonged in – innocents... She did the most dangerous and stupid thing she could think of – she revealed her position.

"Who are you!"

She yelled at him in the Talian tongue and he turned around quickly, trying to spot her. But he was staring at her blankly, obviously not being able to see her. His sensoric abilities seemed to not have adjusted by now. She could see him turn his head from one side to the other slowly, then he yelled something back.

His voice sounded raspy and she could hear that he had difficulties breathing by the way he spat out the words, but she had no idea what he was talking about – it definitely wasn't Talian. She searched for the primitive translator she called her own. Thanks to her father's technical understanding and building ability she could use it as a help right now. Maybe it was able to understand the strangers' words.

She switched it on and held it up, repeating her words slowly and articulated once again, hoping for him to say something another time. He seemed to hesitate, thinking about what to do next. This time his eyes seemed to focus on her for a few seconds. His words were louder this time and more articulated, too. Fortunatelly the translator picked up on it.

"I cannot understand you, I do not speak your language..."

"Do you understand me now?"

"Yeah."

"Who are you?"

He didn't respond to her. Didn't the translator work? Hadn't he understood her question? What the hell was wrong with this guy? She started to lose her temper on him.

"Who are you!"

"I,... I don't know – I can't remember..."

What was that supposed to mean? She had no idea what the stranger was talking about, what he was trying to tell her. Maybe the translator was actually broken. Once again she made a very stupid decision – at least under normal circumstances – she decided to leave her position and get down to the stranger.

She kept the rifle aimed at him and slowly went down the sand dune, carefully approaching his position. He didn't move and she assumed he wasn't able to see her, probably still an aftereffect of the landing. It didn't make her give up her own guard though – he could still be a danger.

She was standing directly in front of him now, throwing a shadow on his face. It made him wince and he tried to move away from her. She could understand his reaction, but she didn't have time for this right now. She needed to decide if he was trustworthy and she needed to do so quickly, before anyone else would show up at this spot.

"I won't hurt you. I just want to know who you are, what's your name?"

"I already told you, I don't remember, I don't remember anything – not my name, not where I came from or how I got here. I don't know anything."

That was an interesting new information – rather it was true or not, which she still had to decide on, but still it was interesting. However he didn't seem a danger to her and she felt a certain responsibility to not leave him here, leave him to die. He probably hadn't done anything wrong and even if he had he couldn't remember... But something deep down inside of her told her that she could trust him, that he was as innocent as she had once been.

"Alright then – I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna take you away from here. Come on – get up."

"Thank you."

Thank you – she hadn't heard these two words for a long time now. Nobody was ever thanking anyone for anything on this planet. There was nothing done by anyone that was worth a thank you or any person around that had the morality and manners to use the words.

But he had, which once again confirmed her believe about his very own innocence...