Disclaimer: Still don't own anything…

Chapter three.

I woke up, curled in the hollow with my back to the stone.

My face and arms, which had been facing the fire –which, by the way, had almost gone out –were uncomfortably warm. My back and legs, pressed against the stone, were freezing cold. My toes? I couldn't even feel my toes. Come on, I could barely feel my fingers. And my whole body ached from sleeping on the ground.

The little cave had done some work to contain the heat of the fire. Not nearly enough.

I got up. Picked up my bag. Crawled out of the hollow. There was mist on the ground, I saw, curling among the trees and plants. But the sky was clear.

What was the most important thing? Getting back to my family.

No. The most important thing was the spaceship.

Wait. I'd walked out of the fight, hadn't I? I'd let go of any responsibility for mysterious spaceships. I had no reason to go hunting around the mountains for a strange invisible flying thing. None.

If it could cause damage, it was the responsibility of everyone on Earth. Including me.

I didn't know what was on that ship. I didn't know where it was. Heck, I didn't even know where I was!

"Great," I said aloud.

I spat on my hands and, for what felt like the tenth time, began to climb the rock. It was harder than it had been the day before. Dew had condensed on the rock, making it slippery. Fortunately it wasn't a particularly tricky rock to climb, even when wet.

I looked out over the forest. Mountain slope, stream, tree, tree, tree, blackbird, still no sign of the way home. I heard the breeze rustling in the trees. I heard the birdsong. I saw the sky, a dozen marvelous shades of blue, with a golden-white sun just clearing the horizon. I could feel the still calmness of nature around me.

I heard a whumph. Wait, what?

The stone shook slightly beneath me. Like something had collided with the ground –something huge –and sent a brief quiver through the Earth.

I looked over my shoulder at the mountain behind me. Then I looked, awkwardly, at the mountain beyond that.

The other mountain was covered in trees, mostly. But there was a crown of bare earth around the peak, dustily orange-brown. And there was something else there, for a second, glimpsed against the mountain. A glimpse of pale green.

The spaceship.

Well, that just about settled the issue.

"All right, fine," I said. "Nothing to worry about, Cassie. Just walk over there on a gimpy ankle, sneak around, see what's up, then break a promise and morph bird. Just to get home. And leave whatever I find there to somebody else."

I looked down at my ankle. It had stopped bleeding, but I really didn't like the look of it. It was swollen. The scratches were red lines. Possibly it was infected.

Didn't matter. It'd go away when I morphed. When I broke my promise.

I looked at the mountain again. No spaceship was in sight.

I was going in anyway.

----

Around midday, I stopped for a rest.

I'd come quite a way. It had taken me most of the morning to get around the mountain I'd been on. Then more time coming up the one I'd seen the spaceship on. And I wasn't even all that far up. I mean, yeah, I was quite a way over the usual ground level, but that was less than a tenth of the way up the mountain.

My ankle throbbed. It had slowed me down some. And the infection –if there was an infection –was making me thirstier than usual. I drank the Coke and wished I had more.

The light seemed to behave oddly. It went dark, then brightened. I got to my feet and swayed.

"Come on, Cassie," I said to myself. Just a few more miles. Just a few more hours. Just a few more…

I staggered off up the slope. My ankle protested, sending waves of pain up my leg. It was okay. I could cope with it. I was me. I was Cassie. I had done strange things. I had done terrible things. I had nearly been killed on a number of occasions. I could handle a little pain.

Up. Up. Gritting my teeth and pressing down on my knee as I climbed. Trees that looked like people, standing in warped and twisted ways. Contorted as though with pain.

Yeah. I have a sick imagination sometimes.

Then, abruptly, I was staring at the dirt. I had collapsed.

I turned my head. A stream made a comfortable chuckling, warbling sound not far away. A woodpecker thumped at the trunk of a tree. I smiled vaguely. The sun was pretty. Made pretty patterns on the trees. I suddenly felt ill. Something was wrong with me.

Get up, Cassie.

I hauled myself up. Stumbled to the stream. Knelt on the bank and splashed freezing cold water on my face. It woke me up, made me feel more alert. Then I reached for my leg, pulled up the trouser leg, and stared at my ankle.

It looked horrible. The cuts were oozing a clear liquid, mixed with blood. It was worse than it had been earlier. Far worse. Some voice in my head said, that's wrong, infections can't progress that fast.

And I answered: Well, this one has.

I took a deep breath. Reached for my spare jacket. I yanked at the sleeve until the fabric tore. Then I pulled my sock up over my ankle, dunked the strip of sleeve in the stream, and wrapped it quickly around the swelling. It hurt. I clenched my teeth and did my best not to scream. At least the cold water helped numb it.

You think you've been in trouble? Wait until you walk up a mountain, alone, with an infected ankle, looking for an alien spaceship that may or may not contain twenty Hork-Bajir-Controllers.

It was getting dark again by the time I got near the top.

I found another cave. At much the same time I heard voices.

I froze. Went dead still for a few seconds, listening intently. Then, as quietly as I knew how, I worked sideways into the cave and hunkered down.

It was a reasonably-sized cave. Good for sheltering in. Not so good for hiding. No trees near the entrance.

I listened.

They were voices all right. But –and I'd kind of been expecting this –they didn't sound human.

One more point: Neither did they sound like Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, or any other alien I'd seen.