Foreword:

Oy, super-late again. Apologies, everyone. :{ My heart has been (once more) swallowed whole by another story, and that's making it hard to drum up motivation to work on this one. This story is a commitment, though, and leaving it unfinished is NOT an option. I must keep reminding myself of that.

Frenetic [fruh-net-ik] – frantic; frenzied.

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Captain's Log, Scout Mission 72, Day 4

I've just been through the most terrifying ordeal! While I was writing the last log entry yesterday morning, Tim suddenly picked me up, Sally picked up the baby, and they brought us inside some sort of metal land vehicle with straps to hold us in our seats. As horrible as that sounds, I really don't think they had any ill intent. They behaved as though this was a completely normal exercise and even strapped themselves in as well.

I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. They had shown themselves to be generous and good-natured up to this point, so why would they suddenly change? I tried not to think about that too much.

Tim and Sally spoke to me and the baby as the vehicle began to carry us away, and I had never wished harder that I could understand them. From their body language and soothing tones, I got the sense they were explaining where we were going and trying to pacify any fears about the trip.

It wasn't working. My anxiety got worse every moment as I grunted nervously, fidgeted with my restraints, and glanced haphazardly out the vehicle's many windows, trying with no success to ascertain where we might be heading. Sally must have noticed, because she soon turned her calming efforts from both me and the baby to just me.

We finally arrived at a large white building with at least ten floors, judging by how many layers of windows there were. Outside the building was a huge area where the ground was marked with a crisscross pattern which sectioned the whole place off into rows and rows and rows of the strange metal vehicles, all in different shapes, sizes, and colors.

Tim and Sally deposited their vehicle into one of the rows, opened the doors, and gently pulled me and the baby out. I was relieved to be out of the restraints, but my anxiety came back double when Tim and Sally took us inside the strange building.

It didn't take me long to ascertain that it was some sort of infirmary. Many of the people I saw appeared to have something wrong with them—they were coughing or limping or pushing themselves along in chairs with wheels—and the people who didn't seem to have anything wrong with them were all wearing a similar outfit which I gathered was the uniform of the workforce here.

We were taken into a small room to see one such person—a doctor, I presumed—and after a conversation with Tim and Sally that had me on pins and needles, she proceeded to prod the baby with all manner of alien instruments.

I began to panic, and then I did the most logical thing I could think of in my panicked state. I started screaming and throwing things. Even in retrospect, I don't think I'd do anything different. No strange doctor was going to make a lab specimen of this little lost toddler. No Sir! Not on my watch! I may not have had the words in their language to say 'kindly keep your arsenal of alien implements to yourself if you please,' but blast me out the airlock if I couldn't get the message across all the same.

The doctor looked frightened and shied back. Tim tried to calm me down with a snack, and Sally held the baby as she laughed and clapped, pointing at me and mumbling, "Huggy! Huggy!"

After I'd lobbed everything I could get my hands on at the nearest wall the doctor fled the room, and only then did I accept the snack Tim offered and settle down. As I nibbled away at a handful of delicious crunchy triangles that tasted something like cheese, the doctor poked her head back into the room and muttered something at Tim and Sally in a frightened-sounding voice. I glared at her, and she shied out of sight.

Then we left. I was relieved at first, but then we stopped at another infirmary—one that appeared to be for animals—and it was my turn to be prodded with alien instruments by a different doctor.

So I threw another fit. I flipped tables, broke equipment—anything I could think of to repeat my last message as emphatically as possible.

This doctor was more prepared than the previous one, though, and he injected something into my arm with a syringe. I barely had time to wonder what it was before I was struck with fatigue and lost consciousness.

I woke up in Tim and Sally's house with no idea how long I'd been asleep or what had happened in the meantime. I looked out the window and saw that it was nighttime. I rushed to check on the baby and saw that she was peacefully asleep in the little bed Tim and Sally had given her. That was a relief, but a short-lived one once I realized I had no idea what had happened to her during the time I'd been unconscious.

This was my wake-up call. I need to get that ship fixed as soon as possible.

Without wasting another minute, I grabbed my data pad with the homing beacon for my ship. Then I sneaked into the food room and loaded a bag with provisions. Tim and Sally had demonstrated a willingness to feed me, so I told myself it wasn't really stealing. My conscience pricked at this justification, but I forced myself to ignore it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

With the food in one hand, I carefully took the baby from her little bed and escaped the house through a window. The one good thing about all today's excitement is that she is thoroughly exhausted and slept soundly all through the four-hour trek through the forest and was still asleep when I took her aboard my broken-down ship.

I laid her down in a cot just a short while ago. Hopefully she will stay asleep until morning. I wanted so badly to curl up beside her right then and get some sleep myself, but I forced myself to write this log entry first. I'm just glad to be nearly finished because it's very early in the morning by now and I really need some sleep.

The ship repairs will just have to wait.

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Desire without knowledge is not good— how much more will hasty feet miss the way!

— Proverbs 19:2

Author's Notes:

-Doctor Visit—In case anyone's curious, I don't imagine there's any specific or major concern behind Tim and Sally's decision to take Becky and Bob to see a doctor/veterinarian. Just a routine 'we found this kid in the woods and want to make sure she's okay' visit. Same for Bob. :P