Note: This is a prequel about the Iberet missionaries and their xenomorph encounters. If this doesn't interest you, please select the Ellie 074 story in the Fanfiction archive instead.

0000000

Br. David Barnes

Alat Jesus Vanseb

W3XI Muprisin

Glizade, Woggerscutt

Pathilon

Dear Jake, I just wanted to let you know I'm still alive. You may hear some conflicting stories about a disease and animal attacks, but I'm pretty sure that information is incomplete. I was actually there, so I know what happened.

We were attacked by space monsters. There are images I can't erase from my mind. A lot of terrible things happened.

The mission to Wuxrinus has failed. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

I have a lot to tell you, and there's a lot I need to explain. You've never been to Pathilon or Wuxrinus, so I'm not sure you'll understand it all if I just gave you the short version. That is why I'm attaching this journal I've been keeping.

Nacoleps 5

We left for Wuxrinus a few days after our extended honeymoon on Qeksavu.

Remember Pulsa Pillow? You know, that alien, that Abreya I brought over to your place a couple times? The one with the funny ears and the tail? Well, I married her.

Sorry I couldn't invite you to the wedding. You have things to do, and a life, and it would have caused a lot of scheduling conflicts, believe me. When we get back to earth again, I promise we'll have a second wedding, and you'll be the best man.

And again, no, I didn't marry her just because her name sounds like an object found in bed, though it is kinda sexy. No, it's because of our shared faith, her sense of humor...we just click.

Qeksavu was beautiful. Pillow wanted to go to earth and have some mundane tropical vacation somewhere, but I'm glad we didn't. Best time ever.

We had a luxury gourd suite in the forest of Riwerrn. In English, it was like a mansion in a tree, with a hot tub, pool, entertainment system, luxury jamassi, kitchen, bath, and a host of luxury activities at our fingertips...and toe tips (Abreya joke). Every morning, I got treated to a gorgeous sunrise, and a rather nice view of my wife as we practiced climbing headfirst down the side of our tree. More often than not, I fell, and she had to catch me.

"You're doing this on purpose," she told me a few times. To be fair, I frequently was.

We were several stories from the ground, but we both wore special gliding capes, and she had already taught me to use them quite well. In fact, my first successful landing with one had led to our first kiss.

The pool and hot tub were shared, as per Abreya tradition, with another married couple, but we loved it.

A few branches down from our tree, lay a stable for Grunkiahu. As I described in previous messages, they are flying beasts about the size of horses, with the ears of a pig and spider's eyes. They sort of resemble turkeys or eagles, with all the feathers, but they have other strange attributes.

Some Abreyas choose to join the `Mile High Club' on their honeymoons, so to speak, but I wasn't nearly that brave, so we kept our clothing on for those flights.

Besides, we had an expensive apparatus, and neither one of us wanted it to fall out somewhere and get lost.

I must preface this with a warning. Abreya culture is much more open about talk of certain things, and it's not like we're doing anything wrong morally, and you always ask questions like how Abreyas go to the bathroom and if they break wind. As always, you can choose what you want to reveal to your congregation.

I and Pillow own a sexual device that allows human chromosomes to be introduced into an Abreya female. It's the only prosthetic like it in the universe, so I guess I should explain. How can I describe this device without coming across as a total perv? It has a...sleeve...that fits over the normal human male...genitalia, but then bifurcates like an Abreya male. My, um, motion propels certain fluids to the appropriate places in the female's interior.

So, yeah. Not something we wanted to lose while playing around. Still, Pillow teased me about the thing. "We don't have to take it along," she would say. "This time could just be for fun."

"Yeah," I told her. "I just love the idea of waking up at the judgment throne of God, trying to explain why I died naked and covered in feathers."

"You wouldn't be the first," she said with a wink. "And I'd probably be there with you."

Sorry to disappoint, but I decided to take a rain check on that. We did, however, sort of simulate the activity a little.

On to things that are less lewd, the place has no church, only a single Vanseb, an Abreya temple, one of the liberal Ajebsur variety. Why is this related? Because Pillow and I were enjoying the consummation of our vows so much that I frequently found myself awash in irrational feelings of shame and guilt.

As I explained in our previous conversation about these alien Christians, the Quaceb religion has many similarities to the Jewish faith. They believe God can have a son, and their prophecies have an uncanny resemblance to messianic texts from the bible. That's why I prayed there.

My frequent praying actually led us to bringing two couples to the Lord, one of them, a male named Ritbena, returning the favor by engaging Pillow and I in a serious discussion about nennop guys.

I have told you about Matt Gannon and his nennop. A number of Abreya couples have them. Live-in eunuch psychologists, basically. So far I and my wife haven't made a decision about them. I'm not sure that a guy telling me I shouldn't have these guilt feelings will stop me from having them.

Lucky for you, a friend jury rigged a power converter on my cel phone and camera charger, so I've sent you some pictures and video of the place and the nice couples we met. For this reason, I suppose I shouldn't bore you any further with the honeymoon.

Our honeymoon ended abruptly with Pillow shoving her clothes into a personal item carrier. Incidentally, they're called Numodynes. They have legs. They're not suitcases, and no, they're aren't like anything in Harry Potter. These things resemble spiders.

At any rate, it was a shock, because I thought we had at least another five days. I thought she was going to break up with me or something.

"What's going on?" I asked with some concern.

"Father's disappeared. We have to go find him."

"Wait. Shouldn't that be a job for the Zeqoska?"

Zeqoska are the Abreya version of constabulary. They wear pink uniforms that look like dresses, but they're not dresses, they're called ogmesse, and both males and females wear them. I've argued with Abreyas that these costumes slow down law enforcement officials, but enough criminals wear baggier things that this does not normally present a problem.

On a related note, Pillow has been making me wear really girly wighesh lately (lots of bright pastel and colorful trim), but I guess I'm getting used to them. A couple times we weren't doing anything, and I had the choice between wighesh and jeans and a t-shirt, and I picked the wighesh. I feel so emasculated, but in a good way.

"No one's telling me anything," Pillow said. "Worse, I've been picking up news reports saying that even the Zeqoska have been disappearing."

"Pillow..." I began, but she interrupted me.

"I've tried contacting him several times since we started our honeymoon. At first I just thought he was busy, or offended that I was marrying a human."

"Those were my guesses. I'm not sure what else to tell you."

"I'm worried. He could be in serious trouble, and we're here, blindly enjoying our honeymoon, like nothing's wrong."

"What can we really do?"

"We can go to Wuxrinus and look for him."

I eyed her with skepticism. "I really think we ought to leave this to the authorities. If something bad happened, if someone's holding him hostage, or, dare I say, killed him, we don't have the tools or the training to do anything but get captured or killed ourselves."

Pillow sat down on the jamassi and started crying. "My father's life is in danger! We have to do something!"

I hugged her, kissing her head. "We don't know that for a fact. Maybe he just got a wild hair and wandered off to live like a hermit somewhere."

Pillow sniffed. "In that case, we should go."

I sighed and nodded. "All right, all right. But I think we should at least bring some help."

She kissed me on the lips. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"He's your father. I get it."

By now you should be familiar with the Qudsine, the `economy UFO.' Remember?...Never mind. It's sort of a sphere with wings like a battle ax. Streamlined and simple, nothing fancy like those spaceships on TV. The interior is kind of like a house, except it's got a cockpit and cryogenic equipment.

On our way to Wuxrinus, we talked about shutting off the gravitational system and having a little microgravity fun, if you get what I mean, but now we were too worried about Attavzo Pulsa to consider it.

We attempted contacting our mutual friend Mr. Gannon several times before this point, but only when we were out of Qeksavu's orbit did we eventually receive a signal back.

A human face appeared on the communication screen. Brown hair, brown eyes, long nose, fur growing out of his neck.

You remember the guy, right? He used to go to church with us. He had that weird wedding a couple years ago? Well, anyways, there he was. "Greetings, dear brother in Christ. How was the honeymoon?"

I winced. "It was good. Real good. Had to cut it short, I'm afraid."

Matt sighed. "I got your message. We're aware of the situation on Wuxrinus , but you have to understand that our resources have been crippled by that coup. Anything we send you will be strictly in an unofficial capacity."

By marrying the princess of Pathilon, Matt became prince, which meant he could have eventually ruled the planet. Unfortunately, militant traditionalists in the Quaceb faith did not like all the Christian evangelism they were doing, so they overthrew the government, and the Falcameer family fell into disfavor. That disfavor included putting a freeze on the family assets. "I can't promise you anything. But we'll send whatever we can spare. We'll meet you at the spaceport at Bozvido."

I nodded. "Thank you."

Matt gave me a small smile. "God's blessings to your combined family."

I and Pillow spent about a month in cryogenic stasis, admittedly not ideal for rescuing anyone, but we had no faster method to cross such a large distance in space. Unless Mr. Pulsa had, in fact wandered off, the situation didn't look good.

Wuxrinus resembled a moldy ball of curdled milk. As my wife guided us closer, pushing back the steering yoke with her tail, I remarked, "This place looks like blue cheese!"

When she didn't laugh, I added, "Know anyone living on planet Thousand Island?"

I could see Pillow was trying hard not to smile. "Damned earth man."

No, she wasn't angry. We like to roleplay when we make out, pretending like we're characters in some corny old scifi serial like Flash Gordon.

"Halt, foul but strangely bewitching Martian. Where are the secret codes to the Atmospherium Array?"

She only sighed in response.

I tried one of our other games, playing a character in Camyoixa, one of her favorite Abreya movies. "Siqhejihua qaudyg bea zafacxa coz pokuua, kai keucamu jaiiguv depo, coz neioruua maric viyzcuiol, kai boanver gejcuhtarrua."

Pillow only rolled her goat's eyes. "I really hope we're not too late."

I squeezed her hand. "I hope so too."

Wuxrinus's unusual appearance, as Pillow tells me, is due to the interaction of exotic gases in the atmosphere, and the lighter than air carbons that the tiny flying animals eat. Voahbacs, they're called. Ranging from the size of a pea to a golf ball, they swell like puffer fish, rising on the currents of warm atmospheric gases. There are millions of them cruising the sky. During storms, they rain down, and clever farmers make soup out of them.

The world below was rugged, mountainous. The majority of the geological formations had a blistered appearance, like button balls, or hedge apples, their coloration grayish off white, with blue and orange chemical splotches that mimicked mold.

Attavzo lived in Bozvido, a small mining community along the northern hemisphere. It's built inside a gorge. To a human eye, the round buildings seemed haphazardly arranged, like an unfinished game of marbles, but Abreyas have a philosophy of architecture, similar to Feng Shui. Xevnove, they call it. Those buildings were actually arranged according to a system.

We landed on a pad behind one of the larger `marbles', the Bozvido spaceport, right next to a larger spacecraft I recognized immediately as Mr. Gannon's.

You know how you can walk into an old train station and comment on how charmingly antique everything is? Abreyas think the same thing about modern human airports and such. That's why, when Pillow saw the spaceport, she said it had "Rustic charm."

Computers, the Abreya version of internet and television, automated restrooms, in a futuristic looking glass, metal and alien concrete building, and it's "rustic".

It was small, though. Not nearly as big as JFK or LAX or even KCI. In terms of size, it was closer to that of a private airport, and the building was spherical.

I found Mr. and Mrs. Gannon waiting patiently for us on benches, among a group of soldiers in gray-pink wighesh.

Mr. Gannon is a strange bird. His face and head are human, but he has a tail and a fur coat, just like my wife. Yet, despite the alien body and everything, he talks like he's lived on earth all his life, down the block from my house, even. Same face from the monitor. He had on a red and black wighesh, custom made with the Star Wars rebel insignia across the chest. If your wife makes you wear a dress, wear it in style.

His wife, Quana, is the friggin' princess of planet Pathilon, hence the soldiers...Of course, she's also the head of a small unpopular religion (Abreyas have a love-hate relationship with Christians), hence the reason why we didn't have more soldiers.

Brown hair, mouse-like features. Copper colored disks on her temples to correct her vision. Her outfit was like a short version of a toga from Clash of the Titans, but it had puff sleeves. Yes, it's a toga. The other sleeve was unconnected, Abreya style.

We shared the peace.

The last I heard, Matt and Quana succeeded in producing offspring. It gave me hope.

"Where's the baby?" I asked.

The princess smiled. "On the ship, in the incubator."

Matt grinned. "It's an egg. Scans say it's female."

Pillow squeezed my hand, giving me a small smile. This made my friend laugh.

"God's blessings on your own attempts." I could tell by the tone and the look on Matt's face that this comment was sincere, despite how bad it sounded.

"I hope it works out," Quana agreed.

"Any news on my uncle?" Pillow asked.

Both Matt and Quana shook their heads.

"No word yet," Matt said. "We've sent people, Abreyas out to search the buildings, and some of the caves."

"There's something else," Quana said. "Bad news, I'm afraid."

I swallowed. "What kind of bad news?"

"Have you noticed that this spaceport seems a little...quiet?"

I shrugged "I've never been here before."

Pillow wrapped her tail around me. "We were planning to eventually."

Looking grim, Matt led me behind a service counter, unzipping an air conditioned silver body bag on the floor. Inside, I saw the body of an Abreya, sticky with blood, with an enormous hole in its chest cavity. Cold vapor wreathed the victim's fur.

"Oh God," I gasped. "What happened to him?"

"Animal attack."

Pillow stared. "What animal would do something like this?" I've vacationed here all my life, and I've never seen a mauling like this."

"You're the doctor," Matt told her. "I was hoping you'd tell me. Surely something in your scientific background can help us identify...whatever it is that tore a hole into this guy's chest."

Pillow shook her head. "That's just it. This animal, it didn't tear its way in. It ripped itself out!"

My wife knelt next to the body, peering into the wound. "I don't really have any medical instruments. We were just on a honeymoon."

Quana set a red spherical suitcase thing down next to her. "I found this in the medic station. Maybe something in there can help."

Pillow frowned. "This male is beyond first aid..." She opened the case, peering at the contents. Most of it was surgical stuff, wound care. It had a defibrillator, mini dialysis kit. Fortunately for us, it also contained a medical scanner.

A Vakgaro is about the size of a tennis ball, and it looks like a spider. You controlled it remotely by a small device that reminded me of a RC car controller with a computer stuck to it. It seems large, but it's really the tiny interior pieces that enter the body and do all the work.

She sent the machine into the victim's chest cavity, squinting at the images on the screen. "Well, it doesn't look like a disease...I had originally thought it was some kind of gaseous eruption, or maybe extreme bacterial decay of internal organs, but this is definitely parasitic in nature..."

Matt shook his head. "Now why don't I find that comforting?" He absently stroked his own tail, a tail so long and luxurious that it made me jealous. "How large a parasite are we talking?"

"I...I'm not sure yet," Pillow sighed. "It appears to be a rather large one, but it's just as likely to be a colony of parasites working in tandem. I won't know what we're looking at until I see a representative sample of its species."

"The Ginalti is invisible to the naked eye," Quana said.

"I know. But I already took an ultraviolet scan, and sonar. I see nothing alive in this body, other than the victim's slowly expiring cells." Pillow maneuvered the mini spider out of the victim, sending it crawling across the floor, circling around the area.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm looking for residual traces, anything that can point us in the direction of the parasite."

The floor was clean. When I mentioned this, Quana said, "We didn't clean anything up. We only put the body in cold storage. Whatever killed him was very tidy."

Remember how on that old Power Rangers TV show, they played a song on a flute to summon the giant robots?...Neither do I, but that's the tune that I heard coming out of Quana's pocket.

She pulled out a round device, staring at it. "Honey..."

"Isn't it your turn to warm the egg?" Matt asked.

She shook her head. "It's Zordon, dear. That's your chime."

"Quana, Zordon is the floating face. The Green Ranger has the flute."

She raised her chin, giving him a smug grin.

Matt reddened. "But what about all this? Something killed this guy, and I want to know what happened before it happens to someone else."

The princess took his tail in hers, then his hand. "Wusudinka, I love you, but we've had this discussion, with and without Knocknaser. You're not comfortable ruling a government, I have to practically lead you by the hand to run our church, and I have the type of education you could never have. You don't even like being a leader. I wear the figurative pants in this relationship, and it turns you on."

(Knocknaser is Matt's nennop, by the way).

Matt didn't disagree with her. I saw his Adam's apple bobbing.

"You're welcome to help out after your egg warming is done."

"You...sure you can handle this?"

Her tail slid up around his. "Positive."

"I...uh...I'll be in the ship."

As he passed by, Matt gave me this look that seemed to say, `Women.'

Pillow glanced at me and laughed.

The moment Mr. Gannon stepped out, my wife exclaimed, "I've found blood plasma!"

"I didn't see anything," Quana said.

"That's the point. It's plasma. It's transparent. You're not going to see it, except under infrared."

"I...did think the floor seemed a little sticky in places..."

We followed the trail of invisible plasma.

It was a small spaceport, but you could still get lost in it. The check-in station stood inside the entrance, benches along the windows so you could see the ships coming in. The sad thing is, that didn't happen very often. Mostly the station got used to observe Ewwavni and other alien birds. Staircases and a tail operated elevator platform led upstairs to an observation deck.

It was late afternoon, and out the large windows, beyond the landing strips, you could see a forest of anemones the size of trees, and beyond, a range of bumpy mountains, as previously described.

"I'm getting something else," Pillow said. "Some sort of residue. It appears to be acidic."

"I guess that explains the chest rupture," Quana remarked. "Do we know how large it is?"

Pillow shook her head. "Yok. Not really. The residue is in small quantities, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

As I leaned over my wife, peering at her computer screen, she asked me, "You think we'll be like that one day?" Her tail pointed meaningfully at Quana, then darted back behind her butt when the princess looked her way.

I've heard that the princess twisted Matt's arm, convincing him to marry her, but it was I that twisted my wife's arm. "Dunno. We share the family pants. I think we'll have to arm wrestle for egg duty."

"That...sounds very mature," she said with a wry smile.

"Paper rock scissors?"

Shaking her head, she returned her attention to the screen. "This trail of plasma appears to be consistent with a large animal, roughly the size of a keegobop or an earth rat."

Quana sighed in relief. "Thank God. If it were only a bunch of worms or little bugs, I wouldn't know how to fight it."

"This still leaves questions," Pillow said. "I mean, how did it get inside the victim in the first place?"

Quana frowned.

The trail lead us through an archway into a large garden. That was the law, public buildings had to have at least one large garden on the premises.

The spaceport had a nice one. Lots of beautiful colors, flowering plants I've never heard of, except the Uwugvoc and the blinking Pieh Low, my wife's favorite flowers, and the semi-carnivorous Jognob plant, because it tried to eat my skirt when I brushed past.

Quana's bodyguards followed her as she tailed us, two males and three females. Zero Zeemil, Chikarra Wakeen, Norenio Vokes, Salda Jucey and Taimoorazi. I recognized them from her church. They were not only bodyguards, they were followers, as evidenced by the crosses around their necks. That was the kind of help she got these days.

One of the females, Salda, had a pencil gray face, a common feature of Abreyas from Relujiqa, an equatorial region on Pathilon. Females ordinarily have a tuft of fur at the end of their tail, but the end of hers had been severed in battle. She also lacked a right index finger, her back fur missing patches due to skin grafts.

Zero was her close friend, maybe a boyfriend, but they never said. He looked African American in the face and hands, and he had a machine eye to replace the one he'd lost. You could still see the scar around the wound site. His tail was intact, but badly scarred, his golden lion's coat showing signs of mange.

The others were not so battle torn. Taimoorazi, one of the fine ladies from Coezope, where females' eyes appeared on tentacles on the sides of their head, rather than their face, Chikarra, who had a large toucan's beak instead of a mouth and nose on his otherwise human face, and Norenio...a hottie from Rusange, the same place Pillow came from. That last one...my wife elbowed me hard every time I so much as glanced at her...She knows me better than I know myself.

"If this is a parasite," Salda said. "We need to be wearing biohazard protection."

"We don't have any," said Quana. "Most the suits were stolen and I gave my only remaining one to Icruzpo so she could treat the sick in Coezope Rusange."

Salda sighed.

As I watched my wife work, she muttered, "So...paper rock scissors..."

"Well," I stammered. "Tell you what. If we ever actually manage to produce offspring, I'll give you the first five rounds free."

"That's awfully generous," she snickered. "Tell you what. How about I watch you at work, and if you do a good job, I throw in an additional ten? Maybe a couple more if I feel tired or have a headache?"

I laughed. "You drive a hard bargain, but our baby needs the mother's warmth just as much as the father's. Let's stick to the five for right now."

"The egg is going to come out of me. Ten. It's only fair."

I sighed, thinking about how annoying that would be, sitting on an egg that long.

Quana whispered something in my wife's ear. She giggled in response.

"Fine," Pillow said. "Seven. That's my final offer."

I said "Deal," though I suspected she intended to take advantage of me somehow.

The victim's parasite had wandered aimlessly through the garden, darting into a lounge for a moment before coming back out, passing by a bathroom. The blood trail had tried up halfway into the garden, so we found these details only because of dirt trails and the creature's small acid drippings.

A door lead out into the town, but to my surprise, the parasite didn't go that way. Instead, it continued straight on through the museum.

It was a museum of Bozvido, from its very beginning, and I mean the beginning. The fossil record, bones, plaques and pictures. One of the fossils looked remarkably like a chihuahua skeleton with fins, but when I made a joke about it, everyone was too busy looking for the parasite to react.

Bozvido had been founded by Quaceb puritans, then it boomed a few years later with the discovery of Lerrim, which is kind of like coal, but a lot longer lasting. You could set a piece on fire and enjoy the heat for an entire week. The monks and puritans mined it first.

"I've lost the trail," Pillow said.

"Do we have any cameras?" I asked. "Surely there's got to be something recorded..."

Quana shook her head. "Whatever this thing is, it was low along the floor."

"Just the same. I'd like to look at the tape."

"We haven't used magnetic tape for centuries."

"It's an expression. Matt never taught you that one?"

The princess smirked. "Some of his human expressions go in one rear and out the other."

I laughed. "Apparently so."

"I'll show you the security center."

Quana motioned to her guards. "Thank you for volunteering to help. Sweep the area, obes. See if you find any parasites."

The group nodded in assent.

"Such formality is not necessary, your highness," Zero said.

"I am deposed ruler," said Quana. "It is necessary."

"Regardless. You have my lifelong obedience." Zero pounded his chest, marching away to do his duty.

The spaceport had only one security agent, and he had apparently vanished sometime during the night. The guy had clocked in, but there was no time out entry. For this reason, no one greeted us when we entered the room.

The security center resembled the interior or a cleaned out pumpkin, with glowing tubing running up the walls. It looked pretty spartan compared to human police offices because the weapons and stuff lay inside the walls, and the computers were really small. One single jail cell, made of something that looked like pumpkin guts, but super strong, and the desk was basically a video watching station.

The guy probably used his handheld communicator to type and do other security functions. The princess had to override the camera controls with her own device, then trade hers with mine so I could stay there and check the video while she took care of other matters.

Pillow had determined the time of death to be somewhere around 03:00, which is earlier than it sounds, due to this planet's thirty two hour days. They had cameras in every area, but they weren't very good, as `antiquated' as other things at the place. I spent a long time rewinding footage and squinting at the flooring.

It took me a good ten minutes to locate the red blur that was the parasite, leaving our victim's body. It seemed it had delayed within the victim for some time, then shot out rapidly for some reason.

It took me twice as long to connect the path we'd followed with the medical device with the video I saw of the garden. Here and there, I'd see the red or white flicker, but some of the plants naturally moved on their own accord, so I resorted to staring at the exits, around the lounge and the museum, to see if anything popped in there. At last I gave up, and just watched the museum floor. Rewind, fast forward.

I found it again, a small blur, nothing I could identify clearly. The thing passed a cafeteria, and then a male figure opened the door to an adjacent room, likely an air traffic guy taking his break. The man silently yelled, disappearing back into the room.

The blur followed.

I quickly disengaged the communicator, calling my own device, which was now in Quana's possession. "Quana! I saw where it went!"

"I know," the face on the screen sobbed. "It's here. It just got Taimoorazi!"

She screamed, and the communicator went dark.