“The outhouses really do empty into that river,” she called.
“That’s downstream from here!” Jeff looked around nervously for anything floating nearby.
“Well, while you’re in there, make sure to scrub your pits.”
Was there really anything they could do if the aliens still hadn’t brought food to the school? Could she face her class again if they were still starving while she had eaten her fill? Suzy’s stomach twisted, and she wished she had brought her lunch portion back to share.
A minute later, her brother dripping and sniffing himself discretely beside her, Suzy followed Ushegg across the bridge and into the courtyard of the school. The alien in charge – possibly Ushegg’s dad – was waiting for them.
Behind the alien was a pile of sheaves, like bundles of wheat, the hay a bright orange, the kernels a deep blue.
The alien man gestured to the grain and smiled at Suzy. “Yarvu,” he said.
TWENTY SIX
“We’re here to see Major Harper,” Lori said to the soldier as he approached. She held up her clearance badge and saw his expression soften. “Can you take us to see him?”
“Sorry ma’am, I can’t.” He suggested they try the command tent, and he hurried on. Lori smiled.
They had learned that the best way to keep security from taking an interest was to ask for help. She and Jeremiah continued to make their way through the maze of vehicles, temporary structures, soldiers, and barricades that surrounded the castle, moving around, and not toward, their goal. They needed to find a way in.
Jeremiah had talked and talked about how they would get inside the fortress, where to find a window or a door, but Lori was realizing that even getting TO the building wasn’t going to be easy.
The army had formed a ring that completely surrounded the alien castle. Between this ring and the stone structure was a no-man’s land of about a hundred yards where NO ONE was moving.
They might be able to bluff their way through the army’s barricade, but once they moved out into the parking lot – or the soccer field on this side – the eyes of the whole world would be on them. And, Lori thought uneasily, looking up at the dark window slits of the alien structure, it wasn’t just the humans they would have to worry about.
Even as she thought it, a disturbance rippled through the army’s encampment. Lori heard shouts, and all around her, men jumped to the ready. She and Jeremiah followed the ripples to the front of the castle.
The gate had opened again.
Dozens of alien warriors were marching out. Every one was decked in jewelry, and every one carried a long, black wand.
Ignoring the excitement from the human line, the aliens fanned out as they emerged, some coming up almost to the edge of the army’s barricade, others staying just outside the castle gate.
The one nearest Lori glared at the humans for a moment, his shoulders back, his chin jutting forward. Lori thought it looked forced. Was he trembling a little?
From somewhere, an alien barked out a command, and all of the warriors suddenly turned their attention down, to the ground at their feet. Lori squeezed through the press of soldiers as much as she dared and watched the nearest alien as he began to work magic.
She was far enough away that she couldn’t make out any of the words the man was saying, but she could just hear the cadence of it, the chanting rhythm of his spell. From the tip of his wand, a ripple flowed like a heat haze down to the ground. After a few seconds, the man began to walk, slowly, with a deliberate pounding to his step that seemed to match the beat of his words. Across the parking lot, Lori could see the other warriors doing the same.
Lori craned her neck to look at what the spell was doing to the ground, but as far as she could see, it wasn’t leaving a mark. “What are they doing?” she whispered to Jeremiah.
A soldier nearby answered, “Probably tryin’ to turn the ground into *@!%! ALIEN ground...” Lori continued to watch in silence for a long time. It was hypnotic – the rhythm of the words, the ripple in the air, the slow beat of the footsteps – and it was with great effort that Lori finally pulled herself away and grabbed her husband.
“Come on,” she said, taking his elbow, “We should hurry and look while everyone is watching this.”
They wormed their way through the maze of troops and equipment, eyes peeled for some cover that could get them close to the castle, some drainage ditch no one else had noticed, some big tree with a convenient branch that reached over the field...
As they searched, Lori felt her eyes pulled again and again to the warriors and their rippling spells. She shook her head to clear it; the way the magic drew her attention, it wasn’t natural.
In the end, they had plenty of time to look. The aliens’ work took hours, but even so, they found nothing. The closest cover to the school was a bit of forest that extended out along the side of the football field and came within about thirty yards of the castle. Unfortunately, the wall of the castle was entirely blank on that side, without a door or even a low window.
Lori sighed and let her gaze drift back to the aliens and their unexplained magic. The ground still bore no signs for all their efforts and certainly hadn’t turned into “*@!%! alien ground.” Lori watched the closest man chant, beads swaying. She had some beads like that. She wondered where she could get some green-grey makeup…
The alien she had been watching had worked his way up
