Who Answers My Call?
by Robin Rose Graves
Robin Rose Graves has previously appeared in 100 Foot Crow, Eye to the Telescope, Dark Matter Magazine and Simultaneous Times Podcast. She is an editor at Android Press and a frequent contributor to the Galactic Journey. She runs the Science Fiction Booktube channel, the Book Wormhole. Her first book is forthcoming in November by Graveside Press.
The Book Wormhole: https://www.youtube.com/c/thebookwormhole
Thrown like a ragdoll into the open atmosphere, I catch a quick glance of the ship as I tumble 360 degrees. It looks wrong. Of course it does. Something hit us at impact. One moment, inside, seated at my station. Next, surrounded by alien sky. My shoulders bruise where my harness failed to keep me inside the craft. What hit us? Gathered intel led us to believe there was life on this planet, but intelligent enough to build an army? Missiles to blast a U.F.O. from the atmosphere? If so, this is a pretty shitty way to begin first contact. Not that any of us will make it to the ground to look our attackers in the eye.
“Captain,” my radio crackles in my ear, but I discern the word. “To your right.” I crane my head around, fighting the chaotic spin I’ve been thrown into. I expect another attack and brace myself out of instinct. My suit is not meant for battle. I see the dark object falling to my right. A person! My crew. I reach my hand towards them and their glove reaches back. So close, but our fingertips slip from each other and I am falling further away. Tears prick at my eyes. Could be the air pressure moving fluids through my sinuses. More likely, it’s knowing that my whole crew will be dead in seconds – if the impact hadn’t killed them first. Even if I could’ve reached them, there is nothing I could do to help, but maybe holding hands as we meet our end together would’ve been some comfort.
I’m facing up when I hit the ground. My suit absorbs some of the impact – without it, I would’ve been a smudge, like a bug hitting a windshield. Gravity collapses my chest, squeezing all air from my lungs. I draw a slow breath, a great effort to refill my lungs. There’s a dull ache, which doesn’t seem so bad, except I can’t move my fingers, my toes, and I realize I must’ve broken just about every bone there is to break. The collective pain is too much for my brain to compute, so it becomes background noise.
My suit remained thankfully intact, protecting me from alien air and keeping me alive for the moment. Above me, there is a meteor shower. The ground shakes with each impact. I blink. No, not meteors. Those are the pieces of my ship. Some flail unnaturally. Those are my crew. I blink tears from my eyes and say a prayer for each family who will never see their loved one again. I loved each and every one of them while working this mission. I hope that is enough.
I manage to rock side to side. It isn’t much, but if I don’t make an attempt to move, eventually I will starve to death. The parts of my ship couldn’t have landed too far. I try my radio. “Sato! Kaufmen! Velez! Do you copy?” I pause, allowing time for an answer. I list off more names from the crew. Every word presses further on my bruised ribs, burning in agony. I listen to dead radio, stifling my cries of pain.
As if in response, the ground shakes in deafening booms. I think hell must be opening up to accept our damned souls who tried to meddle in planets not our own. I pry open my eyes but see only an empty blue sky. A lovely last sight, if only it could’ve been Earth. My mouth has grown dry from calling for help, but still I manage one last weak cry. “Please. Help.”
I blink and suddenly the sky is filled with a giant face. Humanoid, but with too many arms, too many eyes, no nose or mouth. A hand reaches towards me and I realize what I see before me is God.
###
“Little one, what are you doing?” the parent signs to their offspring. The child has fallen behind on their walk. Always wandering off. Curiosity left dangerously unchecked. Such as their development requires.
“Playing,” the child signs back. They hold an odd looking object they didn’t possess earlier when they left the domicile.
“What is that?” the parent signs.
The child stills their playing long enough to show the molded clump of metal. It passes for a toy, but an odd one at that.
“Leave it alone. It looks broken,” the parent signs.
The child discards it carelessly behind them. They rush to catch up with their parent, only to walk a few steps and become distracted by something new. Always something new.
“What is that?” they sign. They point towards something squirming at their feet. A grub,
most likely, though it has some sort of exoskeleton.
The parent taps their fingertips together, quietly frustrated, but entertains their child’s curiosity. “I don’t know.”
“Is it alive?” the child signs.
“Yes,” the parent answers. “But I’ve never seen one before.”
The child picks it up, holding it in one of their many palms and examines it closer. They
give it a poke, and it rolls over, wincing as if in pain. Probably just disturbed from whatever simple life it lived until it crossed paths with the child.
“Don’t be cruel. Put it out of its misery,” the parent signs.
The child doesn’t want to. The alive thing is interesting and they want to play with it – just like the toy they found, whizzing above their head, until they jumped high enough to swat it from the sky. This alive thing came from the toy, the child is certain, and they don’t want to kill it. Dead things are no fun.
Discretely, so their parent didn’t notice, they slip the tiny animal into one of the folds of their mosscovering.
With one of their lower hands, hovering close to their belly, they subtly sign to their new pet. “I will take care of you. You’re going to be my bestest friend. And we will play together and have lots of fun.”
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