“Oh, many times,” I lie, not wanting to seem like an ignorant hick. “Just not this much. Not in the jungle.”
“There’s a lot,” Riley agrees. “Can we still open the hatch?”
I try to think of how the exit hatch is positioned, but the whole thing is too confusing. “Stay here.” I slowly make my way along the wall to the angled wall and past it. The hatch is at an angle, not straight up. Which is good, because I’d have no chance to reach it. As it is, I can both reach up and touch the hatch itself and the plate that I know closes and opens it.
I make my way back. “It should open. But can we try to fly again before we have to go outside?”
“If I can reach the stick,” she says and climbs onto the nearest console, which is now above us. Standing there, she can just reach the panel and the stick. She starts using it and the panel, and the saucer does jerk and move. But not enough to get loose from the ice.
“We must be wedged in really tight,” I ponder, as the ice outside stays where it is. “I’ll go out and try to push it over.”
Riley looks me up and down. “I think is really cold out. Ice and snow are cold. There, furs.” She points to the lowest point of the round “floor,” where all the loose items in the saucer have ended up. Among them are indeed some furs and leather sheets, none of which will do me much good.
“I’ll try without them first,” I tell her as I make my way back to the hatch. I hit the release, and the hatch opens with a hiss. Immediately, a wash of ice-cold air hits me.
But it’s either the cold outside or staying inside, possibly forever. So I grab the sides of the hatch and lift myself out, using knees, and hands, and forearms until I’m crouched in the opening. It’s cold, and all around is snow and ice.
I drop down to the ground. It crackles under my feet, making me grateful that I wear close-toed sandals for all my tasks that the chief orders me to. I take a few steps away from the saucer, noticing to my alarm that I’m breathing smoke.
But there’s not much I can do about it, so I check which way that saucer is leaning in the crevice and try to push it further, so that it will land with the right side up. The saucer flexes slightly when I push it with all my weight and might, but it’s too heavy to make it fall over. It’s wedged in too deep.
It crosses my mind that the one thing we must avoid at all cost is to have it land with the wrong side up—then we will be able to get in, but I can’t imagine how we’d get it to fly upside-down, when it’s hard enough to control right side up.
Trying to roll it further along the big crack also doesn’t work, and I only see one possibility for getting it out. But that will take a lot of luck and work.
I climb back up the hull, but it’s so slippery I have to take off my sandals and place my bare feet on it. It’s not too cold yet, but I can tell that it won’t be long. I drop through the hatch and hit the plate to close it.
“It won’t move,” I tell Riley. “Possibly it could, if you use the controls and I push in the same direction.”
Riley looks uncertainly at the strange panel, then towards the exit where the freezing air is waiting on the other side. “If the ship move wrong way,” she says slowly, “you get crushed.”
I consider that for a moment. Outside lies a frozen wilderness on a part of the world no one from my village has ever seen. Inside stands a human woman who can barely control the alien machine that brought us here.
I sigh and roll my shoulders. “That does seem like a possibility. And yet, we will try. On my signal, Riley. Try to get it flying again. If you do, I will ask you to land and pick me up before you fly back home.”
4
- Riley-
“I try,” I promise, because I don’t know the phrase ‘of course’ in the caveman language.
Cold air rushes in when Nator’ax opens the hatch again. It rolls across the tilted floor and bites straight through my dinosaur-skin dress.
I hug myself and watch him climb out. For a moment, his broad shoulders block the light, then he disappears, and the hatch seals with a soft hiss.
The saucer suddenly feels much quieter.
I stand there, listening to the faint wind outside and the low humming of the alien machine. The whole room is tilted now, which makes everything feel wrong, like the world has been hung sideways.
Then I notice where all the loose things have ended up.
At the lowest part of the saucer, a messy pile has formed. Tools, straps, containers, the bundle of sleeping furs from that time on the beach. Everything slid there during the crash.
I climb carefully across the angled floor and start gathering it together. There isn’t much. Some rusty iron blades. A few pieces of leather. Some baskets that used to hold food. Three thick furs that still smell faintly of smoke from the village fires.
I fold them and stack them against the wall, trying to ignore the knot tightening in my stomach. The saucer can make food. I know that much. The thin gruel isn’t tasty, but it keeps you alive. And there’s still water from the little spout. So, technically, we won’t starve.
But I look out through the glowing wall again and feel a chill that has nothing to do with the freezing air that leaked in.
