Page 2 of Topping Off the Alien

I snort. “That’s a good line. Are you an actor or something?”

He studies me with confusion. The sensible thing for me to do right now would be to wish the giant space weirdo luck with whatever he’s doing here and leave. But he’s standing out here in the dark with hands that cold, and he holds himself rigid, as if he’s working hard to keep it together. My mom didn’t raise me to leave people in the woods.

“Can I do anything for you?” I ask. “Seriously. You look like you’re having a worse night than me, and I just found out my girlfriend’s been cheating on me in front of an audience, so the bar is pretty low.”

Solverian’s gaze starts at my feet and travels up my legs, over my torso, until it lands on my face. My pulse goes stupid.

“You might be able to help me,” he says at last.

“Okay, great.” I hold up a hand. “Fair warning, though, I’m not a very skilled person. I can mix you a mean cocktail and tell a funny joke. That’s basically the whole résumé.”

“It would be better if we spoke in my vessel.”

“Your… vessel?”

“My spaceship.”

I laugh again, because what else is there. He’s seven feet tall, standing in the woods at midnight in a hero costume, committed to the bit like his life depends on it. “Okay. Take me to your spaceship, then.”

He nods once and starts walking, and I follow him. Into the woods, away from the direction I was fairly sure the highway was in, and the part of my brain that loves true crime podcasts starts narrating.

You’re following a seven-foot stranger into dark woods toward whatever he’s calling a spaceship. You know what it probably is? A windowless van. This is how you end up as a cold case that gets covered in a two-part special.

Solverian walks like he owns the forest, ducking branches I walk face-first into, and twice he slows without being asked when my shoes slip on wet leaves. Serial killers don’t check your footing, right? Probably. I don’t actually have data on that.

“We’re definitely going away from the highway,” I say to his back.

“We don’t need the highway.”

“Okay, cool. Just checking.”

The trees start to thin. There’s a glow ahead, a pale light like a stadium seen through fog. And then we step out into a clearing and I stop walking.

Okay, it is a spaceship. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s enormous, smooth, dark-hulled, sitting on legs like an insect’s, with seams of light running along its sides and a ramp lowered from its belly.

I stand there with my mouth open. My brain offers several explanations, rejects all of them, and lands on the only one left.

“What kind of Airbnb is this?”

Solverian turns to me. “What’s an Airbnb?”

When I don’t answer, he leads me up the ramp and into the ship, where the walls curve like the inside of a shell. The light is soft, though I can’t see where it comes from. The air is warmer than outside and it doesn’t move. And there are people. Three of them, dressed like Solverian but in pale gray where his is charcoal, the same matte fabric and standing collars, the same thin metal threaded at the cuffs. They’re all tall and built, almost like him, but not quite.

They come toward us fast, and the nearest one says, “Your Highness.”

I look at Solverian, but he doesn’t react to the title at all.

“Where have you been?” one of the men asks. “We’ve been scanning for you for hours.”

“Resolving our problem.” Solverian’s voice goes more formal than it was with me. “I believe I have found the solution.”

That’s when they notice me, three sets of eyes swinging over.

“You’re going to use a human?” The one in front looks back at Solverian.

“I am.”

“Your Highness, you don’t have to do this. Any one of the crew would volunteer. You only have to ask.”