Outpost

When the phone rang this morning at 3:33, a call for my wife from work, it woke me from a dream. But the dream was just about over, anyway. This was it.

It was the thirteenth week of our captivity on the alien outpost.

There were seven of us now, from three ships. Two had died of injuries sustained in their ship's landing. Three others had died -- in other ways. We were in The Big Room, one of the two or three thats we'd been allowed to see in the undergound warren. There were no doors. When the aliens wanted to come in, they were just there, popping in from empty space. When they wanted us in another room, we just -- were. Our gear was a jumble, piled in heaps. We'd tried to make some kind of camp from it, impose some order, some structure. Usually the aliens left it alone. Sometimes they came in with a surly attitude, and then they'd kick it all to hell, laughing. At least, we thought it was laughing.

They looked a lot like us,if we were about a third bigger, smelled like hell, and wore some kind of soft body armor like an all-over turtle shell. We couldn't tell them apart. Some were a little bigger, some a little uglier. That was about all.

I'd just arrived in the latest crew to be captured. I'd woken up in the Big Room. The others were clueing me in on what to expect. It didn't sound like fun.

"Don't show fear. They seem to key in on that. But don't challenge them. " A nod to one guy in a cast. "Do that, and they pick up on it real fast. He got thrown right the hell across the room, up against the wall. They laughed, started picking up others of us. " A glance around. "Course, there's no where to hide. But eventually they got tired and left."

Could they be jumped, overcome? "Not really. They're fast, strong. And you see how they can leave whenever they want."

This sounded bad. This sounded very bad.

Exercise time. We played some music one of the crew had had with his equipment. It was, I don't recall, something fast and pounding. We were moving through the exercises, jumping and such. And suddenly, there they were again, five of them this time, just there. We stopped, froze, watching them. The music blared on. I edged back against the wall. The five of them stared at us, then all five came forward. Right to me. I closed my eyes -- and was almost knocked off my feet by a slap. I opened my eyes. One of them was right next to me, almost eye to eye. I could smell its stench as it looked me over. The room was very quiet, but for the ridiculously loud music. The paw came up again, slapped me in the shoulder. I tried not to show fear. I think I brought up an arm, reflexively -- and it grabbed it. Oh, shit.

It yanked me forward, and backward again, and forward. I was dragged through the other crew, who couldn't do anything. The aliens were laughing. I grabbed the aliens other arm with my free one, and it whirled around, holding both arms, spinning me. The music thumped on. It dragged me again, back and forth, back and forth. The music finally ended. The alien let go of me. I staggered back, breathing hard. The music clicked onto the next piece -- and it grabbed me again, dragged me again. Back and forth, back and forth, almost like --

It couldn't be. No way.

The piece finally ended. It let me go, again. Turned to leave with its fellows. I slapped it on the back. It whirled, suspicion flooding from every inch of its face. The music clicked over. I grabbed its arm, and started. Back and forth. Back and forth. One-two-three, one-two-three,one-two three. The other aliens had stopped and were watching us. They didn't seem happy. At last the piece was done. It was the end of the disc. No more music. The aliends gathered, glowering. They linked arms, staring at me, staring at us, and started forward. Oh, crap, this was going to be very bad.

They started to dance. It was like no dance I'd ever seen before. It was more a vicious joined combat than that. But seen in the right way, suddenly -- it was a dance.

It took days to get used to them popping in and wanting to dance. Weeks to establish some kind of communication. Still more to find that dance was how they communicated. But that day, that minute -- they became, in our eyes, for the first time -- human.