In Alien Hands: A World Or Two

Getting to the expo

I followed closely behind my dog-man, even Lyndsey was quiet now. This was a very strange place to be. At this point, I had more experience on alien planets than either of the other humans, and my experience wasn't pleasant. The body language of our dog-men told us we had nothing to fear, but we weren't really listening. We were all taking in the environment cautiously, as if a monster might jump out any moment.

We were ushered to the side of the hall by our dog-men to let another alien past. It seemed like an amorphous blob, a scared looking human in tow, on the end of a leash. She gave us wide eyes as she stumbled past us, pleading with us to tell her what was going on. I shrugged, having no idea what was going on.

We continued down the hall to an elevator. It was peculiar, seeming to move sideways. it wasn't as harsh a movement as the shuttle at the airport, so none of us fell. It slowed and started at an even speed. Several aliens and their humans got on as well, a couple of the humans seemed as scared as the girl in the hall. One of them wasn't, and just seemed excited to see us. She spoke incredibly fast, as if she hadn't seen another human in decades and was certain she'd never see one again.

All to soon for this girl, we got off. Our dog-men led us into what appeared to be the lobby. The ceiling was very high up, almost like it was the height of the entire hotel. It appeared to be a nice hotel, I could see spots where planters used to be, though they seemed to be moved. I thought this was odd, but shrugged it off. The ways of aliens continued to be lost to me.

Our dog-men led us to the counter, Merle handing me off to Grene, who was trying to distract Lyndsey. I joined her in looking skeptical while he did little magic tricks to try and entertain us. We weren't terribly amused, still on edge after my experience on the other planet. He resorted to tickling us, which got us laughing.

I was handed back to Merle, who led the group of us outside. The sky was yellow here, a distant planet visible far off in the sky. We all found this interesting, us humans at least. We were distracted by this for a few minutes while we waited for something with our dog-men.

That something turned out to be a car. We piled inside, barely squeezing all six of us inside. It wasn't crash proof like the van back at home, which concerned me. The car left the front of the hotel, going at what seemed an incredibly high speed. It pulled onto the road, where multiple cars were all around. It seemed as crowded as a traffic jam, but the cars were all going fast. It was odd. My anxiety must have been obvious, as Merle held me close to try and comfort me.

Grene tried to comfort all of us, but his bad English made it worse. All he said was "no driver", which only scared Lyndsey further. She'd never heard of automatic cars, having been taken almost a decade ago. I had, but they were still in early stages. There was no way an automatic car could weave through traffic like this and be safe.

The car finally came to a stop in front of a huge building, it dwarfed the hotel. There was a crowd of aliens, all with humans in tow on various leashes. There seemed to be a rough line formed, which we were more than happy to leap out of the car and join.

Published 11/17/18