He was running. Saving his ass was the primary task which he considered super mandatory than those of suicidal cannibals. He had ordered that gun breaker multicoloured to wrench his as well his men’s cages. Of course he had broken a law. But his life was of a superior concern. Now this mind manipulated forest dweller was taking them through a maze of trees and goo, stealthily as possible indicating the shortest path that will lead them to their base camp. His men were grumbling but their pounding hearts were resuming their normal pace as they were slowly moving away from the hotspot.
The tribal’s stride was difficult to follow. He darted across the forest with the greatest ease, never once stopping, sensing every difficulty before it could occur, saving one of his men, from a bee hive, the barbaric honey manufacturing unit. His breath was swelling up from this over exerting, but he was sensing a strange relief, freshness in the air but later he reasoned it to his escape.
The sweating was pouring copiously from his body; never before had he sweated so much in his life, he saw that the tribal was also sweating. Suddenly he seemed to sense something, he stopped in his path.
“What happened?” he asked with apprehension.
The mind manipulator forced this question on the tribal’s brain with the words resembling his question in his own language.
Beep. Beep.
Oh, oh. The mind manipulator was finding it difficult to control this man. Only fear could destabilize the grasp of the mind manipulator. The guy pointed towards a cave. Ramesh’s spine chilled. That might be some predator’s cage. He had heard tales about those giant carnivores who would snatch away small babies when their parents weren’t looking. They were designed by humans to maintain the food chain, but that experiment was marred with grotesque tragedies. He increased the level of mind manipulation, if it was indeed some monster, he would need this man on his side to fight it.
But then he was prodding them to go in. He himself moved towards it. A cloud of suspicion crossed his mind, might it be some sort of death trap. He looked at the screen of the mind manipulator; it seemed to have gained this man, so it was surely not a trap. His man grumbled warily. They were tired of this whole farce, many were gravely injured, some had broken shoulders were others had injured legs. On the top of it they applied a viscous looking paste that increased the pain to searing extent for few moments. It was their way of enjoying torture. But Ramesh felt that the cave contained something important for his own sake, or else on the top of mind manipulator, that guy would not be risking his ass for mind numbing pain that would activate his pain nerves if he did something fishy. So he decided to follow him leaving the others to decide for themselves. He was irritated his men behaving as beg of bones after their release, as if their life juice had been snatched from them, they did not seem to respond to the stimuli. He was left alone to numb other tribals’ brain when they crossed their path. They stood there where they were standing. Fine, he had to do this alone.
He entered the dark cave. He was blinded by its blackness, he suddenly gasped for breath, he was feeling convulsive, he had never seen so much of nothingness before. He tried to grasp something for support; he felt the rough rock graze past his hand. He fell down on his butts, wincing in brutal pain.
The mind manipulator had failed. He thought helplessly, as he saw the tribal still coaxing him to follow.
Suddenly he yelped. He was able to mark the outline of the tribal. Not only that, he was able to get an image of all the things around. Of course, he had forgotten, it was his readjustment of his eyes. Long ago the eyes could do this task with perfect ease, but this facility was not possible on the three star planet that they were residing on. He hardly could believe that some thousands of years ago man required darkness to sleep in, it was beyond his grasp. Then he began to check his perimeter. Wow, it was booty. They were surrounded by the most barbaric weapon of destruction, gum powder and bone smashing blasters. The tribal could be seen not touching it. He bent worshipfully in front of them, and began to chant a mantra.
Of course, fear and belief was the most powerful thing in any universe possible, even for a mind manipulator. Fear resulted into faith, and that faith was your god. It was a novel experience, to see someone bending reverentially on his knees to a thing whose concept was grasped in every kid’s mind on his planet. And this man was considering it as his god.
A terrible idea passed through his mind, an idea which could save his ass and job at the same time. He smiled with pleasure for this happy coincidence.
He would beat that red giant.
**********************
They all slowly began to stand. Ramesh was frustrated by this mindless lot as they were bowing towards their gun totting god. Ramesh felt it extremely good being their god. It saved him from many inconvenience. They immediately let go of the robots, sheepishly and guiltily bringing the head of two which were dismembered from their frame. He felt very sorry for them as they were very costly, but there is no mission a dangerous one without staking life and property at risk. They were brought food which they so readily declined. It contained raw meat. Having lived on cloned meat all their life he did not feel like eating this live and fresh one. But they were very conceding. All he had to do was fire one round in air to bring the entire horde at his legs.
They were readily entering their craft, overawed by the alienness of it. The culturist looked horror struck, as he saw them bringing the tribals. Ramesh smirked.
He was happy. He had done his job. The tribals were silently lamenting leaving their property and home land, of course there was no time for packing, but they would not resist their God’s order, would they?
Well, he indeed the sun. Now they would make through the hyperspace before the sun could even gulp down earth’s satellite. He did not feel at all bad leaving this place, he gloated over imagining this planet’s destruction. It was rather sad that he would not be there to see it seething in pain. He felt that his ancestors were ingenious but rather barbaric in their creation. It was not at all sophisticated as his own planet.
The shuttle door was closing, he stared out looking at the dense trees that could be see, birds were flying hither and thither, of course they knew about its on coming doom. One of the tribal honked a horn. The door closed.
He cried out hoarsely “Good bye earth, and hope we never meet again.”
Alienman 