Engineman - Eric Brown [70]
Its eyes were massive, bulging and lidded like those of a toad. Its nose was almost non-existent, two tiny slits, and its mouth was similarly atrophied. Thin lips curved around the hull of its jaw in a thin, stoic, reptilian line.
Ella was wondering whether she had seen enough when the alien opened its eyes - its lids dropping from underneath, she saw - and stared directly at her. In panic she tried to scramble away, but lost her footing and slipped from the overhang. She struck her head as she fell, and in a second of panic she was aware of the warm, cloying water enveloping her as she slipped into oblivion.
She had no idea how long she was unconscious. When she came to her senses she was lying on her side on the flat rock she used as a diving platform. She tried to sit up, and cried out in pain. The back of her head throbbed as if someone was hitting it from the inside with a hammer. She touched her hair, and her fingers came away smeared with blood. She peered at the collar of her blouse and saw that that too was blood-soaked. At the thought of how her father might react, she quickly removed her blouse, crouched at the water's edge and scrubbed it thoroughly.
Only then did she recall the alien. She looked across to the camel's hump on which it had stood, but it was no longer there. Then she looked up at the overhang from which she'd fallen, a good ten metres above her. There was no tide in the pool, of course. There was no way she could have fetched up here without...
Hard on the realisation that the alien had saved her life, she experienced first revulsion that the creature had actually touched her, and then a profound amazement that something so... so alien had bothered to save her life - the kind of amazement she might have felt had she been saved by a monkey or a bear.
Then she saw the alien. It was crouching three metres from her, its long shins drawn up before its chest, its elongated head peering at her from above the peaks of its bony knees.
Ella jumped up in fright - at the same time trying to drag on her blouse to cover her nakedness - but the pain in her head forced her down again. Sobbing, she fumbled with the wet, clinging material, finally getting it on and fastening the studs.
All the time she watched the alien, as if it might spring up and attack her at any second.
When it did move, she was ready. The alien unfolded itself to its full height and took a step towards her. She scrambled to her feet, trying to ignore the insistent throbbing in her head. She backed off, sobbing in fear and confusion.
"Don't come near me!" she screamed. "Why did you have to come here anyway?" And she knelt and found a rock and hurled it at the frozen alien. It missed by a long way, sailing over its head, but the creature never flinched. It regarded Ella without expression as she ran off through the bushes to the track.
By the time she reached her father's villa she was sick with exhaustion and shame. The party had broken up - she must have been unconscious for longer than she'd thought. Her minder was swimming in the artificial lagoon behind the house, and her father was in the lounge, staring through the picture window at the sunset. He didn't even look around as Ella hurried to her room. She showered and washed her bloody clothes, hanging them on her balcony rail to dry, then lay on her bed and thought through the events of that evening, the alien and her reaction to it. The contusion at the base of her skull was the size of a racquet-ball, but that had nothing to do with the fact that she slept little that night.
For disobeying