Alicia slumped on her bed in the small cell where the Aaln had locked her. She knew the aliens had only been on Azgar for six months, but the cell looked centuries old. Its walls of grey stone were broken only by a small, steel-barred window and a heavy iron door, and green slime grew in the corners. The pervasive cold and damp made it even more inhospitable.
Very soon now, she knew, the Aaln would come and demand that she lead them to the surviving humans. They knew the mechanism on her wrist was a homing device, but they didn’t know how to operate it; for that they needed her.
Alicia had set out along the beach hoping to find the Aaln and lead them to her friends and family, but she was no longer eager to do so. She wasn’t sure what was going on in the colony, but from the way they had
