The Alien’s Zookeeper

Prologue

Prologue

BavallaMost Kyvens would kill for abduction duty, but after so many rotations, it had grown dull and boring. Maybe some would love the thrill of taking a fauna sample from a sentient planet without alerting the native inhabitants, but I barely read the descriptions of the creatures that the A-Beam was hovering over.

Four-legged creature with stripes. Sure. Pink winged animal. Yup. Tiny ball with spikes. Why not? Slithery tube. Welcome aboard!

I just slammed the green button as we hovered above the abduction site, beaming up all the animals from this supposed... What did this planet call it?

I opened up my inbox and scrolled through my log for this cycle’s brief.

“Soo?” I tried, not familiar with the word. No, that wasn’t quite right.

I wasn’t sure what kind of aliens this world had but I was sure they were just as dull as all the others. At least they had a funny language to practise while I killed time.

I kept my tongue slightly curled and vibrated it to make the right sound. Zoo.”

By the time I was done practising their weird language, I’d beamed up all the intended animals. I did a mandatory scroll through the list of creatures but didn’t see any that qualified for return.

“Great. Job done,” I declared as I turned off the A-beam and blitzed a message up to the Captain that we could prepare for takeoff.

Another success. Or so I thought.

It wasn’t until we were ten light-years away that I realised my mistake.