(no subject)

[seymoure]

15.

The ride back was uncomfortably quiet. No one wanted to talk about it. They had been so jubilant only seconds before.

There were minor medical activities to be dealt with, but mostly just scrapes and bruising. One boy had a sprained arm, but that was the most grievous injury.

There was nowhere to sit, no chairs were available. It looked as if the Sphere was never used for any trip that would ask for resting.

Mickey sat on the floor, with his back against the transparent wall. For the first time he noticed that his pants were ripped. Sometime during the onslaught he had received a slash, but it didn’t seem to have drawn blood.

For the first time he realized how close he had been to being injured.

Somehow, in some really sick way, this was reassuring to the boy. He had felt to be involved with the how thing in a once removed way. He only affected the people who fought, not fighting himself. This meant he could have died.

Cool.

Then the thought recycled through his mind. He could have died.

Not cool.

Suddenly there was a common shouting and people were running to the wall across the vessel from him to look out.

He got up and rushed to see what the trouble was.

There he saw a man, sitting atop the saucer shaped object that had been taken from the base.

A robot flew, carrying the huge object above its head. Flanking the conveyor were a cadre of another half dozen of the same form of robots that had been defeated at Groom Lake.

How many more of them were there?

Mickey looked to his right and found his mother looking out at the figure now standing atop the tarp that covered something that was the reason for everything that had happened today.

The figure bowed in a way that made the boy’s lip curl in anger.

He reached out to take his mother’s hand and found it cold, and wet with sweat.

The formation of robots rocketed by them and was soon lost over the horizon.

No one had much to say at this point.

Maria’s hand covered her son’s hand, and he wished he could help.

“We’re going to beat him!” He said with as much conviction as he could muster.

“We are, my little darling,” Said his mother, who didn’t really seem to be there.

Mickey wondered how Chance was doing today.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens