“You’re the captain,” Watch said. “Why don’t you have them both thrown overboard?” Before leaving, the aliens had given him his watches back, so he was happy. Actually, both of them had gotten their clothes back.
“I’ve already gone to too much trouble to save them,” Sally muttered.
Ek turned and looked at them.
“We are almost to the jump. I was wondering what precise time you would like to be returned?”
That made them all sit up.
“Can this ship travel in time?” Watch asked.
“Of course. You traveled in time on the journey here. Did you not know that?”
“How could we know?” Adam said. “We thought this was just a regular spaceship.”
“But you saw how much Earth had changed. You must have known we had jumped forward in time.”
They all stared at one another, shocked.
“Do you mean that you are from Earth?” Adam asked, barely able to get the words out. “In the future?”
“Yes. I thought you knew.”
Sally was disgusted. “But you’re a fatheaded . . . I mean, you’re such an unusual alien shape. I don’t understand.”
“I am not an alien. I told you.”
“But where have all the people on Earth gone?” Sally asked. “Did you invade and wipe them all out?”
Ek shook his head. He must have picked up the gesture being with them.
“We are the people of Earth. We are what you will change into after another two hundred thousand years of evolution.”
Sally was indignant. “No way. My great-great-great-grandchildren are not going to look like you. I won’t have it.”
“I think you need another two thousand greats in front of grandchildren to match the time frame he’s talking about,” Watch said.
“If we do become you,” Adam said. “Why do you live in space?”
Ek lowered his head.
“You, we—we dirtied our planet. We cannot live there anymore.”
“But now that we know that,” Adam said hopefully, “maybe we can work in our lives to stop people from polluting the Earth so much. I know I’ll try, as soon as I grow up and get out of Spooksville and get a real life.”
Ek raised his head. Once more he tried to smile.
“That could help us all.”
“I don’t know if I accept this,” Sally said. “But for the sake of argument, say you are a more advanced form of us. Why would your people go into the past to steal us? For what purpose?”
“I meant to tell you this. When I conferred with our highest government official, he apologized and said that the government had wanted a few kids from your generation to study to see how to liven up our culture. Lately we have become somewhat stagnant as a race.”
Sally laughed. “He got more than he bargained for.”
“That is precisely what he conveyed to me. He thought we needed kids from an earlier, calmer generation. You guys were too explosive. But in either case, he promised that anyone else we took from the past would not be kidnapped. They would come with us only if they wanted to come.”
“Can you see about getting that Hyeet freed?” Watch said. “He was in the cage across from us. He looked pretty miserable.”
“Now that we know the truth, the youth of our culture will demand that no intelligent creature be kept hostage. It should not have happened to begin with.”
“I agree with that,” Cindy said. “This has been a long day.”
“That is what I’m asking you. I can return you home to any time you wish. You only have to tell me when.”
“We should probably return just after we were kidnapped,” Adam suggested. “After both ships left. I don’t want to go running into myself.”
“I agree,” Watch said.
“Sounds good,” Sally said. “That way we can make it home in time for dinner.”
But Cindy suddenly jumped up. “We have to land before we left. We have to come in unobserved, and land on the hill near the Haunted Cave.”
“Why?” they all asked.
Cindy was thoughtful. “It’s hard to explain. Just trust me on this one. Ek, do you have a ray gun aboard this ship?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I will need to borrow it just after we land. Put us down right before the two ships appeared. But like I said, don’t let anyone—including ourselves—see us.”
“Cindy,” Adam warned. “We don’t want to tamper with time. Let our earlier versions go have the adventure. It was fun, and it turned out all right in the end.”
But Cindy was adamant. “No. This way is the only way. You’ll see why when we get there.”
Since Cindy refused to change her mind, they instructed Ek to do what she said. Ek adjusted the hyperjump so that they burst through to their time a few hours early. In fact, it gave them enough leeway so they were able to swing by Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars for a look. Watch said the planets were much more impressive up close than in his telescope.
“I’m going to have to get one of these saucers,” he said with a sigh.
Finally they landed on the hill near the Haunted Cave. Ek had turned off the saucer’s lights. They came down unobserved and slipped out of the ship. It was still warm but good to be back and feel normal dirt beneath their feet. Even if they were back in Spooksville, home was home.
Far below, they could see themselves, sitting by the reservoir.
The earlier Cindy was still soaking her foot in the water.
“Oh,” Cindy now said, wincing as she put her foot down. “You guys have to help me down the ravine. Ek, I need that gun.”
“Are you injured, Cindy?”
“Yes. I sprained my ankle before you showed up.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I have something that will fix that.”
Ek disappeared inside. When he returned he had a ray gun and a small silver ball. Instructing Cindy to sit down, he placed it near her ankle. The ball began to glow a dull red color. After a couple of minutes Cindy let out a soft cry of delight. She flexed her foot and Ek withdrew the strange instrument.
“My ankle’s all better! How did you do that, Ek?”
“We know a lot more about human, and alien, bodies in our time.”
“Great.” Cindy jumped up and grabbed the weapon. “I have a job I have to take care of. The first setting is stun, right Ek?”
“That is correct.”
“Who are you going to stun?” Adam insisted.
“You’ll see,” Cindy said. “You guys can come with me if you’re real quiet.”
Together, Ek included, they crept down the hill, until they were almost able to hear the earlier versions of themselves talking. No surprise, two alien ships suddenly appeared in the sky. They watched everything that had happened before, up until Watch was taken inside the first saucer. Then Cindy said they had to move closer.
“We shouldn’t interfere,” Sally repeated.
“We won’t,” Cindy promised. “Everything will be just as it was.”
They crept cautiously around until they were at the lip of ravine. Down below, the fighting started. Adam and Sally were stunned by the alien weapons. But back up on the hill, to everyone’s surprise—except Cindy’s—two aliens walked by just below them. To their even greater surprise, they saw an earlier version of Cindy stand up on the opposite side of the ravine. She had a big rock in her hands.
Her intention was clear. She was going to brain one or both of the aliens. They watched in amazement as she raised the rock above her head and threw it down. At that exact instant, their Cindy whipped out her gun and aimed and fired. There Was a flash of green light. She stunned the aliens, and the two collapsed in a pile. The rock had missed by a mile. Cindy laughed quietly beside them in the dark as her earlier version peered confused over the edge of the ravine.
“I wondered why those guys just fell over on me,” she whispered.
Epilogue
It was time to say goodbye to Ekweel2. They hated to see
him leave.
“Why don’t you hang out with us for awhile?” Adam asked. “There’s always a lot happening here. Things are never ‘stagnant.’ ”
“Yeah, you can learn a lot from us about how awesome kids in this century are,” Sally said.
“I would love to stay. But I have work to do at home cleaning up the confusion caused by your illegal capture. I have to return and make sure it never happens again.”
“But when you’re done with your job, stop by some time,” Cindy pleaded. “We like you. You’re one of us.”
Ekweel2 held out his hands for each of them to touch.
“You will see me again. I promise.”
They said their goodbyes. Cindy had a tear in her eye. Maybe they all did. But just as Ekweel2 was about to disappear inside his ship, Sally called out one last question.
“Hey, Ek?” she said. “Do you know why it’s so hot here these days? We never have weather like this.”
“A heavy inversion layer has settled over this portion of your coast. It will clear up in a couple of days and then you will have cooler temperatures.”
“It’s not a witch’s curse, after all,” Adam teased her.
Sally nodded, insulted. “I knew that.”
About the Author
Little is known about Christopher Pike, although he is supposed to be a strange man. It is rumored that he was born in New York but grew up in Los Angeles. He has been seen in Santa Barbara lately, so he probably lives there now. But no one really knows what he looks like, or how old he is. It is possible that he is not a real person, but an eccentric creature visiting from another world. When he is not writing, he sits and stares at the walls of his huge haunted house. A short, ugly troll wanders around him in the dark and whispers scary stories in his ear.
Christopher Pike is one of this planet’s best-selling authors of young adult fiction.
Books by Christopher Pike
Spooksville #1: The Secret Path
Spooksville #2: The Howling Ghost
Spooksville #3: The Haunted Cave
Spooksville #4: Aliens in the Sky
Available from MINSTREL Books
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A MINSTREL PAPERBACK Original
A Minstrel Book published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1996 by Christopher Pike
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-671-53728-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-4814-1060-1 (eBook)
First Minstrel Books printing January 1996
A MINSTREL BOOK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Front cover illustration by Lee MacLeod
Christopher Pike, Aliens in the Sky
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