They Might Be Dangerous

    Zak had never questioned if aliens existed. With half a trillion planets in the galaxy, millions of others must have the right conditions for life. It was only a matter of time before there was contact.  

    Zak had read all about this. He and Alia were always listening and watching for signs of alien life—screaming engine roars, bright flashes of light, or fireballs in the sky. But that morning, all they heard was a muffled sound. Whump. 

    It sounded as if the noise had come from the far side of the park. All they saw was a hint of silver—the way you might see an insect fly past the corner of your eye.

    Zak turned from their path and took off, knowing his older sister would follow. 

    “Let’s find out what it was!” he shouted. 

    Zak struggled to sit still at school each day. But he loved kicking up sand as he raced through the desert on the way home. He always wanted to push farther into the desert—beyond where his parents allowed them to explore. 

    Alia moved quickly along the rocks with Mip panting at her side. Then she stopped. 

    She reached down to scratch Mip’s furry head and frowned. “I don’t see anything. We should go back.” 

    Alia never liked to wander far.  

     Zak kept going. 

    “Let’s keep looking,” he insisted. 

    Zak hoped the whump sound was a meteorite. He’d always wanted to hold one of those space scraps and feel the heat of its journey. What far-off land did it come from? What secrets did it hold?

    Alia followed him over the uneven rocks. She saw a large, shadowy object off in the distance. Above the object, streams of smoke rose up into the sky.

    It was not a meteorite. It was wreckage. But Zak wasn’t sure what the wreckage used to be. It looked like a spacecraft of some kind, battered from its landing. The wings were all broken up. 

    But two silver pods seemed to have survived the landing. They were long and sleek but bulged in the center. Zak guessed that they bulged to make room for whatever they carried inside. The smaller pod was cracked open along a seam. He approached it slowly.

    Alia reached down to hold Mip, but the furry pet broke loose and rushed up to sniff at the pod’s contents.

    Small, shiny packages spilled from the crack. Zak picked one up. Was this their food? 

    Alia was nervous. 

    “Put that down! We have to go,” she said. “Someone must have seen this. We’ll get in trouble!”

    Zak knew she was right. 

    The scientists were always watching the sky. Soon they’d be here. 

    But he wasn’t ready to go. 

    Alia backed away as if getting too close was dangerous. Could the aliens in this spacecraft whisk her away from everything she’d ever known?

    Somehow, that didn’t seem so scary to Zak. 

    He was about to reach into the pod when he felt Mip’s damp nose nudging him. 

    Zak turned. He heard a scrape—and then a creak—coming from the other pod. The larger one.

    “Watch out!” Alia warned.

    But Zak froze. He stared at the pod. It grew quiet, then let out a low hissing sound. Zak guessed that the sound was probably gases escaping.

    Zak waited. But there were no more creaks or scrapes. There was only the steady, quiet hiss of breath from another world. 

    In the distance, another sound rose over the rocks. 

    Alia heard it too. 

    The scientists were coming.

    Alia started to panic. “We need to get out of here!”

    But Zak wasn’t ready. He crouched low, reaching into the pod. 

    He felt something . . . hard and cold. 

    It was a long tube with some kind of trigger. 

    “A weapon.” He held it up. “It’s not too big. That’s good, right?” 

    Alia’s fear filled the air like fog. 

    “That could mean they’re more advanced,” she said. “That thing you’re grabbing could annihilate all of us.”

    Alia reached out to pull him away.

    Zak pulled back. 

    “Maybe they don’t want to annihilate all of us,” he said.

    Alia shook her head. 

    “You’re being reckless,” she said. “Have you forgotten what the scientists told us about outsiders? We need to get out of here!”

    Zak turned toward the second pod, but Alia rushed forward to stand between him and the pod. 

    “They could carry diseases. We have no idea who they are!”

    Zak cast his eyes down. 

    “I want to know.”

    Zak turned back to the first pod. Something glossy was sticking out, snagged on a piece of metal. Zak tugged it free and stared at it.

    It was a page of images. Alia rushed to Zak’s side. He could sense her terror and revulsion. He felt it too. 

    The creatures in the images were ugly. Their faces were raw and pink. Their bodies were soft, mushy-looking, and pale. 

    Alia made the clicking sound she made when she was most afraid. She turned to leave. 

    “Now let’s go.”

    But before Zak could follow, the larger pod creaked again. Then it thumped. A quiet, high-pitched cry came from inside. 

    “Zak, come on!” Alia was already climbing away over the rocks.

    But he couldn’t leave. Something was in there. Alive. Even with the horrible images fresh in his brain, he couldn’t turn away. So he took a step forward. What if . . .

    “What are you thinking?” Alia asked. 

    She rushed at him and knocked him to the ground. 

    “They need help, Alia!”

    He started to get up, but Alia clutched his leg.

    “It’s not safe!” 

    “So you want to leave them to die?”

    He tugged away from her again and scrambled toward the pod.

    Alia trembled. “They’re dangerous! We all know that.”  

    “How do we know?” Zak paused. “They look different. But what if they’re just like us?”

    Alia gave him a dark look. “It won’t matter.” 

    And Zak knew she was right. 

    The pod thumped again, louder, over and over. It sounded desperate and powerful. Whatever was in there was strong.

    Alia and Zak heard a buzzing sound in the distance. Soon the scientists would be here. They’d have the equipment—the weapons, tools, and research supplies—to deal with this.

    The thumping from the pod faded and finally stopped.

    The hissing sound slowed to a shhhhhhh. 

    It got quieter and quieter, until silence filled the air with heaviness.

    Zak looked at Alia.

    “Maybe that hissing sound was their air supply.”

    Alia nodded.

    The scientists were now visible in the distance, flying in from three directions. Zak knew he and Alia had to leave now—before anyone saw them.

    Even Mip seemed to be waiting for him, tipping her antennae toward home. But Zak scratched her behind her crown-horn and turned back to the pod. 

    The pods were totally quiet. The crying had stopped. The air supply they’d brought with them had long leaked away. 

    Whatever had been inside was dead or dying. Zak knew it had to be this way, but it made his heart ache. He and Alia couldn’t risk everything to help strangers from some far-off world.  

    He folded his wings tight at his sides and bent low. Then he ran his antenna over the strange symbols carved in the pod’s surface. He traced the lines and curves.  E . . . A . . . R . . . T . . . H.

    Was it the name of a faraway planet? Had the creatures inside the pod dreamed of holding star scraps in their hands? Had they dreamed of meeting him?  

    Maybe they would come again, Zak thought. He and Alia started to walk home with Mip trotting beside them.  

    Maybe next time, things could be different.