It was late and Hrvos was ready for
the next test. Thmos spoke "Hrvos,
how many more times do we have to tele-operate the creature tonight?"
"At least four more
times. We need a base line for
frustrating this particular human then we can move our operations again."
"But we've been here a
week. Don't we have enough yet?"
"Thmos, we will do four more
clang and rolls tonight because I'm in charge and I say we need the data. Can we please try and have some fun with
this?"
"Okay Hrvos. Whatever you say. Just remember we will need to shut down for a
day to do preventative maintenance on the creature."
"I remember, now
concentrate. We're on the path and there
is the waste container. Wow, this guy
put steel chains on the thing. Thmos,
push the creatures head against the vessel and try and get it rolling."
"I got it to pivot 90
degrees. Now what?"
"Can you push it in a straight
line?"
"Yes. Do you want it all the way to the
house?"
"Maybe. Let's start pushing and see how long it is
until the human emerges to investigate.
Then we'll escape."
A few minutes later the sound of
gravel scrunching brought a man in his sixties to the door of the house. He grabbed his flashlight and bathed the
dumpster with light apparently startling the bear into leaving. "Damn critters keep trying my
patience." He went back to watching
TV and talking with his wife.
"What now Hrvos?"
"Let's wait a few minutes and
return to turn the vessel 90 degrees toward the machine shelter."
A few minutes later the bear was
back pushing the dumpster to the garage, the wheels not making as much noise
this time. The dumpster bumped against
the house and the chains rattled. The
man reappeared in the doorway of the house this time shining a spotlight on the
bear and yelling. The bear ran away and
the man got some help from the neighbors to push the dumpster back into place.
"Well Thmos, so far we've
gotten him to shine a light and yell.
Let's give it half an hour and try again."
A half hour passed and the bear
reappeared. This time the wheels of the
vessel were locked somehow and they just dragged on the concrete and sank in
the gravel. The bear growled and tried
to raise the lid with its snout making a lot of noise with the chains. Again the man appeared in the doorway
lighting up the bear and yelling. He
even took a couple of steps off of the porch to feign a lunging attack. The bear looked at the man and trotted off
across the road into the trees.
"Hrvos, it looks like we're
making him angry. I think humans lose
intelligence when they get angry."
"Um, Thmos. That is what we are trying to determine with
this study. We have to prove it, do you
understand?"
"Yes Hrvos. What next?"
"Let's wait ten minutes then
get a running start at the vessel, see if we can get it to the middle of the
path again. That ought to frustrate the
human."
Next to the property of the
dumpster was a cabin with a vacationing family whose eighteen year old son was
peering into the dark to determine what was making all of the noise. He had a very powerful LED strobe light that
cast a narrow but blinding beam of light.
When the bear came running across the road he saw the movement of the
bushes and a great black form hit the dumpster with the force of a car,
flipping the dumpster into the center of the path. The bear had rolled over the form of the
dumpster as the dumpster flipped landing on the opposite side of the dumpster
and moving slowly as if stunned.
The boy shined his light on the black
form as it began to stand up.
"Thmos, what the hell
happened? We need to get moving before
the human comes out and gets too close."
"We will but I must first get
out and adjust the creature's head. We
can't see anything right now because the impact jarred the camera
alignment."
"Hurry the frizzle up, you
stupid delouche."
As the boy watched he saw the eyes
of the bear moving then two dessert plate sized ovals of greenish glow appeared
between the bear's back legs and moved forward.
A being with a bulbous head stood up and handled the face of the bear
moving its eyes further apart on the head.
It then ran to the back legs and disappeared. The bear stood up and started looking around. Seeing the pinpoint of light coming from the
cabin it started to approach.
The man appeared in the doorway
again this time with a spotlight, yelling and a stun gun. He shot the dumpster and an electrical arc
jumped to the bear. This was enough to
get the bear running across the road.
When morning came the man had his
neighbors help him turn the dumpster up right again and before leaving for the
day the boy went to speak to the man about the bear. "Does that happen every night?"
"It has for the last
week. They'll probably move on
now."
"They? I thought it was a bear?" The boy did not want to mention what he had
seen hop out of the creature.
"Nah. It's not a real bear. It's a couple of grey anthropologists who
think they are doing legitimate research.
Here, look at the infrared of the bear.
Me and the missus have been watching them on the television every night
this week."
"You know? Why don't you call the Air Force and capture
them?"
"High Command knows about them
and let's the farce go on. It keeps them
from getting into more serious mischief.
To tell you the truth I find it really amusing to see them squeeze into
those imitation animals of theirs. It
took a lot of years for them to figure out how to cross the road. You come on back next summer son and we'll
start having some fun with them, what do ya say."
"I'm in."
"Hrvos, I want a
transfer. You're going to get us
killed."
"Stop whining Thmos. We have two more years on our sentence then
we can take over this stinking swamp planet."
