Alien Manifesto Read Online Free Page B

to be a stone,
silent and unmoving. I concentrated only on slowing my breathing
and heart rate, trying to be undetectable. Suddenly, and as silent
as a rising puff of smoke, the feline master floated to his feet.
He picked up the object, locking it away for safekeeping in a
secret compartment in the wall behind him. And just as suddenly and
silently, he was gone.
    What a stroke of
luck, I thought. A few minutes’ wait and it will be mine. My heart sped up a beat in anticipation. As I started to turn
towards the cabinet, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I
could feel the master’s gaze boring into the back of my head. He
had returned. Only now, he was camouflaged as well. I could feel
him, his intensity even while cloaked, and see him in my mind’s
eye. Silently I let my anti-grav skid float up to the ceiling, and
I waited, not daring to breathe. I had not fallen into the trap of
fear and it had saved me, again, maybe.
    As I watched, the master materialized
under me, deactivating his camouflage, obviously satisfied as to
the object’s safety. As the master left his quarters, I realized I
had remained undetected. Now was not the time to get cocky. I
carefully retrieved the object and headed for my quarters,
triumphant, with my prize in tow.
    As I stripped off the camouflage and
stowed my skid I received a nasty shock. All of my instructors
materialized at once in front of my quarters. My heart sank, I had
failed after all.
    To my relief Snarth arrived at that
very same moment. “Well done Human Tom, welcome to the team.” He
said simply, gesturing around to my former instructors, each bowing
to me in a show of respect and acceptance.
    Having been raised in a church run
orphanage, I never had a family. My teammates in the Special Forces
were the only family I had ever known, short-lived as they were.
Someone was always rotating out, or getting killed. Somehow this
was different. Not only had I earned the respect of these warriors,
they had earned mine.
    Snarth, damn his tentacles, was like
that rich uncle who was the black sheep every large wealthy family
has. This place, Snarth’s estate, was a hedonistic paradise and a
mechanical engineering wonder at the same time.
    Now Snarth, there was a story. He
would not say where he was from. I always respect a person’s
privacy about that sort of thing. Because it is a sore subject for
me that I do not care to discuss either. From what I could gather
from the other team members, Snarth’s race was long-lived, living
thousands of years thanks to rejuvenation technology. And, he was
incredibly wealthy. He was a collector of the finest pleasures. In
fact, he was renowned throughout the galaxy for it. He could
apparently afford whatever caught his fancy. Snarth said Shorty
owed him a great deal of profit: seeing how rich Snarth was, I
could not comprehend how much Shorty must owe that Snarth would
bother to pursue him.
    Snarth’s estate was located on its own
planet, populated only by Snarth’s employees, mechs and guests. It
was a small planet about the size of Earth’s moon. However, it had
every kind of environment you could imagine, polar ice caps, large
lakes, swamps, deserts, old growth woodlands, even a tropical rain
forest full of exotic plants. I could not even begin to understand
how that was possible. I just accepted it, I knew someday I might
learn the secrets of Snarth’s estate, until then I would practice
being patient.
    It was a special forces training
paradise. And train we did, twelve hours or more every day. Some
days were in freezing cold, followed by a week in the tropical
jungle. I did not know what we were training for yet, none of us
did. I did know that we would be well trained for whatever it was
we were going up against.
    Snarth joined the team in
the gymnasium that morning. Will he tell
us when we are going? I mean I was rather
enjoying this training by day and Tasha’s affections by night.
However, I was also eager to get on with the