He watched from the balcony as five men with guns walked past below. Military uniforms, but no insignia. At best, they could be of little use to him. At worst, they could kill him.
No, that wouldn’t be the worst, he thought. They could keep him as a slave or torture him.
Auron shuddered, and retreated silently into his apartment in the abandoned ski lodge and shut the balcony door as quietly as he could manage.
He took Jor out of his pocket.
“Who do you think they are?” he asked.
“Don’t know, mate. Probably towards the end of the war, the various armies fell into disarray, and now they’re just people trying to survive.
He opened the wardrobe so he could see himself in the mirror inside the door. He’d changed his rudimentary self-made clothes for some that he’d found in the abandoned houses, but he still looked a wreck. No amount of bathing and grooming could conceal that fact that here was a man who, at the age of perhaps fifty-eight, was approaching the end of his lifespan. A man who had endured unspeakable things for three decades on an alien planet. A man whose nerves had been half-shattered by the endless attacks of the giant furry alien crabs.
But he was safe now. He was home.
He turned to look at the fish tank full of blue liquid and tangled wires that stood next to an open notebook computer on the large wooden table; a table that had probably once, before the war, seen happy gatherings of friends or family.
“Jor, is your communication link with the Sirius device fully stable?”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Jor. “Stop worrying. Everything’s in place. Everything’s working.”
“I want to start on something that isn’t essential to my life. I’m thinking teeth. I could fix my teeth. They’re a mess.”
“Great idea, Auron. Shall I get Sirius to devise a plan?”
His heart began to beat wildly. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He couldn’t speak.
“Auron?” said Jor.
“No, not yet. Let me think.”
“You’re prevaricating, mate,” said Jor.
“I know. I know that. I’m going for a walk.”
He patted the weapon holstered at his side. He’d had Sirius make some adjustments to it. It would work, now. Reliably.
He walked out of the apartment and over to the stairs, from where he could see the landscape on other side of the ski lodge. The men were walking off towards the town. He waited till they’d summited the little hill next to the village, then went downstairs and outside.
It was good to be outside. The warm sun made him feel alive.
He began to walk towards the pond. It was largely stagnant, but there were still fish in it.
