Aialo-El was gone for longer than Richard would have hoped. When he tried to check the time, he realized that he didn't have his mobile. He must have left it back at the house or dropped it on the way out.

He wondered about Amy, the 911 dispatcher. She probably wasn't wondering about him. No doubt she'd helped other frantic strangers by now.

Had the police arrived at their house? Paramedics?

What had they found?

A rustling in the tall grass interrupted Richard's musing. He turned, the curved weapon held up in his good arm as he faced the cornfield. Aialo-El took shape before him, familiar in the black uniform that changed so seamlessly with her. She had her hands loose at her sides. Instantly, two other shapes appeared behind her.

The newcomers' faces were shades of green, and they, too, had tentacles where a human might have hair. Their eyes were like Aialo-El's, yellow, their pupils slitted.

"Please lower the weapon, Richard Arthur Campbell," said Aialo-El. "You are among friends."

Staring at the three of them, Richard could not help but hesitate. He and Garth were now outnumbered, both of them wounded, and these creatures were real-life shapeshifters who could move at inhuman speeds.

Still, Aialo-El had answered their distress call and had brought them to safety. He lowered the fist-gun she'd given him slowly.

Aialo-El said something else, something Richard could not understand; it was in a burbling language, the same sounds the communicator had made. One of her companions burbled back to her. Then, both unfamiliar aliens started forward, moving toward Garth.

Richard stepped forward, one arm outstretched in front of Garth. Although he knew that these people had come to help, it was instinct, this uncertainty. "What's going on?"

"They are going to help him," Aialo-El assured him. "Be assured that these are friends. Meet Jalala-Ko and Pey-Daika."

The aliens extended their tentacles inquisitively toward Richard, and then, almost as one, they bowed their heads. Hesitant, Richard returned the gesture. He couldn't tell at a glance whether they were man-aliens or woman-aliens. Aialo-El had seemed feminine to him, but now, seen among her peers, he realized that what had made her seem that way was only her slender silhouette. Her figure wasn't all that different from Garth's at a glance: skinny, not human-womanly in any noticeable way.

Maybe she wasn't a she at all.

"I'm Garth," said Garth. He sounded far more tired than cheerful, and Richard's stomach turned with worry. "Ja-lala-ko? Pey..."

The taller of the strangers extended their tentacles. "Pey-Daika," they said, bowing their head again.

"Pey-Daika," Garth repeated, a passable pronunciation. "You guys have awesome names. So do I, but Richard's just Richard."

The newcomers turned to Aialo-El—alien or no, they were clearly non-plussed—and she must have translated for them, because Richard heard his name among the burbling.

"You should get up now, mate," said Richard, extending a hand to Garth. "Right? Time to go to the ship."

Aialo-El made an affirmative sound. She said something else in that alien tongue, and Pey-Daika and Jalala-Ko stepped closer to Garth, one of them gently nudging Richard aside.

"Hey—hey, careful—" Richard warned.

But they were undergoing a very intentional transformation. They had linked their humanlike hands, and their arms had begun to loosen, lengthen, and flatten; before Richared's eyes, they became flexible, mobile straps. Together, Pey-Daika and Jalala-Ko slid these straps beneath Garth's legs and between his back and the bark of the tree, then lifted him right off of the ground in their impromptu hammock.

"Oh, Christ," Richard muttered, seeking refuge from his relief in sarcasm. "You're going to carry him off like that and he'll think you've made him your chief."

Three green faces and one pasty one turned toward Richard. Before Garth could say something, Aialo-El piped up.

"The Karra are ruled by a democratically-elected council," she said.

Garth snorted. "Aha! Ahh, it hurts, stop making me laugh!"

"I do not intend to be humorous. We are a democratic society."

"I know. I know, but it's funny because he's being a dick, and you're just deadpanning it."

Aialo-El blinked at Garth, then turned a quizzical look to Richard, who shook his head and waved a hand. "It's...a human thing," he explained.

This explanation seemed to suffice. She swept her gaze over the acreage once more and then turned to the cornfield. She started off on foot, for which Richard was glad. He had managed a lot that day, but chasing a snake-woman through the corn might have been the final straw for the camel of his wits.

"The Karra, then? That's what you call yourselves?" Richard asked.

"Yes; we are the Karra. That is my people." She moved through the tall stalks of corn as if she did not even feel them.

"Are you the only one who speaks English?"

Aialo-El glanced in his direction briefly. Without slowing, she lifted her tentacles away from one side of her head, revealing a silver, crescent-shaped device attached to her head. "I am in possession of a translator," she explained. "We have only two on board, unfortunately. You will therefore find it challenging to communicate with crew members aside from the First Officer and myself."

They passed an enormous black and yellow corn spider clinging to the milky lightning bolt in the middle of its web. Despite the horrors of the day, Richard felt a chill from scalp to toes at the sight of the thing, but Aialo-El did not even seem to notice.

"Oh, man," Garth said, "When I was a kid, I was at my uncle's farm, and we were running in the cornfield like you're not supposed to do because you can get lost or hurt, or whatever, and I ran smack into one of those things. You want to know how to get a guy naked in three seconds flat? Corn spider to the face!"

Richard waited for the soft, inquisitive burbling of the Karra to subside; it seemed to be Garth's litter-bearers asking for a translation, which Aialo-El provided. The final burble sounded amused, almost like laughter. The language was more foreign than any human tongue he'd ever heard, and more beautiful, too.

He addressed Garth as he pushed aside the scratchy, blade-shaped leaves of corn. "Take a bit of advice, yeah?"

"What's that?" asked Garth.

"Don't use that trick on Kincade."

Garth barked a laugh and then groaned weakly. "Hrrgh, it hurts."

When Richard glanced over his shoulder at his friend, he bumped right into Aialo-El, who had stopped. "We are here," she said.

There was nothing in front of them but more tall, green cornstalks stretching on as far as they could see in any direction. They had left the farmhouse far enough behind that even its roof, even the tall grove of trees, could no longer be seen from their vantage point. It was the sort of place folk might get eaten by monsters in a heartland horror.

Aialo-El stepped forward. The air around her shivered with light, and she disappeared before her weight had fully lifted from her other foot.

Richard was left behind her, staring in disbelief at empty air and corn.

A burble came from behind Richard. He looked over his shoulder to see both of the other Karra gazing at him patiently. One of them nodded encouragingly, tentacles extended as if to wave him on.

"It's just an alien forcefield," said Garth. Though he was suffering, he sounded excited, too. "Hurry up, Richard. They probably have one of those replicator things like in Star Trek. I could go for a Hungarian hot cocoa right now."

"Hungarian hot cocoa, is it?" Richard replied. Allowing Garth his fancies, he could deal with. Alien forcefields? Perhaps not.

"I don't know, it's probably a thing. Probably a really delicious thing. Chocolate's supposed to be better everywhere else but here."

Richard shook his head, turning to look ahead at the cornfield before him. "Better in England, that's for certain," he said.

"I know. That's what you always say. But if it's better in England, imagine how much better it is in Hungaria."

Just an alien forcefield, thought Richard. Just an average day.

He stepped forward, slowly, one arm outstretched.

Just as the air had shivered with light around Aialo-El, Richard's body now shivered. It felt as if he were passing through a mild static field, every hair on his body lifting.

When his foot touched down on the rich, black earth, it was as if he'd entered a different world.