The Extrazirconial

Henry Morrison was out doing whatever it is that farmers do in their fields when he heard a loud buzzing noise above his head coming closer. The sound increased in intensity until his hair was flailing and he could feel the barley flattening in a circle around him. He could have sworn there was a helicopter or some other large flying machine directly above him, but the sky was empty.

But then it wasn’t. A large bullet shaped metal vessel shucked off its cloaking and gradually shimmered into view. 

Two representatives of the planet Zircon stared down through the transparent hull bottom to see an alien directly beneath them. Krixit and Tzarit had never seen an extrazirconial before and hopped up and down in excitement. ‘Quick!’ emitted Krixit in Zirconese, ‘lower the extremely sophisticated and large magnet* and pull it up! I will have my weapon drawn in case it tries anything funny!’** Tzarit lowered the device down through the now open hatch. A meter emitted regular beeps while displaying the length of the lowering filament in a measuring system and colour previously unknown to planet earth. 

Henry, blinking at the intense light and shielding his eyes with his left arm, was unprepared for the manhole shaped device that descended suddenly by his side, making a whooshing sound and narrowly missing his head. Firstly his boots with feet inside went flying up to meet it and he fell on his back; then those summarily unattached and his stomach flew up towards it as the metal buckle on his belt coupled with the device; then his suspender buckles made fast and he felt his whole body smack onto the side arranging his mouth in a kind of “O” shape. 

The object started to rise and Henry struggled to free himself. He had quite nicely wrenched one of the buckles off the magnet when he became aware he was now some forty feet above the ground. He stopped struggling and jerked his face out of the way as the suspender catapulted itself back into position. The next thing he knew he was inside the vessel staring at what he perceived as a bunch of metal junk; however one of the metallic oddments had a ray gun pointed at him, 

‘Ew!’ emitted Krixit. ‘That’s disgusting! It smells!’ and he backed off.

‘What in Blotspit’s name is that?’ responded his companion. ‘It looks like it's made inside out. Either that or it’s lost its shell. It’s got holes in the top of it. Maybe it’s injured. Do you think it’s safe to try and help it?’

‘Well it looks unarmed and it can’t hurt us with all that external fatty tissue…’

Tzarit approached Henry tentatively and poked him in the eye.

Henry had felt the apparatus drop off his body and clatter thunderously to the floor while the two metallic junk heaps circled around him emitting intermittent screeching noises. He turned himself in circles trying not to let them get behind him but there were two of them and they were faster than him. He stopped and stayed still rubbing his head trying to alleviate the noise. No sooner had he dropped his hand from his left ear than one of the machines scooted up to him flinging out a metal bolt which narrowly missed taking out his eyeball. “Ow!” he screamed, flinging his hand up to his eye and scrambling backwards to a bulkhead.

‘Look!’ said Krixit, “Look how happy it is! Give it another one!’ and Tzarit advanced towards Henry again. Henry let out a strangled wail and with a huge leap he did not know he had in him, managed to scoot behind a control panel. The console did not shield his upper body but presented a barrier to the advancing Zirconian. Henry breathed heavily as he scooted from side to side to match the machine on the other side.

‘No, I don't think it likes that. I wish we had some kind of background information on this species. Give me a minute,’ and Tzarit consulted his internal computer. ‘It’s like a Karmidian in some ways but does not have gills,’ he continued ‘More like a Vanandian but without the tentacles. We need to conduct some tests…’ and with that a long metal arm shot out from the hull of the vessel, grabbing Henry around the neck and thrusting him down on an examining bench that had instantaneously risen out of the floor. 

An MRI-like machine appeared and engulfed Henry, slowly at first whizzing around him and going faster and faster, only the one at the hospital hadn’t made it hard for him to breath or felt like a house was sitting on his chest. Henry felt his cheeks go loose and watched a stream of dribble spiral in the air, his stomach churned and then he lost consciousness.

‘Oh no!’ emitted Tzarit. ‘We’ve terminated it! We’ve terminated it! We are going to be in so much shit… Quick, see if you can revitalize it!’ and he handed a large black cable to Krixit. 'Give him some Trinium power and make it snappy!

‘But where can I plug it in?’ emitted Krixit loudly. ‘It doesn't have a conduit portal,’ and he turned Henry’s unmoving body over and over lifting up his floppy arms and legs looking for a plug in.

‘Well the biggest hole is in the top of it,’ responded Tzarit. ‘Look it even has a red circle around it. That must be it, but increase the power gradually. We don’t know what’s a safe level.’

Krizit inserted the cable in Henry’s mouth.

Henry came to with a burning sensation inside his head becoming insanely hotter by the millisecond. An acrid smell filled the air. His body automatically jolted off the examining bench causing the cable to fall out of his mouth and begin snaking around on the floor. Henry was wearing his rubber farming boots, but his hosts were entirely metallic and in contact with a deck that was receiving an increasing amount of Trinium power. Henry watched hypnotized as they hopped around the deck like Irish jig dancers without the poise. He shook his head to snap out of it and figure out how to take advantage of their distraction to make a break for it.

An impromptu "Whoopee!" escaped from Henry to find that each control had an icon above it indicating its use. Out of a multitude of levers, switches and dials, there was one depicting a large round object with zigzag lines emanating from it and a pointer showing up and down. He positioned his belt and suspender buckles as close as possible to the contraption and pulled the down lever. A large metallic clang echoed around the vessel as the hatch opened and Henry was ejected from the ship. First he shot sideways but then clung on for dear life as the buckles randomly attempted to free themselves from the magnetic force. Then he was back on the dear sweet ground not too far from where he’d been unwillingly hoisted. 

Each time Henry freed one buckle and let go to try another, the original one swerved back past him and smacked back on. Henry, sweating and swearing, eventually had a brainwave and removed his belt and suspenders. Without Henry's weight but still with the necessities for keeping up his pants, the line immediately whipped back up into the ship and the hatch snapped shut. For a few minutes he heard nothing from the vessel but then a thrum started building up to the original loud buzzing that he’d heard. Once the sound reached an ear bending level the object started to disappear from sight beginning at the middle and becoming invisible when it reached both ends. However, Henry could still hear and feel it hovering above him as his pants crumpled to the ground exposing his white farmer's legs.

In the good ship Ballitzal, the Zirconian pilots were emitting relief. ‘Good thing that circuit cut out, Krizit. I thought we were a goner there.’ 

‘Yes,’ emitted Tzarit, staring down at Henry without his pants, ‘but we need to find another subject before this sphere makes another rotation, only this time we should source a more representative sample with its shell. That one was too damaged.’

• - - - -

* There is a word for this device but it does not translate well into any other language. In essence it's an extremely large and sophisticated magnet.

** Had you been in the vessel you would have understood nothing as Zirconians speak at such a high pitched frequency it registers to humans as a mildly annoying screech.