Bones in the Sand, Julie Steimle [best books to read for students .TXT] 📗

he moaned, staring at the blood.

"Jafarr!" Zormna yelled.

Kyle didn't run at her but at Jafarr, striking to stab him with the paring knife. Jafarr dodged to the right, letting Kyle trip and crash into the other leg of the portable grill. The redhead fell onto his side but then spun to get up again. Both Zormna and Jafarr stared at him, prepared to fight.

Choosing his enemy with intense hate, Kyle lifted his knife and threw it at Zormna.

She caught the knife out of the air with a blink at it. She regarded it for a moment. By this time, several people were climbing out of their tents, staring groggy eyed at the disturbance. Many had gaped at her catch, but even more so at how Zormna keenly considered the knife in her hand.

"Really, you should have kept the knife," she said as if her words were ice. "It might have been your only advantage."

Lifting it, she threw it - at the folding table on the other side of the camp area. As the knife stuck into the plastic, imbedding an inch into the narrow side, it wobbled.

Kyle staggered back from her and swallowed. "How...how...? Tarrns are supposed to be weak cowards! How is it you can do that?"

Zormna snorted with her old smugness. "Perhaps it is because I'm an Alea in the Surface Patrol."

Kyle shook his head, staring more at her. "No. No way. You can't possibly - "

His words got cut off by an enormous rumble coming from the air and swiftly drowned out his protests. The world around them immediately filled with a blinding yellowish light. The sand stirred up into a cloud, surrounding them with a haze that no one could see though.

As the noise rattled the camp, the professors' camper burst open. Professor Pratte lifted his arms to block the bright light from his eyes, while Professor Dumas struggled to squeeze his fat belly past him. Both gawked at what they were seeing. The FBI trailer also emptied, all three of the head agents hurrying out with guns raised while, squinting up from the ground. The other operatives were scrambling behind boulders with rifles. Noticing them, Zormna jogged over to Agent Sicamore who approached her, holding his gun ready.

"You'd better tell your men to put their guns away!" Zormna yelled to his ear to be heard over the noise.

"What's happening?" the FBI agent asked, blinded by the light and sandstorm, yet not doing as she said.

"Unless they want to die tonight, tell them to put their guns away," Zormna repeated loudly.

Agent Sicamore gaped at her, understanding sweeping over him. He called to his other agents to stand down.

The noise abruptly came to a halt. The light continued to flood the place. The dust remained in air, much raining down in clouds. Agent Sicamore stared beyond Zormna. She also turned to see.

Emerging from the source of the light came the silhouettes of beings built like men with large heads. Each being carried what looked like a gun and possibly some kind of radiation gage. They walked around the college students, running the machine up and down the individuals in the area as the archaeology students staggered back in terror.

"En za shma'pra tan![1]" one called out from over the hill near where the excavated ship sat.

Zormna smiled to herself and immediately walked across the bright desert through the lit dust, going directly to one of the suited figures.

"Zormna!" Agent Sicamore shouted.

One of the beings heard him, turning his head in their direction. "Alea Zormna?"

"What is going on?" Janelle cried out through the bright dust.

"We're being invaded!" another weepy shout came through the haze.

"En za neem! Alea Zormna! Sha Kevin zhaz'el nee rel da sazken sherrzee noo Al' del'rein umderr'orn trii nit'en neem tan! Kahl za neem? Shea za nee del'narr da Partha?[2]" spoke the one Zormna had approached.

Zormna smiled and pointed in the direction of the crashed ship, speaking back to them in their language. "Em nit'el sha yiizh ee thunee sru Arrand. Sha yiizh za errz lavz rriinz'ech shma'pra tar.[3]"

"Arrand?" the one she was speaking to exclaimed, sounding awed.

Zormna nodded, grinning. "Em rren'el Arrand's uzhee van ray sellas ee shooeev'el en'em da sha yiizh.[4]"

"Ooe nee knapp'el sha ulla thiidarrell[5]." The visitor folded his arms.

"Zormna!" Agent Sicamore called, walking over the rocks to where she was talking to the being that had come from the light. "What is going on?"

Zormna turned to Sicamore and sighed heavily. "I forgot." She looked at the one she was talking to and said, "Sa re'noolak za rein trii oomtor'en iisa kaink Al' tell'orn neem rras, prey?[6]"

The one she was talking to nodded. As the college students watched her and them through the haze and light, the invaders seemed more and more human... just in suits.

"They have come to take the ship back home," Zormna said simply.

The FBI agent gaped. "They're yours? You can't do this!"

Wryly gazing at him, Zormna shook her head and laughed. "Actually, I can. Try and stop us. But I warn you, our weapons are far more advanced than yours, and my people can fry you out of existence if we really wanted to."

Those archaeology students listening pulled back together, realizing what she was saying... especially after seeing Sicamore's helpless expression as the FBI agent watched Zormna lead the suited soldiers over the hill. But mostly, their eyes finally took in the small circular insignia which rested in the center of each of their helmets, the same as the helmet they found buried in the ground a month ago. They could now make out breathing apparatuses, covering the bottom half of the helmets.

The helmeted visitors quickly unearthed the space ship with their small handheld lasers, breaking away the rock. Apparently they could be focused into a beam that melted the stone like wax touched by a heated wire. Before the visitors closed the door to the unearthed shuttle, a great many of them paid their respects to the bones in the casket on the pilot's chair. While this was taking place, the other visitors busily disarmed the FBI, keeping them at bay at gunpoint, undoubtedly by Zormna's request. In fact, she walked around the camp as if she ruled the world.

Strangely though, they could hardly see where Jafarr had gone to. Those that could see him noticed that he appeared to be avoiding the people in suits, and doing a good job of it too. Zormna peeked around for him from time to time, but she clearly had nothing to fear as long as she was working with her comrades. Kyle also had slipped off to place where he could glare silently, forgotten and miserable, while watching Zormna order around the soldiers like she had a right to.

Around the time the ship had been completely unearthed, the dust in the air had settled so the light shown sharply but people could see. Zormna embraced the soldier who led the expedition in a comrade-like hug and stepped back to part.

"Aren't you coming with us?" the leader of the visitors asked in English. His accent was much better than Zormna's, but by far not as good as Jafarr's.

Zormna shook her head. "I still have work to do here."

"Work?" A harsh yell came across the camp from where Kyle had been sitting.

Zormna rolled her eyes with a cringe. "I forgot. I have a favor to ask you."

Kyle tromped over to where Zormna and her soldier friend were standing. "Work? That girl is doing nothing here but hiding!"

The suited man glanced at Zormna. "Hiding? Alea Zormna, the Kevin told us you are working on special projects. But what project are you working on?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you. Even Alea Arden doesn't know, so don't ask him. It's classified."

"Classified?" Kyle laughed snidely. "Did she tell you that she's a Tarrn? I bet that's classified enough for your Kevin."

Zormna glared at him, but her expression changed into an embarrassed red when she looked to her fellow soldier.

"Is that true?" her fellow soldier asked. His gasp echoed from his helmet.

Zormna stepped back and bowed her head, trembling in short retreat, possibly to prepare for an attack.

The other soldiers around her heard. They whispered among themselves. The soldier that stood in front of Zormna took off his helmet. In the light, the watching students saw that he was a red-haired freckled male that appeared to be about thirty years old. The man bowed, falling to one knee at Zormna's feet.

"Somehow I knew you were," he murmured, gazing up at her and grinning. He then stood up sharply. "Now we'll really show those P.M.s!"

"No!"

A yell from behind startled Zormna. She turned around, expecting to see Jafarr pouncing on Kyle. Instead it was Professor Dumas jerking the paring knife (which Kyle had extracted from the folding table) once more out of Kyle's hands. Jafarr ran up seconds after, helping the professor defend himself from the livid Arrassian college student.

Of course, Kyle's attack was ill-planned. The other soldiers around them effectively tackled Kyle and held him against the desert floor. Zormna stood back alongside her surprised uniformed comrade.

"Who is this?" the unhelmeted leader said, marching toward Kyle.

Zormna let out a breath. "He goes by the name of Kyle Smith here. He's a High Class man."

The soldier nodded. "Intent on killing you no doubt."

Zormna nodded in affirmative.

The soldier then turned to face the professor. "And you are?"

The portly man strained to catch his breath, bowing. "My name is Arrd Duii. I'm a professor of archaeology - only I guess I won't be after this."

Professor Pratte had followed his colleague. Yet he was shaking his head with his mouth slack open. "You old devious liar. You're one of them too?"

Turning around, Professor Dumas nodded with a wry grin. "Sorry, old friend, but yes. And I was doing a wonderful job of convincing you old fools of the mystery of evolution when you had to unearth that ship. It was having a devil of a time trying to figure out a way to get it out of FBI hands without them noticing, and sabotage the whole thing, even after those two kids showed up. I had no idea they had these kinds of contacts. But of course, we are mighty grateful that you did find them, because I was wondering where Arrand's ship had gone to."

Professor Pratte just gaped at him shaking his head. "Then all you said you believed were lies?"

Nodding, Professor Dumas laughed. "Of course, my dear friend. How else could I be of better service to my people than to mislead your people from the truth. And I nearly did it too. Of course, I liked you best because of your dogged determination to get the truth and stick with it. It has been an honor teaching with you."

Professor Pratte nearly smiled, though still flustered.

"And what about him?" the redheaded soldier said, looking suspiciously at the dust-covered Jafarr who was waiting uncomfortably behind Professor Dumas hoping (fruitlessly) not to have been noticed.

Zormna stepped forward. "He's with me."

The soldier glanced at Jafarr and then shook his head. He then blinked and gaped back at Zormna. "But isn't that Jafarr Zeldar? The rebel you always hated?"

Jafarr choked on a laugh, or maybe perhaps it was just the dust that was raining from his hair.

Zormna shook her head. "Just trust me, Alea Tennar. He's ok."

The soldier regarded Jafarr for a second.

"Well, if you say so." He then fell back into his dialect. "Shea del'or nee hooch'ro al'm trii del'en d sa lak?[7]" pointing at Kyle.

"Sa za sha rrata Al' nooah'orn. En nee lechak'or o'rem pres da sha llen ban'dana?[8]" she asked, also slipping back into her own tongue. Zormna looked solemn as if begging for a favor.

The soldier observed Kyle for the