Josh blinked, and tried to focus his eyes. Theresa was standing over him, watching impatiently. Josh vaguely remembered her getting up a little while ago, but he couldn't quite remember why. It was still dark out, and he didn't make a habit of getting up this early. He looked at his watch.

"It's only 5:30, 'Resa. What's the deal?" She grabbed his arm, and pulled him upright.

"My dad just phoned from the airport! He's on his way back, and if he finds you here, you're dead!" She kept pulling on his arm, until he was forced to either stand up, or let her dislocate his shoulder. At the moment, he was almost tired enough to let her do that, if it meant he could go back to sleep.

"Get up, already," she said, grabbing his other arm. So he allowed himself to be pulled upright, then feigned to fall asleep again, and slumped himself against her, dropping his head onto her shoulder.

"Stop it, Josh. I'm serious," she warned him. "My dad said he was going to be here in twenty minutes, which means you have about fifteen minutes to live." She pushed him away, and he balanced himself on his own feet. She then moved to the bed, and began to put it in order.

"One look at your truck," she continued, "and he'll know that you've been here all night. You don't get dew like that if you just arrived."

"So I've been here all night. What's the matter?" he asked groggily.

She looked up at him, startled.

"What's the matter? What's the matter! He'll flip out! Do you know what it usually means when a man and a woman spend the night together?"

"It's not like we had sex, or anything. Sure, we made out for a while, but we're not stupid," he countered, starting to actually wake up.

"Like he'll believe that," Theresa replied, finishing the bed. "Parents are always paranoid. It's part of the entomology of the word."

Josh raised his eyebrows. "Um, entomology is the study of insects, babe."

Theresa threw a pillow at him, which he tried to catch, but he was still a bit more tired than he thought, and it bounced off his hand.

"Whatever! The word history, whatever that's called. Toss me that pillow back, will you?" He kneeled down to grab the pillow, and threw it back to her. She put it back in the bed, and started walking to the kitchen. Josh followed.

"I mean," she continued, "that the words both come from the same root word. Parent -- paranoid. That means he'll think we're sleeping around, if we give him any reason to! Which means," she picked up a butter knife, "that you have to get out of here before he arrives!" She advanced on him, holding the butter knife like a dagger.

Josh raised his hands in mock surrender.

"Woah, baby, hold on," he said as she drew near. "Gimme the knife, okay? We don't want something to happen that we'll regret, now," he continued, knowing full well that she was kidding.

Then she lunged at him, but instead of plunging the knife into his gut, she threw her arms around him, and squeezed tight. They both started laughing.

"I get the hint," Josh said, returning the squeeze. "I'll get my stuff together, and get lost. I should probably be heading to work sometime soon anyway."

He pulled slightly out of her grip, and held her in front of him.

"Will I see you again, 'Resa?" he asked.

"Of course, you silly," she replied. "We're not leaving 'till tomorrow. You can come over tonight, and help me pack." Then she winked at him, and they kissed one more time.

Dawn still had not broken by the time Josh came out to his truck. He whistled for Bear, but he didn't see or hear her anywhere. He glanced in the back of the truck, and saw a breathing body. She must have taken a nap in the bed of the truck, he thought. Funny, she's never done that before. Oh, well. She'll wake up when we pull out.

Josh climbed into the driver's seat, gunned up the motor, and angled down the driveway. The truck bounced as he pulled out onto the road, and the unconscious form in the back of the truck began to stir.

At first, Zeebee couldn't remember where he was. It almost felt like the ship was entering hyperspace, but then he realized that he wasn't in his bunk. He was lying on cold metal -- rusty metal, at that. He was being jostled around, in a space that was larger than his bunk, but smaller than the bridge of his ship. When he finally managed to get his eyes opened, he recognized the cargo hold of the primitive land vehicle he had taken refuge in to excape the wild creature that had attacked him earlier.

He reached up and rubbed the flesh on his cranium, and felt a large bruise where he must have impacted against the bulkhead of the cargo hold. That explained why he had passed out. But why was the vehicle bouncing him around like this?

Zeebee grabbed for one of the posts that protruded from just behind the cockpit, and tried to lift himself up to see what was going on. As he raised his head over the walls of the cargo hold, he realized that the vehicle was in motion! That meant that there had to be someone controlling it!

He ducked down again quickly, before -- he hoped -- the driver noticed him. Contact with the inhabitants of this world was expressly forbidden, except for subject to be collected. Maintaining his grip on the post, he lay back down in the cargo hold, and tried to figure out what to do.

He had obviously passed out for a while after combating that creature. During the period in which he was unconscious, the operator of this cargo vehicle must have come out and started it up. He must not check the vehicle out too thoroughly before operating it though, because he apparently hadn't noticed Zeebee. That was a relief, at least, because it meant that he might be able to slip away after the operator got wherever he was going, and work on his remote control device.

Which reminded Zeebee that he still hadn't examined it to see how badly damaged it was. He pulled it out of its holster on his belt, and tried to examine it. Unfortunately, the vehicle was bouncing far too much for him to be able to see anything on the delicate device, so he put it back. He laid himself back down on the floor of the vehicle, and rested. There wasn't anything he could do while it was in motion, so he didn't even try.

Eventually, the vehicle came to a stop. Zeebee awoke suddenly, not having realized he'd dozed off. The rhythms of the vehicle had been relaxing, once he'd stopped fighting to stay still.

He poked his head up to see where he was, and dropped back down in terror. There were humans all over the place! The driver of the vehicle must have brought them into one of the nearby population centers! Zeebee glanced around the cargo hold quickly, almost in a panic, and spotted a large piece of material, which he grabbed, and covered himself with. Hopefully, he would not be noticed until the driver took the vehicle back out of the population center.

At least the vehicle was motionless now, so Zeebee could start examining the control device. He nestled himself against the starboard wall, slipped the device out of its holster again, and started taking it apart.

When Josh got out of the truck, he was surprised that Bear hadn't jumped out already. He could have sworn he'd seen something moving back there before. Oh, well. She must have hopped out earlier when he'd stopped at a stop sign before entering the city. She never did like coming into town. Josh figured he'd see her back at the house in the evening. She always did know how to get back home.

So he shut his door and went on into the station, looked over the old cars that were sitting around to be fixed, took a deep breath, and got to work.

Zeebee cursed as he examined the melted circuitry of the control device. It could never be fixed in this condition. Well, maybe if he got the appropriate materials to replace the wiring and casing with, but there was no way he would even dare to try searching them out in the middle of the human population center.

With a sigh, he put the device back together, and put it back in its holster. Since he didn't have anything else to do, he ventured a glance out of the cargo vehicle, to check out his surroundings.

There were a lot more of these primitive land-bound vehicles sitting around the one Zeebee was hiding in. A little farther away, there were even more of them, and those were actually moving. Some would come into the area now and then, stopping next to a group of four terminals of some sort. The operators would get out, and then insert some sort of hose into the vehicle. This must be a refueling station, then.

Luckily, all the humans around were completely ignoring the vehicle Zeebee was hiding in. He let himself back down, and covered himself with the piece of material again, and waited.

Josh had almost fallen asleep behind the counter in the gas station, when the telephone rang, jarring him out of his semi-conscious state. He fumbled around for a moment before he figured out where the noise was coming from, then picked up the receiver.

"Main Street Service Station," he said into the mouthpiece, wondering, as usual, how the place got its name, since the service station wasn't anywhere near Main Street. "Josh Merril speaking. How can I help you?"

"Josh?" a concerned-sounding voice said. "It's Theresa."

"Hi, 'Resa. What's wrong?"

"I just found Bear," she answered, "lying in the woods near my house. She looks like she was burned or something. You should probably come over and take a look at her. It looks like she's been here all night."

Josh blinked.

"That can't be. I saw her in my truck when I left. Or, at least, I thought it was her . . . " he let his sentence trail off as he thought.

"Well," Theresa continued, "I don't know anything about that, but I do know that I just found her, and she doesn't look too well. I really think you should come out here. I know how much she means to you."

"Okay, okay," he responded, his mind whirling. "I'll be right there. Just have to see if I can get Gary to give me the rest of the day off."

"I'll be waiting with her. She's just down the hill, on the north side of the house," Theresa informed him. "See ya'."

"Yeah," Josh said. "I'll see you in a bit."

Josh put the receiver back in its hook, and pulled himself out of the cashier's chair. He brushed off his pants, and started walking toward the back. Gary was pretty strict about working the shifts you're assigned, but he had a good heart, and should understand about this.

Zeebee had started to tune the rest of the world out, when just on the edges of his perceptions, he heard footsteps approaching the vehicle he was hiding in. He probably would not have noticed them at all, if they had not seemed to be headed directly toward his location. Zeebee almost poked his head up to take a look, but decided against it. He still should not let any of the humans -- even the operator of the vehicle he was in -- know of his presence.

The footsteps arrived at the vehicle, and he heard the human enter the cockpit. Then the engine roared into life, and Zeebee was thrown toward the front of the cargo hold, as the vehicle backed up. Then he was nearly thrown to the back of the hold, as the vehicle sped forward, but he had grabbed hold of one of the metal posts that had held him in place before, and braced himself for another bumpy ride.

After a while of laying in the bouncing hold, Zeebee was starting to become very sore. He had not suffered such physical abuse since his basic training, back on the homeworld, when he enlisted in the space service. Perhaps it was another symptom of his mental infirmity, but Zeebee decided that -- secrecy regulations or not -- he needed to stand up. So he worked the material off of him, and tried to pull himself up using the posts that rose just behind the cockpit. He could tell, now that he was looking, that they were supports for some sort of running lights, perhaps intended to illuminate the registration code on top of the vehicle. Then he remembered that the land vehicles on this world kept their registration codes on their rear ends, and that specific illumination would only be necessary during the nighttime, since they were planetside.

Zeebee rested in a sitting position, chastising himself for his forgetfulness. Zeebee told himself that he must have been in space too long to have forgotten how planetside physics work. Once he got back home, he would have to request a leave of absence, and spend some time on the homeworld, in order to refresh himself and get back into contact with everyday life.

Remarkable, he thought, how one forgets just how invigorating planetside time can be. The fresh air, the open sky, sun, wind, and . . .

Just as his train of thought came to it, it started to rain.

Wonderful. With the way the operator of this vehicle drove, rain was about the worst thing that could happen. Zeebee was already concerned that they might not survive whatever journey they were currently on, and conditions could only become worse due to rain.

That was the last straw. Whatever sense the Space Corps had drilled into him about alien contact left him, and Zeebee decided to try to get the operator of the vehicle to stop and take a break. Maybe they could find a nutritional dispenser somewhere nearby and stop for a rest. Stars knew that Zeebee was getting hungry by now.

He pulled himself up the posts that supported the running lights, and peered into the cockpit. Zeebee waved his hands, trying to get the attention of the operator.

'Great, rain. Just what I needed,' Josh thought to himself. 'I just hope 'Resa takes Bear into the house. In her condition, rain couldn't help.'

Josh glanced down, and flipped on the windshield wipers and the headlights. As he looked back up, he thought he saw movement in his rear-view mirror.

Since it had gotten fairly dark, outside of the electric lights of the city, he couldn't tell for sure what was in the mirror.

Then he heard a knock on the rear window.

Josh whipped his head around, fearing that someone had stowed away in the bed of the truck, wondering who it could be. What he saw was the last thing he was expecting.

A large, hairless head, framing two immense, elongated, unblinking black eyes, the minutest hint of a nose and mouth, with the palest flesh he'd ever seen, stared back at him through the window. It waved at him, as if trying to get him to pull over.

Josh turned back around, and screamed. He was expecting one of the guys from the gas station; somebody who climbed in the back as Josh was pulling out, thinking Josh was going for lunch or something, and finally realized that he wasn't headed for Royal Burgers. That totally inhuman -- alien -- face just didn't fit with Josh's expectations, and he freaked out.

Panic tends to reroute the wires in the brain, and disconnect the logic centers. Josh floored the gas pedal, in some irrational attempt to get away from the monster in the back of his truck. The fact that it was in the truck, and that going faster wasn't going to help, did not register.

Josh fought with the steering wheel, as he flew through the mud, trying to stay on the road. Sure, he had sped down here before, but not nearly as fast as he was going now. And the rain turning the packed dirt into tractionless mud didn't help either. Josh yanked the steering wheel to the side, as they flew around a bend, and tree branches smashed themselves against the right side of the truck. Josh tried to pull the vehicle back off the side of the road, and ended up careening all the way over to the other side, where they impacted with the guard rail. Metal screamed on metal, and Josh pulled the truck back over into the middle of the road.

The truck flew over the crest of a hill, and the tires must have left the road for a moment, because Josh suddenly lost all control. Then, just as suddenly, they hit the road again, and bounced, and when Josh looked up again, he saw the white headlights of a jeep headed straight toward them.

Josh had but seconds to react. To their left was dense foliage, the very edge of the same forest that Bear had been hunting rabbits in last night. To the right was a slope down the hill, into the valley near the river.

Josh veered right, and the truck smashed the guard rail to pieces. He slammed on the brake, but he couldn't stop the vehicle from plunging down the hillside, splashing violently into a pool of water.

Had Josh been privileged with a newer car, the airbag might have protected him enough from the impact that he might have stayed awake. As it was, his seat belt was just enough to prevent him from flying straight through the windshield, but knocked the breath out of him. He only had a second to thank God for his life before he passed out.