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I groaned and marched over to where she stood and ripped it irritatingly from her hand. “Let me have a look then.”
As soon as I turned the belt clip over, my heart plunged like a rock into a pond. I slowly lifted my gaze and made eye contact with her “I think it is his clip…”
“I just knew I had seen it before.”
I fervently stalked through the debris on the ground, attempting to find more objects that I might recognize. Sure enough, I found a piece of a knife handle that was from one of Uncle Roult’s prized possessions. I hastily shoved it into my pocket, desperate to locate more.
“As we thought…there must have been a spaceship wreck nearby. They have Roult’s things. Do you think…?” her voice trailed off and I knew what she was thinking by the look on her face because I was thinking it too. It changed everything. I was perplexed as to how another alien species landed here and snaked their way into our settlement without notice.
She cupped her hand over her forehead to shield her squinting eyes from the fading sun that was almost parallel to us on the horizon. “How many other alien species live on this planet?”
It was as if she were reading my mind.
“On Zunator, only Zunatorians, but there are neighboring planets, other galaxies, and wormholes. That shard of metal that cut me while we were running from the dust storm…? It reminded me of something I saw when I visited another galaxy. The inhabitants there were far more advanced than we are, but they had to be. What they lacked in manpower, they made up for in wit. The cloaks and how you explained the culprits from that night…I think we’re dealing with an unknown extraterrestrial threat.”
Alliana appeared to contemplate, her eyes patrolling the area. “Strange. All debris, but no bodies. And it’s like we’re out here alone.”
“Maybe. Nothing resides out this way. It’s a deadland. No water streaming through. No clusters of vegetation. But doesn’t mean things aren’t lurking.” I glanced at the sky. Nightfall was rapidly narrowing in on us. “We are running out of daylight. Let’s get to a shelter and leave all this mess behind for now. We’ll come back again in the morning and see what we can put together and present all the evidence to the King.”
I wanted to investigate further, but it was more important to get her inside a shelter, first. If Alliana hadn’t been with me, I would’ve investigated more, but as I suspected, any number of dangers could’ve been lurking. I doubted that there would’ve been another dust storm of that magnitude so soon, but one could never be sure.
