Harrowing screams came from the forest’s edge. Kogi sheltered himself from the bitter lamentations under the leafy brush, his saliva becoming sour, his heart racing. He held his ears shut as much as he could but the screams came through.

Kogi fiddled with the transceiver that would send his discoveries back to Noliesse Servus, his home planet that he missed with terrible angst. Why did he have to be sent to this planet of perpetual tortured and enslaved race? Why were they enslaved to begin with? That had been the question. As a navigator it was his duty to provide the Noliessians with safe planets, safe with mild temperance but he couldn’t help but have sympathy for these poor creatures.

He had arrived on the green and blue planet and found massive hordes of Earthlings traveling throughout what could only be described as an outdoor village of horrors. Disguising himself as one of their younglings, in a small jacket and round brim hat, he made his way throughout the forest city in a stupor, shocked at every corner with what he saw. The structures that contained the earthling race were open aired and often directed the crowds with multifaceted arrows and flags. Carts with processed meat cylinders and sugar water dished out rations to the enslaved who marched along stone pathways that led nowhere in particular. The masters of this planet must have had strange motivation to force this race into such a place. But it was the mechanical structures arching overhead that directed most of his senses. The screams came from these towering launch bays. The bipeds would wait in cattle queues, again directed by arrows and signage without much thought. Escape seemed to be the last thing on their minds. Were the masters preparing these bovine creatures for space travel or merely torturing them for their own amusement?

The bipeds were varied in their composition and appearance. Some were weak and large, some were small, thin, or muscular. Older bipeds. Younger ones. A passer-by coughed and wiped phlegm on their tattered shirt, others were happy and beaming with excitement, while some remained weak, frail, carted around in a two wheel contraption. Dirty, ragged, clean, unclean, injured, diseased, overfed, underfed, lame, they were led through alleyways, entrances, forested paths, and corrals.

When it would rain, when the world became damp with liquid drops, they still marched, sometimes aimless, sometimes with purpose to their designated skyward launch contraptions. All screaming, panicked with fear but also seemingly numb from the constant dread.

Columns of shoes moved inch by inch, the crowds at times became unbearable. Kogi couldn’t fathom their mindless drive and why the masters would subject them to such savagery. Was it to distract them? Was it for their own entertainment? Was it to remind them of their place in life, remind them of their low status?

Kogi walked with them, following their feet as they dragged them, and their younglings with them. He was glad he wasn’t being dragged around by the arm in such a way. Keeping his distance was hard. All the bodies were often pressing together to squeeze through certain causeways. It was a jumbled mess of multi-colored flesh and clothing. They had to dream, like he had dreamed, of being in a better place. So many thousands of squishy and colorful bipeds. Never before had he seen such a gathering of enslaved and painful beings.

Not only were they ravaged by torture and unhealthy foods, they also spread disease to each other with loud coughs and sneezes. It seemed the perfect recipe for viruses, bacteria, and other sicknesses to proliferate. Foul smelling odors also proliferated. The smell of their bodies became attached even to him, of sweat, sour and bitter beverages, and urine. Kogi couldn’t imagine what the rations and synthetic poisons did to their insides. They often suffered from indigestion and sheer exhaustion. The smells, the sweat, and fatigue soon transferred to him like a contagious disease, becoming infected by aimlessness.

Tomorrow Kogi would send his final findings back to his home planet and rid himself of this planet for good. But first he needed more data on the launch machines. If they had interstellar travel he needed to find out. War was building with the Argorians and the Noliessians needed allies, no matter how primitive.

Even at night the enslaved camp city was alive with pedestrians and flashing lights. In the dark they at least wouldn’t focus too much on his appearance and give him away.

He came to one of the lines for the launch bays and entered passed the biped with a long stick. His measurements were taken and he was permitted entry. Even their data profiling was primitive. In the queue the cattle snorted, sniffled, wiped their profusely dripping sweat, and cackled with oblivious delight. How foolish all this seemed. At the front of the enclosed entryway a launch vehicle skirted to a stop with the cries and pleas of the riders.

The lined moved. Each biped loaded five to a row. Each biped strapped themselves in and allowed the operator to launch them forward. The next row waited. Once the vehicle came back around the next row moved forward as the others disembarked. Kogi had seen enough. There was nothing special about the launch vehicles. They went in circles. That was enough. Enough of this pointlessness.

As he turned to leave a large heavy man pushed him forward, speaking kind words of encouragement. But Kogi didn’t want anything to do with the bovine or his smell and fell back, back into the waiting vehicle. A young female biped with thin, dark skin looked over and strapped him in. It was strange…she didn’t frown or express sadness. She was beaming with that cackling noise.

Before he could mentally record the mechanisms of the seat shaped vehicle an explosion detonated against the dark sky. They were under attack! But as he studied the blue and red embers that radiated in a large star-like glow the vehicle was launched forward. His stomachs were pressed back, crushed against the sheer speed. Teeth clacked in his jaw as he grinded them. For a moment all he saw was the exploding sparks, then, when he thought the acceleration couldn’t get any worse the outside world of green and black went barreling by and suddenly he felt…good, not tortured or in pain. The rush was like a spaceship leaving the atmosphere. A feeling he had never felt considering he had been launched while under cryosleep.

The female cackled again and he suddenly let out a cackle of his own. It also felt good, better than anything he felt before. Pure glee. The machine blasted forward along the rail, twisting left, right, up, and down, sometimes so far down, for so long, that he thought his life was over and he would crash into the ground. But he didn’t. Instead they were flung back up. A near-death experience. The voices of the screaming riders carried him into euphoria and back up into the sky. This had been worth the miseries he had seen before.

They twirled along the track and up and up. Up so high that the purple, blue, and red star explosions were close enough to touch. And then as they spun upside down the explosions detonated below them, in the sky. Kogi noticed the female earthling was throwing up her hands, no change in her glee. Kogi did the same, reaching for the starry colors. The breeze on his face and the lack of violent retribution convinced him that the star explosions were harmless and beautiful. Glorious. Lightning contained in auroras of rainbows. They were meant for exultation, an energetic display of fire and stars, to inspire and provoke a sense of enlightenment from the dregs of their own existence.

The vehicle spun and turned sharply, jarring him into alertness, forced to take in the splendor of the sparking explosions and the world around them. It reminded him of the stars above, shimmering in their infinite expanse. The launch vehicle came back to the bay and stopped hard. Perhaps he was wrong about these earthlings. That the dread he perceived in their voices was just the exultations made audible. They were celebrating life and the beauty of the stars. He should too and forget about the pain in the shuffling feet below. Everything made sense up here, because nothing really needed to make sense. He let go of the straps and let his arms wave.

He got off the ride with a beaming smile and went back into the queue to experience it again, for another test run. At least that’s what he told himself. It was all a matter of perspective.