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Strange Days
by Fancy Day
 There's a touch of the John Wyndhams in this contribution to the Fantasy Archers topic of .
Nigel Pargetter fought to open his eyes. He had no strength in his limbs and his lids felt gritty as he struggled to awake from an uneasy dream, almost a nightmare. He surrendered the struggle and slipped back into darkness.
N'vek looked away from the monitors. The readouts indicated that the subject could not be maintained in his prolonged stasis for much longer without causing irreparable damage. Indeed, he mused, if the revival process did not begin soon Nigel's altered mental state would be remarkable even for a member of the minor aristocracy.
The field trip had not been without its successes. The breeding programme had gone well: he had even developed a mild attachment to the creature Elizabeth. The offspring of their union were now safely back at the home habitat being raised by a traditional brood-mother, whilst the organic simulants known as Lily and Freddie were functioning adequately. They passed for human children in almost every circumstance.
Elizabeth had shown no signs of suspicion; aided, no doubt, by N'vek's policy of keeping her at arms length through his feigned interest in a variety of archaic human pursuits.
"Arms-length." How N'vek longed to slough off this crude human form and return to his natural physicality. Oh, the joy of not having to ingest charred flesh and decaying vegetable matter each day. Although, if he were honest with himself, N'vek would have to admit to a fondness for certain fermented fruit beverages, particularly the Burgundies.
There had been a good crop of specimens to send back to the Institute: Chabba, Ashok and Luke amongst them, as well as a variety of other species, Demeter, Ginger and Scruff - although Scruff's incessant barking was causing some irritation at the Lab. N'vek calculated that there would be time to engineer the plausible departure of Beth from Ambridge before he had to leave himself.
So much still to be done. A pity that his last field assistant had been sent home due to the blatant transgression of the Institute's Code of Conduct for OtherWorld Projects. Her ridiculous attachment to the creature Brian Aldridge had almost jeopardised the entire trip! It seemed that she had learned nothing: recent communications indicated that she had used the Network to access Earth's datasphere to contact Brian and send images of their offspring.
A productive trip, in spite of this, thought N'vek. The only cloud on the horizon was the discovery that The Bureau had recently installed an operative in the locale. Still, there was little chance of The Bureau being any more successful at Bridge Farm than they had been all those years ago in Midwych.
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