The Cardboard Spaceship (To Brave The Crumbling Sky Book 1)

by Matt Snee

  Captain was filled with rubbery warmth, both for himself and for her, and even for their captors, which he thought couldn't be that bad. Maybe even their captors knew what was best for them.

  “You're really beautiful,” he told Jennifer. “If we die, I just want to tell you I could stare at you forever. “

  She blushed. “Thank you,” she said. “I …I'm sorry I had to drag you into this, but I'm happy you're here. You don't understand how afraid I am of being alone, I've been so alone for so long, and…”

  “It's okay,” Captain told her. “You're not alone. I'll stay with you no matter what. If something happens … well, I'll kill anyone who touches you. They'll have to kill me before they hurt you.”

  He sat back for a moment. What was he saying? He barely knew this girl, but he felt so confident in her magnificence all of a sudden, sure of her trueness and purity.

  “We're in serious danger,” she commented. “We won't fight back now.”

  “It's cool,” said Captain. “Maybe it's for the best.”

  “Maybe it is,” she said, getting drowsier.

  A new thought struck his head. “I still don't understand why it had to be me. But more importantly, why does it have to be you? Why do you bear the responsibility of the No-Shape?”

  She thought for a moment. “I don't know,” she said. “That's just the way it is. I've never thought of it, I was just told about it, and I knew I had to be the one. I couldn't just sit. It was my purpose, no matter how impossible.”

  “Who are you?” Captain asked her.

  “I'm Jenn,” she said. “I'm very lost.”

  “I was lost too,” Captain said, concerned. “But I feel like I've been found now, by you … by this. I feel like I was always meant to be here, right now, at this moment.”

  “Me too,” Jennifer told him. “I feel like it all led up to this, that this is the end.”

  “It's not the end.” He was certain of this. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes. But you don't trust me.”

  “No,” he said. “I don't. But I believe in you. I believe… I want to kiss you.”

  “I want to kiss you too,” she said. It was the serum talking now, but she couldn't stop herself; part of it was an aphrodisiac. “We're all we have,” she said. “There's no one else.”

  “I know. Everything is gone now. This is all there is.” He reached through the bars and took her hand. “It's okay,” he told her.

  She seemed to revel in the touch of his skin. She let her fingers caress his. But she said nothing.

  8. Slaves of Venus

  Human civilization, for all its barbarism, can be said to have fallen only very slightly when compared to its neighbors. Venus festers; Mars decays. Earth merely stinks.

  Martin Pichon, “Les Civilisations Terrestes”

  And there they sat, perhaps for hours, until there was a slamming noise, and then yellow light flooded the compartment. They had landed. They were on Venus.

  The other creatures screamed and cawed as the two flesh golems came in and started banging on the cages. Captain and Jennifer pulled their hands apart and watched as the automatons opened up the other cages and directed the inhabitants out through the big door.

  “It's time. We're here,” Jennifer said.

  Captain said nothing. He waited.

  The golems then came and opened up their cages, pulling them out and pushing them towards the exit. Both Captain and Jennifer were dizzy with the drug they had ingested, and despite the high, they felt despair deep in their bodies. They stepped uncertainly down the floor of the hold and out into the sun.

  The sky was a flaming orange, and they were surrounded by a deep jungle. The ship had let them out onto a raised platform, around which a thick crowd of Venusian hover-vats congregated and conversed. At the sight of humans, the throng exploded in noise, whooping and whistling as the flesh golems jabbed at them with poles and centered them on the stage.

  The sun was hot, bright, much hotter and brighter than any day on Earth, and the air smelled sweet but terrible. Captain and Jennifer looked about at the crowd, which continued to howl. They reached and took each other's hands, the only certain thing on this alien world. The crowd of cognizant slime laughed in response.

  The bidding started, in an alien language spat and exclaimed from bio-manufactured mouths attached to the hover-vats. The flesh golems continued to jab them with their poles, maintaining an uneasiness and fear.

  A gust of wind blew, brushing against them with cool air. It was refreshing in this strange circumstance, and with it Captain felt a dash of hope.

  But then they realized the one detail they had not noticed. Looking up at the sky, Captain saw a raw, unbelievable color. He gestured to Jennifer, who looked up and took in the sight herself, sighing.

  * * *

  It was the No-Shape.

  The phenomenon hung directly over Venus, perched, doom ripe in its form. Yet the Venusians seemed to think nothing of it and continued to bid and jibe for the humans.

  It was uncanny. Jennifer didn't know what to be more frightened of: enslavement or utter destruction. But it also gave her hope. If we have an opportunity, that is it, she thought, willing the No-Shape to act, regardless of the consequences.

  Finally, with an alien number that drew gasps from the crowd, the bidding was over.

  * * *

  The flesh golems threw them into the back of a hovering truck that took off and carried them above the city. Captain and Jennifer stared out the tiny window at the land below.

  “That's Zirroqua,” Jennifer told him. “It's a planet wide city, but it's also a jungle.”

  “It would be beautiful if it wasn't so horrible,” he said.

  There were tall bioelectrical buildings, like pods jutting out from the ground, surrounded by rumpled yellow trees with leafy branches and mustard brown limbs. Other hovering vehicles bounced through the skies around them, and below they could see masses of Venusians making their way through the buildings and vegetation.

  “What are they going to do to us now?” Captain asked.

  “Probably kill us,” she suggested, though she knew worse than that was coming.

  “Do you think they'll eat us?”

  “Eventually.”

  “They didn't take your backpack. Do you still have your laser gun?”

  “Yes, but the odds need to be a little better for me to use it effectively. We're surrounded right now. But I believe …I have to believe …our moment will come.”

  “I believe that too,” he said, though he was not sure he did. He changed the subject. “That was the No-Shape out there.”

  “Yes. I don't think they realize the danger the whole planet is in.”

  “Do you think it could get any worse for us?”

  She sighed. “I don't want to jinx it.”

  * * *

  The ride lasted thirty to forty minutes but their conversation lasted less than that. There was nothing left to do but wait. The sprawling jungle city of Zirroqua sped beneath them and the orange sky flared. Captain and Jennifer stared out the windows at the No-Shape and wondered what fate had in store for them next.

  Finally the hover truck started to descend and gravity gripped them and pulled. They landed deep in the city among tree husks and mollusk-shaped buildings. Once the truck had stopped, the door slid open and two flesh golems—different from the ones before—escorted them out of the truck into a long, windowless hallway to a group of cells beneath the ground.

  They were soon locked in and the flesh golems departed. There was little light and a foul smell. Jennifer sat on the floor of her cell and contemplated something quietly.

  “What is it?” Captain asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just thinking. Just wishing …I wasn't here.”

  He nodded, too nervous to sit down. There was the acrid smell of desperation in the cell, and Captain covered his nose for a moment before giving up and letting it soak through him. He stalked the cell, footste
p by footstep, unable to quiet his muscles. There was a small barred window near the ceiling that was too tall for him to see out of, but a hazy, yellow light came in through it and illuminated the surroundings. It almost seemed like it couldn't be the same sun that he had known on Earth, but he knew it was; it was just closer, and at a different angle. He was truly on an alien planet now, and in incredible danger.

  It reminded him of his book, Have Not the Spiral Garden, which was about an alien who crashes in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Thinking the alien is a capitalist spy, the Viet Cong transfer him to the Russians, who place him in the foulest prison the human brain can imagine. While he resembles humans, his physiology is slightly different, and the Russians soon discover he is capable of astounding psychic feats. From then on he is a test subject, tortured and examined by the communists, until his final escape attempt, where he is killed by dogs.

  It was a sad book, written during a dark time, and inspired by his own father's incarceration. He thought of his father now: his dark brown eyes, his ruddy skin and combed back hair, his gravelly voice and his menacing thick body. Had he ever loved his father? Of course he had. But where was that love now? Hidden? Buried? Dead? Wherever it was, it was far from here, and Captain would not recognize it if it was near.

  With some effort he changed the subject in his mind and thought of Jennifer. Whoever she was, her plan had failed, and now they were destined for God knows what. Perhaps he should be more shocked to be suddenly on an alien planet, the captive of cognizant slime, but he took it all in stride. What he couldn't believe was the loss of his mother, who was his whole life, the one thing keeping him real. With her gone how much was left of himself?

  On the side of the hallway opposite the way they came in, there was a loud clanging and then a door opened, revealing a new Venusian. The hovering vat floated into the room and spoke.

  “I hope you are compatible. It would be a pity to have to eat such healthy specimens.”

  “What do you mean by compatible?” Captain asked. The Venusian did not reply.

  “He means to mate us,” Jennifer said, admitting it to both herself and him at last.

  “Mate us? But…” Captain scowled.

  The Venusian watched them for a moment without speaking. They could see the intricate mollusk like details of the slime case and could hear the Venusian's breath. “I would hate to damage the two of you after the hefty price I paid. But sometimes pain is the only thing humans understand.”

  The flesh golems that had escorted them in now came into the hall, curious as to their master's command.

  “Prepare them for the show,” the Venusian spoke and then turned and left.

  The flesh golems opened the doors to the cells and one grabbed Captain while the other grabbed Jennifer. They fought against their captors, but the automatons were too strong, and they were dragged out into the hall.

  “What now?” asked Captain.

  “Now I think we're in trouble,” Jennifer responded.

  The automatons dragged them into a new hall that overlooked the city of Zirroqua and its inhabitants. The jungle metropolis lay sprawled and peaceful, though hectic with crowds and air traffic. Above, the No-Shape lingered, its colors worsening, its form more amorphous and confusing than ever. Captain and Jennifer took in the long sight of it as they were pushed along by the captors. Danger was everywhere.

  Finally the flesh golems deposited them in a new room with a stage and a curtained wall, casting them onto the raised platform and then moving to the back of the room where they took long, metal poles from hanging brackets. Captain and Jennifer got up from the floor slowly as the golems brandished their new weapons, which sparked with electricity.

  Then the grim curtain pulled back, opening on a glass window that looked out onto a cantina of Venusians. Upon seeing Captain and Jennifer, the audience broke out into hoots. The two flesh golems near Captain and Jennifer enclosed upon them, their poles starting to shriek with electricity.

  A booming voice came over a loudspeaker that sounded like the Venusian from earlier. “Now! Comply or be punished!”

  “To hell with you!” said Captain.

  “Lewis…” begged Jennifer. “Don't.”

  But it was too late. One of the golems reached with its pole and quickly shocked Captain, knocking him to the floor with the power of the blast and singeing his skin where it had contacted with the pole. A slight steam rose into the air from the burn, and Captain gasped as the pain shuddered through his body.

  “Arrrrgh!” Captain grimaced, but did not touch his wound, which spread across his forearm, wet with burnt skin. It wasn't terrible, but it was bad, and the feeling of it was serious.

  “Stop it!” cried Jennifer, but then the golems advanced upon her.

  “No!” shouted Captain. He got to his feet and quickly closed the distance between himself and Jennifer, acting as a shield between the golems. They gladly attacked him instead, striking him once with each pole, throwing him against the side wall where he collapsed to the ground, more steam rising from his body and causing a small fire to light upon his clothing. He shrugged off the pain and smacked at the flame, extinguishing it with his hands.

  The audience of aliens laughed and howled. “Comply or suffer further,” said the Venusian through the loudspeaker.

  “Lewis!” Jennifer pleaded. “They'll destroy you!”

  “I don't care!” he said, getting up.

  “We have no choice,” she said as she started to weep, tears falling down her cheeks. “Okay!” she shouted at the Venusian. “All right! Just stop!”

  The Venusian chuckled. “Get on with it, then.”

  Captain looked deep into Jennifer's eyes, which were filled with fright but also resolved. He bit his lip. How could he? What could he do? Steam continued to seep from his wounds and pain rippled through his flesh. Did he have no choice? Is this where all his life's paths led to?

  “I'd rather die,” he told Jennifer. “They can kill me, I don't care.”

  “But they won't kill you!” she said. “They'll torture you, endlessly, until your skin is dripping off you. Then they'll drug us more than they already have, until we won't even know what we're doing anymore. They'll destroy our minds and bodies, just so we provide them with a show and …offspring.”

  “I can't!” protested Captain. “It's impossible.”

  She approached him and took his hand. At this, the audience laughed again. She glared at the aliens and then looked back into Captain's eyes. “It's okay,” she said. “I'm okay with it. I don't want them to hurt you anymore. We …we have to survive.”

  “No…” he murmured.

  She touched his face with her hand, her fingers close to his lips. “Shhh,” she said. She lifted her own mouth up to kiss him—

  And then there was a blinding noise and the floor rumbled beneath them as the walls and ceiling shook around them. The flesh golems cowered and the audience gasped. Something was wrong.

  It did not stop, it only worsened. The noise became a grinding apocalyptic growl and the ceiling cracked above them. The sun came in from the roof …the sun and something else: a non-color, an amorphous light…

  The No-Shape.

  Realizing this was their moment, Jennifer let go of Captain and reached into her bag, pulling out her laser gun. In an instant she blasted the stage window. Glass flew everywhere. The audience jumped out of their chairs and screamed.

  “C'mon!” Jennifer yelled at Captain. He followed her through the stage window, into the audience, up stairs toward an exit.

  More stairs, down this time, a rectangular spiral that they descended without speaking or thinking. They hit the bottom, finding a door, and took it.

  Outside. Sunlight.

  Above, the No-Shape continued to scream, the shells of buildings breaking around them, the ground shaking beneath them. Machines on the street had exploded and fire dashed and chewed across the bio-pressed concrete. Trees splintered and heaps of leaves blew across the landscape a
s piles of glass skidded against the ground. Pack animals appeared: wounded, confused, lost without their masters, who were mostly crouched in their shells; the Venusians did not run or panic, but they hid and waited for something that would never come:

  The end of this.

  * * *

  The jaw of the No-Shape was busy biting into the atmosphere, spitting hot rain down from the sky. It was the worst chaos Captain had ever seen.

  “Follow me!” Jennifer cried, but the truth was she didn't know where they were going, where they could be safe. She ran down the street as fire, rain, and shells fell from above. She was just hoping for some burst of inspiration as to what to do, how to escape. Such a thought would not come.

  Captain dutifully followed her, dodging debris and chasing down the narrow corridors of the rotund buildings.

  “GGNAGGNAGGNASH!GGNAGGNAGGNASH!GGNAGGNAGGNASH!” A new sound emanated from above them, and they looked up to see the phenomenon sucking up swaths of land in the distance. It would destroy everything.

  I have to get underground! Jennifer thought that was the only way out: down. Her eyes looked for a sewer, or some kind of underground access, but saw nothing. The Gita said:

  Through God, you are armed with unwavering discipline; in this there is no doubt.

  She stopped running, and Captain stopped short of her. She changed the settings on her laser and quickly muttered, “Get back…” Aiming the gun at the ground, a wide beam of matter-erasing light slammed into it with hideous speed, knocking her back several feet. A crack formed and then the ground beneath them fell into a lower chamber: she had cut to the sewers.

  “Get up!” Captain told her. “You did it!”

  She flinched. What had she done? She took in the carnage she had wrought amidst the No-Shape's madness and then she remembered they needed to get underground. She leapt to her feet and tugged at his shirt, dragging him into the crude, smoldering cavity that led in one direction: down.

  They ran down the pathway. The ceiling above them shook. This could all cave in. Still, it was safer than the street. “Deeper!” Jennifer shouted, out of breath.