Nine
Cal stopped screaming. He didn’t do this through choice, but rather because he’d been swung quite violently against the corridor wall, and all the air that had been in his lungs had promptly exited his body through his nose. After that, it was hard to scream. After that, it was hard to do too much of anything, really, but be dragged along, bouncing off the floor and into the air through the gravityless ship.
He heard some commotion from up by the bridge—squeaking chairs, an angry shout from Miz—and then his head hit a doorframe and all he heard was a high-pitched eeeeeee inside his own ears.
Cal kicked with his free foot, but found nothing. He tried to kick with his other foot, but he was still being dragged along by the leg and didn’t have much of a say in how it was able to move right now.
There was some more movement from behind him. A gasp followed by the sudden clang of doors being physically slammed shut. Then, whatever had Cal’s leg suddenly had his other leg, his waist, and his lower abdomen, too. It squeezed, and he felt as if his stomach was being forced up his food pipe and into his mouth. And not in a good way.
If, indeed, there was a good way for all that to happen. He suspected not.
The plant. The fonking plant had somehow found its way inside. That had to be it. And now it was trying to eat him again. It had already had a lick and had clearly enjoyed his flavor. Now, it was back to finish the job. Damn, why did he have to be so tasty?
With a clunk, the ship’s red emergency lighting came on. Gravity kicked in, too, and Cal’s fell a couple of feet backward onto the floor.
He managed to muster another scream when Tyrra appeared above him, her knife raised, her face twisted into a ridiculously toothy snarl.
Cal saw himself reflected in her black, glassy eyes, and thrust a hand up to stop her. “Wait, no, not now!”
SHUNK!
Tyrra brought the blade down, embedding it up to the hilt in the thick vine that wrapped around Cal’s body. It writhed in distress, but kept its grip, forcing her to plunge the knife into it again, again, again, until it finally uncoiled itself from around him.
Cal kicked clear as the greenery made a desperate dive for Tyrra and the blade, its stumpy severed end smearing green sap across the floor.
They were in the airlock, Cal realized. The part of the plant that had been amputated when the outer doors had slammed shut had untied itself and come looking for revenge. At least, Cal hoped it had been looking for revenge and not, say, companionship, because Tyrra was now stabbing the shizz out of the thing, ejecting sprays of sap all over the room, and cleaving off chunks of its—for want of a better word—flesh.
The plant’s narrow tip grabbed for the blade, but Tyrra was ready for it. She dodged the swipe, plunged the sliver of metal into the vine’s middle, then jerked it sideways, carving a split horizontally across it.
The top part of the plant toppled as if on a hinge, and stopped when it was parallel with the bottom half, but facing the opposite direction. Hooking a foot under it, Tyrra flicked it toward the wall, spun in a full circle, and hurled the knife at it.
The blade passed through the plant and embedded into a sign fixed to the wall beside the spacesuit locker which, ironically, warned of the dangers of sharp objects.
There followed some thrashing and twitching from the plant, but its heart was clearly no longer in it, and Cal couldn’t really blame it for that.
With a final audible groan, it fell still. Cal turned to find Tyrra standing behind him, eyes on the plant, face awash with sap, chest heaving from the effort of the fight.
“Uh, nice work,” Cal told her. “You bested the shizz out of that thing.”
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No. Just my pride,” said Cal. “And my… you know how there’s, like, an ass-bone?”
Tyrra said nothing.
“Well, I hurt my ass-bone. But it’ll be fine,” Cal assured her. “I can already hardly feel it. What about you? You OK?”
Tyrra straightened, puffed herself up, and nodded. Suddenly, Cal saw her not as a terrifying shark-creature who delighted in causing him physical distress—although she was that, obviously.
Instead, he saw her as the other thing she was—a kid. That nod, that body language, that expression, he’d seen them all before on his own daughter the day she’d fallen off her bike and insisted that she was fine. Insisted and insisted until her lip had wobbled, the dam had broken, and the tears had come.
Right there inside the airlock, Cal wanted to put his arms around the kid and give her a hug, but suspected she’d produce some hidden weapon and stab, bludgeon, or possibly even shoot him the moment he got within reach.
“Ah, fonk it,” he said, and he hugged her, anyway. To his surprise, she didn’t resist. He felt her arms clamp around him and hug him back.
Fonk, she was stronger than she looked. His ribs grumbled in complaint as she held him, burying her face against Betty White’s and stifling a whimper.
“You’re OK, kid. You did great,” he whispered. He hadn’t intended to whisper, exactly, but the hug meant his lungs couldn’t currently expand, and he had to hold onto as much air as he could.
Through the window on the inner airlock door, Cal saw Loren looking back at him, her face purple in the emergency lighting.
Loren mouthed something silently to him, her breath fogging the glass. Unfortunately, because the translation chip didn’t translate silent mouth movements, Cal could only guess at what she’d said. He smiled and gave her a thumbs-up in reply.
She mouthed something else that made literally zero sense to him, then turned and hurried back in the direction of the engine room.
Mizette’s face appeared in the window next. She looked worried at first, surprised at second, and relieved at third. She, too, mouthed something to him, and Cal nodded and smiled, and then offered a thumbs-up in response.
Tyrra turned her head and caught sight of Miz through the glass. She released her grip on Cal and stepped back quickly. It was hard to read her expression, what with her essentially having the head of a shark, but Cal got the impression she was embarrassed at having been caught.
“So that’s what it’s all about,” Cal said, the penny dropping.
She was trying to impress Miz. Everything she was doing was an attempt to impress Mizette.
Tyrra frowned at him, confused.
“Nothing. Relax, kid,” Cal told her. “You might not think it, but under all that hair and attitude, Miz is a big puppy dog. Deep down, she’s a hugger, too. Right, Miz?”
“Ugh. No,” Miz said, her voice muffled by the door. She looked them up and down. “But, like, you both OK, or whatever?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. Thanks to this one,” Cal said, shooting Tyrra a smile. “Don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t made it through before that thing closed the doors.”
“Died,” said Tyrra.
“Hmm? Well… I’m sure I’d have found a way out.”
“You wouldn’t,” Tyrra told him.
“I probably would. I’d have come up with something,” Cal insisted.
“You were screaming and crying.”
“I was screaming and crying tactically,” Cal corrected. “That was the first part of my plan.”
Tyrra crossed her arms and put all her weight on one hip. It wasn’t hard to figure out where she’d picked the move up from. It was classic Mizette. “What was the next part?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet,” Cal admitted. “But I’d probably have done something like…” He waved his arms around in a series of chops. “Break out these guys. Karate my way out. And then, when I was free…”
He raised both arms above his head and brought one knee up to his chest so he was standing on one foot. “Crane kick,” he explained. “If do right, no can defense.”
Tyrra touched a spot far back on her skull, as if checking her chip was functioning correctly.
“Don’t worry. It’s how they say it in Okinawa,
” Cal told her, although this didn’t make her any less confused. He lowered his arms and put his raised foot back on the floor. “But, you know, your intervention was greatly appreciated all the same. Thank you.”
Tyrra regarded him for a moment, then side-eyed the window. “Is he always like this?”
“Yeah. Pretty much,” Miz confirmed. “You get used to it. Eventually. Or, you know, learn to block it out.”
“She’s kidding. She hangs on every word,” said Cal. He turned back to Miz. “Can you get us out?”
Miz tugged on the door a few times, trying to slide it aside. “No. It’s stuck.”
“Damn it! I still haven’t been to the bathroom,” Cal groaned.
Miz shrugged. “Maybe if I get Mech, we can—”
“No. We need him fixing the ship,” Cal said. He inhaled through his nose, then out through his mouth. His breath formed wispy white clouds in the air, and he realized for the first time that he was fonking freezing. “Life support still out?”
Miz nodded but said nothing.
“Any update on getting it back online?”
“Ugh, what am I, your personal messenger?” she demanded, but she couldn’t maintain the outrage, and her voice softened immediately. “No,” she said, with significantly less venom. “No news.”
“Go see if they need help,” Cal suggested. “Do what you can.”
“It’s engine stuff. What can I do?” Miz asked.
“Hey, now. You can do whatever you put your mind to, young lady,” Cal scolded. “Just, for the love of God, don’t touch anything. OK?”
Cal watched as Miz’s eyes darted past him to Tyrra. Wow, she really cared about this kid. So much so, that she was barely even trying to hide it. This, for Miz, was practically unheard of.
“I’ll look after her,” Cal promised.
“You mean I’ll look after you,” Tyrra snorted.
“And that, too. We’ll look after each other,” said Cal. He put a hand against the glass. “She’ll be fine. Go. Help Mech. Get us out of here.”
A look passed between them, raw and real and packed with emotion. It said a lot of things in a short space of time, then ended with an eyeroll and a “Tch. Whatever.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Cal as, with one final glance at Tyrra, Miz turned on her heels and stomped off in the direction of the engine room.
Cal spun to face the Symmorium girl, all smiles again. He rubbed his hands together, driving out the cold.
“Now, then. Everything’s going to be fine, and you and I are going to be out of here before we know it,” he told her. “Until then, let’s do something to pass the time.”
“We could fight,” Tyrra suggested.
“Well…”
“No weapons. Hand to hand combat,” she continued, trying to sweeten the deal. “I’ll close my eyes.”
“Tempting,” said Cal, even though his face said the opposite. “Or… how about we do something that’s like fighting, but better in every way?”
Tyrra looked skeptical. At least, that’s how Cal was choosing to read the expression. “Better than fighting?”
“Much better,” Cal said, sensing her disinterest. “But, it’s still a battle. A battle that, I feel I should warn you, I’m going to win.”
“Pah!” Tyrra snorted. “I accept your challenge.”
“Great!” Cal cheered. He glanced around the room, then gave a nod. “OK, ready?”
“Do your worst,” Tyrra spat. “I am prepared.”
“OK, here goes,” said Cal. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and began. “Let battle commence!”
“What blue wire? What are you talking about? There is no blue wire!” Loren protested.
Beside her, the shrillness of the now mostly-inert Mech’s voice suggested he was losing his patience. “There is. I can see it from here.”
Loren began listing off the colors of the wires in the open cabinet. “Red, green, yellow, orange, brown… There’s no blue! Show me the blue one! There isn’t a blue wire!”
“There is a blue wire. I can see it from here,” Mech insisted. His dial was just one notch away from the highest possible position. He was standing rigid and upright, but his mouth didn’t move as he spoke. “It is contained within the loom by your right hand.”
Loren looked at the loom of wires in her right hand. “Red, green, yellow—” she began again.
“No, by your right hand. Not in your right hand. I was referring to the other loom.”
“What other—?"
A slimy green tendril reached into the cabinet, fumbled around, then produced a blue wire.
“Oh,” said Loren. “That other loom. I didn’t see it.”
“Obviously,” said Mech.
Loren took the wire from Splurt.
“Thank you,” she said, without looking at Mech. “Now, where should I put it?”
“Like, I’ve got a few suggestions,” said Miz, appearing in the doorway. She shifted uncomfortably and crossed her arms across her stomach. “Cal said I should come help, or whatever.”
“Help?” said Loren, her eyebrows raising. “With the engines?”
Miz’s fur bristled, but her eyes glanced down at the floor. Loren swore at herself inside her head.
“Well, you can’t do any worse than I’m doing,” she said. Miz’s eyes lifted to meet hers, and Loren smiled thinly. “How are you at finding wires?”
“Well, I’m mostly color-blind. So, like, not great,” said Miz.
Loren winced. “OK! Well, I’m sure we can find you something to do!”
Tyrra of the Symmorium clicked her tongue against the ridged roof of her mouth and regarded the room. She was sitting beside Cal on the floor, their backs against the door. The metal was freezing to the touch, so Cal had folded a spacesuit behind them and draped another couple over them like blankets to help keep out the chill.
The air was as stale as it was cold. He could taste it twice, once with his mouth, then again with his lungs. It conjured up images of boiled cabbage, even though—as far as he could recall—he’d never actually tasted boiled cabbage. Or, if he had, he’d buried the memory deep.
“Bolts,” said Tyrra, after some more consideration.
“No.”
Tyrra tutted and looked around again. Her eyes fell on a rack of oxygen cylinders.
“Bottle.”
“Which bottle?” asked Cal.
“Any of them.”
“No.”
Tyrra tutted again. Her dark eyes regarded the room.
“T-told you I was going to win,” Cal said, trembling in the cold.
“Shut up,” Tyrra told him, her breath clouding through her nostrils. “Barrier.”
Cal raised an eyebrow.
“The door,” said Tyrra.
“Oh! Thinking outside the box. I l-like it,” Cal said. “But no. G-give up?”
“Will that make it stop?” Tyrra asked.
Cal nodded, although it was possibly just a prolonged bout of trembling.
“Then, yes,” said Tyrra. “What was it?”
Cal removed a hand from under the blanket of space suits and pointed to a control panel on the wall. “Button.”
Tyrra squinted through the dim red glow of the emergency lighting. “That’s a switch.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s not a button. It’s a switch.”
“No, the other one,” said Cal. “T-to the right.”
“That’s a dial.”
“Oh,” said Cal. He tucked his arm back in, hugged the suit closer, and shivered. “I s-still win, though.”
“What? No, you don’t!” Tyrra protested.
“F-fine,” Cal sighed, exhaling a cloud of vapor. “We’ll c-call it a draw.”
The ship gave a long series of worrying creaks, groans, and one particularly concerning crack. Cal felt Tyrra bristle beside him.
“It’s fine. It d-does that all the t-time,” he assured her. “Your turn. What d-do you spy?”
&
nbsp; The emergency lights went off with a clunk.
“OK, that was b-bad timing,” Cal wheezed.
The main lights returned, bright and blinding.
“Boggle humps!” exclaimed Kevin, then there was a bang and the darkness rushed back in.
Cal and Tyrra shivered in silence, waiting to see if anything else would happen.
Nothing did.
“I mean, I g-guess that’s progress,” Cal said.
He heard Tyrra sip in a breath. “I am ready,” she whispered.
“Oh, OK. C-cool,” said Cal. “What’s the letter?”
“Not for your ridiculous game,” said Tyrra. “For death. I am ready.”
Cal turned to look at her, but saw nothing through the darkness. “You are, huh?”
He heard her nod. “I am Symmorium. Death holds no fear,” she said, even though the quaver in her voice said otherwise. Or, maybe she was just as cold as he was.
“G-good to know,” said Cal. “But w-we’re n-not dying today, k-kid.”
“I am the last,” Tyrra said. “There will be no more Symmorium after me.”
“Yeah. Yeah that s-sucks,” said Cal. “Still, you’ve got us. Especially M-Miz.”
“Mizette is… nice,” Tyrra admitted. “She is kind and considerate.”
“Well…” said Cal.
“Thoughtful.”
“I mean…”
“Very caring and attentive.”
“We are t-talking about Miz here?” Cal asked. “B-big hairy girl? Lots of claws?”
Cal practically heard Tyrra’s forehead furrow in confusion.
“I’m k-kidding,” he told her. “Miz is the b-bravest, most loyal person I know. She’ll l-look after you.”
“Yes,” said Tyrra. She nodded slowly, her head dipping lower each time until she was staring down at the space suit blanket. “But she is not Symmorium.”
“N-n-o, but sh-sh-sh-sh-sh—Fonk, it’s f-f-f-freezing,” Cal wheezed. “O-OK f-f-fonk this.”
Throwing back the space suit, he got to his feet. The cold bit at him, forcing him to bounce and slap at his arms to try to drive it away.
Shivering, Cal turned to the door, gritted this teeth, and dug his fingertips into the seam where both halves met. They were getting out of here. They were getting back into the main ship. If they were going to die, they’d all die together.
Space Team- The Collected Adventures 4 Page 65