by E M Gale
“You would have thought they’d never have seen anyone in a dress before,” I remarked.
He laughed. “Well, it suits you.”
I smiled tightly, but he wasn’t making fun of me. “Why are they here anyway?” I asked with a wave of my hand.
“Who, the mercenaries?”
I nodded.
“Ah, most of them have been sleeping on the ship in between drinking and wenching.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh. You heard that comment then?”
He nodded. “And, er… May I ask why you are being followed around by one of the owner’s robots?”
I shrugged. “He likes me.”
Cleckley stared at me wonderingly.
“If I am, I don’t know I am,” I said.
He grinned at that.
“I think I should be, mind you.”
He laughed. “Is it possible for you to step on a ship without thinking about mutiny?”
I grinned at that. “I’ll let you know if it ever happens,” I said. Cleckley leaned back in a relaxed posture.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure? Are you sick?”
I didn’t like the way he sounded happy at the idea. I bet he would be interested to study vampire diseases.
“Huh, the mercenaries already diagnosed me as in love and allergic to black.”
He chuckled at that.
“No, I’m going to make you a very happy man,” I said with a grin.
“Oh?” Cleckley looked terrified.
I leant forward.
“I want to do an experiment.”
Cleckley sighed with relief and then matched me and leaned forwards as well. “Oh?”
“Now, the results of this experiment can never be published, you understand?”
“I see.”
“So I’m afraid that you have to do it for your own interest and not for advancement.”
He nodded. “I’ll agree, if you’ll agree to let me publish if something comes out of it that cannot be traced to you or directly to vampires.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. “Like something about humans being special, perhaps? Or unique amongst the other human subspecies?”
“Who knows.”
“OK, I’ll let you do this experiment, if and only if you will keep your results to yourself and take them to your grave, unless I say otherwise about some part of the results. You can publish if and only if I agree totally to every word in the paper. And obviously you can’t ever mention my name or my cooperation.”
Cleckley nodded. “I’d do it anyway, just to know,” he said conversationally.
“Oh? You don’t want a Nobel Prize then?” I smiled. “Yeah, right.”
Cleckley shrugged. Presumably he decided that he couldn’t convince me otherwise. “What’s the experiment?”
“Well… you do realise I am trusting you with a hell of a lot here and I really don’t like it?”
He nodded. “You don’t trust people easily, do you?”
‘What, did he do a minor in psychoanalysis?’
“At all if I can manage it, but I haven’t got time to go to med school or retrain…” I shrugged.
“Clarke, we’re friends.” Then he added with a smile, “And scientist and scientific curiosity.”
‘Huh, very funny.’
“I want you to take a sample of my blood,” I said.
“Really?” Cleckley was highly interested now.
“Yes.”
“What’s the experiment?”
‘Heh.’
I grinned. “Can you do a genetic analysis on it?”
“Well, I have no idea what is in it yet. But yes, I have the equipment to do that sort of thing.”
“Like a PCR?”
“PCR?” He looked like he was dredging his memory for some jetsam from an old history of medicine course. “Er… no. A machine reads smaller amounts of DNA, so you don’t have to go to all the effort of making up the fragments and replicating them.”
“Neat! Like a mechanised tRNA?”
“Sort of, but for DNA, so it is more like a DNA-polymerase,” he explained.
I nodded, filing that information away should I ever need it.
“There must be something odd in my blood, right? I’m guessing DNA or something, but God knows what it is.”
Cleckley nodded. “We’ll find out,” he said with a grin. Then he pushed his glasses up his nose and steepled his hands under his chin and frowned. “You are trusting me with a lot here,” he observed.
“I know. But… you already know a hell of a lot.”
‘I would say that time travel is a bigger secret than whatever is in my blood.’
“And, well, I want to know what I am,” I said.
“Don’t vampires know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know. I can’t exactly ask, can I?”
He nodded at that.
“But even if I could, I wouldn’t believe it unless I could look at the data myself.”
He nodded. I waved my forefinger at him.
“Remember, whatever you do to analyse it, write it all down. You will have to repeat every step.”
“Clarke, I specialised in medical research; I do know how to do an experiment,” he said drily.
“Oh?” I paused. “Did you?” I stared at him and chewed my bottom lip. “And why would a doctor who specialised in medical research be on a mercenary ship trolling around the arse-end of the galaxy?”
He started to put out stress hormones. If I concentrated enough to ignore my heartbeat, I could hear that his was rising under my stare.
‘Time to look the good Doctor Cleckley up in my notepad, methinks.’
He shifted awkwardly. I stared him out.
“It was just what I was interested in at med school,” he said with forced casualness.
“Anything you want to tell me, Dr. Cleckley?” I said, enunciating every syllable.
‘This is fishy. A new fishy thing. Why is everything fishy?’
“No.” Then he smiled in a self-deprecating manner and waved his hand around. “I got bored with curing rich people of their diseases, and decided I wanted to see a bit of the galaxy.”
‘Except this isn’t a mercenary ship, and you know it. Hello, government scientist. Shit! A renegade would be more trustworthy.’
“What, it’s better to cure grubby mercenaries of their wounds?” I asked.
“At least my patients are healthy–injured, but healthy,” he said. “They recover quickly.”
‘I don’t like this. But what to do? I want to do this experiment here and now. Rats, hell and damnation!’
‘Of course, if my future self is in with, or spying on, the UESF, then perhaps she could do something about the data Cleckley will gather on me? I want to know what vampires are and how they work. And I need Cleckley for that. OK… damn, damn, damn! I trust Cleckley for now, but I am going to have to make sure I know where he keeps his experimental data.’
“OK, whatever. This was supposed to be a flying visit,” I remarked with a smile.
Cleckley let out a heavy breath and smiled back. He stopped giving out a stressed smell and his heart rate dropped, so I surmised that he thought he’d covered that one well enough.
He started to walk around his office picking up various medical things. Then he sat back down. In his latex glove-covered hands he was holding a syringe, a vial and a bandage.
“Now, Cleckley, you’re not going to get any odd ideas about drinking this, or feeding it to anyone, are you?”
“No, not at all. I don’t want to become a vampire.”
“Why not?” I still didn’t get why anyone wouldn’t.
“I know you seem to enjoy it, but… I don’t want to drink blood,” he said, doing his best not to appear disgusted, which was quite nice of him.
“It’s not that bad; tastes like strawberries,” I said, deadpan.
He stared at me. I sniggered.
“OK, Clarke, give me your arm.”
“T
hat needle had better be clean.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Is it from a new sealed packet?”
“Clarke, I do know what I’m doing. Taking blood is one of the first things we learn in med school.”
I gave him a suspicious look. “Yeah, I know. My first-year roommate was a medic. I’d come into the room, and she’d look at me with this hellish glint in her eye and wave a catheter or a syringe or something awful at me, and ask me if I’d help her practice!”
Cleckley laughed. “Is that why you’re so skittish around me?”
“Yeah. Once I woke up and was that ill I thought I was dead. Or on the wrong side of it anyway, like death warmed up.” I paused to grin at that, since now, technically, I was. “Anyway, she took advantage of my incapacitation and covered me in bandages. I had slings on my arms, splints on my legs, and an eye patch over both eyes.”
Cleckley was looking sympathetic as well as slightly amused.
“Normally I was good at avoiding her, but this time I couldn’t fight back.”
“Why, what was wrong with you?”
“Oh, I had one of the worst hangovers of my life.”
He laughed at that.
“It was all because a girl was trying to nick my cocktail vouchers, and, well, I’d had more then enough to drink, so I couldn’t protect them. But there was no way I was going to let her nick them. So I exchanged them for pink cocktails.” I shook my head in horror. “Never, ever drink the pink cocktails.”
Cleckley nodded, amused. “I’d feel sorry for you, but it’s your own fault.”
“Huh, that’s what she would say. You know, I had to get the warden to untie me so that I could die in peace.”
He laughed. “Your arm, please.”
I grimaced. “Be nice. All that fun reminiscing has made me even more nervous. You sure that needle’s clean?”
“Yes, Clarke.”
I put my hand out and rolled up the sleeve of the dress, revealing one of the hidden knives in its holster.
‘Oops.’
“You wear that all the time?” asked Cleckley with a raised eyebrow.
“No, just with this dress. It doesn’t match the others.”
Cleckley shook his head and brought the needle up towards my arm. I pulled my arm back and chewed on my lip again.
“Hey, Cleckley, you’re not going to be grossed out if my blood is an odd colour or something stupid like that?”
“Clarke, calm down.”
I started chewing on my knuckle.
“And what if I’m a haemophiliac? I might bleed to death!”
“Then how could a vampire drink your blood?”
“Oh, well, we heal each other,” I said.
“What?” he said.
I shut my eyes, breathed deeply and counted to ten.
‘OK, so it seems I am a little nervous about this.’
“OK, do it,” I said putting my arm out again. Cleckley stuck the needle into the vein.
‘Hey, that was nice. I suppose it would be.’
My blood flowed into the vial looking blue, then purple, then red as it oxidised.
“Hey, that’s not airtight! What about germs?” I panicked.
“Clarke, it’s sterile, don’t panic. Anyway, vampires’ teeth aren’t sterile.”
‘Fair point.’
He withdrew the needle and picked up a ball of cotton wool, but my arm had already healed. He looked at it in surprise. I shrugged, then pulled my dress sleeve back down. He swirled the blood around in the vial and regarded it thoughtfully.
“It oxidises and is the right colour,” he said. I nodded. It looked like human blood to me.
“Do you think it will go off?”
“No, but I’ll start working on it right away.”
‘Well, I can watch him do the second one when we’re in space and there’s nothing better to do.’
“OK, I’ll leave you to it then, and, by the way, don’t mention this to anyone,” I said.
“Of course not.”
I glanced at my blood in the vial.
‘I hate trusting people.’
“OK, I’ll see you in a few days,” I said and headed out of the office.
* * *
The robot was waiting outside in the reception area of med bay and the marines were still there, staring at him. Wright was even poking him in the head.
“What are you doing to my lovely robot?” I yelled at them.
“Uh, hi, Clarke,” said Wright.
“Nothing,” said Cliff.
“Hey, did you say your robot? Doesn’t it belong to the guy who owns the station?” asked Smith.
‘Ah… oops.’
They all stared at me.
“Uh…”
‘OK, I don’t have an answer. It does belong to Alucard, but the damned thing said he was my robot, and anyway, if it’s a person surely it belongs to itself? Or he belongs to himself?’
“Anyway, did you talk to him?” I asked.
“No,” said Cliff, shaking his head vehemently.
“Did he talk to you?”
“Not really,” said Smith.
“You just decided to poke him?” I said, glaring at Wright.
“Well… it was… um,” he stammered.
“Aw, don’t tell them off, Clarke, they were fine to me,” said the robot.
“Oh, you’re talking to me again, are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I know when a joke is wearing thin.”
“No, you really, really don’t.”
“Hey, it’s a pretty chatty robot,” said Wright.
“Is that very chatty or pretty and chatty?” said the robot.
“Very chatty,” said Wright, twiddling the robot’s eyebrows and moving one of his arms around, fascinated by the freakish double elbows.
“Oh, don’t tell me, you’re secretly an engineer, Wright?” I said.
“Oh? No. I just used to play with machines when I was a kid.”
“Engineers, scientists, can I never get away from them?” I asked the universe in general.
“Thought you liked engineers, Clarke,” said Wright. Smith kicked him. I glared at Wright.
“Hey, robot, what’s your name?” asked Cliff.
“Igor,” said the robot.
“Really?” Cliff asked, looking at me.
“I didn’t give him that dumb name,” I remarked.
“Who did?” asked Petey.
“Alucard,” said the robot.
Cliff looked confused for a moment, then got it. I’d kinda thought he would, what with all those silly B-movies he watched. “Oh!” he said, his eyes going wide. “What? Really?”
“Yes,” said the robot.
The other marines looked at Cliff, curious as to why the name Alucard was shocking.
‘Oh, dear, rumours and rumours, going around the ship; they’ll meet, crossbreed and multiply.’
I sighed.
‘By the time I come back tomorrow, they’ll think I’m Dracula and own Tortuga, or worse, that I’m married to him.’
“Be quiet, you stupid robot! You keep your mouth shut to make me look crazy, then you waffle on to make me look stupid.”
“You are far too secretive, Clarke. What were you up to with Cleckley?”
“None of your business, robot.”
“You don’t call it Igor?” said Wright. Cliff was still looking astonished.
‘Oh, dear.’
“No, I try not to encourage him,” I said. “Anyway, I’m heading off now. Robot, you can stay here and talk to the nice mercenaries if you want, or I can guard you from kleptomaniac pirates.”
“You are a kleptomaniac pirate.”
“Oh, be quiet. I am not a pirate!” I said. “See you guys later,” I said to the marines.
They looked a little stunned at all of this for some reason.
I walked out of the Shiny, Shiny Egg and looked around.
‘My docking bay. Hmm…’
“Hey, robot-thingy, if this
is my docking bay, does that mean those are my ships?”
“Oh, no. You can’t steal your own ships.”
I grinned. “They are mine then?”
“Yes.”
“Cooooooool!” I decided to go for a wander, the robot clomping after me. The docking bay was huge. There was room for many ships, and it was mostly empty. “Hey, robot, why is my docking bay so huge?”
“Because some strange and scary general wanted somewhere to park an entire space fleet.”
“Huh, you couldn’t get a whole space fleet in here,” I remarked.
“Says the person who’s only been on one spaceship in her time.”
“Three, technically. So these thingies are mine?” I asked, waving at the ships that were parked nearby. There was a big one that was kinda round and black and some smaller ones, some triangular like fighter planes: all were painted black. All black. Not a single sigil, line or label on any of them. Which was probably illegal, I would have thought. Surely I needed some ID tag, like a number plate at the very least.
“Hey, why are they all black?” I asked.
“Well, Clarke, unlike some reserved and subtle vampires of my acquaintance, you seem to like painting everything midnight black or blood red.”
I glared at the robot.
“If you’re talking about Alucard, he is not subtle but an over-the-top bad actor, and I seem to remember he appeared before us in a black suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the nineteenth century.”
“Says the woman dressed as a medieval lady–you’re missing the hat and veil, by the way–and anyway, three-piece suits have never gone out of fashion.”
“Oh, robot, what do you know about fashion? Anyway… which of these should I fly?”
“You don’t know how to fly any of them.”
“Well”–I grinned–“how hard can it be?”
“Clarke, you cannot be serious! You can’t even drive! How will you be able to fly a spaceship?”
“It’s not like there’s anything to crash into, is there? I mean, in space…”
“Other spaceships, Tortuga, asteroids; I could go on,” said the robot.
“Well, you can navigate then,” I said, striding towards the closest ship. It was one of the smaller ones, which were a triangular wedge shape and painted a shiny black colour. As I got close the door opened. I stepped up onto the ship and waited for the robot to decide to follow me.