Beyond: Space Opera

by Milo James Fowler

  "Don't blame my father for this," Valerie said. "He's doing the best he can with what he's got."

  "I just meant he—"

  A scraping sound from above rocked the ship; the floor tilted and drove them against the wall. With the bag in one hand, Stuart struggled to brace himself. His finger got caught between his body and the wall, and he howled as it jammed. Cursing, he sucked on it, and in the pain he couldn't help but give Valerie an angry look.

  "It's not my father's fault!" Valerie said, and she stormed away. Stuart turned the other way and climbed to Deck Two, pinching the bag without his throbbing finger. He hadn't meant to make Valerie mad, and by the time he reached the upper deck, he regretted the look he gave her. He was really just annoyed at the pain of smashing his finger, but now that it was passing he felt like a jerk. Any points he had gained in her eyes for helping her, he had surely just lost.

  The lion habitat was the third door on the left, past the hyena and the two young cheetahs. The carnivores' cages had a section, referred to as the den, where the animal could sleep, and where a nozzle emitted a scent that attracted the animal and allowed the feeder to enter in safety.

  Stuart pushed a button outside the door that released the scent. Standard protocol was to allow thirty seconds for the animal to enter the den before opening the main door. As Stuart counted the seconds, he looked up through the ceiling at Deck One, and the bridge above it, and the boulders of rock cascading onto the ship's flimsy energy shield. From all around, bangs and thuds sounded with varying intensity.

  The habitat opened, and Stuart retrieved a safety pole from its notch beside the door. He turned it on; an electric bolt popped to life at the tip that would tase the lion if it rushed him. It never worried him, though—the lion always loafed about on the grass, bored out of its mind.

  The biggest bang yet boomed from above. It sounded like thunder and felt like an earthquake. The floor tipped and dumped him through the door. He sprawled in the tall grass, meat and pole leaving his grip as he braced himself. He lost his breath, rolled over, and before the door slid closed behind him, he saw that the hallway had turned into a cave of bright rubies.

  Silence fell. Stuart coughed, reached for the pole, and looked around for the lion. It was nowhere to be found, meaning it must be in the den. Stuart stared at the rectangular opening in the ground, where a ramp led down to the cozy den and that appetizing nozzle.

  Stuart crawled over to the bag of meat, wanting to get out of the lion's habitat as fast as he could. Pulling on a glove, he turned his head away, reached into the bag, and tossed a dripping steak onto a feeding platform that supported a stained metal plate. He threw another on, then another, until thirty pounds of raw meat sat there steaming. Stuart headed back to the door, thinking to meet Gerald in the bottom of the ship and help out.

  His hand froze on the operating mechanism. An unexpected thought had just entered his mind. He hadn't been able to sense the danger in the giraffe compound, meaning he couldn't now either. How did things fare? Would he open the door and find a hallway lit with green lights, the danger passed?

  He put his ear to the door and listened. No sound came through. His heart beat faster, though his brain told him that this was a perfectly normal finding.

  Before the door had closed, the lights turned red. That was ominous. Serious damage had been dealt. The impact absorbers and G-force gel between the habitat and the hull kept it protected. If the ship outside had been damaged, he and the lion would never know it.

  What was beyond that door?

  The red lights. The biggest collision yet. What had happened? He put his hand on the door and felt cold. What did that mean? Probably nothing, but how could he be sure? An asteroid could have broken through, could have torn the ship in half.

  There could be nothing but cold space beyond this door, and when he opened it, he would be sucked out and killed instantly.

  He was secure inside a floating cell. An escape pod of sorts. The ship had been destroyed all around him, but he was safe inside the lion's den.

  What about the others? What about Valerie? She had been on her way to the wildebeests' habitat. He slumped against the wall and slid to the ground. What if she hadn't gotten inside in time? Then, an even more despondent idea entered his head—no one could have survived. He was the lone survivor of a ship destroyed because of its archaic equipment.

  What would happen to him? Their sister ship, the Species, also took this route between missions, but it wouldn't be along for weeks. Even then, it might not encounter the ruin of the ship. Stuart knew stories of broken vessels found years after whatever disaster had crippled them. He might be the next story, his skeleton found and identified long after his death.

  Head in his hands, thoughts arose unbidden. In his last interaction with a girl he really cared about, he had complained, implied that her father caused problems for the ship, and sent her stomping off in a rage. He could never make amends now; she died thinking bad thoughts about him. She would never be a vet. She was lost, her body icy in the vacuum of space. Only through sheer luck had he survived, here alone with a lion.

  Stuart looked up. There, silent, tall, and imposing, stood Brutus. Those bright amber eyes stared at him, every muscle frozen except the tail, which swooshed back and forth. Stuart crawled his fingers through the grass and wrapped them around the pole.

  They remained there for several minutes, like a scene out of prehistory: a lone hunter with his spear, a hungry predator with his fangs and claws. Stuart's breath came in shallow trickles; every hair on his body was stiff; he could feel his heart beating behind his eyes, keeping him focused. He wanted to shout at Brutus, to brandish the pole at him, to dare the beast to challenge him. This is what it's like to be prey, Stuart thought.

  At last, Brutus slunk away to the feeding platform. Stuart remained tense. Brutus lifted one great paw onto the plate and tore off a mouthful of steak. The sound of him chewing and tearing the flesh was sickening, but it brought Stuart relief—let the lion eat it all, he thought, and then not be interested in me.

  It was the den that had saved him, he knew. These African carnivores were all fiercely territorial. If Stuart had entered the compound without first luring Brutus into the den, he would be invading the lion's territory, and Brutus would certainly act aggressively. This way, the lion emerged into an already occupied territory. But that didn't mean he wouldn't want to take it from him.

  Stiff as a statue, Stuart weighed his options. For about four seconds, he considered what being marooned would mean: there was the watering hole, but he would eventually have to eat, and hunting, killing, and cooking Brutus was his only possibility. He had the pole—could he somehow shepherd the beast into the watering hole and drown it? Or perhaps throw the electric pole in there and shock it—

  He shook his head; he didn't like what his imagination showed him when he played out the fight. He could never kill this killer, evolved to perfection.

  He had to get out of here; maybe, just maybe, Valerie had made it into the compound in time. She might not know about the crippled ship—she'd open the door, unknowing, exposing herself to the vacuum of space, and then—he refused to think about it.

  He reviewed everything he knew about the habitats, the blueprint of the ship, the tour Captain Richter had taken him on before his first shift. The cages existed as a separate structure, surrounded by but detached from the ship's main hull. A series of crawlspaces connected them all to one another as a means of emergency escape. Stuart's shoulders slumped—the entrance to the crawlspace was down in the den.

  There was nothing for it. If there was even a chance that Valerie was still alive, a story below him in the wildebeests' compound, he had to get to her.

  Slowly, as if he were walking a tightrope, Stuart moved toward the den. Brutus ignored him, feasting. About twenty yards of open savannah separated him from the ramp, twenty yards to traverse without alerting a vicious lion.

  He hadn't gone five before the lion turned
and stared at him.

  Brutus's heavy amber eyes seemed capable of speech: "Where do you think you're going?"

  Nowhere, Stuart thought. Just turn back to your meat.

  Miraculously, Brutus did turn back. Stuart resumed his trek, holding his breath, keeping the sizzling pole pointed at Brutus's behind.

  He stole a glance—another ten feet, and perhaps he could run for it. He recalled that he could access the crawlspace through a grate in the floor just beyond the ramp. From there, it was a matter of climbing down a ladder between levels, navigating the narrow tunnel separating the carnivores and herbivores, and locating the ladder down to the wildebeests' level in time to stop Valerie from opening the door to death. Simple, really.

  He returned his attention to Brutus—and almost peed himself. The lion was five feet away, lower jaw hanging open, red drool dripping from yellow fangs. How had it moved so quietly? Stuart's footsteps felt like drumbeats in comparison. This truly was an impeccably designed predator.

  His appreciation vanished when Brutus swiped a huge paw at the pole. Stuart jumped back. His right foot landed lower than his left—he was on the ramp, officially invading the lion's territory. His slick hands tightened on the pole.

  "I'm not afraid to use this!" he shouted.

  Brutus's eyes answered: "You must be joking. I'm a lion."

  The lion tensed as it prepared to pounce. Stuart leapt back just in time and swung the pole.

  Zapping filled the air before Brutus's roar of pain drowned it out. The pole touched the fleshy part of his armpit and he fell, convulsing. He tried to stand, but slipped, as if the tall savannah grass were ice.

  Stuart leapt over a pile of droppings and crashed onto the metal grate. He caught a glimpse of the den—indented grass beneath a large nozzle, a cloud of flies hovering over a slab of meat, gigantic paw prints in the dirt all around.

  He flipped the clasp on the grate and lifted it. A ladder disappeared into gray darkness. In his haste he slipped and almost dropped the grate on his head, but his feet found purchase on the rungs. He slunk down, released the grate with a clang, and hung there, hugging the rungs. In the heat of being attacked, he hadn't had time to be truly terrified; now, it rushed over him in an awesome wave.

  Something cast a shadow. Brutus had regained his feet, and he stood on the grate, staring at him. Stuart heard a throaty growl. A thin string of drool slid between the metal bars and down the wall beside him—it was still pink from the meat.

  No going back that way, Stuart thought. Besides, he realized with annoyance, he had dropped the pole when he lifted the grate. He descended.

  Soft blue lights illuminated the crawlspace: a straight tunnel tall enough for him to be on his hands and knees. The only sounds were occasional grunts from the direction of one ladder or another. One human—two, if he was extremely lucky—floating through space with perhaps twenty wild African animals.

  The ship's blueprint popped back into his head. How long had he been in the lion's compound? Thirty minutes? Longer? If Valerie hadn't finished with the wildebeests, she would soon, and then she'd open the door. He had to save her, had to stop her from stepping out into blackness. Crawling forward, he counted—oryxes, giraffes, wildebeests. Not stopping to doubt himself, he swung onto the ladder and climbed down.

  He heard a metallic clunk and almost cried with relief and thankfulness. The grate in the wall gave him a view into the wildebeest compound, and there, snow shovel in hand, overalls dirtier than he had ever seen them, was Valerie. She scooped up a pile of dung while a family of six wildebeests wallowed in the mud.

  "Hey!" he said. She jumped and dropped the shovel's load on her boots. He pushed the grate outward, stepping from metal to grass. The biggest grin he had ever worn spread across his face. "You're okay," he breathed.

  "Stuart!" She glared at him and kicked a bit of dung in his direction. "What the heck are you doing? You scared me! Why are you in the emergency tunnels?"

  "Valerie, listen. You can't go outside the cages. The asteroid shower—right before I went into the lion's habitat, we got hit by a big one, and the emergency lights came on in the hall. The cage door shut, and . . . ," he chose his next words carefully. "I think it must have been a huge asteroid, big enough to break through our high-quality, formidable energy shield."

  She gave him a puzzled look. Moving slowly, like she didn't want to aggravate a crazy person, she picked up the dung, took it to the wall, and dumped it down the chute. She leaned on the shovel and said, "So, you think we're stuck inside the cages?"

  He nodded. Though relief and joy overwhelmed him for reaching her in time, his heart hurt for what she must be thinking—would they die here, alone in space? Had her dreams of helping animals been pulverized along with the Genus? All the despondent thoughts that had occurred to him now passed through her mind, he knew, and he wished he could somehow dull her pain.

  "You crawled through the emergency tunnels to save me?" she asked.

  "And tased a charging lion, yeah."

  She covered her mouth with her hands. A faraway look in her eyes, she stared at the wildebeests; he knew she was doing as he had done, thinking ahead to how they would survive by eating them. He walked toward her, arms out, but before he reached her, she took three steps to the door and pushed the operating mechanism.

  "No!" Stuart said.

  The door hissed open; Stuart held his breath and clenched his eyes, apologizing for his sins. A cacophony of sound reached his ears, sound that couldn't exist in the emptiness of space. He peeled open one eye.

  Valerie, hands still covering her mouth, stood on the threshold. When she took her hands away, he saw she was laughing. Beyond her, two of his bunk mates hurried past in the amber hallway.

  Stunned, Stuart walked toward her. He poked his head out and saw the intact, undamaged hallway for himself. He let out a pent-up breath and turned to Valerie, who clutched her gut and blinked at him with bright eyes.

  Composing herself, she said, "Remember the telecast? My father told me it was starting early, and that I could hold off on the wildebeests' cage. I only got in here about ten minutes ago." Stuart's expression of disbelief didn't change, and she cracked up again. "Sweet of you, though." She kissed him on the cheek.

  "Becker!" A voice from down the hall barked at him. Stuart stepped out in a daze. Captain Richter, descending a ladder, beckoned to him. "Where have you been? I didn't say you had to help Valerie with the wildebeests, too." He gave his daughter a reproachful look. "Never mind, just get down to the engine room. We lost a fuel tank, and Gerald needs help repairing the port engine. Go help him, on the double."

  "Right . . ." Stuart said. "Right away, sir, I'll . . . I'll go help Gerald." And as he passed a giggling Valerie, he gave her a playful shove back into the cage.

  Devin Miller is a tar heel who writes stories, and sometimes does other things, too. His fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Perihelion, Electric Spec, and many other magazines. Devin won an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, and received the William H. Hooks award for his fiction while earning a creative writing minor from UNC. He is an annual judge for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and helps moderate the online community of writers known as Write1Sub1. Visit his blog at www.devinmillerwriting.blogspot.com, where you can find links to some of his published works, and follow him on Twitter @dmmiller4000.

  Captain Clone

  by Deborah Walker

  I worked all night trying to find a quicker, less expensive cure. The colorful boxes of anti-viral agents, tailored bacteria, and antibiotics littered the work surface. In the corner of the sick bay, the radiation lamp flickered blood-colored light over a tray of discarded Petri dishes.

  As the night wore on, my treatments became increasingly experimental. I tried the wilder, alien technologies. I placed the smooth mites of the Pincer world onto the faces of the crew in the hope that the burrowing insects would seek out and consume the infection. I pounded strange aromatic herbs. I
concocted desperate combinations.

  Until, at last, I found myself chanting. In the sterile lights of the sick bay, I sang a half-remembered prayer to Shimra. I chanted the rituals over the sick women. The words sounded hollow to my ears. Why would the Healing God Shimra hear an unbeliever?

  I tried my best to cure them quickly, but only time, and patience, and expensive drugs would heal them. I failed them.

  And I desperately needed a drink.

  I dimmed the lights in the sick bay.

  "Get some rest now." I took one last look at the women in the beds. They were identical, but I could distinguish between them.

  "Goodnight, Mikar," said one.

  "Goodnight, Verna. The captain will come to see you in a few hours."

  "Tell the captain we're sorry." Another voice. I think it was Sam's.

  I really needed a drink.

  In my cabin, I held my glass of wine up to the light. Rioja is an ancient wine, first produced by the Phoenicians and the Celtiberians. In medieval times, the wine was produced by monks who extolled its virtues to their congregations. In the thirteenth century, Gonzalo de Berceo, clergyman of the Riojan Suso Monastery praised Rioja in his poems.

  Spanish wine.

  I have never been to Earth, and I never will. Clones are not allowed on the mother world. I would dearly like to go, to see the vineyards, to taste wine that hasn't travelled through space. The Riojan Guild insist that point seven speed damages the flavor. I will never taste Rioja in its purest form.

  Morning came, with a dull headache and a reluctance to visit my patients. I took a deep breath before I activated the door to the bridge. The captain was bent over her workstation.

  "The crew have been infected."

  "What? Again?" said the captain, looking up from her computer. I saw that she had been scanning web downloads, probably looking for something—anything—that would help us escape from this wretched planet.