In Between the Stars

by A. A. Ripley

  And it would be filled with something else too – privilege. Inan was a female izara. The constant competition for marriage and position which filled the lives of males was not for her. Not for her the final trials with the shadow of houselessness and life of endless menial tasks. But now she would have more than a stable future; she would have distinction and power, first as an Heir and then as a Matriarch.

  Inan smiled at Ifonly. Maybe he was right.

  *

  Inan’s senses were a knot of pain. The red emergency lights turned her cabin into a cave of black and red shadows. The sound of sirens shredded her ears. The melted hyperplastic and hot metal made her tongue bitter with the smell. It was getting hot; there was a fire somewhere nearby. The wall opposite the bulkhead radiated a delightful heat, but Inan knew that it meant death, not relaxation. She wanted to run, to rush through the corridors of the starship and find someone, anyone. Yet there was no way. The entrance to the cabin had become a mass of twisted metal, sharp debris and dead wires. She tried to dig her way out, clawing at the rubble with her bare hands. She tried to shout, but the wailing of the emergency siren drowned her cries. Futile effort! Now her talons were all broken, her hands bleeding, her voice gone and she was not an inch closer to escape. How did it happen? she thought to herself when she sat down, too exhausted to do anything more.

  *

  Just a few weeks ago she had been standing in the waiting lounge of a spaceport, looking out of the window towards the landing pads. The houseless servitors brought her a meal while she waited. They placed a bowl of stoneseed shoots and stalks next to a small vessel of digestion stones and a set of claw cleaning picks. Yet she didn’t even look at them, consumed entirely with the panoramic view behind the window of translucent, rephasable metal.

  Out there the high metallic spires of the spaceships glistened with condensation in the morning sun. Between them there was a bustle of activity going on in all directions. Utility vehicles, freight loaders and throngs of servicemen circled round and round in constant preparation. The cargo arrived and was being loaded up, unloaded and taken away. Even from here she could see Skoss ships, freighters dressed in serviceable greens.

  She touched the windowpane and rather felt than heard the deep and guttural droning hum of the crowds and machines. For a moment her heart had synchronised its beat to the pulse of the spaceport, a breathless, excited pulse that her tail had picked up too. She took it in her hand so as not to hurt it against the fixtures of the room. This was a moment that was only for her, the only moment she could be alone with her thoughts. Since the night she had spoken with the Matriarch her time had been filled to the last minutes of daylight. There had been preparations to make, things to buy, things to pack, so uncommon was it for a daughter to be married out of the House. There had been ceremonies to conduct, words to speak, rituals to fulfil. There had been goodbyes too, a vortex of faces and best wishes. Then there was only one face left, one of her brothers to take her away.

  ‘Tail in hand so soon, Inan?’

  Her brother was standing in the doorway, all dressed in a heavy-duty work-suit with reinforced tail, his command spikes dangling freely at his wrist.

  ‘I still don’t understand why I have to travel on two ships before I get to Derrar?’ she said quickly, to turn his attention away from her awkward pose.

  ‘Did you really think that we were just delivering you to the Aldassa like any other cargo?’

  ‘No, I meant—’

  ‘This is a holiday, a gift from the Matriarch. You should be thankful. I don’t know anyone who has ever received so much attention from her. You are going to visit the most luxurious resorts while travelling in style. You are going to see a portion of the universe, only the good bits and none of the boring ones.’

  ‘I know that. I just wish that I could see it like you do.’

  ‘You mean like a male youngster, with nostrils deep into super-lubricant?’ he laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Inan, and be glad you don’t have to.’

  For a few weeks Inan had lived her dream. She had gone swimming in the orange seas of Levoe and collected the square shells of bearded molluscs on the shore. She had watched the blue suns of Idir eclipse each other, creating the flaming spectacle of sapphire and cerulean. She had met a man from La-ab with two heads, one eye and one ear between them. She had tasted the spice of the plant that grows only in total darkness, on the planet that knows no night.

  *

  Now it was all over. No exit, no escape. She would die all alone, fire at her back and the vacuum of space at her brow. All the mysteries of the universe unexplored, her promising future buried in the wreck of a luxury spaceliner.

  Suddenly there was a movement. Inan spotted it from the corner of her eye and then looked straight at the fragment of the floor that began to rise. From underneath the floor a pointy muzzle emerged, topped with a pair of eyes, lustrous like highly-polished cabochons. There was a creature hiding beneath the panels!

  ‘In here! Follow me!’ the creature called to her, straining its voice over the wail of the siren.

  She hesitated, but only for a millisecond. She moved to the opening and gazed into a duct leading down somewhere into the darkness. The creature was nowhere in sight. Like the little long-eared creature from human legend, it had disappeared in the narrow passage. Inan took a deep breath. The smell of charred materials came rushing from the vent and made her tongue numb. She realised that this might be a bad choice, but it was her only one. She slid herself down the passage and soon she was crouching on the dark, ribbed surface sticky with sealing agent.

  ‘Where are you?’ she called into the darkness. ‘Don’t leave me here!’

  At first she was overwhelmed by darkness, but then she was able to sense the heat signature of the creature, crawling ahead of her. She followed. Creeping on all fours through the dark and narrow passage seemed to take forever. Finally, there was an opening in the floor and Inan tumbled head-first into the corridor below. She picked herself up from the elasticised floor, thankful that no bone was broken by the fall.The hallway trembled. Inan could hear the moaning of the overstressed metal, like the discordant wail of a mortally-wounded beast.

  ‘Hurry! We need to go!’

  The creature dived through a very narrow door to the left. “EMERGENCY ESCAPE PODS” the holographic sign blinked nervously above it. There was a tiny airlock behind the doors, barely enough to squeeze through. The moment Inan went in, the creature shut the hatch behind her.

  There were rows of flight seats lining the walls and Inan climbed onto one of them without hesitation. What was it that emergency instructor had said? ‘Camlock star has five rays,’ she muttered, snapping the belts into the buckle one by one. From the corner of her eye Inan saw the creature throwing a switch painted in neon-red stripes. The hidden speaker started to bark the countdown.

  Inan sank into the bodycon foam of the chair. She shut her eyes tight. The jolt of security clamps blowing up came as a shock. The pod jumped and bucked, then started to plunge like a runaway lift. The thrusters came online and Inan was pushed deep into the foam by the rising acceleration. The metal plating vibrated with the strain. She struggled for breath, second after second.

  The weight lifted suddenly; the thrusters died. They had entered free fall. Inan opened one eye cautiously. The abrupt sound made her jerk in the harness, a horrible screeching of tearing metal.

  ‘What was that?’ she screamed, expecting the pod to be rent in half at any second.

  The creature unstrapped itself and floated to the console.

  ‘No hull breech. We’re holding up,’ it said after checking a few readouts. ‘It’s the debris.’

  ‘Debris? What debris?’

  A few flips of the switches brought up a small display. It was the starliner, filmed by their top camera, getting smaller and smaller as the thrusters put more and more distance between them. In
horrified silence Inan watched the ship start shedding the plating and then slowly break apart. The pieces flew in all directions. Finally, a large chunk of grating caught up with the pod and skimmed the hull, taking out the camera. The display dimmed.

  The words died in her mouth. There were people there! Over five thousand tourists from hundreds of worlds had been travelling with no care in the galaxy, spread over twenty decks of comfort and style. The colourful and exotic masses had been lounging in observational galleries, enjoying zero-g pools and game rooms. They had been wandering leisurely on bio-decks among numerous plant species, enjoying the panoramic views of the universe. A dark shiver passed over her, a moment when strained, shallow breaths are forced in, but never out. Inan fought the images of destruction burned permanently into her mind, against the deep paralysis of the senses, the utter silence of the consciousness that follows impact. That couldn’t be real. She had had a dream or a recall-state, something she had seen in a disaster documentary, many years ago and not true at all!

  But deep down she knew that it was, no matter how hard she denied it. She could now feel it; all things, living and non-living, were now crumpled up and torn to shreds, mixed into a heap of space junk. Unrecognisable, scorched and dead, the wreck drifted aimlessly somewhere in the open, extrasolar space. A small hand touched the scales of her cheek, disrupting the current of gloom. A small, talonless hand. Inan looked up at the creature floating above her.

  ‘Plenty of pods on the ship. Don’t think. You live, Inan. Think of this now.’

  This creature, no, not creature, a person. There was something familiar about this person. Was it somebody she was supposed to remember?

  ‘How do you know my name? Who are you?’

  ‘Remember “the rodent”, Inan?’

  *

  It had been in the main concourse of the liner, when the mass of the passengers had spilled from the docking-bay doors, Inan and her brother among them.

  ‘This is the moment to say farewell, Inan,’ said her brother, who had come aboard to see her off to Derrar. Inan opened her mouth to speak, but as soon as the manifold smells of the ship had touched her tongue she had forgotten the prepared words. They stood and faced each other in silence. She lifted her hand and touched his loreal pit, to leave her heat signature that he could carry back home through the endless void. He extended his hand to return the gesture and Inan’s sense flared with the transferred heat, putting a soft glow over her vision.

  ‘Clear space, my kin.’ So formal, too formal! But what else could she say at this last moment before she moulted away the last familiar thing of her world.

  ‘Inan Skoss-ar? Reference 3009/65@000.4?’ she heard behind her. It was tradespeak, but with a strange accent and manner, as though it came from a throat very different to hers. Inan turned around just in time to see a field sumoda, like those that tend to eat crops but nearly as large as Inan herself. The creature was extremely hairy, fur growing all over its body. It had the colour of deepest and darkest purple, shining with a glossy sheen, like a pearl of the Cessa. Unlike its tiny cousin, this sumoda was tailless. This fact left Inan wondering how could it walk upright and not lose balance with every step. The rodent was dressed in silver livery wound tightly around the body. “Star Porter”, an emblem of the liner, was attached to its collar. There was a luggage trolley bobbing behind it idly on its dynamic-field.

  ‘I am she,’ Inan said, and touch-signed the form presented to her. The rodent put away the form folder and started to load her luggage onto the trolley with unhurried moves, Inan observing it with fascination. Her first live alien!

  Inan turned her attention back to her brother. ‘Go with the rodent now, Inan,’ he said.

  ‘I’m a marsupial,’ grumbled the Star Porter.

  ‘Go with the marsupial, Inan. Bring us prosperity. We shall remember you.’

  This was it. The last goodbye. There was nothing left to say or do. Inan turned around. The marsupial took the lead and ushered her through the white corridors, towards her cabin and the adventure that waited just around the corner.

  *

  Now the silver livery was torn and stained with sealant and grime, the emblem missing, the ample, velvet fur now matted and singed in places.

  ‘You’re that ro… I mean, that marsupial! I’m sorry, I never asked your name.’

  ‘Hijinks.’

  ‘Your name is Hijinks?’

  Hijinks looked at her and recited automatically, ‘First Harmony Shenanigans in full. First child. Mother named Harmony. Shenanigans for personality.’

  Inan realised that Hijinks must have heard that question on uncountable occasions. She wanted to say something else, but was interrupted.

  ‘Your hands.’ Hijinks pointed towards her ruined talons and bloody fingers. ‘Let’s take care of that.’

  *

  Inan’s universe shrank immensely. She had travelled the vast universe for a time, but now all her world consisted of this tiny craft, not much bigger than a few cubic metres. The interior consisted of two rows of flight-chairs, lockers with gear and a few pieces of equipment, all of it in sombre greys and blacks, marked with emergency patterns like those on carapaces of angry insects. Everything smelled like greased metal and disinfectant.

  There was this weird-looking cubicle in the middle of the cabin. Inan couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be, that is, until she was in dire need of the private facilities. How embarrassing! I guess this is one of those things no one tells you about space travel, she thought, while trying to figure out how to strap herself in and how the various switches adjusted the suction strength, so the fluids could be kept away from her body. Luckily there was an instruction lasered into the metal of the door. Whoever assumed that the users of an escape pod would need help in using the zero-g toilet did Inan a huge favour. Imagine having to ask an alien for help! They probably had some weirdly-shaped elimination organs anyway.

  The collision with the piece of debris had left them without external sensors of any kind. ‘Shaved off clean,’ said Hijinks, flipping switches with little enthusiasm. There was no signal, not even static, coming through the communication channels. The external cameras were offline too. They flew blind and without any position indicators, without even the company of the stars to guide them. From time to time Inan looked at the emergency transponder. The power light was shining steadily with a soft, assuring green, but she wondered if it really worked. Would the rescue crew be able to find them?

  There were other things that Inan had never imagined when she was dreaming about her adventures with exotic aliens. Hijinks was shedding. Clumps of fur were drifting slowly in the air. There was purple lint gathering in the corners of the air vents, in the mechanisms of the chair adjusters and in the nooks and crannies of the console. The floating hair did not miss Inan’s nose, which became irritated and itched fiercely. And there was another problem.

  ‘Food,’ said Hijinks, tossing a vacuum-sealed box in her direction. The box revolved gently while travelling towards her. “Thermally Processed Vegetables”, it said on the label in tradescript.

  ‘I can’t eat those,’ said Inan.

  ‘You’re a carnivore?’ Hijinks looked at her with strange intensity. What is going on inside that head? thought Inan. I’d never eat anybody. Nobody sentient, that is!

  ‘I can’t absorb plant matter without digestion stones; I would only give myself a stomach ache. Is there something different?’

  Hijinks produced a large tube out of supply locker. “0G Synthetic Protein” was written on it. There was a yellowish gloop inside. Fortunately, it had no smell; unfortunately, it had no taste either. Inan closed her eyes and pretended very hard that she was eating a razorfin, freshly caught and roasted on the shore of Azra.

  Hijinks observed Inan squeezing the synthetic gloop into her mouth and gave a squealing laugh. This startled Inan and she nearly choked on the bland
mass. By the time she finally was able to push the food down her throat, Hijinks was already in the middle of the vegetarian meal. The marsupial munched on the vegetables, picking them one by one straight from the air. Inan suspected that it was still laughing quietly at her.

  Inan took a peek into the locker. There were a couple of tubes there, enough for a few days, but what then? She didn’t say anything to Hijinks, though. There would be time to worry about that later. They should be rescued before then.

  The worst thing was the boredom. There was nothing else to do, besides watching the ancient digital clock fused to one of the walls. The numbers flickered lazily. According to it, eighty hours had passed since the launch of the pod. It felt like eighty years. The protein meals ran out soon after, no more food for Inan. Hunger started to creep slowly into her consciousness, an advancing twinge.

  A few hours later the heating unit gave out a shower of sparks and went offline. Hijinks took off the front panel and looked inside, between the mass of wires, micro-relays and convector coils.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ said Inan, suddenly sensing the immense coldness of the universe beyond the steel walls.

  Hijinks produced a multi-pronged sensor from the folds of the destroyed livery. The marsupial jabbed the innards of the heater with it, then gave an uncertain screech. A charred piece of machinery gave under pressure and floated away, leaving a black trail of ash behind it like a passing comet.

  ‘Is that a no?’ said Inan, tracking the errant part with her eyes.

  Hijinks said nothing. The small hands were digging deep into the cranky machine. From time to time some sparks would show up, but the heater stayed dead. One of the sparks fell directly onto the purple fur. A small flame appeared for a couple of seconds, before Hijinks beat it down. Inan had to cover her ear-slits. She hadn’t heard such a recital of swearing since that one time she got her hands on a human crime drama!

  ‘It will be cold,’ Hijinks said, after the swearing stopped.