The Transporter

by Jenna Stillman

  Her thoughts return to Ted. What had become of him? Had it eaten him? Stung him and tucked him away somewhere? Was he in his bedroom hiding and she had killed him?

  Jasie’s stomach grumbles as she sits back in the chair. Three days without water and she would be delirious. She didn’t want to imagine how bad that would look for her. But, then, if she had murdered Ted, at least they would claim insanity. She nearly laughed at this. It wasn’t that she found the idea funny as much as it was absurd and painful. To be responsible for someone else, to have not trusted them and then killed them… She could not finish the thought.

  How much time is left? She taps the screen. Forty-five hours, three minutes. Her jaw drops open.

  She checks the speed of the ship and finds that it has dropped back to the fifty-percent increase. But she’d only slept thirty minutes… How could five hours have slipped by?

  Somehow the math must work out, she thinks, trying not to panic. Still, how did the speed decrease on its own? Shivering slightly, she dials the engine speed up, feeling the ship respond. The great thrumming pulsating through her body. She dials it to the fastest speed possible, before she is unable to touch the screen without bumping other things due to the vibration.

  Her teeth chatter uncontrollably, as she watches the time left to Halcyon drop rapidly. Three hours.

  Chapter 6

  There would be no sleep for Jasie. She is certain that the cargo hold will rattle apart, can envision the thousands of boxes and crates bouncing along through space and time as though they danced to a rapid beat.

  She grips the arms of the chair as hard as she can, feeling her body begin to itch from the constant thrum. After a time, alarm bells clang and she ignores them. Either they will make it to Halcyon in three hours or they will rattle apart just outside of it.

  Jasie clenches her teeth together to keep them from clacking too much. She already bit the inside of her cheek once. The clock ticks backward, the numbers slowly rolling in a countdown to her future.

  Two hours, forty minutes. After a time, she finds herself struggling to breathe. She forces herself to take deeper breaths but it isn’t enough. At two and a half hours, she feels like she might pass out. Maybe, she thinks, I can dial it back just a little until I feel better.

  She struggles to raise her arm, has to focus very hard to get her finger to touch the right controls. Somehow she manages, and the rumbling lessens. The time increases to four hours and she feels frustration eating away at her. Why can’t technology have made advances to the point that teleportation is available?

  Of course, if that had been the case, she and many others would no longer have a job. Her breathing slowly returns to normal, and the clanging of the alarms registers in her brain again. She checks the banks of computers and finds that the cargo hold door is ajar.

  She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut until bright pinpricks of light are visible. She opens them and shakes her head. No matter what, she will not leave this room. She cannot risk it. To leave would mean facing that thing again. It would mean she would have to bring all of the ship systems back up and that would take a while to stabilize. It isn’t worth it.

  Even so, with the door ajar, things in the cargo hold could be floating into space. She had no idea if the door is only cracked, or nearly fully open. She also knows that the icy vacuum of space might be competing with the heat in the room and ruining the products.

  No, she would not risk it. She also could not handle the high speeds again. Jasie decides that four hours will have to do.

  Something squishes under her foot. She looks down and finds the padding is wet. She had forgotten about the cylinder. It is wedged under the counter, on it’s side, empty. Gross.

  She passes the time playing games in her mind. What will they do with her when she docks? Will they:

  a.) Lock her in prison

  b.) Congratulate her on surviving

  c.) Fine her for the damages

  or, d.) Evacuate her into space?

  If she makes it back home, will she be able to face her family? Yes, she tells herself. Of course I will be able to face them. I did what any sane, normal person would do. I contained the ship. I radioed for help. I followed directions… mostly. Yes.

  But she isn’t so sure. Doubts creep into her mind. I may have murdered Ted. Did I make the right decision?

  Feeling overburdened, she allows her mind to wander freely. Memories dredge up from the past of her life at home. The places she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager. The people she left behind to pursue a career amongst the stars. She has been alone for so long, who will remember her?

  The promotion would have meant that she would be able to meet a man, have children, live a cushioned life. She could give more money to her parents to help them in their older age. She has saved so much of her money already, she has enough to buy a nice house, car, and whatever else she might need.

  It would be very nice to be done with all this. Yet, there is a part of Jasie that is at war with this line of thinking. She has been alone for a decade. She is self sufficient, and she likes it. She loves space more than anything. The stars feel familiar and like a family to her. She can name them as she glides past them. Perseus, Naturo, Rapsatian, Colodar, Eris, Pluto, Neptune, and then Halycon. She knows what they orbit, and what they are made of. She could rattle off the mining companies that drill precious metals and gems and the gas companies that siphon the different gases for uses humans once did not know would benefit them. She can transport these materials back to Halcyon, the dock that shuttles cargo to Earth.

  It depends upon her, and transporters like her, to keep up with the demands. She feels special having a part in something so grand and amazing.

  The hours pass, and then there is only twenty minutes. She closes her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek. Almost there. Almost there.

  And then the alarms are ringing again. Confused, she moves to the computers. Something has breached the inside cargo door.

  She brings up the screen to the cargo hold and scans the room. Nothing stirs.

  Chapter 7

  Jasie glances at the control room door and then back at the screen. What could have opened the cargo hold door?

  Unwilling to wait for it to breach her door, she dials the engine back up to top speed. Five minutes tick down slowly. She hangs onto the chair as best she can, her body jerking and shaking with the great pulsating rhythm of the ship.

  Jasie barely catches the tinkling sound announcing that someone is attempting to contact her. She ignores it, but it doesn’t go away.

  Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute. Something is hitting the control room door. She can’t see it move, but the door bulges inward. Thirty seconds. The door bulges further, a great indent.

  Jasie screams out of fear. Ten seconds. She slows the engine, almost triggering something else, and then places the ship in autopilot to commence docking.

  The ship responds, the rumbling settling into a low thrum. Something hits the door a final time and then all is silent. Jasie’s heart is hammering in her chest. Adrenaline makes her feel sick.

  The tinkling starts up again and Jasie answers it. The voice is angry, telling her she came in way too fast. She wasn’t expected and they had to move a ship out of the way for her. She tries to explain herself but she starts to cry. Not just cry but great wracking sobs. Nothing she says is coherent.

  The voice relents, and tells her to stay put. She is told to bring the ship systems back up and to unlock the cargo hold door. She can barely function, barely see to do as she is told. Her hand quivers as she punches in the relevant commands and then she slides to the floor, leaning against the computers, not caring that she is sitting in her own piss.

  Time passes, although she could not say how much, before the tinkling is heard again. She answers, and is told to open the control room door.

  She doesn’t want to. What if its a trick? What if that thing is waiting out there?

  She relents to t
he insistent voice, and holds the key card up. The door grinds open partway, but the dent keeps it from fully opening. Men in suits line the hallway, the flickering blue hued lights hum above them. She peers cautiously out, unsure of what to do next.

  “Come with me.” A man’s tinny voice says.

  She cannot see his face, it is behind a large reflective mask. She nods once and follows him. He stops near the galley and points to something on the floor.

  “Is this the crew member you could not find?”

  Jasie looks down and sees Ted, his back against the galley door, a knife handle protruding from his neck. Appalled, she covers her mouth.

  “Ted.”

  The man in the suit seems to look at her, and she sees herself in his reflective mask. A small, broken woman with dark hair falling out of the bun. She looks crazy. Eyes wide, tearstained cheeks.

  “Care to explain how he got here?” The voice came through the intercom in the suit.

  “I… I don’t know. I searched everywhere for him…”

  She knew this looked bad. Very bad. Her mind is reeling. Had she killed Ted with a knife? How could he be sitting up against the wall like that when the ship was shuttering about?

  “Take her in.” The man said, dismissively waving her away.

  Two men stepped toward her, pulling her arms tight behind her back as she is cuffed.

  “Wait! But, I didn’t kill him! I couldn’t have! There was a thing! A creature! It dripped on the floor.”

  As she said this last bit, she realized that Ted’s blood had dripped on the padding, as though he had walked a number of feet before falling into the sitting position they found him in. Congealed blood droplets all along the hallway to the control room.

  “But if I did it, why don’t I have blood on me?”

  No one was listening to her. They were moving about the ship, opening doors, and talking amongst themselves. Her two captors pushed her along the hallway to the cargo hold where everything sat pristinely in its place, strapped down as they should be. Nothing was out of place, and nothing seemed wrong with the outer door.

  “Wait! I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”

  Chapter 8

  As Jasie was led away, the man that had questioned her turned back to Ted who looked pale enough in death to be the same color as the white walls around them.

  “Okay, you can move him now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Another suited man said.

  “Do you think she will stand trial?” A third man said.

  “No, we’ll fix the tapes.”

  “It’s a shame, you know.”

  “She was good, it is a shame. But, she knew too much. If word ever got out that we were hauling back an alien species and one escaped, we could get sued.”

  “Worse, they’d take us out of business. At least now we won’t have to go into deep space to harvest what these suckers produce.”

  “Better make sure they stay in their enclosures.”

  The first man laughed and clasped the third man on the back.

  “Lets get out of here, this place gives me the creeps.”

  “Nice job covering up that black stuff.”

  “Thanks, I’ll have nightmares about putting my knife in his neck though.”

  “Where did you find him anyway?”

  “He was in the cargo hold, hiding in a box.”

  “Oh, that’s good, that’s too good.”

  They move into the control room where they take in the lids over the vents.

  “Wow, she was really something, wasn’t she?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Had the presence of mind to shut down the ship, and block all paths to get to her.”

  “It still tried to, I saw on the tapes where it injected her and made her slow the ship down. If Ted hadn’t set off the alarms, she would have turned the ship around and sent them back out into deep space.”

  “It controlled her?”

  “Looked like it on the tapes. We called Ted and told him to do what he could to get her attention.”

  “Huh. Interesting. Well, I’m done here, how about you?”

  “I’m starving, lets get some lunch.”