Jumpship Hope

by Adria Laycraft

  “Who are you? Why were you being shot at? What’s going on?”

  “You hep Gitane, Gitane hep human.” Every time the alien said Gitane it came with a tap on the chest. Janlin sucked on her bottom lip.

  “How am I supposed to help you? And what about all those humans still back there?”

  “You . . . one. We come take one. If save many human, start war. Gitane no want war with Imag.”

  Imag. Gitane. War. What was that saying? Enemy of my enemy is my friend? Would it prove true in this case? Maybe, for all the similarities to Imag, this Gitane character was different. This ship was to the other as night was to day. Their boots still echoed off a steel floor, but a tough carpet of some unknown textile muted the sounds. The walls here carried paint in some areas, and in others the same material as the flooring, artfully mixed together to create a form pleasing to the eye. These aliens wore crisp uniforms, and did not smell like rancid socks. In fact, the whole place had a pleasant musk of cleanliness.

  At that moment the floor rocked, and the aliens scrambled for their stations.

  “What the hell—”

  They all ignored her, understandably. She watched, fascinated, as they gurgled and chuffed terse phrases back and forth. The ship rocked repeatedly, and one of the aliens struggled with his controls.

  Then, they all reclined their seats, which enclosed them much the same way hers did, and closed their eyes.

  “Hey, this is no time to sleep,” Janlin said, unable to keep her mouth shut with her panic. Strange holographic displays appeared over their eyes, like some sort of virtual reality headpiece. Janlin figured that they would open their eyes once covered and run the ship from within that interface, but she could see no movement, and nothing behind those shimmering screens.

  Janlin sat helpless as the ship continued to shudder and rock under her. They must be under attack, but the not knowing for sure was the worst part. Then, a few abandoned objects lifted from their places and floated.

  “Uh, guys? Gravity’s off,” she said in a bare whisper. Not one of them even flickered an eyelid.

  Another, stronger, shudder rippled through the hull. Maybe this was it. Maybe she would die here, and it would all be done and over—no more grief, no more guilt, no more pain, no more regret—

  Pressure crushed her into the seat, then tried to pull her out of it. Now grateful for her restraints, she wondered if these aliens knew how little g-force a human body could take.

  She had entirely too much time to think, sitting there pinned in her chair. Questions poured through her mind, with no one to ask. Fear plagued her, and bitterness, and grief. Stepper was dead. Her father was likely dead too. Gordon still endured the Imag slavers, forced to help them build the biggest Jumpship ever out of the scrap parts of their own ships. To get home again, they would either have to rebuild, or use the Imag ship . . . if the brutes got it to work. That left little chance of ever seeing Earth again.

  Whatever the case, Janlin had to look at this as a new opportunity, even if it became only a new opportunity to seek death. Janlin struggled to breathe as the grief hit her again. It really didn’t matter where they took her. They still had power over her, and even if she could get free, how would she help the rest? She understood the woman’s desperation now. What was her name? Didn’t matter.

  Somewhere in these thoughts the pressure grew. She couldn’t catch her breath, and everything narrowed to the need for air and the inability to inhale. Janlin struggled against her restraints uselessly, her mouth gaping, her chest crushed as if a loaded cargo crate sat on it. Blackness began in the edge of her vision and spread, like something evil, and Janlin’s last thought was that she still didn’t want to die.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SHE CAME AWAKE flailing and gasping. Arms held her, hands pushed her hair from her forehead. “Stepper?”

  “Okay, okay.” The hands were strong, leathery, yet kind. “Good, good, you be okay.”

  Janlin focused on the leader’s face hovering over hers and realized with a start that the alien captain bore reddish glands below her ears, indicating that she was female. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. “You can really speak English?”

  “Yes,” she said, and somehow, without the usual clues of a puffed-out chest or straightening of the shoulders, Janlin got the impression the alien was proud of herself. Maybe it was the lift of the chin.

  “Be okay?”

  This time it was a question, and Janlin nodded. “Yes,” she added, realizing she’d never seen one of these creatures nod. Language was not simply words, a subject that was one of Fran’s favourite lectures. “Communication is the inflection, the posture, the facial expression, and words, all together. If you are using only one, there is significant room for misunderstanding,” Fran would say.

  Janlin hoped she could keep the misunderstanding to a minimum.

  The alien left then, pulling herself along in free-fall, although Janlin noted the door shield stayed open. Somehow, she was comforted by the small sounds that came through, and the knowledge that this crew seemed to care for her wellbeing. That, and they didn’t carry nerve whips. She shuddered with the memories, content to lie there strapped to the bed and just let things play out for now.

  The pressure of gravity appeared, and the alien returned, striding into the room with confidence. She undid the straps and stepped back, allowing Janlin the dignity of getting up on her own time. She got her hands under her, only to see the blood stains, now dry and crusty.

  “Sorry, I’m a mess,” Janlin said, fighting tears.

  “Be okay. Come. Show.”

  “Wait.” Janlin tapped a finger on her chest. “Janlin,” she said.

  “Jaan-in.”

  “Right. And you are?” Janlin pointed.

  “Anaya.” Thick digits tapped barrel chest.

  Ah, so Gitane wasn’t her name. Janlin wondered what it did mean, then. “Aa-nay-ya.”

  The alien chuffed. “Good. Come. Fix,” she said, indicating Janlin’s state of disarray.

  Janlin let herself be led through the control room and into a tiny steel chamber. Anaya waved her arms and pointed at things while mixing her languages. Just behind her left shoulder stood another alien, one of Anaya’s crew that had gone with her into the factory ship, and the biggest Imag she’d seen yet. Janlin stared at the hulking brute crowding the tiny room, unable to get past what others like him had done to her.

  Anaya pantomimed pulling at clothes as if to take them off, then pointed at a stainless-steel cubicle. Janlin studied the cubicle and decided it must be a shower stall of sorts. When she turned back, the big male was gone.

  Anaya continued with her explanations. “Wash,” came up again and again, and “keen” with “hot wet” as she showed how to engage the controls, adjust them, and get clean. The instructions were directed at Janlin, and were not punctuated by the hum of a whip, so Janlin engaged her numb fingers and groped for her zipper.

  Anaya, satisfied with this, backed out of the room and powered the shield door closed.

  Janlin stared at the door. Did they really just leave her alone? She couldn’t remember the last time she was alone, and while she longed to get answers to her questions, chances were she smelt pretty bad. Who could say no to a shower?

  She scanned the room, running her fingers along every panel and depression. She wasn’t sure if there was soap, or shampoo, or even a towel.

  Turning away, Janlin saw that the cubicle had a water seal, like their group shower room on the factory ship. Janlin sighed in defeat, stripped off her filthy clothes, and scrutinized the controls, finding nothing she recognized. Clearly, she wasn’t paying full attention during her lesson.

  Janlin stepped in, pressed some buttons, pulled a lever, and, miraculously, the water came on. It had an astringent smell, and she hoped that meant she would not be just wet, but clean, too.

  “Ouch, ouch, for crying out loud, ouch!” Apparently scalding was the temperature of choice for these beings. Jan
lin dodged the jets of water, struggling between the desire to be clean and the pain, and grateful for the distraction of avoiding being burnt while the water ran red.

  After a cooler rinse cycle, a rush of hot, dry air removed nearly every bit of moisture from her body, eliminating the need for a towel. Janlin whistled in appreciation.

  When she emerged from the stall her clothes were gone, replaced by a brick red jumpsuit. It held more room than she needed, but it smelt fresh. Janlin shook her head at the thought of what she must look like, but the sensation of being clean, and of wearing clean clothes, overcame any concern she had for fashion. The only thing she kept from her old uniform was her boots.

  “No socks, no underpants, no bra . . . geez,” Janlin muttered, although she felt more like cheering than complaining. She inspected the secret pocket in the tongue of one boot and sighed at the sight of her nano-recorder still nestled there.

  She tried to activate the door, to no avail. So, she was still a prisoner. Figured.

  A few seconds later the shield disappeared, and Anaya waved her arms. “Sorry,” she said. “Must teach.” She pointed at the control panel to the side of the doorway.

  Janlin floundered, all her preconceptions blown away. She fell back on attitude.

  “Why are you kissing up to me?” she demanded. “Nice shower, new clothes . . . what’s the deal?”

  Anaya stared. “No understand,” she said with a shrug.

  “You are being too nice,” Janlin said slowly, speaking each word clearly. “Why?”

  “Hep Anaya, Anaya hep human.”

  Janlin remembered this from before. With dawning perception, she realized “l” seemed to be non-existent in their language. “I’ll bet you understand more of what I say than you can speak.”

  “Yes.” Again that pride, that self-assurance. Janlin reminded herself to be extra careful with this character. Still, she might be a little over confident, and that could play right into Janlin’s hands.

  “Well, I know what you can do for me . . . how can I help you?”

  “Find new home.” She replied so promptly Janlin couldn’t help but give her that famous raised-eyebrow look. Anaya simply stared, and Janlin realized the alien couldn’t read scepticism or questioning in a human’s features. Made her wonder what she was missing in the alien’s body language.

  “How did you learn our language?”

  “Human friend teach.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” She gave a toothy grin that was more like a feral grimace in Janlin’s eyes.

  “Where is this human friend now?” Janlin asked.

  Anaya’s smile faltered. “Dead.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE FEAR THAT had begun to ebb away returned in a rush.

  “How?” Janlin demanded.

  Anaya’s fingers fluttered and her gaze travelled around the room. Janlin watched in terrified fascination.

  “He . . . hot,” she said, touching her own forehead.

  “Sick?” Janlin asked.

  “Yes!”

  Janlin jumped a little at the exclamation. She wavered a little, suddenly aware of how exhausted she felt. What had happened to the rest of the humans on the other ship? Did they “steal” any others? “Who . . . was his name Rudigar?” she asked.

  Anaya tipped her head. “No.” She pointed at one of the chairs. “Sit pease.”

  She had a million more questions, but Janlin nodded and sat, strangely unable to be stubborn for the moment. Anaya went to a tiny alcove in the wall, and returned with a steaming container, which she handed to Janlin. Janlin took a sniff, then a much longer, indulgent inhalation. Now this smelled better than anything put before her in a long time, here or back home. The thought of home, and of the others still on the slaver ship, made her heart lurch, but she had to accept it was out of her hands, at least for now. She peered into the narrow bowl, shaped more like a very tall mug, trying to make out what floated in the brown liquid.

  “Good. Eat.”

  What did she have to lose? Besides, it gave her an excuse to stay quiet. She decided to let this alien talk first. Sometimes the best way to learn the truth was to just shut up and see what the other person had to say.

  Janlin took a sip, then gulped down the bowl in one go. It tasted salty, and slightly metallic, but again there was no room for complaints in this situation.

  Anaya chuffed. “Good. Come. Show.”

  Janlin rose on somewhat shaky legs and joined the leader over at a small workstation. She watched in fascination as the alien used incomprehensible controls to bring up holo documents that hung in the air.

  “Very nice,” Janlin murmured.

  Anaya put a hand on her arm. Janlin flinched, and Anaya pulled away. Was that sadness on her face, Janlin wondered? Regret?

  “Dis no nice,” Anaya said. It was clearly a warning, and Janlin wondered if she meant the way she’d flinched from touch or what she was about to show her. It didn’t take long to figure it out.

  Another holo image opened, flickered, and became a man laid out on a slab of steel.

  The relief she felt that it wasn’t her father now became shock as she studied the man. She thought he might be one of the many mechanics she’d worked with over the years as a pilot, but he was so emaciated she couldn’t be sure. Victor? Vernon? She shook her head, sad that she couldn’t remember.

  His hair was matted to his head, his eyes sunken and marked with dark circles like some awful raccoon. A thin arm appeared, the hand shaking dreadfully, as he closed his eyes and wiped at his head. The movement was feeble. Janlin made a little sound of dismay, and her hands came up to cover her mouth.

  Anaya put a hand on her shoulder, and Janlin looked up to see the skin on Anaya’s forehead crinkled in what Janlin read as concern.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered, but it was the grandest lie of her life. Her dad was still missing, Stepper was dead by her own hand, now this forgotten man was taken by some alien fever, to say nothing of the rest of them trapped on that slave ship and all the others in places unknown. It was more than she could take.

  Anaya chuffed at her, and their gazes met. Janlin realized they were a pale blue that bordered on steel grey. The alien reached out and touched Janlin on the cheek, and when her finger came away it held a drop of moisture balanced on its tip. She touched it to her tongue, and Janlin bit her lip at the sight of the blueish-purple colour of it. Still, she was touched by Anaya’s kindness, by her hospitality and willingness to learn her language, even her curiosity.

  “Tears,” Janlin said.

  “Ters,” came the reply. Anaya rocked back on her heels and straightened up, looking down at Janlin with all the seriousness in the universe. “Vic,” she said. “Good human, good friend.”

  Victor. Janlin did have the right name, but that did nothing to cheer her. Anaya chuffed something and tapped her ear, then pointed up. Victor’s hologram began to speak, his eyes fever-bright and staring straight at whatever recording device had created this.

  “I know Anaya will try again. Whoever might come after me, this could help.” Janlin’s throat closed, and the image blurred. She swiped at her eyes. She needed to see his expression to make sure he was sincere, and not put up to this.

  “Trust Anaya,” he said. His voice rasped, and he turned his head to cough. The whole image jumped around as he did, and Janlin realized he was holding the unit to record himself. Was he alone when he did it?

  The coughing racked his whole body, and Janlin bit her lip as blood-flecked spittle covered the sheet under his chin. When he looked back, seemingly right into her eyes, his face was grey, his eyes sunken into his head.

  “I won’t beat this. The Imag had me in a different section of the ship, and they did tests on me . . . like allergy tests, only I think it was for this illness. Of course, that’s what gave Anaya a chance to steal me away.” More coughing. “She’ll need to find new help. I’ve been with her for weeks now, and I know her motives are good ones. Help her
family get free of this system so they can start again. Show her—”

  Another coughing fit took him, and the image folded into itself and was sucked into the machine.

  When she looked at Anaya, she was startled to see tears leaking down the leathery cheeks. They looked pinkish. Janlin reached out, careful to make sure Anaya saw it coming, and took up the tear with her finger the same way Anaya had. Then she touched it to her lips.

  Salt and water. Astounding how they were, by far, more similar than different.

  “Good human,” Anaya said, looking down at the device.

  Janlin nodded, despite not knowing Victor well, but the pain of losing Stepper weighed on her like the awful g-forces of earlier.

  At that moment a beep sounded, followed by guttural alien words.

  “Wait,” Anaya said, holding up her hand palm out. “Anaya go now. Be back.”

  Janlin sat stunned. Once again, she was alone.

  The day’s events came crashing down on her. The image of Victor became overlaid with Stepper lying in his own blood, pale and lifeless, and it refused to leave her mind. Despair sat deep in her chest. Here she had an opportunity, the first sign of any kind that there might just be a way out of here, and she’d let him go. If she’d had faith, held on just a few more seconds . . .

  When Anaya returned, Janlin lashed out.

  “If you want my help, we have to go back and get the others.”

  Anaya’s face crinkled. “You one. We ’ook for one. You come to ship, no Imag. We go, no start war.”

  She must have learned the word “Imag” from Victor. As much as it lent Janlin some comfort to know that Anaya didn’t want to incite war against anyone, she didn’t understand the use of the title.

  “Imag?” Janlin said, pointing at Anaya.

  Anaya pulled back, a deep growl coming up from the centre of her chest. One of the crew, the big guy, appeared in the doorway, ready to defend his captain.

  Clearly, she’d offended.

  “Sorry,” Janlin said, waving her hands. “Not Imag.”