Transplant
Page 4
Chapter 4
Reality
A series of violent shudders rippled throughout the ship, as if a giant hand had shaken it. This, plus the persistent ‘peep-peep’ of the general alarm ripped Glyn from his sleep as it did the rest of the travellers. It was the one sound he dreaded to hear above all others, as it meant there was big trouble ahead.
He tumbled out of his bunk, yelling to Mia to do likewise and donned his clothes as fast as possible.
Above the noise of the alarm, there sounded a series of sharp crackles followed by instructions for all to assemble in the eating room at once.
‘This is an emergency. This is not a practice drill. This is an emergency.’ was repeated over and over again until Glyn felt like screaming some obscenity at the hidden originator of the tormenting sound.
They both scrambled out of their cabin at full speed, nearly knocking down another frantic pair who were rushing past the doorway at the time.
The foursome soon picked up others as they raced along the corridor, all heading for the eating room and wondering what catastrophe had befallen them now.
As they entered the room Glyn tried to make his way over towards Arki, the lights dimmed, brightened, dimmed again and then went out completely.
A series of screams rent the air, almost drowning out the emergency warning, and Glyn yelled at the top of his voice,
‘QUIET. Quiet everyone. Listen out for further instructions. There’s no point in screaming your heads off.’
Just then the emergency lighting came on, not as bright as the standard lights, but enough to see the terrified huddle of people and general details of the room.
Glyn continued to force his way through the frightened group and finally reached Arki, saying as quietly as possible,
‘I don’t think that was the Captain’s voice, so what’s happened to him?’
‘Maybe his circuits have popped at long last, and this is a backup system. I don’t like the sound of it, something really serious has happened this time and we’ll have to take over, somehow.’ Arki didn’t sound too convinced about the latter.
The general panic gradually subsided now that light had been restored, and the milling crowd collected into little groups, nervously trying to figure out what had happened to the ship.
The alarm suddenly stopped its persistent noise to be followed by a low level series of clicks and whistles, something was trying to get through to them.
‘Please check that every member of the ship’s company is present, there must be no exceptions. I will contact you again in a few moments.’
‘Now that wasn’t the Captain, so why has this other voice taken over?’ asked Arki, not really expecting an answer.
Glyn had already begun counting heads, nine men, nine woman and six children of various ages, all the ship’s members were present in the eating room.
After what seemed like hours rather than minutes to the waiting assembly, the audio system began its chorus of squeaks and whistles again, and then a new voice broke through.
‘Please remain calm, everything is under control. All adults present will be issued with a back pack containing water, food concentrates and a selection of implements which are considered to be useful for your continued survival. Instructions will be found within the packs.’
‘Where’s the Captain?’ shouted Arki in the pause before the next sentence could be uttered from the sound system, but the system either didn’t hear him, or refused to answer.
‘When you receive your packs, put them on your backs and then await further instructions. You have three minutes.’
‘We must have reached our new home.’ someone said, more in hope than anything else.
‘I doubt that.’ Glyn said in an aside to Arki, who nodded in agreement.
A panel slid to one side at the end of the eating room, and a series of backpacks tumbled out onto the floor. Everyone had expected the food hatch to produce the promised packs, and had gathered around it in anticipation.
After much fumbling and helping each other, the packs were in place, and everyone stood around waiting for the promised instructions.
‘A series of blue flashing lights will guide you to the debarking point. Follow all instructions exactly, do not hesitate, they are for your continued survival. Proceed to the debarking point now.’ There was a loud click and the audio system went dead, followed by the eating room door opening of its own accord.
Arki was the first to put his head out into the dingy corridor,
‘It’s a bit dim out there, but the blue lights are flashing away merrily.’ he tried to sound as cheerful as possible, although he didn’t feel it.
A strange sense of calm had come over them all, and they trooped out into the corridor in an orderly manner, much to Glyn’s surprise.
The trail of flashing blue lights led the party to the far end of the ship, as they knew it, and then they were confronted by a blank wall, the last blue light being on the wall itself.
A deep rumbling noise could be heard, and then a section of the wall slid to one side with a grating sound which put everyone’s teeth on edge.
‘Looks like a lift, OK, everyone in,’ Glyn called out, realizing that if one of them took charge it would help to keep the others calm.
‘Enter the lift chamber ahead of you now.’ the mechanical voice intoned, but half of them had already done so.
With their backpacks on it was a tight squeeze to get everyone into the chamber, and Arki had to push the last person in, wriggling himself in as the wall section slowly ground back into place.
The lift began its descent with a shudder, and then stopped with a jerk which would have sent everyone sprawling if they hadn’t been so tightly packed together. The high pitched whine of a pump went up several octaves, and then there was the screech of tortured metal as the lift broke free from the obstruction and continued its journey downwards.
With a dull thump the lift chamber arrived at its destination and the back wall slid noisily to one side revealing a dimly lit passageway.
A gust of cold air rushed in along with a damp and dusty smell, and this brought forth several comments from those who usually reserved their eloquent verbal skills for the chef.
‘Proceed along the passage until you reach the far end. You will then be given new instructions.’ This time the voice echoed around the box-like enclosure of the passage, distorting the words until they were hardly recognizable.
Obediently the little band of humanity stepped out of the lift, and began the long walk into the distance, the dull lights of the passage giving no idea of how far they would have to travel, or where they were going.
Several lights in the roof had failed, and this along with the hollow sound as their feet struck the floor gave the journey a very unreal feeling, especially to Glyn, who for a brief moment wondered if one of his dreaded nightmares had returned.
‘I’m sure the temperature has gone down since we entered this horrid passage,’ someone commentated, ‘I feel positively chilled to the bone.’
There was no answer to the comment as no one could think of anything sufficiently erudite to say.
A little while later, hoping to break the hollow monotonous sound of their echoing footsteps, someone else suggested,
‘I suppose this leads us to a smaller space ship which will take us down to the planet’s surface, the main ship being far too big to land.’
‘I doubt that very much.’ Glyn thought to himself as he trudged along, not really knowing why he thought it.
They came to another blank wall, and the whole party ground to a halt. Before anyone could make any facetious remarks, the mechanical voice boomed down at them from a speaker in the roof above.
‘Please pay extreme attention. Follow these instructions exactly. Do not hesitate. Move together as one unit. Keep together at all times. In a moment a door will open and a long walkway will be seen ahead of you. Go along this until you come to an open vehicle. Board the vehicle, and it will complete the journey f
or you. That is all.’
With that, a motor started up and with a grating sound which set everyone’s teeth on edge again, the end wall slowly drew back. Before them, the narrow walkway with its trellised steel sides disappeared into the blackness beyond with no indication of where it would lead them.
As they quickly walked out onto the beginning of the steel ramp, a united gasp went up at what they saw, followed by ‘Good God, we’re out in space, we’ll all die, we won’t be able to breathe.’ from the quavering voice of Brendon.
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ retorted Glyn, ‘if that were the case we’d all be dead now. I think this is some kind of illusion.’
They were surrounded by the velvet blackness of space with its countless millions of diamond white twinkling stars. Above them glowed a giant nebula, its misty outlines sprinkled with tiny pin pricks of starlight shining through the haze at its edge.
‘Well, if that don’t beat all,’ exclaimed Arki gazing around in stunned wonder, ‘we saw this from the observation room.’
Before anyone else could comment, the stars did a final twinkle and went out, the total blackness of space rushing in to stifle any further words which may have been offered.
Before the wail of terror could really get under way, it was cut short as the cavern’s maintenance lights flickered on.
Glyn looked back to see just what they had come from. Above him towered the massive bulk of what they had all assumed to be their space ship, carrying them to a new life on a distant world.
In reality it consisted of a vast series of boxes, joined nose to tail, the whole ugly conglomeration being supported on massive stilts. Dotted among the stilts at ground level were more giant boxes, housing the hydroponics gardens, air cycling machinery and other devices needed to sustain life in the living quarters above.
The whole massive contraption was in turn dwarfed by the size of the cavern in which it lay. Somewhere in the distance a motor started up, the high pitched whine echoing around the vast cavern like a soul in torment.
As they turned to look in the direction of the sound, there was a blue white flash followed by an explosion, and seconds later a shower of fine metallic particles rained down upon them. Fortunately no one was hurt, only frightened.
‘I think we should hurry along to the vehicle at the end of the walkway, it looks as if the whole place is about to break up.’ said Glyn, already striding out into the darkness. The others didn’t need much persuasion, the rattle of their feet on the steel plates of the walkway told him they were not far behind him, and coming up fast.
In the dim light ahead of him he could just make out the shape of the vehicle they had been told to board. It was a large open truck mounted on rails, which then ran up a tunnel into the inky darkness ahead.
They clambered on board, a little out of breath after the lengthy and speedy crossing of the walkway, the smaller children being passed up to those already in the truck.
‘How do we get this thing started?’ asked Arki, peering around in the dim light for some form of controls.
‘There’s a piece of metal sticking up at the front of the vehicle.’ someone called out.
‘Give it a wiggle,’ Glyn replied, ‘I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm.’
There were a couple of loud clicks, and the truck began to move forward, gathering speed as it entered the tunnel.
‘It’s come off in my hand,’ wailed the man at the front, ‘what shall I do?’
‘Keep if for a souvenir.’ someone called out, and a nervous ripple of laughter ran through the passengers as the truck rattled on into the darkness.
A small lamp suddenly came on at the front of the truck, lighting up the rough hewn rocky walls of the tunnel.
Although the lamp was a comfort in one way, it gave the illusion of travelling much faster than they actually were, and then Brendon began whimpering about feeling sick.
‘Stick your head over the side,’ someone unkindly called out, ‘the next protruding rock will cure it.’ This time there was no laughter as several others were feeling the same way as Brendon, but had the sense to keep quiet about it.
The truck rumbled on, the wheels squealing like a stuck pig as they teetered round bends and occasionally where the track had buckled over the years, they were thrown about, sustaining a few bruises.
The overall noise in the tunnel made conversation difficult, so only the odd shouted remark was heard over the rattle of the truck and the multiple echoes from the walls.
‘I think it’s slowing down.’ Glyn said, realizing that he didn’t have to shout any more to make himself heard.
‘Hope it’s not running out of power and we have to push it the rest of the way.’ Arki rejoined.
The truck finally slowed down to walking pace, and then stopped with a squeal of a breaking mechanism hidden somewhere beneath it. The tunnel had come to an end with a very solid looking steel door barring any further progress.
Arki clambered down over the side of the truck and approached the door carefully, not knowing what to expect.
‘There’s no obvious opening mechanism on this side, so how do we get out?’
Just then a muffled explosion from somewhere up ahead rattled the truck and its occupants, covering them in a fine dust which had collected in the roof structure over the years.
When the coughing and sneezing had stopped, and the complaints dwindled down to a mere few grumbles, the business of getting out of the tunnel had resolved itself.
With the squealing of ancient hinges, the huge door slowly lowered itself to ground level, letting in a blast of hard white light and causing a cry of dismay from the truck’s occupants.
‘Cover your eyes and turn to face the back of the truck. Your eyes will get used to the light after a while. When you feel ready, open your fingers just a little to let the light in, but be careful.’ Arki and Glyn had already done so.
By the time the last few travellers had got used to the new light level, the others had climbed down from the truck and assembled at the tunnel’s entrance.
They could hardly believe what they saw. The tunnel had exited on the side of a mountain, and below them a large lake of green water shimmered in the blazing heat of the naked sun. All around for as far as the eye could see, was a landscape of barren rock, stones and fine gravel. On the horizon, another mountain range shimmered in the heat, its outline seeming to waver about as though it were made from a turgid liquid, and was being disturbed from beneath.
‘We can’t go out there,’ someone commented, ‘we’d fry up in no time at all.’
‘I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,’ said Glyn, ‘it’s the strong light which makes it seem so hot. Anyway, I don’t think we have any option, you might have noticed that the tunnel just behind the truck is now blocked off, so we can’t go back.’ No one had noticed the massive steel shutter which had quietly returned to its vertical position to cut off their retreat back into the mountain.
‘Well, let’s make the best of what we’ve got.’ said Arki, not feeling as confident as he tried to sound. ‘We have food, water and a selection of tools, according to the voice which sent us on this journey, so all we need to find is some shelter while we gather our wits and decide what to do next.’