Through The Wormhole, Literally

by David Winship

  A rooster-like tail of red dust arced up into the air behind her as she sped off in polkingbeal67's graphene cruiser across the featureless plain. As she approached the methane lake, desultory flashes and sparks on the far shore illuminated the force field marking the camp perimeter. A few garfs from the lake, she actuated the brakes. Waiting for the dust plume to pass over the cruiser, she opened the angel wing doors and stepped outside. Behind her, grey clouds edged with gold and purple presided over the aching beauty of the Mortian landscape. The lake itself glittered with violet in the sunlight. A capricious gust of wind blew a lock of hair across her eyes but still her gaze sought the beautiful vista before her. Slowly, imperceptibly, it restored her spirits. The surging waves of panic and homesickness receded, leaving a tidemark of jumbled scraps of memory - the flotsam and jetsam of her past strewn along the shore to whet the appetite of beachcombers and flies and gulls. Yes, by and large, she was happy for a while, sifting through her own detritus, picking through the driftwood and broken green bottles and little porcelain jars, but in her heart of hearts she knew one thing - she was not ready to return to Earth, not just yet anyway. She picked up one of the bottles, which was not easy, given its metaphorical nature, and withdrew the metaphorical message concealed within it. All metaphorical messages in metaphorical bottles say the same thing. It said: 'Help!" Although, as a life coach, she had always taught her clients to avoid looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle, she took this as a sign that she should stay and rescue her new friends. One of the suns broke free, painting moving shadows of the sparsely distributed invercresco trees, before vanishing again. She climbed back into the cruiser and looked around once more. "I love it here," she thought. "I'm going to figure this out. I can make a difference. Literally."

  Not prepared to tolerate any nonsense from the androids patrolling the enclosure, she flounced right past them and smiled on hearing their aggrieved voices wittering away behind her as she strode towards the dwelling pod:

  "Stop! Halt! Who goes there? Identify yourself! Who is she? Where's she going? What do we do? Should we stop her? Do we shoot?"

  "Don't get your circuits all crossed!" she called over her shoulder. "It's me: Melinda. Stand to attention and quick march or left turn or something! I need to speak to the prisoners. Left! Right! Left wheel! Right wheel! As you were!" She left them careening around wildly, colliding with each other while emitting a cacophony of angry hums and high-pitched yelps.

  Joseph West, the self-appointed spokesman and leader of the earthling abductees on Smolin9, wore his sincerest expression as he sat and listened to Melinda. Every time one of the other prisoners laughed or sneered or whispered, he silenced the offender with a sharp, frowning glare. He had mellowed during his time in exile and was astute enough to know when to listen and learn. Having heard her out, he calmly placed his cup on the table in front of him, displayed his crooked, discoloured teeth in a mirthless smile and launched into a long tirade of snarling, spitting invective.

  "No swearing!" Melinda interrupted him. "Literally, no swearing! Look, I know it must seem intolerable to you, but I just thought... you see, I'm here to ask for your help and advice." West opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off. "Look, I know I'm indirectly responsible for you being abducted from Earth and for you being held as prisoners and everything. And I know you can't go back to Earth and I guess I'm partly, okay, indirectly to blame for that too. And, yeah, so I know you've got every reason to hate me and, uh yeah, I accept that hate. I do, really. I accept it. Literally. I just... Isn't it just possible we could have some kind of, I don't know, a kind of meeting of minds or something. I know I'm in a more privileged position than you and you obviously don't exactly owe me any favours, but is there... Is there any chance we could all sit down together and just talk about this stuff? Any chance at all?"

  West sat back and contemplated the pod ceiling for a few seconds. "Okay," he said. "So you're afraid an ant is gonna crawl into your head and learn all your thoughts? Is that it?"

  "No," said Melinda, "I hadn't actually thought of that. Although I suppose..." She dismissed the idea with a slight shiver.

  The tension melted. West offered her a cup of tea and they all sat around and chatted in a relatively relaxed, participatory and congenial atmosphere. "This is nice, y'know?" said Melinda, after a while. "This could be the first chapter in a new history of cooperation between us. It's a chance for us people from Earth to come together and do what we English people do, what we're famous for and..."

  "You mean stay at home, drink beer and watch football?" West interjected.

  "No, I mean, I was thinking of Winston Churchill, fighting them on the beaches and never being defeated and all that."

  "I bet he liked football."

  Melinda suppressed a sigh and let the conversation wash over her for a while. The prisoners, on the other hand, were animated. Interrupting one another and shouting at cross purposes, they were energised by a rare sense of focus and urgency. Ideas and suggestions tumbled out of them like frogs from a child's jar. Most of them hopped into oblivion, but a consensus gradually took hold, evolving into a scheme to turn the camp into a factory for producing and stockpiling militarily significant quantities of insecticide. One of the prisoners, a chemist convicted of drug violations back on Earth, insisted that, as methane was proven to be highly effective in destroying insects, they should find a way to get access to the lake outside the camp, because he was confident he could develop a technique for extracting methane hydrate from the water.

  "What do you think?" West asked Melinda, who appeared to be distracted by something over by the kitchen units. "Hello? Are you listening to this?"

  "Yeah, literally," Melinda mumbled absently, her attention still held by something in the kitchen area. "Can anyone hear a tapping sound?"

  West continued. "So if we could supply you with the poison, you and the Mortians could take out these chillok creatures one colony at a time, right?"

  "Uh, okay," Melinda replied, nodding earnestly. "Wait, is that all right? I mean is that like, y'know, using chemical weapons or something?"

  West rolled his eyes. "What's wrong? Don't tell me," he drawled sardonically. "Churchill wouldn't approve. Is that it?"

  "Oh, he definitely wouldn't have used chemical weapons!"

  "What if his books and paintings and stuff got infested with ants? What if they got at his cigars? He would've used ant powder, wouldn't he?"

  "I don't think you can smoke cigars if you've sprinkled them with ant powder. Anyway, did I tell you? I had a dog just like the one Churchill had. A poodle."

  "A poodle?" repeated West, shaking his head and gesturing incredulously. "I thought it was a bulldog. Anyway, what's that got to do with anything? Did his dog smoke cigars?"

  "No, it's just that you can't use ant powder if you've got pets around the place."

  "Pets!" West sputtered. "We haven't got any pets! This is ridiculous! Listen, these chilloks - they're like ants, right? We're talking about insecticide. Come on, it's not like they're humans."

  "Okay then, makes sense, so... Can anyone hear that? That tapping noise?"

  West shrugged. "Uh, let's cut to the chase. If we do this, what's in it for us?"

  "I thought you'd ask that. It's something I've been thinking about for some time now. Literally. You see, I think we've reached a point where we can all trust each other enough to get along like civilised people. And I'm going to use my influence to get this camp closed down and get you integrated properly with the Mortians."

  West stared at her in appalled disbelief. "What! No way! Leave us alone!"

  "But don't you want to get out of this prison?" Looking around, she saw all the prisoners gawping at her in horror. "Listen, this isn't good. I expect you've become institutionalised and incapable of independent living. What are you worried about out there? Is it all the family breakdown and economic recession?"

  "Don't you see?" West drew a deep breath. "I'll put it as plain as I can. We're
happy here and we don't want to mix with the Mortians!"

  Directly behind West in the kitchen area was an open cabinet containing various tins, jars and bottles abducted from Earth. There was flour, crackers, cereals, cake mixes, pasta, seasonings, syrups and other foods with a long shelf life. While she spoke, Melinda became conscious of a particular bottle of syrup that appeared to be moving. "That's a bit erratic," she said, mesmerised by this bottle that teetered and rocked back and forth. "Uh, yeah, I'm going to get you all released," she promised West. "I don't think the Mortians have any right to imprison you and I..." Suddenly, the bottle fell on its side, revealing a small hole in the wall behind it. "Did you see that?" she asked West without taking her eyes off the bottle.

  As West turned around to follow Melinda's gaze, a section of the wall about the size of a large trash can lid toppled into the room sending shelves and their contents flying across the floor. In amongst the splattered mess were several hundred chilloks looking disoriented, waving their antennae and assuming defensive postures. But what really caught the eye was a dazed-looking king penguin, half-hidden under a yellow sou’wester.

  Melinda's eyes bulged and her jaw dropped in a mixture of disbelief and joy. She was the first to break the stunned silence. "Mister West, I thought you said you didn't have any pets!"

  . . .

  Melinda dropped to her knees, removed yukawa3's hat and pulled him into a slippery hug, only releasing him when she could no longer tolerate the rancid odour of dead fish. If West was stunned by these dramatic events, his face did not show it. Sitting with his arms crossed, staring implacably at yukawa3, he mumbled something indecipherable under his breath and then turned to Melinda. "A penguin," he said, nodding sagely and composing his face into an expression that misleadingly suggested some innate understanding of events. "So did you know about this?" he continued. "This penguin hiding behind the wall with these chillok ant creatures? Has it been fraternising with the enemy or something?"

  "No, I didn't know about it. Literally," she explained, shaking her head. "And he wasn't fraternising with the enemy. Actually, he was their prisoner and he's escaped."

  West raised a sceptical eyebrow. "He's not going to be happy then."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he's escaped from a prison into a prison. Anyway, does a penguin even know what a prison is?"

  "Yeah, uh, he's not really a penguin."

  "Really? Look at him! He's got a black back and a white belly, a beak and two flippers. He's waddling about on webbed feet. That, for my money, is about as close to being a penguin as you can get."

  "Yeah, well, I know he looks like a penguin. Except for the hat, obviously. But, y'know, appearances can literally be deceptive. Think camouflage."

  West grunted in amazement. "Camouflage! Are you telling me he, er, this - whatever it is - is trying not to be noticed? And he thinks the best way to do that is to jump out of walls disguised as a penguin?"

  Realising how absurd this situation must appear to the prisoners and realising there was no rational way of explaining it, Melinda abandoned the attempt. "Sorry, you're confused, aren't you?"

  "Thank God," West muttered. "I wasn't sure it was coming across."

  "You see," said Melinda, deciding foolishly that she should attempt to explain it after all. "He's actually a person. One of my best friends, in fact."

  West pursed his lips. "A person," he echoed.

  Yukawa3 chose this moment to relieve himself on the kitchen floor. "Nice company you keep," West observed.

  "Yeah, it's probably all the excitement. Listen, I can't explain right now. I've got to arrange some stuff, like urgently."

  "Wait!" said West, taking her arm. "What about these chillok ant things? There are hundreds of them! What shall we do about them?"

  Her thoughts temporarily wandering elsewhere, Melinda answered vaguely, "Oh, I don't know. Uh, tread on them!" With that, she scooped up yukawa3, who squawked in appreciation, and hurried outside.

  Having composed themselves after their earlier ordeal, the androids had resumed their patrolling duties outside the pod. When they saw Melinda crossing the yard towards the gate, they clustered together in a defensive formation and adopted a bogus air of disinterest.

  One of them caught sight of yukawa3. "What's that?" it asked. "There's no data for it in the field guide catalogue of organisms. Stop them! She could be smuggling out one of the prisoners."

  Another android was unconvinced. "I don't think it's an earthling humanoid, unless it's a very small, formally dressed one."

  As Melinda arrived at the gate and opened it with a swish of her universal clavis, the androids continued their agitated debate.

  "It could be a mutation," said one.

  "Earthlings can't mutate," said another.

  "It could be a weapon."

  "It's got wings. It's a UFO! Should we shoot it?"

  As she climbed into the cruiser, Melinda coughed and announced breezily, "Excuse me. He's a penguin,"

  "Look up 'penguin'!" urged one of the androids.

  Another responded a short while later after accessing its internal databanks: "Aquatic, flightless bird from the southern hemisphere of the Pale Blue Dot." Melinda's cruiser was well out of sight by now, racing towards the horizon.

  "Flightless?"

  "Yes."

  "So, not a UFO then?"

  "No."

  "That's okay then. They may pass." Satisfied that all formalities had been complied with, they proceeded to take up their usual positions along the edges of the enclosure.

  As far as Melinda was concerned, her immediate priority was to obtain yukawa3's mutator, last seen on a godforsaken beach on South Georgia Island. Although other Mortians could communicate with him using their telepathic powers, Melinda really wanted a normal, direct conversation with him. Having arrived at the leader's palace, she instructed nipkow4 to take whatever steps were necessary to retrieve the device so that yukawa3 could assume his natural Mortian identity, but she met resistance not just from the Mortian administrator but also from yukawa3 himself. The wildly misguided cadet was adamant that being a penguin represented his true calling in life.

  Melinda became more and more exasperated as the discussion went on. "So," she said. "You're a member of an advanced civilisation that can zip around the galaxies using wormholes, but you'd rather be a bag of oily feathers that slides about on its belly and huddles with its mates in the freezing cold? I don't get it, literally."

  "He loves the ocean lifestyle," nipkow4 explained. "All the diving, swimming and fishing and so on."

  "Yeah, yeah," said Melinda wearily, "I know. The ocean lifestyle, whatever. It's Zen-like and idyllic, bla, bla, bla. About as idyllic as a picnic with a T-Rex, if you ask me! Listen, do me a favour and just get the damn mutator back again! I can't argue about this any more right now!"

  When nipkow4 left the palace antechamber to supervise the wormhole retrieval of the mutator, Melinda and yukawa3 stood eyeing each other in perplexed silence. A full Earth minute must have passed before yukawa3 saw fit to celebrate his penguiness by launching into an impassioned performance of the 'yukawa3 tripod dance', complete with twirling pirouettes, half-twists, side dives and breathtaking back dives, culminating in an elegant belly-slide across the polished magma floor. As he tottered somewhat gracelessly to his feet, Melinda reached down, fixed him with the darkest of looks and slapped him on the head.

  Later that day, not only had the mutator been retrieved from South Georgia Island, but yukawa3 had succumbed to Melinda's persuasive charms and appeared before her in his native Mortian form. During what can only be described as the briefest debriefing ever, yukawa3 divulged everything he had learned from his time with the chilloks: "I thought they were penguins."

  Melinda, one of the least violent people known to Earthling anthropology, felt desperately inclined to smack him for the second time in one day. "Is that it?" she asked at last. "You thought they were penguins. And you've got nothing else?"

&
nbsp; "I think you'll find that's very relevant," yukawa3 insisted.

  "Go on," prompted Melinda.

  "Go on what?"

  "Tell me how that's relevant."

  "It's obvious if you think about it," said yukawa3, trying (and failing) to narrow his eyes perceptively. "You have to get into the mindset of a chillok. They're very cunning, you see. And their plan is to freeze the planet until they kill us all off. They'll use no weapons and no one will suspect a thing. They'll survive, of course, because, at a given signal, they'll mutate into penguins and huddle together in solidarity until the warmer weather arrives in the spring and the blossom appears once more on the invercresco trees and the birds sing their songs for all to hear..."

  "Seriously?" Melinda interrupted. "You want to carry on with that?"

  "I hope that answers your question. It is spoken," proclaimed yukawa3.

  Unable to contain herself any longer, Melinda notched up her second smack of the day, dislodging yukawa3's sou’wester and eliciting a howl of anguish.

  "That's no way to treat someone who was thought to be dead," yukawa3 protested sulkily. "Everybody thought I was dead. You thought I was dead, didn't you?"

  "Tell me, how did you figure out you weren't?" Melinda retorted scathingly.

  Yukawa3's thoughts ran aground on a disturbing half-memory of attending his own funeral and he half-described it to Melinda, who was astonished to find his half-recollected observations chimed perfectly with the full reality of the memorial service that had actually taken place. "I suppose it was a dream," he said.

  "A dream?" Melinda mumbled to herself, "That's really bizarre." Unwisely, she revealed that what he had described had really happened.

  "Really? You see, I dreamed I was awake. And I was supposed to be dead but I was alive. Then I woke up and found myself asleep. I've spent so much time recently just wrestling with reality."