Space Team: Song of the Space Siren

by Barry J. Hutchison

  The inside of the ship was far less chaotic than any of them had been expecting. The Dorids were methodically tidy, carefully removing each damaged component, then ferrying it away just as the replacement part was brought in.

  “Well, this is all looking ship-shape,” said Cal. He grinned. “See what I did there? Because we’re on a—”

  “Yes,” sighed Loren. “We get it. Well done.”

  Dorid led them through several rooms, pointed to insanely complicated-looking bits of machinery, then explained their purpose in great detail. Cal nodded throughout, occasionally adding a, “yep,” or a, “makes sense,” to suggest he was A) listening and B) had the faintest idea what the guy was talking about.

  In the fifth or sixth room – a long, narrow one that Cal had never even seen before, with an entire wall covered by thousands of colorful cables all snaking through one another – they found Mech deep in conversation with another Dorid.

  “Hey!” said Cal. “How’s the arm?”

  “It was my leg,” Mech grunted. “And it’s fine.”

  “Was it? You sure?”

  “Of course I’m fonking sure.”

  Cal held up his hands in surrender. “OK, OK, easy big guy. It’s your arm, not mine.”

  “Leg.”

  “Right. Right,” said Cal, very much enjoying the look on Mech’s face. “Leg. Gotcha.”

  He turned to the Dorid. “Any chance you guys could have a look at the weapons?”

  Mech’s feet whirred as he shifted on the spot. “Already spoke to them about it,” he said.

  “It’s just, well, Mech tried to fix them, but… you couldn’t, could you? You couldn’t figure it out.”

  The other Dorid opened his mouth, but Mech quickly jumped in. “Like I say, already in hand. They’re going to fix it.”

  “Great!” said Cal. “So, what was the problem, exactly?”

  Mech sighed. The other Dorid watched him for a moment, unsure whether to speak. When it became clear Mech wasn’t going to talk over him, he explained.

  “The safety catch was on.”

  Cal struggled to keep his face straight. It wasn’t easy. “Sorry? Say that again. Loren, can you write this down, in case the problem ever comes up again?” He put a finger behind his ear and pushed it forwards a little towards the Dorid. “So, you were saying? The…”

  “Safety catch,” Mech growled. “The weapon system has a safety protocol.”

  “Well,” breathed Cal, tucking his thumbs into Splurt’s straps and rocking back on his heels. “Well, well, well. That is good to know, isn’t it, Mech? Remind me, how long did you spend trying to get the weapons working?”

  “In his defense,” said the Dorid. “It’s not immediately obvious. The button can be quite hard to find.”

  “The button?” yelped Cal, loving every minute of this. “There’s a button? Let me guess, does it say ‘safety catch’ on it somewhere?”

  The Dorid glanced sideways at the visibly fuming Mech. “Uh, not exactly, but something along those…” He cleared his throat and shot the first Dorid an imploring look.

  “Thank you, Dorid, that will be all,” said Dorid. The other Dorid seemed to inflate with sheer relief, then he nodded at Mech and Cal, smiled briefly at Loren, Miz and Soonsho, then darted out into the corridor.

  The original Dorid craned his neck back and looked up at the ceiling. “How about K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta?” he said. “How deep does the damage run, I wonder?”

  “To be honest, he was pretty damaged already,” Cal said. “Between you and me, he was a little… eccentric.”

  “I see,” said Dorid.

  “By which I mean he was fonking insane.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m sure we can fix that and put him back to his original configuration.”

  Cal nodded, but then stopped. “You know what? Just fix him back to how he was before the damage. Can you do that?”

  “I mean, I’m sure we could, but if he was behaving problematically…”

  “It’s fine. It was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  Dorid nodded. “Very well. I’ll go get someone on it, right away.”

  He headed for the door. Cal moved to follow, but Mech caught his arm and held him back until the others had filed out.

  “Hey, man. I need to talk to you,” Mech whispered.

  Cal’s eyes looked the cyborg up and down. “Are you coming on to me right now?” he whispered back.

  Mech’s metal jaw tensed. “Shut the fonk up,” he said. He leaned out into the corridor, making sure no-one was within earshot, then turned back to Cal. “There’s something I think you should see.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After walking confidently off the ship and striding across the underground hangar like he owned the fonking place – a technique he had used time and time again back on Earth to gain entry into any number of off-limits locations – Cal had followed Mech into a far more robust-looking elevator than the one leading down from the walkway.

  “Please state destination,” the elevator chimed.

  Mech cleared his throat then, in a note-perfect imitation of Dorid’s voice, said: “Lab level four.”

  The elevator hummed pleasantly as it glided upwards. “I didn’t know you could do that,” said Cal. “The voice thing.”

  Mech shrugged. “Yeah. It’s no big deal.”

  “Can you do anyone else?” Cal asked.

  “Of course I can,” Mech said. “Why the fonk would I be able to only impersonate some random scientist dude living in the ams-end of nowhere?”

  “Do me! Do me!” said Cal, but before Mech could answer, the door slid open, revealing a long, starkly-lit corridor lined with dozens of reinforced doors. Unlike downstairs, which had been positively brimming with them, this corridor was utterly devoid of Dorids.

  Mech put a finger to his lips and motioned for Cal to follow.

  “What is it? What are you going to show me?” Cal whispered, hurrying to keep up.

  “Just wait and see,” said Mech. “One of the clones fixed my leg in a room along here,” he said. “Made a pretty good job of it, too. Told me to go for a walk to try it out, and, well, I poked around.”

  He stopped outside one of the doors and glanced both ways along the corridor. “And I found this place.”

  Cal studied the door. It looked like all the other doors they’d already passed, and identical to the scores of others lining the walls of the corridor ahead. Despite the door being reinforced, it opened with a single press of a button on the wall beside it.

  Darkness filled the room beyond. Cal leaned forwards a little and peered into the gloom. “What is it? What’s in there?” he whispered, then Splurt suddenly tightened his grip around Cal, almost making him jump out of his skin in fright.

  “Jesus Christ!” Cal hissed. Splurt rippled happily on his back. “Yeah, yeah, very funny,” Cal said. “But next time you’re captured and brainwashed by an elderly assassin, you’re fonking staying that way.”

  He stepped cautiously into the room. A series of lights hummed into life above him, illuminating twenty or more tables lined up along the walls. Objects of various shapes and sizes sat on the tabletops, each of them hidden beneath white sheets.

  “Take a look,” said Mech, gesturing to the closest table.

  Cal approached it slowly, ducking and tilting his head to try to get a look under the cloth. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just look, man!”

  “Mech, I swear, if this is, like, a head on a stick, or a load of babies’ eyes or some shizz…”

  “Babies’ eyes? Why the fonk would it be babies’ eyes?”

  “I don’t know! I’m just saying, it’d better not be.” He took hold of the sheet, started to pull it off, then stopped. “It isn’t, is it? It isn’t babies’ eyes?”

  “Just lift the fonking sheet before someone comes looking for us.”

  Cal steadied himself, took a deep breath, then pulled off the sheet. “Oh my
God,” he whispered, gazing down at the object on the table. “It’s… It’s…” He puffed out his cheeks. “Nope. Not a clue. What is that?”

  It looked like several different household appliances had been broken into their component parts, randomly mixed up, then rebuilt by someone wearing a blindfold. There were shiny chrome parts, white plastic parts, loose wires, several buttons, a couple of short, stubby hoses and a pair of joysticks mounted on spindly metal arms that looked like they might fall off at any second.

  “I got no idea,” Mech admitted.

  Cal nodded slowly. “Then why did you show me?”

  “Because this place is full of this stuff,” Mech said, his metal jaw curving into a grin. He began pointing at sheets. “Some kinda shield focuser. A propulsion system. For underwater, I think. A warp disk generator. It makes fonking warp disks!”

  “Great,” said Cal. “But why are you showing me? This is more Loren’s thing. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s the kind of thing she’d like.” He stared into space for a moment. “Is it? I really need to get to know her better.”

  “Focus, man,” Mech told him. “The reason I told you is because… how much do you think all this is worth?”

  Cal looked across the tables and shrugged. “A lot?”

  “A lot,” Mech confirmed. “And it’s just sitting here. Just lying around, gathering dust. He ain’t going to miss it.”

  Cal opened his mouth in an expression of very deliberate shock and outrage. “Mech, you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

  “I ain’t saying we should take all of it,” Mech said. “But, well, if we want to avoid this war that’s coming – really avoid it – we’re going to need to get all the way to the other end of Nebula 99.”

  “What’s Nebula 99? It sounds like a nightclub.”

  “What? No. This is. We’re in it. Our galaxy, that’s part of the 99th Nebula,” Mech explained. “There are hundreds of others – well, I mean, there’s an infinite number of others, but there are hundreds of them catalogued. This one’s the 99th.”

  Cal blinked. “But, I mean… who catalogued it?”

  “Say what?”

  “The nebula. It’s the 99th one. Who discovered 98 others before this one?”

  Mech opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Well, I mean… it’s just Nebula 99, OK? Everyone knows that. My point is, if we want to avoid this war, we’ll have to get all the way across it, and that is going to cost.”

  “We’re taking Soonsho home,” Cal reminded him. “We’re getting a million credits.”

  “Yeah, between four of us.”

  Splurt raised his eyes above Cal’s shoulder and shot Mech a withering look.

  “Fine. Between five of us,” Mech snapped. “That ain’t going to get us far.”

  Cal looked down at the machine on the table for a few seconds, then pulled the sheet down over it. “Dorid’s helping us. He’s fixing the ship. He gave us soup. I mean, a spoon wouldn’t have killed him, but… We can’t just steal from him.”

  “Uh, yes. We can,” said Mech. “Two or three of these things could set us up for a long time. We can go anywhere we want. Get out of here before all the shooting starts.”

  The small area of his face that was still organic took on a faraway look. “I’ve seen what it’s like, man. I’ve seen what happens.”

  “We’re not thieves,” said Cal. “I mean, technically you and I are. And Splurt, Miz and Loren, too, to a slightly lesser extent, but… Dorid saved us. Is it weird that he shares a creepy castle with his identical clones? Yes. Yes, it is. But we can’t just take his stuff. It’s not right.”

  Mech shook his head, then let out a long, weary sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

  He took a final look around the room as Cal headed for the door, then followed behind.

  Once back in the corridor, Cal headed back towards the elevator. “So, the way I see it, our plan is we get the ship fixed, get out of here, then just foot down and full speed ahead to Calamari Prime.”

  “Cantato Minor,” Mech corrected.

  “That’s the one. We drop off Soonsho, collect our loot, then decide our next move from there.”

  He stopped outside another door. This one was set further back in an alcove. He hadn’t noticed it on the way in due to the angle of the wall, but now it had caught his eye, and something about it made him take a step closer.

  “What’s in there?”

  “How should I know?” Mech grunted. “I didn’t look in that one.”

  “Come on, are you still grouchy that I wouldn’t let you steal Dorid’s stuff?” said Cal, reproachfully. “I told you, Dorid’s a nice guy. Also, stealing is wrong. Unless it’s from Zertex, then it’s to be encouraged.”

  He tapped the button next to the door. It slid upwards, revealing another darkened room. This time, when Cal stepped inside, only one light came on. It flickered and buzzed on the high ceiling, illuminating hundreds of thick glass tubes that stuck up from the floor like stalagmites. Or possibly the other one, Cal could never remember which was which.

  Each tube was ten to twelve feet high, and perhaps just a little less around the circumference. Layers of dust and grime covered the glass, but when the light flickered just right, Cal thought he saw unmoving shapes lurking within.

  Splurt tensed, almost making Cal scream again. “Stop fonking doing that,” he hissed, shuffling closer to one of the tubes.

  Cupping his hands around his eyes, Cal peered into the tube, but the dust was too thick to see through. Using his sleeve, he wiped a patch clean – or cleaner at least – and tried again.

  “Oh,” he said. “Ooh boy.”

  “What is it?” asked Mech.

  Cal turned, opened his mouth to reply, then had to look through the glass again to make sure he hadn’t been seeing things.

  “It’s Dorid,” said Cal. “Only he’s… well, he’s not as pretty as the one we’ve come to know and love, let’s put it that way.”

  He wiped a larger area of the dust away and stepped aside. The light flickered, briefly picking out the details on the shape in the tank. It was suspended in a clear gel, with hooks cupping it under each arm to stop it flopping to the floor of the tube.

  It was Dorid’s face. That part was unmistakable. It was the rest of the figure that was different.

  The naked torso was horribly out of proportion. A bulging ribcage sat atop a painfully narrow mid-section and unevenly-matched hips. One shoulder was set higher than the other, while both arms were thin and wiry.

  Most troubling of all was the second face – also recognizably Dorid’s – which grew from the left-side of the abdomen, the mouth and eyes wide open in a terrible silent scream.

  “So, you know I said he was a nice guy…?” said Cal. “That may yet still be up for debate.”

  “It’s alive,” said Mech.

  Cal rapped his knuckles on the glass. The thing inside didn’t respond. “No. That’s definitely dead. I mean, I can’t kick it, and I doubt it’s going to hear me if I say, ‘hello,’ but I’m willing to go out on a limb and make the call on this one.”

  Mech shook his head and gestured to the scanner display on his arm. “I’m telling you, man, it’s alive.” His eyes went to the other tubes. “They’re all alive.”

  “Gluk Disselpoof,” said Cal, using Mech’s real name. “Cut that out. I’ll hear no more of this crazy talk.”

  “Actually, he’s quite correct,” said a voice from deeper into the room.

  Cal recognized it as Dorid’s voice, but it was different somehow. Exactly how different, and why, he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  A figure shuffled from the darkness, the light flitting across his worn and weather-beaten features. Dorid smiled, wrinkling the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. “Forgive me for not greeting you personally. I tend to keep myself to myself these days.”

  “Wait,” said Cal. “So you’re…”

  The old man smiled. “The origin
al Dorid Tarkula, yes.”

  “But the guy downstairs,” said Mech, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging.

  “I allow one to think of themselves as the first,” said Dorid, his voice hoarse and faltering, like his breath couldn’t quite carry it past his lips. “It keeps morale up, and stops them coming to look for me.”

  He drew his fingertips across his face, tracing the lines of his wrinkles. “It’s funny, really. I created them to keep me company, yet find myself valuing my solitude more and more.”

  “That is… yep. That’s definitely funny,” said Cal. “I mean, not hilarious, but it has, you know, a certain wry…” He stopped talking and pointed to the closest tube. “And, uh…?”

  Dorid let out a low nasal whine that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “Errors of judgement,” he said. “Miscalculations, from when I was perfecting the required techniques.”

  He pressed a hand reverently against the glass. “They were the first. I learned from them all. From the mistakes which had made them… different.”

  “And you left them alive?” said Mech.

  Dorid nodded. Even this effort seemed to make him breathless, and it was several seconds before he could speak. “I could not bring myself to terminate them,” he explained. “They are me. They are… my children, for better or worse. And so, here they sleep. Endlessly sleep. Never aging. Never dying. Trapped, forever, between life and death.”

  Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “O-K,” he said, turning the letters into two separate words. “Well, this has been nice. Great to meet you. The real you, I mean. Good luck with… all of this, and we’ll just see ourselves out.”

  “Before you go, Mr Carver…”

  Cal stopped backing towards the exit. “Now, I know I didn’t tell you my name,” he said.

  “Ha!” said Dorid. “No, but I’m afraid there is nowhere in this facility I cannot see. I’ve been watching you from the moment you arrived. I’d almost considered coming down and revealing myself to you when I saw you headed to this floor. Much better to be able to talk privately, don’t you think?”