Defenders of Destiny, book one, the Discovery of Astrolaris

by Brenton Barwick

  Chapter Four

  The Creature

  The door seemed to disappear as it slid into the wall. Sharianna didn’t want Joseph to think she was scared, so she quickly slipped past him and entered the small corridor.

  “Wait, Sharianna,” directed Dad. But she was so fast and the corridor was only a few feet long that she was already in another room when she stopped. Dad quickly bent down and followed her through the door. This room was larger than the control room, about twelve feet wide and about twenty feet long. It was illuminated in the same manner as the control room, and like the control room, the source of the illumination was a mystery. It seemed to originate from everywhere and yet nowhere, and there were no shadows.

  Thomas stopped in the doorway, still bent over as he gazed into the room. Joseph was right behind, with his head bent slightly to one side. He was not yet as tall as Dad, but the ceiling of the hallway was still a little low for him.

  “Hey, I can’t see a thing,” exclaimed Joseph. “Dad, you’re blocking the whole door.”

  Sophia’s heart leaped wildly when she heard Sharianna suddenly scream. Her instincts flashed into action as she grabbed Joseph from the corridor and flung him into the control room. Thomas was still blocking the doorway to the next room as she tore through the corridor. They both went sprawling into the room as she collided with him in her headlong rush to save her daughter from unimaginable horror. The world seemed to slow down as Sophia flew through the air. She turned her head to see Sharianna standing to one side smiling. Sophia saw Sharianna’s smile morph into an expression of consternation and the words, “Oohhh, Oohhhh,” in slow motion escape her lips. Unfortunately, Sophia’s world resumed its normal speed as the words faded and she crashed on top of Thomas with a thud.

  “Sharianna! What in the world…” demanded Mom with displeasure.

  Joseph entered the room and looked at Sharianna.

  “So sincerely sorry,” stated Sharianna seemingly somewhat sadly; slightly sheepishly. Soon, she suddenly sensed some singularly surreptitious, shrewdly subtle silliness swiftly saturating said smile-soliciting situation.

  “You’re in trouble now,” whispered Joseph from the corner of his mouth, as they both stepped forward to help Mom up.

  “Are you okay Mom?” inquired Joseph gallantly, as he reached out his hand.

  Thomas rolled over on his side in a relaxed position and, while bracing his head with his hand, watched the interaction with interest. A restrained smile began to spread over his face and his cheeks puffed up as he tried to control the humor welling up inside of him.

  Joseph glanced past his mom as they were helping her up and was the first to see his dad still lying on the floor, nearly bursting with comedy. He glanced over at Sharianna, who was holding Mom’s other hand and, catching her eye, motioned back at Dad with a small movement of his head. As Sharianna’s eyes met her dad’s all her apprehension fled and was replaced with his contagious emotion. Simultaneously, all three inadvertently allowed a small laugh to escape, making the suppression of further laughter impossible.

  As Sophia stood up amid this raucous uproar she looked at her two children with consternation, then turned to see Thomas attempting to maintain his unlikely appearance of complete composure on the floor, while barely able to keep his head propped up on his elbow, due to the involuntary convulsions of laughter. Sophia was suddenly infected by the mysterious pathogen of mirth—most of her aggravation was swept away.

  “I guess it may have been funny, this time, but you realize that it could have easily turned out quite bad and someone could have gotten seriously hurt, don’t you Sharianna?” Mom questioned, when she regained her composure.

  Dad continued to lie on the floor. “We’ll have no more screaming or yelling, unless the house is on fire or someone’s life is in danger, okay?” Dad’s voice carried less than a convincing sternness as he looked from Joseph to Sharianna.

  “Okay,” agreed Sharianna meekly.

  “Hey, I was a victim here too,” insisted Joseph, feigning seriousness.

  “Remember it for the future,” warned Mom.

  “I don’t think I’ll forget this,” smiled Joseph with a final chuckle, as he thought about the hilarity of the event. He looked at his mom in amazement and marveled that a woman so small could have such strength.

  Dad rolled over onto his back with an imperceptible moan and lay looking at the curved ceiling.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Sharianna furtively, as she knelt down next to Dad.

  “Look,” Dad pointed at the curved ceiling. He rubbed his knee and paused to answer her question: “No, I’m okay.”

  “I’m so sorry Dad, I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

  “I know, it’s okay,” he consoled her. “Now, look at the ceiling. What do you think?”

  “It looks like another door, except it practically takes up the whole ceiling. This must be a cargo area.”

  “I think you’re right,” agreed Dad.

  Joseph and Mom had been looking at the walls of the room with interest. They were smooth but were covered with the outlines of various sizes of square, rectangular, and even round shapes; and each shape was labeled with a peculiar type of writing.

  Mom touched the label of one of the rectangles and out of the wall slid a drawer. “Ah, storage space – I like it.” She touched two more and they silently and smoothly slid out of the wall like the first.

  “Whoa, hold on there,” cautioned Dad, as he stood up and stepped over to look at the drawers.

  “If we don’t investigate, we’ll never learn how it works,” reasoned Mom.

  “Oh, so now you want to learn how it works? Maybe we should even learn how to fly it?” questioned Dad.

  “Of course, this is the most exciting thing we have ever done. Besides, as Sharianna said, this is a cargo area; how dangerous could it be?”

  “There’s another door over there.” Sharianna pointed to the far end of the oval room.

  “It must go into one of the robot’s legs,” speculated Joseph.

  Mom touched another label. A crack appeared in the floor and a section of it began to rise up. They stepped aside and the section of floor began to unfold into a counter. On one side of the counter five strange shapes began to inflate.

  “They’re couches,” guessed Joseph, as he saw the long horizontal cylinders with one flat side for the seat and another, smaller cylinder for the back.

  “And lounge chairs,” added Sharianna, as three soft luxurious chairs emerged from the floor.

  Under the counter were many more drawers like the ones on the wall, except the fronts of them were transparent. Mom opened one and noticed that cold air flowed from it. She opened several more and found some of them also to be refrigerated.

  “It’s kind of small in here, but it is organized very efficiently – reminds me of the combined kitchen and living room in our first apartment,” commented Mom.

  “I’d say it was more like the motor home we rented when we went to Yellowstone,” Dad added, “except maybe a little bigger.”

  As they continued to investigate, they found strange looking containers in some of the drawers. “I think these are cooking or food storage containers,” theorized Mom.

  “This one is shaped like a frying pan, but it is not made of metal.” Sharianna tapped it with her finger.

  “These are probably eating utensils.” Joseph held up what looked like a pair of chopsticks made of an almost clear plastic type of material, except that they were hinged in the middle and had rings for the thumb and forefinger and the ends that picked up the food were flattened instead of round. Joseph used them deftly as he pretended to pick up and eat some food. “They work quite well, and they are easy to use.”

  “This must be a kitchen,” concluded Mom. “But where are the sink, and the stove?”

  Dad sat down in one of the comfortable looking lounge chairs. “Better than my recliner,” he commented. “In
fact, I have never been so comfortable in my life,” he mused. “As if I am suspended in tangible comfort.”

  “You know what I think is the strangest thing?” Mom pondered thoughtfully.

  “What?” replied Dad, from his supernal resting place.

  “There are no provisions.”

  “Maybe they had a machine that created their food for them,” speculated Sharianna.

  “Or maybe they ate pills,” theorized Joseph.

  Mom would have put Sherlock Holmes to shame with her analysis of detail and her unsurpassed deductive abilities. “Now, concerning Joseph’s premise: If they ate pills there would be no need for all this cooking equipment.”

  “Maybe they ate reconstituted food made from pills,” coun-tered Joseph.

  “If they had the technology, and went to all the trouble to reduce their food to miniscule proportions, why not make it ready to eat when it is reconstituted? The same argument applies to Sharianna’s premise—no need for a kitchen if your food is produced miraculously. Besides, there aren’t even any pills here.”

  Mom continued her detective work: “And look here, these drawers are cold inside, like a refrigerator, and yet they are empty...and perfectly clean.”

  “So...?” Joseph queried for further explanation of her conclu-sions.

  “I think this ship was lost by mistake or by accident, even before its first planned trip,” deduced Mom.

  “What makes you think it was its first trip?” marveled Dad.

  “Well, first off, it looks brand new, and second, if I were stocking the kitchen, I would have a variety of foodstuffs, some perishable and some not. Even if you cleaned out the kitchen after each trip, you wouldn’t remove the long lived items like salt and pepper.”

  “And the ship was unmanned when it was lost!” exclaimed Joseph.

  “Now it’s getting interesting. And how do you deduce that?” asked Dad, looking at Joseph.

  “There is nobody here…alive or dead,” he replied.

  “Maybe they left when they landed,” suggested Dad.

  “But the ship did not land, it crashed, remember the crater?” argued Joseph.

  “Maybe they buried their escape route when they left the ship. Or maybe it was covered by erosion,” continued Dad.

  “Why would they leave their ship when it was still perfectly functional?” Joseph’s logic appeared to triumph.

  Sharianna seemingly shattered Joseph’s logic when she pulled the smooth stone from her pocket and waved it in front of Joseph’s face: “Who moved the stones,” she said mysteriously.

  Mom had moved over to the other door. “You forget, we haven’t searched the whole ship yet, there could still be aliens on board.” Sophia wondered how she could feel two conflicting emotions so strongly and yet simultaneously. Why am I so apprehensive, and yet filled with such an overpowering need for more adventure? she thought to herself. With that, she touched the large flat button on the door. It slid into the wall, revealing a narrow hallway; it was taller and narrower and longer than the first corridor. In fact, it was tapered – smaller at the floor than at the shoulders – but it was tall enough for Thomas to stand up straight. Along the walls of the corridor were more storage compartments and at the end was another door with a round window in it.

  “What do you see?” asked Dad, from the end of the line.

  Mom walked to the end of the corridor and looked through the small window in the other door: “A small room with two more doors, one at the end and one in the ceiling,” she called back.

  “That one has to lead outside,” concluded Sharianna, pointing to the one in the ceiling. “We are in the leg of the robot, so the other door must go into the foot.”

  Sophia opened the door and at that very moment she had the most unusual desire to scream. She could not explain this adolescent desire for drama even if she had to. She capitulated to the desire at the very same time she told herself it was ridiculous and irresponsible, especially after the tongue lashing she had given Sharianna. She tried to suck it back in, but some of it had escaped; more like a loud gasp than a scream.

  This time Thomas’ heart leaped but before he had time to act he heard Sharianna, who was right behind Mom and could see into the doorway, “Mom! I can’t believe you!”

  “Sorry. I couldn’t resist,” confessed Mom.

  “What’s the punishment for crying wolf? Huh Dad?” de-manded Joseph in a loud stern voice, as he looked back at Dad with a smile.

  “I’ll have to think of a good one,” replied Dad loudly, with a wink.

  Mom stepped across the small room and opened the oposite door.

  “I think it might be a bathroom,” called Mom, “but it has a steeply sloped floor.” She stepped into the small room expecting to climb up the floor; but to her surprise, the floor suddenly seemed level to her. The upper part of one wall was as reflective as a mirror, but it seemed to be a continuous part of the wall. It was the seat jutting out from the wall with an elongated hole in it that gave it away as a bathroom. At the far end of the room was a strange looking gold dial on the wall. But where is the sink? She thought to herself.

  “Mom,” said Sharianna in an apprehensive voice.

  Sophia turned and looked back into the hallway to discover that while the bathroom floor was now level from her perspec-tive, the hallway floor now seemed inclined.

  “Mom, you’re leaning.”

  “No, you’re all leaning.”

  “That’s weird,” declared Joseph, as Sharianna stepped into the room next to her mom and he saw her orientation shift.

  “Come in,” said Sharianna, with a wave of her hand.

  Joseph also stepped into the tiny room, expecting something strange, but he experienced nothing; it all seemed normal – like stepping through any other doorway.

  “Okay, Mrs. Detective, explain that,” challenged Dad, as he stood in the doorway.

  Joseph began to develop a theory by stating the facts: “We are in the foot.”

  “And the foot is pointed rearward with the bottom of the foot sloping upward,” added Mom.

  “The ship must be able to manipulate gravity so that we are always standing straight up, no matter what our orientation to the earth is,” concluded Sharianna, with smug satisfaction.

  “How old are you?” asked Dad with a smile.

  “Then it must have artificial gravity when in space!” Joseph deduced.

  “That must be why the round stones were still on the seat. The ship maintained the gravity according to its orientation, not the earth,” reasoned Mom with obvious relief, as she realized that the stones on the seat did not mean there were aliens on board. “But why were they there in the first place?” she wondered.

  Dad crowded into the small room.

  Joseph stood looking at a gold-colored pipe that curved downward from the lower part of the mirror section. “That must be the faucet.”

  “But there is no sink…” argued Sharianna, as Joseph reached out and put his hand under the pipe.

  Water suddenly gushed out onto his hand and he jerked it back in time for everyone to see the water miraculously “flow” through mid air and disappear into the wall below the faucet.

  “Whoa,” said Joseph softly. “I guess you don’t need a sink.” He elbowed Sharianna discretely for emphasis.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Dad. “It must be able to manipulate gravity in a very specific way.”

  Sharianna reached out and touched one of the labels on either side of the faucet. A wide shallow drawer silently slid out of the wall. “More storage.”

  Mom stepped to the back of the room and turned a strange looking gold dial on the wall. To her surprise, she was suddenly getting soaked with water spraying directly out of the ceiling and the wall, even though there were no spray heads.

  Sharianna saw the water spraying on Mom and stepped back instinctively. As the water sprayed toward her it seemed to be hitting some kind of transparent partition. She
reached out her hand to touch it, but only felt the water spraying on her hand as it passed through where she thought the partition was. She quickly pulled her hand back in surprise, and was shocked to discover that it was dry.

  Mom quickly turned the dial back to its original position and turned to look at her family.

  “I think I found the shower,” she said, looking very humble, and soaking wet. “I think I’ll go get some dry clothes. She took a step toward Sharianna, but as she passed the point where the invisible barrier had been, she was suddenly dry—even her hair was dry and fluffy. Sophia felt her arms in amazement: “You don’t even need a towel!”

  “Incredible!” exclaimed Dad. “There must be some kind of invisible barrier that prevents only the water from passing through, keeping it in the shower area.”

  Mom looked at the floor of the shower area that was now completely dry. “There is not even a drain; where does the water go?”

  “The water seemed to be absorbed directly into the floor,” explained Joseph.

  “Shhh. Listen,” whispered Dad earnestly, with his finger to his lips.

  They could hear sounds emanating from the control room. Dad turned to face the intruder down the hallway, his body blocking the family’s whole view. They could hear the faint sound of rapid breathing and a strange clicking sound.

  “It sounds like claws on the floor,” whispered Joseph.

  “It’s getting closer.” Sharianna breathed nearly silently while her heart seemed to make a loud racket, pounding in her chest. Quiet, she thought silently to her palpitating heart.

  Dad stepped to the corridor, hands clenched into tight fists, his knees bent, ready to attack anything that should appear at the other end of the corridor.

  Sophia looked at his back as he filled the narrow corridor. Suddenly she felt a great swelling of love for this man who would fight for his family.

  At that moment the creature creating the sounds came into Thomas’s view at the end of the corridor. Thomas charged down the length of the hall, with Joseph at his heels. He tackled the creature and rolled off to one side.

  It all happened so fast that Sophia didn’t have time to react. When Joseph disappeared around the edge of the doorway, she suddenly sprang to life. Pushing past Sharianna, she raced down the hall amid the sounds of ferocious battle and terrible growling.

  Sophia burst upon the scene of battle and leaped toward the rolling mass of flashing teeth and black and white fur, and Thomas.

  She suddenly stopped. “Percy! Thomas!” she yelled, when she saw Dad and Percy rolling around in mock battle, both of them growling like wild, ferocious beasts.

  “I think there is just a little too much goofing around in this family!” scolded Sharianna, as she stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.