by J. J. Green
“Get in here, you lot,” Carrie called. “I think I might have a plan.”
A scent filled the air. It was delicious. Sweet, but slightly acrid, like, like...caramelised custard. The outer edges of the oootoon were burning. Carrie realised she was sweating. The temperature in the bay was rising. There was no time to lose.
Chapter Twenty-Six – The Final Push
“Gavin,” said Carrie, “do you speak oootoon?”
“It is one of my languages, yes.”
“Great. That means we have at least one translator and you. Dave, look for my translator. It must have fallen out of my pocket with the neutraliser when we were running. We’ve got to talk to the oootoon in each box and make it understand there are virtually no placktoids on board, but that if it crashes into the planet it’ll be killing four innocent civilians.”
“Do you really think it cares?” said Belinda.
“Yes, I do, actually. Or enough of it does, anyway, that it’ll try and do something to save us if it can. Providing we can get the message into it.”
Wrinkling her nose, Belinda said, “And how do you propose to do that?”
“We’re going to talk to each box of oootoon. Because the contents are separated by their containers from the rest of the oootoon, they’ll be much easier to communicate with. When the contained oootoon understands the message, we’ll push it to the hatchway, open the box and tip it into the bulge so that it mixes in with the oootoon surrounding the ship. We just need to add enough oootoon that understands our predicament to tip the scales. It won’t let us die if it can help it. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to help on this foolhardy task,” said Belinda. “I don’t want to spend my last moments speaking with—”
“May I suggest you begin pushing boxes towards the hatchway, Transgalactic Intercultural Community Crisis Liaison Officer Markham?” said Gavin.
Belinda pursed her lips. “I suppose if you’re going to make it an order I will talk to the oootoon, then.”
“No,” replied Gavin. “I sense your attitude in this matter is somewhat half-hearted. I believe Carrie’s unauthorised companion, Dave, will be far more effective at making the oootoon understand. Please either assist him in locating the second translator or move the boxes so that they are ready for adding to the larger oootoon mass.”
Glaring, Belinda marched to the nearest intact box and began pushing, her feet slipping on the wet floor.
“Found it,” exclaimed Dave, who had been scanning around for Carrie’s translator. He picked up the dripping instrument.
Carrie, Dave and Gavin wasted no time in talking to the oootoon inside each box, but the process seemed to take forever. First they had to attract its attention, then they had to explain why it was separated from the greater mass and where it was—most of the captured oootoon had no idea what had happened to it—and finally they had to ask it to spread the word among the oootoon outside. It had to understand the placktoids had left and there were innocent people who were going to die if the ship crashed.
The smell of caramalised custard grew stronger. Carrie’s heart sank at the thought of the oootoon burning on the edges of the blob as it sped towards the planet, and also at the fact that none of this would matter to her very, very soon.
As they added more and more of the captured oootoon to the bulge, she didn’t bother checking the general sentiment of the larger oootoon enclosing the ship. If her plan wasn’t working there was nothing she could do about it. They were out of options and time, and if she had failed and they were about to perish, she would rather keep busy in this last futile attempt than sit and wait patiently for death to take her.
Belinda wouldn’t have been able to move all the converted boxes to the hatchway by herself even if she was trying her hardest, which she wasn’t. The other three joined in, pushing the heavy containers across the sticky floor at the same time as talking to their contents. Carrie realised that, despite her confidence and background, Belinda wasn’t actually very bright. If she really thought the attempt was futile, why was she still following Gavin’s orders?
When released, the captured oootoon flowed quickly and easily into the larger mass. Even joyfully, Carrie thought. It warmed her heart to see it set free.
The spaceship jerked and Carrie staggered. She wiped sweat from her eyes. As well as the exertion of pushing the boxes to the oootoon bulge warming her, the air temperature was becoming unbearably hot.
We must have hardly any time left. In fact, they had probably run out of time ages ago. How could the oootoon possibly lift the massive accelerating spaceship out of its plummeting descent? She expected at any moment there would be a deafening crash and everything would go black. She wondered whether there was an afterlife and what it was like. She hoped she would see Dave there, and maybe one day, though not too soon, Toodles and Rogue.
Dave caught her eye with a sad look. He seemed to have come to the same realisation as herself. They must be speeding through the atmosphere so quickly now that, even if her plan succeeded and they managed to convey to the outer oootoon that they were inside, their fate was sealed.
There was a grinding, wrenching sound. Carrie stopped pushing her box, her brow wrinkling. It wasn’t the kind of sound she expected from an impact with a planet at hundreds of kilometres per hour. The noise had come from the corner of the room, where the shredder was embedded in the wall. The shredder.
With a deafening screech, it broke free and reversed a quarter of the length of the bay. Not again. The shredder ground forward, then stopped, then jerked forward again, and stopped. The oootoon inside it was still trying its best to jam the thing but it was regaining control, moving farther forward each time. Dave, Gavin, and Belinda were watching it, too.
“Time for another game of chase,” called Dave.
Swinging a circle, the shredder edged closer and closer to face them. Carrie and the others began to move to the side of the entrance bay. Avoiding the manic machine was easy enough, but Carrie was tired, so tired. Her arms and legs ached from pushing the heavy boxes, and her head ached from talking with the multi-voiced oootoon. She wasn’t sure she had the strength or the willpower to run from the shredder again. Maybe Belinda was right. What was the point?
The shredder faced them, its metal-toothed face crushed and twisted from impacts with walls and boxes of oootoon it had smashed. It looked like a massive car grille that had been through a crusher. The engine revved, louder and louder. It had freed itself from the clogging oootoon, and its sound was now clear and sharp. The caterpillar treads remained still as the engine gathered speed. When Carrie thought the engines couldn’t growl louder, and she covered her ears, the shredder shot forward like a greyhound from the starting gate.
Then came the deafening crash.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Mellow Yellow
Yellow. Everything was glowing yellow, and the air was filled with a sweet scent. Carrie bobbed gently on the surface of a cool liquid. She blinked, trying to focus on the ceiling, which was an undefinable distance away. She tried to remember where she was and what had happened. This place didn’t look at all like her bedroom, not any bedroom. But it was pleasant, and soft, and smelled nice. Maybe she should just drift back off to...Toodles and Rogue. She hadn’t seen them for a long time. They would need food and water, and Rogue would need a walk. She forced herself awake.
Carrie sat up, sinking her face into the ceiling, which was a soft, blancmange-like substance. Before she had time to pull her head out, the ceiling lifted away and bubbles of air popped open across it. The events of the previous hours filtered into her mind: the placktoids, the oootoon, the desperate rush to save themselves. The last thing she remembered was the shredder breaking free and preparing to attack them again, and then nothing. The placktoid ship must have hit the planet, and she was in the oootoon. It had saved them. It must have flooded the entrance bay and cushioned them against the impact.
Flopping down, Carrie let out a sig
h of relief. She’d been right. The oootoon had protected them. Or maybe that had been its intention all along? Maybe it had never meant to kill the placktoids? It didn’t seem to her that the oootoon was a murderous species, even in revenge for wrongs committed against it.
But where were the others? Sitting up again, Carrie felt in her pockets and checked all around her for the translator, but it was gone. She couldn’t ask the oootoon if the others had survived, or where they were. Or how to get out of the place.
As she stood, the bubble reacted by expanding around her. She wobbled on the jellylike floor. Before, the oootoon had transported her, but now she couldn’t tell it where she wanted to go. But maybe she could use its reactive properties to move around? She took a step forward, and the bubble opened in front of her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the wall draw inward to close up the space behind. Success. She could move around at least. She desperately wanted to find the others, particularly Dave and Gavin, to check that they were okay. She even wanted to find Belinda, though that would probably be a brief visit. The oootoon had saved her, but that was no guarantee it had saved everyone. The impact of the falling spaceship on the ocean would have been massive, and even the exceptional properties of the oootoon must have struggled to respond to it.
Carrie strode on, wondering where she was. Was she still in the entrance bay aboard the placktoid ship, or was she outside it in the oootoon ocean? Her muscles tensed. If she was in the ocean she could wander forever, alone, until she died. She didn’t even know in which direction land lay. The planet was mostly ocean with only a few islands. She might be walking deeper and deeper below the surface, farther and farther from shore.
Her stomach churned. How she was going to find the others by wandering blindly through the oootoon? And when had she last eaten or drunk? Apart from a few mouthfuls of oootoon—she cringed at the memory—she’d had nothing in the hours since she had dived through the green mist beneath her kitchen sink on the heels of Dave.
A musical chittering came from behind and Carrie’s heart leapt. As she turned, her bubble expanded and melded with another, containing a familiar creature. She had never been so happy to see her gigantic bug boss. “Gavin, thank goodness you’re okay.”
“Carrie. I see you are also unharmed. That is good.”
“Do you know where the others are? Where’s Dave? Is he all right?”
“I have only this moment succeeding in conveying to the oootoon my request to transport me to you. I do not yet know how the others fared, but in the light of our survival, I have every confidence the oootoon did its utmost to protect them. It appears your strategy was successful.”
“Maybe, or maybe the oootoon never intended to harm the placktoids, only capture their ship and its crew.”
Gavin’s many eyes blinked. “You may be correct. I had not considered that. It is always wise to avoid concluding causation from correlating facts.” The insect rubbed his hind legs together. “Regardless, I feel this is an appropriate time to inform you that, despite earlier mishaps, I find your performance in your first assignment to have been exemplary.”
“Really?” Carrie almost —but not quite—wanted to hug his shiny bronze insectoid head. But she was forgetting her friend. “I’ve lost my translator, Gavin. Please talk to the oootoon and tell it to take us to Dave.”
The surrounding oootoon must have been particularly tuned into the situation, because it didn’t take more than a few moments of persistence from Gavin before the familiar protrusions rose from the floor, lifting them from their feet. Seated upon oootoon supports, Carrie and Gavin began to move, and the bubble walls flowed past.
When they burst into Dave’s bubble, Carrie threw her arms round him. Compared to the well-groomed, stylish young man who had come to her flat what seemed an age ago, Dave was almost unrecognisable. His hair was a sticky mess that stuck out at all angles, and his clothes were damp and smeared in yellow, but without him by her side, she would never have made it through the events of the previous hours.
“You won’t believe what I’ve found,” Dave said. “It’s this way, I think.” He turned and pointed. “Or over there.” He pointed in a different direction. “Damn, I’ve forgotten. It’s so hard to navigate in this stuff. I was wandering around try to find you, but I found something else instead.”
“Perhaps I can assist,” said Gavin. “What is it you wish us to see?”
Carrie could not believe Dave’s answer.
They burst into the huge chamber a few minutes later, and there they were: placktoids. Hundreds of them, motionless, frozen by the oootoon that had infiltrated their systems. Paperclips, pens, staple removers and other familiar items, plus some more that Carrie did not recognise. She clutched Dave’s arm and pointed. Grimacing, he nodded. The largest placktoid stood at the far end of the chamber. A massive rectangular object lying on its longest side. Just visible beneath a heavy coating of oootoon. The shredder.
Carrie wondered how much oootoon it had taken to permanently jam its powerful engine. Though it was completely still, the sight of it brought Carrie’s heart into her throat, and her muscles ached at the memory of the pursuit in the placktoid spaceship’s entrance bay. “So this is where the oootoon is keeping the placktoid hostages.”
“There is no doubt that the oootoon is responsible for the missing placktoids,” said Gavin.
“Are they alive?” asked Carrie. A cacophony of screeching as the placktoids spotted them gave her her answer. She clasped her hands to her ears. “Let’s get out of here.”
Their bubble withdrew from the placktoid holding chamber, taking them with it, and the painful noise of the placktoids’ squealing and booming faded.
“It’s kept them down here all this time,” said Carrie. “With their seized parts, they couldn’t move, and the oootoon could block any communication they sent to the command ship. But even though the placktoids were siphoning up oootoon and taking it away, it didn’t harm the prisoners it took. It never meant anyone any harm. It just wanted to be left alone.”
Dave yawned and rubbed his eyes, and Carrie realised that she, too, was heavy with tiredness.
“So, that’s that, isn’t it?” she asked Gavin. “As they say on TV, case solved. We can return to Earth now, right?”
“But you must attend a debriefing at the Transgalactic Council. They will be most interested to hear what the placktoids have been doing. It is alarming and disturbing, and we must address their actions at once.”
Carrie and Dave shared a glance of mutual agreement.
“Gavin,” said Carrie. “It’s been fun, kind of, but, you know, I need to see my pets. They’ll be wondering where I am. We just want to go home.”
Dave nodded.
“I see,” said Gavin. He worked his inner jaws in and out.
Carrie waited in the pregnant pause. She had never wanted to see her quirky cat or handsome dog so much. But the only way she would get to see them was if Gavin started up the green mist that opened a passage through the stars.
“In the circumstances,” he said at last, “I think that it would be acceptable for your assignment to end here. I am able to make a full report based on what you have told me. You both require rest after your exertions. I will ask the oootoon to convey us to land, where I will be able to open a gateway to Earth.
“But before I do that,” he continued, “I believe you are forgetting something, Transgalactic Intercultural Community Crisis Liaison Officer Hatchett.”
“What’s that?”
“Your colleague, Transgalactic Intercultural Community Crisis Liaison Officer Markham.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Farewell Oootoon
Belinda looked even worse than Dave from her immersion in the sticky oootoon. Her gorgeous mane of tawny hair was dark and flat and plastered to her head. Her fluorescent orange jumpsuit had caught and torn on the corners of the boxes of oootoon, leaving her in wet, yellow-orange rags.
Refusing to speak to Carrie or Dave, she gave Gavin mono
syllabic answers to his inquiries after her health, and all the way back to land she did not say a word.
The oootoon deposited them on a beach near a placktoid settlement. The island that was new to Carrie. There was no red-leaved forest, but there were metallic roadways and buildings reminiscent of the interior of the placktoid ship. Empty black boxes lay abandoned near the shoreline, waiting to be filled with oootoon. There was no sign of any placktoids.
“It seems the placktoids have abandoned this settlement, perhaps upon discovering their ship had been captured,” said Gavin. “This is further evidence that they are illegally using gateways to travel across the galaxy. There is no other way they could have left the planet.”
“Where have they gone?” asked Dave.
“It is impossible to tell with any certainty. If the gateway was legitimate, the Transgalactic Council would have a record of their journey, but illegal gateways are, of course, unreported. Perhaps the placktoids returned to their home planet. A more prudent destination would be a planet unknown to the Council, in the eventuality their illegal operations had come to light.
“The remaining storage containers the placktoids created to transport the oootoon are all empty,” Gavin continued. “Presumably the planetside placktoids took the full containers with them.”
“Poor oootoon,” said Carrie. “What will happen to the parts of it they took?”
Gavin did not speak immediately, then he said, “I doubt the placktoids are interested in preserving living oootoon. They are generally only concerned with the constituents of things; raw materials for constructing more placktoids or items they require. ”
None of the four spoke for a while. The planet’s sun was setting, casting violet tones over the undulating yellow ocean. The sky was turning a deep purple and stars were appearing. Carrie looked up at them. The patterns were unfamiliar, though she could see a concentrated band of silver she supposed must be the Milky Way.