Metal Boxes

by Alan Black

  He realized the drascos liked the paste more than they liked the golden ooze from the tree. They would eat it until it made them sick if he let them. Wright said nutritionally it was a drasco equivalent of the human’s standard survival nutrition bars except it tasted good to a drasco. Fighting to keep the drascos away from the fire, he boiled down a small pile of ooze and dried it into small bricks. He would melt it to liquid and re-apply it to the engine as needed during their trip.

  It took three and a half weeks to fill the fuel tanks with the richest material they could find. They had a large stack of fuel ingots stacked in what used to be the shower stall. They had also boiled down enough ooze to coat the engine and engine room bulkheads twice over. Then, they moved the pod next to a small mountain stream. For those three and a half weeks they had been drinking, cooking with, and taking sponge baths in liquid of mostly recycled human waste and dead momma drasco squeezings.

  Wright insisted they purge and completely flush the water holding tanks. She also insisted Stone take a bath. Neither knew who smelled worse. He had been working outside making little rocks out of big ones and wringing ooze from tree limbs over a smoky fire. Wright had been pushing the little oven to its highest heat capacity; turning the pod into a metal sweatbox during the day.

  Stone was unsure about jumping naked into a stream without knowing what swam in the mountain water. His drascos did not hesitate in the least. They splashed with abandon spraying water on each other and on Stone. Jay seemed to be a natural swimmer. Peebee dogpaddled about but was more content to splash through the shallows and do cannonballs from the banks.

  Wright pointed out a few ripples in the water not caused by Jay and Peebee. The ripples moved away from the drascos and quickly disappeared. She apologized to Stone but she was not going into the stream without the drascos around. The drascos would not stay around without Stone. Therefore, Stone had to stay around while she took a bath.

  Stone found himself sitting in water next to Commander Wright attempting to clean his only uniform and underwear by scrubbing them on the rocks around him. He tried to pretend sitting naked next to a naked woman was an everyday occurrence but he failed. He tried to keep his eyes averted but he failed.

  Wright laughed. She said she would be okay if he looked. She said she knew she was not much to look at; she was no beauty queen. She also knew enough about teenage boys to know he could not help but look, but he had to keep his hands to himself.

  Stone stuttered and sputtered trying to say he thought she was beautiful and well worth looking at. He tried to say that if he did not miss Allie so much he would make a pass at her, but he failed miserably, suddenly becoming tongue tied. He was saved when Peebee cannonballed right in front of them.

  Now he found himself hauling bucket of water after bucket of water. They parked the pod almost in the stream but there was no way to suck up water directly into the tanks. The inflow connections were all designed to hook up to pipes and hoses in a pod maintenance bay. Each connection on the pod had a universal female intake coupler. However a universal female intake coupler did not mean anything without a universal male feeder coupler.

  They emptied the holding tanks into the stream, waiting until the natural flow of the stream cleared away any stale liquid. They hauled water by hand and poured it into the sink, allowing the water to run through the recycler, cleaning it before it went into the holding tanks. They let the first dozen buckets run through the system and flush out into the stream before they closed the petcocks and filled the tanks.

  Just when he thought they were done, Commander Wright insisted they haul bucket after bucket to sluice down the deck. The goo from the momma drasco had long since dried into a fine powder that settled into every corner. The air in the pod was clear and clean, but you could not say the same about the decks. Wright cut some brush and used it as a broom, mop and scrub brush.

  Stone was ready to quit cleaning two or three times. He was sure it was as clean as it was going to get. Each time Wright sent him back for more water.

  He set his buckets down at the top of the ramp and sighed. It was comforting to have a roof over his head again. The pod was a very small metal box, but it had an inside.

  “Commander?” he asked. “We have another ten buckets full, sort of. It looks like the girls spilled as much as they usually do. Are you ready for another rinse?”

  “Almost, Stone. I think this will do it. I know this is a pain for you but my mother is a cleaning wizard. I picked up the habit from her. I know you may think this a strange thing for a farm veterinarian since we are almost always up to our knees in dirt, but being clean also helps keep us healthy. We are going to be in this pod for the Emperor knows how long. At least we can start off clean. Okay, rinse it down, Mister Stone.” She tossed the brush brooms to Jay and Peebee, who practically swallowed them whole.

  “We should be able to keep this pretty clean. We may have to spend a week or two in here, but there is just us,” Stone said,

  Wright snorted. “Ha! You may have house trained Jay and Peebee but you haven’t taught them to use the toilet, not that they could fit in the bathroom.”

  “What? I am not going to have to clean up their messes.”

  “Why not? I am sure not cleaning up after your pets,” Wright replied.

  “We’re not taking them with us.”

  “Really?” Wright said. “If we don’t then you might as well just cut their throats before we go. I guess we could cook them down. We have gathered plenty of the vegetables and fruits, still we could use some more jerky for protein to get us through this trip.”

  “Cut their throats? Eat them? Are you nuts? Sorry, Commander, but what are you talking about? I was just going to set them free. Why would I want to kill them?”

  Wright shook her head. “I am sorry, Mister Stone. These are not wild creatures. They are house pets. That is all they have ever been from the day they were born. They are smart, probably smarter than most earth creatures. If my brain scans are correct, they are on the borderline for being too smart to classify as pets at all. As smart as they are, unless they are taught how, they are not smart enough to survive on a hostile planet. You and I don’t know enough about this planet to teach them how to survive. You have practically hand fed them for their whole lives. If we don’t take them, they will die.”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  Wright grinned, “That is why I am a commander and you are a lowly midshipman. We take the girls with us. I actually thought that was why you made so many of the ooze bars for them.”

  Stone shook his head. “No. I did that so I could reseal the engine if we need to.”

  “Well, we won’t need to worry about completely tight seals with drascos on board. They are better filters than the life support system. You are going to have to bring in a lot of brush for them to snack on. There isn’t any way we can bring enough to feed them on leaves alone, but you can supplement them with ooze bars.”

  “Wait. Won’t they starve when we get back to human space? I don’t know of any place that has plants like this place.”

  “No. That is not a problem. Just like their lungs can breathe just about anything, these girls have digestive systems that can break down just about anything. Any competent engineer can reprogram a recycler to generate ooze bars out of a lot of different earth based materials. It is pretty close to a compound similar to jellied goat feed infused with carbon dioxide.”

  “Okay,” Stone said. “I don’t want them to die, but midshipmen aren’t supposed to have large pets. And these two are large and getting larger.”

  Wright laughed. “Yeah, if either one of them converts to a male drasco he will get a lot bigger. The rules say you get pets if you want them. We will just have to deal with the size issue when it comes up. Besides Midshipman Stone, you are dead. What do you care what the rules say?”

  “Strange,” he grinned at what had become a standard joke for them. “I don’t feel fully dead, just sort of dead.”r />
  Wright laughed. “At least you don’t smell dead anymore. Still, I can’t wait to see the navy’s collective face when we show up. We have probably been dead for, what, four weeks?”

  Stone counted on his fingers. “Yes, sir. We jumped out of hyperspace at the exact time as the Periodontitis. Our disappearance was reported to the next navy base in communications range. That sounds about right, give or take a few days.”

  Wright’s smile disappeared. “We joke about it, but on a more sober note, our families have been told of our deaths by now.”

  “There isn’t anything we can do about that until we get back to communications range somewhere in human space,” Stone said with a shrug.

  “That is true, but I still don’t like the idea of causing needless pain to my family. Then again, Mom always thought going off to space meant I would never get home again anyway.”

  “I wonder whether we died from an accident or if our deaths were marked down as an unsolved mystery,” Stone mused for the hundredth time.

  “Now you’re just stalling for time. You have plenty of daylight left. Go feed Jay and Peebee, and then we can both cut leaves until we stuff this place full. If we work at it we can lift off before sundown.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Stone spun about and gave a small shudder at the top of the ramp. He still did not like going outside. He had already been outside most of the day and was truly tired of all the open sky. He was happier at their earlier dig site. It had a cliff bulkhead along one side and it was a long way to the tree line. Here along the stream, the pod’s roof almost brushed tree limbs. It was hard to see more than twenty or thirty meters through the forest.

  The drascos bounded down the ramp. They were good watchdogs…watchmen…watch-creatures, but Stone hesitated. It always took a few seconds to steel his resolve to leave the pod. He would have hesitated longer, however Wright strode down the ramp with a sigh. She glanced up at the sky, spreading her arms and breathing deeply as if soaking up the outside, storing it for later use. Stone stepped two steps back into the pod, imitating her, trying to soak up the feeling of being inside and followed the Commander down the ramp. It did not help to soak up the inside feeling.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Stone winced as he tapped a hand against the controls. They had managed to fill the aft cabin of the pod, but at a painful cost. He was sure he found a new type of thorn with a hinged barb. It slid in easily and the barb grabbed at the flesh when he tried to pull it out.

  Wright winced in sympathy. “Does it hurt that bad? I think we got all of the thorns out.”

  “I guess I will just have to man up,” Stone shrugged. He slid the engine throttle forward, slowly feeding energy into the charging system. “There isn’t much we can do about it. I tried to smear some of the golden ooze on my hands and forearms and let it dry. It looked like it might work like a liquid bandage. It took the sting out, but Jay and Peebee held me down and licked me clean before it completely dried.” He tapped the throttles forward, sending a trickle of power from the charging system to the blast rings. From the outside, the pod appeared to rock back and forth. Inside there was not any movement.

  “It took the sting out? Humm…We will have to remember that.” She spoke into her p.a. “Run an analgesic analysis on the golden ooze.”

  Stone looked through the view screen and saw the trees wobble back and forth in the last rays of the sun. “Commander, we have visual confirmation that the inertial dampeners are operational.” He pointed at the trees wobbling and then used a finger to flick a switch moving the inertial dampeners to full force.

  “That makes me queasy watching those trees moving about while we sit as still as if we were parked on solid rock.” Wright refused to look.

  Stone grinned and stopped the wobble. “Sorry, Commander, according to the manuals I read in midshipman’s school, it is not protocol to get a visual on inertial dampeners before take off, but Grandpa always says it is better to see a little wobble now than feel that boost of inertia when you jump to a hundred gravities or so.”

  “I am good with the caution, Mister Stone. I trust that you have looked. How do we get a visual reading on shields and artificial gravity?”

  Stone shook his head, “Shields? Well…I guess you could go outside and throw a rock to see if it bounces off or hits us.”

  Wright looked shocked. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Stone grinned. “Sorry Commander, I don’t really know how to manually check artificial gravity and shields.”

  “You don’t know, Mister Stone?”

  “No, sir. I realize that I come across as an amazing genius, but there are some minor gaps in my education. That is why Grandpa sent me to the navy and why the navy made me a midshipman instead of an ensign or-”

  “Or the admiral that you so richly deserve,” Wright interrupted with a laugh.

  “Admiral? That is not likely to ever happen, but maybe full commander. They seem to give that rank out to just about anyone.”

  “Oooo, them’s fightin’ words, Mister Stone. I might be offended if we weren’t about to take off for space in a pod that is probably going to kill us.”

  “Yes, sir. I presume we are ready? On your order, Commander Wright.”

  “Okay, Mister Stone. What is the appropriate command? ‘Engage’, ‘Make it so’, ‘Full speed ahead’, what?”

  Stone laughed. “Grandpa always says ‘head ‘em up and move ‘em out’. I prefer Captain Allnut of the Space Rangers who says ‘up, up and away’.”

  “I think he stole that from someone else, but let’s just say it is time we get off this planet.” She pointed through the view screen at the sky above them. “Go that way, Mister Stone.”

  “Aye, aye, Commander.” Stone eased the throttles forward. The thrusters pushed the pod away from the ground. “Course set for straight up. We could just blast away at escape velocity and hit space fast, but I would rather not waste fuel. We can start slow and increase speed at a constant rate.”

  Stone shifted a foot and propped it on top of Jay’s back. Both drascos were lying on the bridge deck, their heads hanging down into the engine compartment. The two had grown to almost half their mother’s size and took up most of the available deck space.

  They had to close the hatch to the main cabin in order to keep the drascos on the bridge. It had been a guessing game as to whether the drascos were more interested in a fresh flow of CO2 or a roomful of red leaves. Peebee was so undecided she had almost spun in place trying to decide where to go.

  Having the drascos underfoot made the cabin crowded, but Wright was sure if they were left to their own devices the girls would eat themselves silly. They had to stay in the bridge cabin unless Stone was with them to ration their feed.

  “Does she make a good footstool?” Wright asked.

  “Nope. Sorry. I mean, no sir. Jay is lumpy and rough, kind of like a sandpaper bag full of sharp rocks, but she lays much more still than Peebee does. Peebee is a wiggler.” He added, “We are coming to upper atmosphere in ten seconds. Escape velocity in ten seconds after that.”

  “Well, this is a lot easier ride going up than it was coming down,” Wright said. “I have to admit that I am not looking forward to a stay in this metal box for another few weeks, but it is the only way to get home, right?”

  “Right as Grandma’s fudge at Christmas. On the other hand, we might not have to spend weeks in this pod.”

  Wright glared at Stone, “What are you talking about, Mister Stone? We just busted our hump for over a month getting prepared for an extended voyage. I mean, look at this.” She held out her arms and wagged her hands. “I have permanent burn marks from that cursed oven and I don’t have a decent fingernail left after digging for tubers.”

  “Yes, Commander, that does look bad. We had to prepare to be in here for a while, but it doesn’t mean we have to be here that long. We just don’t know at this point.”

  “Okay, correct me if I am wrong, Mister Stone. We have to spend four days ge
tting back to our jump point-”

  “Correction, Commander,” Stone interrupted. “We don’t need to get back to the original jump point. We only have a rough estimation of the jump coordinates anyway. The pod’s navigation isn’t designed to calculate the jump with any kind of precision. And no offense, but neither of us has the math skills to do it without a computer, and your p.a. doesn’t have the necessary navigation apps.” Stone decided he was going to send an apology note to Senior Chief Tsosie. He had finally come to understand why the Senior Chief was so insistent on his improving his math skills.

  Stone continued. “All we need to do is get out of this planet’s gravity well. We can jump to hyperspace anytime after that. We have cleared atmosphere. We are only about eight and a half minutes now to reach a null gravity point.”

  “Great,” Wright said, “then we have to spend the week in hyperspace to match the time we spent there the first-”

  “Correction again, Commander. Since we don’t have the exact calculations used by the Periodontitis we don’t know how much time they spent in hyperspace. So the week we spent in the gray is totally irrelevant. We are just shooting to reach any volume of human space. I believe by reversing our original coordinates we should come out near where the Periodontitis emerged after dumping us. However, we don’t know when they jumped out of hyperspace. I mean we know when, because we jumped out at the same time they did. We just don’t know how much more relative time they spent in hyperspace. They could have jumped into normal space minutes after jettisoning this pod. If that is true then we wouldn’t have to spend more than a short time in hyperspace.”

  “Are you sure you know what you just said?”

  “No sir. That whole time thing gives me a headache. For all I know Peebee understands it better than I do.”

  At the sound of her name Peebee raised her head and wonked happily.

  “See? She agrees,” Stone said.

  Wright replied, “No. She said she thinks we are nuts and we should have stayed on the planet and lived our lives out without having to think about hyperspace time puzzles.”