And then they rounded the corner.
The aliens were marching down the passage. They were so large, I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing at first; my eyes skittered off the moving mass of plating and feelers and joints, and all I saw were gigantic monsters coming to kill me.
They were about nine feet tall. They seemed more like crustaceans than anything else, with six limbs; marching—or scuttling—on four pointed feet and brandishing very nasty-looking weapons in their long, segmented arms. Their exoskeletons were a reddish pink, but that didn’t show much; they didn’t wear clothes, but every armored plate of their bodies was decorated in some way: either painted with elaborate patterns, or crusted with diamonds, or covered in spikes.
The only thing they all wore were little red boxes around their necks. I didn’t get much of a sense of their faces. They were too high up.
“Oh, wow,” said Dr. Muldoon, loosening her grip on the gun a little, with the wide-eyed expression of someone who is both terrified and the tiniest bit delighted. I could tell she would have loved nothing better than to drag the nearest alien into her lab and poke it.
Lena did not find the aliens so beautiful as to prevent her from diving across the passage with her little gold gun blazing. To my surprise, one of the aliens let out a high-pitched shriek and fell over. But another of them pointed one of their weapons at us and there was a flash and we all fell over. And then I was lying on the floor feeling vaguely aware of everything hurting, but mostly sort of dreamy and useless. One of the aliens had a beautifully detailed battle scene painted over its thorax, with tiny lobster people charging at one another with spears at the bottom of a rocky valley under fiery clouds. I wondered hazily if the tiny lobster people had paintings of even tinier lobster people painted on them and so on forever.
The aliens were making crunching, clacking, quacking noises that might have been funny in other circumstances. But no, they weren’t noises, of course, they were talking.
“Klrrrk—shtnnpp ukk-kra . . . ,” grated the alien covered in diamonds, bending over the one Lena had felled, who was covered with spikes.
The little red boxes were evidently translation devices so the aliens could talk to us, because as the one with the diamonds began to speak, its box flashed. This is what we heard, in surprisingly expressive English:
“Beloved! Tell me they have not hurt you. Speak to me, jewel of my heart, star of my venom bladder!”
“It is only a scratch, moonbeam of my soul,” said the one with the spikes, and then they embraced passionately, which is quite a sight to see when it involves eight-foot, six-limbed, highly armed, bejeweled lobster people.
“Amazing,” wheezed Dr. Muldoon from the floor beside me. “Just amazing.”
“Now that’s enough!” said a perky but stern voice. I managed to lift my head to see the Goldfish soaring proudly overhead. Its eyes were flashing from blue to red.
“I think you guys need a time-out!” it said.
The diamond lobster person grabbed it out of the air.
“Nnnnno,” said Noel. “Leave it alone.”
“What is this?” said Diamonds, shaking the Goldfish.
“You guys would be in serious trouble right now if everyone had all the parts they were manufactured with!” the Goldfish squeaked.
“. . . ’Ssa toy,” groaned Lena. “It’s a children’s toy.”
Diamonds lost interest in the Goldfish and carelessly batted it away. The Goldfish went flying just as a lobster person reached down a long, three-jointed arm, scooped me up, and tucked me into its armpit—if a lobster person can be said to have armpits. Soon everyone else had been gathered up and we were being carried away like bundles of dirty laundry.
“Hey!” protested the Goldfish, loyally hurrying after us. “Cut it out! Put them down! Mister! . . . . Ma’am! You guys are just big bullies!”
The lobster people, obviously, ignored it.
“I apologize—I cannot apologize enough for my—for these—for them,” I could hear Mr. Trommler saying. “This is a . . . a misunderstanding, everyone is a little . . . stressed. . . .”
“Who are you, and what do you mean by kidnapping us?” asked Dr. Muldoon with as much icy dignity as possible from someone hanging upside down over a lobster person’s shoulder.
“Qrrt squllk tchil-krrp . . . ,” began Spikes. The box translated:
“You have not been kidnapped. You have infringed and violated the sovereign territory and possessions of the Emperor and Empress of the Krakkiluk Expanse, may their Love be ever passionate and fruitful. You are thieves and pirates. And you are all under arrest.”
7
“We didn’t,” moaned Noel. “We didn’t do anything like that. We’re on our holidays.”
“I’m sure all this can be settled amicably,” spluttered Mr. Trommler. “Whatever it is you fine people are unhappy about, I assure you, we’re only too eager to address it.”
We were all heaped beside the Helen’s open ramp, on the curved black glossy floor of a huge hangar; I was dimly aware of soaring red vaulted arches rising above us, and more clearly aware that the vast doors that had admitted us were now firmly shut. My arms and legs tingled as whatever the Krakkiluks had done to us wore off, but as we had a variety of menacing weapons trained on us, moving seemed like a bad idea.
The air outside the suits was humid. There was a mist of condensation on the transparent ceramic of my helmet. Thsaaa was with us now. They hadn’t been paralyzed the way we humans had been; they were clutching a Paralashath and silently trying to soothe themself with the flow of changing colors, echoed in the ripples on their skin.
The Krakkiluks didn’t pay any attention to Noel, but they did pull Mr. Trommler out of the general heap and create two slightly smaller heaps—me, Carl, Noel, Josephine, and Thsaaa on one side, and Trommler, Dr. Muldoon, and Lena on another. They spent a bit of time muttering and clicking over Christa, who, understandably, responded to being singled out mainly by shaking and gibbering, but eventually the Krakkiluks threw her in with the rest of us kids.
Meanwhile, their soldiers were still searching the Helen. They seemed surprised that there weren’t more of us.
“Stand up!” said the one with spikes. The grown-ups managed to do this, though they looked sick and wobbly. Spikes pointed to Dr. Muldoon and Mr. Trommler. “You two are married?”
“Good god, no,” said Dr. Muldoon.
“Where is your husband?” inquired Spikes.
“I beg your pardon?” said Dr. Muldoon.
“You would not venture so far without your spouse,” said Spikes.
Dr. Muldoon’s mouth opened, but she was too outraged to speak.
“Answer my beloved Krnk-ni-Plik when she speaks to you!” said Diamonds, brandishing one of their enormous guns at Dr. Muldoon.
“You would be wise to listen to my adorable Tlag-li-Glig!” agreed Spikes.
“I’m not married,” said Dr. Muldoon through gritted teeth.
“Then where is your wife?” Krnk-ni-Plik inquired of Mr. Trommler. “This one is surely too young for you,” she added, pointing a spiky arm at Lena. Mr. Trommler stuttered and wrung his hands, while Dr. Muldoon’s expression changed from rage to intrigue. “We demand to speak to a married couple,” said Krnk-ni-Plik, frustrated by now.
“No one’s married,” said Lena.
All the Krakkiluks looked at one another and then vibrated, so that the plates of their exoskeletons clacked and clattered. It was strange, but I understood—there’s something about dealing with people, wherever they’re from. There are lots of things you don’t understand, but some things you do. I was pretty sure that that noise amounted to scornful laughter.
“No wonder you were so easily captured,” said Tlag-li-Glig. “What is the crew of a ship without Love?”
No one had any idea how to answer that except the Helen of Troy, who announced indignantly through external speakers, “I am full of love!” Which left the aliens kind of flummoxed.
&n
bsp; “Well,” said a Krakkiluk with blue coils on its exoskeleton. “That is very strange.”
“Ah! The ship is your wife!” said Krnk-ni-Plik.
“Oh! No, of course not, I’ve had quite enough wives, ha ha. The ship is just . . . it’s a ship. With an artificial intelligence in it, that’s all.”
“I don’t think you’re helping,” hissed Dr. Muldoon.
“There can be no true cohesion, no sacred covenant between soldiers, without Love,” said Tlag-li-Glig severely. “Love is the basis of nations! The clay from which greatness is built! The forge of civilization! I fight for the Expanse, but I fight for my beloved first, and she for me!”
“O diamond of my life,” said Krnk-ni-Plik reverently, deeply moved by this.
“O thorned bloom of summer seas,” responded Tlag-li-Glig.
“O rainbow of my oil glands,” said Krnk-ni-Plik.
The Krakkiluks seemed to be working themselves up into performing some disturbing kind of poem (the others clattered gently in appreciation), and personally, I would have left them to it in the hope they’d get so carried away we could sneak back aboard the Helen and fly off. But Carl decided to interrupt.
“Okay, we get it, you really like love,” he said. “You’re very loving people. So you could . . . let us go home right now. That would show love, wouldn’t it?
“I think they mainly like marriage,” I whispered to him.
“There’s other kinds of love!” announced Christa unexpectedly. “There’s parents . . . and siblings . . . and friends. . . . Oh, god, please don’t hurt me.”
“Christa, quiet,” warned Trommler. But he needn’t have bothered, because the nearest Krakkiluks just gestured at her in the vague way you might bat at a fly you can’t be bothered to actually hit.
Two pairs of Krakkiluks emerged from the Helen and said something, but the red boxes didn’t translate that or Krnk-ni-Plik’s reply. The subordinate pair might have saluted if they’d been humans—and they did bow—but then they turned to each other and, with equal formality (but somehow still plenty of passion), embraced. Then they retired a few steps, sheathed their weapons, and began lightly caressing each other with their claws.
“Fel-thraaa shiha-raa,” said Thsaaa. “Please. “Quurufor vel-raha amlaa-vel-esh.” And I could hear the word “cooling cape” in there. Pale, washed-out patches were appearing amidst their colors.
“Please. It’s way too hot for Morrors,” Noel said. “You can’t keep Thsaaa in here; they’ll overheat and die!”
The Krakkiluks seemed as oblivious to anything said by anyone under eighteen, but when Dr. Muldoon said the same thing over again, Tlag-li-Glig inspected Thsaaa critically and crunched out something untranslated to a pair of subordinates, who went and found a cooling cape inside the Helen. They tossed it over to Thsaaa, who huddled inside it gratefully. But I knew that wouldn’t work forever.
And our oxygen supplies wouldn’t last forever either.
“Get the spawn on their feet,” said Krnk-ni-Plik, all business again.
“Spawn?” echoed Josephine indignantly.
Still, we had no choice but to stagger to our feet and let them lead all of us to a wide gold disc in the middle of the floor. This proved to be an elevator, without any walls or handrails, which I suppose wasn’t surprising, as the Krakkiluks did not seem like Health and Safety kind of people. So we went whooshing up into the ceiling, flanked by Krnk-ni-Plik and Tlag-li-Glig. As we got farther and farther from our own ship and deeper into theirs, we felt particularly bad.
“Good-bye, Helen,” said Noel forlornly, waving the hand that wasn’t clutching Carl’s.
“Good-bye,” Helen called back, looking strangely small there, all alone in the red depths of the great ship.
We rose through deck after deck, glimpsing vaults of red and gold, and dizzying numbers of Krakkiluks doing things like exercising and mending things and practicing with their weapons. On one deck they were enjoying some kind of couples’ dance.
“So,” said Dr. Muldoon, revealing that the utility belt on her suit contained a tiny notepad and a pencil. “The married couple thing, it’s always pairs of two, is it? I noticed your translators are using the words ‘he’ and ‘she,’ is that right?”
“Of course it is right,” said Tlag-li-Glig brusquely.
Scared as they were, Thsaaa went pitying and contemptuous colors, which I hoped the Krakkiluks couldn’t understand.
“They seem a lot like humans,” they whispered.
“Shut up—they do not,” Carl retorted.
“Keep the spawn quiet!” thundered Krnk-ni-Plik.
We emerged, suddenly, into a wide red chamber that for an instant made me think throne room before I thought command deck. It had the same waspy quality of the ship’s exterior—ribs of gold against black—but there were roundels between the bands of gold painted with scenes the Krakkiluks presumably found encouraging: Krakkiluks fighting, Krakkiluks subduing what must have been other species, and plenty of Krakkiluks in love. The chamber was flooded with dazzling blue sunlight from great round windows, but I couldn’t see the golden planet we’d glimpsed before. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, so I got the impression Krakkiluks were like horses and didn’t really do sitting down. The crew stood at horseshoe-shaped control stations, no two decorated alike.
And there was a grand ramp up to a dais below a pointed arch, and on the platform stood a large Krakkiluk person who was entirely covered in gold. The effect was even more blinding than Tlag-li-Glig’s diamonds; this person must have been wearing some kind of gold paint in addition to the gilding on their exoskeleton and was golden up to their pink eyes. At this distance it was easier to get a better look at their faces, though compared to humans or Morrors they didn’t have much of a face; just egg-shaped pink eyes on short, flexible stalks, above a set of large, bony mouth parts that made me glad I hadn’t seen the Krakkiluks eating anything.
“You will answer for your actions to Lady Sklat-kli-Sklak,” said Tlag-li-Glig.
“What have you to say?” rumbled the huge golden person.
“So where’s your husband?” asked Dr. Muldoon sourly.
There was an immediate clatter of shocked disapproval from all the Krakkiluks, and Lady Sklat-kli-Sklak shot Dr. Muldoon with some sort of small, remote-control type of thing.
“I’m all right,” wheezed Dr. Muldoon, after we all yelled in horror. “Just, you know, can’t stand up or anything.”
“How dare you dishonor the memory of Lord Prilk-wu-Stlik!” cried Krnk-ni-Plik, the spiky one.
“I suggest a group policy of no more sarcasm, back talk, or gallows humor until we are all successfully released,” said Lena, tight-lipped, as she hoisted Dr. Muldoon into an upright position.
“Agreed,” groaned Dr. Muldoon.
“I fight to be worthy of my husband’s memory,” said Lady Sklat-kli-Slkak calmly, having evidently vented her feelings.
She gestured, and a projection of a gas giant and a little blue moon appeared in front of her dais.
“Aushalawa-Moraaa,” Lena said.
“That is not its name!” snapped Sklat-kli-Sklak. “That is the moon of Quattitak, and it belongs to the Grand Expanse! It was fresh and pure and ready for the planting of Takwuk. Now it has been soiled; it is frozen and swarming with invader species. Who is responsible?”
“She is,” said Mr. Trommler instantly, pointing at Dr. Muldoon.
“Thanks,” sighed Dr. Muldoon.
“Explain this outrage!” demanded Sklat-kli-Sklak.
“I helped adapt the moon for the Morrors’ needs as part of the peace settlement between our peoples,” said Dr. Muldoon. “We scanned it carefully—the only life we found was microbial.”
“Of course!” said Sklat-kli-Sklak. “It had been prepared for Takwuk.”
“Oh,” said Dr. Muldoon, sounding deflated, like that made sense now that she thought about it.
“Takwuk is . . . what, exactly?” asked Lena.
“Not Takwuk,
” said Tlag-li-Glig. “Takwuk.”
But there was only so close someone without a set of bony mouthparts could get to the proper pronunciation of any of the Krakkiluks’ words. The real thing was always lot . . . crunchier.
“That is no concern of pirates and aggressors!” thundered Lady Sklat-kli-Sklak. “You were not brought here for answers from us. You will restore the moon of Quattitak to its proper state. Or we will begin throwing your spawn out of the airlock.”
8
I hadn’t been aware of the airlock before.
But suddenly it seemed a remarkably prominent feature of the ship’s design. It was a round window in the floor—or rather a trapdoor, because it was horribly obvious to me now that it would open, dumping anything resting on it into a kind of well beneath, the bottom of which would open into the nothingness beyond. I wondered dizzily if this was something they often did to the spawn of other species, or whether it was how Sklat-kli-Sklak imposed military discipline on the crew.
Or maybe they just used it as the office trash bin.
“You can’t do this,” said Mr. Trommler weakly.
“We can,” said Sklat-kli-Sklak, sounding faintly puzzled. “The airlock is in perfect working order. It underwent standard maintenance only today.”
“I’d like to say I’m not spawn,” said Christa brightly. “I’m nearly seventeen years old.”
Dr. Muldoon levered herself out of Lena’s arms. “Listen,” she said, swaying a little. “We’re very sorry we inconvenienced you. It was completely unintentional. But what you’re suggesting now . . . it’s not possible.”
Sklat-kli-Sklak gestured with a golden arm. A soldier seized me in one three-pincered hand and Josephine in the other, and two other soldiers grabbed Carl, Noel, Thsaaa, and Christa, and they all hoisted us toward the airlock.
“I’m not spaaaaawn,” Christa howled.
Loyally, the Goldfish swooped after us, flashing its eyes red and emitting a furious blare.
“Stop, god—please stop!” gasped Dr. Muldoon.
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