Space Hostages

by Sophia McDougall

  “You’d all be free,” I said. “We could go home. And we could warn our planet the Krakkiluks are coming.”

  “We have to be patient,” said Ningleenill. “A little more patience won’t hurt us now, after all this time.”

  “Yes it will!” shouted Uwaelee.

  She fluttered back from us into the chasm, dappled by the moonlight filtering through the ceiling of moss.

  “I don’t want to be patient. I’ve already grown up in a rubbish dump. How long do I have to wait? How long will Naonwai have to wait? Do it now.”

  PART 4

  19

  Okay, hello! I’m back!

  So, right, you know how we were hiding in a cupboard waiting to rescue Mr. Trommler, and Thsaaa was kind of wilting and needed the amlaa-vel-esh to themself, so I was completely visible if anyone opened the cupboard and also I needed to pee? Yeah, a lot of things have happened since then, and they’re still happening, so I wanted to get us caught up now because I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.

  It had been very quiet for a long time. No one had come into the meeting room and there was no sign of Lena doing anything. We’d finished recording everything that had happened to us, and Thsaaa had tried to explain the rules of both huckle buckle beanstalk and a Morror game called Clasmala-aa, which we couldn’t play because I don’t have enough tentacles. And time went on and on, and Thsaaa seemed so weak from the heat, and I figured there was no way we’d know if the Krakkiluks had caught Lena doing what she was doing, or if she’d already tried to do something and it hadn’t worked. And anyway I was wriggling around so much that Thsaaa said I should sneak outside quickly and pee in a corner.

  “I’m not going to do that. That’s disgusting,” I said.

  Thsaaa said it wasn’t as if we liked the Krakkiluks, so it was perfectly fine to do something disgusting on their spaceship and I didn’t need to feel bad about it, which sounded almost like something Carl would have said and made me sad.

  Because even if everything worked out, and we managed to get Trommler and Christa and make it back on the Helen now, we weren’t supposed to try and rescue Carl and the others.

  So I did sneak out of the cupboard, not that I was going to pee in the corner, you know, I was just going to sort of think about it, and as I slipped out there was this really bright flash of light that filled the windows and made my eyes hurt, and the whole ship shook a little bit.

  Lena! I thought. But it couldn’t have been Lena, because the flash had come from outside. So I went and looked out of the window, and I saw this bright spot zooming through space.

  Thsaaa must have seen the flash through the cupboard doors, because I felt a breath of chilly air on my neck.

  “Is it a comet?” I said.

  “It is moving away from the planet,” said Thsaaa. “Surely a comet would be pulled into orbit at this distance.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, because I couldn’t see the planet through the window.

  “I can feel its magnetism.”

  “Oh!” I said, impressed. Sometimes I forget that Morrors have magnetic senses.

  “I think it must have been a weapon,” said Thsaaa.

  “Is someone attacking the ship?” I said. I hoped maybe it was someone from Earth or Aushalawa-Moraaa trying to rescue us, but on the other hand, if it was someone else the Krakkiluks had upset, I didn’t want to get blown up on top of everything else.

  Nothing else seemed to be happening outside the ship, but whatever it had been, the Krakkiluks didn’t like it, because suddenly we could hear them clattering and tramping around, and then Thsaaa had to throw the amlaa-vel-esh over me because the door opened and four Krakkiluks came in and started going Splack! Clomp! Plosh! very loudly and waving their arms around a lot.

  Underneath the amlaa-vel-esh, the virtual screen flicked out of the little gold rod, and there was Lena’s face hovering in it. “Hello, Noel,” she said.

  “Shhhh! Not now!” I hissed, trying to turn the thing off.

  The Krakkiluks stopped crunching and looked around. Thsaaa and I froze in the corner of the room.

  “Splunk, ack, crex,” remarked one of the Krakkiluks, and they went back to yelling at each other.

  Lena waited, and luckily after a couple of minutes the Krakkiluks reached some kind of agreement and clattered out.

  “Something has happened,” she said. “I felt the ship shaking, and I can see the staff are responding to some kind of incident.”

  “We saw this flash of light. Thsaaa thinks someone fired a weapon at us,” I said. “But I guess they missed?”

  Lena frowned. “Can you see the attacker?”

  Of course we couldn’t.

  “Well, it makes no difference,” she said crisply after a moment. “If anything, it will keep the Krakkiluks confused longer. We have to proceed. You found Trommler as expected?”

  “Yes, he’s around the corner.”

  “Very well,” said Lena, and looked away from the screen at something out of the shot; I could just see her hand move. Suddenly all the lights did go out. There was only the glow of the virtual screen and the stars outside the window.

  I could hear crunchy cries of alarm from the passageway.

  “I can see your position on my map,” said Lena. “Go back to Trommler’s interrogation room.”

  “We can’t see!” I said. “Can you see?” I asked Thsaaa, thinking of the magnetic sense and also remembering about how Morrors could see invisible stuff and wondering if they had any other useful abilities.

  “No!” Thsaaa said crossly. “Except for that screen, which surely all the Krakkiluks will see as well!”

  Lena looked thoughtful, and the screen winked out. “Hey!” I said, alarmed, and shook it.

  Then I felt something metallic poking into my ear, and I nearly screamed.

  “I can see for you,” said Lena’s voice in my ear, which was all kinds of creepy.

  “What’s that?” I yelped.

  “It’s the spider robot. Now keep quiet. I’ll tell you where to go. Can you make your way to the door by yourselves?”

  Bump-shuffling along in an amlaa-vel-esh is even worse in the dark, you know? We jostled out into the corridor, where there were Krakkiluks crashing about everywhere, and all we could do was stick close to the wall to try not to be stepped on. There were flashes of light—some of the Krakkiluks had flashlights, but that just made everything seem even more chaotic and scary.

  “The door is forty feet away, on your right,” said Lena in my ear, but despite that we bumped right into a Krakkiluk’s legs. But it was so dark I guess it didn’t think too much about bumping into something.

  Actually, the door wasn’t as difficult to find as we thought, because there were Krakkiluks with flashlights in Mr. Trommler’s room. The window kept flashing with light and shadow as the Krakkiluks waved their arms around, and they were talking Swedish and I could hear Mr. Trommler going “Nay! Nay!” more anxiously than ever.

  “You still have the Krakkiluk DNA sample?” said Lena. “Use it and let Trommler out.”

  “We can’t—there’s Krakkiluks everywhere!” I whispered. “And they’re in the room with him!”

  “Hmm,” Lena said, and then she went quiet for a while.

  “Lena?” I said. “Lena, are you still there?”

  “Shhh, Noel!” Thsaaa said. “Listen!”

  I couldn’t hear anything at first, but then Thsaaa shuffled us past Trommler’s door, even though I thought we should stay there.

  “Listen,” they said again.

  I could hear somebody crying. Somebody human.

  “Christa?” I said. “Thsaaa—open the door!”

  It took Thsaaa a bit of fumbling around in the dark before they managed to touch the claw piece to the sensor by the door, but then they did, and it opened.

  I could make out a shadowy heap on the floor against the far wall. “Vem där?” it said. That’s Swedish.

  “It’s me and Thsaaa!” I said, stepp
ing out of the amlaa-vel-esh. “We’re here to rescue you!”

  “Oh, Noel,” Christa said, lunging forward and hugging me. Which was weird, though also it was maybe kind of nice to be hugged.

  Then horrible grinding alarms went off everywhere, and there was a whiff of smoke in the air.

  “You’ve moved. Go back to where you were,” said Lena’s voice in my ear.

  “How did you do that?” I moaned.

  “Who are you talking to?” Christa said.

  “I confused the temperature control system in tactical areas and started some fires. I think I could destroy this ship all by myself, given time,” said Lena, sounding rather pleased with herself.

  “Please don’t,” I begged.

  “You said . . . you said the Morror kid is here?” said Christa doubtfully.

  “Is that Christa?” Lena asked.

  “I am here,” said Thsaaa.

  “Okay, is there any way we can get the invisibility gown over three people?” I said.

  “No,” Thsaaa said.

  “It’s dark. If you would all stop talking so much and just go back out there, they won’t see you,” Lena said impatiently.

  I felt like in that case we should let Thsaaa have the amlaa-vel-esh, because they were the one who needed it for medical reasons, and I guess I felt leaving Christa the only one visible would be sort of mean. Still, no matter how dark it was, that didn’t feel like very much protection against gigantic lobster aliens, and I didn’t like going out there at all.

  Christa didn’t like it either. “Åh Gud,” she kept moaning, and honestly I don’t know if her doing that or Lena in my ear telling me to make her shut up was more distracting.

  But once we got outside, it looked like Lena’s plan was working; a lot of the Krakkiluks were running off, to deal with the fires or because they were supposed to evacuate that area or whatever. The window in Mr. Trommler’s door was dark now.

  But there was still a Krakkiluk soldier standing outside it.

  “There’s still one there,” I said in despair.

  Lena sighed.

  “It’s not my fault!” I said.

  “Fine,” said Lena. “Which of you has the device I gave you?”

  “I do.”

  “Give it to Thsaaa. Do you have the amlaa-vel-esh?”

  “No.”

  “Then take it. Don’t put it on yet.”

  “But Thsaaa needs it!” I protested.

  “Thsaaa will be fine for a few minutes,” Lena insisted.

  “The gown?” whispered Thsaaa. “Here. If you need it, take it.”

  I saw—just barely—Thsaaa’s silhouette appear in the darkness, and felt the weight of the gown settle over my arm. It was cold and slippery, but even I could tell it wasn’t as cold as it had been.

  “Leave the others and proceed fifty feet to the left,” said Lena.

  “Noel?” said Thsaaa. I suddenly wished I could see their colors.

  “It’s okay,” I said, and I did as Lena said. After, like, two seconds I couldn’t see Thsaaa and Christa behind me, or much of anything ahead of me, except stars out of a distant window. I hadn’t been alone like that since Thsaaa came and got me out of my cell.

  “Keep going,” said Lena in my ear. “Stay close to the wall.”

  That’s what I was doing anyway; as well as not wanting to bump into any more Krakkiluks, feeling along the wall was the only way to tell which way I was going.

  “Stop,” Lena said. “Turn around. Take off your boot.”

  “You’re supposed to say ‘Simon says,’” I muttered, but I did as she said, and I stood there feeling like an idiot, stuck on an alien spaceship and holding an invisibility gown in one hand and a boot in the other.

  “Move away from the wall. Into the center of the passageway,” Lena said. “I need you to do three things. On my signal, you will make a loud noise. When I tell you, get the gown on—immediately—and then throw the boot as hard as you can to your right while throwing yourself to your left. Do you understand?”

  I understood, or near enough, and it made me want to make faces. “I’m not going to like this, am I?” I said.

  “Probably not,” agreed Lena, and from her faraway cell, she turned on a single light in the ceiling right above my head.

  I kind of froze up. The light was dazzling after so much dark. I couldn’t see past it into the dark corridor where the Krakkiluk stood by Mr. Trommler’s door.

  “Make a noise,” Lena insisted irritably in my ear, though surely the Krakkiluk soldier must have already noticed, must already be coming.

  “Hello, Mr. or Ms. Krakkiluk . . . ,” I said, not as loudly as I meant to. “I’m over here, I’m the human spawn you guys have been looking for. . . .”

  I heard a rattle of pointy feet—and then I could see the huge silhouette of the Krakkiluk charging toward me—

  “NOW,” said Lena in my ear, but I didn’t need telling. I threw on the amlaa-vel-esh and jumped sideways, flinging my boot to the right. It wasn’t a good throw or anything, but it hurtled through the open door of another meeting room, and thudded on the floor.

  The Krakkiluk hesitated for a split second, almost standing on top of me, and dived toward the sound.

  The door whisked shut behind it. And from the Krakkiluk’s blows against the door, I could tell Lena had it instantly locked.

  “There,” she said, sounding pleased with herself.

  “Awesome!” I squeaked, dragging off the amlaa-vel-esh because it was freezing inside it without Thsaaa in there with me too.

  I raced back along the corridor, and Thsaaa had already opened the door and gotten Mr. Trommler out and Christa was hugging him, and probably saying “Are you okay?” in Swedish, but Mr. Trommler seemed all dazed and shaky and wasn’t answering her.

  “We’re escaping,” I told him.

  “What?” Mr. Trommler. “We can’t. It’s impossible . . . they’ll—they’ll be even angrier.”

  “It’s not impossible, look, we’re already doing it!” I said, pulling at his arm because he was kind of crumpling against the wall of the corridor and staring around, which was fair enough but also not helpful.

  “Papa, komma,” Christa pleaded.

  “I can’t keep that soldier contained indefinitely; you need to move. I’m clearing a route to the Helen for you,” said Lena.

  “You have to follow me,” I said.

  “How do you know where you’re going?” Christa asked.

  “I don’t!” I said, running ahead and hoping they would get it together to follow me.

  It was like we were a pinball in a huge arcade game Lena was playing. Doors opened for us and locked behind us; we stumbled down dark corridors and through the energy reactor room, and a lift came rushing up to meet us. And yeah, it’s not like we didn’t run into any Krakkiluks at all. They even kind of . . . shot at us a few times? But it was always dark, and sometimes smoky, and it happened really fast, so by the time you noticed you were being shot at, it was already over, and then Lena would set off another a fire alarm or something else to distract them.

  And I guess that big weapon whizzing past the ship earlier had also helped. They must have thought they were being attacked from outside.

  So we kind of muddled along through a huge, pitch-dark space, and I didn’t even know we were on the lift until Lena said, “Everyone hold still,” and the floor dropped away.

  “She could warn us!” Christa complained, once we’d all finished screaming.

  “I am quite busy,” Lena retorted in my ear. And we went hurtling down through the ship until we were in that big red bay we came in at when the Krakkiluks first captured us.

  I thought we were going to run into the entire Krakkiluk army here, but we didn’t because it turned out the bay was, like, seriously, properly, on fire. Lena must have set it going a long time before we got there. The enormous airlock doors were already open, though, and the planet was gold behind them. I could just see the Helen through the horribl
e black smoke and red flames.

  “Lena!” I coughed. My eyes were already streaming. “You’re going to cook the Helen! And us!”

  Lena didn’t say anything, but water burst from sprinklers in the ceiling and walls. We ran, coughing, toward the ship, and Mr. Trommler shouted, “Helen!” and a ramp sprang open from the ship’s side.

  “Oh, Captain!” cried Helen joyfully as we raced inside.

  “Helen, get us out of here!” cried Mr. Trommler, and the ship lurched into space and for a moment, before the artificial gravity adjusted, I felt myself floating off the floor.

  “I’m calling Earth, Noel,” said Lena, sounding sad and far away now. “I have been for the last two hours. I’m showing them the way here. At least I hope I am.”

  I didn’t know quite what to say, now we were leaving Lena behind. It hadn’t felt real while her voice in my ear was bossing us around.

  “Thank you, Lena,” I said. “Good luck.”

  But she never replied.

  I didn’t have time to think about it; I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom!” I said, racing ahead of the others.

  And I only just made it.

  When I came out of the bathroom, I could see the Krakkiluk spaceship from a window—all gold and black and spiky, it didn’t look as damaged as I hoped it would. But it was already miles behind us, and so far it hadn’t managed to grab us back. I wondered where Lena was hiding and how long it would be before they found her.

  But we hadn’t gone to hyperspace yet, and so they could still grab us. The planet was still down there—Carl was down there, he had to be, he was really close and we were just going to leave him. . . .

  “I’m glad to see you again, Noel,” said Helen. “And I’m very sorry for everything you’ve been through. The others are on the command bridge.”

  I hurried into one of Helen’s nice, normal lifts that smelled of flowers and wasn’t going to go anywhere awful.

  “Have you been okay all by yourself, Helen?” I asked, patting the wall.

  “I’ve been reading, mostly,” said Helen. “Those books Miss Jerome sent me . . . they were very interesting. I enjoyed the Maya Angelou and the Simone de Beauvoir.”