Space Hoppers - Dance of the Guinea Pigs

by Jayne Bartholomew

  Charley did his best but he found the bike gave him motion sickness, the gym was too much effort and his girlfriend simply looked confused if he tried to have a conversation with her about any topic that wasn’t mentioned in the latest must-have magazine. The ship had become his refuge and, much to the disgust of Xander, he had rejected his uniform that had inexplicably shrunk around the waist and wore a suit. Motivational framed pictures lined the wall outside the cells and plastic pot plants decorated the entrance.

  Sarah was under observation. In keeping with whatever galactic force dictates cell contents, all she had was a chair and a bed. There was supposed to have been a bucket and a window but after risk management checks by Charley they were deemed unsafe and he had installed an en-suite bathroom and a stereo system instead.

  A guard had been posted to watch her and he was starting to feel awkward. It wasn’t as though she was a difficult prisoner; she didn’t make unreasonable demands, shout or throw things. In fact, she wasn’t doing anything.

  It was standard procedure not to call a doctor for a prisoner who had been arrested on a charge of attempted murder because of the potential risk to the doctor. The Kaors believed in a fair trial but were fairly flexible about innocent until proven guilty.

  The guard had never seen anyone so immobile; when he knew no one was looking he poked his hand through the bars and waved it in front of her face. No response. He sat back under a motivational picture of a mountain with the caption “no one who forgot their crampons ever climbed to the top” and watched.

  Sarah felt nothing, heard nothing and registered nothing. In only a matter of days she had been abducted by aliens, involved in a space battle, attacked by an army of guinea pigs and had gone through the most emotionally traumatic event in her life. Her mind and body decided to let life happen to other people for a while and shut down.

  “Um, I don’t think she would have done that, she’s one of us.” It was very late in the afternoon and Martyn and Garth were walking back from the control room where they had just finished their shift. “When we were on the last planet getting attacked, um, if it wasn’t for her we would have been in serious trouble. I don’t think you would be that considerate to people you’re about to kill through sabotage.”

  “Maybe biding her time. Angry for unsuccessful Gathering? Her companion’s not friendly.” After the disappointment with his parcel, Garth was not in a forgiving mood.

  “Xander wouldn’t have chosen her if he didn’t think she was all right and even Leader-One talked to her at the Gathering dinner.”

  “No choice. Diplomacy.”

  Martyn looked at his friend. “It’s not like you to be so negative.” Garth shrugged. “How about a little trust? Um, we don’t know she did anything and I’m sure Xander knew what he was doing allowing her free rein of the ship.”

  “Thank you for your belief in my leadership.” Xander’s deep voice caught Martyn and Garth off-balance to the extent that they didn’t initially notice the edge in his voice. They turned around.

  “Wondering if human guilty.” Garth looked at Xander. “Unknown species to us.”

  Xander looked down at the little lieutenant and tried to get the image of drop-kicking him out of his mind. “And did you come to any conclusions?” he asked softly.

  Hearing the change in Xander’s voice, Martyn stayed quiet and started to reassess his future career on the ship. Garth was too excited to have been asked his opinion by such a high-ranking officer to notice. “Think she was angry. Didn’t want to be Visitor. Thought she’d get back at us.”

  “How interesting. Thank you, Lieutenant.” I mustn’t hurt him, I mustn’t hurt him. “As you seem to have enough time to gossip, perhaps you would be good enough to join the engineering crew in their search for the cause. Since you like speculation this could be just the job for you.” He turned away and walked towards the control room. He wasn’t in the mood for sleep.

  In the security quarter a thin tentacle holding a mirror snaked around a large palm in the corner by the entrance. Finding the corridor empty, the tentacle was followed by the body of Garet. He made his way down the stairs to the cell block and used his clearance key card to enter. He didn’t like it here, weapons made him nervous but he had heard about Sarah, and having spent some time with her, thought the rumours of her wishing the mass destruction of the ship to be unlikely. As far as he could remember she had been an interesting addition to the landing crew and he felt that as a one-time member of the team she deserved a little loyalty. He didn’t know anything about the human species but had come to some conclusions about females in general and had brought her a present. He read the inspirational motto on one of the pictures showing a small lamb gambolling in a field “Here today, dinner the next. Make the day count.”

  Sneaking around the corner into the cell block he was shocked to see the state she was in. She sat on the floor, leaning against the wall staring with unseeing eyes past him. If she recognised him she gave no indication. Her hair was matted and dark bruises had formed on the left side of her face and down both arms, around her eyes black rings had taken residence, which contrasted violently with her pale complexion. Garet moved towards her trying to be as quiet as possible. He saw that the guard was asleep and decided not to trouble him about whether he should be giving a prisoner non-regulatory items or not.

  “Sarah?” Garet whispered through the bars and squatted down next to her. The guard snorted once and snored on. “Sarah, it’s me: Garet. Can you hear me?” She stared on without moving a muscle. “I’ve brought you something. Being Acquisitions Officer has its perks, here, chocolate. There’s no planet on the known sectors that doesn’t import or produce this. It’s the good stuff too, see? One hundred and ten per cent cocoa, although that could be an advertising gimmick... It’s bound to make you feel better. I’ll put it down by your side, shall I? Give you a break from the food down here. I’ve heard that the guards make terrible chefs.” He pushed his tentacle through the bars and slid the bar under her hand where it started to melt on contact. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think that you hurt Sornath, or that you tried to do something to the ship. There was probably something in engineering that had been working its way loose for weeks. There are so many wires, how can they possibly monitor every one of them?”

  Garet was starting to feel a bit unsure of himself. He badly wanted to reassure her but was beginning to think that maybe this wasn’t working. He kept trying. “I hear that Monty is being kept under pod arrest as no one is brave enough to go in there. Don’t worry, the kitchen has managed to bypass your counter controls and they’re sending him food up at fixed intervals.” He paused to rummage around for his emergency hip flask. “Did you say something?”

  “Mmmmph?” Sarah turned to look at Garet and put her arm through to gently rest her fingers on the corner of his shirt.

  “Hey, good to see you’re still with us! Is my conversation really so bad that you can’t bear to talk to me?” Garet gave her a huge smile and looked down at Sarah’s hand. Bunching up part of his over-sized shirt he wiped away the brown smears of chocolate on her hand, revealing her skin. Garet stared in amazement that made way to horror. “What have you done to yourself? Has someone else done this? Were you attacked? Guard!” Garet lashed out and knocked the leg of the guard’s chair so that he fell over sideways and woke up. “Get the doctor NOW!”

  “Can’t get a doctor ‘cause she’s a prisoner,” he muttered. “More than my job’s worth that. Here, have you got clearance to come down…?”

  Garet picked the guard up easily by his tunic. “If you don’t get a medic, right now, I’m going to personally see to it that you can follow your procedures where the sun doesn’t shine – understand? Have you seen her hands?”

  The guard looked down. “Are they supposed to look like that?”

  In tube number 48672736 a tired, leave-deprived crew member was crawling her way around the bottom layer of wiring. She was called Faith, was a Sletnil, and a
s such, was doomed to be a social pariah. Sletnils are incurably happy and optimistic all of the time, regardless of what is going on around them. This means that as a race they are usually the ones to be punched first in a bar-room brawl and are never going to be good tragic actors. Those in the diplomatic core were specifically chosen for their stern countenance and ability not to smile. The capacity not to try and involve people in a sing-song in the face of major catastrophes is considered to be a bonus.

  Faith squeezed under more wires and over dirty flooring and thought how lucky she was to be in a job where she was needed. As she ran her hands over a cable she felt a dent, not a deep one, but nevertheless a dent where one should not have been. She pressed her portable intercom to signal for assistance. Running her hands down further along the cable she noticed other indentations, some deeper than others and one that had squeezed the cable hard in the middle. Looking closer she saw that this had been done by a tool of some kind as two ridges were clearly visible in the dents.

  Booker came down the tube and tried not to wince when he saw it was Faith.

  “I’ve found something! Isn’t this wonderful! The others will be so happy if they know they can stop looking. Do you think this is the cause? Isn’t it exciting!” Faith gushed, radiating positivity. “Look, here and here. Abnormalities! I’m sure they shouldn’t be here – what do you think?”

  “Tell you what,” the engineer said thoughtfully, rubbing the stubble on his chin, “why don’t you clock off and get some sleep? Well done for finding this and I’ll make sure you get the barrel of brandy, but I think you’ve earned a rest now so why don’t you let someone else take it from here?” As Faith’s face lit up and she crawled away, he frowned. He, like Faith, had seen the two indentations and had also come to the conclusion that they must have been made by a tool. He was quite fond of Faith in a “from a distance” sort of way and didn’t want her present when he had to tell Xander that the ship had been sabotaged.

  Reluctantly he spoke into his intercom and informed Xander, who was still in the control room, that there had been a development and that it was recommended that he came to see it. Xander barked an acknowledgement and clicked off. Booker groaned inwardly; it had been a long day, it would probably be an even longer night and he would be glad to get some rest. Crawling out of the tube he put his hand on a cluster of dark, thin pellets that were firm to the touch.

  “Very odd,” he muttered. He lifted one to his lips. “Tastes organic. Hmm, strange.” He took a small bag out of a pocket and pushed a few into it, then went to prepare for Xander’s visit.

  The engineer was going to have a long wait however, as Xander had already been called by Med-crew from the security section and was going down to investigate. All he had heard was a slightly excitable nurse muttering about Sarah’s hands and how they had turned “unusual”. He had managed to grab about four hours’ sleep the night before and it was taking all his concentration to function normally. He had no idea what could have possibly happened to her hands, short of amputation, that merited such excitement.

  There was a small cluster of personnel around Sarah’s cell looking in. In respect to Garet’s position on the ship and his own curiosity, the guard had called the doctor but was only permitting him to examine her from behind the bars. Sarah was still slumped on the wall, looking out incuriously, with half-open eyes and had her arm through the bars to make it easier for the gloved doctor. From behind Xander two women from the lab ran past and tried to elbow their way through the crowd to stare into the cell.

  “What is going on here? Garet – talk to me.”

  Garet moved over to Xander. “I had just come to visit her and bring her some food and I noticed her hands were funny. I’m sure they weren’t like it before so I ordered the guard to call Med-crew and they called the lab.” Garet motioned for Xander to look.

  There was technically nothing wrong with her hands in the sense of fingers missing, except that it looked like every vein in her hand was standing out and each delicate little blood vessel could be seen. Claw marks were visible in white across both hands. Xander had never seen anything like it before.

  “Is this a common Earth thing?”

  The doctor turned to Xander, thought for a moment and without touching Sarah bent closer and studied the claw marks. “I’m not sure that this is a common Earth phenomenon, but I have seen it before in books. It looks like a Cadovoan has transferred part of their life essence into the human. Obviously this is very rare. I’ve only ever heard of this happening in four other cases.” He took his glasses off and started cleaning them. “Each case was where the Cadovoan had been cared for by another life form and had felt that the carer had a purpose that could not be fulfilled without help.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “One of them became the leader of his planet, uniting the factions that had led it to civil war and creating peace and harmony.”

  “And the others?”

  “Spontaneous internal combustion. There doesn’t seem to be a reason why the one who lived coped with it. They were all different species, ages and intelligence, the only thing they all had in common was that the Cadovoan trusted them. As you know, an honour code on their planet decrees that their skills are only to be passed on to those who would be worthy. This is certainly an exceptional little human to have had the skills passed on, and indeed to have lived so long. The others all died within twelve hours of the handover, so she will need to be closely monitored.”

  As Xander looked down at Sarah’s unmoving form he felt a pang of pity but tried to brush it to one side. “Fine. Doctor, I want you to make her as comfortable as possible but I don’t want her removed from the cell. Until I find out what caused Engine Room One to break down she is not to be moved. Understood?” He paused and turned to the guard. “And bring some more fire extinguishers down here.”

  The lab technician took out his tweezers and lowered one of the brown pellets that Booker had found into a pale green solution. Deep down the technician already knew what he would have to report. It would be the same thing that he had reported at the last four meetings: “Unidentified matter”, “very interesting”, “could do with further research”. He sighed. He could have had an interesting job, like a fighter pilot or one of those scouts that brave unexplored galaxies to report brand new and exciting information. He could have been somebody. He lifted the pellet, shook it gently and immersed it in a clear solution without paying much attention. If only he hadn’t been awarded his scholarship to the Chemical Academy, anywhere other than that. It was the only academic compound on his entire planet that banned alcohol because of a few accidents with misplaced chemical solutions and drunk students. He removed the pellet, dropped it into a tray of brown dust, nudged it around with the tweezers and then put it in a fridge, pressed a few buttons and waited for the analysis to begin. When you really got down to it, what was life all about really? He could have been one of the cool ones, not stuck behind a Bunsen burner studying… He peered at the flashing test result – Studying… shit?

  With the lights dimmed you could hardly tell it was a different colour. Lieutenant Garth held the toupee up and brushed it carefully with a comb. He placed it on his head and stood in front of the mirror moving his profile first one way and then the other. True, it was a little on the colourful side but what’s to say that multi-coloured hair wouldn’t be the next fashion? Deep in his subconscious, reality and denial fought a brave battle. What’s to say that he couldn’t start the next fashion? Crew members would look at him for advice and he would be chic. He tried to flatten the hairs down but they remained resolutely lump-like. Whatever he tried he couldn’t make the wig lie flat. It was quite heavy too but he hadn’t tried a wig on before so he assumed this was normal.

  He would start the next hat fashion. That was it, there were no regulations against hat wearing on the ship and it would hide his balding area (sign of virility, he told himself) and make him look taller. Back in his subconscious, denia
l had just hit reality over the head with a baseball bat. In the lieutenant’s mind’s eye he saw the entire crew going around in multi-coloured hats, hats being made compulsory as they looked so good on him, hats that were given out free as they were the “must have” of the station, hats that went “wheek”.

  Lieutenant Garth reached up to the chest of drawers and selected another regulation tunic and held it (hats that went “wheek”?) up to his torso to see if the hat clashed at all. Satisfied, he reached for another and concentrated on not scratching his suddenly itchy scalp. If he was truly honest (hats that went “wheek”?) he would have to admit that the blue did not quite go with the (hats that went “wheek”?) hat but maybe if he (hats that went “wheek”?) swapped it for one of the…

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHH!!!!!”

  Sarah could hear noise coming from far away. She knew she was lying down and that she was comfortable and that was all her mind could cope with at the moment. She had a nagging feeling that someone was trying to tell her something but she couldn’t grasp was it was. It was the kind of feeling you get when you leave the house and become convinced that there was something you should have done before shutting the door behind you. Hopefully that something wasn’t “… and put your clothes on”. She also had the mother of all headaches.

  After answering a slightly hysterical message on the intercom, Xander wearily trekked over to Garth’s pod. Just a little normality, just fifteen minutes of peace and I’ll start to make sense of things again. Ten little minutes? Was it really too much to ask for? He was now the Leader-One of this vessel, didn’t rank mean you shouldn’t have to trek all over the ship? Surely people could bring their crises to him once in a while, couldn’t they?