2000 Light Years from Home (James London)

by Iain Benson

  “You have come to tell me of an outstanding success?”

  Janet and John looked at each other, finding it difficult to hide the worry that etched both their faces.

  “It was a failure,” Janet said, after a too long pause that was starting to get uncomfortable.

  “Dolphins adore water,” John said. “We were positive that this would work.”

  “What was wrong with frogs?” Wishbone pushed the tablet away and turned to face his employees.

  “Frog DNA is totally incompatible,” said John.

  “We also tried newts and toads,” Janet said, almost pleading.

  “DNA is DNA,” Wishbone said. “It is made from four simple compounds. Each one attracts only one other, making for a very simple code. All life on Earth is constructed from these four bits of information in various orders. This is why viruses so easily interact with human DNA. From the most primitive to the most complex you can merge any DNA with any other.”

  “Except amphibians,” said Janet. She took out her own tablet, and pressed a few buttons. “I’ve sent you the file.”

  “The bits just fall off,” John added, by way of explanation. “It’s like they’re slippery.”

  Wishbone silently read the results. He didn’t look puzzled or annoyed. He just was.

  Janet and John hadn’t been told they could leave, so they remained at the end of the table waiting. John wondered if it would be all right if he played Candy Crush on his phone, but decided against it.

  “So breathing through their skin is not going to be a possibility,” he said. “Why did you choose Dolphins?”

  “They can hold their breath for a really long time,” said Janet. “We thought that would be a useful addition.”

  “Plus, they’re mammals,” said John. “We’ve had more success with mammals.”

  “That is good initiative,” said Wishbone. “Why not whales?”

  “We couldn’t get a scientific hunting licence,” said John. “The Japanese have the quota for this year, and have already caught the full amount of twelve hundred whales.”

  “Get some whales off the Japanese, then,” said Wishbone.

  “We couldn’t?”

  “Why not?”

  “They’d eaten them all.”

  “All?” Wishbone finally sounded slightly surprised. “What was the scientific purpose they were caught for?”

  “New recipes?” John said.

  Wishbone shook his head. “Have I conquered Japan yet?”

  “It’s hard to keep track,” said John. “Probably. I think it’s only North Korea you’ve not conquered in that area.”

  “The haircuts freak me out,” said Wishbone. “I might ignore them. That seems to have worked for the rest of the world. Anyway. So, dolphins?”

  “Yes,” said Janet. “We tried to isolate the swimming genes, and put those in, but the fear of water is still there. It seems to be innate. Every copy off the production line has hydrophobia.”

  “Aquaphobia,” said John. “Hydrophobia is rabies.”

  “Whatever,” she hissed at him. “I don’t like hybrid etymology. I prefer Hydrophobia. That’s why I don’t own a television.”

  “You don’t mind being heterosexual though,” sneered John.

  “Who said I was?”

  “We shall have to accept it as a design feature,” said Wishbone, interrupting his employee’s discourse on mixing languages for scientific naming. “Proceed with the roll out. We will be taking Europe next. Sadly, it will be one country at a time. I’m toying with the idea of alphabetically, but I might just start at Italy, as I love pizza.”

  “Sweden might be a good idea,” said Janet. “I need a new wardrobe, and if we run the country, Ikea might give me a discount.”

  “Ikea get upset if you take a pencil home with you,” John said. “They wouldn’t give the leader of the world a discount. Let’s get France, and as much wine as we can drink.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Janet. “Spain is a possibility. They have wine and good weather.”

  “Looks like we’re back at Italy,” said Wishbone. “They have wine, pizza, good weather and an interesting history.”

  “Yes, but apart from wine, pizza, good weather and an interesting history,” said John, “what have the Romans done for us?”

  Wishbone shook his head slightly at John. “They’re the bedrock of modern society.”

  “It was a reference to the Life of Brian,” said John. “You know? Like humour?”

  “John,” said Wishbone with sincerity. “Don’t.”

  “Gotcha, no humour,” John said. “And prep for Italy.”

  “Yes, you do that.”

  Janet and John left the room, and Wishbone went back to playing Candy Rush.

  Chapter 8

  In which London sees cows in a tree

  The engines started up as the trio headed up the corridor.

  “Co-ordinates set for Baal Cetin,” they all thought simultaneously.

  “Thank-you Bonbon,” said Vera, entering the cockpit and sitting down.

  Xia took up her seat, and London wished he had had the foresight to bring a deckchair with him on his accidental abduction; at the very least, a cushion.

  “Are there any hidden seats in the walls?” London asked.

  “What do you mean?” Xia asked.

  “Is there some where I can wave my hand and a chair rises from the floor?”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Xia. “No.”

  “Are we nearly there yet?” London asked, choosing to lean against the wall.

  “We only left a few moments ago,” said Vera. “This craft is not capable of such speed as necessary to get to Baal Cetin that quickly. It will not be until after we have all slept.”

  “I’ll go and find something to eat,” said London, who felt hungry quite a lot, and despite the amount of the bars he was eating, he thought he might be losing weight. The food bars probably weren’t all that nutritious for him. They were probably like the galactic version of dried noodles in a plastic pot.

  Three bars later, washed down with water, and London felt better. He sat himself down on the work surface and took out his phone. He still had fifty percent battery. He played solitaire, Tetris and took a selfie, and deleted it immediately as he didn’t like his beard. He couldn’t play anything more complicated or read an eBook as he didn’t have the internet.

  “Space travel is really dull,” he said to Xia and Vera as he went back to the cockpit. “What I need is one of those breaks they have in books, where they’re suddenly at their location without the entire intervening drudge.”

  “That would be handy,” said Xia.

  Baal Cetin looked very green. There were splashes of blue here and there, but it was mainly green. Lots of different shades from a deep seaweed green, to a delicately pale pear green. Vera was standing in front of the screen, his blue mane moving delicately as his gaze swept the planet below. He had found a red shirt from somewhere.

  “According to Isinglass,” said Bonbon, “your ship is at the Ranch.”

  “They will already know that we are here,” said Vera. “We might as well land at the Ranch. I hope that they have not been attempting to dismantle my ship.”

  “I wouldn’t go on the surface dressed like that,” said London.

  “This is an item of apparel I took out of the washing machine,” said Vera. “It was not the item that went in. What reason do you have for suggesting I do not wear it?”

  “Red shirts always get killed on a landing mission,” said London.

  “How does a shirt die?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said London. “Red and blue are just about okay, but when we get to the green planet down there, you’re going to look like the South African flag.”

  “I will be unable to see it,” said Vera. “It would not cause me a problem; however, if it causes you so much distress, I shall attempt to retrieve my own jumpsuit from the washing machine.”

  Xia cam
e in, her hair glistening with water. She smelled vaguely of beeswax. “Oh good,” she said. “We’re here. I can’t wait to get a burger.”

  “Burger?” said London, his attention grabbed like a lifejacket on a sinking ship.

  “This is the largest milk producing planet in the galaxy,” said Xia. “It’s the only place they can grow cows that will produce milk.”

  “I don’t think the technical term is ‘grow’,” said London. “But it doesn’t matter. So it’s a beef burger?”

  “Yes,” said Xia. “Is there any other kind?”

  “If you go to a fancy hipster burger bar, I think the one flavour they don’t do is beef.” London said. “Even so, right now I could even go for a pulled tofu stack with barbecued snails.”

  “That sounds horrible.”

  “I’d agree,” said London, “if it wasn’t for the fact I am starving.”

  Xia and Vera sat in the navigation chairs and took the ship into land. London remained standing and watched as the multitudes of green resolved down into even more shades of green, but closer. There was chartreuse, vermillion, turquoise, lime, sea green and Verdigris. Soon, London could see that they were flying over a canopy of, for want of a better word, trees. They were tall plants with green at the top. Tree seemed an apt fit. Very large trees as it turned out. Entire communities lived and died in the trees,

  Xia slowed the Kurian craft as they approached a clearing. Although clearing was an inaccurate description, as it wasn’t grass, it was more aptly described as trees that lacked the height of those around them. Somehow, the canopy was strong enough to support a small community centred about the spacecraft that docked there. Xia spotted an empty birth and got a little annoyed as a smaller craft nipped in from the trees and stole it.

  “I might land there anyway,” said Xia through clenched teeth. “My ship is bigger.”

  Fortunately for the integrity of the smaller craft, another birth became available as a long boxy craft headed for the deep azure blue and fluffy white of the vast sky. Xia pulled the ship around and nestled it on the platform between a sleek white craft and what looked like a craft cobbled together from packing crates.

  “Do you reckon we’ve enough room to open the door?” Xia asked, peering over the console to the bottom corner of the view screen. “It looks pretty tight.”

  “Loads of room,” said London. “Though I’d go straight up when we leave, if I were you.”

  The four of them squeezed between their ship and the one next to them, emerging into a collection of low-roofed buildings under the canopy of the trees around the port. The air smelled rich, reminding London of home. There were fruity odours mixed in, almost intoxicating. Even the light had a greenish cast that made Xia look nauseous. The port area wasn’t large, and had several ships crammed in. The (for want of a better word) ground was interwoven wood that looked almost as though it was woven from living trees. It was firm underfoot.

  The port buildings were the usual collection of shops and bars. Unlike the inhospitably hot Phu Tung, the temperature here was pleasant. The light might be too green, but the air smelled good, the temperature felt good, it made London happy just to be here. He felt almost euphoric. There was probably extra oxygen or something. That would make sense, with all the trees.

  “Shall we get a burger first?” Vera interrupted London’s happy thoughts, returning them to food. “We may have to leave in haste.”

  “Sure. I could go for that.” London tried to sound casual, but it came out sounding desperate. “Do they do milkshakes?”

  “The ranch would probably be able to shake milk for you,” said Vera. London was beginning to recognise some of the big blue lion’s expressions, and the current one was the most common: Perplexed.

  “It’s a thing,” said London. “It does have shaken milk in it, but with sugar and fruit and possibly ice-cream…it doesn’t matter. Water will do. The burger is the important thing.”

  “What is ice-cream?”

  “It is frozen milk with sugar and fruit or chocolate flavour,” said London, realising that putting ice-cream in a milkshake suddenly seemed a milk overkill. “It’s cold though.”

  “It sounds interesting,” said Vera. “When we take you home, I would like to try some.”

  “I’ll get you an entire ice-cream van if you get me home.”

  As well as the surface being made from woven wood, the buildings were made of the same material, almost as though the trees themselves had been coaxed into creating walls, doors, verandas, roofs and windows. It felt wrong, to London, as it was not very futuristic. He’d been happy with the space station corridors and buildings, they’d felt futuristic. Wood huts, wound round with wooden walkways felt anachronistic and a fire hazard. Around and over the buildings were branches laden with green leaves. London looked down between the buildings, and realised they were not just in the trees, but on them too.

  “How high are we?” London asked as they walked across a veranda towards a wall of green.

  “I have only been here twice,” Vera said. “I have never thought to ask.”

  The quartet followed a path that cut between a place that had energetic tic-tacs racing around inside on one side, and a place that had laidback tic-tacs on the other.

  “Steamed milk will make a Kurian hyperactive,” explained Xia.

  “Ah, okay,” said London. “They’d make excellent baristas, in that case.”

  Between the buildings were plenty of plants of every description except the heavy ones that cross the road. There was a small building with a sign above the door informing anybody who wanted to read it that this was the Ranch.

  “This is the ranch?” said London, looking at the unprepossessing building in front of him. “Is it bigger on the inside?”

  It was a low, one story building with one single window to the left of an open double door. The wood that had been twisted together to provide the structure had a slightly off-yellow hue and the window had an odd refractive index that made London think it, too, might be plant based. Vera walked through the door, Bonbon at his heels like a furry ball and chain.

  “Surely the place is full now?” said London, shrugging and following the lion into the shadowy interior.

  Unexpectedly, inside there was a spiralled path that led them down underneath the canopy into a world of filtered light and with a moist smell to the air. They weren’t going underground, but it felt like it. The wooden walkway curled around and down. Yellowy lights were strung around, dimmer than the light at the surface. London’s eyes slowly adjusted. Around him were branches and more plants. The branches were broad and covered in dangling moss and what looked like grass. Some of the branches were as wide as a motorway, curling off into the darkness.

  Up ahead, as the path they were on descended even further downwards, there was movement in the branches to London’s right. London peered into the gloom.

  “Is that a cow?” he said.

  Happily moving its way along a stout branch, head down, eating the grassy vines, was a black and white Friesian cow. London’s eyes adjusted properly and he started to be able to see the cows all over the forest at various levels. They seemed quite happy to be in the trees, the black and white coloration providing effective camouflage.

  “There are cows in the trees,” said London.

  “Yes,” said Vera.

  “Cows.”

  “Of course,” Vera gave his perplexed expression again. It was a complicated process that knitted together caterpillar like eyebrows followed by the tips of his ears curling over. “

  “In trees.”

  “Is this not where cows roost on Earth?” Vera asked. “They seem quite adept at navigating from branch to branch. One would think it was innate.”

  “No,” London said. “I can honestly say I have never seen a cow in a tree.”

  “You have never seen a cow in a tree?”

  London thought. “There was once, in Alaska, but it had been thrown there. It definitely didn’t cli
mb up.”

  “Who would want to throw a cow into a tree?” Vera asked.

  “Alaskans,” said London. “They’re a peculiar lot. It’s the six months of darkness, I think.”

  “In what environment do cows live on Earth?”

  “In fields,” said London. “They are most definitely on the ground, in big open fields; on farms.”

  “They are not in trees?”

  “No.”

  Up ahead they could make out the glow from the windows of an under canopy building. This was bigger than the one they had already entered. London could see through the gaps in the branches that it went down a few dozen metres. They left the walkway and walked along a grassy branch towards it. Above the door was a glowing flowing sign that told them once more that they had reached the Ranch.

  A cow raised its head and looked at London, mooing slightly.

  “This isn’t a humane restaurant, is it?” London asked. “They’re not going to bring a cow to my table and have it introduce itself, before committing seppuku in front of me, are they?”

  “I do not believe so,” said Vera.

  “Good,” said London.

  It was a new kind of alien that greeted them at the door. It was taller than London, wispy, almost translucent. London found it difficult to see its edges. He guessed this was a Tryful, Xia had mentioned that they were a bit different.

  “Table for four?” the voice was equally diaphanous. It seemingly surrounded them, asking them the question from all sides simultaneously.

  “Just three,” said Vera.

  “I’m herbivorous,” said Bonbon. “And I don’t really do chairs.”

  “I could have been fruitarian up to this point,” said London. “I’d still be having a burger.”

  A second Tryful appeared from nowhere. It simply was.

  “Come with me,” it said, with a voice in high-definition surround sound quality.