2000 Light Years from Home (James London)

by Iain Benson

“Please, Vera,” said Malika, using the modifier to indicate he was contrite. “Leave us weapons.”

  Vera did not reply. The last they saw of each other was through the crack of the sliding door as it closed tight.

  “We need to get Bonbon and Xia,” said Vera, heading for the bridge. London followed. The ship was already off the ground by the time he got into his seat.

  “This ship is quick,” said London as they flashed through the ring back to the green world that they had left only an hour before.

  “Alternatively,” said Vera, “the ships of this galaxy are particularly slow. I think that because everything in this galaxy is so close together, that there has been no need to develop anything quicker. Nor can I fathom how the ships work. Where I am from, we have determined that nothing can travel faster than light, and therefore, the ships in this galaxy should be impossible.”

  “I guess nobody told them,” London said.

  Vera landed the ship in the centre of the Baal Cetin spaceport. On the display they saw Xia and Bonbon emerge from between two craft and hurry over. Vera tapped a screen, presumably opening the door because two minutes later, Xia came onto the bridge.

  “Great,” said London. “Any chance you could drop me off at Earth before you carry on your hunt for the shapeshifting murderer of your family?”

  “We will go their immediately,” said Vera. “Where is your planet located?”

  London looked at Xia. “Do you know?”

  “No,” Xia said. “The milk runners keep it a closely guarded secret.”

  “Who would know?” London asked.

  “Presumably Malika and whoever replaced Isinglass,” said Vera. “I do not think the former would be pleased to see us again, and the latter is even less likely to talk.”

  “Warsnitz knew,” said London.

  “I do not think we can go back and talk to him either,” Vera said. “If you recall, we are wanted fugitives on the mining station.”

  “I may have anoxia amnesia,” said London, “but I do remember that station.”

  “Do you need to visit the medical bay?” Vera asked. “It may have to be adjusted for your species, but it is an adaptable machine.”

  “No,” London said. “But this ship is a different one, and all humans look alike.”

  “That is true,” said Xia. “But, also, all the Kurian look the same.”

  London gave a tight smile. “But all the craft look different.”

  “You can remember the craft you came in?” Vera asked.

  “I can,” London replied.

  “In that case, I can read the computer,” said Xia, “and find out where Earth is.”

  “We have a plan,” said London. “We fly back to the station. We locate one ship out of thousands. Admittedly, that ship may have left. We break into it and hack the computer, all the while avoiding being caught by the station security.”

  “When phrased like that,” Vera said. “It sounds unlikely we will succeed.”

  “I disagree,” London said with a smile. “I think it improves our chances immensely.”

  “You are a very strange being.”

  Vera turned to the ship computer. London and Xia were sitting on either side, whilst Bonbon settled into a spot on the main console where it was a little warmer. With little fuss, they rose into the blue sky and two minutes later the pitted, roughly potato shaped space station was back in the centre of the display.

  “I can’t get over how quick this is,” said London. “I’m pretty sure there are meant to be streaking stars and games of holochess with a disgruntled overgrown teddy bear.”

  “Even travelling at the speed of light,” said Vera, “the stars would not streak due to parallax.”

  “You need more poetry in your soul,” London said.

  “My species lacks the ability to juxtapose counterintuitive metaphors in such a form to create poetry,” Vera replied. “Nor do we believe in the concept of a soul.”

  The display showed them approaching the moon sized station. They slid easily through the main entrance to the interior and floated serenely over the skyscraper landscape. Twinkly lights and other craft swooping through artificial canyons surrounded them. On either side, they saw the landing towers. London watched the large central display closely as they drifted slowly down the centre of the huge central space. London had been in awe and amazed the last time he had done this. Even so, he should remember, but a lot had happened since then. London concentrated, recalling that initial approach to help locate Warsnitz’s crate. London had a vague memory that they had passed several landing pads before selecting one to dock in.

  “There,” London said, pointing.

  To one side of the display was the small boxy craft. Vera did a swipe and twist on a console, refocusing the display on the craft. It looked as bruised, dented and battered as when London had first seen it.

  “Are you sure that this is the one?” Vera asked.

  “Yes,” London replied.

  “You travelled across the galaxy in that?” Vera was surprised. “You are braver than you know.”

  Vera rotated his ship until they were floating besides the pad.

  “Come on,” said Xia. “Let’s break in.”

  “I will hold my craft in this position,” Vera told them.

  Bonbon and London followed Xia. Vera’s ship was floating just off the landing pad containing Warsnitz’s ship, which squatted like a discarded beer can. London paused by the door at the top of the ramp. Both Xia and Bonbon traipsed across onto the jetty without any pause. London looked down, past the ramp, down past the lip of the pad, down for a long way down. There definitely seemed to be more down than was natural. Fortunately, there was no fear of heights running in his family, and London walked across the ramp onto the landing pad.

  “There is somebody aboard,” Bonbon told them. “This being has very hazy thoughts.”

  Xia flicked down the control panel beside the entry door. “I’ll soon have it open,” she said.

  London waved his hand over the open switch and the door slid aside. Xia glared at him.

  “Warsnitz is a milk junky,” London said, with a shrug. “It was a fair bet it was unlocked.”

  The corridor beyond was exactly as London remembered. They had to have the correct vessel. He automatically turned towards the kitchen, where he knew Warsnitz would be.

  “We need the bridge,” Xia said. “That’s this way.”

  London turned and followed Xia; his words with the Kurian would have to wait. There were more important tasks to accomplish first. The cockpit was back to being untidy, dishevelled and any trace of London clearing the mess away had been snowed under a slump of clothing and food wrappers.

  “Is this the bridge?” Xia asked.

  “Yes,” London replied. “Awful isn’t it? It’s like Warsnitz read the Dummy’s Guide to Being a Student, and decided that was the life for him.”

  Xia just glanced at London as she swept clothing from a computer monitor. “It puts the pit in cockpit.”

  After a few moments tapping, swiping and cursing, she gave a smile.

  “Have you had any joy on finding Earth?” London asked.

  “This ship has been to and from Earth a lot,” Xia said. “Your accidental abduction was the latest. I’m guessing Warsnitz won, stole or bought this ship. He doesn’t seem to have the experience to smuggle milk. Bonbon, have you given the co-ordinates to Vera?”

  “I have,” Bonbon thought at them.

  “Let’s go,” Xia said.

  “One moment,” London took the few steps down to the galley.

  Warsnitz was blissed out on milk. Even so, London imagined the tic-tac’s eyes widened.

  “What are you doing here?” Warsnitz asked. “Oh I forgot, you’re a dummy and don’t understand.”

  London gave a tight smile. “I’ve learned.”

  Warsnitz’s eyes, if anything, grew wider. “Oh.”

  “Why did you leave me here?” asked London, adding the
inflection of totally pissed off. “They threw me out of an airlock.”

  “Er,” said Warsnitz.

  “You could have taken me straight back,” said London. “You could have turned straight around. I’d have even bought you a crate of those really big bottles of milk you can’t fit in the fridge. But no. You turned me over to the station as a milk smuggler and they threw me out of an airlock.”

  “If you give me a few days, I’ll take you back,” Warsnitz said. “I’ll need some more milk soon anyway.”

  “I’ve got a ride,” said London. “Normally, I wouldn’t be petty. I’d rise above it. Not this time. Have a good life and I hope I never see you again.”

  Warsnitz wafted London away, and took another sip of milk.

  “Ready now?” asked Xia.

  “Almost,” London said, opening one of the cupboard and finding the laser etcher that he’d found when tidying. It was still where he’d left it.

  Outside, standing beside the ship, he etched “Milk Smuggler” in the flowing galactic script. Before he’d started etching, he’d had no idea he could write it.

  “Thanks Bonbon,” London said, when he stepped back to admire his handiwork.

  “No problem.”

  “Now I’m ready,” said London. “I want to go home.”

  With a sound like jelly sliding from a mould, a super soldier emerged on its knees from a large plastic pod, the amniotic jelly making the surface of the walkway slippery and the colour of squashed satsumas.

  In the beginning, Janet and John had named their creations in much the same way as Eddie Stobart trucks. They’d run out of names very quickly, eventually even giving up on giving the soldiers any kind of individual identification. They were all identical, so there seemed little point.

  “Why does he need so many more already?” Janet mused at her console, checking the vitals on the next batch of ten coming to maturity. “He already runs the world. We should be into the phase of replacing those that run out of fuel.”

  “People kill them,” said John, absently. He was checking the logistics log for where the current phalanx was heading.

  “I thought they were indestructible?”

  “Near enough, but if you stuff a grenade in their trousers, they have trouble walking afterwards.”

  They were to one side of a high vaulted room, lights on long chains hanging into the gloom. The walls were smooth, painted white. John and Janet’s console leant against one wall. Patiently waiting for their firmware updates against the other wall, were eighty identical soldiers. Completely naked, but lacking any method of reproduction, they were standing motionless.

  “They don’t look quite as menacing without clothes on,” said Janet.

  “The amniotic gel does remove any menacing quality they might have,” John agreed.

  The remaining soldiers due to be shipped off in the morning emerged from their pods, staggered to their feet and joined the phalanx. When they were in place, John picked up a different tablet and brought up the programming software.

  “Are this lot attack or defence?” John asked.

  “Defence,” Janet said, glancing at her list. “They need to understand Spanish.”

  John tapped the screen.

  “Add in heavy weapons handling,” Janet added. “Oh, and they need an abseiling ability for some reason.”

  John nodded. “I didn’t even know we had an abseiling program. Oh here it is. It’s on the miscellaneous menu, between abduction and acrobatics.”

  “Two of them need to be able to fly a helicopter,” Janet said, and John added this in.

  “Do we need anything else?” John asked.

  “Could you write a Subway sandwich making program?” Janet asked. “There’s only one person left serving at Subway now, and it takes ages to get a sandwich.”

  “How hard can it be?” John replied. “Kids with a Sports Science degree seem to be able to manage it.”

  From the distance of several metres nothing appeared to happen for several minutes. A close up of the eyes of the soldiers showed rapid pupil movement, almost as though light was emerging from the soldiers’ retinas.

  As one, the soldiers turned and marched in formation out of the room through an archway down what looked like a subway tunnel.

  “Shall we start another batch now?” Janet suggested. “Wishbone’s bound to ask for one soon.”

  “We probably should,” John said, setting the process in motion.

  Soldiers programmed as janitors came and cleared up the amniotic jelly and rubbery looking pods. This waste would be recycled into nutrients for the next batch of soldiers. Wishbone was nothing if not environmentally conscious.

  “Right,” said Janet. “It’s lunch time.”

  “Do you fancy a Subway?” John asked. “I have the urge.”

  “Good idea,” Janet said.

  Chapter 10

  In which London gets home

  Never had London been so glad to see the colour blue. As Earth erupted onto the central display, London realised he’d been holding his breath. He let the air in his lungs out in an explosion and felt light headed.

  “You have a pretty planet,” said Vera. “There is a nice balance of water and land.”

  “Thanks,” said London, and realised he meant it.

  “Where is your spaceport?” Vera asked.

  “We don’t have one as such,” said London. “I suppose there’s Houston in America and Star City in Russia. Somehow, I don’t think they’d take kindly seeing an interstellar space ship arriving. It would make them feel inadequate.”

  “I forget that you are not a spacefaring species,” Vera admitted. “Where shall we land?”

  London was about to give them directions to his house, but then remembered he’d left his car in the Lake District. That would also have the added benefit of being fairly off the beaten track, fewer people and plenty of space to hide a spaceship.

  “I know just the place,” said London.

  “Er,” said Xia. “We seem to be under attack.”

  Several alerts were flashing on just about every console.

  “Incoming missile,” Vera said.

  Xia leapt into the central chair, and started issuing instructions to the ship.

  “That only just missed,” Xia said. “There’s another coming!”

  “For a non-spacefaring race, your planetary defence system is comprehensive,” Vera said. He took the co-pilots chair, and also started pressing the console, helping Xia avoid the fast moving metal.

  London took the third chair and looked at his console. There was a menu for controlling the main screen. London carefully read through the options available to him, as Xia and Vera avoided hurtling material of various sizes. London clicked through the various choices as though he was navigating through an automated switchboard: desperate to not make a mistake and have to go back to the start again.

  Eventually, he was able to get a real-time view on all three large displays of the ships exterior. He looked up just in time to see a three metre long tube of metal hurtle past at speed.

  “That’s not a space defence system,” said London.

  “What is it?” Vera asked, flicking more options, his hands a blur.

  “I’m sure I saw the word ‘Sky’ written on the side,” said London. “It was a satellite.”

  “But there’s thousands,” said Vera.

  “Three thousand four hundred and twenty-nine,” said Xia, absently. “Plus, there’s quite a bit of debris.”

  “Communications, television, GPS, internet, military,” said London. “They soon add up.”

  Vera used a word London didn’t understand, but he could tell it was probably his own language equivalent of ‘shit’, it was said with such explosive force.

  “This satellite is huge,” Xia said.

  Xia showed the most major difference in the age gap between her and London when she manipulated the console fifty times faster, without stumbling and brought up an image of the interna
tional space station rapidly approaching from the left.

  “That’s the space station,” said London.

  “Are there people on board?” Vera asked.

  “Yes,” London said. “When I left there were six.”

  “How do you get such a massive object into orbit without anti-gravity?” Vera added the perplexed modifier to his question.

  “Rockets,” London said. “We burn fuel to produce thrust, which makes the craft go the other way.”

  “You send people into space on fireworks?” Vera was incredulous. “It would seem that bravery runs in your species.”

  “Space should be fairly clear near the space station,” said London. “We try and keep that bit clear so we don’t accidentally kill everybody on board with something flushed from a nineteen-sixty’s Russian toilet.”

  “We may have a problem,” said Xia.

  There was a clunk. It wasn’t very loud, and nothing changed in terms of flashing lights.

  “What hit us?” Vera asked. “It must have been moving slowly.”

  “He did,” Xia replied, pointing at the display at a figure in a white space-suit spinning languidly and slowly growing smaller.

  “That explains why there was no damage,” said Vera. “He is squishy.”

  “Shouldn’t somebody rescue him?” London asked.

  “My assumption was that the other people on the space station would rescue him,” Vera said. “Would they have a life pod or tractor line?”

  “I don’t think they have anything like that,” London said. “It was probably not in the contingency planning to provide for an intergalactic spacecraft suddenly appearing and bumping into an astronaut. Besides, it may be beyond our technology. Unless Apple has been busy while I’ve been away. Have you got anything?”

  “I have a mobile personal suit,” said Vera.

  “I’ll go and get him,” London said.

  “I think they’re waving,” Xia said, pointing.

  London paused in leaving the bridge and looked at the display. Xia zoomed in. Sure enough, there were three people pressed up against a round porthole, wide eyed and open mouthed.

  “I believe they are extremely worried about their associate,” Bonbon said. “They cannot contact her on her electromagnetic wave signal device.”