Passage

by Thorby Rudbek

  “Perhaps.” Paranak looked a shade uncomfortable to Kirrina’s now practised eye, when reminded of these facts. “But you have not explained how it is that the Narlavs, not the humans, control Craklav.”

  She looked puzzled for a moment, as if she were distracted, then smiled at him. “I cannot explain that, my friend.”

  “Then do not be surprised if I continue to consider that the Narlavs are the superior race.”

  Kirrina grinned, aware that it was not worth another argument to try to convince him differently. Especially as I’m no longer sure that I am right. She turned back to continue her work.

  ***

  Richard seemed to float on a sea of incessant pain. He moaned slightly as the image that he now sensed, rather than actually saw, distorted itself unpredictably before him. It was a black curved object, but it was impossibly long. Citadel seemed to have shrunk somehow, or grown hugely, in his half-lucid state he could not decide which. In any case, the shape was all wrong, and he wondered, in a moment of startling clarity, if what he was seeing was some kind of drug-induced hallucination.

  “I must go!” Kirrina announced suddenly, dropping her checklist on the central seat. “He’s almost conscious; I can hear his thoughts again!” She smiled radiantly at Paranak as he turned from the final adjustments he was performing on the instruments in the now fully restored Control Room.

  “I will have the Medic system in action by the time you get him back here,” he promised, impressed with the width of her mouth in this new-to-him emotional state. “If it is as good as you claim, he should be restored to full health instantly.”

  “Oh, it’s that good,” Kirrina assured him, I had a gunshot wound similar to the ones you received from me, and seconds later I didn’t even have a scar!”

  “No pain?” Paranak looked disappointed. “A warrior needs pain.”

  Kirrina laughed as she turned to go. “Don’t worry; I felt plenty of pain as I walked from the crashed helicopter towards Citadel. About four hundred meters, I think, over uneven, muddy ground, leaving a trail of my disgusting red blood behind me! Is that good enough for you?”

  Paranak swivelled from side to side, then settled down to work again, concentrating on prompting the ship’s computer to analyse his own biological background so that the Medic would, hopefully, be able to interpret his state of well-being and develop a comprehensive maintenance routine for Narlavs in case he was injured again during the now unpredictable future he had chosen.

  Kirrina flew back in Seagull and landed as near to the life support canister as she could manage. Once out, she gave the monitors a quick ‘once-over’. The display indicated that Richard was still unconscious, though barely so, and that his body was restored enough to allow the safe opening of the coffin-like container. She took a deep breath and slowly lifted the lid.

  As she did so, the blue liquid inside drained away, leaving… a thickly-coated body, the outline blurred by the unevenness of the protective layer and the uncontrolled growth of scar tissue beneath it. Kirrina reached down and touched his undamaged face gently.

  Pain! Confusion! Richard’s last thoughts returned, blending with the present ones in form and meaning, and his eyes flickered open as Kirrina rapidly absorbed the pain as best she could. He looked sideways and recognised the surroundings, then up into her pale worried face. “How long?” he whispered hoarsely. “How long will it take? I must help you fix Citadel.”

  “You mean how long did it take. You’ve been in this thing for… quite a while,” she decided not to reveal just how many weeks until later, after she had taken him to be fully restored in the spacecraft. “I need to move you to the ship, so the more advanced Medic system there can finish your ‘repairs’.” She smiled. “Do you think you could sit up?”

  Richard raised his head slightly, and hissed as the agony of his tortured rib-cage, stomach and lungs returned. He lowered his head again quickly. “I don’t think so,” he managed faintly, a few seconds later.

  “Hold on.” Kirrina returned to Seagull and brought back a laser rifle from the stack still lying behind the seat. “I’m going to drill you some air-holes so I can move you inside that thing. She turned down the intensity to low, blasted a series of holes in the still-open lid, then leaned down and kissed Richard on the lips.

  “Hey, that’s not fair! I can’t fight you off!” Richard grinned weakly at her.

  “Maybe I should keep you like this,” she countered, just as facetiously. “I’ll use the Shell Hoist to lift your ‘coffin’, then I’ll fly you all the way there.” She blasted the connections between the canister and the console, and waited to ensure that no more of the life-support nutrients would be released into the interior.

  “I get to be the star in the funeral procession now, huh?”

  Kirrina looked puzzled for a moment, until she picked up on his mental image. “Kind of.” She recalled his memories of horror movies with relief. “But there won’t be any other cars, and we won’t be going slowly. We have to leave here as soon as possible. Relax. I’ll have you ‘good as new’ in no time.” She closed the lid, picked up the Narlav weapon and returned to Seagull, her mind going over the time it had taken to fix up their spacecraft.

  Seven weeks! Richard’s thoughts fairly shouted back at her, as he picked up on hers, despite her intentions. What happened to me?

  You were hit by a burst of laser fire from an automatic security system. Much of your body was burned, including internal organs. This was the only place I could hope to save you at. Kirrina deftly manoeuvred the Aircar over the canister and activated the Shell Hoist, using the red and black sphere to raise the container, with her fiancé still inside, until it was clear of the floor and the broken connectors.

  What was inside the security area? What was so important that it needed its own defensive system?

  She ignored his question until she had completed the tricky manoeuvres required to navigate back into the hangar, then accelerated towards the open air.

  “It was a new spaceship,” she explained aloud, as she tried to avoid thinking about Paranak, in case Richard found the idea of their enemy helping them to be too peculiar, and too stressful in his present, precarious physical predicament. “It’s much better than Citadel, except that it wasn’t finished. We, – I used parts of the old ship to fix it up.”

  What do you mean, ‘we’? Is there someone else here? I thought the base was deserted.

  Kirrina checked the stability of the Shell Hoist before increasing her speed. I must get him fixed up before…

  Before what? Richard became agitated as he caught faint hints of her thoughts. What are you hiding from me? Is it something to do with the alien? Didn’t he die?

  Kirrina swung the Aircar into the hangar and guided it rapidly through the unlit section towards the bright rectangle at the far end. She closed down her mind link as she realised Richard seemed much more powerful, mentally, than she remembered him to be.

  Richard cursed to himself as he comprehended what she had done, recognising his helplessness, and wondering what could be so bad that she refused to tell him. He waited impatiently until he felt a slight bump, which he understood meant he had arrived at last. The lid swung open. This time he sat up, though the pain was excruciating. Before him, comforting in its familiarity was the front end of Citadel, but somehow it was high above him in the air. He clenched his fists against the sides of the canister, trying to subdue the pain that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Kirrina bent over him, touched his left hand gently, and the pain faded a little.

  “What is so bad that you can’t tell me? Did the alien recover? Did he hurt you again?” Richard shuddered as the reality of mind-searing pain, the frustration of partly hidden truth and the twisted sensation of distorted spacecraft geometry jostled for place in his suddenly hyperactive mind.

  Kirrina was about to reply when Paranak shimmered into view, appearing about half way down the immense black bulk behind Citadel.

  “W
here’s your rifle?” Richard asked urgently. “Did he escape?” He tried to stand, but the agony of his half-healed organs and mutilated chest made him fall back to his knees and scream.

  “Ha!” boomed Paranak as he walked towards them. “You were right; he is a worthy blood-brother!” He walked along the length of the ship towards Richard as he spoke.

  Kirrina crouched beside her pain-racked fiancé, drawing away the pain, though it made her shudder as she had never shuddered before, and tears streamed down her face. She gritted her teeth until the effect started to subside. Rapidly, she brought him up-to-date on her unlikely friendship with the Narlav, explaining, in the terrifically fast fluency of thought, how he had worked with her to repair their craft, join it to the experimental one, and prepare the unique combination for an imminent departure.

  “I am sworn to protect Kirrina,” Paranak continued at a loud, though slightly lower volume as he stopped in front of the canister and folded his arms behind his stocky grey body. “She is my blood-sister. I understand that you also could have killed me, but did not.” He looked at the thick blue substance that covered Richard’s body and decided that the time for performing the blood-rite was not yet upon them. “I have completed the commissioning of the new Medic facility in your Citadel,” he continued, “I will take you there now.”

  Richard hissed with pain as the stocky Narlav reached out with his incredibly long arms and hefted the sticky and misshapen human form easily from the spot where he had fallen, next to the life-support canister. Paranak carried him towards the black bulk and a moment later, Richard shivered involuntarily as they shimmered through and materialised in the Moss Room.

  “Computer, human body. Restore!” Paranak said abruptly as Kirrina stepped through and stood beside him.

  Richard felt the pain vanish instantly, and he found his feet a little awkwardly in the blue gunk that still coated his body as Paranak lowered him to the floor. As he straightened up, he found that the alien was several inches shorter than him.

  Kirrina took Paranak by the arm and led him to one side. He swivelled sideways slightly, then took a step forwards and shimmered out of sight.

  Richard sighed loudly. “You sure know how to scare a guy,” he remarked feelingly. “I’m out of action for a month or so – again – and you team up with our most deadly enemy and build a new spaceship from spare parts.”

  Kirrina stepped up to him and reached out, then hesitated.

  “I’ll go clean up,” Richard volunteered brightly.

  Kirrina smiled and waited.

  Within two minutes he returned, dressed this time in a grey jumpsuit like hers. He took her in his arms and hugged her. Nothing was said for several minutes. Then:

  “Paranak?” Richard spoke wonderingly as he stepped back and studied her with hungry eyes. “How in the world did you manage to get him on our side?”

  “He isn’t exactly on our side,” Kirrina explained reluctantly. “The nearest I can get to understanding it myself is to pretend that we are almost honorary Narlavs ourselves, if you can comprehend what that implies. He is still loyal to his own people. He hasn’t made any secret of that. It’s just that he will do anything to protect us, as long as it doesn’t mean fighting other Narlavs.”

  “I see, or at least I think I begin to see.” Richard kissed her gently on the forehead. “I think you should update me fully, so I don’t do something dumb and start a war.”

  “Okay,” Kirrina started to sit down, pulling him down with her. “Just close your eyes and –”

  “Wait! Before you start, how did you persuade him to leave us alone here? Doesn’t he wonder if I might persuade you to lock him up or something?”

  “I told him that when a male human is connected by blood to a female human, sometimes there are physical things which the two might cause to happen. He didn’t like that idea, especially if he had to witness it for himself, so he went to check the work I finished this morning. And he thinks that blood-brothers and sisters think alike anyway, so why should you decide to do something contradictory.”

  Richard raised his eyebrows. “Physical things? What physical things?”

  “We just did them.”

  “Oh, is that all!” Richard grinned knowingly. “How about this?” He kissed her, long and ardently.

  Kirrina responded with equal emotion for a considerable length of time. Finally, reluctantly, she broke the intense physical connection and backed away slightly.

  “I think he would have been revolted at that,” she said, a bit breathlessly, as she looked into his strong, grey-blue eyes.

  Richard grinned, strangely pleased with the notion. “Did I hear you say he checks your work?”

  “Yes, and I check his. It’s a way to reduce the likelihood of mistakes.” Kirrina reached up and took his hands from her shoulders, lowering them to her lap. “Now, before you ask any more questions, let me really bring you up to date.”

  Richard nodded reluctantly and closed his eyes.

  One thing’s for sure, she thought as she prepared to open up and show him what had happened since his brush with death, the Medic works perfectly again!

  ***

  Paranak looked up as he heard the faint sound of material rubbing on material and saw Richard and Kirrina standing behind the seats next to him. “Almost all the systems are now interconnected,” he announced flatly. “The Access Network was fully integrated at the beginning of the task, to simplify other such relationships, so it would be possible to fly the craft from any terminal in the interior. The only things left not integrated are some sensors. I just completed work on the short range scanners, and I can connect the rest of the long range scanners and analysers during our departure from the system.”

  Richard looked around, taking in the refurbished furnishings and equipment of the Control Centre. Everything looked the same, except for the strange padded contraption that Paranak had installed in the place of the right-hand seat, and which he was draped around. “That’s really useful, I’m sure,” he said with the merest hint of uncertainty. “You look… comfortable there.” He was still uneasy about having the last surviving attacker working alongside him, especially as he knew how unclear it was, where the alien’s loyalty would be, if they had to fight again.

  “It is practical for a Narlav-warrior, such as myself, and I designed it to suit my own body exactly.”

  “Yes, I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll have another of your people on board,” Richard commented with a faint smile.

  “You sit in the middle,” Kirrina said nervously.

  “Good idea,” Richard agreed with a grin. “Then I suppose you’ll be doing the flying?”

  “When I explained about you to Paranak, he said that you should be the Captain. I thought about it, and I decided he was right,” she said as she ushered him into the central seat. “You decide who flies this ship.”

  Richard sat down. “You two!” he commented in exasperation. “Okay, I’ll be the figurehead!”

  Paranak looked at him, his eye space wrinkled in thought. Then his hands moved downwards emphatically. “This is not a joke,” he insisted. “Both Kirrina and I can fly this kind of Craft very well, and I understand that you also have the ability to some extent, or we would not have survived our arrival on this planet.”

  Richard tried to suppress a grin at this rather meagre compliment, so the earnest alien would continue his explanation.

  “But we two were unable to concede leadership responsibility during your enforced state of unconsciousness. We found that each of us desired to direct the other, and consequently our work may not have progressed as efficiently as it might otherwise have. We are both willing to follow you as our real leader. This ship will not function efficiently without one.”

  We two! Richard looked left and right, taking in the lovely vision that was his future wife on one side, and then the grotesque reality of his alien companion on the other.

  “All right. I’ll do it.” He turned back and
winked at Kirrina, resisting the impulse to ask what the job paid, then swung around once more. “Paranak, what is the status of Patrol Craft One?”

  “All systems functional at a level of excellent, confirmation of Medic status and Shell Hoist capability not yet completed by your first officer and chief pilot.” As Richard listened to the deep Narlav voice, he realised somehow that the first officer was Kirrina. “Weapons untested, Shell and Structural Protection Fields untested, Star Drive, untested.”

  “Good,” Richard commented sincerely. “Continue with pre-flight checks and get the Drive ready for action.”

  Paranak swivelled from side to side in his back-to-front chair in agreement.

  “First Officer,” Richard turned back to his fiancée. “I think you should take me on a tour of the ship; I need to become aware of the facilities at my command.”

  “Yes, sir!” Kirrina responded brightly as she jumped to her feet and continued with the same, subtly sarcastic tone. “Follow me, please.”

  Richard chuckled to himself as he let her lead him towards the back of the Control Centre, and a moment later he found himself back in the comfortingly familiar surroundings of the Moss Room.

  Kirrina called up a terminal and checked something. “Ah! It appears all the memory from our emergency dump has been reloaded into the current system;” she began. “That means we have saved the records from my parents, the comparatively recent confrontation in Redcliff, and the chronicle of our journey thus far.” She hit a few keys in quick succession, and the interior of the room dissolved and reformed into the hillside view of Arshonna.