Trouble in the Stars

by Sarah Prineas

  I race in the other direction, and my sharp dog ears hear more footsteps coming.

  Skidding to a stop, I look for a place to hide—anywhere.

  I dash to hide behind the nearest set of cargo pods, but it’s the first place they’ll look, they’ve got me, I have nowhere else to run.

  Then I see it.

  The nearest ship at dock is an old beat-up freighter, here at the station to take on cargo. It is not a military ship, not StarLeague—its closed outer hatch door is scratched and dented, and there’s part of a name stenciled on it in flaking paint: H n gh . And as I crouch nearby, panting, its hatch door buzzes and then slowly starts to creak open.

  I don’t hesitate.

  Somehow the StarLeague soldiers don’t see me as I bolt from my shadowy hiding place, my paws scrabbling on the slick metal deck. Panting, I race up the ramp, through the open hatchway, and into the ship.

  Safe!

  3

  A person has followed me onto the cargo ship, but I don’t peek out of my hiding spot behind a tumble of boxes to see who it is.

  “Close this blasted hatch!” a woman’s voice shouts, and then I see, striding past my hiding place, long legs in trousers with a stripe down each side, tucked into scuffed boots. Behind her, the double hatch doors creak shut again.

  “Shkkka, release the grapples and get the pulse engines online,” she orders, her harsh voice receding as she gets farther away. “General Smag can protest all he wants, but he can’t force us to waste a single nanosecond more at this rat-bit station. And I don’t want the StarLeague poking its nose into my ship.”

  “But, Captain . . .” a shrill insectoid voice begins, and they go through a doorway and I can’t hear the rest of their words, not even with my sharp dog ears.

  There’s an echoing metallic clunk and thunk and the deck shivers under my paws. The ship I’m on has just left the station.

  The captain must not have seen me, a dog-shaped streak of shadow as I raced into her beat-up cargo ship.

  I think I did it. I escaped.

  For just a moment I let myself relax, taking a deep breath and resting my nose on my paws. My eyes drop shut. So tired.

  My stomach growls, reminding me that I have a problem.

  Here’s something you probably don’t know about the one and only shapeshifter in the galaxy. It takes an enormous amount of energy for me to shift from one shape to another. I have to eat a lot, often. And because of the StarLeague soldiers chasing me, and then capturing me, and then me escaping, I haven’t eaten in far too long.

  My stomach growls again, louder. I know, I know, I tell it, and sniff. The dog nose always knows where the nearest food can be found.

  The air smells of humanoid sweat and mold and some sort of spice, and of machine oils, and yes, there is a thread of deliciousness in there too. I get to my paws and trot down the corridor, following the smell of food.

  You know this about spaceships, right? The outer doors leading to space or to a station dock are hatches, and the doors on the inside are just doors, and the floor is a deck, and the control center, where the captain gives her orders, is called the bridge. And the place where the food is served and eaten is called the mess.

  Crouching in the doorway, I peer in. This mess-room really is a mess. Along one wall is a galley of sorts—that’s the kitchen—separated by a counter from a long table with chairs around it, each made for a different kind of being to sit in. Everything is shabby and patched and grubby, and there’s a chunk of half-assembled machinery sitting in a pool of oil on the table, and as I pad across the room, following my nose, the floor is sticky under my paws. The counter is piled with dirty dishes and—my nose twitches—somebody has left a half-eaten sandwich on the table.

  In one bound I’m on a chair, opening my jaws to snap up the food, when a big clawed hand grabs me by the scruff of the neck and hoists me into the air.

  I give a surprised yelp, and then find two round, slit-pupiled golden eyes examining me.

  Oh, just my luck.

  One of the crew of this ship is a lizardian. A cold-blooded species that detests anything cute and fluffy, like my current shape.

  “What issss it?” asks a high-pitched insectoid voice from behind the lizardian. The insectoid leans closer. She has four arms and two legs, a shiny black carapace, a pincer mouth, and two long twitching antennae.

  “Stowaway,” grunts the lizardian. Her voice is deep, her eyes are hooded, she has a sharp yellow-spotted crest at the peak of her head, and her broad face is covered with dark green scales, shading to lighter green on her muscled neck. She’s wearing a uniform tunic with the arms ripped off, and two belts crossed over her flat chest, and, my dog nose tells me, she smells faintly of cinnamon.

  “Whatcha gon’ do with it, Reetha?” the insectoid asks. Her pincer-mouth clicks and clacks, and her antennae twitch with excitement. “Eat it?”

  “Space ’er,” the lizardian, Reetha, answers. Still holding me, she turns and heads out of the mess-room and into the corridor that leads to—

  —and I start to squirm in her grip, realizing what she meant by Space ’er.

  She’s taking me to the outer hatch, where she’s going to throw me off the ship, out into space.

  4

  Most creatures cannot survive unprotected in outer space. For one thing, it’s extremely cold out there. Also, there is no air to breathe. But before most beings would freeze to death or suffocate, something worse happens. Take a human, for example. You know humans? Warm-blooded air breather with a soft body? Thrust into outer space, a human’s bodily fluids, like saliva, sweat, blood, and tears, boil away. Then the lungs rupture, and so do the eardrums, and then this really awful thing called ebullism happens, which results in a messy death in just a few seconds.

  But I am not most beings. My blob of goo form can survive in deepest space with no ruptures and no ebullism.

  Even though I could survive—barely—being put out of the ship, I don’t want to be spaced. I’ve been in space before, and there’s nothing but nothing out there for a long, long time. I like people. I am people. Space is endlessly dark and lonely, and I hate it.

  My dog puppy throat is making pitiful yipping sounds, and I’m struggling as hard as I can to get away, but the lizardian is relentless. She arrives at the outer hatch and hits a button to open it.

  This hatch is what’s called an airlock. That means it’s really two doors with a little room between them. It’s a safety thing, so that you can’t open a hatch directly onto outer space. If you did, the entire contents of the ship, including the crew, would be sucked into space, and everyone would die.

  Please, please, please don’t toss me into the airlock, Reetha, I think. But she does, then hits the button again, and the inner hatch groans shut. There I am, trapped in the little room between the hatch that leads into the ship and the hatch that opens onto outer space. In about a nanosecond, Reetha is going to hit the button that opens the second hatch and I’ll be sucked out of the airlock and into the dark, lonely, empty reaches of space.

  I don’t have much energy left, but I have enough. Just as her claw hits the button, I shift.

  The outer hatch groans open, and as a blob of goo I fling myself to the deck, clinging there as the air from the airlock is sucked into space. The deep freeze rushes in, but the shape I’ve taken doesn’t shiver, and it doesn’t suffocate. It’s not even afraid. It just waits, holding on to the airlock floor. After a long moment, Reetha, thinking the dog puppy is gone, hits the button and the outer door groans shut, sealing with a hiss. Warmer air begins to flow back into the little room that is the airlock. My goo-blob senses can tell that Reetha and the insectoid are leaving, heading down the corridor toward the mess-room and the galley.

  I have barely any energy left, and I can only shift slowly, flowing bit by bit into a new shape, one I have never taken before.

&nb
sp; When I’m done, my eyes blink open, then I close them again quickly. Even in the airlock there’s too much bright color after the black-blue-white of the dog’s vision. I open my eyes again, squinting. It’s all I can do to climb to my two bare feet and hit the red button that opens the hatch leading out of the airlock. As I stumble onto the ship, an alarm starts to blare, and I hear footsteps coming from the mess-room.

  I take one trembling step toward the captain, who is hurrying toward me, followed by Reetha and the insectoid. My vision goes dark around the edges. My legs wobble, and I can feel myself falling. I am completely out of energy. With a thump, I fall to the deck. If they wanted to, they could pick me up and throw me right out the airlock again, and there would be nothing I could do about it. But I hope they won’t.

  I am in the shape of a warm-blooded mammal. Soft body, no exoskeleton. Air breather. Hair on the top of my head. Hands, feet, face, a mouth for talking with.

  A form they probably won’t toss out into space. The same species as their captain.

  A human.

  5

  “He’s trouble,” a voice says. The captain.

  “Space ’em,” advises Reetha.

  “I’m not going to space him, Reetha,” the captain says sharply, “even if he is trouble.”

  I’m lying on a cold, hard surface, and I don’t have nice dog puppy fur anymore to keep me warm. I start to shiver.

  “The dog must have been his pet,” the captain goes on. “And I want to know how they both managed to get onto my ship.”

  Peeling my eyes open, I see Reetha and the captain standing, staring down at me. It takes me a moment to remember that with a human mouth, I can talk. “Hello,” I croak.

  The captain eyes me. “What’s your name, boy?” she asks.

  My name. What was it she called me just now? Oh yes. “Trouble,” I answer.

  She snorts, then nudges my ribs with the toe of her boot. “What are you doing on my ship?”

  I know the answer to that one. “Shivering,” I tell her. “Being hungry.”

  “Let me be clearer,” she says with a glare. “How did you get onto my ship?”

  I’m too weary and too hungry to answer. My eyes close. My entire human body is shaking now, so I curl around myself, trying to get warm.

  The captain makes an exasperated noise. “I have to get to the bridge; I don’t have time to deal with this. Find him some clothes and something to eat, but don’t let him loose to wander the ship.” The captain turns on her heel and goes out.

  Leaving me with Reetha.

  She bends, reaching for me, and I find enough energy to squirm away, but I’m not hard to catch. She grabs my arm with a cold-blooded claw and jerks me to my feet, then drags me along the passageway and into the mess-room.

  It’s just as shabby and grubby as it was before, but my human eyes can see that the worn, patched cushions on the chairs are brightly colored, and there’s a long couch with a blue-and-green patterned cover. The walls are painted in swirls of red and purple, except where there’s a big screen, which, at the moment, isn’t showing anything. Over in the galley there’s a mini-garden stuffed with green leafy plants. It all adds up to a room that is surprisingly warm and cheerful.

  Reetha drags me over to a chair at the mess table and drops me into it.

  “Trouble,” she orders. “Stay.” Then she crosses to a locker, opens it, and rummages inside.

  While she’s doing that, the insectoid pokes her head into the room. Seeing me, her antennae twitch.

  I must have taken the shape of an insectoid before, because I know that they are very strong, with all of their muscles inside their carapace, their exoskeleton. To their senses, everything is distant and dim. So far, I like my human shape better.

  Except that it won’t stop shivering.

  “It’sssss awake,” the insectoid says. She steps closer, then closer still, and peers at me.

  “I’m T-Trouble,” I tell her, my teeth chattering. “Do you have a name?”

  One of her antennae strokes over my face. Most insectoids’ eyes aren’t very keen, so the antennae help with seeing things. The pincers at her mouth click and clack, and she says, “Yessss.” With one of her four arms, she taps her own abdomen. “Shkkka. We are ship’sss engineer.”

  “We?” I ask.

  “Shkkka, Shkkka, and Shkkka,” she answers.

  “There are three of you?” I ask.

  An antenna taps me on the cheek. Yes, she means. Some insectoids are like this—a group mind, so that three of them, or more, think of themselves as just one being. And insectoids are always female. They have a few much smaller males, but the females keep them hidden away, protected.

  Reetha interrupts, dropping a pile of clothes onto my lap.

  I’ve never worn human clothing before, so I hold up each piece, inspecting it to figure out how to put it on. There’s a one-piece garment with four tubes, one for each arm and leg. After wrestling with it for a while, I manage to get it on and fasten it up the front. The sleeves and legs are too long, so with shaking hands I roll them up. There are fleecy tubes—for my feet—and a shabby colorful top that goes on over my head and immediately makes me feel warmer.

  By the time I’m done getting dressed, another one of the Shkkka has come into the mess-room and stands watching. I give her a weak wave, but my attention is on Reetha, who has gone to the galley and is heating something that smells so good, it would make my dog puppy self drool.

  A moment later she plunks down a bowl of meat, vegetables, and sauce in front of me, along with a spoon. I’ve seen humanoids eat before. I close my five-fingered hand around the spoon and dig in. Oh, food, beautiful food, how I have missed you.

  “Another?” Reetha grunts when I’ve finished.

  “Yes, please,” I answer, and another full bowl lands on the table in front of me. Human mouths can taste food better than any other shape I’ve taken before. It’s wonderful.

  A bit later the captain comes in and flings herself onto the couch, propping her feet on the low table next to it. A tall, long-faced, blue-skinned humanoid ducks in the doorway, but doesn’t come farther into the mess-room. A short while later another member of the crew, a humanoid with tusks and a heavy brow ridge, joins them.

  I don’t look up from my meal. Reetha brings me more. And more again.

  “How much has he eaten?” the captain asks. “How many bowls of stew?”

  Reetha brings me another bowl. “Six.”

  They all stare wonderingly at me as I demolish the sixth delicious serving of stew. Then I lick out the bowl and sit back in my chair.

  “Done?” the captain asks with an edge in her voice.

  “For now,” I answer with a happy sigh.

  “Good,” she says, getting to her feet. “Because I have some questions for you, Trouble, and you are going to answer them.”

  I’m full of food and wonderfully warm, and I’ve never been so sleepy in my entire existence. I drag myself away from the table and flop onto the blue-and-green patterned couch. My human eyes drop closed.

  Go ahead and ask your questions, Captain. I’ll answer them.

  Later.

  6

  Strangely, the first thing the captain asks me about is the dog puppy.

  But that’s after Reetha woke me up and took me to the bathroom—on a ship, it’s called the head.

  As you probably know, all beings have to eliminate waste from their bodies, though they do it in different ways, more or less smelly and messy. After I figured out how the human body does it, Reetha put me into a shower to get clean. I could have stayed in there for a long time because the warm water felt wonderful, but she dragged me out again and stuck me under a dryer.

  As it dried me, I managed to get a look at myself in a mirror.

  My dog self was female, but my human self is male. My blob
of goo self is neuter, and I’ve had other shades of gender before. Whatever shape I’m in, whatever gender, I’m always me.

  This particular me, as reflected in the mirror, is a young, skinny human male with pale skin, hair the same light brown color as my dog fur, and eyes the same as my dog puppy eyes.

  While I was putting on my clothes again—much easier the second time—my stomach growled loudly enough for Reetha to hear it.

  “Food?” I asked.

  She grunted and brought me back to the mess-room, and I sat at the table while she heated some grains and a milky substance in a bowl and gave it to me.

  That’s where the captain found me and started her questions.

  “The dog was your pet?” she asks. She’s slouched in a chair, idly turning a fork in her long fingers.

  The captain’s face is deeply lined, and her short, tightly curled hair is white-gray, which I know indicates age in a human. Her skin is darker than mine, a warm brown color, and her eyes are brown and very sharp and have a fan of wrinkles at each corner.

  “The dog,” I repeat, and finish the last spoonful of grains. “Is there more?” I ask hopefully.

  Without a word, Reetha sets three more bowls of food on the table, then goes to lean against a wall, watching, her green-scaled arms crossed over her chest.

  “Thanks,” I say gratefully. Always good to be polite when among strangers. I scoop up a bite of the sweetened grains.

  The captain makes an impatient noise.

  Oh, her question. “The dog,” I say again, slowly. “Was it my pet?”

  “That,” the captain grinds out, “is what I want to know.” She is watching me keenly.

  Oh, I know this about humanoids and their pets. They feel an emotional attachment. A real human boy would feel sadness about losing his cute, fluffy pet dog puppy, wouldn’t he?

  “The dog was not my pet,” I decide, and pull a third bowl of grains toward myself.