Loner in Space

by Steve Simons

  There are high pitched sounds coming from across the corridor and both ends of the corridor. Paul is surrounded by them. There is no escaping now. The tone of the sounds indicates some excitement. They must have found Paul's laptop and other things in the control room. Paul is glad that he had brought the food and drink that he had left, in the cupboard with him.

  Oh no, Paul can't believe it, the cupboard door is opening! He will be discovered. Its all over!

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  Chapter 11  I Hope You Don't See Me

  As the door opens, Paul is even more cautious about staying absolutely still, fearing that he will be discovered at any moment. He senses the unease in his stomach as it churns over and his heart beats even faster. Paul hopes his ploy of laying one of the suits across the area where he is sitting, looks natural enough, as if the suit had fallen off the hook, in flight or during the landing.

  Drat the suit on the ground has moved, Paul can see another type of suit and what is more it is moving, it must be one of the aliens searching the ship. Paul hopes that it does not see Paul. At present it appears to be looking elsewhere, higher up in the cupboard.

  Paul realises that the other suit had been moved by the alien and this in turn had caused the suit on the floor to move. Paul wonders if he should attempt to move the part that has moved, back again, so that he is no longer exposed. If he does so however, will it draw even more attention to himself?

  Another alien appears beside the first, 'Oh no twice the chance of being spotted.' thinks Paul. There is an excited exchange between the two aliens, or at least Paul thinks that is what the high pitched noises are all about.

  Paul finds himself feeling quite light headed now. He wonders if the aliens have poisoned the air and maybe that's the reason they are wearing the suits, to protect themselves. 'What a clever way to rid themselves of a troublesome alien invader.' thinks Paul. He is feeling even more light headed now, all he wants to do is fall asleep. He feels himself slumping to one side. The advantage of this is that it takes him out of the potential line of sight of those aliens. He just hopes that he can maintain a controlled collapse, sudden movement will instantly attract their attention. Paul hopes that this is just some sort of knock out gas rather than poison. His eyes are closing involuntarily now. No matter how much Paul tries his hardest to resist what is happening, he finds he cannot resist and he finds that he had dropped off for a short while. He is careful not to jump as he comes to again, although this is only briefly. He raises his head just enough to see that both of the aliens have now gone. He must maintain control, in-case they return. He can feel he is going again. When Paul next opens his eyes he finds that he cannot see. Paul knows that he has opened his eyes, but why can't he see. It was some form of poison after all, it has affected his sight. If that is the case though, his hearing has been affected as well, as the sound of the aliens is considerably reduced.

  It dawns on Paul that the cupboard door has closed again. So he has managed to avoid detection, but what about the poisonous gas? It can't be that poisonous, after all he is still here and conscious, although he still has that light headed feeling. Paul wonders just what is causing this, maybe the aliens had pumped some sort of gas into the craft and its effects whilst not deadly are still influencing Paul's ability to concentrate and remain fully conscious. He can feel himself drifting in and out of a form of sleep. No matter how much he shakes his head it makes no difference. He wonders if he still has that can of energy drink and if so will it make any difference. Paul carefully searches through the bag of items that he had brought with him into the cupboard. He is careful not to make any sound, after all the aliens may still be in the corridor, but just not making any sounds themselves. Sure enough he finds the can, but dare he open it, the mere act of doing so may draw attention to himself. What a dilemma, just one more to add to the stack that Paul has faced recently. He feels himself drifting back into that sleepy feeling again and decides he just has to take the chance. He buries the can under the space suit that is lying on top of him. He just hopes that it will suppress the sound enough. There's a click noise then the 'shush' noise as the gas bubbles escape. Paul listens carefully to see if there is any reaction to the noise. The seconds tick by, but no reaction. The mere anticipation of problems has woken Paul up a bit more. He raises the can to his lips, he can smell that familiar sweet smell of the drink. The bubbles striking Paul's nose reminds him that this is quite a lively drink. Good job he didn't try and drink it whilst in space, now that would have been funny.

  The sweet tasting liquid hits Paul's tongue and that in itself seems to have a bit of reviving effect. After finishing the can, Paul hopes that its beneficial effects kick in soon, he's fed up now with feeling so drowsy. All he can do now is wait to see what effect the drink is going to have. Paul settles down to listen out for threatening sounds again.

  'Blast it!' Paul thinks to himself as he wakes again from a sleep of unknown duration. Paul continues to think, 'Well that stuff worked didn't it. What am I going to do now, I can't stay in this cupboard for the rest of my limited lifetime. Well at least it will be limited if I stay here.' Paul listens out again for any sounds, but there are none. The thought suddenly strikes Paul, 'How am I going to get out of this cupboard? The aliens would not have designed it to be opened from the inside as they would have never expected anyone to lock themselves in here, it is basically too small.' He searches around for a trigger bump, but as he had suspected, there is none.

  'Oh well done boy, you have sealed yourself in now, with no way to get out again, unless a co-operative alien decides to come back again to remove something from the cupboard or to check it again.' thinks Paul to himself.

  ~~ Later ~~

  Several minutes have past, with Paul running through all sorts of scenarios in his head, when an idea dawns upon him. All he has to do is identify the fibre that goes into the external trigger bump, pull it out and trigger it with his torch. Paul searches his pockets for his torch, not easy in a confined space, but eventually he manages to get the torch out. He struggles to get past the suit that is lying on him. Luckily there isn't a metal skin on the inside of the cupboard. The aliens obviously decided not to bother in order to cut down the weight and as this area was not intended to support life it would deemed totally unnecessary. There is a zigzag framework of metal supports running up this side of the wall. The fibre must be somewhere within this framework. It takes Paul some time to spot the fibre, it being thin and transparent, he misses it several times. It is only when he manages to change his viewing angle that he manages to spot one length of the fibre. He reaches in to grab it, his attempts are thwarted several times as the space is quite small, but eventually Paul manages to grasp the tiny fibre. Next comes the challenge of actually pulling it as it appears to be quite firmly fixed. Paul traces its path, then spots the problem, there is some sort of strap that holds the fibre close to the zigzag structure itself, the alien's equivalent of a cable tie. If only he had not left his Swiss knife tool out in the control room, he would have been able to cut through the tie. Paul follows the fibre further up from the tie and sees that it disappears through the wall a bit further up. He just hopes there will be enough fibre that he can get it to poke beyond the zigzag structure once it is detached from the triggering bump. He gently pulls the fibre, not wanting to break it. There is initial resistance, but this soon gives and the fibre comes away. Paul cannot believe his luck, the fibre is now proud of the support structure. He swings the torch around to shine right down the fibre and he jumps nearly out of his skin as the door slides open. Expecting there to be an alien guard the other side of the door, Paul quickly drapes the suit over himself, waits listens for any other sounds. There are none, so carefully he pushes the suit away and prepares to escape the cupboard. To his dismay, the door closes again. Paul mentally kicks himself, for not putting something in the way of the door. He struggles back into position
to trigger the door again, the old familiar dizzy light headedness feel comes over him again. 'Oh great now this has to happen!' Paul thinks to himself, struggle as he might to overcome the feeling, he finds himself drift off to sleep again.

  Just how long Paul has been asleep he just has no way of knowing, he had not checked his watch for hours. He focuses on his mission, to open this door. He finds the fibre again and triggers it. The door effortlessly slides open again. This time, Paul puts one leg of the space suit in the door's path, as he gathers his supplies together, after all these small remnants of food are the only ones he can eat for all he knows.

  Paul cautiously looks up and down the corridor, no aliens in sight, although to the left, he can only see just beyond the cabin door and not up towards the craft's entrance. He quickly checks again, in-case they had placed any monitoring devices. That's when he notices that all the debris that had been on the floor before, including his own intruder detection device near that power control cupboard at the very end of the corridor, have gone.

  Paul decides that he will first check out the other end of the corridor that leads to the entrance, in-case there is a guard there. Paul cautiously walks with his back to the wall in the direction of the entrance.

  Suddenly the cupboard door closes and makes Paul jump. He wonders how this could have happened, after all he had placed part of the suit in the way. The as he runs through in his mind the events of the last few minutes, he remembers that he had accidentally moved the leg of the space suit, when he left the cupboard. It is then that Paul realises that he is defenceless, he should have grabbed one of the space boots, that would have given him some form of weapon. Paul makes his way back to the cupboard and triggers the bump with his torch, regularly checking that there are no aliens coming from the entrance.

  After several attempts to trigger the door bump, Paul suddenly remembers that he had detached the fibre from the bump. 'Oh very clever Paul Simpkins, you've done it now you'll never get this door open now' thinks Paul to himself. Another dilemma, should he go into the control room, in search of a weapon, taking the chance that he will alert the guard if there is one; or should he cautiously check if there is a guard, taking the chance of being spotted. What should he do? Here comes that light headed feeling again. 'Not now, please!' thinks Paul. The feeling passes as Paul takes some deep breaths.

  Paul decides to take the chance of being spotted and cautiously heads back up the corridor towards the entrance. He soon reaches a point where he can see right up to the entrance. The door is closed and no sign of any aliens. As Paul looks to the floor it dawns on him again that it is perfectly clear. Even his intruder alarm has gone.

  As Paul looks about himself, his eyes alight upon the cabin door, 'Surely there can't be anyone in there?' thinks Paul. He breathes deeply, then advances to the door and triggers the door bump, it takes about four attempts, consequently it makes him jump when the door eventually opens. The room is empty. Even the bedding has gone. 'These aliens are thorough.' thinks Paul. He decides that his next port of call should be the control room.

  The opening of the control door makes him jump even more than the others, as it happens first time and by now Paul isn't expecting it. There are the two chairs, the window, which still has its heavy grey tint. Beyond which he can see the structures that he could see from space. He hopes that the windows act like one way mirrors on earth and that the aliens can't see in. The reason for this, is the fact that Paul can see a number of the aliens!

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  Chapter 12  A Boy Has To Do

  Paul drops to his knees, cautiously and slowly enters the control room. He cannot believe what he can see. Inside the structure before the craft, but some distance away from it, are loads of aliens. They seem to be all busy doing things. Just what, Paul can but hazard a guess, it has to be something in connection with the return of their craft. He wonders if they were expecting this arrival.

  Paul has now reached the side of the first chair, whilst he was half expecting to see an alien sitting in the chair, he is most relieved to see that it is empty. To his dismay, however, he glances across to the second chair and finds that his laptop has gone! Yes it has gone, the aliens have taken his laptop and the control circuit board that was connected to it. The fibres are just hanging down from the underside of the control desk. Paul is somewhat relieved to see that the sticky labels that he had put on the fibres, that identified each one's purpose, were still there. At least the aliens had not removed them. But what good was this, his laptop was gone. No hope of escaping this planet now. At least not in this craft. Maybe there are others, perhaps he could steal one of those and get home that way. But for now, he must find a away of getting out of this craft without getting caught.

  Paul sits down and looks back up out through the window and sees all those aliens again. None appear to be looking down at the craft, so perhaps the windows are performing as a one way mirror, or maybe they had just not as yet spotted Paul's movements.

  Sorry, what was that you asked, I couldn't hear you due to the sound of Paul's heart as it is beating so fast and so loud. Oh what do the aliens look like? Well a bit difficult to make out any detail from this distance, but here goes: They are actually dark green in colour, their skin looks quite bumpy, they have two arms and two legs. As Paul watches one, turn round, he is amazed to count that it has six, yes six, not just the four eyes that he thought they had. As he watches them at work, he notices that they have lights at the ends of their hands, maybe these are strapped on. They have no nose, but their mouth is much larger than a humans'. They appear to have no ears. Paul notices that they seem to have similar movements to those of humans'. As he cannot hear them, he cannot tell how or, if they talk to each other, in the human sense. Although, as he casts his mind back to when he was trapped in the cupboard, it seemed as if there was some sort of high pitched discussion taking place then.

  The aliens seem to be engaged in the use of their devices, which they are standing in front of. The whole scene reminds Paul of many pictures he has seen of humans using banks and banks of computers, or control panels. Perhaps they were analysing the craft's flight path and most probably checking out his laptop to see how that works.

  Paul wonders why all of their buildings are transparent, even the floors. Then he wonders if it is connected with the fact that they are green and quite plant like in appearance. Something from one of his lessons comes back to him, what was it called? Paul struggles to think of the name, but cannot remember it. The principle was, light plus water, plus some green stuff equalled sugar and oxygen, oh and there was something else what was it? That gas that they put in drinks, carbon oxygen something. As you can tell chemistry is not one of Paul's strengths. Ah yes the name has come back to him, its photosynthesis. Maybe this lot have to have the light from their sun in order to live. Just in the same way that humans need food, water and air, these aliens need the air, water and sunlight, they make their own food, the sugar element. If his theory is right, that would explain why these islands are surrounded by ponds and streams or rivers. It would also explain the transparent nature of the buildings.

  It was fascinating, that although these are essentially plant people, they have evolved so much, that they have developed their own technology, taking them to a level beyond that of humans. Paul wonders what had driven them to do this, when they could have stuck with a much simpler lifestyle of just hanging around the nearest pond and having a chat with each other. Then Paul thinks how boring that would be for his kind. As these aliens also have intelligence, he can imagine such a lifestyle would equally be boring. Once a creature can move around it becomes curious and has to explore. That is precisely what this lot have done, they have built space ships and gone out to the furtherest reaches, in search of other civilisations. Paul wonders if there had been other craft visiting the earth, other than the one he had travelled here in. Have these aliens been to the earth
several times before, were they regular visitors, or had this been their one and only outing to the earth?

  Questions, questions, but just no way of getting answers. There was no way that Paul was going to just hand himself over to the aliens, no matter how curious he was about them. He did not fancy becoming one of their experiments. What was he going to do though, he cannot stay here, now that the aliens have disabled this craft, Paul must try and see if there are any other space craft that he can borrow, to try and get home. He could always send it back again into space in the hope that it picks up the return home beacon. Paul carefully gets up to look out of the window, so he can check for alien guards. He keeps an eye on the aliens across in the building to see if any are watching him. After a good look around, Paul decides that there are no guards, at least none visible from this side of the craft. He slowly climbs down off of the control desk, as he had laid on it.

  Now comes the planning part, just how is Paul going to escape all those aliens? There may be no guards, but as soon as he steps out of the craft, he will attract attention and they will come after him. Without knowing the lay of the buildings and land out there it, is going to be really impossible to plan ahead. Paul comes to the conclusion that once outside the craft, he will have to survey the surroundings and make quick decisions, as to what he needs to do. The worst possible scenario, will be that there is no escape path and once he has appeared outside the craft, these aliens will know he's still alive and will come in to get him. Paul decides not to dwell on that one. It is just not an option to stay in the craft, as soon he will run out of food and drink.