by H C Turk
The audible voice that sounded seemed that of a liar, lacking the strength of conviction or the veracity of experience.
“The thing can’t get through,” Parno said to Kathlynn’s back, “or it would be murdering us now.”
Scowling at Parno’s choice of participles, his action word denoting the end of all action, Kathlynn pressed both palms against the vegetable door.
“It’s not a ‘thing,’” she suggested, glimpsing toward the curving corridor as the panel opened. “Haven’t you determined by now that it’s a ghost? The only people alive in this vessel are aliens. Us.”
Walking sideways, Parno followed, unable to look away from those grasping claws until the panel closed behind.
They rode on a ribbon, yes, not a conveyor. Down and around they proceeded, passing curved walls with an apparent depth that changed with the angle of view. A ribbon with the sheen of fabric woven by craftsmen at their manual looms. Deftly balancing warp and weave, threads from perpendicular directions merged, creating a surface from strings, curves generated by melding lines. Up, bearing left, the ribbon continued beneath a ceiling that depicted a magenta sky with billowing clouds so high they seemed at the edge of space. Looking up, Parno nearly managed to smile, but turned instead, hearing alien claws reaching for his neck. He saw nothing behind but a handsome path. Those claws stretched in Parno’s imagination, the action verb of murder lodged in his mind, a flaw like thread knots in the fabric of his thinking.
In the form of fire, that grasp had reached him before, burning his senses with a permanent fear. How alien, he thought, to feel a skeletal chill when considering false death by flames.
Had he been traversing a path through a forest, Parno might have run ahead to proceed with his partner. Perhaps not, if that companion retained her bad state of unease. On this ribbon ride, Kathlynn was not able to dissipate her anger. Their passage on the conveyor did not provide enough of a safe breeze to disperse the unsettled smoke soiling her mind.
They entered a farm. Plants with leaves and fruit grew within the chamber they entered. Paces inside, a purplish tree’s split trunk bent in two directions. To one side of the chamber, bamboo-like stalks, curtailed at chest height, sprouted flat, circular tops.
“Oh, Parno, it smells like citrus blossoms,” said delighted Kathlynn. “I grew up in Fleorgia, but haven’t been there in years.”
“My mouth is waterin’ now, pardner,” Parno said, wiping his coverall sleeve across his lips. “Actually, Kathlynn, I notice a myriad of smells, but all…vegetative.”
She grabbed his elbow, looking firmly ahead for the source of her perception.
“Parno, I smell tomato leaves. I would trade you for a tomato.”
“Me? Aren’t I worth more than a tomato?”
“You may not be worth more than a ripe, yellow tomato,” she added, still looking as the two stepped inside.
Parno bent to the nearest plant. Knee high with woody limbs, it resembled a common Earth shrub.
“No fruit here, it’s all tiny leaves,” he noticed, and reached to pick one. “They’re narrow, deep green, and smell like…grass.”
He dropped it to the floor.
“This must all be artificial,” Kathlynn surmised. “I see no dead leaves or spoiled fruit on the ground.”
“On the floor,” Parno corrected her. “Look at these plants. They’re sprouting directly from the floor.”
Directly at his feet, the leaf he had dropped sank into the floor’s substance, as though submerged in molasses. The flooring material then closed over seamlessly.
“Oh,” he said.
“What an excellent cleaning system.”
“Modern Earth is covered with self-cleaning floors,” Parno declared as though boasting.
“Not well-stated,” Kathlynn replied. “The self-cleaning floors we know are not so seamless in accepting detritus.”
Parno stepped away from Kathlynn as she studied the alien floor.
“I don’t care,” he said loudly, “I’m hungry. Kathlynn, look at this.”
Parno had discovered a complex growth of vines evidently supported only by themselves. Tan with a greyish tint to vines and needle-like leaves, the plants’ most obvious feature was a growth of translucent, elongated spheres. Blue. Pale blue, the dull skin matte, transparent.
“Alien plums,” Parno suggested.
“Or non-bunching grapes,” Kathlynn said. “Oh, look, you can see inside. The flesh is like slushy ice, and in the middle are the seeds.”
Parno plucked one.
“It feels cool,” he said, turning it over in his hands. “We’re so lucky.”
“How so?”
“What if the aliens who live here didn’t breathe air that suited us, or lived in a clime twenty degrees hotter or colder than our preference?”
“The interior does adjust to some extent, Parno. It was dark when we arrived.”
“The air and temperature were fine when we entered, Kathlynn.”
“Parno, saliva is drooling from the corner of your mouth.”
He refrained from wiping or licking his lips, since a lady was staring at him.
“This is stupid,” he said. “We shouldn’t eat until desperate.”
“Of course it’s not stupid,” Kathlynn retorted. “We are not going to leave immediately—that has certainly been proven—so we need fluid and food in order to continue. Furthermore, since we will leave with just a bit more thought and effort, we will not have to suffer any lasting intestinal distress.”
“This is stupid,” he repeated, staring at the fruit.
“Let’s just find some water,” she offered.
“Good-bye, Kathlynn.”
“Where are you going?”
“Wherever dead Earthers end up after eating poisonous alien fruit,” he explained, and popped it into his mouth.
He chewed, looking nowhere, a thoughtful expression caught on his face. He swallowed. Blue juice now displaced the saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth.
“It’s bland,” he said, “and has a funny aftertaste.” He picked another. “We could live on them if we had to, questions of foreign nutrition aside. Here, you try one.”
Kathlynn held her hands out in rejection.
“Parno, I am starving. But I’ll wait to see if this kills you first.”
“If our suits were functioning, we could test this vegetation for toxicity.”
“If our suits were functioning, Parno, we could eat the emergency rations inside.”
“That’s what aux rations taste like,” Parno remarked. “Overripe alien plums.”
Kathlynn turned left, right, saying:
“Let’s look for something else. Oh, Parno, right beside the door where we entered. Look, that is obviously artificial.”
Squarish pads, two inches thick, that could have been an alien interpretation of Kapnosan lahar, dangled from the wall. Parno stepped near and pulled one away.
“Just the width of your waist,” he said, holding it before his abdomen. “Time for an experiment, Kathlynn. Grab a grape.”
Kathlynn walked those few steps, returning with several fruit. Parno nodded, and Kathlynn placed them on the pad. They sank into the surface enough to prevent their rolling off.
“I knew it,” Parno beamed. “This is a diner, and here are our trays.”
Kathlynn gave him a fond look, not quite a smile, as she spoke.
“Parno, I haven’t seen such a smile from you since you sat on the alien loo and soiled your pants.”
“Wasn’t that right after I saw your nipples?” he retorted, and abruptly pressed the tray into Kathlynn’s hands. “Do you want to eat, or would you rather trade war stories?”
They began walking through the diner, picking succulent sprouts from a tall bush, blue icicle globes from dense vines, and nut-like shells of variegated greens. Then they arrived at a tree that could have produced hundreds of apples. Too tall to reach, the trunk had been split by gardeners, the leafy bough hanging at head
height. The fruit was head-sized.
“They look like watermelons,” Parno pointed.
“Parno, they’re pink.”
“Being alien, they’re probably inside out.”
“I’ll pass on them,” Kathlynn said, and continued walking along with her tray. “Are you dying yet?”
“Not yet.”
Kathlynn had stopped at a column, perfectly square in cross-section, that extended out of reach, seemingly melding with the hazy ceiling. Beside the column, which seemed a type of metal, floated a perfect sphere, which seemed a type of plas.
“More unnatural items here,” Kathlynn called out to Parno.
He stepped near to see Kathlynn bending over the ball, sniffing.
“Look, it twirls effortlessly,” she said, pressing the four-foot sphere with her fingertips. The big ball languidly revolved around no set axis.
“I hope it’s not an alien hagillator’s skull,” Parno murmured, but the fem ignored him.
“Look at all of these little panels, like the parlor’s entry doors,” Kathlynn added. “They smell. Parno, they are all different colors, and all different smells. I think the contents are marked by scent.”
“Maybe the rat in the lobby has been marking its territory,” Parno muttered, but the supervisor paid him no heed.
Kathlynn stopped the sphere’s rotation, then touched one reddish panel with her fingertip.
“Oh, it’s vibrating,” she observed. “I think it’s talking. But without our suits, we can’t hear such high vibrations.”
Parno shrugged, saying only, “Hungry.”
Focusing closely, Kathlynn added, “Parno, there’s a texture here. I think it’s a codification of symbols, like sentences.”
“I don’t care, superfem. I am starving. How do they smell?”
“This one stinks,” she said, and sniffed another.
“Your nose is substantial,” Parno noted. “If I weren’t so hungry, I’d like to bite it.”
“After ignoring you completely,” she said, straightening, “I find a panel that looks like a superfine corncob in apparent texture, and smells like bacon.”
“Oh, that’s revolting.”
“Uh, I’ve always enjoyed, uh, bacon,” Kathlynn admitted. “You’re not a Meat Hater, are you?”
“Meat Haters understand the metaphysical fact that any living creature capable of love possesses an anima,” Parno growled. “It’s odd that the term ‘Meat Hater’ is used by people who think ‘love’ is the feeling they get when gnawing a murdered animal.”
“Parno, have you ever met a pig?”
“Not intimately.”
“They’re nasty beasts.”
“What are you saying, Kathlynn, that apples are nice, so we should eat pigs instead?”
“Very well, I promise not to eat any alien bacon,” Kathlynn said, and poked her finger at a panel on the sphere.
The panel opened, revealing a flexible, clear box, a polyhedron with countless angles.
“That looks good from here,” Parno said, leaning closer—exactly as Kathlynn pulled her head away.
“It’s moving,” she said, sneering with a literally distasteful expression.
“It’s probably a herd of tiny, living animals,” Parno scoffed. “Since you’re a Meat Sucker, why don’t you just gobble them down?”
“There are no animals in it,” she scoffed. “It looks like stew. All the little veggie cubes are rolling around, displaying themselves.”
Kathlynn closed that panel, then bent near the sphere again, sniffing. After lightly rubbing her fingertip against one panel, she licked her finger.
“Hmmm, it tastes rather nutty,” she reported.
Parno pressed against the panel, which opened to reveal a box full of colorful slugs and caterpillars.
Straightening rapidly, Kathlynn moaned:
“I am vomiting. Gad, I need something to drink.”
Parno suddenly looked to Kathlynn, evidently enlightened.
“Kathlynn,” he said earnestly, “I’d give my left elbow for a beer.”
He then looked up, around, quickly speaking to the alien interior.
“I don’t want one that bad.”
Cocking her head, a new vision catching her eye, Kathlynn looked past Parno. Pointing with one finger, she said:
“Too late, Parno. Hold your forearm, because it’s about to fall off.”
He turned to the square column beside the food sphere. The column rotated on its vertical axis, its pseudo-metallic sides now translucent. The Earthers saw cupped shelves within, each containing a different shape.
“Gimme my beer,” Parno demanded, and reached for the column.
It stopped rotating. Part of that side facing Parno dissolved at waist height. Reaching inside, Parno removed a transparent shape, perhaps made of plasglass.
“It looks like an alien Erlenmeyer flask,” Parno observed.
“It’s full of a green, frothy fluid,” Kathlynn added. “I see that the top is sealed.”
Not sealed, Parno saw, but all of a piece. Shrugging, he placed the top against his lips and tilted the flask. Green fluid flowed past his lips. Lowering the flask, he swallowed.
“It tastes like pig bile,” he told Kathlynn. “You might like it.”
He stifled a retch as Kathlynn laughed.
“You have green foam, like alien swine saliva, on your mouth,” she said, staring at Parno’s facial freak show.
“I need water,” he moaned, and turned to the column. “Aytch two oh,” he said firmly, pointing to his mouth.
The column turned, stopped, revealing a flask with the shape of a banana on a pedestal. Colorless flask and contents.
Parno sampled it, then emptied the flask, swallowing heartily.
“Ah, purest water from Earth’s finest springs,” he smiled.
“More,” Kathlynn stated, holding up two fingers.
“Yeah, hit us again, barkeep,” Parno said.
The column complied. After removing two identical flasks, Parno returned the empty container. But the column spit it out. The flask fell to the floor at Parno’s feet, not breaking, but disappearing.
After filling their trays, the Earthers looked for a table, a booth, a bench, a stool, a….
Kathlynn placed her tray on top of one of the flat surfaces with wavy edges they had noticed upon entering. The irregular tops sprouted from bamboo-like columns.
“This is it,” she frowned. “The indigenes of this structure are proven alien by the fact that they eat standing up.”
Placing his tray on the adjacent “table,” Parno said:
“We could sit on the floor.”
“Wouldn’t we be considered detritus and be absorbed?”
Parno shrugged, staring at his tray.
“How am I supposed to eat this consommé?” he wondered, and jiggled the shallow container.
Kathlynn watched him bend, staring at the side of his tray.
“A slot,” he described. “It wasn’t here before.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Kathlynn warned.
He swept a glimpse from her hips to her chest.
“Eat your bacon,” she growled.
Parno held forth the object he had removed from the tray’s slot. Possessing a wood-like grain, the item had the size of an eating utensil. Parno pulled the shapeless device this way, and a cupped end formed. Pressing that way exposed a sharp edge. More pulling and pushing changed the tool into tripled tongs, a type of flat scraper, and multiple prongs.
They ate, finding nothing difficult to chew or swallow, nothing especially tasty or revolting, nothing memorable.
“The only reason we’ll survive this,” Parno announced, downing the contents of his third water flagon, “is because Stellar Service’s off-world program demands a regimen of holistic vaccines that will allow the explorer to digest a variety of alien junk.”
“I did that,” Kathlynn replied, pressing her hand against her abdomen while emitting the daintiest of belc
hes.
With a blatant look of terror, wide-eyed Kathlynn looked around the chamber, virtually running from Parno.
Something he had eaten would not settle correctly in his stomach, churning as though uncomfortable in its new location. Kathlynn returned in seconds.
“I had the most terrible thought,” she said, drinking from a flask.
“What?”
“Rooms with burnt ends. Praise the spirits of nature this isn’t one.”
“What?” he said, hand on his stomach. He could not tell if he felt better or worse.
“The airlock and the greenhouse both had those smoky, indistinct ends, do you recall?”
“Yes. How do you feel? Stomach very full here.”
“They also held dead alien bodies. The airlock is where we first saw that horrid, smoke…ghost.”
“Yes. Too full in the gut.”
“That proves it’s a ghost. Ooh, my tummy, too.”
“Howso?”
“Tummy too stuffed from eating these foodstuffs. Oh, the ghost? Corpses, burnt ends, smoke ghost. The connection, we’ll have to learn, or die from it.”
“If this meal doesn’t kill us first.”
“Oh, I know why…ghost. Because he can’t get through. Through,” she said. “The doors won’t open for the dead.”
Stepping from her table, Kathlynn shook her head, but lightly.
“Ooh. I need to take a walk after dinner.”
“Me too,” Parno said. “Me too.”
Then he shouted. Opening his mouth wide, he directed his head upward and screamed a sound.
“Aaaaa!”
Parno then looked down, not appearing agitated.
Kathlynn had not noticed his sound. She walked to Parno, bounding away after running into him with her shoulder.
“Are you ready to screw now?” he asked. “Now?”
“I’ve never been good at masturbation. No. And no more of that…whatever we were doing. Foodstuff.”
As though needing to relieve himself of skin, Parno peeled off his coveralls.
“I can’t stand it,” he hissed. “Something. Some….”
“You gave it to me?!” Kathlynn yelped, and yanked on her coveralls until the garment dropped. “Oh no, more more more here,” she noticed, and pulled the one-piece underbare from her figure, dropping the filmy fabric to the floor.
