A.K.A. The Alien

by Lindsay Tomlinson

crew will co-operate. Does the crew have to agree to the Agreement as well, or am I alone in having to do the agreeing?”

  “Captain Munk will no doubt agree on behalf of the crew.”

  I guessed I could manage to be as trustworthy as the humans. They did not, after all, have a brilliant track record for keeping their word, and I could hardly do worse.

  So I agreed to the Agreement. We immediately had a little disagreement over the form my signature should take - I preferred florid, Lieutenant Shue liked something that would fit in the relevant box - but we got there in the end.

  1.9. The playing of bumpikins

  The Agreement laid out that I could carry out a few days of observations of the humans going about their everyday business, but I was already observed-out. I wanted to do things, to experience what it was like to be an organic.

  They were still sending out members of crew, wrapped up warm in little white suits, to collect the bodies of the crew of the Invincible. They did not have enough room on board the ship to store them all, so they only brought in the broken bits that would otherwise get lost and put them in a cold store, and left the other puffed-up bodies tethered against the exterior of the ship like a giant bunch of balloons. I wanted to put on one of those white suits and go out walking in space.

  “While you are with us for a few days, perhaps you could help us,” Lieutenant Shue said. It was the daily briefing, when they decided what I could do that day. “Were you in this area when the Invincible hit the debris? Did you see it happen?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Did you perhaps see another ship in the area? Was another ship involved in the accident?”

  The Bonaventure belonged to Min-XR, which was currently at war with the mega-company Fleur. Min-XR were rather suspicious that Fleur had had something to do the destruction of the Invincible.

  “No, there wasn’t any other ship.”

  “Did you see the Invincible hit the debris?”

  “Oh, I did that,” I said, being helpful, as requested. Lieutenant Shue grew very very still. “You see, I was playing bumpikins.”

  “Bumpikins?”

  “That’s a word I’ve just made up for you, using the verb ‘to bump’ and the terminal of the word ‘spilikins’. To convoy both the nature of the game and the manner of it’s playing.”

  “You were playing bumpikins and …?”

  “And when one of the rocks hit another it broke apart and one of the fragments bumped into the ship. And of course the ship then broke apart in turn.”

  Lieutenant Shue was still staring at me. “You understand people died when the ship broke apart?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “That you are responsible for the deaths of 27 people?”

  “Yup.”

  He started to speak, then stopped, and then started again. “You do realise that humans are upset by the deaths of fellow humans?”

  “Indeed I do, and I also know that you use many different commemorative and funerary rituals to deal with the emotional impact of a death. The Sikhs, for example -”

  “And you do realise that we, the crew of the Bonaventure, have worked closely with the crew of the Invincible over the past year? That it contained people we considered friends? Even family?”

  I thought that humans did not really live long enough to form deep emotional bonds, but I could tell by the form of his questions Lieutenant Shue was not likely to agree with me. “Yes, like Technician Smith’s brother,” I said, to show I had been paying attention. “The Sikhs -”

  “And it really didn’t occur to you that we might be a bit upset by the fact that it was you who killed them?”

  “Of course I did. Now, the Sikhs -”

  “That it might make a difference to us allowing you to remain on board?”

  “I don’t see why it should. It happened three whole days ago.” Lieutenant Shue was silent, but he was clearly not happy. I waited to see if he had anything more to say, and then, when it appeared he did not, thought it safe to continue. “The Sikhs hold a ceremony -”

  Lieutenant Shue stood up and walked out.

  1.10. You do not play hide-and-seek with dead people

  “I want to wear one of those white suits and go out and help retrieve the bodies,” I said.

  It was the second-watch briefing meeting with Lieutenant Shue.

  “We are going to remain here until the salvage ship the John of Dublin arrives,” Lieutenant Shue announced. “They will take over the retrieval of the crew of the Invincible, and then of the ship itself. Captain Munk thinks it would be better for you to wait until the salvage ship arrives, and then transfer onto her for the duration of your observation.”

  “OK,” I agreed. “But can I wear one of those white suits and go outside and help bring the bodies in?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would be inappropriate.”

  “Why would it be inappropriate?”

  “Because you murdered the lot of them.”

  “And by helping to bring the bodies in I would show I am willing to carry out reparation in order to atone for my crime,” I said. I had looked it up. “Anyway, technically it is only manslaughter, as I did not intend to kill them.”

  “It is still inappropriate.”

  “But I could help find the difficult ones. The ones hidden away in awkward places.” I may, or may not, have been thinking about Technician Smith’s brother. “It would be like hide-and-seek -”

  “It would not.”

  “Yes, it would. In hide-and-seek you look for some who is -”

  “I know how to play hide-and-seek. You don’t play hide-and-seek with dead people.”

  “I could still help.”

  “I’ll ask Captain Munk.”

  This was just another way of saying no.

  “You are right that I don’t understand why you are all still bothered by their deaths,” I said. “But do you think I will best learn why you are bothered, by watching or by participating?”

  Lieutenant Shue looked at me for a while and then sighed. “I’ll ask Captain Munk,” he repeated, but this time he said it in a different tone of voice. I was going to get to play.

  1.11. In search of a bed

  I wanted a place in a cabin like any other member of the crew, but there were only two vacant berths in the entire ship and both were in rooms already occupied by other people, and they declined to put me in either. Instead they gave me one of the two beds in the tiny ward of the hospital.

  “You do know I don’t need to sleep?”

  “Then why would you want a bed?”

  “I want a berth. My own personal space, so I can put my belongings there. Put pictures up on the wall. My clothes in a cupboard. A place I can go when I am off-duty. Just like the rest of the crew.”

  Lieutenant Shue gave me one of his looks.

  The news that I was responsible for the death of the crew of the Invincible had soon spread round the whole ship, so when Captain Munk agreed I could do some external work Petty Officer Robinson showed me how to suit up without speaking one unnecessary word to me the whole time. The rest of his team made a point of talking and laughing noisily between themselves and pointedly ignoring me.

  Before the news had become public the crew had looked rigidly to their front if they saw me in the corridor, and only looked round in curiosity after I was safely past. Now they stared openly, and held eye contact as long as they could. The men in particular seemed ready to provoke me, but I knew that Captain Munk had ordered them to do or say nothing to me about the Invincible, so in reality they could do nothing worse than mutter under their breath at me. They were hoping to make me feel uncomfortable, to intimidate me, to make me afraid of them. Perhaps they even hoped to persuade me to leave the ship altogether. I found it interesting, from a human-experience point of view, and more than a little amusing. I could kill the lot of them in the blink of an eye.

  So perhaps it really was a good thing I had agreed to t
he Agreement.

  1.12. Weary-boned

  They would not let me help retrieve the bodies, but Captain Munk had said that I could go outside as part of the team reclaiming the most important non-organic objects that had spilled from the broken ship. These mainly appeared to be boxes of geological specimens from the hold. In non-corporeal form I moved Technician Smith’s brother into a more obvious location from his current hiding place, and I was outside shepherding boxes of broken rock when they came across him. My team of four stopped their work and watched as the others pulled the corpse across to the Bonaventure. This, I knew, was a Sign of Respect.

  I obediently stopped working. I tried my hardest to feel something, like the humans so obviously did, but I cannot say I noticed anything. I knew I had killed him, and I knew this was considered wrong, but I had not meant to do so, and had I seen the Invincible in time I would have stopped the rock hitting it. But I hadn’t, so I couldn’t, and there was nothing I could do about it now. I thought it was time to put it all behind us and move on.

  We worked a double watch outside, and after that we came back inside as the humans were not allowed to work any longer. We had to have help to peel us out of our EVA suits, and the others, Robinson and O’Levy, Baker and Poulsen, all re-appeared from them red-faced, and with their hair plastered to their heads. They sat on the benches with their heads hung low.

  I looked just as I had at the start of the session.

  “Are you tired?” I asked Robinson. He raised his head just enough to glare at me. “Weary?” I tried. “... Drained? ... Exhausted?” He did not reply. Perhaps I should be less formal.