10 Light-Years to Insanity

by C M Dancha

  Morg looked for a chance to daydream again but could see the Earthling was keeping a close eye on him while he blabbered away.

  “I had a couple days before the auction, so I did everything I could think of to clean myself and try to smell fresh. I took at least half of my water ration each day and hand washed. When I ran out of water, I stole and begged for more from the other captives. My girlfriend was an easy target. She couldn’t understand why I needed so much water but gave me most of her ration. There was no way I was going to tell her the real reason. I knew one captive might be able to deceive the bidders and auctioneer but two would be unlikely. So, I kept making up stories about why I needed her water. She was a good girl and I should have told her what I was up to, but you know, everything is fair in love and war. Besides, she gave her life for a worthy cause.” The Earthling pointed to himself and started to cackle. He amused himself by lackadaisically describing his girlfriend’s sacrificial death.

  “When auction day came, the auctioneer went through the holding pens sniffing each captive. He wanted to make sure they reeked of body odor. When he came to me, he knew something was wrong. He smelled under my arms, on the backside and from top to bottom. He was not happy that I was nearly odorless. He began to throw a fit but then the auction chimes rang. He mumbled something under his breath and led the other captives to the auction bidding pit. The bidding was hot and furious. The smelliest captives were coveted and commanded the highest prices. The few who still had a few pounds of weight after the long journey on the transport were highly sought after. In fact, a few fights broke out in the auction pits over the fattest and smelliest humans.”

  As many times as Morg heard this story, he never bothered to ask what happened to the Earthling’s girlfriend. For some strange reason, this time he took the opportunity to ask.

  “What’s that? Oh, a gruesome-looking Treestteian bought her. I waved to her and tried to look heart-broken as she was led away in chains. At one point, she collapsed to the ground weeping and shrieking. I’m sure she was a tasty morsel.” The Earthling winked an eye at Morg and grinned. There was no question this gesture had some type of underlying meaning. Morg didn’t have a clue what it meant but figured it had to be something loathsome. He refused to demean himself by asking for an explanation.

  After years as an Invasion Trooper, Morg had become callous and hard. He wasn't very sentimental. But, in this case, he felt sorrow for the female Earthling that got suckered by the jerk sitting next to him.

  “Well, when I got to the auction block the bidders backed away. The Treestteian sense of smell is very sensitive. From fifteen to twenty feet, they could tell I was almost free from body odor. In their minds, my fresh scent indicated that I had a terrible disease.”

  “The auctioneer opened the bidding and waited. No bids came from the remaining audience. He did everything he could to get a bid, hoping to get rid of me. The bidders started to leave the pit, wanting nothing to do with me. When there were only a few remaining, the Treestteian auctioneer offered to give me away for free. Not one bidder accepted his offer. He finally gave up and put me back in the holding pen, cursing the entire time.”

  The auctioneer was livid and laid into the Crelon slavers; “Here, you take this diseased human. Get him out of my sight. And, don’t ever come back here again with an inferior product.”

  “The Crelon slavers weren’t happy that they had to haul my ass around after leaving Treestte 64. They decided to make my life as miserable as hell. Every day on their transport was a day of slavery. Clean this, pick up that, make and serve food. And, there were some unmentionable things which an important Earthling, like me, shouldn’t be forced to do.”

  Morg thought to himself, “⊬⟒⏃⊑, ⊬⍜⎍’⍀⟒….” “Yeah, you’re important all right. If it wasn’t for your old man, you would be back on Yanda scrubbing trash pits. You're lucky he is the Prefect and General Counsel for Earth’s Global Union Assembly. He demanded your safe return to Earth as a condition for finalizing the treaty agreement with Yanda.”

  Morg couldn’t stop the negative thoughts that flooded his mind. He fought to put a positive spin on the situation. “Earthling, if you had been bought on Treestte 64, I wouldn’t be sitting here listening to your whiny, obnoxious diatribe. I’d be doing something important like leading an invasion brigade or rubbing with my mate. Oh well, I lasted this long without throttling you. With the help of my ancestors, I’m sure I can last until this mission is finished.” Morg was ready to flip off his translator when he heard the kid say, “Finally, the Crelon slavers put in at that pathetic planet you call home. Tell me the truth, Morg. Aren't you embarrassed by Yanda? It’s so damn dreary…. and, smelly. By the way, what’s with that constant vibration in the air on Yanda? It never stops and no matter where you go, it follows you.”

  “Earthling, for your information, that vibration is ....”

  “I know, I know. It’s something you guys do to maintain orbital balance, blah, blah, blah. That’s not important. Be quiet for a minute and let me finish my story.”

  Morg was fuming. He was so mad he couldn’t put together a coherent thought. If he had, the Earthling would have heard a few choice Yandan swear words and curses. He was ready to turn off is translator but decided to keep it on. There was a strange desire to hear if the kid said anything else insulting about Yanda.

  “Well, I’m sure you want to hear how I got back at the Crelon slavers, so listen closely because I’m not going to repeat this.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to interrupt, you piece …” Morg caught himself before finishing the sentence. He could wait for a better opportunity to verbally blast the Earthling.

  “The Crelons sold me to a Yandan creep who wanted a flunky to do his monotonous labor. I was constantly working, cleaning, and taking care of those Yandan Nortels9 you all love to smell and eat. As part of the deal, the Yandan offered his residence as a party house. I must admit, those boys, or girls, I guess Crelons are both, know how to throw a party. It went on around the clock for days. I’ve never seen anything to compare to the addiction, drunkenness, and debauchery the Crelons cooked up. Anyhow, the official departure clearance for the Crelon ship arrived at the Yandan house. I was lucky enough to intercept and read it. I knew exactly when they were cleared to leave Yanda. I had less than six hours to execute my revenge.”

  The Earthling took another sip from his energy feeder. Out of the corner of his eye, he scowled at Morg making sure the Yandan was paying attention. After all, this was the best part of the entire story and he wanted to make sure his flight buddy heard every word.

  “Before the Crelons left for the launch terminal, I put a couple cases of Brofult in their vehicle. As you know, they love that drink. Personally, I think it tastes like crap but the Crelons and you guys love it. Now, here’s the kicker. What the Crelons didn’t know was that I loaded the Brofult with a laxative. There was enough in each container to turn their insides out.”

  The Earthling stopped to shake his head and laugh at his cunning deed. “I knew they would hit the Brofult hard as soon as they jumped a light year or so away from Yanda. They did, and I watched it on the transponders I hid on their ship. God, it was hilarious. Seeing the expressions on their faces when they started getting sick and doubling over in excruciating pain was great. And, then they started crapping. It was funnier than hell. There was Crelon crap everywhere and, best of all, there were no slaves on board to clean it up.”

  Morg sat there and watched the Earthling laugh uproariously for a couple minutes. The kid was certainly his own best fan. Finally, the laughter faded, and he got up from his gyro chair. “Morg, I got to get some shut-eye. Wake me in a couple hours, buddy. If you’re lucky, I’ll show you that recording from the bridge of the Crelon ship. Oh, and by the way, put in coordinates to stop at Feltte Six. I hear they got some high-flying birds on that planet.”

  Morg watched in disbelief as the Earthling strutted off the ship’s bridge and headed for the s
leeping quarters. He was stunned. It took until the Earthling was out of sight before his parting words started to register. With his translator still on, Morg started to mumble under his breath, spitting out each word with increasing anger.

  “You want to stop where? What the hell do you think this is, a tour transport? Getting your jerk-ass to Earth is a top-secret mission. But you think it would be fun to stop at a planet known to harbor some of the worst criminals in the universe. Are you insane, Earthling?”

  Morg paused to take a deep breath so the anger pods on the top of his head wouldn’t blow open. These pods had never blown open except in combat. But here he was in deep space, alone with an inferior creature who had pushed him to his limits. He allowed the Earthling to get under his scales. In war, he could strike back. All he could do now was fume and mumble, “Earthling, if you try to show me that playback of the Crelons crapping all over themselves one more time, I’ll… I’ll… I’ll make you wish that you left Yanda on their ship.”

  2

  “Do you know there’s a body in the cargo bay?”

  The feeler hair on Morg’s backside detected a slight variance in the pressure on the bridge so he turned his gyro chair toward the disturbance. As he suspected, the Earthling was walking his way. He had a large food item stuffed in his voice hole and was trying to chew and talk at the same time. It was bad enough listening to the Earthling’s incessant blabbering. But now, he had to watch bits of food eject and fly around the bridge as the kid tried to get the words out. Morg reluctantly turned on his translator.

  “Morg, did you hear me? I said, do you know there’s a body in the cargo bay?”

  Morg stared at the Earthling, attempting to detect whether this was another of his practical jokes. If the Earthling was screwing around, he was doing a damn decent job of hiding the truth.

  “What do you mean, there’s a body in the cargo bay?”

  “My god. You’re a military man; a trained killer. You know what death is and you know what a body is, and you know where the cargo bay is. Add them all together and what do you get?”

  Morg unstrapped himself from the gyro chair and headed for the cargo bay. He didn’t say a word to the Earthling but made himself a promise. If there wasn’t something dead in the cargo bay, there would be by the end of the day.

  The smell coming from the cargo bay was overwhelming. It was the smell of death. Morg had been in enough battles to know the dead thing on the other side of the door was a Yandan. There was only one creature in the universe that gave off this distinctive acidic and sour odor.

  Lying on the floor behind a stack of boxes was Morg’s mate. Even in death, she was still attractive and alluring to him. Sticking in her back, lodged between the third and fourth filter gill was a Yandan military slit knife. Whoever killed her knew precisely where to put the knife to cause instant death. Or, the assailant was damn lucky. Morg bet the killer was well versed in the art of assassination.

  Morg had conducted hundreds of postmortem investigations looking for clues about the killer, time, and cause of death. This time, he wasn’t anxious to examine the crime scene and corpse. There was something sacrilegious about touching, prodding, and examining the shell of a being he knew so well and spent countless hours of intimacy with.

  It took two hours to complete his examination of the crime scene and victim. All the physical evidence was collected, categorized, and stored. Body samples and fluids from the victim were ready for the forensics analyzer to determine if there were any irregularities. The only bit of evidence which struck Morg as unusual was a tiny piece of spongy, two-tone, material lying by his mate’s head. His first guess was that this material was organic and not synthetic. He wouldn’t know if his guess was right until the forensics analyzer spit out its report.

  The shell of his deceased mate had decayed significantly and was only a day or two away from falling apart. If that happened, the internal organs and body fluids would flow in every direction like water cascading through a faulty dam. There was already some seepage on the floor around the corpse which he would have to mop up.

  It was obvious she had been dead for weeks. He wondered if she died before take-off from Yanda or killed in transit? Normally, the forensics analyzer was able to pinpoint the time of death to within twenty-four hours. But, in this case, the cool temperature and varying atmospheric pressure in the cargo bay caused by the Shadow Drive system would corrupt the time of death estimate by at least a few days, plus or minus.

  With all the evidence collected and recordings made of the crime scene, there was no reason to keep her on board. Morg gently lifted her shell onto a gurney and pushed it to the refuse interlock. He put a thermal grenade down her gullet and ejected her into space. This type of grenade didn’t need any type of atmosphere to burn. With a two-minute fuse, it would incinerate her insides before blowing the body shell to pieces. Morg thought this would be a fitting ending for his mate who loved space travel and daydreamed about the stars.

  On his way back to the bridge, Morg made a mental note to check the ship’s recording system. It might reveal whether the assassin slipped up and left a recording of himself boarding the ship with or without his mate. He didn’t put much hope in recognizing the killer or watching his mate board the transport. Any assassin who killed with such precision, wouldn’t forget to erase or destroy the recordings from a ship’s playback system. On newer transports, recorded playbacks were transmitted immediately to the nearest information storage facility in the solar system. But, the playback recordings on this old tug were stored in a compartment accessible to anyone with modest technical skills.

  Morg wondered why the disappearance of his mate wasn't communicated to him in deep space. Even though his offspring were irresponsible much of the time, they would eventually report her missing. He walked back to the bridge, thinking about what questions to ask the Earthling about the crime scene. Halfway there, the answer to the communications question popped into his head. The Trifect must have put a nocomm on his mission. Nothing could be communicated to or from the transport for the entire time it was in transit to Earth. The last thing the Trifect wanted was for their enemies to eavesdrop and find out who was being escorted to Earth.

  Morg couldn’t believe his eyes when he entered the bridge. Standing next to the view-window with a painter stick in his hands was the Earthling. He was drawing lewd and lecherous illustrations on the view-window. To highlight the illustrations he included stars, black holes, and other heavenly bodies. Nude Earthlings, Yandans, Crelons, and other assorted species and creatures covered the entire twenty feet of view-window. All were in compromising positions and acts of debauchery. A few of his pictures were death scenes. Morg understood how the kid knew of Earthlings, Yandans and Crelons, but how did he know about these other beings?

  The stupidity of mucking up and using the view-window as a full-length mural was almost beyond comprehension. But, on closer examination, Morg had to admit the Earthling’s illustrations were quite ingenious and artful. One of the human figures caught his attention. It was a female Earthling who was sitting between two male Earthlings. All were nude. The woman’s swept-back hair consisted of the fire red and orange of a neighboring solar system’s gases and reflected lights. Her breast nipples were two prominent, rose colored stars. And, between her inner thighs was a large black hole. If these drawings had been created by a prominent artist, they would have been taken seriously. But there was no doubt in Morg’s mind that the Earthling was screwing around. This was just another way to amuse himself.

  Morg was about ready to interrupt the Earthling’s fun and games when the thermal grenade blew. It could be seen off the starboard side of the ship about a quadrant away. Within two seconds, a minor shock wave hit and vibrated through the transport.

  The Earthling jumped back from the view-window and spun around to find Morg staring at him.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “I discharged the corpse with a thermal grenade in it?”
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  “Really? Who was that dead guy in the cargo bay?”

  “It wasn’t a guy, it was my mate.”

  “Are you kidding? That corpse in the cargo bay was your mate? Wow, that’s unreal.”

  Morg waited for some sort of condolence but none came. The closest the Earthling came to saying something pleasant was, “Oh, well. Now both of us have lost a mate.”

  At first, Morg didn’t know what the Earthling was talking about. Then, it hit him. “No, I lost a life-long partner. You lost a three-week fling.”

  Morg’s jab bounced off the Earthling like a wisp of air. Before either of them could say more, the ship’s Roboland system announced, “Please return to your gyro chairs and buckle the harness straps. Arrival at Feltte Six will be in eighteen minutes. Docking will be at gate 12W. Upon disembarking, proceed to the Process Area with your credentials. Be advised that inadequate or no credentials will result in a quarantine placed upon the arriving ship. The current crime rating on Feltte Six is 8.3 out of 10. Have a productive stay.”

  “Morg, are we going to have fun, or what?”

  Morg didn’t bother to answer or acknowledge the Earthling. All he could think about was the smartass comment about his deceased mate. If that wasn't irritating enough, there was also the question of how the Earthling diverted their flight to Feltte Six without his knowledge. He couldn’t believe they were making a stop at one of the most crime-infested planets in the universe.

  3

  The docking bay was like any other in the universe except for one minor detail. Everywhere Morg looked, armed guards roamed the area carrying the latest armament. The sheer number of armed personnel reminded Morg of how Yandan invasion brigades set a perimeter on newly invaded planets.