Interstellar Caveman

by Karl Beecher

  Tracy Boggins, the first-ever person to be revived from stasis, claimed the whole experience is like you’re watching someone passed out drunk at a party getting a moustache drawn onto their face, only to realise that drunk person was actually you.

  Colin Douglass was undergoing similar feelings at this very moment. Surrounded by darkness and possessing no memory of who he was and how he got here, he had the distinct impression he was inside some kind of box. To say things felt unreal stretched that word to breaking point. Finding yourself playing poker with a tableful of monkeys would be unreal. This felt altogether more bizarre.

  It was pitch black.

  Thoughts sloshed around inside Colin’s head. The most basic concepts eluded him, even ones he instinctively felt he should know. The only thing he could see in the darkness was a tiny light bulb near his head, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what light was or how it worked. The bulb was just a bright, flickering pinprick.

  He also didn’t know what an arm was, and was surprised to learn he had one. Two, in fact. Orders rose from the deepest, most instinctive recesses of his brain: use them, feel around, determine where you are and find a way out. Colin, ever the easygoing type, thought it best to obey.

  Except he couldn’t.

  He tried to move, but nothing happened. He could sense he had a body, but no matter how he tried, it wouldn’t obey his commands.

  In response, a primitive, animalistic part of his brain began to panic.

  The claustrophobia ignited primeval emotions. Colin might have suspected he’d been buried alive, if he could have recalled what a coffin was. If he could also have recalled what a light bulb was, he would have connected the two in his mind and realised that coffin interiors had little use for light bulbs. Coffin or no coffin, Colin’s mind began to lose it.

  Unable to flail around like a crying baby, Colin opted instead to shout. A croaky tone struggled from his throat, barely audible. He tried again. Another pathetic noise, but definitely louder that time. Once more, he forced the air from his lungs, and a loud wail rattled around the surrounding walls.

  Then, in between shouts, there came muffled sounds. Colin quietened until the only noise was his own desperate breathing. He listened. Again, he heard something: scratchings across a surface, then a thud. And a…

  … voice?

  More of those blinking lights appeared. The garbled voice, words indecipherable. A whirring sound. Then a shudder.

  Finally, with a mechanical hum and rush of warm air, light flooded Colin’s eyes. Everything was a blur, but he could tell the thing he occupied was opening. His eyes, one of few body parts he could move, scoped slowly from side to side. He peered through the cracks between his eyelids. For a moment, he could make out only a grey-brown background and a source of dirty orange light.

  But then he saw something move. A shadow in the corner of his eye. It drew closer.

  A person!

  Colin actually felt some relief. Whether this person proved friendly or not, right now it didn’t matter. Someone being there—anyone—made a world of difference.

  Whoever it was, they were beginning to speak. Maybe this stranger could explain what the hell was happening.

  “Ma se parda,” the stranger said. “Kanta tora nee fumarto. Bonsa?”

  Then again, maybe not.

  What on earth had he got himself into?

  The figure spoke again. “Kerto ma? Ekta ve ma reedo? Pag ves!”

  It sounded like a woman, but Colin still couldn’t make out the face. He blinked hard and cleared some of the mist from his eyes. His mouth was bone dry and numb, but he tried to speak.

  “Who are you?” he mumbled.

  Everything was still fuzzy, but Colin saw his interrogator fumbling around, and he heard the scrape of fabric against fabric. Eventually, the figure leaned forward, and he felt something jam deep into his ear. Colin let out a pathetic whimper.

  The figure spoke some calm-sounding words.

  The thing in Colin’s ear was poked further and twisted this way and that. If movement were possible, Colin would have writhed. After a few moments of this, he heard something like a mechanism detaching and the thing was yanked from his ear. Something had been left behind.

  The blurry figure tapped on some unseen device in its hand. After a few taps, she spoke more nonsense, only this time Colin heard a second, simultaneous voice speaking a different brand of nonsense.

  “Kitch uku sinf presh?”

  A pause. More tapping.

  “Djoro riashiana? Eleobjono?”

  This pattern continued for several minutes, until finally. . .

  “In naa? Kin oo un-san?”

  It sounded like a kind of pidgin English. A sign of recognition must have flashed across his face, because the figure hummed with intrigue. A bit more tapping, and then…

  “Can you understand me?”

  “Yes,” replied Colin. His voice was hoarse and lips numb, but he cried out, “Yes!”

  “Fascinating,” the excited voice said. “Proto-universal. An actual speaker! Who are you? What’s your name?”

  Colin groaned as he tried to remember. “I dunno.”

  “Do you know how long you’ve been here?”

  “No.”

  “What about this place? What the hell is it? Are you a—”

  She was interrupted by the sudden sound of rock and metal collapsing by the tonne.

  “What the fuck was that?” she yelled.

  The figure vanished. “Hey,” he rasped. “Where are you?”

  He was scared. He tried to move, but still, his body refused to respond. He couldn’t even turn his head to look for the stranger.

  Finally, he heard footsteps again and the same woman’s voice. “Ade,” she was saying, “come in, Ade.”

  Another voice, a male one this time, except it sounded tinny and crackly. “Ade here, ma’am,” it said. “I just registered some violent kinetic activity in your vicinity…”

  “Listen to me, Ade,” came her voice as she reappeared in Colin’s vision. “Looks like an old air shaft has just collapsed. I guess it was sealed up ’til now, but just decided it had enough of life.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not yet, but the surface atmosphere is going to start pouring into this place any moment now. I’m evacuating immediately.”

  “Is your survival suit malfunctioning?”

  “No, but the life sign you detected? It’s a person. And without a survival suit, he’s going to start choking to death on the gas in minutes. Go back to the ship and bring a survival suit double-fast.”

  “On my way, ma’am.”

  The figure leaned towards Colin. “Look whoever-you-are, we’ve got to get out of here now. So let’s save introductions until later. For now, trust me, I’m your only hope.”

  The woman jammed her hands under Colin’s armpits. He felt himself being hoisted upright, his head and limbs flopping around as though he were a rag doll. A dozen jabs of pain fired all over his body.

  “Ow!” he yelled. “Careful!”

  “Sorry,” she said. “That’s all the cables getting pulled out of your flesh. There’s no time to remove them properly.”

  Colin tumbled forward, his nose smacking against the stranger’s back.

  “Argh!” he screamed. “That hurt!”

  He felt the blood rush to his head. A moment later, he saw the floor above him hurtling by. The stranger’s shoulder thudded into his tender abdomen with every step she took.

  “I say… oof!” he said. “Could you poss—oof… possibly take it… ugh a little easier?”

  “If I were you, I’d shut up…” came the reply.

  “Well, h—oof… how rude!”

  “… and hold your breath. We’re about to pass that leaking air shaft.”

  “I don’t know what you…” Then it hit him. A foul, rotting stench, that quickly became overpowering. Blurred wisps of yellow appeared in his vision. His airways tensed up, and he had to
fight to breathe.

  “I told you,” the woman said. “Just stop breathing.”

  “I have!” Colin wheezed back. “I can’t breath.” He began to panic. He tried with all his might to thrash and flail around, but all he could manage was a limp twitching of his legs and arms.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’re moving your limbs! You’re not paralysed after all.”

  He managed to suck up a quarter lung-full of air. “Oh, great. I’ll be a—agh able to jiggle on the f—ugh floor while I suffocate to d—err death.”

  “It’s okay, we’re past it now.”

  Sure enough, the yellow mist disappeared and the smell died away. Colin could breathe easily again. A moment later, they came to a stop and Colin was yanked from the stranger’s shoulder and dumped onto the ground with only slightly more care than a dirty old duvet.

  “Ow!” he snapped. “My head! Do you have to be so rough?”

  “Shit me,” she shot back. “You moan a lot for someone being rescued.”

  Colin looked once again at the stranger. His vision wasn’t as fuzzy as before. He could now make out individual features—eyes, mouth, nose—but they were still blotches to his eyes. “Rescued? What am I being rescued from?”

  “Right now, from that.” She pointed down the corridor.

  Colin tried to follow her gesture. It took immense effort, but he managed to twist his head round and look back at the direction they’d come. He saw the yellow mist creeping towards them.

  “What is that?” he croaked.

  “It’s the thing that’s going to kill you unless I get you in a survival suit right now.”

  Colin heard that muffled male voice again. “Survival suit coming down the shaft now, ma’am.”

  A moment later, he heard something clatter to the floor nearby. He watched as the woman produced some items that, in his haze, looked familiar to Colin but whose names he couldn’t recall1. Then, Colin felt her grab his leg. It became encompassed in something cold and silky.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m putting you in a survival suit.”

  “What’s a surv—ow!”

  As the ‘overalls’ were hoisted up to his waist, he was reminded that the soft, dangly flesh between his legs was extremely sensitive. After some more fumbling, Colin lay neck to foot in the odd material, and he started to feel very hot and clammy. Not only that, but the nasty, rotting stench had come back. The yellow mist began to envelop them. He felt his airways tightening. He coughed and spluttered.

  “Hang on,” she said. “Almost ready.”

  She brought the helmet clumsily over his head, squashing his nose in the process, and then jammed it into place. For a moment, Colin heard nothing but the sound of his own coughs rattling in the tiny enclosed space. The woman jabbed at his chest, and an array of tiny, orange lights inside his helmet flickered on. The traces of rotten smoke instantly vanished, and the air in his lungs felt clean again. He felt the suit begin to hum gently and a cool feeling spread over his flesh.

  Then came a brief scraping sound, followed by the woman’s voice. “Can you hear me?” she asked, her voice now tinny and crackly. “Can you breathe?”

  “Yes,” he said, coughing one final time.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, good. The main danger’s over.”

  “Over?” Colin could still see the gas. “We’re surrounded by the stuff!”

  “As long as you’re in this suit, you’ll be fine. But you need medical attention. Your life signs are all over the place, and you’re bleeding from several puncture wounds where those catheters were.”

  Once again, Colin was hoisted over the woman’s shoulder. She carried him into a dark room and spoke once again to this unseen chap known only as Ade, this time about something called a ‘winch.’ A moment later, Colin watched the ground below them—the only thing he could see in this position—move further and further away until it disappeared into darkness. He finally worked it out: they were moving upwards. He quickly wished he hadn’t discovered that. Heights were not among his favourite things. He was overcome by a sensation he was sure he’d experienced before.

  Only later did he remember that it was called vomiting.

  “Bleeeeeugh!”

  Little came out, but the experience felt extremely unpleasant, and the resulting smell was potent. On the plus side, the stuff he wretched up pooled on his visor, so his view of the outside, the thing that troubled him so much in the first place, was now obscured.

  “I see you now, ma’am,” came the voice of Ade. “You’re almost at the top.”

  Soon, Colin felt himself being jostled around. For a moment, he couldn’t sense which way up he was, but when the orange soup in front of his face began to slide downwards, he determined he’d been turned the right way up. The sliding sludge crept down, revealing the face of a man, pale-faced with black, slicked-back hair. The man was carrying Colin in his arms.

  “How do you do, sir? My name is Ade. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Colin didn’t reply. He just couldn’t think of the right response. What was the right response after one has awoken with amnesia in a strange place, been tossed around like an old sack, nearly choked to death, dangled on the end of a rope, before finally vomiting inside a helmet?

  From somewhere out of sight came the woman’s voice. “Get him to the sickbay, Ade, I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Very good, ma’am.”

  Ade carried him over to a great metallic door and, with surprisingly little effort, pulled it open. To his horror, Colin saw the yellow mist outside, not slow-moving wisps but fast-moving walls of the stuff howling in every direction. He looked at Ade, who wore no survival suit.

  “Wait!” Colin cried out. “The stuff, the stuff. It’ll kill you!”

  “Don’t worry about me, sir,” Ade replied calmly before striding out into the misty gales. He neither choked nor coughed. He didn’t even squint as the yellow fog blasted into his face. He simply marched onwards with Colin in his grasp.

  This was all finally too much for Colin’s brain. It decided that it would be far happier if it took a short break from processing current events. Colin himself learned about this decision several seconds later when he suddenly felt light-headed, and his vision fizzled into blackness.

  Unconsciousness took him in its warm embrace.

  13

  Beep.

  What was that?

  Hmm.

  Nothing.

  Beep.

  There it was again, thought Colin. I wonder what it is.

  Beep.

  Colin really wanted to know what that noise was, but he couldn’t see anything. With great mental effort, he determined that was because his eyes were shut.

  He eased open his eyelids. Bright white light flooded in and pain filled his head.

  Beep.

  “Gah,” he rasped. “That was a mistake. And what is that beeping?”

  “That’s the oximeter, sir,” came a voice as smooth as silk. “My apologies if it woke you.”

  The owner of the voice came into view. A man. A blurry man. Colin blinked a few times until the figure came into sharper focus. The man had flawless pale skin, dark eyes, and black, slicked-back hair. It was the man known as Ade.

  “Um…” replied Colin, staring wide-eyed at the stranger. “No need to apologise.”

  “How are you feeling, sir?”

  Colin thought. He had no idea who or where he was, he had a stinging headache and a complete stranger was asking him how he felt. He responded as any bewildered British person would.

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “It’s a relief to hear that. Would you like to sit up, sir?”

  “Um… okay.” He struggled to move but failed. His muscles felt weak and limp.

  “No need to exert yourself, sir,” said the stranger.

  Whatever Colin was lying on began to move. It gently lifted his head and shoulders until he reached a comfortable sitting position f
rom which he could view the little room he was in. Its walls gleamed white and it was filled with sleek-looking machinery: small gadgets perched on sterile tabletops, as well as large contraptions with cables and instruments attached to them, all with smooth curves, twinkling lights and busy-looking screens. Although his own identity still eluded him, Colin sensed that other memories were slowly returning because, as he looked around the room, the words ‘hospital’ and ‘Apple Store’ came to mind.

  The stranger continued to speak. “You no doubt have symptoms typical of post-stasis revival. Headaches, muscle atrophy, temporary amnesia and so on. The good news is that a quick examination by our instruments shows no permanent damage. You should recover to a normal level of health within the next two or three days.”

  The stranger looked at Colin intently although not unkindly, as though awaiting a response. When none came he said, “Do you have any questions, sir?”

  Colin eyed him nervously. “Um… actually, yes. Where am I?”

  “You are onboard the SS Turtle, sir.”

  “I’m on a ship?”

  Whatever water they were on must have been very calm, because the boat felt extremely stable.

  “Yes, sir, although I should hasten to add that the ship remains on the planet’s surface.”

  “Naturally,” said Colin, deciding to steer clear of the odd phrasing. “And who are you?”

  “My name is Ade, sir. Perhaps you have forgotten, but we met only a short time ago.”

  “Ah yes,” said Colin. “You carried me through the… the…” He panicked. He tried to bolt upright, but in his weakened condition he ‘bolted’ slower than an octogenarian climbing out of a beanbag. “The smoke. The yellow smoke! It chokes you, it…”

  “Calm now, sir,” said Ade, grabbing Colin’s shoulders and gently pressing him back into the mattress. “You must remain calm. I can assure you, you are perfectly safe in here.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. Safe from the smoke at least.”

  “Why, what other dangers are there?”