Space Team: Return of the Dead Guy

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Anyway, the point is,” said Loren, quickly steering the conversation back to more comfortable territory. “We’re all in the clear. Clean slates. We’re not going to be hunted everywhere we go.”

  Cal gripped his arm rests and rocked in his chair like a fidgeting child. “I quite liked being hunted, though. It was exciting. And it’s not like they ever actually caught us.”

  Miz shifted in her seat. “Which, considering Loren was always flying, is pretty hard to believe.”

  “Luck,” Cal agreed. “Mostly luck.”

  “Uh, I’m right here, you know?” said Loren.

  Miz smirked. “Yeah. We know.”

  “My point is, we’ve got money. We’ve got a lot of money,” said Loren. “And now we’re not being chased down by the government, we can enjoy it. We can go anywhere. Do anything.”

  “Alright!” said Cal, getting excited by the idea. “Now you’re talking. What should we do?”

  Loren raised her eyebrows. “Hmm?”

  “We can do anything,” Cal said. “Any suggestions?”

  Loren held his gaze for a few long moments. “Well, I mean… There’s lots, isn’t there?”

  “Bound to be,” said Cal. He puffed out his cheeks. “We could… We could always… Miz?”

  Miz sighed. “What?”

  “Any suggestions for what we should do?”

  Miz scowled. “Why are you asking me? How should I know?”

  “Right,” said Cal. “Right. Sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Several seconds passed in awkward silence. Cal opened his mouth to make a suggestion, then decided against it.

  Several more seconds passed in an even more awkward silence.

  “Sorry to interrupt everyone’s fun, sir,” Kevin announced. “But I’ve picked up a distress signal.”

  “Oh, thank God,” said Cal. “Who is it, what is it, and all that stuff?”

  “The ‘what’ I’ve already explained. It’s a distress signal. As for the ‘who’… Well, I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. The signal wasn’t specific. It is, however, the ‘where’ which I thought might be of interest.”

  “OK,” said Cal. “Color me intrigued. Where is it coming from?”

  “Earth, sir,” said Kevin. “The distress signal is coming from the planet Earth.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cal sat back in his chair, impatiently drumming his fingers on the arm rest. On screen, the stars raced towards him, doing that stretchy-tail thing that usually made his stomach flip over before, more often than not, ejecting its contents out through his nose and mouth.

  He’d recently discovered, though, that if he pretended the screen was just an enormous old computer monitor, and rather than the vast, unending abyss of space, he was actually looking at one of the built-in screensavers from Windows 95, the effects were much less traumatic.

  “How far now?” Cal asked.

  Loren leaned over and studied her instruments. “About seventy trillion miles.”

  Cal nodded. “Right. Is that far? I mean, obviously it’s far, but in terms of… ‘How long until we get there?’ is basically what I’m asking.”

  “Assuming nothing gets in our way, just under two hours,” Loren said. “But it’s a rough neighborhood. Lot of Scrivers around here. Probably Xandrie, too.”

  “Can we go any faster?”

  “Yes,” said Loren. “But with the possible exception of Mech, we’d all die, so I’d strongly advise against it.”

  Cal silently debated it for a moment. “Fine. Two hours it is. Don’t slow down unless you have to,” he said. “And if you do have to, let’s go in shooting.”

  “Like, I don’t get what the fuss is,” said Miz. “Isn’t everyone on Earth dead, anyway?”

  “Not everyone,” said Cal, shifting in his seat. “Just, you know, almost everyone. Besides, someone’s got to be sending the distress signal, right?”

  “I don’t get that bit, either,” Miz said. “Isn’t Earth, like, a total hole? I mean, no offense, or whatever, but isn’t it a total backwater shizzheap?”

  “Don’t hold back there on my account, Miz,” said Cal.

  “She’s right,” said Loren.

  “Jesus, OK, so it’s not perfect. I get it. It was a lot better before someone’s boss sent trillions of parasitic mind-controlling bugs to fonk the place over,” Cal protested. “Naming no names, but we all know I’m talking about Loren.”

  “They shouldn’t even be able to get a radio signal this far out into space, let alone a distress frequency,” said Loren, ignoring him.

  “And from what I can gather, sir, it was sent specifically to us,” Kevin added. “Earth certainly doesn’t have that sort of capability.”

  “Right,” said Cal.

  “On account of it being—”

  “A total shizzhole. Yes, I got it,” Cal grunted.

  “Well, I was going to say ‘less technologically advanced than its neighboring systems.’”

  “Oh,” said Cal. “Right. I see.”

  “But it is a total shizzhole, obviously,” Kevin concluded. “That goes without saying.”

  Cal sighed. “And yet everyone keeps saying it, anyway!” He shot them all a series of accusing looks – just in the voice’s general direction, in Kevin’s case – then went back to looking at the screen. “Any idea yet where on Earth the signal’s coming from?”

  “Not yet, sir. We’ll have it within the hour.”

  Cal unclipped his seat belt and stood up. “OK. I’m going to get something to eat. Shout me when we know more. Anyone want anything?”

  “Yeah, you could get me one of those things you showed me earlier,” said Loren.

  Cal stared blankly. “The banoffee pie?”

  “No, the other thing. You said it was some sort of rare delicacy. Came in two parts.”

  “Oh, the Twix?” said Cal. “No problem, I’ll bring one through in a while. Miz?”

  Miz looked up. “What?”

  “Twix?”

  Miz’s snout furrowed in distaste. “Is that the chewy thing?”

  “With the biscuit base, yeah,” said Cal.

  “I’ll pass,” Miz said.

  “Suit yourself,” Cal said. He stole another glance at the viewscreen, hoping to see Earth looming up ahead, but there was nothing ahead but stars. “OK, see you soon,” he said, then he about-turned and headed for the kitchen, almost tripping over Mech’s abandoned basketball-sized sphere of metal and rock on the way.

  Once in the kitchen, Cal made straight for the food replicator and toyed with the idea of ordering something off the somewhat limited menu of items he’d previously ordered. The menu largely consisted of a certain banana and caramel pie-based treat, as well as a Twix, three different flavors of Kit-Kat, and some Chili Cheese Fritos.

  None of that stuff was floating his boat, though. He had a hankering for one thing, and one thing only. He faced the machine and braced himself. “Spit Nibbles,” he said. “Like Narp’s mom makes.”

  The replicator blinked into life. Cal tried to drift off to his happy place as the machine’s probes set to work, pricking his tongue, zapping his brain, and jamming their metal fingers up his nostrils.

  Once it had gathered all the required data, the probes retracted into the machine and, a moment later, twelve Spit Nibbles appeared in the delivery hatch. Cal took the plate, tipped an imaginary hat to the replicator, then slid onto the bench at the kitchen’s single long table.

  “Well, they smell pretty awesome,” he said, to no one but himself, then he picked up one of the Spit Nibbles, blew on it to cool it down a little, and popped it in his mouth.

  He chewed slowly, letting the flavor flood his mouth. It was… good. Not great, but good. He didn’t quite understand why they weren’t great – on both occasions he’d had them before, they had been amazing – but still, they were perfectly edible, if ultimately a little disappointing.

  Splurt climbed onto the bench across from him like a Slinky in reverse. Cal
nodded in acknowledgement. “Hey, buddy.”

  The little green blob pulsed gently in reply, then eyed the plate. “Want one?” Cal asked.

  A thin tendril of goo crept across the table, took one of the wrapped pastry parcels, then retreated with it. From out of sight behind the table’s edge, there came a faint glomp of Splurt absorbing the food.

  “They’re called Spit Nibbles,” Cal said.

  There was another squidgy sort of sound, then the tendril replaced the parcel on the plate.

  “Yeah,” Cal agreed. “Someone really needs to do a rebrand.”

  Cal took another Spit Nibble, being sure to avoid the slightly green-tinged one at the far edge of the plate. As he chewed, he thought.

  He thought about the last few days, but there was quite a lot in there to consider, from giant spiders and being dead, to zombie detectives and space battles. There was also quite a lot of stuff about washing dishes, and – as ever – just a smattering of Tobey Maguire.

  He thought about the last few weeks. Between the being abducted stuff, and all that business with viruses, assassins and wormholes, it had been a pretty hectic month or so. Of course, ‘month or so’ was a bit of a stab in the dark. Without clocks, calendars or even night-time to help him, he’d pretty much lost all track of time. It could have been as little as two weeks, but it might equally have been as many as six.

  “Twelve?” he said, reaching for another Spit Nibble. He looked at Splurt. “Could it be twelve?”

  He considered this as he chewed.

  No. Twelve was too much.

  All this thinking about the past was, he knew, just a way of stopping himself thinking about the future.

  Earth.

  His home planet.

  In many ways, it was still his favorite of all the planets. Very few things on Earth had ever tried to kill him. Assuming you ignored disease, pollution, government healthcare policy, and Ozzy Osbourne that one time.

  It was where he had been born, where he had grown up, where he had loved, and where he had lost. There were a lifetime of memories on that blue-green ball, and now someone was calling him back. Calling him home.

  “Well, this is all rather boring, isn’t it?” announced Kevin from yet another concealed speaker.

  “Huh? Oh, sorry, Kevin,” said Cal, even though he wasn’t entirely sure why he should be sorry. “Just thinking.”

  “About everyone on Earth being dead, sir?”

  “Yeah,” said Cal, chewing on another Spit Nibble. “Something like that.”

  “Would you like to play a game, sir?” Kevin asked.

  Cal stopped chewing for a moment, then resumed. “I don’t know. Is this where you reveal you’ve gone space crazy and start shutting down the oxygen or whatever? Because if so, I think I’ll give it a miss.”

  “Ha!” said Kevin, with artificial mirth. “Quite. But no. It’s a guessing game that Master Splurt and I came up with. Well, it was mostly me, but he joined in as best he could.”

  “OK,” said Cal, reaching for another Spit Nibble. To his dismay, there was only the one Splurt had briefly flirted with left. Splurt watched Cal, impassively, as his hand hovered over the ever so slightly slick pastry shell.

  “Will anyone judge me if I eat this?” Cal asked.

  “Anyone on the ship, or anyone in this room, sir?” Kevin asked.

  “In this room.”

  “Then no, sir. Knock yourself out.”

  Cal shrugged, then ate the Spit Nibble. He was mid-swallow when he heard Loren’s voice on the bridge.

  “He ate what?”

  Cal coughed and choked the rest of the snack down, then looked accusingly to the ceiling. “Did you tell them?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Kevin, sounding just a little surprised by the question. “Why, shouldn’t I have?”

  “No! Of course you shouldn’t have!” said Cal.

  Loren’s voice came again. “What? No, of course I can’t ‘unhear it,’” she said, then, louder: “You’re disgusting. Just want you to know that.”

  “Oh yeah? Well… I’m not bringing you that Twix,” Cal called back. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Thanks a lot, Kevin,” he said, then he tutted and sighed. “Right. So, what’s this game, then?”

  * * *

  “Like… What are you doing?”

  Cal sprang up from the floor as if it had been electrified. “What? Hi. Hey. Oh,” he said, all in the same breath. He dusted himself down. “How long have you been there?”

  Miz looked him up and down, shifted her gaze briefly to Splurt, then went back to sizing up Cal again. “Long enough,” she said. “Why were you on the floor?”

  “The floor?” said Cal, in a way that suggested he’d never heard those words before, and had no idea what they meant. “Oh, the floor. Why was I on the floor? No reason.”

  “Was it some sort of river, sir?” Kevin asked.

  “You were wriggling about on the floor for no reason?” Miz asked.

  “You’re right, I was wriggling,” said Cal, shooting Splurt and the general direction of Kevin quite a deliberate look. He turned back to Miz. “I fell.”

  “A stick perhaps?” Kevin guessed.

  “Since when did sticks wriggle?” Cal snapped, but then he smiled at Miz. “I’m fine, honest. Did you want something?”

  Miz frowned and looked around the room. She was aware that something was clearly going on, but hadn’t yet decided if she cared enough to investigate further.

  Finally, she shrugged. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” she said, then she turned and slouched off along the corridor.

  “Is it a length of rope being flicked by a child?” Kevin asked.

  “What the fonk would…? Why would I be pretending to be a length of rope being flicked by a child, Kevin? I’m letting Splurt have his guess. Splurt?”

  Splurt immediately shifted shape until a miniature version of a shizz worm squirmed on the tabletop. “Yes! That’s it. Splurt wins again.”

  Cal sat down. “Seriously, I don’t know how you do it, buddy, it’s like you can read my… Oh, wait, you can read my mind, can’t you?”

  “Can he?” said Kevin. “How is that fair? No wonder I never win.”

  “You don’t win because you’re terrible at guessing, Kevin,” Cal said. “I mean, literally your first eight guesses were all ‘brick.’”

  “Well, prior to you getting involved, that answer would have been correct in one hundred per cent of all previous games,” Kevin replied, somewhat haughtily, Cal thought.

  “Oh, almost forgot,” said Miz, appearing in the doorway again. “Loren wants to see you. Kevin’s figured out where the signal is coming from.”

  She wandered away again. Cal raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, yes, didn’t I mention that?” said Kevin. “With all the fun we were having, it must have slipped my mind.”

  Cal was already out of the room. He cursed loudly when he tripped over Mech’s boulder then half-ran, half-fell onto the bridge. An image of the Earth was overlaid on the right of the screen, the rest of the screen still filled with nothing but star streaks. A tiny red blip flashed on the image.

  “Where is that? Zoom in,” said Cal.

  The Earth began to grow, showing first the United States, then the East Coast, and then…

  “Philly,” Cal said, lowering himself into his seat.

  Home.

  “Can we get any closer?”

  “Accuracy becomes a problem at this distance, but I can narrow it down a little further, sir,” Kevin chimed.

  The image changed again, this time in a series of clicks, rather than a smooth zoom, each step bringing the blip closer.

  At first, Cal thought it was centering on the airport, but it was more to the North West. Somewhere around…

  Cal stopped breathing.

  The image had stopped growing, but even with a margin of error, it was close enough for him to feel… what? Sick? Terrified?

  The blip was less than a block away from a cemetery
. A cemetery he knew only too well.

  “Loren,” he said, but the word came out as a croak, and he had to clear his throat before trying again. “You know you said you could make us go faster?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Make us go faster.”

  “You remember I also said it could kill us all?” Loren said.

  “Loren. Go faster,” said Cal. “Please.”

  Loren shook her head. “You might be immortal or invincible or whatever you are, but no one else is. I’m going as fast as I can.”

  She tapped the controls on her console. “I can maybe bring us out of warp a little later than planned. That would buy us an extra few minutes.”

  Cal nodded. “OK. Do that,” he said. “Although, what are the chances of you not stopping in time and smashing into the planet?”

  Loren tutted. “Seriously? Please,” she said.

  “Sorry,” said Cal.

  “I should think so. I mean, it’s like, a one per cent chance,” Loren said. “Three, tops.”

  “Uh, OK,” said Cal. “I think.”

  Loren looked back over her shoulder at him and smiled. “Relax. I’m kidding,” she said, then a flicker of concern passed across her face. “You OK? Is there something down there?”

  “Huh?” said Cal. “Oh, no. I mean, yes. I mean…” He forced a smile, but it was fooling nobody. “Just get us there as quick as you can. I’ll explain later.”

  He pointed his eyes at the screen, very deliberately avoiding Loren’s gaze. “OK, then,” she said, when it was clear he wasn’t about to look her way again. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks,” Cal said. Or maybe he just thought it. He wasn’t sure.

  On screen, that blinking light flashed back, taunting him. “I’m coming,” he whispered. “Whoever you are.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Too many minutes later, Cal still sat in his chair, watching space streak by. Mizette was back in her seat, apparently content to pass the time by twirling a length of fur around her finger, and occasionally sighing.

  “What do you think?” asked Mech, stepping onto the bridge. He held up what had, until very recently, been a scorched arm stump. Now it was... sort of a hand.

  “Didn’t you used to have, like, more fingers?” Miz asked.