House of the Galactic Elevator

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “Not ‘we,’” Irving the Grey said. “Just us. The humans won’t be coming.”

  The Grey raised the weapon in Jeff’s direction. Toggs stepped in between Jeff and the stunner.

  “Move aside!” Irving the Grey said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Toggs said. “You guys came in a single elevator. That won’t take everyone back. No one’s going anywhere until we figure out how to get everyone back home.”

  “And besides, the elevator’s broken,” Jeff said.

  “Oliop here can fix it,” Irving the Grey said. “And once we return home, he’ll fix enough of them to get the rest of us all back safely to the Galactic Commons.”

  “And I will make sure the situation here is reported on,” Kwed said. “We should go now while there’s the opportunity.”

  Doctor Cochran tugged at Jeff’s arm. “What’s going on?” she asked in a whisper.

  Before Jeff could answer, two men in dark suits entered the tent compartment. They weren’t fazed by the collection of aliens or the weapon the Grey held. Their attention narrowed in on Jeff and Doctor Cochran. Both of the men’s throats began to pulse.

  Toggs pulled both Jeff and the doctor away from them.

  “If you’re going to shoot something,” Toggs said to the Grey, “shoot them. Something’s clearly wrong.”

  The Grey took a few steps forward and watched with a captivated expression as the men in dark suits heaved globs of yellow into their hands.

  “How fascinating,” Irving the Grey said. “And who might you be?”

  At first Jeff thought the Grey was asking the men in the dark suits. But the little guy was talking to one of the glops of dripping yuck. The glop didn’t answer.

  “Alas,” Irving said. “For a want of a translator. I apparently don’t yet speak this dialect of virus.”

  The men in dark suits began to step around Irving the Grey towards Jeff and Doctor Cochran.

  “Shoot them!” Toggs said.

  The Grey snapped off two point-blank shots with the stunner, the yellow bolts striking both men. They fell to the ground twitching, dropping their balls of glop.

  “What is going on?” Doctor Cochran asked in a panic.

  “Hmmm,” Irving said. “An excellent question. I’m guessing there’s an infectious medium here that has breached your containment. Is this facility with its tents and wire the best you could do?”

  “How is it I can understand you?” Doctor Cochran asked.

  “He speaks English,” Jeff said. “And every other language known, as far as I can tell.”

  She put a hand to her cheek. “That’s amazing! This could help us so much. This means we can actually help you people and understand one another.”

  The Grey’s expression darkened. “Check your archives, human. Your history with us is a bit untidy. The last of my kind you got your hands on was dissected in a lab.”

  “You’re to blame for that,” Jeff said to the Grey.

  Irving the Grey dismissed him with a wave.

  Oliop stepped forward and gave the air a sniff. He pointed to the glops on the floor. “Oooooh. Look.”

  The glops were merging. The two boluses poured towards one another as if a hard breeze blew against them from opposite directions. Soon they were one. A pseudopod emerged from the top of the sticky ball. It probed the air a few times before retracting. Then the glop started towards Jeff and Doctor Cochran.

  The Grey just got out of the way. “Where was this stuff when I needed it?” Irving asked.

  Toggs took a stainless steel bowl from a bed tray, turned it over, and put it down over the glop.

  “You’re turning into quite the joy killer,” Irving the Grey said.

  Toggs put a foot on the bowl. Soon came the soft sounds of something tapping from under the bowl.

  “It’s a virus colony,” Toggs said. “Symbiotic. One of the refugees died upon arrival, and the colony detached itself from the host to find a new one. Apparently, humans make a good substitute.”

  “No one else in the Commons has a problem with this?” Jeff asked.

  “This kind of thing is screened and tested for,” Toggs said. “Its original host would have made arrangements for the colony to have a new home. The virus must never have been screened to see if it posed a threat to humans.”

  “Isn’t that some kind of breach of Galactic Commons protocol?”

  “I’m thinking human biology is still being processed. Once your susceptibilities are properly mapped, you’ll be protected from anything that might make you sick. But we’ve lost some computing power since the invasion so this has no doubt been delayed.”

  Kwed said, “And besides, the virus colony itself isn’t a member of the Galactic Commons, much as your own microbiome isn’t, either. This colony has got a bit more spunk than most. And it seems to reproduce ever so well with humans.”

  “This isn’t just a cold bug we’re talking about here,” Jeff said. “This thing is taking people over by force.”

  “Please tell me what’s going on,” Doctor Cochran said.

  “Pathogen host died,” Irving the Grey said. “Pathogen finds human host. Divides. Conquers. Humans all gone. Galaxy rejoices.”

  Doctor Cochran shook her head, obviously troubled. “What can we do?”

  “Don’t let this little bugger freak you out,” Jeff said, nodding towards the Grey. “Not everyone hates us like it does. We’ll figure something out.”

  “We will,” Kwed said brightly. “First, we will go back to the Commons. Second, I will organize a rescue and send help back here. Come, Oliop, and do your good work in repairing the elevator.”

  Oliop stood close to the Grey. With one hand he reached behind the little alien and tapped him once on the shoulder. With his tail, he wrenched the stunner away.

  Irving the Grey attacked him. Oliop juggled the weapon in the air between hands and tail, keeping it just out of the Grey’s reach.

  “Jeff, catch,” Oliop said. He threw the stunner.

  Toggs’ hand moved faster, snatching the weapon midair. “I’ll take that.” He tucked the stunner away.

  “Give it back to me,” the Grey said.

  Toggs said, “No.”

  The air filled with the angry smell of rotting fruit.

  Toggs kept one foot on the bowl. He pointed a finger at Jeff.

  “I don’t know you,” Toggs said. “I don’t know which of you I can trust. Sorry, Kwed, but we can’t let some infectious agent loose on the general population here. That’s just bad manners. We need to take care of this problem before we leave.”

  He next turned to Oliop.

  “Can you fix the elevator?” Toggs asked.

  “I can try,” Oliop said. “But can I have the human’s help? I trust him.”

  “It doesn’t seem like you’ll be able to get him out of here safely,” Toggs said. “Go see what you can do on your own. Can you figure out how to get back to where you left it?”

  Oliop nodded.

  “Good. The rest of us stay here, and we’re going to figure out how to fix this virus problem.”

  “No,” Irving the Grey said. “I’ve got to go with the technician. He needs my help.”

  “And mine,” Kwed said. “He needs supervision.”

  Toggs patted the pocket where he had placed the stunner.

  “You’ll all stay here,” Toggs said. “Now go.”

  Oliop slipped out of the tent.

  “I have an idea,” Jeff said.

  Jeff explained it to Toggs. Toggs nodded. Kwed looked confused.

  “You can’t be serious,” Doctor Cochran said.

  The Grey just laughed. “This I have to see. Watching you get turned into a bungalow for some viruses will be worth staying on this stinking planet for another couple of hours.”

  ***

  Jeff passed through the series of tent flaps that led outside. Much of the base was still in early morning shadows, with a few bright lights shining down from lamp posts onto random p
atches of dirt. Figures moved through the gloom between the temporary structures. A large rumbling vehicle appeared: tall, boxy, with some kind of offset turret in front. It stopped a hundred feet away and a rear ramp dropped down. The engine stopped. Jeff saw the silhouette of a driver get out. A guard approached the driver and the two intertwined fingers in an odd, complex handshake.

  Unless the military was taking a page from the Masons or the Crips, both of these men were victims of the alien virus.

  Jeff took a few steps towards them. “Hey, guys!” Jeff gave a wave and turned and ran back into the tent. He didn’t look back to see if he was followed. Once he got into the examination room, he stood there in the center and turned to face his pursuers.

  The two came in at a walk. One was a man in a dark suit, the other a soldier in urban white camos.

  “I’m glad you guys could make it,” Jeff said.

  “Hold it right there,” the man in the dark suit said.

  The soldier coughed, gagged, and spat a yellow glob into his hands.

  “Just stand still,” the soldier said blandly. “This won’t take but a moment.”

  “At this point, I’d like to appeal to your sense of responsibility to the greater good,” Jeff said.

  The soldier came on. Toggs stepped out from behind a screen. He grabbed the soldier easily in a bear hug around the man’s arms and torso. The soldier tried to wriggle free, but soon began to weaken.

  “Do it, Kwed,” Toggs said.

  Kwed emerged, scrolling up next to the soldier. He held a translator borrowed from the paramecium. It had surrendered it willingly, as it had an extra in case of binary fission.

  Kwed considered the wet glop in the human’s hands and said, “It looks disgusting. I don’t think I can.”

  “Kwed!” Jeff shouted.

  The millipedoid hesitated, scrunched up his face, and plunged his small hand holding the translator into the ball of virus spit.

  “Eyugh, eyugh, ewww,” Kwed said.

  He retracted his hand and rubbed it clean with a dozen other hands.

  The man in the dark suit finally processed what was going on. He pulled an ugly black pistol from a shoulder holster. He pointed it at Toggs.

  “Release him,” the man said.

  Kwed dropped flat to the floor to get out of the way, extending himself in either direction like an unrolling carpet runner.

  Toggs stared down the man with the gun. “Hey virus, I’m Toggs. You came here with us to the human world. Can you understand me?”

  “Last chance,” the man in the dark suit said. He continued to aim the pistol.

  “We just need to talk,” Jeff said. “We just implanted a translator into one of you. You are a colony, are you not? Just stop and listen for a moment.”

  Jeff took a deep breath. The man’s hand on the gun looked like it was about to apply the last ounce of pressure on the weapon’s trigger. He then lowered the gun.

  “Talk unnecessary,” the ball of glop in the soldier’s hand said.

  The voice came out like a murmur. Jeff’s translator did the heavy lifting of interpreting the virus colony’s exhalations into phantom sounds that registered in Jeff’s ears and his brain’s Broca’s area as actual speech. Had the glop made any noise at all? Jeff couldn’t tell. The whispered voice gave him the chills.

  Again the glop said, “Talk unnecessary. Release.”

  “Your host died,” Toggs said. “I’m sorry about that. But you can’t take humans as hosts. They are not voluntary subjects.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then the glop said, “Humans already host.”

  “Host to whom?” Toggs asked.

  “Lesser ones. Lesser ones subsumed. Thaco occupy now.”

  “Wait, what’s Thaco?” Jeff asked.

  “We are,” the glop said.

  Toggs released the guard holding the virus named Thaco. The guard slumped to his knees, but kept the hand with the glop extended.

  “Tell us,” Jeff said. “Who are the lesser ones?”

  “The ones inside these hosts that are not Thaco,” Thaco said.

  “Other native viruses,” Toggs said.

  Both the Grey and Doctor Cochran stepped out from behind a partition. Doctor Cochran wasn’t following the conversation. Her eyes locked on Jeff, a look of consternation on her face. In contrast, the Grey followed everything and was trying to contain his laughter. He held onto his ribs as his body shook.

  “Not a word from you,” Jeff said, shooting the Grey a warning finger.

  Toggs crossed his arms and loomed large over the kneeling guard and the glop in his hand. He said, “You came from a single host. You’ve spread to numerous hosts since arriving. Such division threatens future hosts for other Thacos. Thacos will be treated as a threat. Thacos will not be permitted back into the Galactic Commons. Isn’t that right?”

  Toggs looked at Jeff for support.

  “Uh, that’s right,” Jeff said. “I’m with Galactic Commons Security. This is a breach of, uh, the law. So desist, release these humans, or there will be consequences.”

  Jeff waited. Thaco didn’t respond for a long minute. The soldier had a dull look on his face and the man in the dark suit just stood motionless with his lowered pistol.

  Finally, Thaco said, “Waiting period expired. No consequences.”

  The guard with the gun raised it again.

  “Wait,” Jeff said. “You have a distorted, er, different view of time. I mean that there will be long-term consequences. When your real hosts come to rescue you, you’ll be in trouble.”

  With that last, Jeff felt like he had just threatened a nonexistent disobedient daughter to a grounding once Mom got home.

  “I suppose if I’m following any of this,” Doctor Cochran said, “a virus colony doesn’t have much in the way of memory or planning for the future. Just throwing that out there.”

  From the floor, Kwed said, “Are we winning? Will they let us go?”

  The glop made a rough sound that came across like the clearing of a throat. “No consequences. Willing hosts are here. These hosts will suffice. Biological imperative engaged.”

  Toggs picked up and threw the soldier holding the glob of Thaco at the guard with the gun. The soldier flew true, a two-hundred-pound missile that sent both virus-compromised men to the floor and the glop of virus smacking against the tent wall.

  “We should go,” Toggs said in his ponderous voice.

  “I can’t believe you thought this plan would work,” the Grey said.

  “Can we leave now?” Kwed asked.

  Toggs gave Kwed a push towards the tent exit. Kwed didn’t hesitate. He bolted. Toggs went to stand over the two fallen guards. Jeff saw that the ball of glop wasn’t moving.

  “We’ll need to try something else,” Toggs said. “Now run.”

  The Grey moved faster than Jeff remembered. It slipped past him before he could catch it. At the last moment it ducked around Toggs and went to the fallen humans. It snatched up the pistol and turned it on Toggs.

  Toggs raised his hands and backed up. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” the Grey said.

  Jeff moved slowly towards the exit and gestured for Doctor Cochran to follow. She didn’t move. If the Grey started shooting, it could easily hit everyone at such a close range. The Grey and its weapon were out of reach. What the Grey did next surprised him. The little bugger bent down and picked up the yellow glop.

  “Hello, Thaco. I’m Irving and I’m going to get you into as many hosts as possible.”

  “Don’t touch it!” Toggs said.

  Thaco seemed content to sit in the Grey’s hand. It didn’t say or do anything. Jeff wondered if somehow the translator had been dislodged.

  Then Thaco said, “Acceptable.”

  “Why isn’t it attacking?” Doctor Cochran said.

  “First let’s take care of this problem,” Irving the Grey said.

  The Grey fired the pistol at Toggs. The report split th
e air. Toggs fell down.

  “No!” Jeff shouted. He was about to rush forward, but the Grey pointed the weapon at him.

  “To answer your question, Doctor, Toggs and I are incompatible hosts,” the Grey said. “So is every other member of the Galactic Commons. Humans, though, are perfect. Not yet fitted with a prophylactic regimen of artificial antibodies that would avoid embarrassing vulnerabilities to hungry virus colonies. Tell me, Thaco, is there enough of you to infect both of these fine specimens?”

  “One only,” Thaco said. “Will multiply more once host’s biology is subsumed.”

  “A pity,” the Grey said. “Oh well, looks like I get to pick. Not a hard choice, really.”

  It smiled at Jeff and raised the glop as if offering a toast.

  “Keep that thing away from me,” Jeff said.

  “Either take your medicine now, or I shoot you first and then introduce you to your new tenant.”

  The Grey waddled closer, the weapon pointing at Jeff’s midsection. Jeff kept his hands up and backed up a few steps. Maybe the doctor could still escape if he went for the gun.

  “If it’s any consolation,” the Grey said, “I’ll treasure this moment. Truly.”

  It lunged forward and slapped the sticky glop into Jeff’s face before he could fully turn his head away. The sticky substance clung to him as if it had hundreds of tiny tentacles trying to climb into his eyes and nose and mouth. It stuck to his skin. His hands could only pull small handfuls of it away while the rest flowed between clenched teeth and up nostrils. He gagged and coughed. A tingling sensation began to overwhelm him.

  In the midst of suffocating on a glop of viral organic matter, a calm, lucid vision played in Jeff’s mind. Zachary appeared, still wearing his hospital clothes. He stood as if on a dark stage, a white light shining on him from on high.

  “You should have stayed with us, Jeffy. You should have stayed.”

  Zachary offered a hand.

  “Maybe you think it’s time that you came back to us? Cream of Wheat for breakfast today. And Swiss steak and Brussels sprouts for supper. All fueled by endless cups of tobacco juice. Yum. You in?”

  CHAPTER 19