by Michael Kerr
Zak’s brow furrowed. “How distant is the source, BIC?”
FIFTY THOUSAND KILOMETRES.
“Size?”
SIX CUBIC METRES.
“Elaborate, damnit.”
HOLLOW METALLIC ELEMENTS NOT
RECOGNISED.
“Any life form on board?”
TOO DISTANT TO TAKE READINGS.
Zak sighed. “We have to investigate, Marla.”
“You’d better check with the company,” Marla suggested. “The profits from this trip will be drastically reduced if you go off half-cocked to inspect what is probably some piece of space junk.”
“The company’s opinion doesn’t come into it. Federation directive 9 states that we are obliged to investigate any distress call. We don’t have a choice in the matter.”
Marla gritted her teeth. “We have no proof that it is a distress call. Even BIC isn’t sure what the signal is. You’re assuming―”
“I’m not prepared to assume anything, Marla. That’s why we’re going to take a closer look.” And to BIC, “Plot a course and give me an ETA. Try to raise anyone...or thing that might be on board.”
COURSE COMPUTED.
ETA AT PRESENT VELOCITY - 16 MINUTES.
“Okay, BIC, get us there.”
“Why have you altered course?” Cal Faraday asked over the audiocom.
“We’ve picked up what appears to be a distress call,” Zak said. “I’m checking it out.”
“That’s not good enough, Captain. If you can’t confirm that it is someone in trouble, then I demand that you head directly for Velos. This is a body disposal freighter. Contact a military craft and let them handle it.”
“No can do, Faraday. BIC has logged it as a probable emergency request for assistance. The book says I have to respond.”
“Forget the damn book. As a board member of the company, I’m giving you a direct order to turn about, Captain.”
“I’ll keep this conversation on disk, Faraday. Your order is duly noted and disregarded.”
“You’ll be lucky to get a job piloting a garbage tanker if you persist with this. I―”
Zak closed the channel. The thought of his planned trip to Earth was becoming more attractive by the second. But for now he would concentrate on saving any souls that might still be alive on the vessel they were zeroing in on. Truth was, it would be a welcome distraction from the monotony.
Nine minutes later, the image of the distant craft was projected onto the main viewscreen.
“Full magnification, BIC,” Zak said. “And scan it for life.”
The pinhead-sized object grew to fill the screen. It was ovoid, like an egg, and looked to be constructed of seamless burnished steel that shimmered in the reflected starlight.
BIC spoke:
ONE LIFE FORM DETECTED.
“Alive?” Zak said.
AFFIRMATIVE.
“Can you contact it?”
NEGATIVE. NO RESPONSE ON AVAILABLE
FREQUENCIES.
“Current ETA?”
FIVE MINUTES AND ELEVEN SECONDS.
“What’s the plan, Zak?” Marla said.
“We’ll take the craft inboard on F deck. Go through the decon procedure, then let the roboserf check out what we’re dealing with.”
“Meaning?”
“That we’ve never been face to face with an alien life form. Apart from infrequent sightings of UFOs, there is still no hard proof of their existence.”
“Wow. We could be about to have an encounter with a little green man, or woman.”
“Yeah. So let’s put our dress uniforms on. I’d hate it to think that humans are slobs.”
A low density tractor beam drew the small craft on board and set it down on to the deck. After activating the decontamination procedure, and once certain that Charon was not contaminated, BIC closed the inner and then outer hatches and formed a compulink with the roboserf, enabling Zak and Marla to monitor all visual and auditory input.
“I don’t see any way into it,” Marla said. “It has no observation ports, docking points or hatches.”
“Have the roboserf use a laser lance, BIC,” Zak instructed.
The vaguely humanoid-shaped alloy roboserf hovered midway up the alien vessel, extended an arm fitted with a laser attachment, powered it up and described a three foot diameter circle on the metallic skin. The craft remained unmarked.
“Problem, BIC?” Zak asked.
COATING IMPERVIOUS TO INDUSTRIAL LASER.
“How do we crack it?” Marla said to Zak.
“We don’t. We’ll take it back to Velos and let the boffins work it out. Whatever is in there must know that we’ve picked it up. It’s obviously shy, scared, or too hurt to put out the welcome mat.”
Inside the escape pod, the cryo freezer warning light glowed red. The capsule drained, and for the first time in over one hundred Velos years, the control panels lit up and the hiss of a breathable methane atmosphere filled the small cabin.
It checked all the readouts, assessed its present location within the much larger alien craft, and probed the strange environment with sensors. There were 191 carbon-based entities on board, none of which posed the remotest threat to it. They would be easily overcome, and serve as a food source on the long trip back to its own planet.
“You may have just come up with something worth the diversion, Zak,” Faraday said as he entered the bridge and dropped into a contour seat. “Let’s go down to F deck and have a look at it.”
“I can see it on the screen, Cal,” Zak said, deciding that it wouldn’t harm to be civil to Faraday, at least until he got paid his credits for this, his last trip.
“That’s not the same. If the computer says it’s safe, I want to go and examine it.”
“Even BIC doesn’t know how safe it is,” Marla said. “All we know is that it’s of alien origin, and that there is something alive on board.”
“I’ll go and give it the once-over, and take a tranq gun with me,” Faraday said. “If something comes out of it that doesn’t want to shake hands or pass the time of day, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Please yourself,” Zak said, not caring what happened to the hypocritical, bible-thumping bastard. “We’ll watch on screen.”
Faraday shook his head. “Aren’t either of you inquisitive?”
“Yes,” Marla said, “I am. But if BIC can’t communicate with whatever is inside, then there’s not a lot we can do.”
Faraday entered F deck and made his way through the chapel-come-viewing gallery to enter the large bay that had held the cylocoffins on the trip out to K-300. Now, only the strange metal lozenge occupied the floor grid. He walked all the way around the craft and thought that he could hear a very low, throbbing bass sound emanating from it.
Standing with his face just inches from the shiny surface, he could see no reflection. Reaching out with both hands, he put his palms onto the smooth hull, only to pull away with a gasp. The texture of it was like human skin. It was warm, pliant, and yielded beneath his fingertips; not cold and solid as he had expected it to be. It was as if it were alive. A sudden apprehension filled him. He felt a presence that terrified him, and backed away, expecting something to happen. He was not disappointed. The very fabric of the craft seemed to melt before his eyes, and a perfectly round, fist-sized hole formed in front of him.
“Can you s...see this?” he croaked, now frozen to the spot, almost mesmerised as though he were watching a conjuror pull a Velosian swamp spider from a hat.
“Yeah, we see it, Faraday,” Zak said over the audiocom. “Get the hell out of there, now.”
Why couldn’t he move? And what was that godawful smell leaking out of the hole? It reminded him of stomach gases from a corpse.
As he stared at the hole, a slimy, purple, veined hose that terminated in a circular mouth packed with serrated teeth erupted from the aperture, punched into his stomach and latched on to his innards. It felt as though a drill bit had bored through his skin, into his guts. He seized the ri
ppling tube, tried to pull it back, out of him, but his hands could find no purchase on the slick, muscular limb. It infiltrated him, spread through him, and began to consume him.
“HELP MEEE!” Cal screamed as a numbing pressure gripped his spine, moved up its length, and entered his brain.
The transference was swift. The biped’s soft tissue was unprotected and made access to its interior cavities a simple procedure. Taking over motor functions enabled it to operate in the hostile oxygen-rich atmosphere. It was now in complete control of the organism.
“What the hell was that, Zak?” Marla said.
“I have no idea. It was too fast. Replay the Vid in slo-mo.”
The replay showed the opening appear in the hull of the pod, followed by the tubular arm that seemed to attach itself to Faraday. The chaplain’s fearful outcry for help was even more bloodcurdling in slo-mo. The appendage could be seen withdrawing back into the side of the craft, which then reformed to its original smooth state.
“Faraday, can you hear me?” Zak asked.
The chaplain was standing stock-still, head hung down as though he were asleep on his feet. After a long pause he looked up, and smiled.
“I’m fine, Zak,” he said. “That thing just gave me a shock.”
BIC interrupted further discussion:
ALERT. CONTAMINATION ON F DECK.
AREA COMPROMISED
“So identify it,” Marla said as Zak ordered Faraday to get out of the loading bay and seal himself in the adjoining chapel/viewing chamber.
CONTAMINANT NOT IDENTIFIABLE.
DOES NOT CONFORM TO ANY KNOWN
BIOLOGICAL OR MINERAL SPECS.
The readout on the flight deck’s screens showed a mass of information that Zak, Marla and BIC could make no sense of, apart from the fact that the emission from the alien craft was highly toxic, to humans.
“Flush F deck, BIC,” Zak instructed.
After ten seconds:
CONTAMINANT ON F DECK ERADICATED.
Zak turned his attention back to Faraday. “Get out of there, and report to sick bay.” It was not a request. Once Faraday was in the elevator, Zak sealed F deck off from the rest of the ship. No one was going down there again until they got back to Velos.
In the small infirmary, Zak found Faraday already in the autodoc chair. He had attached himself to it, and was calmly waiting for the complex bank of instrumentation to churn out its findings.
“What went down in there, Faraday?” Zak asked.
“You saw, didn’t you?”
“We saw...something appear from a hole and strike you like a goddamn snake.”
Faraday lifted his tunic top up and bared his stomach. There was a plum-coloured bruise on his hairy belly.
“It gave me a belt in the gut, and then retracted. I don’t think it liked me touching the pod, so I got a warning clout.”
The health check picked up slightly high blood pressure. Nothing else.
“You were lucky,” Zak said. “I have the feeling it could have easily killed you, if it had had a mind to.”
Faraday smiled. “So we’ve got a friendly alien that just isn’t ready to make formal contact, yet.”
“I don’t know what we’ve got,” Zak said. “But I do know that it’s toxic. The gas that escaped from that hole was potentially lethal.”
“Well it’s contained, now. Division of Space Science can play with it when we get back.”
“Yeah, right,” Zak said. “Watch that blood pressure.”
Back on the bridge, Marla asked BIC to analyse any residual data pertaining to the unidentifiable tube that had extended out from the alien craft.
STRUCTURE INDEFINABLE.
Damn it to hell, Marla thought. BIC was Bio-Integral, had the capacity to not only access all programmed human knowledge, but to extrapolate; think for itself.
“So give it your best shot, BIC. Loosen up and tell me what you think, in your own words.”
OFF THE RECORD MARLA, I THINK THAT
THE CRAFT IS AN ESCAPE POD. IT COULD
HAVE BEEN DRIFTING FOR MILLENNIA. I
ERR ON THE SIDE OF EXTREME CAUTION
AND CHOOSE TO CONSIDER IT AND THE
ALIEN INSIDE HIGHLY DANGEROUS.
“What would be your recommendation?”
JETTISON THE SON OF A BITCH.
“Okay, BIC, thanks for your thoughts on it. I’ll discuss the matter with the captain.”
YOU’RE WELCOME, MARLA.
“Faraday seems fine,” Zak said, instructing the autochef to produce a double-strength brew of its coffee substitute. “But someone ought to tell him his breath stinks.”
“BIC thinks whatever is in the craft is dangerous, and that we should dump the whole shebang out the hatch,” Marla said, not unduly concerned over the chaplain’s state of health, or his halitosis.
Zak shook his head. “No can do. We can’t alter course to answer a distress signal, pick up the disabled craft and then ditch it back into the black, just because the computer has a hunch.”
That which had been Cal Faraday now sat in the chaplain’s quarters and used his perscom to enter the FedWeb. Astronomical charts confirmed that it was in an unknown quadrant. The data pertaining to this backward species showed that no power source yet developed by them could be utilised to effect return to its home system. It was marooned, and would have to self proliferate and subjugate the indigenous life forms.
The door slid open and Showna Powell – who was both Faraday’s secretary and lover – entered.
“Are you all right, Cal?” the trim brunette asked, putting her arms around his neck as he got up to greet her.
“I’m fine, honey,” it answered as it metamorphosed into its natural form.
Showna was too traumatised to scream or move. Within her arms, Cal changed. His features warped, became elastic, and then hardened into that of a giant insect. The saucer-sized bulging eyes were black and multifaceted. And in place of a mouth, large, bony, serrated mandibles clicked together over a fetid maw.
Showna’s last thought – before the grotesque head shot forward and razor-sharp pincers decapitated her – was that she was in the embrace of a seven-feet-tall praying mantis.
It fed noisily, and when finished, not even Showna’s hair, teeth or bones remained. The only residue left of the carnage was the crimson swathes that had spattered the compartment’s ceiling, walls and floor. The creature was not wasteful, though, and meticulously siphoned up the mass of blood and other body fluids with a leathery proboscis that uncoiled from its mouth parts. The biped tasted good: very similar to Garzonian tree lice!
Shape shifting back into the likeness of the Cal Faraday being, it showered, and foregoing clean clothing, made its way up to the control centre of the ship.
ALERT. NON HUMAN ENTITY ON BOARD.
“We know that, BIC,” Zak said. “It’s on F deck.”
NO, CAPTAIN, IT’S OUTSIDE THE BRIDGE DOOR.
AND IT’S HUNGRY…VERY HUNGRY.
11
A TERRIBLE PLACE
Tate hit the platform on the run and leaped through the doors as they began to close, to stumble forward and crash into a suitcase almost as big as the woman standing guard over it.
The train was packed, rounding off what had conspired to be a Godawful day. He wished he’d driven into the city, but had opted to avoid the stress of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Big mistake.
Two stops and forty minutes later, he got a seat; sank back into it and closed his eyes, to be almost lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the swaying coaches. And then his perfidious bladder demanded that he relieve it.
He put his briefcase on the seat before walking back along the carriage to where he had seen the toilet sign.
Some things are just so utterly weird that the mind finds it hard to grasp the reality of them and has to do a double-take to check out that which cannot, or has no right to exist. That happened to Tate when he closed the door, engaged the bolt and turned as he reached down to unzip his pan
ts.
He froze at the sight that met him. The back wall of the cubicle, which was the side of the coach, was missing. Beyond the stainless steel toilet and basin there was a gaping hole in the train. Not a ragged rent, but a rectangle of obsidian blackness; a doorway framed by lichen-spotted granite columns that supported a broad and timeworn lintel. And there was no sound. He could no longer hear the wheels of the train on the rails, or feel any sensation of movement.
Tate’s eyes were drawn to the deeply incised letters on the crumbling stone lintel to read the words, Terribilis est locus iste. The first word must mean terrible, he could figure that much out. And this was a lot more than just terrible. This was Twilight Zone stuff. Tate’s usually agile mind could not comprehend what was happening. He was a down-to-earth, meat and potato kind of guy who had never given any credence to the supernatural and other associated weird shit. He saw things in simple terms: black and white, night and day, and life and death. And this was not anything like any situation he had experienced and could relate to. He was befuddled, at a loss to know what to do next.
Backing away, he fumbled the bolt off and left the small compartment with the sensation of an ice-cold wire of fear snaking down the length of his spine. He was no longer just tired and annoyed, he was bemused, and panic was threatening to confuse him further.
Walking between what were now deserted seats, he made it to the buffet car. He could smell coffee, the lingering scent of perfume, and even a trace of sweat in the air. But the car was now, as the rest of the train, unoccupied. There was a full glass of beer on the counter. He sat on a stool and took a mouthful of the cold liquid. It tasted sulphurous. He spat it out.
Calm down. Look at the facts, Tate mused. He had caught the evening train, and a lot of other passengers besides him had been on board when it left the last stop. People don’t just vanish from a speeding train. And alien abduction was strictly for the movies, so where the hell had they disappeared to?
As if in answer to a silent prayer, the uniformed woman who had been serving coffee and snacks appeared through the far door of the car and made her way to another door next to the counter.
“Hello,” he called. “Excuse me. I need some help here.”
