by S. V. Brown
The next day, Benny, with his red hair carefully brushed behind his ears, and Jo, who was still sick but had to come for the test, sat at their desks getting nervous. Jo, his black hair slick from being in bed, had a box of tissues with Elysians printed on the outside. The teacher came in, the crabby Mr. Weffna. Benny told her Mr. Weffna was grumpy because he was so old, but Jo scornfully told them that his parents were at least two hundred years older that Mr. Weffna and they weren’t grumpy.
Silence filled the large, stark classroom as twenty-three students of age seven to nine tried not to fidget. Mr. Weffna had his old brown jacket on, grey shirt, bow tie and brown pants. Feena caught Benny’s eye. He was sitting at the desk to her right. Mr. Weffna was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe. She tried not to giggle.
Under the teacher’s arm was a package with their tests. He solemnly opened the yellow package and took out a sheaf of papers. He walked up and down the desk aisles placing sheets of paper, wrong side up, on each student’s single desk. When he got back to his large rectangular writing table he raised an arm, looked at his watch, and said in a solemn voice, “You may begin.”
Feena gave Benny and Jo a quick grin and turned over her paper. There were three sheets and three questions. Some tests they had to do on computer but the adults insisted handwriting was still a required and necessary skill.
The first question was about the excerpt she had recited the night before at dinner, so that was easy. She wrote that down. Behind her, Jo blew his nose.
Feena finally looked at the last question. She didn’t have a lot of room left on her last page. It read, “Absolute Law was handed down to the Reos in eight hundred and seventy-five EO time; name two of the eight laws.”
She only had to name a couple. That was easy.
She wrote down the first law in her own words. “You shall not neglect, abuse, kill or eat an animal.” She breathed out, checking for spelling mistakes. Time was running out.
Then, she squeezed in the fourth law right at the bottom of the page about not doing anything that resulted in the death of lots of living creatures or wasting resources.
“Time is up.” Mr. Weffna’s firm voice invaded her thoughts.
Feena didn’t think she’d spelled resources correctly but didn’t want to be told off in front of the class for writing after the announcement. Mr. Weffna allowed Benny to collect the papers and the three friends walked out into the narrow corridor, relieved. They headed for the main passage.
“I gotta go.” Jo sniffed, his brown eyes watering, and headed out of the school area.
Feena and Benny walked slowly down the wide passage toward the school entrance. The wide, transparent doors were still swinging from Jo’s departure. The reception and visitors lounge were on either side of the double doors.
“How did it go, Benny?” Her friend had more and darker freckles than she did, and was skinnier too. But he was taller.
“Okay, I think. How about you?”
“I remembered most of the stuff. I remembered the mantra that the Elysians sung.”
“I wrote some of it down too. Did you remember to write down how the animals spied on the Joirans?”
Feena stopped suddenly. “No, I forgot, that’s the most exciting part.”
“Na, it’s not, the Twisted Ones are more exciting.” Benny said loudly, his green eyes twinkling with excitement. “Do you think the Twisted Ones are going to come and get us soon?”
“Shhh.” Feena smiled at the receptionist, who was looking at them from over the front counter. “Don’t know. The adults don’t like talking about it with us. I tried looking on the Netcom in our quarters but it says it’s restricted.”
“Yeh, I tried too. I wonder why they are going to come. Are they angry with us? Do you think the humans that came to the Joiran Cluster were different-looking from us?”
“Don’t know to your first two questions and no to the last. The only difference between humans and Joirans is that humans grew old and died, although I heard Dad say to Mum one night that the humans, except the Reos, had sex with another species and had Joiran babies.”
Benny screwed up his face.
“Anyway, now we are Joirans that live a lot longer and we’re smarter than humans too. Besides, the humans that came here were all scientists. Maybe that’s why the Twisted Ones hate Joirans.”
“Not all!”
“Okay, some were bodyguards or whatever. They guarded the scientists.” Her tone spoke volumes.
“Boy, you don’t like scientists much. Is it because of your parents?”
“They’re not really scientists, but they work with a lot of them. We have them over for dinner and it’s so boring. The scientists keep asking me lots of stupid questions, like, ‘Are you sleeping soundly, Serafina? Are you dreaming? What do you dream about?’ Sometimes, I make stuff up and they write it down. They’re horrible; when I have nightmares, they love it. Once, they asked me if I dreamt about Reos; why would I dream about him or his descendants?”
“They asked you about Reos?” Benny made a connection; he shut his eyes and then looked back at her. “The Elysians sung about him in the mantra.”
She rolled her eyes, “Didn’t you write that bit in the test?”
“I forgot. But I found out last month that the first Reos was a founding scientist from Earth. The Elysians did something to him when he was on the space ship, the one that the scientists had built to escape Earth. The Elysians liked Reos. I can’t remember the name of the ship. Two, Tue, something.” He shrugged his shoulders in frustration.
Feena was interested. They had stopped walking. “Where did you find that? I’ve always wanted to know why the name Reos was sung by the space orcas.”
Benny shuffled his feet. “Mum forgot to restrict the site when she got up to go to work and I had some time to have a look. I did manage to read that the Weird Ones attacked the ship Reos was on and the Elysians stopped it, but then Dad walked in and I was sprung.”
“Too bad,” Feena said with feeling. “I wonder what the Twisted and Weird Ones look like?”
“I bet they are big and hairy, with horns and fangs instead of teeth.” He tried to make a scary face.
“Or maybe—” she replied with some scorn “—they are just twisted and funny-looking.”
Benny twisted his body, but Feena tapped her head. They walked out together, pushing the doors as far as they could and watching them swing. They quickly ran off when they saw the receptionist get up, and they kept arguing who was right about the Twisted and Weird Ones. They stopped running after almost bumping into an Anamoth cruise attendant around a corner.
“Aren’t the Twisted Ones also called Ill, Illu …?”
Feena offered helpfully, “Illudere?”
“Yeh.”
“Yep.”
Benny gave her a dirty look. She grinned at him, showing straight white teeth. “The scientists all call them the Illudere, but I prefer to use Twisted Ones.”
“Why?”
“Cause the Elysians say Twisted Ones, that’s why. But then they say ‘Sharith’ for the Weird Ones.” She changed the topic. “Do you have time to, err, investigate?”
“Na, I have to go to the bridge. Dad wants me to watch some more Verging.”
Feena exaggerated a yawn. Benny rolled his eyes. Benny had dragged both Feena and Jo with him on one Verging excursion. It was boring watching the adults on the bridge. The crew stood around saying words the trio didn’t really understand. It wasn’t as if you could feel the cruise ship verge into another dimension. It didn’t feel any different when you were in the other dimension.
They said their goodbyes and Feena determinedly went to investigate. She wanted to get Mr. Pollocks but thought she might have to crawl in the ducts to get to somewhere interesting, like the hydroponics gardens when the water was like a mist in the air. Mr. Pollocks wouldn’t like that.
Hours later, after crawling around in the network of ducts and peeping through the grill, she checked
to see if the corridor was clear and backed out of the narrow tube. She realized it was quite late and that her mum and dad would be looking for her by now. The panel lay to one side on the blue carpet. She picked it up and pressed it back in.
She straightened her green top and black pants and turned toward the opposite corridor, taking a few steps. There was a strange noise ahead. It sounded like their practice alarms but it also sounded like the battery was dying. She stood in the middle of the T-junction and then moved back against bulkhead panel she’d just replaced. Feena heard a dull, thumping noise down the corridor she was facing. She looked around to her left and right, concerned. The passage she was in was still empty. She was about to leave and report the noise when the emergency system began its cry of alert. Explosions and vibrations began moments later. Further thunderous sounds and weapon fire hurt her ears; she could see falling debris and smoke.
Feena felt the heat on her face as she stood up against the bulkhead of the cruise ship. All around her chaos reigned. The once empty passage now had adults running up and down, shouting words she couldn’t make out. Her ears were ringing from the explosion. The overhead lights had gone from their usual “white” to “red and blue.” Sirens sounded at all stations. Her stomach lurched and her ears hurt. In the heat of the attack, she looked down and saw that her best top was stained brown and red. Her legs were wet from fright. Her pants were torn. When the urine slid down over cuts obtained from shrapnel, she groaned. The stinging sensation distracted her from the chaos.
“It hurts,” Feena cried, but no one paid her any attention. Flashes of color exploded around her and she saw bodies flung around, and those that were not lying on the floor had faces filled with terror. She looked around, hoping to see someone she knew.
“Feena,” a familiar voice cried out. She looked around to her right and saw Mum. Feena cried with relief. Just as she took a step towards her, she saw her dad just behind looking at something else. The door between them slid closed, sealing the damaged area. Her father’s screams and mother’s cries cut off abruptly as the emergency panel closed down on her side over the standard door, securing the undamaged corridor.
Feena was terrified. Weapons fired again nearby but she had frozen in fear. As the terror lost its strong grip, she shrunk down, trying to press herself further into the grey wall and held tightly onto one of the metal support arches that had large, circular cutout shapes. Her fingers grew whiter with each passing moment. Her golden eyes widened at the scene. Smoke erupted from the opposite corridor several feet from where she huddled, and an exit hatch exploded, crashing into the bulkhead opposite it. She felt the warm air on her face from that direction and did not notice the small trickle of blood coming from her forehead. Her brown hair was matted with it. She did not scream; she did not utter a whimper. Her small, sharp face was deathly pale beneath the freckles.
From the damaged hatch emerged creatures from her worst nightmares. They were large beasts with broad shoulders, hair that rose up from the center of the scalp and horns protruding from their heads. The beasts wore armor and walked as men did. She gulped. Benny was right; it must be the Twisted Ones. One of them saw her and nodded to one of his companions. He approached her. The weapons she saw looked like ones she’d seen on an excursion to a museum on Saxe. No one used weapons like that anymore. The Joiran Coalition said it was unethical. If you couldn’t face an enemy without a sword, then you shouldn’t be in battle. Startled, she realized the figure was looming over her, the dark eyes seemingly piercing her mind. Darkness enveloped her as he grabbed her. She came around while in the arms of the beast and heard him speaking over his shoulder, “… we have what we want, let’s go …”
She cried out for her bear and just before blackness closed around her, she heard her kidnappers respond to her cry.
“What’d she say?”
“Dunno … Mr. Pollocks? Let’s get back to the vessel.”
Her delicate job done, the EuroWasp sped away; she was the fastest vessel in the Cluster. Now, the Genetic Alteration Council would no longer be able to keep the project a secret.
Man is Wolf to Man (Plautus, Asinaria)
{[JOIRAN CLUSTER] [Pteraspis] [Saxe, Port Saxe]
[914857/2577/22/space]}
Amir Donaven was furious. He could not believe the poor emergency and reactive time of the Emergency Response Team. He wanted to change their name from ERT to inERTia. They should have already dispatched a clean-up and emergency crew, begun to move toward the damaged ship and sent word to EO about the problem. Instead, it was slow in the process of sending out a message to EO, had not laid out a flight plan to go to the ship in distress and they were trying to figure out who had attacked the ship. Still, the whole reason why he was there was to conduct emergency scenarios and for some professional training. They got more than what they bargained for.
The Pteraspis had received emergency signals from the cruise ship Anamoth a day ago. The one thing they had done correctly was to contact him immediately and request help. He looked down at the screen in front of him, reading the signal and its report. The cruise ship had received forty percent damage to hull and interior, the engines were down and communications were at best spasmodic.
That wasn’t the worst news; a little girl of seven had been kidnapped, and her parents were alive but frantic. Along with the girl some DNA samples had been taken. This was to become his primary responsibility and he was to choose a number of other ships to join him in a search and rescue mission. All other ships in the Joiran Cluster were to be notified to act as watchtowers. He sent for a captain who had been taking leave and who had been recommended—he didn’t want to admit they forced the issue—to him by his superiors.
Captain Sorance Chen sat on a ferian looking out at the stars. The small craft had been made available immediately upon receipt of Amir Donaven’s command. A ship attacked; it was unthinkable and highly unusual. It could only mean one thing, and that was that the item taken was of the highest priority. All ferians had the Metamorphic Shielding of a Weddell Seal across the Cluster, which made them unmistakable as a planet-to-ship transport. It made good speed across space. His brown, almond-shaped eyes focused on the huge crate hanging in space. The crate’s cube shape could not be seen to the physical eye but he liked to guess the size based on the shield. The Pteraspis Meta-Shield was huge.
Sorance knew the crew was relatively inexperienced, which meant they needed the most senior staff on the Pteraspis. He could hear from the clipped words of the recording from Donaven that things weren’t going so well. The regular captain of the Pteraspis was ill and Donaven had taken over to keep his hours in space current by ousting aside a more junior captain. What was obvious to Chen was that Donaven was trying to renew his ratings as well as test the crew. Not a good combination. Sorance sighed; he hated trying to sort through problems and maintain diplomacy while smoothing rank issues.
He focused again on the vessel. He opened his mini-comp casing and requested info on the craft. The crate was in excess of five hundred feet in length and width, and it had fifty levels. The shielding was over one thousand feet long. The long, thick tail fanned out into a soft rounded V shape. Halfway up the body, the head-plating began. Protruding from the back of the head-plating, where the crate was situated, a horn-like bony outgrowth stretched down to the back tail. On the front of the head-plate was an extended snout, which was pinched out into a bladelike rostrum. The Metamorphic Shielding on his crate wasn’t as sleek but he preferred the flattened shape and wide, upturned mouth. He always felt like his craft was greeting him with a smile, not like this one that looked as if it was going to pierce your innards.
An announcement was made that docking would soon commence. He waited patiently for the procedure to be completed and prepared himself mentally for the battle ahead. He assumed his famous poker face and steeled himself for the commotion. He could hear the difference in the engine as the Meta-Shields were disengaged. The crate entered into the docking port. As soon a
s the doors had moved smoothly aside a group stood waiting for him with Amir Donaven floundering behind them. This shocked him; the black-haired commander looked flustered but Chen’s face didn’t show a single emotion as he made his way through the ranks.
Captain Sorance found out quickly he was called off Saxe to not only fix the problems on board the Pteraspis, but to immediately begin preliminary investigations on the attack, return to Saxe with a report and then return to his ship the Drepanaspis to begin a search pattern coordinating with the Pteraspis and two space ships from Behemoth. He was to draw up the routes, coordinate all craft and report regularly to Saxe and EO. No wonder Donaven looked annoyed most of the time during his visit. His dark face glowered, his dark eyes showed anger. Amir Donaven thankfully had been given one goal and that was to find the girl and the samples, the top priority. He was to take the junior captain with him, along with some scientists and other key staff. Chen looked down at his to do list. It was growing by the second. The Joiran Cluster had thirteen inhabited planets, hundreds of uninhabited planets, three abandoned planets and numerous phenomena that would need to be investigated. He estimated that a thorough search could take over twenty years. He sent a coded message to EO about the time restrictions since most kidnappings had a very small time allotment in which to work. The reply was, “No time limit. Utmost priority.”
Along with his duties he had to retrieve the specifications on the two space ships, ACES, the name derived from the words, space and vessel. They were based on the old Tunuen design. Behemoth still produced similar models and, although the crates and Meta-Shields were popular, many still loved flying, working and traveling on a space vessel that look like a traditional “space ship.” He was glad he had a crate; they didn’t look very glamorous in the raw, just a cube, but they had plenty of room and when the shields were engaged they beat the limited designs of the SS. Nevertheless, he was impressed with their capabilities and put them to good use. He leaned back in the captain’s chair on the bridge.
