Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It

by Proulx, Michelle

  Two sets of blue coveralls came floating toward them—one human-sized and one Claktill-sized—suspended in midair. “What’s making the clothes float like that?”

  “Not what, who,” the Triila corrected. “It is an Aoratis from the fourth moon of Langlin V.”

  “It’s invisible,” Eris realized. She couldn’t resist reaching out to touch the creature. A shock of electricity ran up her arms, causing her to flinch and recoil. “Ow!”

  “Aorati do not like to be touched,” Doctor T told her sternly. “And yes, they are invisible. We are studying them to see if we can duplicate this effect. We have tried to obtain more specimens, but as you can imagine, it is difficult to locate invisible creatures.”

  A technician removed their binders. “Don your uniforms,” Doctor T commanded.

  Miguri quickly shucked his brown tunic, pulled on the blue garment, and strapped his lamri belt back on. But Eris hesitated. Do they really expect me to strip in front of all these people? “Do you have somewhere I could change?” she asked.

  Doctor T bobbed close to Eris as if scrutinizing her. “Larita, make a note.” The technician poised a stylus above her clipboard. “The human exhibits the same sense of propriety often seen in Psilosian and Vekrori subjects.”

  “You’re all complete strangers!” Eris protested. “You want me to strip in front of you and are surprised that I object?”

  “I have experiments to conduct. Do not waste any more of my time.”

  “But I don’t even know why I’m here!” Eris exploded.

  Doctor T wobbled closer to her. “Do you not know? Fascinating. According to Tetrarchy records, a Rakorsian task force landed on your planet approximately ten thousand years ago. The team was recalled to Rakor, but several members reportedly became intrigued with the natives and chose to remain on the planet. We believe they intermingled with the terrestrial population.”

  Eris gaped at the Triila. “You mean some humans have Rakorsian ancestors?”

  “Correct.”

  Eris tried to wrap her head around the idea that humanity—or some of it, at least—was distantly related to the duplicitous, back-stabbing Rakorsians. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but from what I’ve seen of Rakorsians, we humans are nothing like them.”

  “Except for your high genetic similarities, your tendency toward confrontation and battle, and your self-righteous attitude? And the fact that I myself have viewed a number of video records proving Rakorsians visited your planet. I could easily describe several off the top of my luminous sphere, but I shall not waste my time doing so.”

  Eris scowled. “Well, I don’t think we’re related,” she mumbled.

  “Larita, make a note: the subject denies historical fact.” Turning back to Eris, Doctor T continued, “So to answer your question, terrestrial, you are here because of your genetic similarity to Rakorsians. Testing drugs on humans will be far more financially and militaristically conservative than trying to abduct Rakorsians for that purpose. Now don your clothing and follow me.”

  Eris looked at the uniform in her hands and then at Miguri. The Claktill shrugged. I guess I have to play by the rules, she thought, at least for now. Very embarrassed, she stripped off her clothing and quickly pulled on the new outfit. Larita took her clothes, and Eris watched as her favorite purple hoodie—her last tie with Earth—was whisked away.

  Now that the captives were suitably attired, Doctor T led them out of the room, down a short hall, and into another, smaller room. Looks like an examination room, Eris thought, noting the metal slab tables and the two aliens wearing green lab coats. Fear shivered up her spine. Oh, God, please don’t probe me.

  As they led her to one of the tables, she caught sight of her reflection in a round mirror mounted on a wall above the sink. With the dark circles under her eyes, stringy hair, and shapeless garment, Eris barely recognized herself. Nice look, Eris, she thought and then mocked herself with a halfhearted wolf whistle.

  Doctor T whirred toward her. “Do that again.”

  Perplexed, Eris whistled again.

  “Your sonic system is very well developed,” the Triila said. “You will be of more use to Dr. Marku. I will keep the Claktill here.”

  As Eris was dragged from the room, she saw Miguri squirming helplessly as the two technicians strapped him to a table. This is not going to end well, she thought.

  Eris was taken to a different operating room where she too was strapped to a table. After placing an oxygen mask over her mouth, the technician jabbed several needles into her arms and pumped her full of pain-killers.

  A brown-skinned, blue-haired male humanoid wearing a green lab coat and carrying a clipboard entered the room. Dr. Marku? Eris guessed.

  “Ah, I see I have a new specimen!” the alien said.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she asked, voice muffled by the oxygen mask.

  “You do not know? According to my preliminary research, the human brain is basically a nonenhanced version of the Rakorsian mind. I will need to crack open your skull and temporarily remove your brain so I can run a few tests.”

  Eris decided to black out at that point.

  13

  When she regained consciousness, Eris was sprawled on the floor of her cell. She felt extremely nauseated, her vision was distorted, and she had a peculiar craving for anchovies. Before she could start worrying about what had happened or where Miguri was, she saw the doctor standing outside her cell writing notes on his clipboard.

  “Awake, I see,” Dr. Marku said, making a little tick with his stylus. “The skull-fusing procedure was a success, and the skin graft looks seamless. Do you feel any discomfort?”

  “Blargurgleplopigarmund,” Eris said.

  Dr. Marku made another tick. “I see the Xycopan has taken effect.”

  “Jagibookla,” Eris retorted. “Flarp!”

  “Fascinating. This speech-impairment side effect is usually only found in Takblinarians.” He nodded to her. “I look forward to working with you again tomorrow.”

  As Eris watched him walk away, she caught sight of her reflection in the glass door. At first she thought it was the drugs, but then she slapped her hands to her head and felt nothing but bare scalp. All her lovely, long, dark brown hair was gone.

  “Galloooo!” Eris wailed.

  Several hours later, Eris had regained some control of her tongue, although she was still having trouble with her spatial orientation. She had also discovered that her fingers were unbelievably fascinating. Lying on her back, she wiggled them in front of her face, then moved them away, then closer, then away again. “It’s like … the universe,” she mumbled, certain she had just uncovered something truly profound.

  She barely noticed the lab technician in the hall until she heard a cell door slide open.

  “Miguri!” Eris exclaimed, flipping over to get a better look. As she watched her friend stagger into his cell, she thought there was something strange about him. “Why are you upside down?” she said unhappily.

  The lab technician squinted at her through her cell door. “You are suffering side effects from Dr. Marku’s brain-removal procedure. I will inform him.”

  Something about the technician’s words struck Eris as absolutely hilarious. She started laughing. But the deep, rasping laughs transformed into sobs as they escaped her lips. Eris fell to the floor, clutching her stomach, caught up in a haze of pain-killers and hysteria.

  The lab technician made a note on his clipboard and walked away.

  Over the next ten days, Eris felt herself slowly slipping away from the sanity to which she had been clinging since she was taken from Earth. Her initial abduction had been horrific, but nothing truly awful had happened to her on the Ssrisk ship. Then there had been the whole fiasco with Varrin, and although she had been utterly crushed by his betrayal, the most he had done to hurt her physically was lock her up. And at least he had treated her like an intelligent being.

  But this was a whole different story. Eris was able to deal wi
th abductions, and turncoats, and shocking handcuffs, and not knowing what was going on at any given time. What she could not stand was being cooped up in a cell, mysteriously losing all her hair, being fed disgusting substances, and spending endless hours completing boring, repetitive tasks while a battery of doctors stood by and took notes. It was like living a horrible nightmare, and if she had to endure much more of this treatment, Eris knew she would go mad. Miguri was nearly there.

  “I never wanted to leave the colony ship,” Miguri informed the floor of his cell sternly late on the evening of their eleventh day at the Chakra Corporation’s R&D department. “I was perfectly happy living with my family, searching for a new planet to call home.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Eris said.

  The little alien wrapped his tail around himself and curled up against the back wall. “A nice, warm bowl of kilti nik billi, the occasional new holo-vid,” he mumbled. “Life had its small pleasures.”

  Eris sighed and pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them close for warmth. The doctors had lowered the temperature in her cell by twenty degrees to see if she would succumb to hypothermia. They had told her they wanted to know if humans reacted the same way as Rakorsians did to harsh conditions, because if so, they could test a whole new product line designed to boost various physical attributes.

  “And sitting with my companions, reminiscing,” Miguri concluded.

  “Why did you leave?” Eris asked.

  “I was banished.”

  “What! Why?”

  Miguri’s tail started to twitch. “A Ssrisk ship attacked us. They were probably hunting for pets for their home world. I could not just sit by and let them take everything from us.”

  “You tried to defend the colony ship?”

  “Yes. Our vessel was of Psilosian make,” Miguri said. “A gift from Psilos after our planet was destroyed. It came equipped with a plasma cannon, and the Psilosians did not bother decommissioning it. Claktills are pacifists, and the Psilosians could not imagine a Claktill even touching an instrument of destruction.”

  “But you did.”

  “Yes,” he admitted, hair drooping sadly. “The Ssrisk ship never saw it coming. Claktills do not fight, and they do not fire plasma cannons into other ships’ engine cores.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  “I destroyed the entire ship,” Miguri trilled softly. “They had not even bothered to raise their shields, for what did they have to fear from Claktills? From that moment on, my people abhorred the sight of me. They banished me the moment we reached a safe system.”

  Filled with righteous indignation, Eris overcame her lethargy and jumped to her feet. “But the Ssrisk would have enslaved them! Why would they punish you for saving them?”

  “I have never, even in my youth, been able to fully embrace the pacifist ways of my species,” Miguri said. “The injustices against my people filled me with constant fury. But I was always forgiven for my wayward beliefs—until the day I gave form to my violent thoughts and attacked the Ssrisk. Despite the pleas of my kin, the council said I was an aberration and would never achieve what they called the ‘natural Claktilli state.’ So I was banished.”

  “Were you married? Did you have children?”

  “Claktills do not marry in your human sense of the word. But, yes, I have offspring.”

  Wishing she could hug the miserable creature, Eris settled for sending him her most sympathetic expression. “You know, pacifism is all well and good, but sometimes it just isn’t an option. Claktills probably get pushed around so much because they won’t stand up for themselves.”

  “Be that as it may, the elders made the right decision. I am not a proper Claktill.”

  “Miguri, that’s absurd, and you know it.” Eris decided to switch tactics. “How old are you?”

  “Two hundred and thirty-six.”

  She was thrown momentarily by the number but quickly rallied her argument. “That’s got to be old, even for a Claktill.”

  “It is,” he admitted.

  “Well, it seems to me that you’re old enough to make your own decisions about how to live your life, right?”

  Miguri tilted his head. “I know what you are trying to do, Eris, but that is not the issue here. I betrayed the ways of my people.”

  “You saved their lives! You chose to fight for your freedom, and theirs, and you are not going to feel bad about it as long as I’m around!”

  Miguri gazed intently at her. “You may have a point,” he finally conceded, a trace of his old optimism returning.

  “Of course I do,” Eris said. “I’m always right.”

  The absurd hyperbole elicited a laugh from her little friend, the first one since their imprisonment in the laboratory. “I shall not debate that point either, as I suspect I shall lose,” the Claktill chirped.

  Eris smiled. “Let’s try to get some sleep, all right? I bet they have all kinds of fun new experiments planned for us tomorrow.”

  “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

  She cast him a warning look. “And don’t you dare go insane on me! Next time you start feeling overwhelmed, just talk to me. Okay?”

  Miguri nodded solemnly.

  Suddenly, it was pitch black. Eris shrank back into the corner of her cell, fearing she was about to be introduced to some new psychological torture. But nothing of the sort happened. A few seconds later, dim lights hummed softly to life in the dark corridor. She stood up. Power failure?

  Eris tried to clear the fog from her brain so she could understand the implications of what had just occurred. If the power is out, then maybe we can open the cell doors! Steeling herself, she poked the door with her big toe. When she wasn’t electrocuted, she put both hands on the door and shoved it open.

  She leaped into the hallway and then froze, afraid she may have set off an alarm. But nothing happened—no alarms, no scientists running down the hall, nothing. This is good, she thought, nodding.

  Eris hurried across to Miguri’s cell and helped him open the door. “I suggest we escape before the power grid comes back online,” he said, stepping into the corridor. “Do you remember the way out?”

  “We’ll just have to bluff it,” she replied. “We’d better hurry. Doctor T might show up any—”

  “What are you doing out of your cells?” a melodious voice interrupted.

  Eris whirled around, accidentally knocking Miguri off his feet. “Sorry!” she gasped. As she helped the Claktill stand up, she gave the intruder an astonished once-over. “You! You’re the one Varrin sold us to! You’re the one who brought us here!”

  The Psilosian female inclined her head smoothly. “Yes. I am Alyra. I see you remember me from our brief encounter several days ago.” Eris took a few seconds to readjust to the fact that the tall alien had no mouth and spoke by blinking her eyelids.

  “Change several days to nearly two weeks and encounter to abduction, and you’re almost there,” Eris growled. “Your stupid company’s destroyed my hair, removed my brain from my head, and nearly made my only friend go insane!”

  Alyra blinked her huge, pale eyelids. “You have my sincerest apologies,” she lilted. “My superiors at IFTAP had hoped to have you out of this foul place days ago, but I had to prepare a diversion before coming to your rescue.”

  “You buy us from a Rakorsian raider,” Eris said suspiciously, “sell us to a Chakra Corporation laboratory, then show up wanting us to believe it was all part of some big plan, and now you’re here to set us free? I don’t think so.”

  A clanking noise echoed somewhere down the corridor along with muffled shouts.

  “They will have the central power grid up soon,” Alyra blinked. “We must move quickly if we wish to escape before the alarm system comes back online.”

  “Who are you?” Eris demanded, holding Miguri protectively against her side. “Who are you really working for?”

  “I am Alyra. I am rescuing you.”

  “Why should we trust you?” Miguri dem
anded.

  “I am Psilosian. Psilosians are trustworthy. I will explain everything once we are away safely.” Alyra motioned down the corridor with one slender hand. “This way, please, noble human and good Claktill.”

  Well, at least I’m noble now, Eris thought. And we do need to get out of the building. With Miguri in tow, she hurried after the tall alien.

  Once they were out of the cell block, Alyra led them along a series of narrow corridors, avoiding the main laboratory area. Miguri tugged at Eris’s coveralls and whispered, “Do you think this is a rescue or another abduction?”

  Eris snorted softly. “Because I’m so good at determining things like that.”

  The Psilosian glided up to the door at the end of the last hall. “Open. Authorization Alyra,” she said. Nothing happened.

  “You cut the power, remember?” Eris said scathingly. She must be trying to rescue us. An abductor would be far more competent. Like Varrin. Although maybe we would have been better off if he hadn’t been quite so resourceful.

  Alyra placed two hands on the metal door and pushed several times as if testing its strength.

  “That’s a pretty thick door,” Eris said. “I really doubt you’re strong enough to—”

  The Psilosian took a step back and then slammed her hands against the door. To Eris’s shock, it went flying into the next hallway, landing with a loud clang.

  “Come quickly now,” Alyra blinked. “Doctor T will have heard that. It is never far from its laboratory, and it does not sleep.”

  They raced down the corridor, turned, turned again, flew down a flight of steps, and sprinted down a long hallway. “My sides … hurt …” Miguri huffed, scurrying after the two much taller beings. “My legs … are only … so long.”

  “This is the place,” Alyra blinked, slowing to a stop. They faced a wide door that had alien writing stenciled on it in large letters. Just as the Psilosian was positioning herself to slam the door open, the lights flickered on.