Space Team: Song of the Space Siren

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “May I speak, Conductor?” asked Soonsho’s father, bowing a full six times during the question.

  “You may,” the Conductor intoned.

  “Oh, thank God,” breathed Cal.

  Soonsho’s father smiled gratefully. He slipped his arms around his wife and daughter, pulling them both close to him. He looked at Cal, and there were tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. “I… There are no words I can use to express my gratitude. You brought my baby back to me. To us. To Cantato Minor. She is the light of our lives, my purpose for getting up in the morning. Without her, I could not go on. None of us could.”

  “No problem,” said Cal. “She’s a great girl. It’s a pleasure to bring her home.”

  Mech coughed noisily. Cal ignored him.

  “She is so important. So important,” said Soonsho’s dad. “Without her…”

  “I’m sure our guests understand how pleased we all are to have Soonsho home,” said the Conductor, interrupting. Soonsho’s father looked briefly taken aback, then bowed several more times and fell into silence.

  “Well, like I say, totally our pleasure,” said Cal. He winked at Soonsho. The barnacle-like bumps on her face blushed pink, and she risked opening her mouth enough to return his smile.

  There was another awkward lull in the conversation. Cal looked to Loren and silently gestured for her to say something. It took her a moment to understand, but then she plunged straight in.

  “So.”

  The Conductor and Conductress looked at her and raised their eyebrows inquisitively. At least, the Conductress did. The Conductor was still wearing his helmet, but something about the way the bottom of his face moved suggested there was some eyebrow action going on with him, too.

  Loren opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She floundered for a few agonizing seconds, then reached for the first thing that came to mind. “War.”

  “I’m sorry?” asked the Conductor.

  “There’s a war,” said Loren. “Did you hear about that? What do you think about it?” She cocked her head and held her chin, as if listening intently.

  “Really?” said the Conductor. “We hadn’t heard. The outside galaxy rarely touches us down here.”

  “The war will,” said Mech. “Ain’t nowhere safe.”

  The Conductor smiled, grimly. “Yes. Well, we have our own protective measures. I think we’ll be quite all right.”

  “Oh, you think so?” snorted Mech.

  “I know,” said the Conductor. “The galaxy has been at war before, and we weren’t affected then. This time will be no different.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see,” said Mech. “Now, about this reward…”

  “Bathroom,” said Cal, cutting Mech dead. “Uh, I mean, I could really do with going to the bathroom. Would you be able to point me in the right direction?”

  The Conductor gestured to a waiter, who immediately glided to Cal’s side. “Please,” the waiter said, gesturing for Cal to walk ahead.

  Cal removed his sombrero and placed it on Loren’s head. “Can you look after my hat?”

  Loren immediately took the hat off and held it, instead.

  “Be right back,” said Cal, heading in the direction the waiter had indicated. “Then I guess we should think about making tracks.”

  “Soon,” said the Conductor. “First, there’s something I’d like you all to hear.”

  Cal replied with a thumbs up, then the waiter darted ahead of him and held open a door, and Cal continued through into a long corridor with a mirror-like polished floor.

  “Second door on the left, sir,” said the servant. “Should I wait?”

  “I think I’ll manage,” said Cal. “But what you could do is write down the name of those nibbles, so I can get the kitchen thing to magic them up.”

  The servant lowered his head. “Of course. It will be my pleasure.”

  Cal headed for the door the servant had indicated and pushed it open. A small bathroom was revealed, with a toilet made of polished copper. While there were lots of little differences between the toilets he’d encountered on his travels, Cal was relieved that the basic design seemed to be pretty universal.

  They didn’t all deal with the… contents in the same way. Some flushed, like on Earth, others vaporized, while one, on a planet he had no desire to ever return to, ejected. Basically, though, quirks aside, the essential shape and functionality were similar all across the galaxy.

  The door closed behind him, cutting off the light from the corridor and plunging the bathroom into darkness. There were no automatic lights in here, and Cal fumbled along the wall, trying to find a switch.

  Nothing.

  He clapped a couple of times, in case that worked.

  He said, “Lights on.” When that didn’t work, he tried adding, “Please,” but the effect – or lack of one – was the same.

  Still, the room wasn’t particularly big, and he’d glimpsed the toilet long enough to figure out roughly where it was. He edged forwards, his hands out in front of him, fumbling his way through the dark.

  After a few seconds, his hands found the back wall. He slowly moved them down until he found the toilet. Estimating roughly where the bowl was, he unzipped his fly and let rip.

  “Aaah.”

  The galaxy was a big place, and held countless pleasures, but he doubted very few of them could compare to the feeling of draining a full bladder. He rocked on his heels, just enjoying the moment. He was so busy enjoying the moment, in fact, that he didn’t notice the knife until the cold steel pressed against his throat.

  “Don’t move,” hissed a voice in his ear.

  Cal swallowed. It barely made it past the blade. “I can’t stop peeing,” he replied.

  “What?” spat the voice.

  “Once I’ve started, I can’t stop,” Cal said. “There’s nothing I can do about it. If you have a problem with that, you’ll have to kill me.”

  “Just hurry up,” the voice growled.

  Cal continued to pee. The knife scraped against his stubble as the person holding it shifted their grip.

  “What’s taking so long?” the voice demanded.

  “I had quite a lot to drink,” said Cal. “Just give me a minute.”

  He continued to pee.

  The figure holding him felt larger than he was, the voice coming from slightly above his right ear. The weight on his shoulder whenever the person spoke suggested he was leaning down, too. Even if the attacker hadn’t had the knife, and Cal wasn’t midway through what had, until very recently, been a deeply satisfying urination experience, he didn’t really fancy his chances.

  “What’s keeping him?” asked another voice from somewhere in the bathroom.

  “Jesus, how many of you are in here?” Cal asked.

  “Shut up!” snarled the one with the knife. He pressed the blade harder against Cal’s throat to make the seriousness of the situation clear. “And hurry.”

  The torrent became a trickle, and then a drip. “I’m going to shake now,” said Cal. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t slit my throat.”

  He shook, then zipped himself up. “There,” he said. “Now, how may I help you gentlemen?”

  “Take off your shirt,” the man with the knife hissed.

  “Uh… why?”

  “Just do it!”

  Cal sighed, but carefully so as not to place any unnecessary pressure on the blade. “Well, this is not how I saw the evening turning out,” he said. He slipped the shirt off and let it fall to the floor. “There. Now what.”

  “Turn around. Slowly.”

  The knife was withdrawn. Cal considered swinging with a punch, but the bathroom was still in darkness, and there was no saying what, if anything, he’d hit. Instead, he shuffled around on the spot and raised his hands.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’re just a really overzealous cleaning crew?” he asked.

  “We are the Xandrie,” hissed the voice of the knifeman. “We’ve come for the girl.”
/>   “Jesus, you guys just don’t give up, do you?” said Cal. “Well, I hate to tell you, but you’re too late.”

  “No, you are!”

  Cal frowned. “What?”

  “What?” said the voice, after a pause.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Uh… OK.”

  “Shut up!”

  “We’ve come for the girl,” said the other voice, closer to the door. “We want the reward. We deserve that reward.”

  “So… wait? You’re going to kidnap her again, then immediately hand her back over? That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard. And, believe me, coming from me, that’s saying a lot.”

  “You haven’t heard the best part yet,” said the first voice. “You’re going to bring her to us.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. You see, we’re going to place an explosive device directly over your heart, and if you don’t bring her here… kaboom!”

  Cal felt something cold and metallic press against his belly button. “That’s not my…” he began, before thinking better of it.

  “Not your what?”

  “Mmm? Oh, nothing.”

  “That’s not where your heart is, is it? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

  “Uh, no,” said Cal.

  “Yes you were,” growled the voice. “Where is it, then?”

  “It’s there. Seriously. You’re bang on,” said Cal, then the blade of the knife was suddenly at his throat again, the point twisting into his skin. “Ooh, OK, up a bit.”

  The metal slid up to Cal’s chest. It wasn’t directly over his heart, but he reckoned it’d be close enough to get the job done. Two metal tendrils snaked up over his shoulders and under his arms, then locked together at the back, pinching his skin.

  The guy with the knife prodded the chest plate a few times. A red light blinked on and off, allowing Cal fleeting glimpses of a pig-like snout and a number of eyes which seemed to have been liberally sprinkled on, rather than added to the face in any particular pattern.

  The other figure lurking over by the door was smaller than the knifeman, but what he lacked in size he made up for in guns. He had two of them, both ridiculously large and unpleasant-looking, and both pointed at Cal.

  “So, here’s what’s going to happen,” grunted Pig Face. He tossed Cal’s shirt at him. “You’re going to put that on, then you’re going to go back out there. From the moment you leave this room, you’ll have four minutes to get the girl, and bring her to us.”

  “Or we blow you up,” sniggered the other guy. Cal had decided to simply name him ‘Guns’. It was that or ‘Overcompensating for a Very Small Penis,’ and that didn’t trip off the tongue nearly as well.

  “Don’t make it back, and you die,” Pig Face said. “Tell anyone what’s happening, and you die. Try any funny stuff, and you die.”

  Cal pulled on his shirt. “Can you be more specific about what qualifies as ‘funny stuff’?” he asked. “Are we talking physical comedy, you know, like slapstick? Amusing anecdotes? Observational material…? Oh puns! Where do you stand on puns?”

  Pig Face clamped a rough hand around Cal’s throat and leaned in until his snout and all those eyes were all Cal could see in the blinking red glow. “You know what we mean,” the alien growled. “We are the Xandrie. You’d better not mess with us.”

  “Or… boom,” said Guns, his voice a scratchy giggle. Pig Face released his grip. Cal fastened his shirt, and the bathroom settled back into darkness.

  “So, what if I do?” said Cal. “Go boom, I mean.”

  This seemed to catch the two Xandrie off guard. “What?” asked Pig Face.

  Cal tapped the chest plate through his shirt. “This thing. I could just walk out of here, sit down and wait for it to go off. You wouldn’t get the girl.”

  “But you’d be dead,” said Guns.

  Cal shrugged. “So? Maybe I don’t care. You ever think about that?”

  Pig Face sighed. “Oh. So, you think you’re a hero? Is that it? Well, let me tell you something, hero. In my experience, no-one’s as brave as they like to think they are. That urge to survive, to cling to life, it’s too great. You might think you can walk out of here and just go wait somewhere for the bomb to go off, but once you’re out there – once you’re in the corridor, all alone, just you and the countdown – you’ll do what you’re told.”

  “Also,” added Guns, “if you don’t, we’ll go out there and kill all your friends, then take the girl anyway. This way is just better all round, really.”

  Cal nodded slowly. “You both make excellent points. Bluff called. Well done.” He clapped his hands together. “Right, then! I guess I’ll see you gents in under four minutes.”

  He gestured over his shoulder as he stumbled blindly for the door. “Oh, and could somebody flush that? Thanks.”

  Pushing open the door, he stepped out into the corridor. “Four minutes,” Guns whispered. “And no funny stuff.”

  The door closed. Cal took a deep breath. The metal of the chest plate squeezed him uncomfortably.

  “OK, then,” he whispered. He looked along the corridor to the left. It led… somewhere. He had no idea where, though. Away from Soonsho. Away from his friends. That was all he knew.

  He should go that way. He could probably get quite far in four minutes.

  Alternatively, he could wait for three minutes and fifty-five seconds, then turn around and go back into the bathroom. That’d fonking teach them.

  But he had no idea how big the explosion would be. Would it take Pig Face and Guns out, or would it just lightly glaze them in his innards?

  Realistically, it was left or right, then. Rebellion or obedience. Heroism or cowardice. Being blown to bits, or not.

  “Fonk it,” Cal muttered.

  Then, much to his annoyance, he turned right and darted along the corridor, back in the direction of the ballroom.

  The Conductor and Conductress both beckoned to him as he entered the room. Clearly, they hadn’t had enough awkward small talk last time, and were eager for more of the same.

  Cal headed towards them, but stopped when he reached his crew.

  “You took your time,” Mech grunted.

  “Uh, yeah. Constipation,” said Cal, patting his stomach. He took the sombrero back from Loren, and pulled it on. “I’m pretty blocked up down there. Possibly shouldn’t have eaten six increasingly enormous pieces of pie back on the ship.”

  “Ugh, too much information,” said Miz.

  “For once, we actually agree on something,” said Loren.

  “Oh, wait, do we?” said Miz. She shrugged. “Then I take it back. I’d totally love to hear more about your bowel movements.”

  Loren rolled her eyes and sighed. Cal pulled a sympathetic face and wrapped his arms around her. “Aw, don’t let her upset you,” he said, squeezing her tightly. “Come on, hug it out.”

  “What are you doing? Get off,” Loren told him.

  Cal stepped back, but then slid an arm around her waist and turned to face the others. “We should probably tell them.”

  “Tell us what?” asked Mech.

  “That Loren and I are in a relationship. We’re getting married.”

  “What?” Loren and Miz both spluttered at the same time.

  “Since when?” Miz demanded. Her lips curled upwards, revealing just a few of her teeth, but it was a few you didn’t really want to be made aware of.

  “Uh-oh. We’re in trouble now!” said Cal.

  “Since never,” said Loren. She pulled free of his grip. “What are you talking about?”

  “Uh-oh,” Cal repeated, more forcibly this time. He waggled his eyebrows. “We’re in trouble now.”

  He glanced pointedly at the door he’d just come through. Loren followed his gaze, then looked across to Soonsho. Cal nodded, just once.

  “Fine. I mean, I don’t even care,” said Miz. “Does the thought of it make me want to puke myself, like, completely
inside out? Yes. But, you know, whatever. So what?”

  “Yeah, she’s not happy,” said Loren. “Just how much trouble do you think you’re in, exactly?”

  “Ooh. A lot,” said Cal. “In fact—”

  The chest plate didn’t explode. Not exactly. It made a sort of muffled paff sound, and Cal felt like he’d been hoofed in the sternum by the nine-time winner of World’s Unfriendliest Horse. The force of it catapulted him backwards. He saw the world rushing past too fast. Tasted blood in his mouth. Smelled his scorching flesh, and felt an aching emptiness where, just a moment ago, his chest had been.

  As he skidded backwards across the ballroom floor, he heard the crashing of several doors being kicked in. And shouting. Lots of shouting.

  By the time he’d finished skidding, Cal Carver was dead.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Cal sank through the floor. The redness poured down on him, like a cascading waterfall of his own blood, forcing him further and further into the ground.

  If he was dead – which he was starting to think he probably was, what with the gaping hole in his chest, and everything – the direction of travel was giving him some cause for concern. He’d never been a religious man, but as he plunged deeper and deeper into what was rapidly becoming a worryingly fiery redness, he was starting to wonder if that might have been a mistake.

  Gradually, the redness faded, becoming a sort of washed-out sepia tone. It was round about the same time that he thudded against the ground. It didn’t hurt. One of the benefits of being dead, he supposed.

  A hooded figure appeared from the yellow-gray mist and loomed over him. Cal knew it could be one of two people – one being the living embodiment of Death, the other being…

  “Tobey Maguire?” said Cal.

  Hollywood actor, Tobey Maguire, pushed back his hood and looked around the clearing where Cal had landed. “Where did you come from?” he asked, then he dry-heaved a couple of times. “Ew. What happened to your chest?”

  It wasn’t the real Tobey Maguire, of course. Cal knew that. The real Tobey Maguire had almost certainly been killed by alien parasites, like most of the rest of the population of the planet Earth. No, this was a sort of Spirit Tobey Maguire, who would often appear to Cal in times of great need. Cal had no idea why. Nor did Tobey Maguire, for that matter, but it helped to pass the time.