The man took Alexa’s hand, said, “Come with me,” and pulled her toward the hall. She wrenched to the side, reached to sweep up her necklace and ring and allowed herself to be hauled out the door. The last thing she saw in the room was Corky climbing off the floor.
The buck tooth man turned in the direction of her room and began loping along, forcing Alexa to run to keep up. Twenty feet down the hall, it hit. “Wait!” Alexa dug in her heels and pulled, which swung the man around. With this, she had a good look of his face. “Captain Pearson!”
He raised an eyebrow, Spockish.
Too much. “Is everyone and their dawg on this cruise?”
He turned to continue down the hallway, pulling her along. “No time to explain,” he threw back. Whistles still shrilled and instructions droned in language after language.
From around the left corner at the T-intersection in front of them, Rachel’s face appeared. “Alexa. Hurry!”
“Go with them, climb into your pod,” said Pearson. She must have appeared uncertain because he clarified, “Your sleeping compartment. Close the door. It will be necessary, if the data are correct.” Punctuating his statement, abruptly the ship again shifted to one side, throwing her the other direction. Pearson kept her from falling, gave a firm nudge toward Rachel and headed off in the opposite direction.
Alexa caught up with her friends as they turned into their own corridor. Then the ship shuddered. We’re under fire! When they approached their rooms, Alexa yelled. “I have to get the crystal.”
Rachel glanced at her, “Crystal?”
“The one Brahmaji gave me,” shouted Alexa. Alerts blared.
“You don’t have it?” bellowed Rachel.
“If I had, I wouldn’t now, would I?”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “No, guess not. Where is it?” Alexa glanced up at the wall sconce beside them. “Wow,” said Rachel. “Maybe smart. Definitely crazy.”
Alexa checked up and down the hall, waited for a woman to dash into her room and asked, “Donny, lift me up?” He maneuvered behind her and was able to boost her up to barely where her fingers touched the top of the light fixture, not down into it. Rachel slid between Alexa and the wall and pushed her up enough for Alexa to reach into the fixture. Empty. “Aaargggggghhhhh!” Alexa desperately wriggled. “Try the one on the other side of the door!”
“Are you kidding me?” cried Rachel. “Forget about the smart part.”
She and Donny, holding Alexa between them, tried to crab-walk to the next light, but Rachel wasn’t strong enough. Alexa squirmed down. She took hold of Rachel, turned both of them around, locked eyes with Donny, and they hefted Rachel up between them.
The next light: “Nothing in here,” yelled Rachel, above some language being broadcast in between screaming alarms.
“No, no, no!” wailed Alexa. “Try across.”
A cart-bot was behind Donny. They waited for what seemed an eternity for it to trundle past. Then he stepped backward across the hall, with Alexa following and Rachel sandwiched up high between them.
Rachel ended up with her back to the light. She whipped around and still couldn’t reach into the fixture. Alexa realized what was happening and grabbed Donny to dance around so Rachel faced the light.
Right as she reached the fixture, another series of pings on the ship’s skin sounded and a second later the ship emitted a terrifying sound of metal screeching on metal. During the time, Rachel’s hand came out with what Alexa was looking for.
“Two?” said Rachel.
Donny cried, “Two?”
“No, three,” yelled Alexa. “Try again.”
Donny blared, “Three? There was only one!”
“Two decoys!” shouted Alexa.
Rachel came out with the third, triumph on her face.
“Yes yes yes! Let’s go!” Alexa pushed on Donny, who guided Rachel’s slide down in his arms while she dropped the three crystals into Alexa’s hands. Rachel grabbed Donny and stepped across the hall to her room, slammed her key into the lock, pushed open the door and jumped toward the bed, towing Donny along.
Alexa turned, switched her prizes to her left hand, and reached for her key. Not in her pocket. A picture of it on the table in the office came to mind and she slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand.
She wasn’t aware of Pearson beside her until he took her shoulders and pushed her to the side. After he kicked in the door, it caught on the magnet.
“Thanks,” she yelled. “For saving me. Again.” She heard the petulance in her voice and couldn’t stop herself. He guided her into the room. “By the way, what are you doing here? Are you following me? Where I come from, that’s stalking.” Pearson continued moving her toward the bed. “Is it about the kiss? It really was merely an almost-kiss. And I have to tell you, I was in a state that day, about another man. My fiancé, as a matter of fact. Who I was supposed to have married. That day. But. Well. I can’t tell you the whole story. But it wasn’t necessarily about you.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Pearson, with far more patience than would seem humanly possible. “No, as nice as it was this is not about any kiss.” Now an insistent clanging made it impossible to think. “You must get into the bed. The alert is sounding.”
Alexa stood her ground. “What about you? Where are you going?”
Pearson picked her up. “Just get in.” He tossed her and pulled on the handle on the top of the bed.
He leaned on the door from the outside, forcing it to close faster. As it shut, Alexa heard air exiting from her space; a low, slow whoosh sounded first; then the pitch increased higher and higher, as air slipped through a smaller, tinier, and then infinitesimal opening. The sound stopped. Then a click. As she pried the cover off the window providing a view into the room, a precious flow of oxygen began. Some part of her subconscious noted this in its job to protect her body.
Her attention focused on the view into the room. Pearson held onto something beside her pod and was stretched off the floor with his feet pointing toward the door. Alexa’s mind tried to figure out how a man as big as Pearson could be in the air. Weightless? No. Her body remained firmly rooted on the bed. Then she noticed jars from the bathroom, the little armadillo, streaking past him out into the hall.
The door slammed shut. A bottle stopped at the slit of light and stuck.
Inside her pod, Alexa’s body raised up and off the bed. Reaching over to one of the pockets for gear, she deposited the crystals and then grabbed onto the window ledge with her fingertips to pull into position.
Pearson let go of his handhold, turned around and pushed toward the door, as if he were in a swimming pool. At the door, he stopped, reached down and opened it. The bottle and other stuff from the bottom of the door also drifted around the room.
Before exiting, Pearson looked at her over his shoulder. Hard to figure his expression. Quite blank, actually.
A red light inside her pod caught her attention. Alexa’s brain went numb. The light blinked, blinked, blinked a warning. Outside the safety of her pod, was vacuum.
Chapter 26
Alexa bounced off the sides of her safety pod-bed, while intellectual impossibilities dueled with spiking emotions. A ringing scared the bejeezus out of her. Mobile phone? She reached into the pocket where she kept the telephone overnight and punched buttons on various beads. At last she got it answered. Someone was calling her name. She said, “If this is a telemarketer, your timing is the worst.”
“God, you’re okay.” The relief in Rachel’s voice was plain. “I saw the tall guy close your pod. But the door to my room slammed shut and we can’t see a thing. What happened? Is he all right?”
“You are not going to believe this. I can’t believe it. It is vacuum out there. As in, No Air. And he wasn’t affected. At all.” One beat, two beats, three beats. No sound from the other end of the line.
“Where is he?” asked Rachel.
“He left. A couple of cart-bots have gone by in the hall. Nothing else.”
<
br /> “So,” said Rachel, “He doesn’t need air.” Moments of silence passed between them. “Robot?”
“Guess so.”
Donny laughed in the background. Rachel said, “He looked normal. Must put in a lot of effort to do that. He certainly seems to be keeping it a secret. Cool.”
“No! It is not cool,” said Alexa. “I kissed him.” Alexa brought her hand to her forehead in disbelief and started a slow roll backwards onto the ceiling. “I kissed a robot.”
“You kissed him? You mean, passionately? How did you have time?”
“No. On the Adalans space station. He’s the captain who bought the airplane.” She sensed Rachel piecing it together.
“Ah,” said Rachel. “It was the day of your wedding. I realized it then, but didn’t want to remind you.”
“Yes, it was that day. The whole thing blindsided me while we were witnessing a wedding in the Viewing Dome, and later Pearson was extremely supportive. Then we kissed. Well, barely kissed. Though it didn’t matter, ‘cause I still felt I’d cheated on Mac.”
“How was it?”
“How was what?”
“The kiss and everything leading up to it. It must have been phenomenal,” Rachel pronounced each syllable of the last word distinctly, “for you to be this shocked now. And for him to have followed you here.” Her tone became analytical. “Could a robot feel so much that it would follow a human?”
Alexa was trying to figure the whole thing out. “I am way into clueless territory.” She added, “I accused him of stalking me.”
“Stalking you? On the Adalans space station?”
“No. A few minutes ago. Right before he threw me onto the bed.” Alexa blew out her breath. The gales of laughter coming over the phone were just too much.
The mirth stopped when an explosion rippled through the ship. Alexa checked around her pod. “All my systems are still producing life support,” she said. “How about for you two?”
“We’re okay,” said Rachel. She sounded nervous. “Donny says there’s a huge ugly wreck of a ship nearby on our side.”
Alexa turned to see out her window to the stars, and saw stars. She strained to see the sides of their ship. No view of anything. “I feel so helpless.”
“Anything happening in the corridor?”
Alexa moved back to the pod window looking into the room. “No change there I can see.”
The lights flickered. Came back on, flickered a second time and then failed. This time, little lights along the hallway floor switched on, as they were supposed to, and produced gloom. As she heard a moan over the phone, Alexa said, “Wait, something stopped at the door.”
The sound she’d been hearing, a Click-whiiiiiiiiiinnne–Click-whiiiiiiiiiinnne-Click-whiiiiiiiiiinnne, must be the cart-bot in front of her.
It turned into her room, which was odd since she’d never seen this type do that. As the bot entered, it lost contact with the floor. The humanoid form on top reached out and began pushing and pulling itself around, systematically poking around in drawers and closets.
“What’s happening?” pressed Rachel.
The bot stopped at the pod and peered in at Alexa looking out.
Alexa said, “A cart-bot is in my room, looking in at me.” The shadowy figure gave her the willies. “The same color as the cart-bot in the video showing me in front of the wrong room number.” She held up her phone with the camera in the biggest bead showing the face to Rachel.
“Yuk. What’s it doing now?”
“Reaching for something at the bottom of the pod door.” A click on the door mechanism sounded. “Hey, stop that.” She let go of the phone and hit the button to lock the door. Her body, leveraged by the hitting motion, bounced away from the door. “Leave my door alone you crazy robot,” she yelled, while rebounding off the mattress.
The mechanism sounded again. It held shut. When Alexa was able to bring herself to the window, the robot was looking to both sides of the pod. “Rachel,” she shouted at the phone floating near her head, “is there some kind of control out there to override me locking the pod from inside?”
The robot face came up to the window. “Where is the crystal?”
Alexa heard the question, but couldn’t for sure tell where it came from. She glanced at the mobile. Not from there.
“Where is the crystal?” repeated the bot, in a flat, even monotone.
“Who are you?” Alexa entreated.
“Where is the crystal?”
Absolutely the spookiest sound and question Alexa had ever heard. Completely lacking in emotion. No doubt, the bot would space her, given the slightest reason. “I don’t know what you mean,” Alexa yelled, trying to distract it. “Whatever you’re looking for, could it be in my room?”
The lock light beside her head went out. Alexa hit the lock button again and the light came on as she bounced away. She cushioned each rebound to bring her body under control then turned toward the inside window, barely in time to notice the light go out again. She aimed at the lock button while trying to hold her body in place by gripping the window frame with her fingers.
Too late. The air seal ruptured with a squish and her oxygen began leaking out.
Heart pounding, Alexa braced her feet on the bed. She reached down between her bent legs to pull on the door handle, which hit the bed level to her feet. As she pulled, she slid toward the door instead of closing it.
By shuffling back a quarter-inch at a time, she was able to bring it almost closed. But the door stopped, metal hitting metal, less than a millimeter short of safety. Enough to slow the air leak, but not stop it. The engaged lock mechanism blocked her efforts and if she reached to disengage the lock, the breach would widen and she’d lose more oxygen.
Rachel’s voice came from the phone, bobbing somewhere near her head. “What’s happening? Are you okay? Alexa!”
“I’m losing oxygen,” Alexa yelped.
A chime sounded in the distance while the door slipped away from her. She felt herself slide on her feet as the cart-bot pulled from outside. She was losing the tug of war.
Some part of her heard Rachel’s voice. “It’s on.”
“What?”
“The oxygen is on. We’re on our way.”
Inside her, the bottom dropped out. Meditating? No. Lack of oxygen? No. Wormhole transit? Perhaps. Because next she heard whispers in her head, “Follow them.”
Despite all that, hands grabbed her and she flew at the wall opposite the pod. She bounced, and the weightless pinball effect started up again. The next trajectory was interrupted when suddenly, painfully she slammed onto the carpet. Hello gravity.
As those orange hands began searching her Rachel burst into the room, screaming New York cabbie obscenities.
It took a few moments after the collision with the floor before Alexa got her breath. When she looked up, Rachel was holding onto the cart-bot’s head from behind, with it wheeling one direction and the other, trying to dislodge her.
Donny danced around the fracas, trying to get in a punch. He took a hit on the chin from Rachel’s foot when the bot turned one way. Next, the bot ran over his foot when it came back around. Donny dropped, but he was not out. From his position on the floor, he searched for something. The second time the bot’s backside came around, he reached out and jabbed low.
The cart-bot came to a dead standstill.
Rachel’s momentum kept her swinging and she ended up sitting astride the cart-bot, facing the garish orange torso of the unmoving robot. For good measure, she punched its jaw. “Ow. It’s hard.”
“What took you so long?” asked Alexa from her prone position on the floor against a wall.
“Don’t know,” said Rachel. “We both kind of blacked out for a bit, between the bed and the door.” She looked at the robot face in front of her, over at Alexa’s bed, and down at Alexa. “You okay?”
The chiming began again and Alexa experienced the same sensation, a swirling into a cone, to slip into silence. When she opened her ey
es, Rachel was slightly moving while slumped into the arms of the robot. Donny’s head leaned on the wall, his jaw slack and mouth open.
“What the hell is that?” mumbled Rachel.
She was answered by an announcement over the public address system. “All guests, please remain in your pods. We apologize for the unannounced jumps. All staff, report to position Tango Charlie. All guests, please remain in your pods until further notice. We are planning more jumps.”
Rachel climbed down off the bot and went over to Donny. His opened eyes remained unfocused. She took his hand and tugged, urging him to stand.
Alexa sat up and then slowly stood up.
Rachel started toward the door, but glanced back.
Studying what was left of her bed, the murderous robot silent in the middle of the room and the damaged door to the cabin, Alexa said, “I don’t want to stay in my pod.”
“Yeah. I can understand.” Rachel looked at Donny. “How about if you go to his room?” She felt in the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out a key. Alexa accepted it, collected her things from the bed and followed her friends into the hall.
As Rachel opened the door to her room, Donny mumbled something about Rachel needing to kiss his chin to make it better. “We’ll see. We’ll see.” She flashed a grin at Alexa and closed her door. During the time that Alexa fumbled with the key for Donny’s room, a blue cart-bot sped by, the normal high-pitched whine preceding its arrival and lingering after it passed. The empty room was heaven and the bed appeared reasonably tidy. Oh, thank you.
Alas, the cabin’s butler bot stood there. She draped one of Donny’s T-shirts from the corner of his bed over the bot, and it was almost better. But not enough. She moved the bot into the bathroom, closed the flimsy door and barricaded it with Donny’s duffel bag. Then she felt safe.
Alexa climbed on the bed, shut the pod door and sealed it. I keep locking myself into safety, and it keeps not working. She was beyond bushed. On the cool sheets, sleep proved elusive. Instead, hot tears welled up and leaked over onto the pillowcase. Curling into a ball, she brought the comforter over her. Visuals of the last hour, then of the last two weeks, tumbled.
Seeking Sirius Page 15
