Our Flower

by S M Matthews

  POPPY

  People are already screaming as I come around. There’s a harsh shooting pain up my arm and I pull it against my chest; a naked woman has just trodden on it and then stumbled, but she doesn’t look back to me. I sit up, still watching her. The floor is really hard, and really cold.

  I feel strangely disconnected from everything going on around me. I watch the woman who trod on me grasp the bars of the cage and start shouting. I can’t make out what she’s saying; the hubbub in the cage has gotten even louder.

  She has a pixie cut. I wish I was brave enough for a pixie cut. The oddly disjointed thought pops out of nowhere.

  Somehow the shouting and screaming becomes even louder; it’s oppressive and all consuming, and I find myself putting my hands over my ears and drawing my knees up to my naked chest. My butt is still on the freezing cold floor.

  The tide of people changes suddenly, and I am buffeted by shins; Pixie Cut walks into me and starts to stumble; even as I reflexively try to help her, I see what everyone is moving away from.

  There’s a green...thing. Its skin has so many folds it might be a mobile pile of laundry.

  It points something at the cage.

  ACER

  Titus’s fur is sticking up everywhere, and he’s unzipped his uniform so that the top half is off and hanging from around his waist.

  He’s standing at the breakfast bar holding his dinner plate and shovelling it in with his claws, talking all the while.

  “You’ll give yourself indigestion doing that.”

  “Nah, nah, I’ll be okay. I don’t have time anyway, I’ve got a game.”

  He leaves his plate on the side and strips off on the way to his room. I tidy his plate away with a sigh. I long ago gave up on trying to get Titus to be tidy – I’d have more luck reversing gravity.

  He returns a moment later and is straight into the refrigeration unit again. He’s changed into his games kit.

  I know he’s hunting for something sweet. A moment later both of his tails go up. He’s found Micka’s secret stash. I sigh again.

  “So has anything else happened?” It’s shift change, technically this should have happened some time ago; but it’s a big station and as a result we often find ourselves getting caught up. We should also, technically, be holding these meetings in our office as per protocol, but as I’m sure most brother packs find, living together naturally means you bring your shared job home with you.

  Titus emerges from the refrigeration unit, there’s something sticky on the fur to one side of his muzzle.

  I decide not to tell him.

  He stands and thinks for a minute, ears down, tails swishing slowly as he considers.

  He checks things off on his claws as he speaks.

  “The routine maintenance of the cleaning drones is done now. Water Supply wants to run a section-to-section maintenance, I’ve okayed it but it’s only to happen on third shift and they are going to produce a separate itinerary for hydroponics. There was a problem with lighting in one of the docking bays so it’s temporarily out of use,” he waves in a dismissive gesture as he speaks; “repair team should be starting soon.”

  “Is it an issue?”

  “Not at the moment; we have room – it picked a good time to go wrong. Oh, and some traders have willingly surrendered what they think may be contraband. It’s in holding. It’s the last one of a batch that they bought and it didn’t sell at whatever Void forsaken market they were frequenting. They must have a shred of decency between them though because they could have just thrown it out of an airlock.”

  “How is it that it might be contraband?”

  “You’ll love this bit – they sold them as pets – but they don’t have any idea as to what they actually are or where they came from. He picked them up as a batch from someone he didn’t know – they were sedated the whole time – and he did one scan; because of brain size he thought they might be intelligent.”

  “And he still sold them as pets?” Unbelievable. I shake my mane with disgust.

  “Yeah, I know. So anyway, these males must have some tails on them, because they say they know we don’t know what it is. And they are right; we held them for as long as we could, but we don’t know what it is.”

  I’m rubbing at my mane listening to this non-sense.

  “So because it’s not technically legally intelligent we can’t press charges. I had the ship scanned, obviously. One small area of their holding bay is shielded.” He shrugs at me.

  Right, of course there was. Those Void forsaken little criminals have got another one. Another one of whatever they are. I let out a disbelieving chuff.

  “I know!” Titus shrugs again though, “They could be halfway to anywhere by now.”

  “Right; did you see it?” I ask him.

  “No, didn’t get around to it, it’s in holding...or maybe medical by now actually. Anyway, I gotta go, I’m late as it is...comm me if you need anything.” He calls back to me as he leaves.

  “Try not to hurt yourself,” I say to the closed doors.

  I can’t help but look up at Kita and sigh; Titus’s untidiness drove her to distraction. So much so that if I’m truthful, I often found myself picking up after him and making sure he was presentable just to avoid her getting annoyed with him.

  I shake it off; no use moping now.

  I head to the office first and flick through the most recent messages as a catch up. There’s the most thrilling report I’ve ever seen on cleaning drone maintenance; I skim read it.

  There’s a brief report from medical; the suspected contraband has arrived in medical quarantine and they believe the sedation will start to wear off shortly.

  I respond, ‘I’m on my way’.

  ACER

  I’m a little surprised to see Micka, “You’re up early.”

  “Only a little; Titus’ game didn’t last long and he filled me in.”

  I roll my eyes “Did they lose or did he hurt himself?” That was a short game, even for them.

  Micka snorts, “Both. Something's bruised and…yeah they are pretty hopeless. I thought he’d come down for this, but he’s gone to bed to mope.” He shrugs, “It’s not every day you see a new species.”

  We’re watching through the viewing window of quarantine and one of the medical staff comes over to update us.

  If saying, “We definitely don’t know what it is,” counts as ‘an update’.

  Titus dismisses him pretty quickly. It’s not long before there’s a small crowd of medical staff gathered around us, also making use of the window.

  We stand quietly, listening to the idle chatter of the medical staff. I catch snatches of conversation, trying to pick out the interesting bits. It is almost certainly female, and surprisingly similar biologically to ourselves. Muscles, bones, respiratory and digestive systems all being discussed with interest. It’s lack of secondary essential organs is fascinating some members of the medical staff. They are openly wondering how this species has evolved to only have a single heart and spine. Only one womb too, apparently.

  All similar enough that it’s easily identifiable, just put together differently.

  The contraband would have been decontaminated and transferred to a medical quarantine pod before being brought here, and transferred again to the medical bed in the middle of the quarantine suite. It’s a basic facility, and to my knowledge very rarely used.

  If someone were needing an extended period of quarantine due to exposure or illness, the suite is good enough to live in temporarily.

  A circle of hush spreads out from us as the group notices that the contraband is starting to stir. There’s frantic tapping and beeping all around as they do scans and take notes. The quarantine is fitted with a pretty comprehensive set of scanners in the event t
he medical team are completely unable to enter for whatever reason.

  I can feel how tense everyone is – we’ve all seen horror vids that start with this. In fact, if this was a vid I’d probably be shouting ‘kill it now while you have the chance!’ at the screen.

  Titus usually cheers for the monster. In fact, I’m suddenly relieved he’s not here; by this point he’d be openly speculating about its ability to breath fire or secrete a wall melting poison.

  He’d probably have snacks though.

  The contraband appears to be looking around; then lifts its hand as if to shield itself from the ceiling.

  ‘Dim lights; fifty percent,” someone says, and the lights go down everywhere. I can hear them whispering about it being nocturnal. A sensible voice asserts that it has just woken up and the lights are bright.

  It seems to assess its situation for a moment, and then sits up, covering its chest with one arm as it looks around.

  It spots the window, and for what feels like a very long time it stares at us, and we stare back.

  It very slowly shifts and eases itself backwards off the opposite side of the transport bed, its eyes never leaving us. Then it simply disappears from sight, hiding behind the base of the bed.

  “Heart rate is steadily climbing. Respiration is erratic.”

  “And what do you plan to do about it?” Micka asks the group at large.

  “This could be normal.” someone from the back suggests uncertainly.

  “Or it could be panicking,” Sensible Voice again. “Release sedative at ten percent, let’s see if it calms; we don’t want to knock it straight out again.”

  A few more minutes of silence, then someone declares that it seems to have had a marginal effect.

  “Try another ten percent”.

  This seems to have a more notable effect, and when its heart-rate returns to slightly faster than when it was sleeping, Sensible Voice orders the room cleared of sedative.

  After what feels like a very long long time, but surely isn’t, the contraband peeks over the bed. It takes us all in, eyes huge in its flat face, and then disappears down again. Shortly after, this happens again.

  “What’s it doing?” someone asks.

  Micka and I speak in unison, “Assessing the threat.”

  POPPY

  I’ve woken up completely naked. Again.

  At least this time I was on something sort of soft.

  The lights hurt my eyes, but they dimmed. Then I spotted the window. For what felt like hours I tried to figure out what it was. Much too clear to just be an image. And then I started noticing that they were moving. Just the odd twitch, shoulders occasionally moving. And then a head dipped as if to read something and I knew it wasn't an image, or a screen of any sort. It was a window.

  I’d reflexively tried to cover what there were of my boobs; and after another quick assessment, I slid off the other side of the bed.

  Sat on the floor, I thought I was out of their line of sight behind the mechanisms of the bed...but that just leaves me with my thoughts.

  If this is a prank it is the most elaborate, cruel and unnecessary trick anyone has ever played in the history of the world.

  But it can’t be that can it? I can feel myself starting to panic but...they looked real. Really real. No amount of movie magic or make up was going to create those...things. They looked like giant tigers, but with big pointy ears and varying shades of grey fur.

  I think...I think they were wearing clothes. And not just any clothes either. Uniforms.

  I realise I’m dragging-in shallow panicky breaths now, and I think I’m going to pass out. The memory from the cage assaults me – I’ve been abducted by aliens.

  NO. No…I refuse to accept that. As if by just asserting that something as ridiculous as that could not have happened, I feel my breath and heart both starting to calm down again.

  I stay sitting, hugging my knees tightly. The room I’m in is pretty bare, there’s a couple of doors and some slots in the walls that look like they may open. There are vents up towards the ceiling but nothing else of note really. It’s quite dim with the lights down, but I can still see well enough.

  With nothing else to do, I turn and get to my knees, and then peek up over the bed to see the window.

  All still there.

  All still exactly how I thought I’d imagined them the first time. Maybe I’m not imagining it.

  I crouch back down. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe there’s nothing there and it’s just...an odd reflection.

  I go and look again. Nope. Still exactly the same.

  I sit this time and curl up. I’ve had enough of being cold and naked.

  ACER

  “Well, that was anti-climatic. Keep us updated; I’ll come and check in at some point.” The gaggle of medical team surrounding us nods and some of them start to drift off. I’ve had so little dealings with the medical staff I feel like I’m on a different ship. Other than occasionally seeing stock requests from them, or a token attendee at...I don’t know...meetings about air supply vents? Possibly? I don’t really see them much. I make a mental note; we should rectify that. I’ve been thinking for some time that we haven't been as involved with our staffing as we probably should be.

  Motivation has been difficult to come by for some things.

  I have to suppress the urge to say ‘very good; carry on’ to the group. They seem to be gathering on the other side of the room now. Sensible Voice seems to have taken charge of the situation. I’m happy enough with that for now.

  This thing could be as clever as the vegetables growing in hydroponics...but somehow I don’t think so. Its effort to cover its chest hadn’t been quick enough to be defensive; it had struck me as modesty.

  Micka looks ridiculous, and for a moment I remember us as small cubs with him pressing his nose against a sweet-traders window. He has one paw and his nose pressed against the window, his breath fogging the glass, “I can’t see it.”

  “Well, it can’t have gone anywhere.” I lean my shoulder against the window next to him; watching him move about trying to spot her. He’s making a streaky mess on the window.

  “Do you...I think I can hear something.”

  I catch Sensible Voice’s attention, “Is the intercom active?”

  “We can hear in, but the contraband can’t hear out.” He strides over to the control panel for the suite and turns up the sensitivity of the internal receivers.

  We are all enthralled by what we hear, all of us adopting thoughtful looks. Some of The Gaggle drift back over, fascinated.

  The sound is absolutely heart-wrenching to listen to.

  The contraband is crying.

  MICKA

  “Get me a suit, I’ll go in.” I see Acer’s surprised ear flick but otherwise he doesn’t react.

  Sensible Voice, “That is most definitely against protocol at this stage. You would not just be potentially risking yourself, but everyone on board this station.” I catch Acer’s subtle shake. I sigh, frustrated. I do not want to start a disagreement when my boat is very firmly sitting in the middle of his river.

  Medical Team can completely override any orders I might give. And under normal circumstances I would accept that, but the sound coming from in that room is causing me physical distress.

  Exasperated, I gesture toward the window. “What if it’s a kit?” I ask Sensible Voice

  He thinks...then turns to his team and starts barking orders. I can see from his uniform that he’s part of the more qualified core team of Medical Staff.

  The quarantine suite’s bathroom is a separate room, and he orders for the hermetic seal on the door to be engaged and the room decontaminated. The bathroom on the monitor briefly goes totally white with decontamination treatment, and then bright with a cycle of light treatment. The bathroom can now be accessed by the medical staff from the other side. The room is rapidly stocked with essentials; then the staff clear out and it is resealed. The exit door disappears seamlessly into the wall – you no
w wouldn’t know that door was there if you were looking from the inside.

  The room runs its decontamination cycle again. As far as we are aware we carry nothing harmful and no one will have any sort of communicable disease; but she’s a completely new sort of alien, so better to be sure.

  “Lights back up, and open the bathroom door. If the contraband chooses to go in, we can lock it in.”

  I frown at Sensible Voice and start to protest, but he cuts me off before I can say anything. Usually I’d be offended, but I’m a guest in his medical bay.

  Rank and status mean absolutely nothing when you’re trying to stare down a medic in their own facility.

  And they know it.

  “Only very temporarily Commander; we can decontaminate the main room and provide some essentials and perhaps a small meal. The contraband’s reactions will show us a great deal about potential intelligence.”

  The lights are up and the bathroom door is standing open on the far wall.

  She slowly stands and looks back at us for a moment, and then dashes for the bathroom. Her fur is ridiculously long and dark I realise, now I’ve seen it hanging down her back. No tail at all is the next thing I realise before it disappears behind the closing door. I’d listened to the idle chatter of the staff, but seeing it, with no tail at all there was still...startling.

  Someone re-engages the hermetic seal on the bathroom door, and we watch the bedroom now go through the same decontamination process, the window frosting darkly for the light treatment to protect anyone who may be looking. The room is unsealed and the staff go to work, providing a more permanent rest bed rather than a portable treatment bed. I’m only vaguely aware of the staff depositing things for her in the main room; we are all now watching her on one of the vid screens.

  She went straight for the toilet and used it, but jumped slightly when the automatic flush happened. She’s picked up a soap bar from the sink and is sniffing it, then she turns and looks up at the shower. I think it’s pretty clear she knows what it is, but not how to operate it.