Prisoners of Death

by Keely Caldwell

  Doctor Worthington shrugged. “Have it your way.” Before Doctor Calder could react the bear like Doctor put down the scalpel next to the girls head, picked up a small round nosed hammer from the nearby instrument tray and whacked Doctor Calder across the temple with it. The three doctors watched as Doctor Calder crumpled to the tile at their feet. “Don't stand then. Lay.”

  Glancing at Doctor Calder in utter disgust, Doctor Erwin stepped over his crumpled form and joined Doctor Worthington at the girl’s table, thinking Doctor Calder got less than he deserved for being a pest.

  Doctor Worthington picked up the scalpel and poised the fine honed blade over the girl’s breast bone. “Now. Let us see what these specimens can tell us.” The blade lowered to the soft white flesh.

  An intercom buzzed and a flat female voice that sounded like it had a severe head cold announced: “Drs. Worthington, Erwin, Schuyler and Calder please report to Professor Styles’ office immediately.”

  Doctor Worthington scowled darkly. He hated being interrupted during a specimen examination, but a summons from the Director of Research was more like royal command.

  Doctor Worthington knew that if he didn’t go when called Professor Styles would come down to the lab looking for him and the other scientists – including his pet, Doctor Calder – and probably want to dissect the aliens himself. Since Doctor Worthington wanted that pleasure all to himself - Drs. Erwin and Shuyler could watch but he would catalog all finds personally – the large man decided the lesser of two evils was to go see what Styles wanted. Placing the scalpel on the instrument tray with an irritated snap, Doctor Worthington stepped over Doctor Calder’s unconscious form and lumbered towards the door, contorting his bushy face. "Let us go an see what the good Professor Styles wants to lecture us on this time so we can get back and finally dissect the female specimen,”

  Doctor Erwin shot a hurried, worried look at Doctor Calder crumpled on the linoleum in a messy heap of white lab coat and dark curls. “What about him?” he asked. Doctor Erwin didn’t actually care about Doctor Calder, mind you, but he knew Professor Styles would want his toy scientist present for any meeting. "What do we tell the Professor about Calder?”

  Doctor Worthington shrugged. “We’ll tell Styles that Doctor Calder isn’t feeling well today. He’s rather down.”

  “And the aliens?” Doctor Schuyler looked back longingly at the bare breasted female. He wouldn’t mind doing an external examination on that one, he thought,

  Doctor Worthington was even more matter-of-fact about the two laid out on the exam tables as the three scientists left and Doctor Worthington locked the door. He pocketed the key and shrugged again. “Doctor Calder was right about one thing. I was rushing. When we get back we’ll strip them both and prep them properly for an in depth internal examination. Procedure dictates.”

  All three smiled with varying degrees of horrifyingly cheerful delight at the thought of Doctor Worthington’s plans for the unsuspecting aliens left behind in the lab.

  Chapter Three

  "The Aliens"

  Ardammt was the first of the two to awake. Consciousness expanded into wakefulness expanded into clarity and Ardammt shot up into a sitting position, pivoting his head and scanning the room with dark cobalt eyes overflowing in cautious suspicion. His eyes fell on his companion and he sucked in a breath of relief through dry lips. Ardammt dropped from the table and leaned over Tegan, whispered to Tegan as he scowled at her exposed breasts and gathered together the fastenings. “Verme,” the man implored Tegan. He pulled Tegan her feet and gently shook her. “Verme, Tegan. Ankar, verme!”

  Tegan’s long sooty lashes leapt up from soft smooth cheeks to reveal a pair of eyes the same cobalt blue as Tegan companion’s now gazing down at her in urgent concern. Still in the man’s arms, Tegan swept a quick glance around the room, her eyes absorbing every detail in minutia. A frown of mild confusion marred Tegan's pleasant features for a moment. “Ardammt?”

  The man nodded and helped Tegan regain her balance. But Tegan pressed away from him, scanning the room again and this time seeing through clearer, less confused eyes the antiseptic realizes of the room with its metal legged exam tables, trolleys of neatly laid out surgical instruments and colorful charts of the internal organ structures of various animals papering the stark white walls.

  The head of rippling reddish-brown hair whipped around and indigo eyes ran to the man as Tegan whispered a word both foreign and fearful. “Cantellans?”

  This time the man shook his head. “Narn. It's your Earth,” he replied with an air that said he at least knew that.

  A frown marred the features again at Ardammt's answer. “Narn Cantellans.” The denim eyes rotated to and fro scanning every corner and crevice of the room. Tegan's eyes widened when they lit on a pile of cloth on the floor and Tegan scuffed at it with the toe of a boot. A groan escaped the pile, surprising Tegan into a quick backwards step.

  Tegan glanced at Ardammt, who shrugged and bent down, drawing a corner of the white cloth garment from across the top of the pile to reveal a dark haired man of moderate height crumpled on the floor like something discarded. The alien man reached out to touch the throat of the unconscious man but before he could Tegan’s smaller hand shot out to pull him away, shaking her head in mute warning. “Ardammt.”

  Ardammt cast a last glance at the man on the floor and followed Tegan to the door. It was locked and Tegan smirked at it as if to chastise the door for believing it could maintain a barrier against her.

  Turning back, Tegan snatched a scalpel from a nearby instrument tray and jammed it into the keyhole, working the instrument back and forth until, to the alien man’s delighted surprise, the lock released and the door swung ajar.

  As the two slipped from the room, Ardammt on Tegan heels, Tegan slung a self-satisfied smirk over a shoulder to Ardammt and flipped the scalpel across the room to land neatly next the curly haired man.

  *****

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  Page stared owl eyed at his best friend Jake Sarasin slouched in a chair flipping a pencil end over end and gawking at Page in open astonishment. “Could you give the bellowing a rest, old man?" he begged. "My skull’s throbbing fit to burst and right now I’d kill man or beast for an aspirin.”

  Page closed his office door as quietly as if he were tiptoeing through a graveyard on Halloween and hobbled over to his desk, sinking gratefully into the plush softness of his desk chair. He gripped his head as if any sudden sound would send it toppling from its dubious moorings on his shoulders and moaned. Quietly.

  Jake grinned devilishly and bellowed, “Headache!”

  Page would have scowled, but that would have hurt like the devil, so instead he settled for a cool look and a wince. “Jake, trust that I mean it when I say this. Shut your piehole!”

  Jake dropped the pencil and grinned harder. “You always were a bear when you had a hangover.”

  “I do not have a hangover,” Page barked indignantly, then wished he hadn’t when the anvil chorus started up again in his skull. “For your FYI, journalist, Worthington popped me with a surgical hammer. Out cold, I was!”

  Jake’s grin died and his mouth flopped open like a landed fish. “What? You’re putting me on, right? That’s your supervisor, isn’t he? Why would he do a crazy thing like that?”

  Page shook his head and instantly wished he hadn’t as he now saw three Jakes and one was quite bad enough most times, thank you very much. “Could be because I took exception to him and Schuyler and Erwin carving up two aliens like the Christmas goose!”

  Jake's eyes widened and his blond eyebrows went up. “Aliens? What kind?”

  Page had found a bottle of aspirin in a desk drawer and gagged down four of the tablets. “The live kind, thanks to me.” A thought occurred to Page. “But I don’t know where they are?”

  “Huh?” Jake laughed. “You don’t know where they are? Where you left them, surely!”

  Page shook his head, pleased to note
that the anvil chorus was starting to wind down their concert. “No. When I came to they were both gone.” He sighed worriedly. “I hope they’re alright.”

  Jake shrugged. “Maybe they went back to their spaceship.”

  Page threw Jake a distinctly dirty look. “Be serious! Their escape pod was destroyed on impact in King’s Forest. I’m surprised they got out alive. Then Worthington wanted to dice them up!” Page shuddered.

  Jake stared at Page in amazement. “You’re for real about this, aren’t you? Are they really aliens?”

  Page’s reply was so simple and quick that Jake knew his mate wasn’t putting him on. “Yes.”

  Jake leaned forward eagerly. The journalist in him was itching to get to the rest of the story. “What are they like? Two heads? Six arms? Green skin?”

  Page shook his head and leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief. The anvil chorus had packed up their instruments and gone home. “No. Nothing like on the tele. They look like us. The guy is tall and slim with very bright blond hair and a strong facial structure. And the girl…”

  Now Jake was definitely paying attention. “Girl? What Girl?”

  “….the girl is a lot shorter, nice round figure. Very pretty.” Page shrugged again. “Like I said, they look like us. But the bone structure, coloring and such have no anthropological cousins here on Earth. They’re not from our world, that’s for sure. Probably not even our part of the galaxy. But they are humanoid.”

  Jake was laughing at Page. “Just tickled, aren’t we, mate?”

  Page looked at Jake questioningly. “Why?”

  “Well, isn’t that what you were always saying? What your dissertation was all about? That alien populations are probably more like us than different from us. The intelligent ones, anyhow.”

  Page did smile then. “Yeah. That is my theory.”

  “Are you going to report that Worthington chap?” Jake asked.

  “Huh? Oh, I guess I should, huh?” Page got up and paused at the door. “Stay here, huh?" Page had started to turned the knob but paused, turning back. “Hold on. How’d you get in here to begin with? You can’t just waltz in like you own the joint, you know.”

  Jake popped up a shoulder in indifference. “Never stopped me before, mate. Anyhow, I needed your help and fast.”

  Page made a pained face. “What is it this time?”

  Jake Sarasin paused, then grimaced. “I’ve been demoted.”

  Dr. Calder’s dark eyebrows shot up in surprised confusion. “Demoted. What the devil does that mean? War correspondents can’t be demoted, can they?”

  Jake looked back, mildly chagrined “They can if they get on the wrong side of the ruling king in Makai by accusing the king's younger brother of running guns to the nomadic tribes in the Al Balu desert.”

  Page was interested despite himself. “Was he? Running guns, I mean?”

  Jake nodded. “Sure. And the king knew it. Turned a blind eye to it. As a matter of fact, the old buzzard was supplying his brother with a guide and camels/trucks to trek the weapons out to the tribes no matter where they were at any given time. But the king didn’t like the fact that his brother was nothing but a gun runner and war monger pointed out to him by anyone, especially an ignorant American journalist.”

  “Is that what the king called you?” Page asked, his bright brown eyes widening in amazement.

  Jake frowned darkly. “No. What he did call me was damn bloody well worse. Something about my parentage being in doubt and that I am the issue from my mother's questionable relationship with a cross eyed camel.”

  Page let out a whoop of laughter. “Well, it sounds like you finally got your ashes hauled, old man.” Page shook his head, grinning at his friend’s discomfort. “And to think all this time I thought you’d get the ax when it finally got back to your editor about all those women you’ve chased on those assignments of yours. And all the women you caught.”

  Jake grinned, nodding. “Keep talking, pal. You know about woman chasing as much as I do. How many ripe young things have you wined and dined and charmed with all your romantic talk about alien genetics? Hmmm?”

  Page pretended to be offended. “I’ll have you know I have great respect for women.”

  Jake cocked a sardonic blond eyebrow. “No doubt.”

  Ignoring this last sarcastic comment, Page swiftly changed the subject. “So what are you doing now? Collecting unemployment? On the dole?”

  “Bite your tongue, young man. You are looking at the new science writer for the Saturday supplement.”

  “Indeed? To me you look just like that crazy Jake Sarasin, globe trotting, skirt – and other parts - chasing war correspondent.”

  Jake scowled again. “Funny, pal. Real funny. And as much I’d love to be back living from my bullet riddled knapsack while I chase down this week’s war, I wore out my welcome one time too many and now I’ve been reduced to a hack staff writer for the Saturday science and technology section.” Jake threw his arms out wide. “Ta-da!”

  Page made a sort of sympathetic face. “Bloody bad. Sorry, mate.”

  Jake broke a slight smile for Page’s benefit. “It’s alright, mate. After that fiasco in Africa I knew I was living on borrowed time. It was just a matter of how much time. Not a lot, it turns out.”

  “Well, congrats on the…new position. But you still haven’t told me why you snuck into my office where you definitely don't belong.”

  “A deadline, what else?” At Page’s blank look, Jake went on. “ The supplement is trying to go brainy. My editor wants on his desk by nine a.m. Friday a three column piece on your theory of alien genetics.”

  Page sat up straighter and stared at Jake as if he were insane. “How did your editor know about my work?” he asked in a tone of flabbergasted amazement.

  Jake shrugged noncommittally. “How do I know? I guess the old crow reads those dry old science journals or something. What’s it matter, anyhow? He knew that I knew you. How, I don’t know. And so slapped this assignment on me at the last minute yesterday and expects it to be decorating his blotter in two days or my bum will meet the pavement.” Jake threw his friend an enquiring look. “So what you say, mate? Can you talk about this research of yours?”

  Page blew out a sigh. “I don’t know, man. Professor Styles is pretty picky about what we tell the press. It's true that our facility is public. Everybody in the village and the countryside around knows we’re here, even knows a little about what we do, but Styles is always afraid that if we talk too much about what’s going on some other research group or some other country will steal a march on us. And Styles wants us to be the first ones to prove alien existence.”

  Jake ran a thoughtful hand through thick dark blond hair. “Can we ask this Professor Styles? If he gives the okay will you give me an interview that could very well save my neck – and my bum?”

  Page still looked doubtful, so Jake pulled out his trump card. “If you don’t help me, mate, I'll have to start asking you for loans like I did at university.”

  Page looked horrified, his handsome face contorted into a look of sour disgust. “Alright! “he exclaimed. “You hang out. I’ll go see Professor Styles about an interview and Worthington. Then when I get back we’ll order lunch and get down to the business of me saving your tail. Again. After all, the last thing I want to do is pose as the Bank of England for you. You were a bloody terrible customer! All withdrawals and no deposits!”

  Jake closed the door behind Page. “Well, thanks a lot! You know, you’re not exactly my idea of the perfect teller!”

  ****

  Tegan slid around the corner, Ardammt on her heels. Tegan peered down the hallway and when it looked like there was no one about, Tegan motioned Ardammt to follow. Ardammt stayed in step right behind Tegan, dark denim eyes swiveling to and fro, taking in every essence and nuance of this alien world with its strange smells and odd sounds. He was furious that they had ended up trapped again. But anyplace was better than the ship. The ship where Culli still
… No forget it!

  Tegan skittering to a halt brought Ardammt up short and he glanced questioningly at her roving dark denim eyes. He heard the boot steps of many men running – probably looking for them – before Tegan could indicate that she’d heard it too. The sound sent both of them launching towards what were obviously entrances although the openings were covered in a hard brown material with balls of metal set on one long edge. Their hands twisted these spheres, trying each one along the corridor until a barrier swung in and they almost fell into the space beyond.

  Tegan was the first to regain her feet, but Ardammt was right behind Tegan, almost popping up, as they presented their backs to each other and scanned the room with its relaxation recliners, desks, shelves of objects, some vaguely familiar, others totally alien in their form and function. But most interesting of all was the tall, broad shouldered man standing with his back to an open receptacle bearing consumables, a small container in one hand and a pointed instrument in the other as he stared at the two in mute surprise, his mouth hanging open a bit.

  When the door had popped open Jake had swung around and gawked as a guy and a gal fell in, scrambling to their feet, jumping back to back, scanning the room until their dark blue eyes fell hard on him.

  “Hello,” he said, trying to sound friendly, figuring these two were probably Page’s lost aliens. Sure didn’t look like aliens though. Especially that little cutie in some sort of blue trouser suit that did nothing to disguise a bang up figure!

  “Dr. Calder just stepped out for a minute,” he said conversationally, motioning towards the door with the hand that held the butter knife. “If you’d like to wait he’ll... Hey!”

  Like a rocket, Ardammt launched forward, tackling Jake and throwing him to the ground on his back with a bone jarring thud that knocked the wind out of his lungs and the butter and knife out of his hands. The butter tub flew across the room to land upside down on Page’s desk blotter with a slick sounding splat. The knife, on the other hand, landed on the carpet only to quickly be snatched up by the big Nordic looking guy who now pressed it uncomfortably close to Jake’s jugular.