Embarkment 2577 (31 page)

“Well, yes, but…”

“We’re surveying a planet. It’s the most
like Earth I’ve ever seen.”

I waited. Normally these things didn’t
have anything to do with me, and if he told me, there would have to be a point.

He pressed the hologram projector into
my hand. “It’s a great place, pretty much like home, and the Captain is giving
all non-essential personnel shore leave. I think you should go. You’d love it.”

Might be fun, but not alone. “Will you
come with me?”

He kissed my cheek. “Unfortunately, I’m
essential personnel. Ask John.”

“Well… When is this happening?”

“Right now. That’s why I came home to
tell you.”

We
had
been in space for a long
time. What would it feel like to have solid ground under my feet and sunlight
on my face? A breeze in my hair…

Adam went back to work and I looked at
the hologram. If there were dragonflies, there might be butterflies, maybe even
birds. Seeing a bird would be sweet.

I ran down the hall to Anya’s quarters
to plead with John to come with me. If Adam couldn’t go she probably couldn’t
either, but
he
was a stray passenger like me.

John looked hung over, but still flashed
a smile so much like Adam it confused me. “No… Too much exposure to the
elements is unhealthy.”

It was a hilarious comment coming from
someone who wouldn’t blink if faced with a group of heavily armed mercenaries.

He turned his charm on. “I’m going to a
poker game, come with me and be my lucky charm. Together we’ll play the pants
off everyone.”

“Maybe tomorrow. Today, I want fresh
air.”

“Suit yourself, you don’t know what
you’re missing.”

“Likewise. It might be absolutely
awesome.”

He chuckled. “Have a good time, sweetheart.
Hey, wait… Let me see your shoes.”

My shoes? That was a new one.

“Those are actually good. Give me the
right one.”

Men had asked me for many things during
the years, but this was the first time someone wanted my shoe. I shrugged and
handed him the sturdy walking boot. He pulled his off as well, fiddling with
something attached to the side.

“There you go. There’s the holder…”

“What are you doing?”

He passed me something that looked like
a thin sheet of metal. “Hold it away from you and press the sides.”

I obeyed and a thin blade of energy
hummed to life. “Wow. What is that?”

“Laser-knife. One never knows. Put it in
the holder and you won’t even know it’s there. It’s not the best weapon in the
world, but at least you have something if you get into trouble.”

“Thank you.” Unexpected and sweet. Adam
would never tell me to go if he thought anything could go wrong, but I liked
John’s way of thinking.

*****

Adam was right. The planet was a lot
like Earth as I remembered it. Had he already been down here? Probably. There
were rolling hills clad with deep forests, oceans and lakes, only one sun, and
only one moon. A vacation paradise.

The air smelled so fresh, completely
different from the recycled atmosphere on the ship. A wind played in the
treetops. I bent my head back as far as I could, and far up in the sky a group
of bright red bird-like beings soared on the breeze. They looked free.

Maybe one day we could be settlers in a
place like this. Adam wouldn’t get tired of life on a starship any time soon, but
maybe one day… Maybe we could at least go on a vacation together.

I had a pretty good sense of direction,
and if I got lost they could always find me from the ship. I wandered along,
looking at huge and untouched trees. A thick carpet of leaves covered the
ground. It was soft and made me want to bounce. If I hadn’t been so lazy I
would have wanted to go jogging.

Every aspect of life holds
some
danger.
One can fall and die in the shower, or have a stroke when sleeping soundly in
bed. I imagined unknown man-eating plants, dangerous insects, and larger
animals that might find a human woman an excellent snack between lunch and
dinner. Maybe I should have brought something bigger than a knife…

Nothing happened, and I relaxed. The
wildlife was fearless, and a quick little creature that looked almost like a
squirrel followed me on my way. Then, there was a blazing pain, and darkness.

When I woke up, my head pounded and my
eyelids were heavy. Opening my eyes wasn’t worth the trouble; I stared right at
a pile of dirty laundry.
Stinking
dirty laundry. The smell made me gag
and I rolled over on the other side to get away. That side presented a pile of
garbage with a fat red insect crawling on mold. Just how dirty might the floor
under my head be?

I sat up, and stared at a room filled
with filth. “Oh my God, I’ve been abducted by a garbage truck.”

No wonder I was queasy. I struggled to
my feet and almost fell over when my legs turned out to have the stability of
sponge cake. Damn. Why did things like this keep happening to me?

I made my way towards the door,
crisscrossing the trash, hoping beyond hope I’d ended up in some mysterious
space deep inside the Bell’s bowels. The door was filled with mysterious
markings and would not open.
Great
.

No one would miss me until late in the
evening, and I might be well on my way to the other side of the galaxy before
anyone realized I was gone. The thought made me despondent, and the putrid
smell made my nose drip.

This could be a long wait. I picked the
least filthy spot in the room, kicked some dirty rags out of the way, and sat
down.

Why did I have to wander off on my own?
What possessed me to think I would be able to leave the ship without Adam by my
side?

Time passed, and I watched the red
insects. At least they didn’t seem interested in me. Garbage was probably much
yummier than girls. Eventually, the door opened and a tall shadow fell over me.
The old version of me would have panicked at the sight, but the new me wasn’t
all that impressed.

The face was fairly humanoid, but the nose
looked like a tiny snout, and the mouth reminded me of a wasp’s with strong
mandibles closing from the sides. He had broad shoulders, two arms, two legs,
and long black hair. Except for being gigantic, not too awfully scary.

He kicked me in the side with a foot
dressed in a thick, brown leather boot, and yelled, “Captain, the prisoner is
awake!”

“Oww, don’t do that.”

“Get up hooman.”

A chance to leave the room? He didn’t
have to say that twice. Hopefully, the rest of the ship would be at least a
little less stinky. If I survived this, I’d need to shower for a week.

Their leader sat in a big metal chair in
the middle of the bridge, and was just as ugly as my guard. I needed to be
brave, to behave becoming of the Bell’s crew and act with dignity.

He bellowed, barely understandably with
very long vowels, “Hooomaaan, Confederaaacyyy Hoomaan, you will bring us great
wealth.”

Really? If that was the point of this
exercise, shouldn’t they snatch someone a little more important than me? I
probably shouldn’t point that out; their knowing my insignificance might
shorten my life span.

“All hoomans are cowards, especially
Confederacy hoomans. Neither you nor your pitiful friends will be allowed to
live.”

Big words. “What are you talking about?
I’ve never seen you before, I never did anything to you.”

My guard held his gun up to my face. I
stared down the muzzle, and it was a big gun. One could probably hide a train
or two inside.

I steeled myself for being dead, again.
Hopefully, I’d be brave enough to meet it with grace.

Their captain laughed. “You’re worth a
lot to our employer.”

“That makes no sense at all.”

One of them stepped up to the captain
and whispered something. It seemed to be very funny. “No, take her away. Maybe
you can have her later, when we’ve been paid.”

Have me? Oh no, no way. I’d rather die
than have one of them
touch
me. I probably would die, or at least throw
up if one came too close. They were smelly, hairy, and generally disgusting. I
was used to living with an android who was always clean and never ever smelled.

“Go on. Back to lockup.”

Into the same dirty room again. I spent
an hour or so sitting on the floor feeling sorry for myself. Once I snapped out
of that, I searched the room from ceiling to floor. The investigation gave a
multitude of nasty smells, more dirty clothes, and a tiny vent that was welded
shut. Even if I could get it open, it would be too small for me to crawl
through.

When the guard returned to escort me
back to the bridge, I was relieved not to have to make any more futile efforts
to save myself.

The captain seemed delighted to see me.
“I want to make you an offer. I’m willing to let you buy your life for, say,
the command codes to the shields of your ship.”

The what and the what?

“It’s just a ship, hooman, not worth
dying for. Trust me. Your future is not bright with our employer.”

Did he really have an employer, or did
he make it up to scare me? It didn’t matter; even if I’d known what a command
code was, I wouldn’t give the Bell up. “I’m sorry, but you have the wrong
person. I don’t have command codes to anything.”

My head still pounded and my eyes
itched, probably from all the garbage in the room. I couldn’t think, but it
didn’t matter. We were in space, and there was no way out of this. I just
wanted to live so badly. I wanted to see my husband and friends one more time,
so I could tell them I loved them. If I didn’t come back, both Adam and John
would blame themselves for not going with me.

The large alien laughed so hard he
almost sounded asthmatic when trying to draw breaths. Once he settled down, he
roared, “It’s a sad thing to see someone so young and pretty go to her death.”

He didn’t sound sorry at all. Intense
pain bloomed up in my back, and then the world fell dark again.

“Uuuuh…” The groaning really annoyed me.
Whoever did it should shut up. Oh, it was me. I thought I had a headache
before
being shot a second time. Funny how wrong one can be.

Now would be a good time to get up on my
feet and sweet-talk the guards into letting me out. I should find my way to a
shuttle, overcome the impossible foreign instrumentation, and fly away to
safety. Or, why not outsmart them all, steal the ship and return home in
triumph. Great ideas, but I wasn’t a heroine. I could barely move.

It didn’t take long before everything
became worse. I could hardly tell the aliens apart, but the one entering the
room had to be the one who whispered to their leader. Shit.

He approached with a couple of long
steps and I scooted backwards until I hit a pile of laundry. The alien grabbed both
my wrists in one of his large hands and trailed his free fingers over my
shoulder towards my breasts. Not this again. Any poking, prodding, or squeezing
would send me into a fit of hysteria.
This
guy was at least made of
flesh and blood, and he wheezed when I kicked him.

“Feisty. You’ll learn. They always do.”

The room spun around me. Why was it so
dark? It took several seconds for me to understand he hit me, and I struggled
to stay conscious.

His hand was the size of an average
frying pan, and he smacked it over my chest. “You will be my slave.”

Not happening. I yelled, “Let go of me
you big, ugly… gorilla! My husband will kill you!”

The answer wasn’t what I expected: he
laughed.
“Your husband the android? I wouldn’t count on
it.”

What was
that
supposed to mean?
And, if he knew about Adam, they really must have been looking for me. All hope
of mistaken identity went down the drain.

No time to brood. I hit him as hard as I
could, and he didn’t even blink. My hands searched the floor around me, even
his belt, but I couldn’t find anything useful. I still had John’s knife in my
boot, but I couldn’t reach it with this colossal person weighing me down.

Something warm trickled over my face. He
put a long yellowed nail against my cheek and chuckled deep down his throat. At
first I didn’t understand what he did, but when I realized he painted my face
with my own blood, I couldn’t keep the screams in any longer.

When the door slid open, I expected more
horrors. It was the man who escorted me to the captain earlier. He kicked the
attacker off me. “You
simpleminded idiot, the Captain
told you to wait.”

The guard sounded like he explained a
complicated concept to a child. “We need her undamaged for now, the employer
wants to destroy her herself. Just look at what you did!”

I pulled my knees up and hugged my legs
to hide how much I shook.

He tossed me a grayish rag. “Here. Clean
yourself up.”