Escape 1: Escape From Aliens (11 page)

“Question?”

“Observation first,” Bill said. “We have nine hours until Diligent regains awareness. We should both eat something and rest. Maybe in shifts?”

Jane gave him a quick nod. “Good idea. I am hungry. Plus we need some rest before I interrogate Diligent. And before we meet these other Collector ships. But you look as if you have another question. What?”

Damn but the woman could read him!
“Uh, when do we release the other captives?”

She turned thoughtful, scanned the holo displays, then looked his way. “Let’s see what they look like first. Maybe that will guide us in who we release first. As you said earlier, we need people who will assist us in our ship takeover, rather than be a problem.” She turned away. “Star Traveler, can the room wall in front of me be made to portray visual imagery?”

“It can. However additional holos can be displayed between your pedestal and the front wall.”

Jane blinked. “Right. Please lower my current status holos to below my shoulder. Then display holo images of the sixteen other bioforms who now reside inside containment modules. Arrange them by species. Provide a species name beside each species grouping. To one side put up a human male outline to provide size comparison,” she said. “I want to have a look at the people your boss calls guests.”

“Displaying.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Amazing,” Jane said softly as holos of sixteen Aliens who belonged to nine species now appeared before them in a lineup that never graced any police station Bill had ever visited.

He agreed. “We’ve got some wild and weird neighbors.”

Looking from left to right, Bill did his best to see truly the Alien forms before them. While he immediately thought of Earth animal analogues, he did his best to remember these were people who evolved on other worlds under other stars.

At the far left stood two brown-furred Aliens who resembled a giant version of the flying squirrels that populated some Earth forests. Bags hung from their necks. Like humans these people of the Aelthorp species were two-legged, two-armed and had two yellow eyes arranged so binocular vision was normal to them. A long furry tail curled up behind them. One Aelthorp was two-thirds the size of the other flying squirrel. They resembled mammals. But he wouldn’t know their animal type until they talked to these people.

Next were two people who looked totally human but their body skin was banded in a dozen different colors. They wore only cargo-type pants. One was clearly a woman judging by her naked breasts while the other appeared to be a man. Of nearly equal height, these people had green eyes, black hair and each was as tall as Jane. The species name was listed as Megun.

“Wow!” Bill said. “Look at that multi-legged critter.”

“I see it,” Jane said. “Just one of them too.”

Beyond the first two groups of Aliens there hunkered an eight-legged, ground-hugging critter who resembled a segmented worm. Each foot had ferocious claws, while the front leg pair were uplifted and the fleshy arm-legs held out. Three fingers and a thumb adorned the end of each arm-leg. The head was what shocked him. It had a circular mouth filled with dagger-like teeth clearly made for latching onto prey and munching. At the top of the bulbous head were two black eyes. The species name was listed as Zipziptoe.

“That third Alien sure looks like a giant tardigrade,” Jane murmured.

“What’s a tardigrade?”

“A tiny animal smaller than your fingernail that cannot be killed. Squash it, dry it out, expose it to radiation or vacuum, and tardigrades reanimate, lay eggs and keep on living.” She glanced down at him. “Learned about them in my UC Boulder biology class.” She looked back at the lineup.

A kangaroo-like creature was the next imposing Alien. It had two arms with long fingers adorning each hand, two strongly muscled legs, a yellow abdomen, two red eyes and a thick tail that served as a third balance point. Straps ran from its shoulders to its waist, where a belt supported small bags filled with metal tools of some type. Fabric skirts hung from the belt. The Alien was covered in silvery scales, which made Bill class it as a reptile. Whatever it was, two of the scaly kangaroos were displayed next to the species name Cheelan.

The fifth critter was a four-legged, black-skinned walking snake that had a ring of six tentacles around its head. The head was triangular, like the heads of poisonous snakes, and sported two blue eyes arranged like the eyes of a snake. Only one walking snake was shown next to the species name Slinkeroo.

The other four species made up the remaining eight individuals. Something that resembled a mole-like creature with armored skin like an armadillo was called a Doman. There were two of them. Next to it was a giant flying critter with brown wings, narrow head, dagger-like beak and deep red eyes. It resembled a picture he’d seen of an ancient flying creature that was called a pterosaur. Winglo was the name of two specimens. The third species resembled a walking cougar. It had yellow fur, golden eyes, long white fangs, two paw-hands, and claws on its feet and fingers. Two of them stood side by side. Mok showed as their name. The last of the nine species was called Ludeen. Two of them stood hunched over, their long naked tails wrapped around their pink-skinned legs. They resembled marmoset monkeys thanks to their short fur and super-large brown eyes. Which for most Earth animals indicated a critter who moved about at night. Bill wondered if the Ludeen might also be mammals.

Jane looked to him. “Some of those folks look very deadly. Who do we talk with first?”

He shrugged. “Let’s try the first five. If they understand tech, don’t call us gods and know how to work cooperatively, we could have our five crew people in that first group.”

Jane nodded, turning back to again scan the lineup. Once more her command manner showed. “I don’t blame you. That flying reptile and the cougar biped are not the folks I’d like to have covering my back. The marmoset people look small and harmless. As do the armadillo Aliens.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Let’s go with your first five Aliens. Those being the Aelthorp, Megun, Zipziptoe, Cheelan and Slinkeroo folks.”

“Agreed.” Bill gestured back to the still quivering body of Diligent. “Time I moved him into his habitat room. There’s one just across the hall from the entry to this place. Bet that is his place.”

“It is,” Star Traveler said over Bill’s helmet comlink. “Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster has always resided in the habitat directly across from this chamber.”

“Thank you, Star Traveler,” Jane said, her tone musing. “Bill, go deposit our captor in his room. Leave him tied up but arrange him so his breathing holes are not blocked. Then come back. I want to spend a few hours out of this suit! I need a shower. And some of that food in our backpacks. You willing to sit up here? I think it wise for one of us to always be wearing a suit.”

Bill understood her point. Wearing the spacesuits had gotten them the help of the ship AI thanks to its emergency protocol programming. It made sense for them to stay in a suit until after Jane got Diligent to transfer ship captain status to her. Then, once they sent off the captain and his crew in one of the exit vehicles, maybe they could stop wearing the suits. Maybe. “Agreed. I’ll deposit our captor then come back to relieve you.”

“Thanks,” she said, her tone and look tired. “Give me a few hours of rest and food and I’ll give you the same break.”

Bill gave her a No Matter wave as he turned and headed for the quivering form of Diligent. “I can go three days without sleep. Or a shower. Though I’d love to add some of your jerky meat to my pasta packet.”

Jane laughed softly, reminding him of how nice it was to be in the company of a woman who felt at ease with men. “We both get some sleep! And sure, help yourself to some of my jerky when you get back here. My pack is on the floor near you.”

“Thanks.” She sounded friendly. Was there any chance of having some kind of personal time with her? Working together to defeat the crew folks and then capture the Command Bridge had felt great. She was tall, her features looked more Eurasian than pure Japanese, and her curves kept reminding him how long it had been since he’d made love with a willing woman.

She looked down at him, her expression command intense. “Bill? Thought you were going to take Diligent to his habitat.”

The woman who now looked at him had the manner of an officer born to command. And he was enlisted.

“Just daydreaming. Those Alien holos really make you wonder about the kind of universe we live in.”

She raised one thin black eyebrow. “Oh? I agree. But we only have eleven hours before we arrive at this Market world star system. Time to get a move on.”

“Captain, you’re right.” Bill grabbed the carcass of the giant cockroach, lifted it easily thanks to the half-gee ship gravity, and headed out the still open door to the Command Bridge. Twenty feet in front of him lay the far side of the hallway. An eight foot high oval door outline showed on the metal. Digging out his red cube, he aimed it at the wall and pressed the round spot. The metal door slid up faster than a blink. Briefly he wondered if human-sized cockroach males were as messy in their rooms as most guys.

They were worse.

♦   ♦   ♦

Eight and a half hours later, Jane joined him in the habitat room of Diligent. Stepping through the rising door she looked around, then slowly shook her head. “What a mess! I thought men were bad. But this giant cockroach lives like trash is his nest!”

“Agreed.” Bill sat on a metal bench that had risen from the floor of the square room when he had prompted the ship AI for help. Behind him was a wash and waste room that looked even dirtier than the sleeping and work space in the front room. At least there had been a soft-topped metal bed when he’d entered. On top of the bed platform was a pile of smelly sticks arranged in an oval. Clearly the ship captain climbed into the nest, laid down with his belly breathing holes upright and slept. Which the giant cockroach had been doing ever since Bill entered the room a half hour earlier, after he’d risen from his own nap. He’d found the nest block on the left side of the room while the right side held an elevated platform with a flat screen sticking up from it. He thought it was some kind of computer desk station. “Star Traveler, please elevate a bench platform for Captain Yamaguchi to sit on. We hope to speak with Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster when he awakens.”

“Bench elevated,” the AI said.

Jane nodded her thanks and sat at the other end of the nest bed. Looking around she saw the same flat wall pictures of what resembled an ant-hill surrounded by tall green trees. Tech transport that resembled a train running on a single rail showed in three images. He guessed the rail was actually for magnetic levitation of the train cars. Which were open topped and filled with cockroaches of various sizes. She looked down at the ship captain, who was still secured by Bill’s belt on his legs and his t-shirt securing the two pairs of thorny arms. “Any sign he is awake?”

Bill leaned forward and rested his elbows on the knees of his tube suit. “Hard to say. He breathes regularly. The eyelids that cover those two compound eyes have not opened. And his limbs have not moved or jerked. Course it could be pretending.”

Jane nodded thoughtfully, then stared intently at the reclining cockroach. “Star Traveler, is the ship master awake yet?”

“Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster has been awake and aware for the last two minutes,” the AI said with a low hum. “I now recognize him as the primary bioform in command of this ship.”

“Yes!” Diligent barked suddenly, his eyelids opening and the two brown antennae whipping forward. “Device, obey Command Sequence—”

Bill stuffed a handkerchief in between the mouth palps of the critter, silencing it. “Nasty ship captain. Diligent, I warned you I would escape, capture you and capture your ship. We have done all that. If you wish to live, cooperate with us!”

The black compound eyes moved from Bill to Jane, then back to him. The shirt-bound upper and middle arm pairs lifted from its belly. Rasping that sounded angry came from below the rag stuffing. Jane leaned forward, raised a hand and shook one finger negatively at the struggling critter. “We will allow you to speak, so long as you do not try to issue any commands. We need to discuss your future with you. Or do you wish to be put inside one of the containment cells?”

Diligent stopped struggling to release his arms from bondage. His belt-bound legs lowered to the stick nest rim. The angry rasping stopped. His head inclined forward in what Bill thought was agreement. He looked to Jane. “Captain?”

“Take out the kerchief,” she said, her tone command sharp. “But be ready to stuff it back in.”

Bill reached out, grabbed an end of the green fatigue kerchief, and pulled. “Obey her. Or be stuffed again and delivered to my old cell!”

Diligent glanced at him. The critter’s two brown antennae leaned forward, then back. He moved his gaze to Jane. “I speak. Release me and I will allow you two Humans to leave in an exit craft.”

Jane sat back on the bench and chuckled. “Amusing you are, my arthropod friend. You misunderstand your situation.”

The reddish-brown mouth palps moved quickly. “You cannot kill me! The Device will not allow it!”

Jane nodded slowly. “We know that. Which is why we used the red beam on you. So we could share with you information you refuse to hear. Which is what we told Star Traveler. Who is much more than a simple device!” She gestured at Bill. “My fellow human has a strong desire to stuff you inside one of your ‘guest’ cells in the Containment Unit Chamber. Let you have a taste of the captivity you visited on 18 other people from ten worlds. Do you wish that?”

“No,” Diligent said, his voice rasping as mouth palps rubbed against each other.

“Good.” She crossed arms over the fabric of the green jumpsuit she had changed into after her shower in her own habitat room. “We could put you in a room with the other sixteen captives and see how you are treated by them, once they learn you are the one who spoke to them in their cells. Would you prefer that?”

“No!” the cockroach rasped loudly.

Jane gave the ship captain a shake of a finger. “Be calm. Make no threats. Cooperate. And you will live to spend time with your fellow Collector buddies.”

“What cooperation do you seek?” Diligent said with a rasping of its mouth palps.

“I want you to transfer ship master status to me, verbally, in the presence of Star Traveler. Who is hearing our conversation even as we talk,” she said calmly.

The arms and legs of Diligent lifted up as if it wanted to jump out of the nest. Bill leaned forward and gripped the Alien’s hard shoulder. He pressed down. “Be calm, or be jailed.”