Flight (11 page)

The Hrwang
finally rigged an emergency escape tunnel between the airlocks of
the two vessels.
Beagle’s
crew had to monitor her position carefully to
keep from pulling away and damaging the tunnel.

“It will not hold air,” the
Lieutenant Grenadier warned them.

That meant only two of them could
go over. Their third EVA suit would be kept in reserve in case
someone needed rescuing.

Stanley wasn’t sure he wanted
Irina to be the second, but she insisted.

They had practiced EVAs, or
extra-vehicular activities, at least a dozen times and Stanley
thought he would feel confident passing through the tunnel to the
Hrwang ship. But regardless of how long he had been in zero or low
gravity, it still felt like he was falling when he stepped out of
the ship and on to the flimsy rail surrounded by nothing more than
a mylar-like tube. There were guide wires that Stanley clung to as
he scooted across.

He stepped quickly into the open
airlock of the Hrwang vessel and felt the relief of solid plating
under his boots. Irina entered after him, looking
poised.

The airlock door closed and they
heard the Lieutenant Grenadier’s voice.

“Remain still.”

“We made it,”
Stanley said into the suit radio for the benefit of the remaining
crew of the
Beagle.

“Good luck, sir,” Lieutenant
Commander Purcella, his communications officer, replied.

They heard air filling the
airlock.

“Will it be safe to breathe?”
Irina asked.

Stanley had been wondering the
same thing, but now felt that Irina was being a Nervous Nellie
again.

“Of course. They breathed on
Earth. They wouldn’t have brought us over here if it wasn’t
safe.”

The words made
Stanley feel a tiny bit better. Irina didn’t reply. Stanley
realized too late he had left his radio on the frequency being
monitored by the
Beagle
. Oh well, he thought. It’s what Irina got for asking a
stupid question.

The inner door to the airlock
hissed open. Stanley stepped out into a tiny room with another door
on the other side.

“Please remove all your
clothes.”

“Seriously?” Irina
yelled.

“We must take precautions,” the
Lieutenant Grenadier replied over the speaker.

“I don’t like this.”

“It’s okay, Commander,” Stanley
said. “We probably took the same sorts of precautions when the
Hrwang landed on Earth.”

“All of them?” Irina yelled at the
speaker.

“Please. I apologize,” the speaker
said back

She shook her head and began
removing her space suit.

A few minutes later Stanley stood
naked in front of the door. Irina still wore a tank top and briefs.
He looked at her disapprovingly.

“No way,” she said.

Stanley shrugged.

“We’re ready,” he called up to the
ceiling.

“Are you completely
unclothed?”

“At least they’re not spying on
us,” Irina whispered.

“Commander,” Stanley started
saying, then stopped. He had almost said her name before
remembering the Hrwang’s prohibition on using names. “My
second-in-command has reservations about becoming completely
naked.”

“I apologize. We did not consider
that you should have come over separately because you are male and
female, but the next procedure is required. We must spray all of
your skin with a disinfectant.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Irina yelled.
Then to Stanley, “You face forward and don’t look behind you.” She
added a beat later, “Sir.”

“Not a problem,
Commander.”

He heard her undressing behind
him.

“We’re really ready this time,”
Stanley called out.

“Your attendants do not know how
to speak your language. They will spray you with the disinfectant.
It will not hurt your eyes but you may wish to close them
anyway.”

“Attendants! Who said anything
about attendants?” Irina yelled behind him. Stanley half turned to
say something to her when she commanded, “Eyes forward,
buddy.”

“I apologize,” the disembodied
Lieutenant Grenadier’s voice repeated. “This is necessary. These
attendants treat everyone returning from the planet’s surface. They
will be quick.”

“You could go back,” Stanley
offered with a glimmer of hope.

“Fat chance,” Irina replied, then
added after waiting another half second, “Sir.”

No matter how good a mood Stanley
was in, that woman could always ruin it.

“I’m ready,” Irina called up to
the ceiling, “but could you at least send a woman to decontaminate
me?”

“I apologize,” the Lieutenant
Grenadier said. “We have no female crew.”

Even Stanley was surprised. Surely
a race as advanced as the Hrwang would treat their women equally.
Why was there no female crew?

“It figures,” Irina said
sarcastically. “Let’s get this over with.”

The door opened and two figures
clad in something that looked like hazmat suits stepped into the
tiny room. They picked up the loose clothing off the ground and put
it into bags that they sealed. The EVA suits were left in the
corner.

One carried both bags of clothing
out of the room and the other pulled out a nozzle and pointed it at
Stanley’s head. Stanley nodded and closed his eyes and mouth
tightly. The attendant squirted a warm, foamy substance on his head
and it felt sort of good.

“Do I need to rub it around?”
Stanley called out carefully so as to not get any in his
mouth.

The attendant said something but
his words were foreign and muffled.

“Just raise your arms and spread
your feet apart,” the voice said over the speakers.

The foam actually felt good. These
Hrwang are quite civilized, Stanley thought.

1804 watched from a distance as
the emergency escape tunnel was used to connect the Hrwang command
vessel with the space ship it had retrieved from orbit around the
fourth planet. It felt something akin to frustration as the Hrwang
engineers struggled to attach a standard docking ring to the alien
vessel, then a transfer tunnel, then finally the emergency tunnel
which was designed to mate to any surface, damaged craft in
mind.

Once the aliens were safely aboard
the command vessel, 1804 received confirmation to proceed with the
remainder of its mission.

The Lord Admiral of the Fleet of
the People sat at his desk in his cabin. His was a small cabin, but
larger than any others in the fleet. His desk had nothing personal
on it, just reports, except for a wall-mounted digital picture
viewer. The default picture, one of his wife and children hiking
near Mount Esrain, showed now. He looked at it and spoke a command.
The picture scrolled to a young woman on a beach. He didn’t even
know who she was; it was simply a stock picture that had come with
the device. He liked it.

It scrolled again and showed the
Lord Protector’s mansion from an aerial view. He commanded the
viewer to stop. It was an impossibly luxurious palace. A desire
welled up within him that he felt he couldn’t control. He wanted to
live there.

A speaker buzzed. He no longer had
time to read reports about the conditions on the planet below or of
the status of the various vessels that were waking sufficient crew
for their missions. Or to look at useless pictures and daydream. He
spoke a command and the viewer cycled back to the default
picture.

Time to meet some aliens and put
his plans in motion.

Stanley stood almost six inches
taller than his second-in-command, but the Hrwang had provided two
same-sized, unmarked, light gray jumpsuits. His sat two inches
short on his arms and several inches higher than his bare feet. He
could barely zip it up. Hers was too long, and she had to roll the
cuffs on both arms and legs. She looked like she could swim out of
the neck.

They looked ridiculous.

They didn’t even have
shoes.

Once they were dressed, one of the
attendants returned, sans hazmat suit, with two metal tubes, each
about four inches long and a half inch diameter. He wore a similar,
unmarked gray jumpsuit.

The Lieutenant Grenadier’s voice
came over a speaker.

“Please allow us to vaccinate you.
It is a necessary precaution.”

“Vaccinate us? Against what?”
Stanley asked.

“Disease,” the voice
replied.

Irina rolled her eyes.

Then she rolled her sleeve
up.

Stanley tried, but the narrow
jumpsuit sleeves didn’t want to go much higher up his arm. The
attendant didn’t seem to care. He pushed the tube against Stanley’s
shoulder, through the jumpsuit, and Stanley felt a slight pressure,
but it didn’t hurt.

After injecting Irina, the
attendant left.

“It didn’t hurt,” Stanley said.
Irina ignored him, looking around.

A young man, his hair cropped
close, came through the doorway next. He was short, with a barrel
chest and large arms and wore the same, unmarked, gray jumpsuit. He
held out his left hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” he
said.

Stanley reached his left hand out
and shook the man’s.

“I’m Captain,”
Stanley said, almost saying his name, “I mean, I’m the Captain of
the
Beagle
.”

“I am the Lieutenant
Grenadier.”

“I am the Commander
second-in-command,” Irina said, reaching out her right hand. The
man awkwardly switched hands and shook it.

“On Earth we normally shake with
our right hands,” Stanley said nervously.

“I apologize.” The Lieutenant
Grenadier extended his right hand now to Stanley and they shook
again. “I saw many forms of greeting on your broadcasts and this
looked like the most appropriate. I apologize if I have violated
your custom.”

“No, no. You’re fine. We
appreciate your concern. It was most appropriate,” Stanley
said.

The Lieutenant Grenadier
nodded.

“How do you greet each other?”
Stanley asked.

“Like so.” The Lieutenant
Grenadier nodded again. “Then the junior person speaks the senior
person’s designation, then the senior acknowledges if he
chooses.”

“Like a salute,” Stanley
said.

The Lieutenant Grenadier looked
puzzled.

“Show him a salute, Commander,”
Stanley suggested.

Irina returned a withering
look.

“Go ahead,” Stanley
said.

Irina saluted. “This is how
members of the military greet each other, the junior ranking member
saluting first, much the same as you describe.”

The Lieutenant Grenadier smiled.
“We have much in common.”

Stanley returned his smile. “We
do. I am very excited to meet you, to tour your ship, and learn
everything about you.”

The Lieutenant Grenadier grinned.
“We are most pleased to meet you. Please follow me.”

He turned suddenly. “I apologize.
You will want to wear these.” He opened a locker on the wall and
pointed to shelves of booties. “The ship does not rotate like
yours, thus there is no gravity. These will help you
walk.”

“How do they work?” Stanley
asked.

The Lieutenant Grenadier thought
for a moment, then answered, “They stick to metal below the
floor.”

“Magnets,” Stanley
said.

“Yes,” the other grinned.
“Magnets. Your clothes are magnets also, so you can sit
down.”

“Clever,” Stanley said. Irina
looked at her suit like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be wearing
a great big magnet or not.

They picked out booties that fit,
and then the Lieutenant Grenadier led them out of the room and into
a corridor where he pushed off from the floor and floated away
headfirst. Stanley followed hesitatingly, using a guide rail to
pull himself along, half walking, half floating.

The Lieutenant Grenadier led them
to a room, opening a hatch. He invited them to enter, but did not
go with them.

“Please take your seat,” he
said.

Irina entered first.

“It looks like a submarine mess
hall,” she said.

Stanley entered behind her. There
were several small, metal tables bolted to the walls with metal
benches attached to them. Cabinets and shelves covered every
available piece of wall real estate and there were several blank
monitors hanging from the ceiling.

“Please take your seat,” the
Lieutenant Grenadier repeated.

“He means have a seat,” Stanley
said quietly.

“I know what he means,” Irina
hissed back.

They sat at a table where they
could see the door they had just entered. The Lieutenant Grenadier
smiled. “Do not stand when the Lord Admiral enters. Just nod and
greet him.”