Authors: Chad Leito
The giant room was filled with people holding suitcases and jabbering with anticipation. Men, women and children were all talking about what the ship ride would be like and what they thought of the planet through enormous smiles. I sat on the floor and Saul sat grinning on our suitcase reading a comic book that he had read many times before. Below the window that looked out onto Mungus, there was a doorway that led to a metal hallway. In front of the doorway stood two people in blue jumpsuits that I thought were flight attendants. One of the flight attendants was a small blonde woman with high cheekbones and the other was a middle aged balding man with hair circling the back of his head and none on top. The blonde woman stood up on a bench in the middle of a sea of chatting people. She said something that I couldn’t hear to try to get their attention, but they continued to talk. Then, she put two fingers in her mouth and blew a piercing whistle throughout the room. Everyone stopped what they were doing and gave her their attention.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling with white teeth. “We are about to start loading people now. I know that you are excited, but please, be calm. You must come to the front, give your name, and we will see if you are on the list. If you are, then you may proceed to the ship. Thank you.”
The woman got down off of the chair and the jabbering resumed as the people hustled to be first in line. People were rushing so fast that they nearly tripped over Saul who was rearranging his comic books into his suitcase.
“C’mon, Saul, hurry,” I told him. Saul closed his comic books, organized them, opened up our suitcases, and made sure that they were with his clothes and in a place where they wouldn’t be crumpled before he was able to get up and get in line. Then, on our way to get into line he had to reopen his suitcase and make sure that he had his baseball packed and that it didn’t fall out while he was arranging his comic books. This process took five minutes of me standing impatiently above him as he organized his things. By the time we were done, the line in front of the doorway stretched and snaked around benches beneath the high industrial white ceilings of the loading dock.
Saul and I walked over to the line and stood near the end. The people in front of us dragged forward a couple of feet every few minutes. An old man came and stood behind us that I recognized as my grandfather’s friend, Verne. Verne was a slim man with white, thin hair and a face carved with wrinkles and dry cracks. After his wife died our mother would sometimes cook for him and he would come over to eat. He enjoyed jokes and had a laugh that warmed a room.
“Hello, Verne!” I said.
The old man looked at me with wide, scared eyes and forced a smile. “Hello?” he croaked.
“Are you going down to Mungus?” I asked.
Verne looked at me, his eyebrows pulled together in confusion, then looked at Saul. “Mungus?”
“Yes, are you going to Mungus?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do I belong here?”
I looked at Verne. He had changed since the last time that I had seen him. His eyes were sunken deep into his face and his skin had turned yellow with snowflakes of ashy flecks sprinkled. I then looked up at Saul. He was leaning back on his heels and trying to stay away from Verne. He couldn’t understand what had happened to the old man, and things that Saul didn’t understand scared him.
“Did you sign the contract, Verne?” I asked him.
“Of course I can sign a contract. I always sign them.”
“Okay, Verne,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll just wait in line and then get you help.”
He laughed. “I think that I need help.”
“I’m Walt,” I said and put out my hand, but Verne didn’t notice and all expression left his face as he stared off into the distance. From that point on, I didn’t try to talk to the old man. He was in a daze as he slowly shuffled his feet to follow Saul and I as the line moved.
When we got to the front, the blond woman was standing with an electronic clipboard and asked us our names. She was chewing pink bubble gum in between her white teeth. Her high cheekbones were colored in with rosy powder and her eyes were lined with deep black color. “What’s your name?” she asked Saul.
“Saul Higgins.”
She typed in the letters. “Go right ahead, Mr. Higgins.”
Saul walked through the doorway and down the hall, holding our suitcase.
“What’s your name?” she asked me, not looking at me but staring at her clipboard.
“My name is Walter Higgins and I wanted to talk to you…”
She typed my name into the computer and interrupted me, “Go right ahead, Mr. Higgins.”
“Ma’m,” I said; she looked up from her clipboard. “I need to talk to you.”
“Yes?” she asked, flashing an artificial smile that said ‘I don’t have time for this.’
“The man behind me is a family friend of mine, Verne Foster. I think that there has been some kind of a mistake. He’s getting old and confused and he doesn’t know where he belongs. He shouldn’t have been allowed to sign the contract and I think that he should stay here on the ship. Could you get someone to escort him back to his house? He’s lost.”
“What is his full name?” she asked.
“Verne Foster,” I repeated.
She typed the name in and said, “Nope, he’s right. He belongs on the ship. He signed the contract. Go right ahead, Mr. Higgins so that I can continue getting people onto the ship.”
She was about to ask the next person in line for their name but I interrupted her. “You don’t understand,” I said. “He may have signed the contract, but just look at him! He doesn’t know what’s going on! He couldn’t have known what it meant!” Verne was standing with his hands in his back pockets and his head was drooped down as if he had dozed off on his feet. “So please, could you get someone to help him?”
“If he signed the contract, Mr. Higgins, then he signed the contract. And it’s none of your business what anyone else does, is it? No one told you whether or not you should sign the contract.”
“Actually, they did. Since I’m not eighteen…”
She put up her hand to stop me. “Mr. Higgins, please enter through the doorway and walk to the ship. Mr. Foster signed the contract. If you continue to argue this fact, I will call security and they will have you detained on your passage to Mungus. Will that be necessary?”
“No ma’m,” I said.
“That’s a good boy,” she said with a giant mocking smile as she smacked on her pink gum. “Now have a nice day.”
I walked down the hallway with Verne and heard the blonde woman ask the next person, “First and last name?” before I turned the first corner and the voices from the loading dock disappeared. I was upset. It wasn’t right. I could almost understand making me sign the contract. I wouldn’t be much use in helping to build up Terra and, for me, seven years of servitude would go by fast and I would still have a good portion of my life to live as a free man. That wasn’t the case for Verne. When he signed the contract, he didn’t know what he was getting into. Seven years could be the rest of his life.
I came down the hall that led up a couple of metal stairs to the doorway of the ship. Through the doorway I could see men and women taking their seats and getting strapped in. To the left of the doorway stood a man in a black suit with a pin on his left breast that said, “Captain Geoffrey Chalmers”. A young blond man with blue eyes and thick shoulders stood on the other side of the doorway. He was wearing a jumpsuit identical to the one that the blonde woman with the clipboard had on and I guessed that he was also a flight attendant.
“Good afternoon,” the captain said, shaking both Verne’s hand and mine. “I will be your captain today and I wish you both a comfortable and safe trip.”
“Captain, there has been a mistake,” I said.
The captain looked concerned and crouched down putting his hands on his knees to be at my level. “What would that be, son? Anything that we can do for you?”
He smelled of cologne and his black hair was slicked back tightly onto his head. “This man,” I said, indicating Verne with my hands, “he’s a family friend of mine. He signed the contract to go down and help Ramus, but I don’t think that he quite understood it. I think that he is getting confused in his age. I think that there’s something wrong with him. I told the flight attendant who was checking names and she seemed to not care. Could you help him?”
“Hmm,” the captain said and stood up and looked Verne in the eye. “Sir, what is your name?” he asked in a loud clear voice.
Verne pursed his lips and shook his head while looking at the ground. “I can’t remember.”
Some more Grecos walked passed us and the captain greeted them before they walked onto the ship.
“He’s probably fine,” the captain said with a pat on my back. “Allergies sometimes make me confused too. Now, you two go find your seats. We’ll be taking off shortly.”
When the captain talked to me he smiled and nodded a lot as if I was a small child who couldn’t understand big words. My stature and young face had made the captain think that I was probably three years younger than I actually was.
“Sir, I think that this man has something more than allergies. Could you please call someone to have him escorted back to his house?”
More passengers walked by and boarded the ship. The captain smiled and shook their hands and welcomed them on board. When they were gone the smile vanished from his face and he looked at me, this time not crouching to my level but standing at his full height, and said, “with all due respect, son,” pointing a finger into my chest, “and I’m guessing that not much is due because you are probably in grade school, I think that this man is fine. I’m a captain and you’re a passenger. I’m an adult and you’re a kid. This is my call. He’s fine. So please, board the ship.”
Something in those eyes scared me and made me feel like a lamb looking up at a butcher. He was right, in some ways. He was the boss and I was not, and so whether or not I was right, he was the one who got to make the decisions. So I decided to take the situation to a new boss.
“C’mon, Verne,” I said grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and walking back down the hall from where we came.
“Where are you going?” the captain asked me.
I heard his footsteps behind me and I began to walk faster.
I was going to report this to another authority, but I didn’t answer.
The captain grabbed me by the back of the shirt and flung me up against the wall. His strong hands held my collar and pushed into the back of my neck. My head was turned to the side and my cheek was pressed against the carpeted wall.
Passengers were walking by and the captain laughed calmly to them and said, “He’s a little nervous about the flight.”
The people chuckled and then continued on. I tried to call for help, but the breath had been knocked out of me. I heard the captain behind me getting something out of his pocket.
I felt a needle go into my neck. “That should have you feeling much better, sir.” He pulled the syringe out and his grip on me loosened. “Brandon, will you come and escort this young man to the holding cell while I greet the passengers?”
The big blond man came over and picked me up and pulled me onto his shoulder. I was trying to fight, but my muscles wouldn’t cooperate. As he carried me, I watched the heels of his boots come up behind him. “Please, no!” I felt a tickling sensation in the back of my throat and tried to remain conscious, but I felt as though I was trying to hold onto a wall of ice. I was slipping. I swallowed hard and looked around for any help but found none. My head grew heavy and I knew that I was about to go. My last thought was, ‘I have to warn Saul! There’s something wrong!’ and then I fell into a dreamless unconscious state.