The Archer's Paradox - The Travis Fletcher Chronicles (9 page)

“Can you stand?” The question was merely a request for information; there was no concern or sympathy in the voice.

“Of course I can.” Travis had no intention of appearing weak. He gritted his teeth, heaved himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The effort exhausted him and he sat hunched forward, panting heavily. Xnuk Ek’ regarded him coolly. Her instinct was to help another in obvious distress, but the distress of this one secretly pleased her.

My God, how long have I been on my back?
He thought.

“About one hundred days.” Travis looked up, startled. “According to the notes made by your healer on Sol 3, plus the time you have been here.” she continued, smirking.

Memories started to flood back and played through his mind like a montage of movie clips: the train journey, too much vodka (as usual), the crash (the noise, blood and death), flying through the air, nurses, Kylie Minogue (Eh?), doctors, being unable to move or communicate, strangers at the end of the bed, dying, floating in a tank of liquid, Xi Scorpii, 92.6 light-years, dreams of shattered lands, beautiful butterflies (WHAT?), birds with rainbows in their feathers, gagging for air. He started to hyperventilate, as reality hit him square in the face. He pitched forward. He saw the featureless floor rise up to meet him but merciful blackness engulfed him before he landed.

Xnuk Ek’’s mouth curled into a sneer as she regarded Travis’s limp body floating just above the floor. She had wanted to let him drop but could not face yet another reprimand by allowing him to be damaged. She gently increased the pressure under his body and raised it up to the height of the bed, a deft twist and Travis’s limp form was rotated in mid-air and dumped unceremoniously on the bed. After giving him a cursory scan, Xnuk Ek’ withdrew her mind. At least she did not have to touch it. Now she needed a method of transportation. She was not going to wait around for it to wake up again, and she would be exhausted before getting halfway to its allotted quarters using her telekinetic powers alone. So, where would I find that exuberant little
Aantah
?

**********

He woke with a start, expecting to be face down on the floor, but his senses informed him he was on his back and appeared to have suffered no injury from his fall. He managed to struggle up onto an elbow before the effort became too much. A number of things assailed his senses at once: he was no longer in the White Room, Shunekk, or whatever her name was, was lounging nonchalantly in a comfy looking chair, he was still as naked as the day he was
born and he was floating about half an inch above the bed. Xnuk Ek’ regarded him coolly with a small smile playing around her lips.

Ok, let’s deal with one thing at a time. Firstly, change of scenery.
“Where am I?” he enquired. The room was small and sparsely furnished; there was a door through to what looked like washing facilities and another to what looked like a living area. All the furniture seemed to be moulded out of the same grey, satin textured material as the floor. Indeed, the furniture and floor seemed to be of one mould and there was no window.

“In your cabin.” she replied simply. His expression required that she should give a fuller explanation. “You have been assigned quarters for the journey to Otoch. As you are still too weak to move yourself, I arranged transport for you while you were unconscious, again.” A small snicker escaped from her lips. For a fleeting moment, he had an odd picture in his mind of a limp body being shunted unceremoniously by a cargo mover.

“Not very imaginative décor.” he commented, glancing around.

“The room will eventually become accustomed to you but you are not yet strong enough to project a personality. That should answer your second question.” This went straight over Travis’ head but he was used to these people spouting apparent gibberish at him. He let it pass for the moment; there were more important matters at hand, before exhaustion took over again.

Ok, so skip past the question about the funky furniture.
“Why am I floating, and more to the point, HOW?”

“Do you find the experience comfortable?”

He had not considered this. “Yes, very.”

“Then just accept it for the moment. There are going to be so many things that you cannot begin to comprehend in the time to come that questioning your sleeping apparatus will seem insignificant.”

With an effort, he swung his legs over the bed and put them on the floor. The floor felt slightly warm, springy, and completely alien beneath his bare feet, and he thought he could feel a very vague vibration that made the floor seem alive. He dismissed the thought as delusional; probably the result of his weakened state or whatever drugs these aliens had been pumping into him. He tried to raise himself to his feet by pushing down on the bed with his hands. He made it halfway before his strength gave out and he sat down again with a grunt. Frustration and embarrassment collided with a sudden resurgence of his memory of the crash and the loss of his family and realisation that he would probably never see home again. He hunched forward, covering his face to hide the hot tears that welled up behind his eyes. His shoulders jerked rhythmically as he sobbed.

Xnuk Ek’ saw the dead faces of the alien’s family as they swam over the surface of his mind. She felt his love for them and his embarrassment at the wrongs he had done to them. She did not probe, and had difficulty comprehending it all, but she understood that he had done things that had hurt his kin and offended his honour and he was attempting to make amends when the crash happened. Now he was living with the shame and with no way to regain his honour. She thought about her own culture’s Code of Honour that would have demanded her life in similar circumstances, and she wondered how he could stand it. She went and knelt in front of the sobbing man and gently pulled his hands away from his face. His eyes, now red and puffy, were caught by hers. She bolstered his mental strength.

“I cannot take your pain away but I can make it more bearable.” she whispered.

“Did you cause the crash and kill my family?” he asked, through gritted teeth.

“No.” she replied. Mentally she bit her tongue.
Not a lie, but if he had worded the question differently
……he was about to ask another question but she deftly redirected his thoughts. The question forgotten, he nodded his acceptance. Xnuk Ek’ felt sick at the deception; she would confront Wingu Kanzu later. He may be her
Nuuktak
now but her honour was in direct conflict with her duty to him, so she had to find resolution. For the second time she felt compassion for the lonely alien; a feeling which unnerved her. She reached in and made him sleep. As he slumped forward she caught him and gently laid him down, leaving the cabin and resolving to return before he woke. She also needed to vent her frustrations, but she could not bring herself to inflict more suffering on that poor little
Aantah
. One bout of humiliation was enough but she did bear herself with honour and it would make her stronger. Xnuk Ek’ smiled a little at the thought and made her way to the Gaming Centre, hoping to meet a more equal opponent.

Travis woke feeling stronger and healthier than he had since the accident. He sat up and managed to get to his feet with only a little difficulty and began investigating his immediate surroundings. Still feeling a little unsteady, he made his way through to what he assumed to be the living area of the cabin. It was larger than the sleeping area, but still only had minimal furnishings with what looked like a work area and some sort of computer terminal, although it had no screen and he could not decipher the symbols on the keyboard. It felt like his flat when he first moved in; as if it was waiting for him to decorate and stamp his identity on it. There was what looked like a door in one wall with controls to one side which, he assumed, opened and closed it. The opposite wall had the frame of what looked like a sizeable window, but this was filled with the same material as the wall. He could find no storage for clothes and he was alone and naked. He padded back through the bedroom to the bathroom where he suddenly found he had an urgent need to make use of the facilities. It seemed that his movements had aggravated his, still delicate, system. He sat on what he assumed to be a toilet, although there was no water in the bowl, but at this moment he didn’t really care.

As his bowels emptied noisily and uncontrollably, he wondered idly what time it was. He had no watch, no clothes, and no personal effects; nothing to remind him of home except his memories. He also felt incredibly hungry. He could not remember the last time he had actually eaten anything that was not piped into him through a tube. It was probably breakfast, before the accident, over three months ago, if that alien bitch was to be believed. It was a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea while the taxi driver impatiently tapped his steering wheel outside. He remembered deliberately not rushing his tea. After all, he was paying for the driver’s time so why should he rush? It suddenly sounded incredibly arrogant as he played it back in his mind. What he wouldn’t give for a Sunday roast and a decent pint. He suddenly remembered that he had not washed up afterwards and wondered if anyone would find the mess he had left: the dirty dishes, underwear strewn over the bedroom, unwashed shirts,
his
car parked on the street. Would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Would his smalls fester and decay and play host to new and interesting life forms, while his car rusted away to a pile of scrap. And what about his missing body? He assumed that these aliens had spirited him away and not filled in the appropriate papers, or whatever, for the transfer of his remains. Another unsolved mysterious disappearance in an NHS hospital. Had this happened before? The press would have a field day! He smiled a little at the thought.

He moved to the cubicle that looked like a shower which started working as he entered. The toilet bowl melted back into the floor and reappeared moments later clean, fresh, and bearing no evidence of his recent occupation. After a few moments the pleasant tingling that played over his body left him feeling clean, refreshed and, surprisingly, sexually aroused. He stepped out of the cubicle, sporting a full erection, to see Xnuk Ek’ standing in the doorway. Blushing heavily, he dived back into the shower.

“Don’t you ever knock?” he shouted. This was the second time this ‘holier than thou’ bitch had seen him ‘standing proud’. Of course, the first time had been in a dream, but still, she might have been in his head, watching.
Fuck! Shit! Wank! Bollocks!

“Your embarrassment is unwarranted.” she said. He thought he heard a snicker in her voice. He did not hear her reprimanding herself for causing his embarrassment.

Superior, arrogant, stuck up bitch!
He fumed to himself and immediately regretted it, knowing that she could probably hear his thoughts.

“I can,” he heard her say, “although I have no wish to, as I find your thoughts offensive,” her voice was petulant, “and so will my people. The first thing you need to learn is control; otherwise you will find yourself having to defend your honour the moment you step out of this cabin.” Travis had no idea what that meant, but her tone had a finality about it that checked his next outburst. “There is a ship suit outside the cleansing cubicle and I will wait for you in the living area.”

Travis put his head out of the cubicle and found a shapeless piece of yellow material hanging on the wall, although he could not remember seeing a hook there. His engorged manhood had subsided somewhat as he stepped out and examined the suit. It seemed to be many sizes too big for him. “Is this some sort of joke?” he called through the opening.

“I do not understand” came the disembodied reply.

“There is no way this will fit me and the colour is shit.” he replied dismissively.

“I do not understand the reference. In what way does the colour represent faeces?”

Was she being deliberately obtuse? “I mean,”
he
corrected himself, “the colour is awful.” he waved the offending article at the doorway to the living area.

“The colour identifies you as a passenger and not a member of the crew.” she explained. “And the material will resize itself to you.” she continued as if she was talking to a child.

“If you say so.” he replied, sceptically. He stepped into the one-piece suit and found a bubble at the waist which, when pulled across his body to the shoulder then across to the neck, sealed the suit, leaving no sign of the fastening. Once done he felt the material contract until it hugged his body. “Fuck me!” he exclaimed in surprise. With the suit was a pair of soft soled boots in the same colour, also several sizes too large. He put them on and they shrank to fit as he fastened them. “Ok, I look like a sack of custard but I have worn worse.” he said to himself and stepped through to the living area.

While he had been away, a table had appeared with a bizarre array of food spread across it. There were two chairs, one of which Xnuk Ek’ lounged nonchalantly in.

“Where did this come from?” Travis was astounded.

“The ship is starting to understand you.”

“Stop talking in cryptic riddles.” Travis snapped.

“You still need to learn control.” Xnuk Ek’ continued, ignoring the outburst. Travis looked over the spread: muesli, Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, potatoes, peas, gravy, treacle sponge and custard, tea and a pint of bitter. Did he create this just by thinking? “Yes.” Xnuk Ek’ answered.

“Stay out of my mind!” Travis snapped.

“I am not in your mind. Your thoughts are there for me to see and they offend me.”
This is worse than instructing a new-born.
She thought to herself.
I do not deserve this penance.

It was too much, too fast, and Travis started to lose his tenuous grip on reality. His heart rate increased and his breathing came in short, sharp gasps. He felt Xnuk Ek’ ease into his consciousness.

Be at peace.
She urged gently.
Accept now, examine later.
He began to calm down and regarded the strange spread in front of him. He decided to forgo the muesli and concentrated instead on the roast dinner which tasted exactly like his mother used to make. The treacle sponge was just the right consistency with the treacle just hot enough not to burn his tongue. Xnuk Ek’ remained quiet while he ate, watching with a look of amusement and anticipation on her face. As he finished he instinctively reached for the beer but thought better of it. He decided that maybe alcohol was not the best thing for his body at the moment and instead took the tea.

The meal finished, he felt refreshed and ready to face whatever ordeal was coming. He had never considered what having a meal on a spaceship would be like but he was sure that it would never have included roast beef and Yorkshire pud. He idly wondered if the beef was actually real or some sort of alien goo made to look and taste like it. At this moment, he did not care. The feeling of contentment did not last long as the spasm in his bowels warned of impending evacuation. He had contracted diarrhoea enough times from dodgy curries to recognise the symptoms. He beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom, tearing at the suit to get it open. Having made it safely, his bowels emptied noisily for the second time since waking. He then managed to reverse his position just in time for his stomach contents to force their way through his mouth and nose. He looked up to see Xnuk Ek’ stood in the doorway with a look of mock disapproval on her face. Travis felt as pathetic as he looked as he clung miserably to the bowl and heaved again. This time nothing came out and the effort hurt his throat and he felt like his eyeballs were going to burst from his skull. He could feel blood vessels bursting around his eye sockets.

“Water.” he rasped. “Please.” Xnuk Ek’ turned away and after a short pause turned back, holding out a dumpy drinking vessel filled with cool water. “Thanks.” Travis sat, his ship suit round his ankles, with his back against the wall and sipped gratefully.

“Did you not heed Sundaravāda Ci
ṭṭ
e?” she admonished him. “She said you would not yet have full control of your bodily functions.” she continued. “Maybe you should try to eat something simple that will not cause your body to reject it.”

“And you let me finish a full Sunday lunch without telling me!”

“Yes.”

“Bitch!”

“You seemed to enjoy ingesting the meal so I let you have the pleasure.” she replied, ignoring his insult.

“You are supposed to be looking after me” he finished the water and handed the container back to Xnuk Ek’. “How about toast and jam instead then?” he suggested on a whim.

“You should use the cleansing cubicle again.” she said, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and left. Travis stripped off the offending suit and boots and took a turn in the shower again, which left him feeling refreshed again - but without the arousal - and joined Xnuk Ek’ in the living area again.

He was startled to see that the table now contained a simple spread of toast and jam with a pot of steaming tea. He made no comment, deciding to accept the situation rather than question it, as his host suggested. He sat and nibbled tentatively rather than gorging himself. A lesson learned. Xnuk Ek’ sat and watched him in silence, trying to weigh up this strange alien that had her
Nuuktak
and the other senior scientists excited. Travis in turn studied his host. At every encounter with the alien so far he had either been panicking, dying or vomiting. He made a great ritual out of pouring tea, spreading butter and jam, or whatever was masquerading as them, on the toast, or whatever it was, and nibbling it, but all the while surreptitiously studying the woman across the table. He had decided that the alien was indeed a woman and an incredibly beautiful one at that. Unnaturally tall, if she’d been human, but elegant and graceful, like those super-models that were splashed over the covers of those fashion magazines (not that he ever read them, of course), not gawky and awkward like most tall girls he had known. Every move she made had a little flourish that caught his eye and perpetuated the ‘super-model’ idea. Her skin was perfect and unblemished with a healthy tan, which made her silver hair and irises stand out even more, and that ship suit hugged every curve of her body, which was in perfect proportions to his eyes; not too much, not too little. She cocked her head to one side and smiled a smile which lit up the room and seemed to raise the temperature by a couple of degrees.

Travis realised he had stopped eating and was staring. His mouth was open with the corner of a piece of toast resting on his bottom teeth. Not only that, he was once again sporting a full erection. Luckily it was under the table this time; this suit left nothing to the imagination. Xnuk Ek’’s smile broadened, she raised her eyebrows and her eyes twinkled mischievously. Travis flushed heavily, suddenly realising that the bitch could probably overhear everything he was thinking.

“Fuck off!” he spat, more out of embarrassment than anger and bit down aggressively on his toast. Her smile disappeared and was replaced by the look of disapproving disdain he was used to.

After a short pause her features softened a little. “You are an enigma.” she said, suddenly. Travis looked up and straight into her eyes, which held him for a long moment before she spoke again. “By all statistics and evidence, your race should be extinct. Yet you number in the billions with no sign of slowing down.”

“You came a long way then, on the off-chance we were still here.” Travis countered, not sure where this was going.

“It was not
you
we came to find.” she stated simply.

“Eh!?” Travis was confused. “Who then?”

“The
Original
s.”

“Original humans? But we are the only humans.” he said, a little plaintively.

“No you are not!” Travis was taken aback by the force of Xnuk Ek’’s retort. “The Originals were thriving the last time my people visited your planet, but something happened and they are all but extinct and have been replaced by
you
.” she finished with a sneer.

“But ….” Travis did not really understand what Xnuk Ek’ was getting at and he was not sure what he was going to say, but she cut him off before he got any further.

“At this stage in your evolution you should have put war aside, stopped worshiping mythical deities and at least be exploring your own solar system, yet you have not even got past your own moon and you continue to kill each other with increasing efficiency. Is this why you feel the need to breed with such profusion?”