A. K. A. The Alien: series 2 Read online

chair. “Ma’am,” he said again. And that was definitely his ‘I’m humouring you’ voice.

  I was glad I wasn’t the only one he used it on.

  2.4. Going to Munro

  After a full 24-hour period without any sign of me they concluded I had left, and they cautiously re-started the ship to resume their journey to Camp Munro. Not wanting to rush things, I waited another 24 hours and then returned to the Bonaventure in corporeal form. They promptly stopped the ship again.

  My statement that I had left the ship as requested and thus fulfilled my part of the Agreement with the result that they now had to fulfil their part of it did not go down well.

  Commander Nichols was brought in once more, and told me the ship was not going anywhere whilst I was on board. And it was especially not going to Camp Munro.

  “Shall I go ahead and wait for you at Camp Munro? I can get to know the people there while I wait,” I suggested. This also did not go down well.

  There was the usual blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah, so I decided to speed things up. I left the ship and I started pushing it in the direction of Camp Munro. Not wanting to upset any-one I ensured it was a steady and even ride, no different to how it had been when under her own engines. Even when they started trying to turn her aside or put her in reverse I took care to make sure the ride was still smooth and mechanical. Whilst still moving towards Camp Munro.

  As I could not be corporeal inside the ship while also pushing from the outside I luckily missed most of the resultant fuss. I missed the alarm starting up (yet again), I missed every-one scurrying backwards and forwards trying to work out what was happening, and how, and why, and I missed the few people who knew the ship was not moving normally telling all the many people who were blissfully unaware anything out of the ordinary was happening that something unexplained, and probably highly dangerous, was going on. I thankfully also missed out on Captain Munk’s anger at what was happening to her ship and her crew’s inability to do anything about it. I think the rest of the crew heartily wished that they could have missed out on Captain Munk’s anger as well. She used some very rude words that I’m not sure some-one of her rank should have employed in public.

  I could not see what all the fuss was about: the Bonaventure was going in the direction they wanted, and I was going in the direction I wanted. I couldn’t see a downside at all.

  2.5. Getting a new job

  I pushed the Bonaventure for the next three days. I think they were waiting to see if I got tired, or maybe just bored. I was happy to push the ship all the way to Camp Munro as long as it got us all there.

  As I could not be corporeal inside and incorporeal outside at the same time, every hour or so I briefly nipped back inside to see what was going on. I ignored the requests for dialogue until the third day, when Lieutenant Shue left a note on the vu-screen in the conference room, asking for an urgent meeting on a matter that had nothing to do with the Agreement or our disagreement over it.

  I reassembled my Ben-body cautiously, not putting it past them to have come up with some elaborate plan that involved ambushing me and locking me in the brig, but I had wronged them, and as soon as Lieutenant Shue was informed I was back on board he came running up to the conference room. He was accompanied by Dr Howard. Ever since she had come to inspect my injured hand and discovered I had healed myself we had talked together a few times. She was my back-up friend after Lieutenant Shue.

  “We need control of the ship again,” Lieutenant Shue said. “We need to divert away from our current course and go to meet another ship. They have a medical emergency, and we are the closest ship with a doctor on board.” He studied me to see if I believed him or thought he was trying to trick me. Dr Howard nodded earnestly in agreement.

  “That sounds interesting,” I said.

  “Possibly more so for you than for the person involved,” Lieutenant Shue commented.

  “What kind of medical emergency?” I asked Dr Howard.

  “Suspected appendicitis.”

  “Oh goody.”

  “So can we have control of the ship?” Lieutenant Shue asked.

  I waved my hand. “You’ve already got it.”

  I think he was expecting a bit more opposition or at least suspicion, but he hastily called through to the Captain.

  “Are you going to operate?” I asked Dr Howard.

  “If it is appendicitis.”

  “Can I be your Theatre Nurse?” I asked. “I know all the names of the surgical instruments.”

  “He probably knows them better than I do,” Dr Howard said softly to Lieutenant Shue.

  “I’m sure Dr Howard already has some-one in mind,” Lieutenant Shue said.

  Dr Howard wriggled uncomfortably and then shrugged. She wasn’t quite so happy about refusing me in case I got upset.

  “I’ll ask the Captain,” he said.

  That was 50-50, then.

  “And thank-you,” he added.

  He even meant it.

  2.6. The appendicitis potential

  The ship we went to meet was one of the string of ships making their way out to the site of the Invincible to investigate her (accidental) demise. Even though I had already written a statement fully explaining how it had happened. This ship, however, was not an official one, but a salvage vessel that liked to bob round in the wake of the John of Dublin, following the larger ship to salvage all the small pieces they did not bother to collect, in the hope of finding something of value that had been overlooked. This had happened seven years before, and the crew of the Sam Baugh were still waiting for another windfall to drop into their lap.

  Dr Howard confirmed that the crewman was indeed suffering from appendicitis and he was promptly whisked onto the Bonaventure and into the hospital. I had to move out of my room for the duration of his stay, so they set up a temporary bed for me in one corner of the conference room in order to head off any complaints about being displaced. Or any requests to be moved into a proper cabin.

  Lieutenant Shue drew me aside for a private conversation.

  “It is important you do or say nothing that would identify you as a non-human,” he announced.

  I considered this. “The entire crew of the Bonaventure knows I am a non-human. The scientific half of the John of Dublin knows I am a non-human.”

  “And all of them are employed by Min-XR. If any of them disclosed unauthorised information they would be fired, and therefore would probably never work again. The crew of the Sam Baugh, however, are civilians. They no doubt have a very profitable sideline in passing interesting info on to the newsnets.”

  “And this is a bad thing because ...?”

  “Well, how do you feel about people asking you your name, or questioning you about your race? Or asking you to shape-shift in front of them? Or dematerialise? Perhaps ask you to explain the secrets of the universe?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I shall be entirely human.”

  “Perhaps we should go over that.”

  Dr Howard and I operated on the crewman within an hour of him coming on board, Captain Munk having eventually agreed to let me assist.

  It was great fun. I suggested we explore more of his body while we were there, but Dr Howard refused. It was apparently not ethnical.

  Although she did let me dissect the inflamed appendix in consolation.

  2.7. The Tarset experience

  The crew of the Bonaventure were employed by Mineral Exploration and Retrieval. Its logo was a six-pointed star surrounded by six smaller ones, and they employed 4.6 million people over five sectors. They were currently at war with the Fleur Group, who had a logo of a blue flower with green stalk and leaves, and 5.3 million employees. The crew of the Sam Baugh belonged to the George Tarset Company. They had no logo, and they employed two people. And that included George Tarset himself.

  The ill crew member, Joey Tarset, had to remain in the Bonaventure for a couple of days after his operation for observation
, and it just so happened I bumped into George Tarset when he came visiting, and we got to talking. As one does. As a result I was invited to have a look round the Sam Baugh, which was an invitation I took up almost immediately.

  The Sam Baugh was an untidy ship. The Tarsets just left things wherever they thought they might be most useful, whether that was its correct position or not, including every table, every seat and every inch of the floor. They did not seem to throw much away, either, and their washing-up was apparently done on a weekly basis. The whole ship smelt of unwashed clothes.

  George Tarset ended his tour with an exhibition of souvenirs retained from a number of past salvage jobs, which he showed me, very slowly, one by one. He explained the location and date of the job, the nature of the ship and the reason why he had retained this particular piece. The stories were long and convoluted, usually confused, and none of them included anything remotely exciting or dramatic, or even vaguely interesting. Most of the time there seemed to be no reason to keep a souvenir at all.

  George Tarset was the most boring human I had ever met. He had nothing of interest to say, and he said it badly, and at length. When I escaped from him at the changing of the watch we were still only half way through his collection of deformed metal scraps, bivalve flanges and dusty cable housing.

  I invited myself back at the end of the watch so we could go over the other half of his souvenirs. I had not yet been bored on the Bonaventure and I wanted to enjoy the experience while I could.

 

  2.8. The old witch

  Dr Howard eventually passed Tarset as fit to travel and the Sam Baugh departed. Not, as she had recommended, back to Camp Munro, but on to the wreck of the Invincible, although what one old man and one convalescent could do there was beyond most people’s imagination. The Bonaventure quietly resumed her own voyage towards Camp Munro. No mention was made of any previous disagreement there might have been over our destination or our manner of getting there. This amnesia I recognised as a social convention by which any awkward disagreement could be politely glossed over and forgotten. For a while at least.

  Lieutenant Shue got me work in the ship’s laundry for a week or so. The laundry staff was torn between not wanting me anywhere near them and the desire to show me just how important they were to the successful running of the ship. I used the occasion to do more of my crew portraits and Lieutenant Shue, still being nosy about the drawings, had a look through them.

  He frowned when he came across the most recent one I had done of Captain Munk and separated it out to lay it on the table.

  “Captain Munk must never see this,” he said, and then re-considered. “No-one should ever see this.”

  I was rather proud of it. It showed the Captain on the bridge, in a typical Captain Munk pose, with a typical Captain Munk expression.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You’ve made her look like a bad-tempered old witch.”

  “She is a bad-tempered old witch.”

  “You cannot show the Captain as a bad-tempered old witch. You need to show her some respect.”

  “So you want me to draw her as noble and inspirational?”

  “Just competent would do,” he replied. “Competent, confident, reliable. How she usually is, not in one of her bouts of bad temper. Which were remarkably rare before you came along.” He held out the sheet of paper. “Hide this away somewhere secure. Better yet, destroy it.”

  I still thought it was a remarkably accurate portrait of the Captain. I had perfectly caught her pursed lips, her deep frown and her disapproving glare, and it was a much more interesting image than any picture of her looking competent and reliable. It was going to get hidden, not shredded.

  “Should you be calling your Captain an old witch?” I asked.

  His glare was almost as good as the Captain’s.

 

  2.9. Always mention the tumour

  Dr Howard was doing Lieutenant Shue a favour. Dr Howard was talking to me. Captain Munk insisted that I eat with the officers, even though they did not want me there, because she was rather I was under their eyes than off doing my own thing in the canteen or the coffee lounge. No-one talked to me other than Lieutenant Shue, but as we already talked every day during our briefing and a number of other times throughout the watches, this was not as exciting as it could have been for either of us.

  We were sitting by the bar after dinner. Lieutenant Shue was talking to Lieutenant Weston, who had ventured close to me because she wanted to talk to him about something, and Dr Howard was sitting next to me. I was experimenting with lemonade and ice.

  “When you operate on Petty Officer Teresawa’s tumour, can I assist?” I asked.

  “What tumour?” Dr Howard asked, sounding surprised.

  “The one on her liver.”

  “How do you know she has a tumour on her liver?”

  “I saw it when I copied her when I first came on board.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention it before now?” demanded Lieutenant Shue. He was never relaxed when around me and had been half-listening to my conversation with Dr Howard whilst talking to Lieutenant Weston.

  I already knew the answer to this was not ‘why should I?’

  “It never came up in conversation,” I said instead.

  P.O. Teresawa was duly called in for a scan the next day, and there it was. A small but undeniable tumour on her liver. She was promptly booked in for surgery on the following day, and I asked again if I could assist.

  P.O. Teresawa did not want me anywhere near her unconscious body until Dr Howard pointed out that she wouldn’t be having surgery at all if it wasn’t for me. At which point she agreed. Rather reluctantly. Possibly extremely reluctantly.

  We carried out the operation successfully, and Dr Howard supervised me while I dissected and analysed the tumour afterwards, and we had a long and interesting talk on tumours. Teresawa was saved and I was entertained. I even remembered I had to show appropriate concern for the patient, and asked after her health two days later. And not just because I wanted my bed back in the ward.

  2.10. On choosing a new name

  Captain Munk’s superiors had not yet given up hope of keeping me away from Camp Munro. The Bonaventure was still heading there, but we had gradually been reducing speed and we were no longer heading there by the most direct route. At our current rate we would get there in about three years. Captain Munk was holding long conversations with her bosses, some of whom were still convinced I had to be an ally of the Fleur Company, as they tried to work out what to do about me. She did not believe I was a Fleur agent, but she did believe strongly that I should be kept well away from Camp Munro.

  Lieutenant Shue, who was an intelligent man most of the time, tried to hint to Captain Munk in their private briefings that it was highly likely I was well aware of the change in speed, the course alteration, and the debate on how to detain me. Captain Munk did not want to believe it, and therefore would not believe it. They had new security protocols on their systems, and no evidence that I had managed - or even tried - to crack them, ergo they were secure. Yeah, right.

  “I am going to solve all our problems,” I announced.

  “Which ones are those?” Lieutenant Shue asked suspiciously. I had asked to see Captain Munk so we were sitting together with the Lieutenant to the conference room. She never invited me into her private office.

  “You don’t want me on your ship, and you don’t want me at Camp Munro.”

  “So?”

  “I am going to join the Fleur Company,” I announced.

  Captain Munk’s expression was a mix of relief that I was going to leave her ship to go annoy some other poor bastard and total horror that I was going to take all the knowledge gained on the Bonaventure straight over to the enemy.

  Lieutenant Shue recovered first. “What about your ‘we are family’ line?” he demanded. “All that calling yourself ‘Ben Bonaventure’?”

  “You never liked my name,” I sai
d. “... I am going to adopt a new family, and a new name. I am now Ben Artemis Explorer.”

  The Lieutenant closed his eyes. “You’ve already chosen your next ship?”

  I unfolded my nexus and turned to the page showing the relevant information, pointing out the pictures. “The Artemis Explorer has a complement of 189 crew and scientific staff. There are three laboratories, a complete geochemical analysis suite, two decks of experimental plant nurseries, two aquaria, one ship’s cat and two pet rats. I think it will suit me very nicely.”

  “If you wish to transfer onto a research ship, I am sure we can easily come to an arrangement with a Min-XR ship,” he said.

  “But you still won’t like me. Perhaps the Fleur people will like me more.”

  “Have you been in contact with the Artemis already?”

  “Not yet. I was looking at a few different ships first. There was the Diana Explorer and -”

  “You do realize that out in 4/14 Fleur have been fighting us for the past four years?” Captain Munk interrupted angrily.

  I might, possibly, have known that. The war with Fleur out in 4/14 sector was on such a scale that the (accidental) death of 27 people would not even have been reported there, let alone worried over. It would have been pretty difficult not to have heard about the war.

  “Really?” I said. As I had no desire to get locked in a long debate with Captain Munk about the rights and wrongs of going over to Fleur I packed away my nexus and stood up. “We can decide on a leaving date later. I’m flexible.” As I slipped my nexus into my pocket I remembered the piece of paper and handed it over to the Lieutenant.

  “My new signature,” I explained as he unfolded it. “Do you like it?”

  He refolded the paper without a word. Perhaps it was the line drawing of a ship between the second and third lines he didn’t like.

  2.11. Do not borrow watches

  Gil Masterson wanted to be angry with me. Gil Masterson wanted to be extremely angry with me. Unfortunately he knew that I could ‘shape-shift’ and ‘dematerialise’ and that I had the strength to move both space debris and ships, and had no idea what other superpowers I might have. Plus the whole crew had been warned not to annoy me in case I threw a strop and damaged something or someone. Thus he wanted to be angry with me, couldn’t be, and was therefore not at all happy.

  Masterson ran the laundry on the Bonaventure and was currently my boss. He was also the possessor of an antique gold wristwatch of which he was very proud, especially since he had won it in a card game and it had cost him precisely nothing.

  Said watch was currently laid out in all its component parts on a table in the hospital since I had taken it to investigate it in greater detail as I had been intrigued by its mechanics. So far I had counted 124 pieces, 21 synthetic rubies and two diamonds. I had removed it without either telling Masterson I was taking it or what I planned to do with it. But I had read numerous books on watch repair via the slipstream and I was confident I could put it back together correctly and return it to him safe