Stranded in Space Read online

  “Kugah?” A woman’s voice broke through his panic and rage. The voice was gentle, and almost soothing. She followed up the name with a string of words Kugah didn’t recognise.

  They didn’t seem like angry words though.

  Kugah turned and stared at the human woman, who stood next to Kerit’s brother. She was different to the others. He’d seen her watching him in the room, even though she hadn’t known he knew.

  She’d been standing alone, just like he was, and for a second, he’d thought maybe she could understand.

  Maybe she would have, if he hadn’t just injured one of her friends.

  Despite that, and the fear he could smell emanating from her, she didn’t look angry. Her expression was compassionate.

  Tyris though, frowned. He said something Kugah couldn’t understand, his words sharp.

  The woman’s expression didn’t change. She put up a hand towards Tyris, and said something. Whatever it was made Tyris step back with a nod.

  The woman made a motion with her hand, and then headed down the corridor.

  Something about her drew him. So Kugah followed her. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

  As he walked down the empty corridors, the scene in the room full of windows played out in his head. The expression on the man’s face had been a mixture of fear and anger, the strong emotions instantly recognisable, even though his species was entirely different from Kugah’s.

  Just like the expression on his grandmother’s face.

  As soon as the thought entered his mind, Kugah tried to block it. But the harder he tried, the more the memories clamoured at his mind.

  After his metamorphosis he’d been given permission to visit his home town. At first he hadn’t realised why the Gokak official’s face had showed so much humour when he stamped his papers. He knew he looked different, but he hadn’t felt any different inside. He’d thought that the people who loved him would be able to see past that. After all, they’d accepted the Gokak into their world and lives.

  It wasn’t until he disembarked from the shuttle in the middle of the town square where he and his brothers and sisters had played as children, that he’d realised it wasn’t that simple.

  They’d accepted the Gokak’s presence, but they had never welcomed them. The simmering dislike under the surface meant that people had shied away from his dark, forbidding form as soon as his feet had touched the ground. They had no chance to realise that he was the same person inside. He was so unrecognisable that they ran from him, even though some of them had known him since he was a child.

  In desperation, he had walked through the streets to his home, having to bend at the waist to fit through the door. His grandmother had yelled at him to leave. Kugah’s skin tried to pull away from the armour it was attached to as he remembered her screams.

  No, he didn’t want to remember. He had come all this way to try to forget.

  But the memory would not be silenced any more than his attempts to tell her that he had no intention of hurting her had silenced his grandmother’s screams.

  His voice had been so changed by the metamorphosis that she hadn’t even been able to understand what he was saying. She’d yelled at him to get out, that she would have no Ta-Sofana in her house.

  She would never have accepted that he was her grandson, even if he’d been able to make her understand the words.

  Once he had undergone the Gokak’s enhanced evolution modification, he could never be the same person again.

  Kugah’s footsteps slowed, lost in the memory.

  He had done it all for her even though she couldn’t see that. Without the treatment for her illness, she would have already been dead. But a price had to be paid.

  His metamorphosis was that price.

  That had been just the beginning.

  This time, Kugah did cut the memories off. Following that path any further led to madness, and he had already come back from the brink once. He wasn’t sure he could do it again.

  He wasn’t sure he would want to.

  He forced his eyes to refocus on the woman walking down the hallway in front of him.

  The humans were right to be afraid of him. If even his own people had feared him, how could these weak humans do any differently? He was a killing machine, designed to be perfect at that task. There was no physical weapon or ability that he lacked.

  These humans didn’t even carry a weapon. They were a peaceful people. Like his people had been. He didn’t belong here.

  It had been a mistake to let Kerit talk him into coming with them. He should just have accepted Folly’s offer of her spaceship. Then he would be long gone from here.

  And these people would have no home.

  He didn’t understand why they couldn’t have stayed on the planet he had been trapped on, but it was clear from the antagonism he could sense between those on the ship, and those who had remained behind, that they couldn’t live together.

  The area contained many habitable planets occupied by others of their species though. It shouldn’t take them long to find somewhere to settle. Then Kerit had promised to help him find a home.

  Why the gutsy human had decided to help him he wasn’t sure. Certainly Kugah had given him no reason to. But for some reason, he trusted the human.

  As much as he trusted anyone anyway.

  He just had to ignore the humans’ suspicious stares and wait his turn. Then he could get what he wanted. He could live the rest of his life alone. On a barren planet, one where his weaponised form couldn’t harm anyone.

  Where no one could hurt him.

  Chapter 2

  “I need two volunteers to watch Kugah,” Tyris said quietly into his communicator.

  Amelie glanced at the door to Kugah’s room. With the door closed, she was sure he couldn’t hear them, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him anyway.

  He hadn’t been trying to hurt anyone. He’d been afraid and running, only hitting Talah by accident.

  But she couldn’t blame Tyris for wanting to keep an eye on him either. It was sheer luck Talah hadn’t been more seriously injured. Obviously something needed to be done.

  If only she knew what.

  After the men had arrived, both of them headed back to the observation deck, though the incident had dampened Amelie’s excitement over the test flight a little.

  On the way, Tyris opened his mouth to say something, just as both his and Amelie’s communicators beeped. “The Tahlia-Mae has returned,” Nerris’s voice announced. “Can you come down to shuttle bay please?”

  Amelie’s heart skipped a beat. Kerit and Folly were back. Did that mean it had worked? Her heart thumped harder. All the excitement was back in a second. They were all counting on this.

  “We’ll be there immediately,” Tyris responded. He glanced sideways at her, and without a word, both of them broke into a run.

  Amelie stood next to Tyris as the shuttle bay door slid open, only the force field holding back the emptiness of space as the Tahlia Mae slid in. The little ship looked so small in the cavernous space. Even smaller than their shuttle or Kugah’s alien ship.

  Amelie stared at it, looking for any signs of mishap. Its frame was already quite battered from years stored in the caves on Semala, but to Amelie’s eye, it looked unscathed from its journey.

  That was a good sign, right?

  The door creaked open, and Folly appeared in the doorway, followed by Kerit. Both of them were beaming.

  “Did it work?” Tyris asked sharply, almost before the young couple had emerged from the hatch.

  “Yes!” Folly said jubilantly. “And it took far less time than we had predicted. Less than a minute.”

  Amelie’s heart sagged in relief. She hadn’t realised until that moment how nervous she’d been about this flight. But the relief at knowing they had another option, that they could escape from Colonial space and never have to return, was enormous.

  A tiny white streak, moving so fast Amelie could barely make out i
ts shape, ran from a pile of boxes, over to Folly, and up her leg. Amelie couldn’t help a smile. Folly’s pet, a native animal from Semala called a skuttle, was shy and spent most of its time hiding, probably why she’d named it ‘Chicken’. But it’s huge ears and fluffy tail were adorable, and the few children already on board the Resolution had spent hours trying to tempt it out of her pocket with food, usually successfully.

  “Fifty-three seconds, to be exact.” Kerit, Folly’s fiancé and co-pilot on this trip, was grinning from ear to ear.

  “What?” Tyris’s voice was sharp. He stared at his brother, shaking his head. “That’s not possible.”

  A happy go lucky surfer who had thrown his lot in with his brother when he faced opposition from the Colonies, Kerit was always joking about something. Not this time though.

  “Travelling through a wormhole isn’t supposed to be possible at all, bro. At least, not according to all the scientists in the Colonies,” Kerit said, sweeping his long blonde hair out of his eyes and slapping his brother on the shoulder. “Why is the time it took us the impossible bit?”

  “But…” Tyris looked from one to the other. “But when we were planning for this trip, you said it took a couple of hours, Folly.”

  Folly shrugged, ruffling Chicken’s fur absently “I was a kid, everything seemed to take ages to me. I probably couldn’t tell what was normal flight and when we actually entered the wormhole. It all feels just the same, unless you’re watching.”

  Her explanation made sense. Or as much sense as everything else. Amelie knew little about the theories behind wormhole travel, which as Kerit had already said, was supposed to be impossible anyway, so it all seemed fantastical to her.

  “Even so, you’ve been gone a lot longer than fifty-three seconds,” Tyris pointed out. “Maybe the wormhole travel changes the recording of time?”

  Folly and Kerit both blushed. “We, ah, were spent a little time checking our coordinates and, ah, giving the wormhole machine a rest before returning,” Kerit said.

  Tyris raised an eyebrow. “Checking the wormhole machine? That’s a new one.”

  Amelie bit back a laugh. Folly and Kerit did make a cute couple, even though their closeness reminded her of all the things she couldn’t have.

  “You mean the orp,” Folly corrected, her face deadly serious.

  “Orp?” Tyris asked. He looked from Folly to Kerit, but his brother looked as mystified as he was.

  “The Artificial Wormhole Projector,” Folly said. “The AWP. That’s what it’s called.”

  Tyris looked taken aback for a minute, but the serious look on Folly’s face wasn’t open to any disagreements. “The AWP,” Tyris agreed.

  “I need to give both of you a medical check,” Amelie interrupted, figuring Tyris needed help.

  Folly frowned. “I feel fine.”

  “You may right now, but if something goes wrong later then the readings I take now could be instrumental in diagnosing a problem.”

  “And this isn’t just about you,” Tyris reminded her. “We need to make sure the flight is safe for everyone on board this ship.”

  Folly frowned, but didn’t object further. She tucked the little creature back into her pocket, and stood patiently while Amelie pulled her stethoscope out of her bag, and listened to her heartbeat, checked her reflexes, and looked into her eyes. Then she did the same for Kerit. Finally, she took some blood samples just in case.

  “You both look fine,” she pronounced. “But I’ll need to run some further tests before I can say for certain.”

  Ignoring the last part of her sentence, Folly said, “I told you so.” She turned to Tyris. “So how soon can we have the device fitted to the Resolution?”

  “Nerris thinks a week.”

  A cold shiver ran through Amelie. That was awfully close. Somehow, it felt like they were rushing things. Back on Urslat, technology like this would be tested for months, if not years, before it was approved for commercial use.

  Folly’s face fell. “A week? That’s ages.”

  “Never mind,” Kerit said quickly. “I’m sure we can figure out something to keep us busy while we wait.”

  The subtle meaning in his voice was only confirmed by Folly’s blush.

  “We have something more important to figure out right now,” Tyris said firmly.

  Kerit raised an eyebrow. “What’s up, bro?”

  “Kugah attacked a man on the observation deck.”

  Kerit’s face went pale. “What happened?”

  They filled him in on the way to the briefing room, where Marlee met them at the door, her face worried. “I sent most of the people back to their rooms, but the crew’s all here.”

  Amelie looked around at the familiar faces sitting at the big table in the briefing room. The wealth of experience and knowledge of those Tyris had chosen to help him with running the spaceship and establishing their new colony, gave her a small measure of relief. Surely they could figure out a way to solve this problem?

  Tyris’s opening comment wasn’t promising. “I think we need to consider taking him to the Colonies,” he said quietly. “They have more resources to deal with an issue like this.”

  Kerit shot up out of his seat almost before he’d finished sitting down. “You can’t do that,” he said immediately. “They’ll want to experiment on him, surely you know that, Tyris? Tell him, Dr Benton,” Kerit appealed to Amelie.

  Amelie hesitated, torn. Kerit had a point, but then, so did Tyris. Besides, her position here was to give her scientific and medical opinion. As well as her ethical one. “Our first responsibility is to the men, women and children on board this ship,” she reminded Kerit. “We offered them a new home. A safe home. We do need to consider the fact that this alien could be a threat to that.”

  She said the words, but she couldn’t really bring herself to believe them. Despite his threatening appearance, she couldn’t convince herself that Kugah meant any harm.

  But that was her personal opinion, not her professional one, so she kept it to herself.

  “He certainly has the ability to,” Molly, the woman who had adopted Folly after her mother died, said. Her expression was interested. She’d studied alien animals on many worlds, but like Amelie, this was her first sentient one. “We need to keep that in mind at all times.”

  “Well, I told Kugah that I’d help him find his home,” Kerit said stubbornly. “And I’m not about to retract that because some idiot had to freak him out. From what you’ve all said, Kugah didn’t mean to hurt that guy, despite the fact that the guy definitely provoked him. I don’t see that we have a problem.”

  He looked around the room, his gaze challenging everyone. His eyes lingered on Amelie’s. “You can see that too, can’t you, Dr Benton?”

  Amelie hesitated, but she always felt honesty was the best policy. “I don’t believe Kugah intended to hurt anyone, no.”

  “But he’s quite clearly shown that he can hurt people without intending to,” Yasmyn said, her lips a thin line. “Even if he has the best intent in the world, we can’t ignore that fact.”

  Kerit threw up his hands. “Fine, lock him in his room then, but don’t give him up to the Colonies. Please.” His last pleading request was addressed to his brother.

  Tyris looked at Kerit for a few more minutes, then sighed. “I’ll see,” was all that he’d say. “For now, we’ll keep him confined to his room until I decide what to do. But I do think we need to prioritise finding him a new home, and getting him off our ship.”

  Kerit looked like he was going to protest, but Folly’s hand on his arm stopped him. He looked at her for a moment, an unspoken communication passing between them, then he subsided in his seat, though his face still looked mutinous.

  Tyris’s frown turned into a smile. “Since Folly and Kerit’s journey was a success, hopefully we’ll be on our way to our first possible destination soon.”

  There were return smiles, reserved, but hopeful.

  Amelie though, couldn’t help feeling
more hesitant. “I don’t think we should rush this. We have no idea what sort of effects travel through the wormhole could have, especially on the unborn or young babies.”

  Tyris frowned, and Amelie knew he was thinking of his own child. “I thought you said you hadn’t detected any negative effects from Folly and Kerit’s jump?”

  Amelie shook her head. “I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be. A new technology like this would be studied for years before it was approved for commercial use. There could be long term effects that we can’t even guess at yet.”

  “We don’t have years,” Tyris said firmly. “Is it safe or not?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “We do have a long term study,” Kerit broke in. “Folly travelled from Urslat to Semala as a young child, and she’s fine.”

  “One case study doesn’t guarantee anything.” They didn’t get it at all. Neither of them were scientists. This was far more complicated than either of them could imagine.

  “But there are no signs of anything going wrong that you can determine, right?” Tyris pushed.

  “No,” Amelie admitted unwillingly. “But I still think we need to be cautious.”

  Tyris nodded. “We will.” His definitive tone said he’d dismissed that concern and moved on. “Glesin has picked our first destination already and given the time Folly and Kerit reported, we should be in the wormhole for less than a minute.”

  Amelie felt a disproportionate feeling of relief. She didn’t know why, but the wormholes made her nervous. She’d done her share of space travel in her time, but this jumping from one place to another in a matter of seconds was just wrong. There had to be some sort of repercussions, even though they hadn’t seen any yet.

  “So what is our first destination?” Amelie asked. “Is it a potential home?”

  Glesin shook his head. “It’s still too close to the Colonies. Expansion would catch up to us in a generation or two. This is just a temporary jump, allowing us to see stars beyond our current range. It will give us the time we need to make decisions without rushing.”

  The plan didn’t resolve all Amelie’s qualms, but it did help. “How long until the engine is ready to go?”