Space Borrowers

.
Space borrowers
It had been a little like falling in love. You didn’t know exactly when it happened but you knew it had happened. We never knew exactly when they had come aboard or indeed how. There was a theory that they’d arrived in a consignment of recycling out of Ignis IX but that was only because our second engineer was so blind drunk that he thought buying a set of dancing tulips was an excellent idea in a portside bar. Whether he bought anything else there we didn’t know.

We first became aware that we were not alone when small power fluctuations were noted somewhere in the vents around J-deck. On a ship as old as the Cerulean that was not unusual. No one gave it any thought. Then small things began to go missing, the captain lost his favourite cigarette lighter, the ratings shyly whispered that someone had sabotaged the still that we all pretended we didn’t know about which was definitely not behind the thirteenth regulator unit in engineering. Umpteen other small things were noted as missing but no one put any of the pieces together, I doubt anyone would have noticed had  we not been limited to twenty kilos of personnel effects. It took about a year of ship time before we realised that we were not alone.

It was the morning after the captains birthday. We had settled into orbit above T-G 117, an asteroid orbiting Phobos. As the only crew man who didn’t drink, Singh was on watch. The rest of us were in the mess and well into the most recent vintage of the (recently repaired) still that did not exist.
Our chief engineer had decided that the best way to stop the room from spinning was to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling. The rest of us had decided to turn off the artificial gravity in the mess. While he screamed and desperately attempted to swim toward Mars, I drifted past a vent shaft. My eye must’ve just caught it at the right angle to see a very small but very strong set of lights about six inches beyond the grill. Curious I leant closer and was able to see something small rapidly disappearing up the shaft. If it hadn’t been hovering I would have written it off to the rats again. As the chief engineer chose this moment to attempt to adjust his trajectory by jettisoning a large portion of what he had drunk, my thoughts were cut short.

What I’d seen played on my mind however, especially as we ended up on an extended layover above Saturn the following week. With nothing to do and everything polished twice over, I began to get curious. I began to notice that vents across the ship had slightly larger holes in them than they should, and the edges of those holes looked to have been very finely lasered. It also hadn’t escaped me that while conducting an inventory of the escape pod rations that every single packet of boiled sweets was missing.
I couldn’t tell anyone what I was thinking or they’d lock me up in the brig, but on surreptitiously asking around it seemed that all of those aboard with a sweet tooth were missing their usual fix. We were even starting to run low on sugar.

It took a couple of packets of cigarettes to persuade Cook to part with some of his dwindling stock – he being something of a budding economist realising that the laws of supply and demand may apply here, he asked for a carton until I pulled rank. With the aid of a small motion sensor and a flash bulb I set my trap and waited for the night cycle. I did my best to follow my usual nightly routine, just happening to spill a little sugar as I set the bag by my kettle. I also just happened to set up the motion sensor and flash overlooking this.

I pretended to doze, an eager hunter awaiting his prey, then I must’ve have actually begun to doze as when I woke it wasn’t to the blinding flash I’d expected but instead to a small, almost furtive sound, as of a very distant electric drill. Half opening one eye I could see something about the size and shape of a cigar tube floating above my desk, lit by ranks of shimmering blue lights. For all the worlds looking like a luminescent fish in the darkness of my cabin.

It was then I tried to attempt first contact. Still lying down I spoke with a mouth still thick with sleep, “Hello?”

The little thing turned and dashed for the vent. I knew I’d never catch it but I was able to watch it retreat. Tiny little flares lighting up its rear as it accelerated away from me. It was a ship.

The following morning I examined my motion sensor, finding that much like my vent cover, it had been lasered through. I decided that these lilliputians were a lot smarter than I had given them credit for. I also realised how likely it was that they might have us under constant observation. If they could build a ship that size then sensor packages at that scale must be no issue. I began to fill my pipe, as this required ruminating upon. As I worried a farl of fifteen suns tobacco between my fingers, scientific curiosity gave way to a new feeling, fear. It has not all that hard to kill an unsuspecting man, a miniature torpedo fired silently and full of cyanide, or even simply a well aimed tiny rocket would do, and it could come from any angle, at any time. While mankind might be much larger than them, i was suddenly painfully aware my Achilles tendons, my jugular, even indeed the tobacco, if they wanted me dead, they would not have any trouble.

I decided that despite this sobering revelation, I should attempt to demonstrate my benevolence and friendliness. Looking directly at the vent I took the motion sensor and threw it into the recycling unit. Then I took half of the remaining sugar and poured it into a cup, placing this in the shaft. The other half I laid ostentatiously on my desk.

I tried my utmost over the course of the next hour to concentrate on my crossword, studiously ignoring the vent and the cup of sugar less than a yard from me. It wasn’t long before I heard the familiar whirr from the vent, instead I did my utmost to focus on 14 down, “Trout Basket, although there is a sea, you won’t find it there.” It wasn’t long before the ship came into view. Slowly rising just out of arms reach from my right side. It was about the size of a beer can, covered in crenellations and balustrades, looking more like architecture than engineering. What really drew my attention though were the torpedo tubes on the prow. While the ship remained at about a 45 degree angle and not pointed directly at me, I could see those tubes each contained something that most definitely looked like a .38 calibre bullet, just like you might find in any service revolver aboard the Cerulean.

The message was clear, a very loud “don’t tread on me” but they also were not overtly hostile. I moved very slowly as I moved the cup of sugar over the desktop, taking a little on my finger, showing it to the bridge and licking it off.

I decided to try verbal communication. “You guys like sweet things right? How about you try this?” again with ostentatious slowness, I went for a lemon sherbert in the pocket of my jacket, which was slung on the back of my chair.

I laid this beside the sugar and watched. The ship didn’t move, but instead another larger, fatter vessel ponderously made its way into view, I was fairly sure I recognised the hull as having begun life as a standard issue mess tin. This freighter hoovered up the sugar before a hangar on the port side distorted a fleet of smaller ships which lasered apart the sherbert and retreated with their more manageable prizes in tow.
As the freighter made its way towards the vent, what I had come to call the warship waggled it’s wings, before making another show of force, a gun turret on her belly effortlessly (and blindingly) lasered “CREEL” into 14 down. The ship turned on her axis and sped off leaving me dumbfounded, and now stuck on seventeen across.

For want of better term, the Creel didn’t seem malevolent, nor did they seem especially sociable. I decided I would continue efforts at contact. I took to leaving sweets and other items on my desk, and they without care as to whether I was in my bunk or not would regularly collect them. It was fairly normal to return from watch to discover that a pencil had been lasered in half and a whisky miniature emptied. They also took to filling in the crossword if it was left out, what they did not do however was answer verbal or written communication. They had other means of making themselves known though, my cabin was always immaculately clean, the squeak from the chair was gone. After one shift I returned to find a number of my lost socks neatly laid out on the bed, the final one being delivered in my presence by a number of tugs working in tandem.

The one constant in the visits from the Creel was the warship, which being old fashioned I decided must be called Warspite for no particular reason. The Warspite would watch over her charges and also seemed to take the lead on herding me if they decided they needed me out of the way.

This series of events went on quite peacefully for about a week, the Creel were a fascinating curiosity, and I knew should I disclose their existence, I would lose my new hobby and exclusive rights to them. I’d already heard ratings mention that some maintenance jobs seemed to fix themselves now, with wiring that was faulty yesterday now in excellent order all by itself. Cookie mentioned that he kept finding rats which seemed to have somehow committed suicide by laser as well.

I continued to try to communicate, it was obvious they had picked up English already but aside from the crossword, they showed no interest in talking back. The Warspite could be drawn into a game of noughts and crosses, and would even play checkers if it was in the mood.

The first thing that broke into what was becoming a routine was Tom. Like all ships the Cerulean had a couple of cats aboard, and Tom was sire to them all, a good sort of moggy, of indeterminate age, colour, temper, and odour but most definitely Tom under all the scars and burns. He was quite a sweet thing really and was known to sleep on crew when they were on watch. I found him nosing around outside my quarters with great interest one morning. It seems the old warrior had caught the smell of something new.

I had visions of Tom playing with that tanker as he had done with any number of different types of vermin across the galaxy. It turned my stomach to think what that cuddly little ball of murder would do to them, or what the Warspite might do to him. I decided this had to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Unusually no ships emerged when I closed the door to my cabin, I shone my torch into the vent and blinked it three times. Within a minute or two the Warspite was hovering over my desk. By this time I had managed to very crudely draw a picture of the ship and another of Tom.

The Warspite changed her axis until it just about matched that of her in my crude drawing, then waggled her wings to show she knew that was meant to be her. She then appeared to consider the picture of Tom. With deliberate care the Warspite lasered a six marks under the drawing of the Warspite, then carefully crossed out five of those, with a further arrow pointing to Tom. It seemed they already knew about him. I tried to imagine what it was like for them, having this super predator stalking the vents, a veritable leviathan or great white whale responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of their race. I decided that it was time I entered legend.

Engineering thought I was insane, but even drunk Mclintock was a fine hand at metal work and after sharing a quantity of hooch with him, a few hours later (and a bit unsteadily) I was looking for Tom. Tom could sometimes be found asleep on top of the heating ducts not far from the kitchen. He was there but anything but asleep. He had something between his paws.

Tom had played this game before and rotated himself away from me as I approached. He glowered over his shoulder at me, one beady eye analysing whether to run or go for my jugular. If it hadn’t been for all of the best of engineering I’d have drunk I wouldn’t have done it, but I got him by the scruff of the neck, earning an impressively deep gouge in my hand in doing so. I whipped my creation about his neck, and Tom looked faintly bemused by his new, jangling collar. All thoughts of murder were forgotten when I laid him down, instead he began the meticulous scientific investigation of his new sartorial affectation. While I was extremely proud to have belled the beast, the twisted and torn remains of the little tug caused me no end of shame. Claws had rent her amidships and from within her, a brown fluid leaked like blood.

With as much care as I dared in front of the watchful eye of Tom I bundled up the ship. Clasping her between my hands and running for my quarters. My neighbour, Jackson, seeing me bloody from my altercation with Tom, hands trailing smoke and brown fluid, and sprinting, didn’t seem to quite know what to make of it as he left his quarters. I answered his bemused questions by slamming my door. I laid out the broken tug as gently as I could on my desk. For the first time getting a proper whiff of my hands. Either the Creel swam in an atmosphere composed entirely of McCluckins wing sauce, or however many tiny, sapient lives had been lost aboard her, for a hold full of my second favourite condiment.

I stared at the remnants, unable to process what it might feel were the Ceruelan cornered by a moon sized feline. The torturous horror of being played with, teased apart, an eye like the red spot of Mars gazing at you.

It was about now that the Warspite joined me, a small flotilla of other tugs bore their deceased comrade away within the vents. From outside my cabin a jingling and the occasional pleading miaow of murderous intent could be heard all night as I tried to stop myself from extrapolating how many men would have been aboard a vessel like that had it been on terrestrial scale.

I woke hours later, still desperately unhappy at the loss of life. The congealed barbecue sauce on my desk a grim memorial. I nearly made myself sick imagining that were might still be bodies in there, slowly being fossilised into delicious condiment. Even today I can no longer stand BBQ sauce.

I hadn’t managed to even undress myself the night before, and by my watch I was meant to be on the bridge ten minutes ago. As I began fiddling with buttons, I noticed that the gash in my hand had been very carefully sutured shut by a thousand tiny little staples. I smiled toward the vent.

Fifteen minutes later, out of breath and in a uniform less stained with blood, death and BBQ sauce I prepared to face the old man.

He barely even registered my presence, let alone my tardiness. The bridge of the Cerulean had been fashionable a hundred years ago, with faux bookshelves and leather upholstered seats, but after decades in service, a billion cigarettes and some stains that were older than me, she just felt lived in. If you go into a man’s study you can almost feel the gap he leaves in it when he’s not there. Right now however there was no gap, for wedged into where it might be was the bristling beard and massive sloped shoulders of Captain Physiog-Futo, who should have been a hick farmer with seventeen children on Ceres, but instead had decided to become an Intrasolar gorilla instead. He threw (with a lot less care than I’d have liked) a circuit board at me.

“what pray tell me is that Mr Mate?”

“it’s a circuit board Sir.”

“look closer Mr Mate.”

“still a circuit board Sir.”

“Yes Mr Mate but,” he took a long infuriated puff at his cigar, “what’s wrong with it?”
 With as much gravitas as I could muster without breakfast, I replied “No idea Sir. Ask engineering sometime in the afternoon once they’ve slept off last night.”
“That circuit board came from a coolant unit on C Deck. It is a 2487 B. It has an entirely standard pattern and should be cross compatible with any ship in space. The board you are holding, was a 2487 B on her last inspection two years ago. It is now of no known configuration, it is 60% lighter. I want you to find out where it came from Mr Mate. Someone has been messing with my ship. When you do find that someone, I’m going to...I’m going to...” his eyebrows crashed together like jet-propelled Neptunian caterpillars as he mustered an appropriately vile notion, “I’m going to hit them.”

I didn’t say he was very good at this.

“Eradicate them Mr Mate, whoever did this. I want them found and I want them dead.”

I knew exactly who that someone was. I knew also that the Captain was out for blood. Still I couldn’t resist asking, “did it work Sir?”
He grunted interrogatively.
“The cooling unit? Did it work.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with it but yes, flawlessly, but who else knows what this saboteur has done. End them Mr Mate, or I’ll end you.” He finished the last sentence at a bellow that practically blew me from the bridge and back to my quarters.

As I entered, carefully and none too gently kicking Tom aside from his vigil, a small bumble bee shape floated from the vent. She was limping, listing and lacking a good deal of her trim, but that little ship had lived. The Tug, showed me the hastily repaired battle damaged, wiggled her wings, and nearly nosedived into the deck. For the second time in 24 hours, I held her in my end has I gently eased her back to the vents.
I didn’t see the Creel for a few days after this. I didn’t think too much of it, and sometime on the second day I noted that Tom the cat was missing a good half inch of his tail as a result of what looked like a laser burn. On checking on him, I noticed poor old Tom was in the vernacular, “high as balls.” It seemed that someone (or a lot of small someones) had found what little catnip we had aboard and had decided to try hearts and minds.

I thought perhaps the Creel might be lying low after the Captain’s pronouncement about needing them dead. I had been lying on my bunk, musing on this when I heard a slightly unusual noise. In space unusual noises are something that by habit, you investigate. Unusual noises that are followed by a small pillar of smoke are generally very high on the priorities list.
The Warspite sheepishly nosed around the corner of my desk. Trailed by tugs and a newer, larger looking warship that I hadn’t seen before. Trailing her were an orderly porcession of space weevils.

If you’ve not come across one of these before, or worse found half of one in the burrito you just bit into, their about three inches long, look nothing like a weevil and are voraciously fond of all biological matter, an infestation of space weevils can eat out a ships stores in days, and if you’re weeks from Port, they’ve been known to turn on the crew.

The Warspite wiggled her wings and circled back around toward me, while the new ship (The Bismarck) lead the cattle drive up into the vent.
 The Warspite most definitely wanted my attention. I noted that the explosion I’d heard had been (judging by the remains) the weevil queen, who at about the size of a shoe, I did not really want decomposing in my quarters. How they’d lead her here or indeed why was a mystery but I gingerly dumped the smoking corpses into the recycling unit. I felt the Creel were rather taking liberties here but I had become rather fond of always finding my shoes shined, my razor self sharpening, and a hundred other little things. I wagged a finger at the Warspite. “don’t do it again.”

She wiggled her wings and then did something I’d never seem her do before. She landed.

She came to rest just beside the ash tray and as I watched, a rover about the size of a bean was disgorged from her hold. The Warspite took off again and made for my book shelf. Her prow pointing very firmly at my copy of The Law of Space, and then once she was sure I’d noted this, she made for my first aid manual.

I decided there was nothing to be lost in sharing the first book, and placing it spine down, the rover took charge, turning the pages as the Warspite surveyed the text as one of our survey vessels might the topography of a new planet.

I braced open the first aid manual and decided to leave them to it. My quarters were not entirely my own any more, which I didn’t entirely mind but sometimes it’s very nice just to be alone.

The officers mess was quiet, we would be making planetfall in 48 hours and there were always plenty of things to be done. The captain at least had decided that removing anything aboard which had been improved by the Creel was unwise, especially when Mclintock in one of his more lucid moments suggested we might patent a couple of the innovations. I held out my empty glass, waiting for a tug to synthesize Ice from the moisture in the air. It took a moment or two before I remembered I wasn’t in my quarters any more and I had to do it myself.
It was about then that she walked in. The chief logistics officer and I had had our disagreements. They tended to be loud, involve throwing crockery, and followed by making up passionately for about three days, before the next disagreement. There tended to be days if not weeks in which we avoided each other. Murchison was from a sleepy little place that orbited Neptune and either subtlety hadn’t made it there or she had been so blunt to it as to have beaten it to death before it got a chance.
“Make me a drink” from her this was akin to a diplomatic mission, “then tell me where you’ve been hiding.”
I knew what was about to happen, and several drinks later, it did. I woke up several hours later in her bunk, tired, bruised, scratched and smiling, with the Warspite hovering about six inches from my face, and just over Murchison’s hair.

The little ship was clearly agitated. There was obviously something important at stake, or at least I really hoped so. Murchison rolled over sleepily as the Warspite darted down the side of the bunk. She opened one eye, “You’re still here... in that case...” She rolled on top of me with a smoothness that always surprised me. The Warspite began to butt at my exposed foot as Murchison began to do something else entirely, but with a similar repetition. What the Creel, however many of them were aboard the vessel made of all this I never wanted to know.

I tried my hardest to dissuade her, she ignored me. Then her entire body went rigid and her jaw clamped shut most unsatisfactorily as something small and highly electrified hit her exposed backside.

When she eventually released me, she slapped me and asked “What the hell was that?”

The Warspite made itself known, lights flashing and hovering a few inches above where her bra had landed. Murchison responded about as you’d expect “What the hell is that?”

The little ship made urgent motions at my clothes and I did my best to explain  while getting dressed. As I did she started doing the same, somehow faster than me even with maneuvering a bedsheet for modesty at the same time.

“They’re tiny, entirely benevolent beings that live in the vents.” She cast a glance at the ship, which slowly dipped her nose in what could be construed as embarrassment. “If they’re doing this it must be important.”

“wait a minute you mean they saw...”

“Everything. I think this one might be following me about.”

“Even...”

“especially that.”

“We are going to talk about this later.”

I felt about as small as a Creel by the time we followed the ship from her quarters.

The Warspite lead us downwards, into engineering. We smelt smoke not long after. It seemed MClintock had been checking on the progress of his latest batch of hooch and the still which definitely did not exist had blown. All the sensors down here had been disabled in one way or another in the interests of circumventing the meagre alcohol rations aboard. Mclintock was unconscious which was probably for the best given the size of the piece of shrapnel sticking out of his chest. What must’ve been every Creel ship aboard was trying to move him from the flames lapping at his feet, while tiny little rovers tried to stem the blood flow from the jagged wound in his chest. The Creel for all I’d seen of them were incapable of moving 200lbs + change of a fifty of human being. The fleet dispersed as I grabbed him under the shoulders, the rovers streaming off him and into waiting carriers.

Murchison must have called for help while I was dragging him away, as by the time I had him out of the room the fire control party were pounding down the corridor, and there was not a ship to be seen.

An hour later the Captain himself debriefed us. “...an utter tragedy. A terrible loss for everyone aboard. Still we must soldier on, despite our losses.”

A slightly singed Murchison asked “I thought you said Mclintock was fine?”

“hmm? Oh yes. He will be. That wasn’t what I meant. Still it could have been a lot worse, that fire was spreading fast and if you two hadn’t been down there and...say what were you doing down there anyway?”

Murchison and I shared a glance. I opened my mouth but before I could speak she responded in great and extremely pornographic detail. The Captain looked me up and down and then Murchison, then into the corner of the ceiling, and didn’t take his eyes from there as he dismissed us. I’d never have taken him for a prude. but the way his cheeks reddened and his cigar dipped, it was clear he would be spending months not thinking about that.

As we left the bridge, Murchison’s soot stained hand found mine, and a tiny little ship waggled her wings from the vents as we passed.
That night Murchison spent the rest of the evening in my quarters, and after a long shower she was full of questions as we watched the Creel fleet at work in my quarters, ships passing from the vent on the port wall to the starboard, others still at work on my bookshelf, freighters moving from my desk to the port vent with sweet cargo, a sea of tiny lights in the darkness. Our own private galaxy, she watched them dance and whicker across the room as I told her the events of the last two weeks. She was distinctly unimpressed that at the inroads I had made in learning about them, their culture, their origins, and made me swear that she could begin to investigate these. We eventually drifted off to sleep as the flotilla continued their unceasing dance.

When I woke she was already awake, and sat cross legged on my floor, a pad of paper open on her knee. The Warspite guiltily coming into view over shoulder to greet me, like a dog wagging his tail in recognition of his master then eagerly returning to the much more interesting work of playing with his new friend.

Murchison’s drawing skills were evidently better than mine. She was halfway into the sketchbook already and had drawn picture of the Cerulean adjacent to one of the Warspite, beneath that was a picture of what was definitely her, and a blank space. The Warspite stared mutely at it while overhead a tug went by carrying a large ceremonial brass button which could only be the Captains.

The Warspite continued to ponder the page but Murchison tapped insistently with the pencil. “No more drawings unless you do.” I thought of the Creel as helpful but extremely secretive people, but to my surprise the ship fired up her forward battery and began to draw. Imagine a dodo, then add tentacles, a beard, an odd sort of starfish looking organ, and then...sort of none of that. Murchison beamed, “Adorable!” as I tried to imagine what it must be like That night Murchison spent the rest of the evening in my quarters, and after a long shower she was full of questions as we watched the Creel fleet at work in my quarters, ships passing from the vent on the port wall to the starboard, others still at work on my bookshelf, freighters moving from my desk to the port vent with sweet cargo, a sea of tiny lights in the darkness. Our own private galaxy, she watched them dance and whicker across the room as I told her the events of the last two weeks. She was distinctly unimpressed that at the inroads I had made in learning about them, their culture, their origins, and made me swear that she could begin to investigate these. We eventually drifted off to sleep as the flotilla continued their unceasing dance.

When I woke she was already awake, and sat cross legged on my floor, a pad of paper open on her knee. The Warspite guiltily coming into view over shoulder to greet me, like a dog wagging his tail in recognition of his master then eagerly returning to the much more interesting work of playing with his new friend.

Murchison’s drawing skills were evidently better than mine. She was halfway into the sketchbook already and had drawn picture of the Cerulean adjacent to one of the Warspite, beneath that was a picture of what was definitely her, and a blank space. The Warspite stared mutely at it while overhead a tug went by carrying a large ceremonial brass button which could only be the Captains.

The Warspite continued to ponder the page but Murchison tapped insistently with the pencil. “No more drawings unless you do.” I thought of the Creel as helpful but extremely secretive people, but to my surprise the ship fired up her forward battery and began to draw. Imagine a dodo, then add tentacles, a beard, an odd sort of starfish looking organ, and then...sort of none of that. Murchison beamed, “Adorable!” as I tried to imagine what it must be like to draw a picture of yourself several miles long with a piece of artillery, and simultaneously I tried not to imagine meeting one of those things in a dark spot between two dust flakes.
A short while later in the canteen, as I watched her filling her pockets with BBQ sauce she asked me “aren’t you curious what life is like for them in the vents? What their cities and shipyards are like? Their civilization?” I did my agree with her into my scrambled eggs. “Don’t you want to know?” She chided, stealing a rasher of bacon, “the more we learn the better a case we have to explain why the Captain shouldn’t” she leant forward conspirationally and  thrust said rasher at me like a sabre, “have them all destroyed like the vermin infestation he will be convinced the are.”
I nodded my assent and evaluated whether it was worth trying to claim back that part of my breakfast, by accident or design, she had managed to get the crispiest bit.
“What about one of those little cameras? The ones they use for vent inspection? Do you think they’d let one of those in? Maybe even carry one for us?”
She was on to something now.

Hours later, after both her watch and mine had ended, with a large pile of sachets of BBQ sauce being slowly loaded into freighters and a chocolate bar being strip mined on my desk, Murchison and I did our best to explain  what we wanted to the Warspite. After many sheets of paper, the Warspite slowly made her way to a blank page, and drew a symbol that looked like a stylized crab drop kicking a horse. A few moments later a freighter picked up the camera unit, I was pleased to see it did so gently. This was one of the pieces of wireless technology aboard as even the signal from an unshielded electronic wristwatch could do horrible things to a ships drive when in transit, and something like a handheld computer could blast us massively off course if switched on when we got up to any kind of speed that meant Mars to Saturn wasn’t a voyage measured in months. The Lloyd’s of Luna had simply taken the expedient of banning all non regulation (I.e. offical) electronic devices from space travel entirely on pain of being considered a terrorist. Should you ever come across anyone who says otherwise and that unshielded electronic devices are perfectly safe, I strongly recommend not even bothering to report them to the Space Marshall, but simply having them thrown out of the nearest airlock or you’ll end up like the crew of the Aegis 7, which is to say, inside out or even worse, like the crew of the Event Horizon.

In any event I was pleased to see on the viewing unit first a nice close up of Murchison’s chest, then the floor, the wall, and inside the vent. We fluttered along like that for only a short amount of time before we began to see mushroom fields and ranches full od space weevils. Tiny streams of silver could only be assumed to be maglev rails. As we reached the intersection of five vent systems, we first saw the lights of their city. The intersection also bordered onto a waterpipe from hydroponics. In short the perfect set up. However we didn’t see any of that the first time, just a seething glowing metropolis of light and colour. Skyscrapers built from pens, shipyards from paperclips, BBQ sauce refineries, and the million other things a thriving civilization needs. We began to ascend upward into the highest of the vents which canted upward at a 45 degree angle, the ceiling covered in a mural which told their history. The first panels were confusing and strange, with Creel doing odd and unfathomable things. Then could be seen the arrival of a ship in the vent intersection, the founding of the city, the first farms, the discovery that humanity was aboard, that the Creel sailed on a world that moved, a series of extremely bloody and unpleasant battles with Tom the cat, first contact with me (a very flattering depiction I might add), the belling of Tom, a half finished mural of first contact with Murchison, which she squeaked at the realisation that it was their first physical contact with her that they had recorded, so she was not at a flattering angle, or wearing much, and then in sketch only, the rescue of Mclintock.

Murchison had wrapped her arm around me as we sat on my bunk together with the screen on my lap. We were stunned. We were gods. The little ship returned with the Warspite circling her like a proud mother hen. Later while Murchison and I lay in bed together I heard the sound of a Truxian mosquito. They had come aboard in a shipment of fruit months ago and we still hadn’t gotten rid of the things. I tracked it in the darkness with my ears, following the sound with an outstretched hand, waiting for it to stop. As it went over my face, a beam of light lashed out and got it just above my right forehead. Something tiny and every so slightly warm landed on me as a tiny fighter retreated proudly to add another kill tally. I would have to tell Murchison to be careful what she swatted. Meanwhile as I drifted off to sleep again I heard the comforting sound of my shoes being industrially shone and yet more BBQ sauce and honey being vacuumed aboard freighters. I smiled.

The next day was a blur as we made final preparations for planet fall in the evening. Murchison had been gone when I woke (the Creel had taken to giving me a flypast if I slept through an alarm). After getting out of the shower I dropped my facetowel, as I stooped to collect it, I saw the lights beneath my bed. It seems that the Creel had established a FOB and small airstrip since I last looked under there. A team of tugs were working very hard to shift one of my dress boots and I obliged them. As I dressed I looked for other Creel installations and noted a small outpost had appeared on the top of the door frame. The uninitiated might take it for a sensor, but there was no mistaking the crenellated architecture or the extremely large batteries of cannons. I took my overcoat with me as I expected to go from the bridge to shore almost as soon as we landed. While my time spent with the Captain and ensuring planetfall went smoothly, he did remind me twice that I still hadn’t found a reason for our “brownies” as he called them, nor eradicated them.

Hours later I went ashore, Murchison waving as she watched the Stevedores unload our cargo, unions were a very big thing in this port and with humans doing the job at their insistence she was itching to make sure they didn’t steal anything. I suspect she also made them wipe their feet.

Port was not a salubrious place, nor was it warm. I was already glad of my gloves and greatcoat (cinched about the waist by my cartridge belt and revolver) it was snowing heavily outside of the industrial warmth of our landing area.

I’d learnt in a hundred different destinations that you never ever go to the first bar you see as soon as you leave port. I did however only make it as far as the second.

The captain and I had already negotiated for our next shipments and contracts, it seemed we were even taking on some passengers, I didn’t have much to do beyond take in the local colour, there’d be plenty of work in the morning though so I was on the 2 pint rule and not a drop more.

The 2 pint rule doesn’t stipulate pints of what, but I behaved myself. The bar I’d chosen was exactly as you’d expect a spaceport bar to be, rough, stinking and just like home. It was also a very welcome temperature compared to the snow outside. With my greatcoat slung over a chair and seated alone at a table I had all the peace I wanted. There was a card game off to one side I was only just keeping an eye on, what I was most enjoying surreptitiously watching but not watching (and part of the reason the Captain liked me to go ashore before granting shore leave to the crew) was the drug deal at the table across from me. They were speaking in very bad code “I’ll give you six blocks of material at 800 a gram” and similar brutally obvious euphemisms. If any of our lads got found with something illicit at the next port it’d be an awful lot of trouble for all of us. I kept nursing my pint. Shore leave was canceled I think. I could see some of the customers had been doing more than drinking. I had decided it was time to go when the fight broke out. One of the card players dropped something. Someone else bent to pick it up, someone shouted about cheating. Dealer A pocketed something less than subtly in the confusion. By this time I was already on my feet and making for the door. What I’d missed was the weighty beer stein that’d missed card sharp E or possibly F and I assume was on a trajectory with my unknowing skull. Something shot from the pocket of my greatcoat, I felt it’s passage but before even registering it the something had fired a torpedo at the glass, shattering it impressively in mid air. As discharging a firearm without reason (and in a place as packed as that there would be no witnesses) I decided to leg it before any police complications arose. As I stumbled into the snow from the entirely shocked bar, I was trailed by The Warspite and a sister ship of the Bismarck. The little bastards had obviously decided I wasn’t safe to let out on my own. Extra sweets for them tonight, but in my flight I managed to get myself lost.

A terrestrial might at this point ask his personal computer or simply think about needing directions and be told. A spaceman had to do without such conveniences unless it had a good quarter inch of shielding (and no one wants to carry around a wrist computer that weighs fifteen kilos), while the Warspite shot up above me the Tirpitz (she needed a name) nudged her way carefully into my hand. Twisting this way and that to guide me.

It seemed one of the few things the Creel lacked was Street smarts, as they took me a shortcut which included an alley way I really ought not to have considered. Several piles of rubbish revealed themselves to be human. Two blocking off my retreat and three in front. They had knives. I drew my pistol, cautious of using it but what choice did I have? I took aim at one, as I backed myself into a corner. The Warspite fired the second time that night, a bullet taking one man in the throat, another in the eye, and a final one in the groin. Their antomy dtudirs werr already paying off. The other two ran for the hills screaming “War Drone! WAR DRONE”
While no one would have heard the gunshots everyone would hear that. I was in trouble.

If for some reason you don’t know your history (what are they teaching at the academy these days?), around 75 years ago the War Drone was completely banned by the 87th Geneva convention as it was decided that an autonomous Self Replicating AI that had an explicit “kill all humans” setting might not be wise.