Woop Woop (© Biswapriya Purkayastha)
Page 2 "Can’t," Deputy Captain
Anna informed him. "The forty million tons of Trollite give us too much
momentum." They all watched the
creature come closer. It had beady little eyes which were fixed on them, and
the armour plates encasing its body flexed like a bodybuilder warming up before
competition. "What do you suppose it
is?" First Mate Jagathrakshakan asked. "I can’t guess," Talibani
snapped. "For exactly the same reason that I can’t think of anything to do.
We’re moving faster than imagination, or did you forget that?" "Maybe we should shut
down the Faster than Imagination drive," Deputy Captain Anna suggested. Without
waiting for Captain Talibani’s assent, she began pushing the sequence of levers
and buttons which initiated the shutdown sequence. The mumble of the Drive began
to taper off to a low moan. But it would take a long time to shut down
completely. "Reminds me of the Space
Squid we met off Betelgeuse ten years ago," the ship’s engineer, a wrinkled old
dotard named McDonald, said chattily. "Did I ever tell you about that time?" "No," Captain Anna, who
was relatively new to the ship and hadn’t heard the story seventeen times
already, said. "What happened?" "Och, I was on the
auld Lovecraft then. We were coming off the run tae R’lyeh
when this great big squid-thing came along. Ye never did see such a thing, like
a mountain floating in space. It got hold of us, and then –" "Impact," the voice of
the ship’s main computer warned, and an instant later the insect struck. It struck quite softly,
the impact taken up by its spiny legs, the immense mass of it hardly touching
the hull of the Calamity Jane at all. But an instant later the
ship lurched sharply, as the legs bent and pushed the body of the creature
against the ship. "What’s it doing?" Anna
yelled. "I can’t imagine,"
Captain Talibani replied. "I..." The Faster than
Imagination Drive cut out. Suddenly, everyone could
imagine again. "Yon beastie’s trying tae
eat us!" McDonald exclaimed. "It’s trying to kidnap
us," Jagathrakshakan corrected. "It’s trying to communicate
with us," Deputy Captain Anna said. "This is the strangest
manner of attempting communication I have ever encountered," the Second Mate,
Zhang, who had remained silent so far, said. "It seems to be rubbing itself on
the hull." "Yeah, what kind of
communication do you call that?" Captain Talibani asked. "Maybe it’s leaving scent
trails," Anna countered. "Perhaps it communicates with smell." "In space?" Zhang
grinned. "Scent trails in space?" "Do you have a better
idea?" Anna shot back. "Perhaps you could start by explaining how it exists in
space." "As a matter of fact, I
can imagine several," Zhang began. He began ticking off points on his fingers,
a habit which had always infuriated Anna. "First, perhaps it is not an insect at
all, but a spacecraft which resembles an insect. Secondly, maybe it is an
insect. If so, perhaps sucks in air from the upper layer of a planet’s
atmosphere and..." "Forget what the hell it
is," Captain Talibani said. "What are we going to do about it?" "Kill it," McDonald said. "How? We don’t have
weapons." "Talk to it," Anna
replied. "How? Are we supposed to
smell back at it?" "Let’s move away at top
speed to stop it from abducting us," Jagathrakshakan suggested. "Starting up the Faster
than Imagination drive will take hours," McDonald pointed out. "And in that
time –" There came a sharp
tapping noise, like a canned sardine might hear if someone took a can opener to
the container. The ship jumped a little, like a startled grasshopper. [ Continue to page 3 ] |