[In case you haven’t noticed, this is the 30^th anniversary of Ghostbusters, a classic bit of tomfoolery set in New York City.  Here’s some tomfoolery that’s a wee bit more serious.  It also happens far removed from NYC.  Enjoy!]

The Flying Dutchman

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

                Call me cynical.  Or, paranoid.  I knew there was something wrong when I stepped aboard the Huang Cheng.  It was a bit too clean, for one thing.  Freighters carry freight.  While medical supplies might be in pristine, sealed containers, general freight containers leave their spoor behind like wild beasts from some primitive planet.  True, the starship had a passenger section where anyone could save some money by flying like freight (that anyone had to be an oxygen-breathing ET in our case, of course).  That section was a cut above the crew’s in quality of accomodations, but not much (with each stateroom adaptable to different ETs).

I’d been on a doomed ship before.  Once I ended up in cryosleep in planetary orbit in an escape pod, being picked up a few centuries later by pure chance by an ITUIP explorer ship.  Obregon, the doctor who brought me out of cryo, started calling me Methuselah.  Never could get him to explain that.  Could hardly pronounce it even.  Never looked it up in a database either.  I felt that same sense of doom in the Huang Cheng.

The freighter had its own Guide to the Way.  As we prepared to ship out, I had a chance to talk to him about my paranoia.

His answer: Kneeling with his hand on my head, he says, “Jenna, let us meditate together.”

“OK.  But I have questions.  Before or after?”  I had strayed far from the Way.  It was an old Human religion, if you can call it that—not as old as some, but popular in some circles.

He sighed.  He was also First Mate, so it was hard to know exactly why he sighed.  He walked behind the little desk in his quarters and plopped into a chair.

“Typical.  The younger generation doesn’t want to meditate.  Come, sit down, and ask your questions.  I’ll see if I can answer them.”

“First, let’s get one thing straight.  I’m older than you are.  For that reason, and because I do know how to meditate, I could be your Guide.”

He shrugged.  “Then why did you come to visit me?”

“I didn’t want to express my feelings to the captain.  Better said, I thought you’d be more receptive, because you fulfill two functions.”

“And which of my functions is in play now?”

“Still both.  You decide.  Is this ship doomed?”

He frowned.  “I hope not.  I don’t want to live forever, but I’d prefer to see my atoms become stardust again on my own terms.  On my home world, that’s a choice we’re given.”

“I hope not either.  But why do I feel this way about the Huang Cheng?”

“Your own mind must know.  Only you can read it.”

“Quit bludgeoning me with tautologies.  It’s just a feeling I have.  Be honest with me.  Is there any reason to be worried about this ship?  Outside my mind, I mean?”

“I think that’s why they hired you.  You’re the Master-at-Arms.  You have to be prepared for anything, as they say.  You’ll make more money on this trek than I will.  I’m not going to do your work for you.  As you say, I fulfill too functions.  As a Guide, though, I have to live off donations.”  He didn’t hold out his hand, though.

“So, you’ll admit something’s going on.  The crew is acting strange, you know.”

“You’ve been on enough trips to realize that all crews are different, and some act strangely.  And we don’t even have strange ETs among the passengers this time.”

“Can I write it off to the fact that there’s an ITUIP Special Forces team on board?”

“Maybe, but that should make you fill more at ease.  They’re just passengers, by the way, so don’t expect them to do your job.  One stop we’ll make is a colony planet where there’s plague.  We’re dropping off medical supplies, but no one knows whether they’re enough, so the crew must be protected from desperate people.  Weren’t you briefed?”

My turn to shrug.  “The answer’s yes, but this feeling I have has nothing to do with that stopover.  I’ve been on ships with mercy missions before.”

“What are you saying, then?  That it’s female intuition?  Some ability to predict the future?  Neither one’s been scientifically established.  My intuition is as good as yours.”

I stood.  “I can see this was a waste of time.”

“Perhaps.  But it was nice to meet you in person.  The captain has said good things about you.”

“I’ve done some good things, but that’s past.  You should worry about what I’m going to do in the future.”

“Why me?”

“Generic you.  The ship’s crew, in general.  I run a tight ship.”

He nodded.  “I’m sure you do.”

***

                I suppose I should explain why I was sleeping in orbit when Brendan, Obregon’s ship, found me.  I had entered that escape pod figuring I’d soon be dead.  Not a bad way to go, mind you, sleeping for eternity among the stars, your orbit eventually decaying until you fall into the planet’s gravity well and become a meteor shower.

I didn’t have much choice.  Couldn’t run the freighter alone.  That takes a full crew.  Couldn’t sleep away the years on the freighter either for the same reason.  Who’d keep all the systems functioning?

The plague had spread like wildfire.  The ship’s doctor immediately declared quarantine procedures, but that little ET phage had taken a liking to Human brain matter .  A passenger brought it aboard—only a carrier at the beginning, he had eventually succumbed too.

I don’t know why I survived.  Not only survived—I didn’t go crazy.  If the virus didn’t kill you, your shipmate would.  When I left that ship, it had become a cross between an old battleground after the battle and a quarantine ward where all patients were dead.  Why the phage, something like a common Terran amoeba, would do that is beyond me.  You’d think it would want to keep Humans around so it could feed.

Maybe I survived because I’d been to the phage’s planet before.  Obregon ran some MRIs.  I had some peculiar brain activity according to him, but no sign of the little beasties.  Whatever the reason, I’d made it into the pod.  And, whatever the reason, Brendan’s crew had found me.  Life goes on.

***

                This time it wasn’t a phage.  It was something like a mold.  A navigator noticed it on one of his screens—a layer of green slime.  He poked at it.  Big mistake.  He lost the end of his finger.  Our ship’s doctor could grow it back, though.  A cook killed it with cleaning solution—or, we thought he did.  It grew back and kept on growing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  You’ll want to know where it came from.  That’s the main story.  It all started when we found the pleasure ship.  If you’ve been on one, you can tune out for a bit, because I’m going to describe it.

Because ITUIP—the Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets—is a confederation, each planet’s local government and culture can be very different.  There’s a wide spectrum of planetary governments.  Authoritarian regimes or absolute monarchies are frowned upon, as are theocracies, but some of these planets are given provisional memberships because the ITUIP Advisors (that’s what the governing group is called, if you can call it “government”) believe that the nexus with other ITUIP members will reform these aberrant local systems, a dubious homogenization process, to be sure.  For example, take a student from aberrant planet X and educate her on Sanctuary, she will return to planet X a changed person.  That happens sometimes for entire cultures, and it certainly happens for individuals.  I know.  It happened to me, not that I return to my X very often.

Anyway, Ecstasy is one such aberrant planet that makes its living by building and launching pleasure ships—carnival ships, in that old Mardi Gras sense (Dr. Obregon had bent my ear about ancient Earth customs in this case), where good times can be had for all the rich passengers as they cruise around from port to port (where the Brendan had met up with a few).  Such ships are about twenty times the size of the Huang Cheng (both are so big that they can’t land on a planet).  They generally contain about every hedonistic delight a member species of ITUIP could want.  They are built to order to be species specific, of course.  What one bunch of ETs considers hedonistic delights might not work for another.

The Ribald Rover was such a ship, designed for Humans.  It was a ghost ship, though.  At first, we didn’t know why.

As Master-at-Arms, I’m considered expendable.  The only two people on board a freighter not considered expendable are the captain and chief nav officer, so I never felt like this was discrimination.  I picked some of the crew to form a docking party, and we shuttled over to the ship.

I considered the entire Special Forces contingent expendable too, but they’re also trigger happy.  I didn’t want them to get excited and blast away at any survivors.  Besides, if there was something menacing in the ghost ship, they were the best candidates to defend the Huang Cheng.

Sensor readouts said no air.  That was unusual.  It would take a major catastrophe to make the Rover’s captain space all the ship’s air—there weren’t even reserves left.  We kept the suits on and took a tour.

We found the first bodies in the casino.  I didn’t know how any specific device was employed, but a naked woman spread-eagled on a rotating wheel looked like she had been having fun—until she didn’t.  She was still spinning.  Others in that huge room, the size of a Huang Cheng hold, were clothed in a variety of clothing.  Some had their hands around their throats.    Others were grabbing their chests.  Others had impaled themselves on levers that stuck out of the sides of some of the colorful machines, equipment that still blinked and played stupid, annoying music.  All dead.  Except the machines.

That theme continued as we puttered about the ship.  It wasn’t too bad until we arrived at the kitchen.  Two cooks had been busy filleting a body.  Yeah, these ships had special chefs, but I didn’t think cannibalism corresponded to one of their secret recipes.  Wondered what Human meat tasted like, but I managed not to vomit.  It wouldn’t have been fun in a spacesuit.

“Everyone became psychotic,” said Des Jalin, who I’d appointed my second-in-command.

“Or developed some strange culinary tastes,” said Bibi Palto, another member of our troop.  The others nodded, their helmets periodically reflecting the dim lights spread around.

“Why don’t we split up?” I said.  “Des, why don’t you go to the control room and find out if there are some computer records describing what went on here.  The rest of us will divide up in groups of two or three so we can cover more territory in less time.”

“We need to set up decontamination units on the Huang Cheng,” said Bibi.  “There might be a contagion here.”

I shuddered.  I knew all about that.

“We have time to do that later.  Let’s all meet in the control room within a standard hour.”

I teamed up with Bibi and another fellow named Salmi.

***

                “Jenna Botswa, did anyone ever tell you that we aren’t prepared for a major contagion?”

Salmi Kribs spoke Standard with a strong accent.  He also used one’s full name.  It took a bit to get used to that.  The captain was always Captain Mikil Answar, for example, no matter how many times the poor captain asked Salmi to call him Mikil.  Salmi was our head environmental engineer.  He’d be worried about contagions as much as a ship’s doctor would.

I nodded to the man.  Did he know my past?  “There’s no way to prepare for something unknown.  Life is ubiquitous in the cosmos.  Some of it isn’t going to like us, from viruses and bacteria all the way up the evolutionary ladders.  Why is this door stuck?”

Bibi and Salmi took over.  Using some power tools Salmi had hanging from his belt, they pried the door open.  There was a blast of light as if an incendiary grenade had gone off—we carried those too, just in case—and a whoosh! as some force knocked us off our feet.  The two men had green slime all over them.  Being in front, they protected me.  I only had a bit on my visor.

“That hold must have contained air,” said Salmi.

“I don’t think so,” I said, wondering what the green slime was.  “But it contained something.  Is anyone’s comm set working?  Mine’s out, and we should warn the others.  Something’s out and about.”

Bibi’s was the only set still functioning.

“Something roared by here,” said Des from the control room after I explained what happened.  “My sensors detected a lot of EM energy on the loose.  That’s pretty hard to understand.”

“Have you found anything in the records to indicate what’s happened here?”

“The doctor’s log is enlightening.  People were either going crazy and seeing spirits—his words, not mine—or becoming comatose and dying.  I’ll read his last entry: ‘How am I supposed to treat this when I don’t even know what it is?’  I’ll do a download to some datacubes so someone can study this, but it’s really weird.  I suggest we abandon ship and return to the Huang Cheng.  This boat needs to be marked as a dangerous space derelict—approach at your own risk.”

“OK.  I agree.  Let’s all meet at the main airlock where we left the shuttle.”

By the time we arrived there, I felt like a failure.  My first major assignment as new Master-at-Arms, and I had failed!

***

Other members of the Huang Cheng’s crew had set up decontamination stations, but they did no good.  Whatever was on the Ribald Rover had come over with us and wasn’t affected by the decontamination.  When the inner airlocks finally opened, there was another flash and whoosh!, some crew members were slimed.  I hit the Red Alert button.

“What the hell’s going on,” said Mikil.

I explained the best I could.  “I don’t know if it’s going to do any good, but arm the crew anyway you can, Captain.  We’ve got something loose on board.  We should have stayed on the Rover.”

“Nonsense!  There’s no way you could have known.  We’ll arm those Special Forces too.  We’ll get this thing, whatever it is.”

People died before we got it, though.  “Got it” is relative, I suppose.  I volunteered to be bait.  They sealed us into an airtight shuttle hanger.  I just managed to get my spacesuit helmet on in time.  The thing went wild, producing a light show that reminded me of those lightning generators in kids’ museums, without the crackling sound and smell of ozone.

“So, what’s the next step?” said the First Mate.  “There aren’t many emergency rations in the shuttle.  And you’ll have to take off the helmet to eat.”

“Whatever it is, it can survive vacuum,” I said.  “But I can’t.  I don’t think it can do anything to me in the suit, though.  Let me think.”

People were eager to help.  I had suggestions piped to me from almost the whole crew.  At the end, I only had one idea.  It was stupid, but I had to protect the crew.  “OK, here’s my plan, folks.”

***

I opened up the shuttle bay door using the shuttle’s controls.  I then prepared the shuttle for launch.  Just before launch, I opened the shuttle hatch and took off my helmet.  That’s when I learned what the thing was.  Many people who died in the Ribald Rover had somehow become pure energy and joined together, the whole process catalyzed by some contagion a poor hedonist had brought on board.  That knowledge was like an electric epiphany.  I collapsed but somehow became part of the group.

It was a strange situation.  We also became part of the shuttle, all under my direction.  I had the technical knowledge, after all.  But I-we described the whole process, filling out several data cubes.  I-we managed to launch them in a probe back toward the Huang Sheng.  I-we included this report, of course.

My-our duty done, I-we relaxed.  I-we’d be in quarantine for an eternity.  Unless the shuttle fell into a planet’s atmosphere or star.  It wasn’t likely anyone would save me-us.  Who would you call?

***

Have you checked out Mary Jo yet?  She kindly allowed me to include lines from her diary the last few weeks (I only used her initials, MJM).  Her full story is in my new novel Muddlin’ Through.  A summary: Ex-USN Master-at-Arms Third Class Mary Jo Melendez struggles with restarting her life until she is hired as a security guard for an R&D firm with Pentagon contracts.  She is framed after a violent break-in and lands in prison.  She escapes, struggles to clear her name, and seeks revenge for her sister and brother-in-law’s deaths, during a journey that takes her around Europe and South America and tests her many skills as well as her faith.  On the way, she makes new friends that restore her belief in human goodness, and even finds romance.

Srta. Melendez is yet another strong female protagonist whose story illustrates my keen interest in the world around me and the people who populate it.  I hope you enjoy her story!  Don’t procrastinate.  I don’t want to badger you, but she’s a very interesting woman you should get to know.  Let me know if I’m right.  (As always, I’m willing to send you a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.  Part of that honesty should include writing the review, of course.)

***

In libris libertas….

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2014 at 4:00 am and is filed under Steve's Shorts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.