Across The Universe With A Giant Housecat (The Blue) (9 page)

“Here,” I reached over and handed one of the air masks to Samantha.

“What’s that for?” she asked, staring at it as if I had handed her a snake.

“In case there is a hull breach. Or in case we survive and find there’s no oxygen on the planet.”

She nodded and strapped on the mask.

After I strapped on my own, I somehow got the remaining mask onto the struggling Leo, who promptly shook his head until the mask flew across the room.

“You better hope you can breathe whatever is down there!” I told him, annoyance mounting.

He gave me a kvyat’s version of a glare. Perhaps he would be all right. He had survived the toxic atmosphere on Mitio just fine.

I heard a loud crash as the lights flickered, then dimmed.
 
A shudder ran through the ship and Samantha threw up violently.

“We hit something?” she asked.

The walls, ceiling, and floor puffed up like pillows immediately, which meant the room was equipped with all-surface air cushioning. Relief washed over me.
 
We might actually survive this.

Leo threw up on the armrest of our seat.

“The ship hasn’t stopped moving yet. We must have hit something, but not enough to stop us,” I said.

“Like a tree? Or—or a mountain?” Her voice was rising in pitch to a panicky shriek.

“Samantha, breathe,” I grated.
 

As the ship pitched drunkenly, the lights went out, leaving us in darkness.

I lost my hold on Leo as the belt holding both of us snapped, sending him careening out of my arms. I stayed put, the second belt still holding me firmly to my seat.

Then we crashed.

Chapter 13

A loud, metallic shriek resounded around us as we felt the ship turn on its side. Or maybe it wasn’t on its side. It was hard to tell in the darkness.

I heard the ship’s hull crumple as it slid along what I assumed was the planet’s surface. For what felt like hours the sickening sound continued. Then it stopped, and all was silent.

“Samantha?” I asked into the darkness. “Leo?”

Samantha answered with a groan; Leo answered with a mew.

“Good. You’re both alive.”

“I don’t feel very good. I don’t think I like spaceships very much,” said Samantha.

I patted myself down for injuries. “If you can handle this, you can handle anything space travel throws at you. Anyone injured?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Good. We have to get out of here. Somehow. The gravity feels weird in this place.”

“Alan, I don’t think it’s the—”

A single red emergency light finally flickered on. Immediately I knew why the gravity had felt weird to me.

The ship was upside down. Samantha and I were buckled in our chairs on what was now the ceiling.

#

The first thing I did was bellow at the top of my lungs into my wrist communicator for help. Perhaps someone else was upright and able to help us down from our seats.

Samantha joined me in yelling for help, but several minutes later, no one had arrived to aid us.

“I think we could be the only survivors,” I said quietly.

I heard her gasp. “Oh no,” she murmured. “Oh no…” More hyperventilating and some sniffling sounds.

“No!” I cried. “Samantha, we can get through this. We’re still alive. Come on, focus.” I looked over at her. Her face was a mask of panic. “Samantha. We can do this. We have to. We have to get out of here.”

“I—I worked in a lab! On the ground! On a planet that’s civilized!”

“Samantha! We can do this!” I wasn’t sure of my own words, but I had to calm her down somehow.
 

I looked around the room. How was I going to get down from here? I was at least ten feet from the ground, my feet dangling helplessly, my head down, blood pounding in my temples.
 

If I unbuckled, I would fall. True, the floor was plumped up with its emergency air cushioning, but I still was hesitant to take the plunge.
 

It would be fine. I would be fine. I’d survived worse than this.

With a deep breath, I unbuckled myself and allowed myself to fall. I curled my body so I wouldn’t hit headfirst, I breathed out.

For a moment, I was weightless…

And then I hit the cushioning. I had survived.
 

Getting to my feet, I looked up at Samantha through the red dimness of the room.

“I don’t—I don’t think I can—can do it…” she murmured.

“You can,” I said. “Unbuckle one of your seatbelts.”
 

She obeyed, eyes closed.

“Samantha, you’ve got to let yourself fall. It’s padded where I’m standing. You won’t feel a thing.”

“I’ll catch you.”

She unbuckled her remaining seatbelt. As she came tumbling down, I caught her—partially, at least.

“Thank you,” she breathed as I set her on her feet.

“You’re welcome.”

We were free of the chairs, but now we had a new task ahead of us—navigating the upside-down ship.

I kicked open the door to our training room with my boot and we climbed through, Leo following.
 

Beyond was a hallway, crumpled inward beyond repair. I was sure there was an emergency exit nearby, but with everything upside down, it was hard to get my bearings.

“We’re on a planet,” said Samantha. “An uninhabited planet, probably. That means we need food and supplies before we go out there. No, we shouldn’t get food first. First, we should head up to the cockpit and see if we can repair the ship.”

“We crashed upside down and the crew is most likely dead. The only reason we’re alive is this training room was built in a very good location. From the looks of this hallway, everything forward of us is probably in pieces. We need to get out of here before there’s a flammable fluid leak and something explodes.”

“But if we’re stranded here, we need food. Or we will be just as dead as if we had been killed in the crash like the rest of them.”

That made sense.

I crept along the ceiling, trying to avoid the wiring and pipes that ran all along it. Samantha and Leo followed as I headed towards the emergency supply closet. We had to crawl on our hands and knees in a few places where the hallways had been badly crushed in.

The ship was eerie turned upside down. I had to pause and think which way to go, since everything was backwards.

As we neared the emergency supply closet, I sniffed the air. The beginnings of the acrid smell of smoke reached my nostrils, meaning that somewhere, the ship was on fire.

It also meant that if the atmosphere outside lacked oxygen, the fire would die away. So in a backwards way, I had to hope the fire would spread.

I flung open the doors to the emergency supply closet, tossing Samantha two cold weather suits. Then I grabbed four backpacks and filled them with as many food and water packs as they would hold. We would have to carry two each, as least until I could rig them to fit on Leo’s back. He would protest being our pack mule, but it was better than us dying of starvation or dehydration.

“What else?” I mumbled aloud.

“Eye protection. In case this planet has a bright sun. And now breathing gear.”

“Good idea.” Sometimes I was very glad she had a scientist’s mind. I grabbed three sets of sun protection goggles—I doubted Leo would need them, but in that case we would have a spare. Cramming them into one of the backpacks, I reached for breathing gear.
 

Then I grabbed an environmental kit: it had things like rope, a first aid kit, and binoculars. I buckled the kit onto Leo before he had time to realize what was happening and wiggle out of my grasp.

The smoke smell had definitely increased.

“We need to get out of here. We need to find the nearest emergency exit.”

“Fifty yards forward. I memorized most of them when I came aboard.” Ah. Good.

Hoisting a backpack onto my back, I picked a second backpack and put it on backwards on my chest. These were heavy! Why had I packed them so full? Oh, right. Because I wanted us to live.

Samantha picked up the second set of backpacks in much the same way, and we headed for the exit.

The smoke was starting to irritate my breathing passageways…

The backpacks slowed us down as we went, but they were essential. Without them, we would die on the planet in a matter of days, if not sooner.

As I turned a corner, the emergency exit came into view.

And, just yards down the passageway, the ship was on fire.

I winced as the heat hit my face. Pulling the neck of my shirt up around my nose and mouth, I squinted my eyes and kept going until I reached the exit hatch.

The fire’s crackle sounded like a roar.

I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, so I wrapped the ends of my sleeves around my hands and grabbed the handle to the emergency exit hatch.

The heat from the metal handle burned into my hands with a pain like snake bites.

I ignored it and tugged.

The hatch was heavy and I felt sweat sprout on my forehead from the exertion.

I tugged harder and the door flung open.

The fire, renewed from this influx of air, writhed towards us.

The three of us leaped out of the exit hatch to the surface of the planet below.

Chapter 14

I hit the ground, the backpacks I had been carrying scattering around me. My whole body screamed with pain.

Something was patting me. Hard. No, it was
hitting
me.

I turned to see Samantha beating my back.

“What—?”
 

“You were on fire,” she explained.

“Oh. Thank you.” She had been a panicky mess only minutes before, but now she had the presence of mind to save me from burning?

Bounding to my feet, I grabbed the backpacks and dragged them further away from the burning ship.

We had only fallen five feet down, maybe less. For that, I was thankful.
 

From out here, I could see the full extent of the crash damage. The entire nose of the ship was crushed in, confirming my theory that the bridge crew were all dead. In fact, the only part of the ship that didn’t look like it had been chewed up and spat out was the small section where Samantha, Leo, and I had been.

The fire had reached the rest of the ship by now. The only parts of the ship which weren’t actively on fire were those that had already been reduced to a blackened cinder.

All around us was the planet Coriolanus, a blank gray sea of rock.

The smoke from the fire made my eyes sting, and they began to tear up. Or was it because of grief? Captain Keene, Paczoranni, and the others were all dead. Even my roommate, Tyler. Killed on a forgotten planet in deep space. And all those scientists who had seemed so excited about the mission would never get to see its end.

We were the only survivors from the
Indomitable
.

Leo coughed.

Samantha leaned forward abruptly, retching and throwing up.

“Please excuse me,” she murmured miserably, moving away.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom. Or throw up more. I’m not sure which.” She vanished behind a large rock.

“Samantha?” I edged closer so I could talk to her. “They’ll come looking for us. The rescue ships will come for us. It’s ok. We have food, at least for now.”

She stepped into view, her face a mask of mixed emotions: wonder, happiness, and worry.
 

“Alan,” she said. “I thought I was ill, so I picked up a diagnostic stick in a first aid kit in the ship. I never got a chance to use it, because I forgot it was in my pocket. But I just used it now. I’m not sick. It’s something else. I am pregnant.”

“What—how?” I sputtered.

Her face broke into a huge smile as her eyes filled simultaneously with tears. “It’s his. My husband’s. The night before we had the accident, we had some… ahh… alone time in the laboratory, atop one of the—”

“Stop right there! That’s all I’d like to know about the details.”

“Alan, this is incredible! We were married for years and I never once conceived. I was sure I was infertile. And now… he isn’t here…” One of the tears escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. “He gave me this last gift. This baby. I am so happy, Alan. How could I not have known before? The exhaustion, the not feeling well—it was all there.”

“We’ve been really busy. You probably chalked it up to exhaustion and grief at losing him.”

“Yes. Yes, that was it. Alan! I’m pregnant! I’m growing a baby!” The tears were flowing freely now.
 

As she cried with happiness, the reality hit me: I was stranded on an alien world with a pregnant woman to help along. Rescue ships could not reach us for weeks. The weight of the responsibility felt huge. I sat down, taking it all in.

Samantha kept talking, faster now. “I’ve got to make sure I get proper nutrition. That’s essential. Maybe I can forage for wild plants along the way. There have to be some wild edibles around here. Yes. And some dark greens for iron. Gah! I wish I had invested the time in reading about childbearing when I could! But how could I have known? I was sure I was infertile.”

“Samantha.” My voice felt heavy.

“How could I have known? Oh, my husband! I wish I could tell you we have a child! I wish I could share this with you! You will have to trust me on this. I will raise this baby well for you. Augh! I’m marooned in deep space! This is no place for a pregnant woman! What am I doing here? I should be back at a Stellar Intrepid base, getting medical care in a sterile environment, given by the most highly-trained doctors! This is all so unexpected! We have to get out of here!”

“Samantha!”

“No. No! Women did it for thousands of years alone in the wild. I can do it too. I will treat this as an experiment: can a modern scientist woman handle a pregnancy in a prehistoric way?”

“Samantha!” I stood up.

“What, Alan?”
 

“We have to remain calm. The rescue ships will come for us. Neither of us can afford to lose our heads over this situation. Yes, it’s not ideal for a pregnant woman to be left out in the wilderness on a strange planet. But that’s how it is, for now. We just have to do the best we can until we get back to the Stellar Intrepid.”