starcustard (act 1)

chapter three

Optional music track: 'The Flaming Lips - Slow Motion.'

The Captain was blissfully unaware of the death of his employer, and assumed that all the hubbub coming from outside the pilot's cockpit was Ms Organza going about her daily business (moving loudly across the ship, shouting loudly at the slavekids and loudly seducing her husband, trying to get him to buy her new things that would inevitably aid her apparent quest to become all the louder). It therefore came as quite a surprise when a group of three slavekids burst through the door wielding cutlery.

Instinctively, he threw his hands up in the air in the universal sign of surrender. 'What the hell do you think you're doing in here?' he yelled, realising who they were and completely forgetting the position his arms were maintaining. They flopped to his side when he noticed their shiny weapons. 'Oh hell,' he said. 'Something's happened, hasn't it?'

Still trying to hold their fierce poses throughout the disturbing revelation that this man seemed especially slow on the uptake, the exact opposite of what his occupation as Captain of the ship demanded, the three slavekids adopted a combination of eye-rolling and vigorous, impatient nodding.

'Ah,' said the Captain. He stroked his fuzzy grey beard thoughtfully. 'So what happened, then?

The slavekids stared at him and the room's tension grew cold and stale. The Captain grew impatient and finally said, 'You,' pointing to one taller, menacingly gawky kid, 'Tell me what's happened. Where are Mr and Mrs Nousu?'

'Master's killed. And Mistress O run off.'

The Captain's eyes blinked and widened. 'Killed how?'

'The girl Hydrogen what done it, sir,' the other boy said.

'With a plant,' the skinny slavegirl added, in a tone which suggested that this resourcefulness had made a most impressive display.

'Gen? With a plant? When the hell?'

Nobody spoke, giving the Captain adequate time to adjust this new information in his brain.

He straightened his brown coat and shifted his weight a little. 'Are you all sure he's dead?'

The nodding and eye-rolling commenced once again, accompanied this time with various gestures indicating bloodstains on bits of their sleeves and hems and shoes.

'And little Hydrogen? Where is she now?'

Silent gazes wavered around among the four of them. The tall gawky boy shrugged at the Captain and fingered the thick tines of a large carving fork.

'What now.' The Captain nodded as he said this; it was not as much a question as a submissive statement--a surrendering of authority to this armed and determined mob.

'Enough with asking us stuff,' the less-gawky slaveboy started forward. He put his greasy but obviously sharp knife (stolen from the dish room) into his other hand and went up to the Captain. 'You en't gonna report this to the authorities, are you?'

The knife shook just slightly in the slaveboy's hand. Leaning away from it, the Captain said softly, 'Of course not.'

'And you won't let Mistress O, or anyone else, report us, will you?' The Captain shook his head.

'And you'll fly this ship wherever we says?'

'Well, within regulations. Certainly.'

Six eyes narrowed at him then. The Captain gulped and stammered to amend his hesitance. 'You don't want to be caught, do you? The space-traffic control people will notice any irregular flight patterns. It isn't like I can do whatever I please with a ship this size, you know.'

The slavekids frowned.

'Good enough,' the boy with the knife said. Then he turned to his fellow slaves. 'You both keep your eyes on him. Don't let him move from this chair.' With that, the boy pointed with his weapon to said chair. The Captain did not sit down.

'I can't fly the ship from that chair!' he protested.

'Then learn quick. I'll be back.'

As he left the room, the girl and the tall, gawky kid took up positions on either side of the chair and held their weapons tightly.

* * *

Organza Nousu was frustrated. She was bored of applying endless coats of lip liner and mascara, and she also could not get her favourite purple fuzzy slippers to stay on her tail. Hydrogen was the only one who could ever do it properly. Stupid girl. Stupid stupid stupid girl. Organza's bony fingers grasped the silver pole at the corner of her bed so tightly the metal whined and strained against the pressure.

Everything seemed to have gone quiet outside the room.

* * *

Optional music track: 'Beethoven - Für Elise.'

'Where are we?' Gen wanted to know.

Gregarium held open the door for Gen with one hand and helped steady herself so she would not fall down the semi-spiral staircase. 'We are,' he began to answer, 'on the upper-east boundary of Sector 974BS9, at the moment. This,' he paused to nod around him at the walls and stairs and floor, 'is my ship. I haven't yet given it a name.' Here Gregarium grew thoughtful.

'Oh,' said Gen, wondering if ships were often given names, and for what possible reasons.

* * *

Andromed looked down at the dead mass of Gilt Humphrey Nousu with a slight frown on his face. 'What are we going to do with him?' he asked Statika, the blonde-haired girl who was doing exactly the same. 'He'll stink the place out before long.'

Statika poked his flab with her foot. 'How many of us do you think it'll take to lift him?' she asked.

'Why?'

* * *

The Doctor was still holding Gen's arm as they stepped down the stairs. After several moments of soft muttering, concerning the namelessness of his ship, Gen imagined, he cleared his throat and looked down at her.

'And Gen,' he addressed her very cordially, 'where is it you come from? How did your spacepod get stuck in the waste shute of my ship?'

Gen shivered a little, thankful that the man hadn't asked about Mars. She wasn't quite sure where to begin in answering Doctor Gregarium's question, but after a little thought she started with Neon and Orph, deciding that they would make the most direct answer.

'These two slavekids started a big fight on the ship I was on before. My stepfather got... got killed and my stepstepmother--' Gen stopped and started again. 'I ran away. I don't know what to do or where I'm going.'

* * *

The slug's cold, leathery skin obliterated the view of their hands as they carried it to the broom closet. The six of them wobbled and swayed, sweating under his immense size.

'Is it empty?' called Stat. 'And as it open?'

'Yup.'

'Right, those at the front come round to the back so we can push his arse up and shove him in. You,' she said to the girl holding the door open. 'As soon as we get him in, we need you to shut the door as fast as possible.'

Since the corpse had very little backbone, they struggled greatly getting the body into the closet because he kept folding in the middle, but they eventually managed. His flab refused to stay in, however, and there was a round of kicking and punching the body to get him all in, before Stat called for the door to be shut. They all had to help with closing it as the flab insisted on fighting back, and even when the door finally clicked shut, they weren't sure it would stay like that.

Stat stepped back and eyed it nervously. 'What are we doing with the others?' she asked, turning to Andromed.

The boy remained staring at the closet door. He knew she meant Neon, Orph and the handful of others that hadn't made it out of the brawl. After the girl had jumped from the railings and saved him, Orph had simply curled up into a ball and not moved again.

'They're down in the bowels,' Andromed said finally. His expression was one of deep discontentment. 'We put blankets over them.' He turned to Stat. 'There's nothing else we could do.'

* * *

'Careful, it's a bit of a jump here.' Gregarium went first and then helped Gen down from the end of the staircase. For some reason it simply stopped three feet above the floor.

They had reached a room of dark green and darker green stripes. The furniture was all a pale, almost pastel orange. It seemed like they had stepped into a large, algae-infested fish tank. Gen settled into the softness of one armchair while Gregarium fiddled with the room temperature. Once it was suitably comfortable he sat across from Gen and continued his questions.

'And the boy?'

Gen looked at the wall. 'He... Mars, he was a slaveboy too. He helped me escape.'

Gregarium looked very solemn. The girl still stared at the wall.

'Your stepparents,' he began, carefully inquisitive, 'What were they like?'

'Slug people. Rich. Horrible.'

Gregarium then wanted to ask 'How were they horrible? ', and gather specific details about the situation, but he knew he could not treat this girl as a case study. She needed help, not a psychoanalytic examination. He nodded, accepting Gen's simple description and pondering what to do next.

'Well, my dear, you may stay on my ship for as long as you like. Oh, may I ask, also--' he raised his large eyebrows earnestly, 'about your real parents?'

Sharp recollections of her stepfather's meaningful glance towards her as he towered above the petrified slaveboy filled her mind.

'I...I don't know anything about them to tell you,' she said. 'I...I don't know anything about them to tell you,' she said. 'My mother...disappeared.'

* * *

Optional music track: 'The Ramones - Cretin Hop.'

Organza slid up and down the room, thinking. If she could reach the main computer, she could contact the Authorities. And have them all fried, she thought venomously.

She risked another pe ek outside the room. She then made her way quietly to the railings. There wasn't a slavekid in sight. It was probably now or never. She slithered quickly down the stairs and to a locked door. 'Let me in!' she hissed into the voice recognition device. She pushed the door open and made her way to the computer: a large metal cuboid attached to the wall, covered with blinking lights, buttons and switches.

'Passwords, passwords,' she said to herself. 'Lasagne. No... bolognaise. Right. Next one...um...er...um... what's the next one?!'

'Quick, somebody! Mistress O is at the main computer!'

'Oh no...'

* * *

'Steady on, people!' exclaimed the Captain. 'We can't all fit in here!'

'Oh, my poor dignity,' moaned Organza. They had all gone to catch her, except two who stayed and watched the Captain, and now they were all in the cockpit. 'Traitors! Traitors and ship thieves and life ruiners!'

'Mrs Nousu, I'd be careful if I was you,' warned the Captain. 'They have cutlery!'

'And you!' she continued. 'You were well-paid and well-fed and we offered you that hair-colouring stuff but you just wouldn't take it! And now this?'

'With all available respect, Mrs Nousu, you did buy an awful lot of these kids.'

'Oh, that's it, blame it on the innocent!' cried Organza. 'What did you do to my children? And where's that filthy little Hydie?'

'She escaped,' announced Stat, stepping boldly and smugly forth.

'Escaped? Escaped?! ' yelled Organza. With a squealy roar, she tore through the slavekids and out of the cockpit. She slid through the corridors, obliviously passed the closet her husband was taking residence in, and rushed to the escape pods, with the slavekids after her. Two of the pods, she found, were already packed full of minislugs, each bearing a petrified expression. 'My beautiful children!' she said. 'We need to get away from this place! Pull the green and black levers, quick!' she told them, before cramming herself into a third.

The slavekids were too late. Three more escape pods were launched from the ship into space.

* * *

Optional music track: 'Muse - Ruled By Secrecy.'

Gregarium gazed at the girl, who was lost in her thoughts. He sat there quietly with his own thoughts, steadily coming to some decisions. The warmth of the room wrapped itself around Gen, and she nodded herself into a deep sleep. Grasping the arms of his chair, the Doctor heaved himself up and left her to rest.

He made his way through the winding, nonsensical corridors of his unnamed ship until he reached the room where resided his computer. He ran his hand over the keyboard and the large holographic screen warmed to life, reflected twice in the lenses of his spectacles. He spent a moment tapping more keys, and then he stood with his hands behind his back, waiting. The pale blue glow of the screen issued a cool light and cast his shadow sharply and dramatically across the room behind him.

Then a face resolved on the screen, occupying it almost entirely.

'Mel, hello!' said Gregarium. 'Listen, I have a small favour to ask...'

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