starcustard (act 1)

chapter four

Optional music track: 'Incubus - Drive.'

Gen woke up to a pair of very bright, very wide eyeballs staring and blinking at her. She started up from the couch and couldn't help gaping back at the pale, opal face. Whatever it was had the body of some sort of beautiful fish, and it was suspended very gracefully in the air just above the level of Gen's head.

'She is so thin, Gregarium,' the voice of the creature commented softly.

Looking anxiously around for the Doctor, Gen slowly began to walk to him, keeping one eye on the fish.

'There is breakfast here, Gen,' Gregarium answered. 'Tenua, try not to be impertinent.'

Gen watched this 'Tenua'. The fish was roughly the same size as Gen's head. Along her round, opalescent body was an array of delicate fins of transluscent white, which curled about her body like a glowing nightgown as she floated. Her tail fanned back and forth gently like a fragile sail, moving with the same elaborate rhythm as her other fins.

'Come on child, it's alright. Tenua is nobody to be nervous about.'

'Go eat,' the fish said to her. 'I know you must be hungry.'

Carefully, Gen approached the large tray on the low table. She sat across from Gregarium and he told her, as he helped himself to a small sticky bun and a glass of juice, to take anything she liked. All Gen could do was pick at a slice of toast and the dozens of kinds of fruit in front of her.

The fish began to speak again, hovering over them and swishing about in the air like an annoying breeze. 'What's the matter, Gen? Nervous? I can never eat when I'm nervous. Not even fried tadpoles and they're--'

Gregarium coughed a little. Tenua stopped her inane chatter but continued to float around the room restlessly. An odd, thread-like tendril hung from her body, which brushed across the breakfast table as she flew low.

If Gen had even considered the idea of eating before, she certainly didn't want to now. She remained silent. She had nothing she felt she could say to these two.

'Can we do exciting things today?' Tenua asked, gliding over to Gregarium. She wrapped her tendril around his face. 'I want to do exciting things.'

Gregarium didn't seem too bothered by this. He must have been used to it. 'We're going to head for Hepthazard today.'

'The spacestation? What for?' Her tendril pulled away from him.

'We're going to help Gen here.' He nodded towards her.

Gen looked up. 'What's at Hepthazard?' she asked.

'I have a friend there,' explained Gregarium. 'You will be staying with him for a while. At least, I can't see you going anywhere else for the time being.

'It's not that I want to get rid of you,' he added hastily, ' but, as it is, I have important work to do some way from here, and I'm afraid the nature of it means that I can't take you with me.

'This friend of mine--Mel Marsh, his name is--you'll be in safe hands with him. Relatively. He'll take you under his wing for a bit. He knows you're on your way. There's a custard café there that he runs, and he's willing to take you on as an employee.'

Gen thought for a moment. 'A custard café?'

Gregarium nodded. 'Yes. Custard shakes, frozen custards, even spacepastries, among other things. I believe there is a noodle maker that shares the same complex. I've been there several times; it's really quite lovely.'

Tenua nodded excitedly. 'Will you buy me a chocolate seaweed croissant, Gregarium, when we get there? Or an oatmeal eel-glazed roll? I love those.'

* * *

Andromed looked with a great hatred into the port where the last spacepod had been. Several other forlorn and lost-looking slavekids lurked behind him, less willing to go bursting loudly into the places they had previously been forbidden to enter.

Andromed was thinking what they all were thinking. She might come back for us. She will go to the Authorities. How long can we run? Where will we ever be safe?

He glanced at Stat. She looked back at him in horror. 'We need to keep moving,' he said, fighting down the panic that was swelling up inside him.

'But we're tagged!' said Stat. 'They'll find us no matter where we go!'

'The pods,' said Andromed.

'There aren't enough for all of us.'

'I know that. But do they have any communications systems?'

'Only navigational,' said Stat, 'which means Mistress O will try to get to the nearest station, and alert the Authorities from there. Where are you going?'

Andromed rapidly made his way to the pilot's cockpit. 'You, Captain!' he demanded. The man had obediently remained seated, and was looking quite afraid. 'How fast will this ship go?'

'If we go too fast, we'll arouse suspicion,' he warned.

'That's a risk I'm willing to take,' said Andromed. 'We need to catch up with those pods. How fast?'

'Fast enough.'

'Easily...what's the word? M...move...'

'Man oeuvrable?'

'Yes.'

'Fairly.'

'Good. This ship has an energy shield for its defen ce, doesn't it?'

The Captain nodded.

'And anything that touches it gets fried, right?'

'Yes,' said the Captain. 'What are you getting at?'

'Our chances our slim, but we don't really have any other option. We're going to catch up with them,' he said, 'and stop them.'

* * *

Optional music track: 'Nightmares on Wax - Mind Eye.'

After Gen had nibbled for as long as she could stand at her breakfast, Gregarium asked Tenua to look after her while he tidied his office and attended to a bit of business.

Picking up the trays of food, he went out of the room. Gen looked at the fish creature. Tenua blinked back at her, swimming slowly right up close to the girl's face.

'Do you want to explore the ship? Or do you need a bath? Gregarium always takes his bath before he does anything, always right after breakfast. I can show you the bathtub if you like. It isn't far. What's the matter? You keep moving... Watch out, there's a wall just there--'

Gen found herself backed against the green wallpaper and Tenua was still only inches away from her nose, blinking those big, glistening blinks as she fluttered her fins.

'Say something, Gen,' the fish urged.

A smile came to the girl's face as she realised that this fish was not calling her Hydie, but she still couldn't find anything to say.

'Come on,' Tenua said. 'I will show you the best bathroom. I like to take naps there when Gregarium doesn't need me. Are you coming? Just wait 'til you see. You'll love it.'

Tenua floated out into the corridor and Gen walked after her, trying to stay attentive to her chattering narration.

'Gregarium likes the bathtub adjacent to his office rooms. I think it's too dull there. His office rooms are all dull, just flat and plain. Don't you think so?' At Gen's silence Tenua began again, 'Perhaps you've not seen them yet. I'll show you them as well. You do want a bath, don't you? I think it would be good for you.

'Oh look, the elevator light is on! The elevator light is so beautiful. Today it is bluish purple and that means it needs to be charged, but we can still take it...'

Gen could not help letting her thoughts drift off. The walls of the corridors and elevators were so polished--she wondered who polished them. This ship with no name was humongous. Tenua led Gen meanderingly through it, up winding staircases, past all kinds of oddities for which Tenua declared they had no time. I wonder if it is bigger than our ship, Gen asked herself. Then she asked herself why she had called it 'our ship' when it never had been hers, and when she would probably never go back to it or see it again.

'Gen, wait, don't turn that way, silly--we're here. Come in and see.' Tenua ducked her head and tail through a doorway, expecting nothing else but for Gen to follow.

The bathtub was indeed nothing less than spectacular. The most finely sculpted marble, smooth and soft, took up the centre of a room of sparkling tile and chrome accents. Gen was afraid to touch it, much less bathe in it. She knew her stepstepmother bathed in tubs like this one (only much larger), but Gen herself had only ever gotten a cold shower every other week.

Tenua showed her how to run the water and add bubbles. The girl stayed in the warm bath for a long time. She and Tenua splashed and giggled, trying out bottle after bottle of perfumed soaps and creamwashes. Gen wanted to stay in the bath all day, but Tenua insisted that there was too much more to see and drained the water. Gen took three towels and wrapped herself all up before Tenua had the chance to poke at her or push her back into her clothes too quickly. The fluffy warmth was too nice to rush through.

'Gen, Gen, get dressed so we can go down to the aquarium wing. They'll be feeding the two-headed shark in a few minutes. I think that shark is so, so, so sad. I wouldn't know what to do with two heads, would you? Gregarium says it's almost perfect though. A highly advanced, specially handcrafted animal. Come on, hurry.'

When Gen was dressed, the two of them found their way into a brilliantly, colourfully lit room. It took a minute for Gen to see that there were fish swimming about in the thin walls. Tenua was still talking.

'This bit is the entry maze. The walls are full of water, isn't that cool? Oh hey, it's Georgio. Look at him, isn't he cute?'

Gen looked. Georgio was a tiny, purple octopus. He shook a few of his tentacles, turned to Tenua, and wiggled one of his three small eyes in a way that gave Gen a very odd chill.

Tenua turned to Gen and rolled her humongous eyes. Gen laughed.

'She's Gen,' the Tenua said to the octopus.

Georgio's reply was a funny little somersault.

'Come with us,' Tenua invited. 'We're going to see the shark.'

Gen could see a look of hesitance on his face, and a twitch in his long tentacles that hinted at several better things to do, but he looked up, right at her, turned, and started swimming along the wall.

He swam alongside the two others, bobbing and floating inside the fish-tank walls. Gen watched him and began to wish that she could reach out and touch the bright purple creature. If she remembered, she would ask Gregarium about it.

* * *

The Captain pressed buttons. 'I shall be branded a criminal... publicly executed! Do you know what that means? My career will be over!'

None of the slavekids was listening.

'Are we ready to go yet?' asked Andromed, impatiently. 'Every second we waste, Mistress O will be gettin' further and further away. The Authorities will be wond'rin' why you haven't tried to contact them if they find out.'

'I'm on it,' said the Captain, his voice trembling.

Andromed gazed out of the huge window that looked out into space. Stars twinkled in the distance. He and the two others in the cockpit with the Captain flinched as one as the view lurched and the stars streaked and blurred. The pods came into view as tiny, glistening little objects quite far off.

'What happened?' asked Andromed, gripping the back of a chair for support that he didn't need. 'Did we just move forward?'

'Good gracious, no,' said the Captain. 'Not at that speed. I just zoomed in so we knew where they'd got to.'

Andromed looked at the Captain, then at the window, then at the Captain again. 'That's not a window?' he said, slightly astonished.

The Captain looked appalled. 'Don't you have any idea how massively impractical that'd be? The amount of splatkrobs that hit your average ship... I mean, the window would be caked by them! And think of the security! That's easy access for pirates, that is.' He resumed with his control-fiddling, muttering and shaking his head. 'Window indeed.'

Then he said, 'Once I start up the shield, we won't be able to go so fast because of the energy drain. You want me to wait until we're close before I do?'

'How long does it take to charge up?'

'About two minutes.'

'Then we wait.'

'Right then,' said the Captain, taking a deep breath. 'The chase begins.' He curled his hand around a lever and pulled it down and back up again quickly. The thrusters flared, and the ship began to move forward. He then began to pull the lever down again, this time much more slowly and gradually, and the ship's acceleration climbed to the fastest it could go. The Captain then turned his attention to the massive metal steering wheel.

Optional music track: 'Black Sabbath - Neon Knights.'

Stat entered the cockpit. 'This is mad,' she told them, having figured out what they were going to do.

''Course it is,' said the Captain. 'You're all mad. Mad, crazy and insane also.'

The pods now looked much closer on the screen. They remained close together. Andromed knew you could do that with the pods. Mistress O had probably made sure of it. Having them all in the same place, however, might have been a big mistake.

'Captain, zoom back out to normal,' he said. 'Then we can tell exactly how close they are.'

The screen reverted to the default view. The pods were visible, and the ship was rapidly catching up with them.

'Shields, now!'

The Captain, simultaneously trying to steer, slammed his fist down on a fluorescent green button. For a moment, the lights on the ship dimmed, flickered and then restored. There was a jolt as energy surged across the surface of the ship. From outside the ship, the only thing that suggested the shield was there was the slight ripple in the light from waves of heat.

'Almost there,' said Andromed.

The Captain's hands shook violently. 'Still charging,' he managed. 'I...' He gulped and took a deep breath. Beads of sweat appeared on his brow. 'I can't do this. I can't kill--'

Stat pushed him out of the way and took control of the wheel. 'No time for your wimpy snivelling,' she said.

Organza had obviously guessed their game, and the pods began to drift away from each other. Now the ship was almost adjacent to the closest.

'Turn left, sharp!' shouted Andromed. Stat did so, struggling with the weight of the wheel. The ship hit the pod, the shield crackling. The pod glowed red, then white hot, and then exploded. The ship shook and the shield's energy dropped.

The Captain sat on the floor, whimpering.

'Quick, get that one!' Andromed yelled, pointing at the screen.

Stat, with difficulty, turned the ship around back to the left. The blunt nose of the ship brushed against the escaping pod, but it managed to get away.

Andromed was about to tell her to go after it when the power died. The shield died, the lights and everything else inside the ship shut down, and they were left floating in space.

The two remaining pods were getting further and further away, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Andromed swore.

* * *

Optional music track: ' Linkin Park - Session.'

Gen stared at the two-headed shark. It scared her. Tenua looked at it too, very intently, blinking far less often than usual. One of Gregarium's robots fed it spacefish from a bucket. The two heads didn't fight. In fact they both seemed oddly disinterested in food, very lethargic and almost bored.

Gregarium appeared behind them as they were saying goodbye to Georgio, who did indeed have better things to be doing.

'What do you think of my shark, Gen?' the Doctor asked.

Gen only turned around and stared at him, expressing her wonder that way. Tenua began jabbering about what they had done all morning, but Gregarium interrupted her.

'Tenua, it's past noon . Have you and Gen eaten yet?'

'Ah! Lunch! What time is it? I believe I was getting hungry, watching that shark eat his fish. What do you want for lunch, Gen? Let's take the elevator to the kitchen. I know the chef will have something good.'

And so they went. Gregarium watched the girl follow his chattering fish down the corridor and hoped she was doing alright.

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