Space Hoppers - Dance of the Guinea Pigs Read online

  Space Hoppers

  Dance of the Guinea Pigs

  JAYNE BARTHOLOMEW

  Copyright © 2012 Jayne Bartholomew

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1480014206

  For my parents.

  For my father who can fix anything static as long as there’s a DIY store within a fifty mile radius and my mother who fixes everything else.

  Thank you both for being you.

  In the beginning[1] the planets of the galaxy danced sedately together in their eons-old pattern and darkness spread through the space between. A mighty wind swept over the surface of the darkness and there was a big bang.

  The planets changed the pattern of their dance and reacted against the unseemly interruption in the only way they knew how.

  And then there was Light.

  One

  The crack ran, determined, down the wall and remained sneeringly defiant in the face of plaster, paint and a rather wilted rose bush that had been placed optimistically at the bottom of the chasm. If it had been an old house Sarah could have passed the crack off as the result of subsidence, if it had been new she could have said it was settling, but as it was neither she had to re-evaluate her options. She could say that a freak storm had sent a bolt of lightning into the wall or maybe invent a mild, localised earthquake. Insurance companies aside, it was a serious option. However, since half the hedge had been run over, four gnomes were now mere suggestions of hats sticking out of tyre tracks and a bumper was embedded in the offending wall, she was probably going to have to confess that she had failed yet another driving test.

  As she stood outside her front door rummaging in her bag for the key, Sarah tried to put her day into perspective.

  Everyone makes mistakes; it was part of being human. She worked, correction, had worked in an extremely stressful environment, in difficult conditions and obviously had not received the training required to do her job effectively. After such a traumatic driving test earlier in the day she should have been given tea and sympathy, not put to work straight away on the production line.

  Sarah started to go through her pockets with increasing urgency as the bag refused to give up the front door key.

  It wasn’t as though she had particularly enjoyed her job in the teddy bear factory or that she was hoping for a career in bear-assembly but it had paid the rent. Why today, of all days, they should put her in the bear voice box division was a complete mystery to her. Apparently, she was single-handedly responsible for the destruction of two thousand teddy bears, which should have been shipped out to meet the Christmas demand and would, when their tummy was pressed, articulately describe the correct location a gear stick should be inserted into a driving instructor. They said she was lucky they didn’t sue.

  A cold wind whipped around her and she glanced briefly up at the sky as the first few drops of rain started to fall. For a second she thought she saw something move overhead and cupped her hands over her eyes to get a better look. However, angry black clouds were gathering and it wasn’t long before the only thing she saw was that she was going to get very wet if she stayed outside for much longer.

  The electricity went off within a hundred-mile radius.

  Xander stared out at the velvet darkness and tried to remember if this was the last planet they needed to stop at or whether there was one more to go. They had made good time so it was probably the last.

  He mentally rehearsed what would be required of him tomorrow. If he could only pull it off, he thought, if only everything could go smoothly, then all the work over the last few days, months and years would be worth it. He stole a quick look at the clock on the wall and tried to bargain a way to fit in another search of the area. Maybe if he had less sleep tonight…? No, he would have his rest and work on projecting a calm, controlled front for the Visitors that had been arriving. He would even take some time to relax before sleep, have something healthy to eat and catch up on his paperwork. He guiltily took another look at the clock and gave a weary sigh. Would he actually be able to relax anyway given everything that was happening? Grabbing his jacket and a sandwich from the counter, Xander made his way out again.

  The storm formed silently, blotting out the stars and chasing the birds to their nests early. Livestock bellowed and whinnied to be stabled and cats slunk reluctantly back to their homes.

  Monty waited impatiently inside the house. He’d been waiting impatiently since Sarah left that morning and aside from her attempt to enter the house through the living room wall he’d been bored senseless. He knew there were probably more productive things to do than wait around all day for her to come back but all she had to do was whistle and he’d come running. The rain started. Monty had been alert since hearing Sarah’s familiar footsteps come up the path and as her key went in the lock his ears pricked up.

  Two minutes later Monty heard the key break, the door being kicked and muffled swearing.

  The rain got heavier. He made himself comfortable on one of the slightly dilapidated sofas and waited.

  Four minutes later came the sound of the upstairs window being pushed open. Monty heard the window sill followed by the drainpipe come away from the wall. There was a slight thump as the rather wilted rose bush died breaking Sarah’s fall.

  The rain became a monsoon. Monty made his way into the kitchen.

  Realising that she was going to have to break a window to enter the house, Sarah went over the side gate that had rusted shut years ago, ripping her coat on a hinge and breaking a nail on the descent. She groped her way to the back door and felt around for a suitably sized rock or stone to throw. As her fingers closed on an ornamental turtle, she was only vaguely aware of the flash of lightning that struck the roof and dislodged a tile which tobogganed downwards and knocked her out.

  She came to on a hard surface with a wet flannel being stroked over her forehead. She took a few moments to take stock. Either it wasn’t raining any more or she was indoors, but judging by the puddle her bottom was nestling in she would guess she was outside; the alternative was just too horrible to contemplate. There was a tremendous weight on her chest and for a second she thought she was having a heart attack. Sarah risked opening an eye and was greeted by a curiously wet wall of blackness. She closed her eye. The flannel passed quickly over her cheek. She opened the other eye. The blackness twitched and seemed to move. She opened both eyes. The blackness swum into focus and became a shape. Monty had his two front paws on her stomach and was licking her face.

  An object hovered silently over the clouds above the town. From it came something that, from the outside, appeared to be a large metallic bus without wheels. Inside, a clipboard was being carefully scrutinized. The bus glided left.

  Sarah put up with Monty’s weighty attentions until full consciousness came crashing back and she could turn sideways and tip him off. Using him as a prop, she hobbled through the back door, which she had apparently forgotten to close on her way out. The Doberman stood stoically until he felt her weight shift off him before charging further inside. As soon as they were indoors the heavens opened again. She reached into the cupboard over the toaster for a bottle of something medicinally alcoholic. Finding it empty she checked the fridge and then crouched down to remove a piece of “fixed” panelling to see if her paranoid housemate had hidden anything intoxicating. He hadn’t. Giving up, she went back to the fridge for something to eat before deciding that today was not the day to experiment with the healing properties of mould.

  She sat on one of the kitchen chairs staring out of the window at the rain pelting down and felt… restless.

  “I really don’t think we need to do this again, you kn
ow,” said Booker in a pained voice. “We’ve already gone over everything a hundred times, I’ve personally looked over the engine rooms myself and nothing is going to go wrong. Nothing.”

  “Just humour me, OK?” Xander looked up from his list and smiled at his friend.

  Booker nodded and removed a specially designed rucksack from his back to take out his note book. As a young student he had learned to write useful things down on a small pad but with every promotion came more useful things and the small pad had slowly grown into a large bound book. He took the list off Xander and worked his finger down it making the occasional reference to entries in his book. As usual his finger left a steak of engine oil in its path. Not for the first time Xander wondered what colour his engineer would be if he was steam-cleaned overnight. Finally Booker gave a satisfied grunt and passed the now grubby list back to Xander.

  “Everything has been gone over, every valve cleaned and screw tightened, all electrics checked more times than can be counted. It’s done, relax!”

  “I just want to make sure, that’s all.” Xander took out another, longer list. “Are all the showers working?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Are the counters clean?”

  “Spotless.”

  “Is your team on standby in case of emergency?”

  “All of the team standing by apart from one senior member who might be disciplined for excessive violence while on duty towards a colleague who was being cheeky and taking the mick.”

  Xander looked up sharply. “When did that happen?”

  “I’m not sure. Ask me another bloody stupid question and I’ll tell you.”

  No, it wasn’t sensible to go out when it was raining, and yes, she did appreciate that you couldn’t see very much in gale-force winds with torrential rain trying to squash you into the now rather muddy ground, but she’d have gone mad if she’d had to sit for much longer.

  Sarah decided to use her normally favourite shortcut to the supermarket and so was dragging Monty through a field towards the comforting lights in the distance when her torch cut out. Finding that actually the light wasn’t too bad, if she really concentrated, she wound Monty’s lead tighter around her wrist and moved slightly more carefully forward. She fell over – she got back up. It started raining harder – her waterproof jacket began to leak. It got darker – she got lost.

  In the metal bus something that could, by a broadminded tripping crack addict, be called a finger, ran its way down a page of markings that could possibly be called a list. There was one marking that translated as a name. The bus made a sharp right.

  She could see the end of the field; if she kept going just another hundred feet or so she would be at the gate and from the gate it was only another ten-minute walk to the supermarket. Her final wages from the bear factory were burning a hole in her rucksack and she considered that she had earned a taxi ride home. Another job would come along eventually and she could worry about that after her inevitable hangover had worn off tomorrow. Sarah felt an inner glow starting. She would get a nice bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, a meal she could just throw in the oven and would soak in the bath until everything was ready. She pictured her washed clothes in the tumble-dryer, clean ones on the radiator, warming, ready for when she slipped out of the bath. In her mind there was jazz playing gently in the background and a hot-water bottle to make sure the sofa was pre-heated enough for when she wanted to watch the TV. Maybe she could put the fan heater on and turn the central heating up too?

  She was suddenly aware of being very, very cold.

  The bus stopped. The driver checked the list again.

  Sarah tried to move forward but she was so cold she couldn’t feel her legs. In the corner of her eye she saw Monty lying motionless in front of her and she fell to her knees to try to push her way through… the snow?... to reach him. As she put out an arm to crawl, the breath in front of her froze to fall and shatter on the ground. She was only slightly aware of being lifted before, for the second time that day, she lost consciousness.

  The bus moved off. The driver smiled with satisfaction and ticked the last name off the list.

  In his living quarters Leader-One surveyed the plans on his desk in front of him carefully. They looked good. Faultless, in fact, which always made him nervous. His manner had the confidence of a high-ranking officer who knows that his word is law and he possessed a vaguely wolverine expression that hinted at the discomfort that would come to any who forgot that. Privileges of rank had left him with a slighter thicker-set body than a man of his fifty-odd years would expect but his eyes were sharp. If something looked too good to be true then it probably was. He knew it was late but he wanted to go through everything with his second-in-command just one more time before sleep. He intended to make the Gathering as unforgettable for the Visitors as possible.

  “Have you checked everything?” he said.

  “Yes sir.” Xander, standing in front of his desk, scratched his short dark hair thoughtfully. “I truly can’t think of anything that hasn’t been checked thoroughly. I keep feeling that there could be something else to be done but if there is I can’t find it.”

  “Hmm, do you think it’s possible that we have everything ready then, Leader-Two?”

  “Yes, sir. I think it’s possible.”

  Leader-One looked hard at Xander. He knew that his officer was meticulous and noted that the dark rings under his brown eyes were probably testament to his thoroughness. He glanced down at the papers strewn over his desk and said softly, “Very well. The most important thing is that all the dignitaries are together; we can do nothing without a united effort. Are you sure that your team know they are expected to present themselves to the Visitors?”

  “Yes, sir, although, and of course I wouldn’t dream of questioning your judgement, I…”

  “Good.” Leader-One cut him off. “I’ve always appreciated that trait in you, Xander.” He started to gather the plans into a folder. “I wonder if we’ll be able to pull this off?” he muttered almost to himself.

  Xander moved aside as Leader-One, folder under one arm, got up to leave the room. “Only time will tell, sir. We will have to trust in illumination.”

  “I’m too old and have been travelling far too long to be holding out hope for a light show. I retire after this trip and I want everything ready for the Third Wave. You are critical to the success of my mission, Xander, I want people to be able to look back on this time and know that you were a part of it. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir."

  “Very well. Let’s get some rest before all the excitement then, shall we?” Motioning Xander to leave, Leader-One looked around the room one more time before snapping the light off as they left.

  Sarah woke up slowly and reluctantly, feeling as though every inch of her body ached. Even her toenails felt vandalised. Easing herself up was impossible as she now found herself strapped down on a wide bed. Restraints bound her legs, waist and arms, cutting into the bulky clothing she was glad to see she was still wearing.

  Confused, she stared up at… nothing. The room had no ceiling. She looked sideways. The room had no walls. When she looked around all she could see was the inky expanse of space, pinpoints of lights and swirls of colours. Sarah shrunk back into her restraints feeling the bed start to spin as the panic attack rose up and a scream began to form. Her breathing gained momentum and just as her head felt that it would burst, a round ball on the end of a stalk-like antenna came down and moved over her. The tip of the antenna opened like a flower and gentle wave patterns played out on a screen inside. Sarah felt herself relax. From under the bed a metallic stick flipped over and moved across her body, causing her head to buzz briefly and the restraints to fold back into the mattress. To her eternal gratitude, by the time the antenna had gone, a white domed ceiling had taken away the stars above her and a cream carpet covered the floor leaving her in an undecorated, plain circular room. She swung her feet off the table as the door slid open.

  Four h
uman-looking males wearing dark blue uniforms entered the room, manoeuvring a large tank containing a clear liquid that glided above the floor. As they approached her they started to look apprehensive. The one closest adjusted his jacket slightly and cleared his throat. Sarah noted that the jacket had two circles on the sleeve that set his uniform apart from the others. There was a smooth gold disk in the middle of his neck and his sleeve was shredded at the cuff. He stepped forward.

  “We have your tank ready for you, Sire, and if you would like to, um, step this way, we will have you in the aquarium in a moment.” He extended an arm to point at the tank. “You will, um, notice that the water is to your specifications and, um, oxidized to your liking.” He smiled at her.

  Sarah stared blankly back at him.

  “Um, would you like us to bring the tank a little closer?” Concern started to peek through the helpful expression. “Is the water not to your liking?” He turned to the others. “It is salt water, isn’t it?” The others nodded quickly, each grateful that they didn’t have the job of Communicator. Beads of perspiration started to break out on his forehead. “Um, I hope your trip up wasn’t too inconvenient for you? If I could just persuade you to come this way?” He edged forwards slowly and gently touched her arm. The other three started to move imperceptivity backwards.

  “You want me to go in a tank?”

  The Communicator, while not being the brightest spark in the fuse box was starting to realize that possibly something was not quite as it should be. He risked another smile on the dazed and rather damp thing sitting in front of him. “Would you rather walk to the aquarium?”