Homesick

Ian gazed at the walls of his study, hungrily drinking in every detail. He felt the polished, gnarled wood beam that supported the low ceiling and then leaned on it as if to assure himself it was real, even though it wasn’t. He went to his father’s bookshelves and pulled out a thick-bound scrapbook with metal corners on each page. It was heavy in his hands, but he didn’t set it down on the desk. He opened the timeworn cover to reveal pages decorated like museum walls with tiny portraits. He turned several pages, seeing his father’s baby pictures, his cricket team portrait, and finally the old photograph that had haunted Ian most of his life. It was a small, yellowed snapshot of his father as a boy, seated on a stone bench with an older man who had his face. The man wore a thick beard and smoked a distinctive low-hanging pipe that made him look wise and important. A blanket covered his waist, but only one boot protruded onto the walkway below. The picture didn’t show the old-fashioned wheelchair kept carefully out of the frame, but Ian knew it must have been there.

This was the only picture Ian had of his grandfather. When he was a boy it had scared him to see the empty space where a right leg should have been. As he grew older he felt an exaggerated sense of pride about granddad the war hero, who had given his leg for king and country. Now he only searched the tiny black and white eyes for some hint of what else had been lost.

“I’m sorry, Granddad,” he whispered. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

He didn’t notice Angela enter the room until she screamed his name. She didn’t see the book in his hands, and when she jumped into his arms it reappeared on the shelf in front of him, where it actually always was. They kissed tenderly and some of the tension ebbed from Ian’s heart.

“Thank God for that!” she said, sobbing. “Thank God you’re home!”

“I wish I really was.”

“Well don’t worry, Luv, you will be soon!”

They let the embrace last a few more precious seconds and then Angela held him at arm’s length, her face bright and cheerful.

“They told me you were a hero! You saved the Captain and Scott! I don’t mind telling you, I lost a few buttons over that, didn’t I?”

“Hero?” he said in surprise.

“Well, yes, of course hero! You did save over half your crew, including the Captain and Chief Pilot, didn’t you?

He nodded, as if registering these facts for the first time. “Yeah, I guess I did at that.”

“Oh God, I can’t wait to show you off! We’ll have a genuine hero’s welcome when you get back!”

Ian made a dismissive gesture.

“And already you’re getting modest. There’s a real hero! I want to know all about it!” She grinned. “Tell me what it was like facing off with those aliens.”

Ian had to fight the impulse to laugh. Even at the time, he hadn’t thought of their assailants as “aliens” in the sense that Angela probably imagined, or monsters of any kind. But, in Angela’s eyes, he caught a vision of himself as a mighty warrior wielding a broadsword against an army of three-eyed, spider-legged creatures with ray guns in each of their numerous tentacles.

“It wasn’t that romantic,” Ian said. “At least not from where I stood.”

She clapped him on the shoulders and led him to a chair. “Well, it is for me! Granted, it’s the last thing I would have wished for, mind you, but now we’ve got something exciting to talk about! A genuine heroic battle! Who’d have thought?”

“Battle?” Ian laughed. “I don’t know if I’d call it a battle. Truth be told, it was more like an attempted mugging. There were only three of them after all.”

“Only three?”

“You see, it really wasn’t all that much, now was it?”

“But they were armed, weren’t they?”

Ian reflected. “Actually, no. No guns at least.” Ian’s head sank a little. “In fact, they were almost defenseless.”

“But they said they were trying to capture you. They must have had some weapons.”

“One of them had an electric prod. The others were carrying nets. No match for a pistol, not even the cheap one I had.”

“Well, they should’ve known better than to take you on then, shouldn’t they? Sounds like they got what they deserved!”

Ian’s jaw dropped. “Actually, I’m not sure they were entirely responsible for their actions. Now, please, I don’t care to talk about this right now.”

“But what else is there to talk about? Don’t you want to celebrate? We can open up some Champagne! At least you can taste it, anyway.”

“No, Ange, what I mean is there’s another side to all this. The rescue mission, I mean. What they told you . . . well, I don’t know if it’s entirely accurate.”

“But you did shoot the aliens before they could take you and the Captain, didn’t you?”

He sighed. “Yes, I shot them.”

“My sister’s all bubbly about it! I can’t wait to tell her you’re back on VR! We’ll all have a party and bring everybody over to show you off! Your dad would be so proud if he were here!” She studied him again and her eyebrows knitted with concern. “Ian, what’s wrong?”

She watched him pace in a frustrated, marching fashion, as if he were trying to force words to the surface of his mind. Finally, he faced her. “Ange, the aliens I shot . . . They weren’t the real enemy. They were just people. People who didn’t deserve to die.”

Angela started in surprise. “But they said …”

“Yes, yes, Ange, they attacked us and they would have captured us. But they were brainwashed, you see. They couldn’t help what they were doing. They were like captured civilians or POWs being paraded in front of infantry to stop bullets. I was shooting at civilians!”

Angela’s face registered more amazement than concern. “And how do you know that?”

“We had a briefing today. Dr. Poole said they were some kind of cyborgs. Humans with their minds taken over. The real threat was the Master pulling the strings, and he was the only one I didn’t shoot!”

“Ian, sit down.”

He did, facing his familiar desk and feeling its polished, wood surface for comfort. “It was bad enough shooting them, Ange. I’d never shot anything living before. That hunting rifle I have, you know? It’s mere fancy, always was. I never used it for anything but bottles or painted targets. I used to say I didn’t want the bother of cleaning the kills, skinning, or having to carry anything back, but the fact is I never brought down anything because I knew the sight of it would put me off my food! Now, when those things came at us I didn’t have any real choice, I’ll admit that. I had to stop them. At the time, I didn’t even know they were human. But now . . .”

Angela took his hand, studying his hurt expression.

“When I shot them they bled, okay? I mean they bled a-lot. And they twitched. It’s not the sort of thing I’d want to think about, let alone celebrate. Nobody should have to suffer like that.”

Angela nodded. “You’re right, that was in bad taste, I’m sure. It must be an adjustment for you. I didn’t consider.”

Ian sat back, clearly more comfortable.

“But you did what you had to do, Ian. You came back to me. You did something that wasn’t easy for you. And, because of that, now Scott can go back to his family and the Captain can go back to her . . . well, whatever she calls it.”

Ian nodded. “I realize that. It’s just I wish I hadn’t found out what they were now. It doesn’t seem right. Those poor creatures had it bad enough as it was. It’s like I shot Granddad.”

Angela’s face tightened. “I think not. It absolutely is not the same as that and you damn well know it. And you’re not to talk that way anymore! If those poor souls were being controlled by the beasts they told me about, then it’s the beasts that killed them, not you! Or perhaps they’re better off now. You could look at it that way . . .”

“I’ve been trying to believe that.”

“And your granddad had to shoot people during the war, too. I’m sure he didn’t fancy it either, not the way your dad used to go on about him. It’s just necessary is all! Just like what you did.”

“He was a good man.”

“And, silly as it seems, I still feel good about all this. It’s all over the village! Sure it was big news, you going on the flight, but now __”

“Angela, please! We’re not going to celebrate this. If we go down the pub and have a drink, I’ll be glad to talk about every aspect of our mission to any interested parties, but I’ll not turn this into some kind of war cry, and you have to know that. I didn’t go on this mission to butcher innocent human beings. Now, you’re right, I did what I had to, but I don’t fancy making a business of it. Besides, we’re not really out of danger yet.”

“Oh?” She looked confused. “How much danger can there be now, you back on the ship and all?”

“Well, that’s what I came to tell you about. We’ve got some of those ‘Masters’ coming onboard.”

“You what?” she said, stepping back in surprise. “Ian, I think not! Onto the ship? Whose daft idea was that?”

“Angela, we had no choice,” he began, clearly expecting this reaction. “We need that shuttlepod back. The computer banks contain information we can’t afford to leave for the Masters. It could be used against us. I can’t go into it all now, but there’s too much at stake here!”

She stared at him, visibly confused. “You don’t mean to say you suggested this, do you?”

He sighed. “As a matter of fact I did. I saw the danger of their getting their hands on those files and I brought it up with Captain Buds.”

“And what about Captain Buds then? It’s her ship. She was okay with that?”

“She agreed with me after we talked about it, yes.”

She studied him with a different kind of concern than before. “How long were you down on the planet, Ian?”

“Oh, it couldn’t have been longer than a day, give or take. Of course there was the time it took going down and coming back . . .”

“And you didn’t think to destroy those files then?”

“Well, we didn’t know they were a threat then, did we?”

She stepped back farther from him and her eyes grew wide with fear. “What’s your game, Ian?”

“What? Just what do you mean by that?”

“They told me to tell them if you seemed different. If you’d changed.”

“Who? What are you saying?”

“They got to you, didn’t they? They told me you mightn’t even be aware.”

“Bloody hell, what’s all this now?”

“You’re talking about defending yourself like it’s some sort of a crime and now you’re letting those monsters onboard your ship! Well, that’s not you, Ian. Can’t you see that? You’d never have done that before!”

“Now, hang about here! It’s not like that! I told you, the blokes I shot were just a couple of poor sods they brainwashed! And the ship contains valuable __”

“And now you’re here talking to me!”

“Of course I’m here talking to you, but God bligh me I’d never thought __”

“Are you influencing me, is that it? Are you using some sort of hypnosis?” She passed a hand in front of her eyes while stepping back yet farther, almost tripping over a coffee table.

“Ange, it’s just not like that!”

“Maybe you believe it yourself, but I’ve never seen you like this. You’re talking nonsense! They did get to you, didn’t they?”

“Angela, for pity sake!” He stood up and started towards her.

But then she vanished into a shimmering cloud of pixels before his eyes and the room morphed back into his quarters on the ship. Instantly, the rough, carpeted floor between the desk and the great bookcases became the window, onto which he now stumbled, feeling the frame between his slippers as the geometry of the room reasserted itself.

“Well, that’s just t’riffic, isn’t it!” he shouted after completing a double summersault against the blackness of space. He examined the wrist-mounted control devise. The words “Transmission discontinued” were lit up. He stabbed at the tiny touch pad, entering the appropriate codes. He hit the green transmit key. “Channel not available” was the reply. Frustrated, he wrenched the unit from his arm with the scratching sound of Velcro and threw it across the room, where it bounced off the cushion of his chair, ricocheted off the edge of his console screen, and finally settled on the floor near the edge of the window. Then, shaking his head, he opened the door to his quarters and walked out with a deliberate step.