Wormbender's Circus

Sebastian woke from a deep sleep. He was vaguely conscious that it had been troubled by disturbing dreams, the nature of which he could no longer recall. He turned over, more than half hoping to find that Zoe was close at hand. She was not. He pressed the intercom button.

“You there, Casey?”

“Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakes! How are you?”

Sebastian felt unsettled. The sullen Casey had mysteriously been replaced by his jovial twin brother. “Okay,” he answered cautiously. “When do we hit the supply station?”

“She’s way behind us.”

“What?” Sebastian gasped. “You’re kidding me!”

“Nope.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“A good twelve hours.”

Sebastian yawned. “Uh huh. It feels like it too. Where’s Zoe?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t set eyes on her since we left the supply station. Probably down keeping the erg company. Like she usually is.”

Something in Casey’s non-committal tone of voice made Sebastian instantly suspicious. He called every intercom point on the ship, but there was no reply. He called Casey back. “Zoe’s not answering, Casey.”

“Maybe she’s asleep too.”

Sebastian got up. He searched the ship thoroughly from end to end. Then he went up to the control cabin.

“She’s not on this ship,” he declared. “And I think you know that.”

Casey shrugged. “Yeah. She got off at the supply station.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I told her it would probably be better all round if she found herself another ride. She didn’t argue.”

Sebastian clenched his fists. It was the only way he could think of to keep himself from throttling his partner. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve, Casey,” he fumed, his face steadily turning puce. He wondered how he could have been stupid enough not to have seen it coming. “Surely you didn’t think I’d let you get away with this. Quite apart from the fact that I want her on this ship, she could be exposed to who knows what…”

Sebastian’s tirade was interrupted by a sound emanating from the control panels. It was a sound neither man had heard on the ship before.

Sebastian stared at Casey. “What’s that?”

“A distress signal,” said Casey. “Someone out there’s in trouble.”

The argument over Zoe would have to wait. A distress call took priority over everything. Casey immediately set the computer to the task of tracing the signal and to setting a course in that direction. The information was not long in coming, and the Semiramis sped to the rescue.

In a couple of hours they had reached the source of the signal. When they saw it, they both gasped in amazement. It was the remains of a ship, with gashes in its sides, scorch marks and twisted, buckled panels. It seemed impossible that anyone could have survived to send a distress signal.

“What do you suppose happened to it?” asked Sebastian as they drew closer.

“Beats me,” said Casey. “Something pretty radical.” He stared hard at it. “Those scorch marks. I’d say this ship’s been in a fight. But why? It’s hard to tell anything from what’s left of it.”

“Sensors say six people on board,” said Sebastian. “Still alive, by the looks of things.”

Casey scratched his head. “I don’t like this. Something tells me we would be wise to just get out of here.”

“But you can’t just ignore a distress signal.”

“I know. We can’t even communicate with them. All but their most fundamental systems are dead. I don’t know what to do.”

After some minutes of deliberation, Casey manoeuvred the Semiramis alongside the crippled ship and extended the connecting tunnel. The two ships docked.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Let’s go see what’s what. “But keep your wits about you.”

The two men walked to the airlock, and Casey jabbed the switch.

The door slid open, and Casey and Sebastian found themselves on the wrong end of six guns. Casey and the foremost man in the group experienced a moment of astonished mutual recognition.

“Well, well,” said the man, flashing an ugly grin. “The old saucer man.”

“Rat.” Casey gritted his teeth. He turned to Sebastian. “I knew there was something rotten about this.” He ran his eyes over the six men. All were wearing the same grey uniforms. All were dirty, some of the uniforms were torn, and one man had a bloodstained rag tied around one thigh. “Jailbreak, huh?”

“You always were the smart one, Casey,” Rat growled. “Smarter than your buddies. Smart enough to be walking around free while they’re doing time.” He turned to one of the other men. “Snow, go check the ship. See if there’s anyone else on board.”

The man called Snow brushed past Casey and Sebastian and ran off into the Semiramis. Sebastian’s emotions did a backflip and he breathed a sigh of relief that Zoe was not with them. And then he flipped again as he realised that these men were Casey’s old cronies, and that they were in a mood to kill him.

“I did my time,” said Casey. “And in case you didn’t notice, I don’t walk any more.”

Rat shoved his gun into Casey’s face. “Don’t get smart with me, Casey. If you’d just flown a bit better, we would all have been free and rich. But you stuffed it.”

One of the other men pulled on Rat’s arm. “Rat, we don’t have time for this.”

Rat shook his arm free. “I’m going to blow this guy’s head off.”

“Hey, Rat,” another man said, as Rat lifted his gun. “You hate him that much? Let him die slowly.” He jerked his thumb back along the connecting tube.

Rat looked at him for a moment, then a smile creased his thin lips. “Right. Right.” He waved his gun. “Okay, you guys, down the tube.” Sebastian and Casey made their way towards the battle-scarred derelict ship. The other men with Rat passed them and stepped aboard the Semiramis. “Got ourselves a new ship, boys,” Rat sneered.

Snow returned to report. “The ship’s empty, Rat. Only these two aboard.”

Rat nodded. “Good. What about the hold?”

“Empty.”

“Good. Okay, let’s get this tub out of here.”

Casey and Sebastian edged further along the tube. Rat grinned at them. “Sorry to leave you and your buddy like this, Casey, old chum, and after such a brief encounter too. But me and the guys, well, we’re in a bit of a rush. We do appreciate the loan of your ship, though. That was mighty kind of you. We’ll certainly take good care of her. Not that you’ll care too much about it. After all, you’ll be dead in, oh, twenty-four hours or so. You see, that ship’s a little the worse for wear, and she has an air leak. Just a small one, but a leak all the same. So long, guys.”

Rat vanished into the Semiramis. Casey spat on the ground and opened the hatch into the drifting hulk. Scarcely had the hatch closed behind Sebastian and himself before the two ships parted. The engines of the Semiramis fired, and she was gone.

Casey and Sebastian looked around their new home, what there was left of it. It was gloomy, and foul smelling. An acrid stench of something scorched hung in the air, as did a thin veil of smoke. The floor was littered with beer flasks, and on the table in the communal area were the remains of a meal. Never had the nautical term “the ship’s mess” seemed more appropriate.

Casey went up to the flight deck. All the shields were down over the windows. He booted up the ship’s main files. After some less than encouraging buzzing and crackling, the data appeared on the screen.

“Supply Unit James D. Fitzgerald,” he read aloud, “servicing Penal Colonies Alpha, Delta, Gamma and Epsilon. Those guys must have managed to hijack her somehow. Probably paid a few guards to look the other way.”

“Must have been quite a fight,” said Sebastian, shuffling glumly in.

“Yeah,” Casey agreed. He continued checking the instruments. “Well, they were right about the air leak.” He looked up at Sebastian. He wore an expression of abject apology. “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I think this is the end of the line for us.”

He followed Sebastian as he ambled back into the living quarters. Sebastian sat down on the floor in the cleanest corner he could find.

Casey settled his saucer next to him. “Well, Stanley,” he said, waggling an imaginary necktie, “that’s another fine mess you’ve got me into.”