David Garnet - Bikini Planet

“Sounds like an alarm,” said Kiru. “Like an emergency siren on a spaceship.”

“Hideaway is a spaceship. Of a sort.”

“Not this sort. We’re probably on a convict ship.”

Wayne Norton looked around, but all he could see was the inside of the small sphere where he and Kiru were trapped. The surface was white, and it gave off a dull glow. If it was made of glass, it would have been like the inside a goldfish bowl, without the water. Which was just as well because he couldn’t swim.

“We can’t be,” he said.

“We can be. I’ve been on one before. Not like this, inside a cell like this, but it feels the same, feels like a convict ship.”

“How did we get here?”

“Transferred inside this piece of baggage.” Kiru tapped the side of the sphere. “We’re cargo. They must have captured all the pirates who attacked Hideaway, and we’re on our way to Clink with them.”

Norton had first heard about the penal planet from Diana. Arazon, also known as Clink. Then he remembered something, something very important. “My finger! They were going to give it back when I left Hideaway!”

“They let you keep all the rest. After what you did, some planets would have chopped off everything.”

“What did I do? Nothing.”

“On most worlds, captured pirates are executed immediately.”

“I’m not a pirate.”

“They think you are. And that’s enough. Now be quiet!” Kiru put her ear to the side of their cell. “There’s trouble outside.”

She reached over to the small metal box. Before Norton could stop her, she untied the chain.

The lid sprang back and a blue worm oozed out. It was so fat it almost filled the box, so fat there was no room for any others. There were no others. It had eaten them all. Tiny fangs snapping as it searched for something else to swallow, the worm slid slowly across the cell, leaving a sticky trail of blue slime.

“And there’s trouble inside,” said Norton, pressing himself hard up against the curved wall. “Why did you do that?”

“I felt sorry for them. For it. Do you want to be locked up in here?”

“No.”

“And that poor little thing doesn’t want to be locked up in there. Time to go, James. It’s our turn to get out.”

She opened the door.

Norton was watching the worm, so he didn’t see what Kiru did, but a round hole appeared almost directly above them.

“How did you do that?”

“I told you. It’s my trick. I open doors.”

“You could have done this earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t important then. It is now. Listen.”

Yow-yaw-yee-yaw-yow-yaw-yee-yaw.

Norton could hear the howl of a siren. He straightened up for the first time in ages, slowly sticking his head through the exit. It was so dark that he could see nothing, so cold that his breath condensed in a white cloud. He ducked back down again.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but we’d better get out of here quick. They can see the door’s open.”

“Who can see?”

“We’re in a cell, James. Prisoners are usually kept under observation.”

“You mean there’s a camera?”

“Of course.”

“We’ve been watched? All the time? Even when we were, er, associating?”

“When we were what ? Ah, yes.” Kiru nodded. “Of course we were being watched.”

“Oh. No. Oh.”

“They’re aliens. They don’t care. They’re not interested. We’re a different race. It’s like watching animals. What kind of animals did they have in your time? Dinosaurs? Would you be into that? Watching dinosaurs associate ?”

“I wasn’t a caveman. I’m not that old.”

“Let’s get out of here, James.” Kiru stood up. “If we stay here, this is a death cell.”

She climbed out into the unknown, and Norton followed. He was glad she didn’t reach back to help the blue worm escape. They found themselves in a high, narrow passage, and the alarm sounded even louder than before. It was cold, very cold.

Yo w- Yaw- Yee- Yaw- Yow- Yaw- Yee- Yaw.

Norton looked to the left, but it was too black to see anything, looked to the right, with the same result. He stared, unblinking, from side to side, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. The only illumination came from a few tiny orange lights which blinked on and off, on and off, at ground level.

“We’ve got to get away before we freeze to death,” Kiru said. She put her hand on his arm, and her fingers already felt colder.

Norton shivered. He’d been frozen before. Frozen alive.

“Stop,” ordered a hollow voice behind them. “Escape no.”

“Escape yes,” said Kiru, and she ran.

“Under arrest,” said the same voice from ahead of them.

One voice, two shapeless shapes drifting along the corridor toward them, trapping them in the middle. Two serious weapons held by spectral limbs.

The creatures were the same as the phantoms which had arrested them earlier.

As Norton walked to where Kiru had halted, he looked up, down, all around. There was nowhere to go.

“James!” said Kiru.

What would Cagney have done? Or Bogart? Or John Wayne?

Norton clenched his fists.

When the first alien came close enough, he lashed out, slugging it on the jaw, or where it should have had a jaw. His right fist sank deep into the thing’s face. It was cold, like plunging his hand into freezing water.

The alien rocked back on its footless feet, then fell over. Norton spun around to confront the other one.

“You hurt you?” The second hazy creature had stopped and appeared to be gazing down at its companion.

“Hurt you? ” shouted Norton.

He punched the thing in its middle, and his fist seemed to go straight through. When he tried to pull his arm out, it was trapped. His hand became even colder, growing numb.

“Me hurt me,” said the alien. It doubled up, then collapsed.

Norton’s arm came free.

What was left of it. It was severed at the elbow.

That was why it was numb, because it wasn’t there.

His whole body became instantly ice cold.

First, his index finger. Now, half his arm.

He’d also lost his voice, couldn’t scream out his horror and fear and pain. No, not pain. There was none. No feeling because there was nothing left to feel.

“James, that was, that was so… so prehistoric!” Kiru was gazing at him in total admiration.

“M-my arm-m,” he stammered, shivering, showing her his stump.

“My caveman!” She reached out for what wasn’t there, touching where his fingers should have been. “It’s cold.”

As he watched, his arm slowly reappeared. It was transparent, but still there! Each bone of his skeleton was clearly visible, gradually becoming covered with sinew and muscle. Every vein and artery could be seen through his by-now-translucent flesh. Finally, the skin reappeared, and he was whole again. Except for the missing finger.

Norton rubbed his left hand over his forearm. It was still too cold, still numb, but warmth and feeling were returning.

The two guards remained down, but not all the way down. They rolled from side to side, suspended a few inches above the ground, which was visible through their hollow bodies.

Perhaps that was because the security spooks were still on Hideaway. By now, Norton had accepted that Kiru was right. He and she were no longer on the pleasure satellite.

When the shadowy shapes had first appeared in his room, Norton felt he was in a daze, halfway between dreaming and waking. But it was an imagined dream because Kiru had been real.

He wasn’t sure of the guards’ reality. It was as if they were only half there, a projection from another dimension.