Webbready

In a previous entry, I wrote a simple excerpt from an idea that I had long ago abandoned. Below I have expanded upon the except slightly and while it is not any better, I do believe this is more complete.

Vessel #2A2B6I was surrounded by an endless cloak of cold darkness. The spacecraft propelled itself along its predetermined course, blissfully unaware of its new destiny. The occupants of the technological cocoon shared the vehicle’s ignorance. However, these individuals were not lifeless passengers encased in slumber, patiently waiting metamorphosis. Instead, this pair of travellers was awake in the darkness, tending to the various lighted displays aboard the ship.

The male half of this pair caught a glimpse of his appearance in one of the surface, but paid no attention to it. His face was like that of the Primoids they were destined to meet, a light brown, hairless face with lips, and a nose shaped more like the beak of an Avian rather than that of a primate. Indeed, he would have easily passed for one of the aliens they were sent to study had it not been for the large, paper-like wings folded against his back and the fat, floppy antannae drooping from his head.

He cast a gaze at his Mariposan wife as she pressed a series of keystrokes. In body she was the typical Mariposan, lithe, fair in skin tone, with wings the color of a rainbow draped across her back. Her antannae were wiry but resisted the artificial gravity of the spaceship. Like her husband, she resembled the aliens they were supposed to encounter, although her body emitted a faint glow that was evident in the dimly lit area. The divergence their two subspecies had taken had differentiated them substantially, yet it was clear to any obersever that they were more similar than they were different. This was made all the more clear by the three words the woman said next.

“I have conceived.”

She spoke the words suddenly, plainly, as though it were nothing more than a fact. The man inwardly laughed at her Mariposan stoicism. The woman began to laugh as well, except her laughter was audible. The man mimicked her noise and the realization of their hope filled them both with a delirious euphoria. Soon they found themselves in each other’s arms, their chests heaving from the fatigue brought on by their happiness.

“Morphine,” he said aloud, then spoke to her with his mind. When a man and a woman set out on a journey and bear fruit, it is a sign that the journey will be a success.

I didn’t expect it to be so soon, she answered telepathically. It is said good things come to those who wait.

“I have never heard of that saying,” he joked through speech. It was difficult to joke through telepathy. The communication of minds was not like speech, a masquerade of words, sounds, and movements to approximate meaning. Rather it exposed emotion in its naked, rawest state and allowed for neither confusion nor falsehood. Jokes required the veil of social mores to be effective. Again they laughed, but their sounds were more subdued.

Their laughter was interrupted by the warning klaxon. Quickly the two cast aside their jovial demeanors and pointed their faces toward the display monitors. Their faces widened with horror as the figures and numbers before them began to point toward a terrifying, but increasingly certain conclusion.

“Am I reading this correctly?” Morphine asked.

“We’re being pulled by a magnetic force,” he stated.

“Prepare to be boarded,” the computer commanded in its monotone voice, contrasting against the clamour of its own caution. Vessel #2A2B6I was pulled, its original motion stopped altogether and instead replaced with a different vector of magnitude and direction. The pair of travellers could not feel the pull of the vessel itself. Intertial dampeners prevented what could have been fatal jolt or any of the other effects of acceleration. Still, Morphine held herself with her arms and drew close to her husband. Both faced the hatch through which their kidnappers would come. They were defenseless against any assault, whether against their ship or themselves; there had been no need for weapons of war in small, private vessels such as theirs for generations.

After several minutes, the alarm silenced itself. In turn, the vessel’s motion began to slow, and its drift soon petered out, leaving the weary craft in a state of rest. Seconds trudged past in agony, in which a flurry of words were exhcanged from mind to mind between the man and the woman. The thought of death itself did not bother them; indeed, in years past both had risked their lives for the goal of universal peace, but they never expected their end to come en route to their destination.

Without warning, Morphine began to cough in spurts. She expelled the air from her lungs repeatedly, and was barely able to inhale in between the bursts of air. He squeezed her hand gently and she her fit abated, but the occurrence distrubed him far more than the doom that loomed over them. If her unnaturally short life span were truncated further by this disruption, he knew he would never forgive himself.

Finally, after an eternity of quiet other than the twin sounds of their own mental noises and biological processes, a creak intruded into the silence, and the hatch before them began to open, filling the area with a strong light. Two silhouettes about the size of Morphine emerged. One was in the shape of an a spider, although its torso and head were more Primoid than arthropod. The other was in the shape of a crab. It was only after their eyes adjusted to the light that they the husband and wife could see the plated skin that covered the strangers’ bodies and smell the foreign metal that had accompanied the arrival of the figures.

These were robots.

Neither of the mehcanical beings spoke, or made any indication of their presence except for their eye sockets, which blazed with a strong light that dwarfed the bioluminesce of the Mariposan Morphine. Yet a series of footsteps that grew louder by the second heralded another shadow that soon become flesh.

The two robots stepped aside for this person, a bipedal humanoid with long black hair. She waddled forward more than she walked, and her gait allowed the man to study her more closely. Her nose was somewhat flatter than his, and her eyes were slighlty folded. He recalled that many of the aliens they were about to come in contact with shared these facial features. However, the hairless tail that came from her back and the hand-like paws for feet rendered her simian heritage all too apparent, and the current situation rendered their mission a distant memory.

“If it isn’t The Dream in the flesh,” the dark haired woman gloated. “Although not for long.”

“If you want me, then so be it,” the man answered. “But let my wife live, please.”

“Don’t worry. I have no use for your Mariposan paramour, but I will not harm her either.” The woman cast a quick, throway glance at Morphine. “After all, she does not have long to live. I would rather her final days tell of how I have captured the greatest ambassador of our time.”

“I thought we had evolved past such petty skirmishes,” The Dream remarked.

“You may have, but I prefer the primitive days when species fought each other to survive.” She relaxed her legs, slightly, allowing her knees to bend. “We’ve grown far too stagnant since then, and allowed our minds to dull. Fortunately, I have begun to intervene before this malaise worsens into an outright illness.”

The woman snapped her fingers and the two robots moved toward The Dream and Morphine. Neither of the two moved as the mechanical beings circled them. Each of the robots clasped the respective outside arms of the couple, holding them with a firm, but not painful, grip. The monkey-woman walked in the direction she had come from, holding her tail up to balance her weight in this unnatural gait, and the robots followed and carried their prisoners.

They were led from Vessel #2A2B6I to their new home through corridors that alternated between dim and bright lighting, past exposed wires and buckled plating, indicating the overdue need for repair. Thoughts passed between Morphine and her husband in a flurry, yet the panic of their unspoken communication did not go unnoticed. The monkey-woman and her two mechanical arthropods quickened their pace, forcing their captives to do the same.

“Do you think my capture or my death will plunge the Union into chaos?” the Dream asked, in response to the change in movement.

“Your death certainly wouldn’t,” the woman answered with her back to him, “and if I were holding you for ransom, I would have killed your wife already.” She turned and cast a smile full of sinister intent toward Morphine without breaking her stride. “No offense, but Mariposans are not worth much more alive than dead.”

Morphine responded with a stolid stare that masked her fear. Instead, the monkey-woman began to speak to the man again, looking over her shoulder periodically.

“No,” she continued, “what I want from you is your servitude, and that I will get.”

“Madam,” he said, “I can help you if you will allow me.” At these words, the monkey-woman laughed and stopped her forward motion entirely, causing the robots and the imprisoned pair to cease walking as well. She turned around to face The Dream, her face showing the slight lines of age and annoyance.

“Your ‘help’ would be to put me in an asylum, to see the error or my ways, and for you to go on your little journey.”

“Then how do you expect me to serve you?”

“On my terms.”

“May I at least learn the name of my master?”

“Of course.” The monkey-woman bowed with a facility and grace that until now appeared to beyond her capability. “My name is Eve, and from now on, you will be my puppet.”