Shen

CHAPTER ONE

When no one was looking, David set off his own ring tone. He pretended it was a call too important to miss, left Alyson talking with his brother-in-law and walked away. He faked some responses to imaginary questions. As soon as he was back in his office and out of earshot, he put the mobile in his jacket.

And he went round the room one more time. The sealant on the window frames, in a few places, wasn’t perfectly smooth. A hairline crack had started under the bracket that held the flat panel television to the wall. And when he ran a finger along the back of the radiator it already came up dusty. It all looked old, now that it was less than brand new. When Alyson finally came looking for him, he was crouched under his desk.

OK, she said, so you’re not Simon’s best friend. But that was rude.

He didn't reply. He got out his phone again, and used it shine a light on his chair.

Send this back tomorrow, he told her. There's loose stitching.

I'll call them now.

Wait. Has Simon gone?

Yes, she answered, pointedly. Was it so bad?

Was he impressed?

Oh yeah.

He pushed the chair away and crawled out. Halfway to standing he spotted something else. And there's rubbish, he pointed to underlay trimmings, there, behind the door.

Cleaner will get it. But Alyson turned to pick them up herself. She bent deep at the waist so her ass swelled inside her skirt, inches from his face.

Need you to get me a cab, was his response.

Now?

Problem?

No no, she straightened. She dropped the scraps in his bin and picked up the desk phone. While she spoke with the taxi firm he checked his tie in the window, opened his briefcase, dug through his top tray for papers he needed. Ten minutes is fine if it is ten minutes, Alyson said into the receiver. And when she hung up she added, I’m just surprised that you’re going on time.

Made a deal, David went back to the top of the tray and started again. Quality time with the wife. Where's the rest of this?

You've got it, she pointed at the document he held. They're clipped together.

He put them in the case and shut it. Then took one last look over the new office, to regard the built in cabinets, the sofa, the plants, the sculpture. Could do it all again next week.

Does she know? Alyson asked.

Sorry?

Does Lucy know about us?

Oh, he said, thought you meant the decorating. He picked up the case and walked from his office into hers.

No, she said, following. I wondered--,

She knows nothing.

From the wardrobe near the exit, he took his scarf. But Alyson beat him to his coat. She took it off the hanger and held it open for him. I'm going to see Falcons tomorrow, she said.

If you like, David shrugged the coat onto his shoulders. We have the conference call Tuesday.

Can’t wait. She talked while she got her own coat. If they don't make up their minds Vosalias may change their price. Oh, and if Gaston is late when you get to Paris don't worry. He's got an agenda with the main points. There's no reason you couldn't cut that meeting by half.

David nodded. Good.

She did her buttons. You're sure she doesn't suspect?

He shrugged. Even if…,

Even if--?

It'd be biting the hand that feeds her. Feeds and clothes and don't talk to me about jewellery. Alyson was digging for keys in her bag. I'll let you lock up, he said, and left.

Outside was cloying drizzle. The cab arrived on time but mired in traffic near the station. Football results on the radio reminded him that Falcons' MD would be presenting trophies to some school team. He emailed Alyson to say she'd better go there early. He thought about emailing again. He even went through his list of restaurant numbers, but couldn't get motivated. Profit figures like theirs deserved celebration, and while the new décor was great it wasn’t enough, not given their relationship. Yet somehow it made Alyson look like the one thing he hadn't updated.

A text came from his wife as he walked through the station concourse, which he ignored. He bought a paper and boarded his train. A quick glance through the headlines made it clear nothing new had happened since he last checked online.

New things. That was the issue, not where to go for dinner. Every project, once it cleared the initial hurdles, reached a phase that left him with energy to spare. That drove him crazy. He tried to explain to Simon once, though to be fair it was shortly after he broke their partnership and stole Alyson, their most promising employee. His wife's brother was the kind who made up his mind and kept it made. Inventing phone calls was sometimes the only way to cope.

Not that David was stupid. A certain amount of reliability couldn't be avoided. So he did read his wife’s text eventually, after he left the train and before he started up his car. 'Sorry,' it said, 'prayer mtg 4 Sarah Big C dr says 3 mos’. He left her a voice mail to prove he’d made the effort. To rub it in he added, ‘don't worry -- I’ll feed myself.’

He drove to their village and made a detour onto the high street, where luckily there was a spot for the car right outside the Moonlight Tandoori Restaurant and Takeaway. He tried to recall the last time he’d been. Light from the upstairs windows had turned every puddle in the road lurid blue. He thought nothing of that as he parked and locked the car; it was the style now. Yet oddly, when he reached the door it was dark. The foyer inside was also dark: dark and cold and empty. He swore. It was a ten mile drive to the next easy meal.

And he would have gone back to the car, but the strange blue light made him pause. Out on the street it had been arresting. Other worldly better described it now. It streamed down from the next floor, where the dining room was. If that was emergency lighting, no one could work by it. And yet there had to be something going on if the place was unlocked.

So he started to climb the stairs. Halfway to the top he thought again about turning round, because it became impossible to see. To find each step he had to feel for it with his shoe. He grabbed the railing hand over hand until it ran out and then he put out a hand to find the door frame.

As he did he thought he heard a sound. Feet walked across a hard floor above him, which made no sense because that would be the roof. The noise stopped. David waited a few moments, hoping if he heard it again he’d come up with a better explanation. But nothing happened, and the light began to make his eyes tear. He shrugged, raised his foot to take the last step. And then he remembered, too late, that he’d already figured out there wasn’t going to be one.

He stumbled, and as his foot fell it stuck. What caught it he couldn’t tell; he could barely push it forward, and couldn't pull it back. The ankle had turned a little, so he had to hop on the other leg to keep his balance. He stayed this way several seconds. Then all of a sudden the trapped foot remembered how gravity was meant to work and it went down hard. The sudden force threw David sideways.

The sensation that swallowed his body, as he fell, was like feeding himself through a shrink wrap machine, or floating in the Dead Sea. Except he didn't float--he sank. A thickness got inside his ears and plugged his nose. It pushed between his suit and raincoat. Last of all, his arms were sucked in, fingers crooked into claws ready to dig himself out, if that’s what it came to.

But it didn’t. After a few moments the air became its normal consistency and he dropped onto a hard surface, banged his head. He kept his eyes shut until the dizziness passed, and when he opened them the searing blue light had gone. But he was no longer inside the Moonlight Tandoori.

He was in another room, maybe a tank. It was grey painted metal with eight sides. He got up, walked around. He ran his hands carefully over the walls, studied the ceiling and the floor. Everything seemed smooth and solid, with nothing to show how he could have entered.

Do you speak?

David froze.

Do you speak? the voice asked again. Very slowly, he turned to look behind him, but there was nothing.

Do you—,

Yes, he interrupted.

The blue light appeared again. It started as a pinpoint at the ceiling and flashed down one side of the tank to make the wall disappear. That revealed a hidden compartment, about the size of a wardrobe.

I think you should come up, the voice advised.

David smoothed his raincoat, put both hands in the pockets. Why? The answer was silence. Who is this? It kept him waiting. His stomach growled loud enough to make an echo. I have a right to know what's going on.

There was a sigh—a sigh!—that finally came in reply. And then, The hold may not be safe.

It seems fine, David snapped.

But if we launch—,

Launch?!

--may happen, the atoms have been instructed--,

Launch?!

—might not pass through this structure without being hurt—,

What launch? What are you talking about? Then the tank began to vibrate. What? David shouted. What's happening!?

The atomic structure is being reconfigured, the voice said.

Reconfig--, the craziness of it all made him feel odd. He moved closer to the walls in case he needed them for support and noticed the floor had turned sticky.

Please, the voice pleaded.

Just let me out of here!! David bellowed.

I can't.

Other noises were mixed in with the voice now, beeps and pips and sirens like an arcade.

Then stop it. Stop the…launch.

I can't do that either.

What do you mean, can't? Who runs this? I'll talk to the person who runs this, David yelled, but sweat had gone cold on his shirt collar. He talked more sense in his dreams. The shaking grew stronger.

And as he stood there, trying not to panic, he thought he saw a calendar. It was one of those promotional gifts with a pleat in the back cover so it could stand on a flat surface. The Moonlight Tandoori had their own and this was one of them, floating level with his waist. The corners of it came and went, as if it had existential issues. And then, for just a moment, David saw it resting on a semi-transparent table near a semi-transparent window.

What…the hell?

Please, the voice begged, please come up.

He lurched toward the compartment. But he couldn't move; his shoes were glued to the floor. He pulled until his feet burst out, and lost his socks in the next two strides. The instant he tumbled into the wardrobe space, the blue light flashed and returned the missing section of tank, sealing him inside. Overwhelmed, he slumped in a corner.

CHAPTER TWO

The compartment reopened quickly. Outside there appeared to be another room, the same size and shape as the tank but white. Directly opposite, the upper section of two walls was fitted with screens; they made the same noises he remembered hearing along with the mystery voice. Presumably the voice came from the creature that stood in front of them, looking back at him.

It had human contour; that was a strange source of relief. It was taller than David and slender, with skin the colour of a drowned corpse, right down to grey lips. It had a single eyebrow that snaked ornately round its bald head, and gill flaps where ears should be.

A chasm of time passed while they studied each other. David waited for the creature to speak, but it just stared.

Are you in charge? he asked it. The alien blinked twice but stayed mute. Are you the one in control? David spoke louder.

No, it replied at last.

Where is the one in control?

The creature shook its head. I don't understand.

I mean, where is your leader?

But the alien put up a hand as if to say it couldn't manage more questions. It made David want to shout until a thought stopped him, a realisation so obvious he couldn't believe he'd taken so long to have it.

You speak English, he said.

The creature frowned. English...,

David enunciated. English -- the language.

I speak Udoric, it said.

David sucked in a careful breath, let it out. So what do you want with me?

Want?

Why am I here?

You...came.

I came for a takeaway. But however they were managing to communicate, that did not translate. The creature shook its head.

Did you want to take me away? David asked.

No!

Does someone else want to take me away? It didn't answer. David noticed how, during pauses, its unbroken brow would twitch. Can’t you let me go back?

No, it said.

You operated this, David pointed at the compartment around him. You opened it for me, and brought me here, yes?

Yes, it said.

And there must have been another opening, somewhere in that hold, where I came in?

Yes.

And you opened that.

No.

Then who did? Yet more silence. David folded his arms. Explanations aren't your strong point, he said, but sarcasm got no reaction either. Can't you just tell me what is happening?

I...I don't understand, it said. And then one of the screens beeped. The creature turned its back to him. David stood up and ventured out of the compartment. He saw the screen activate itself, and present an image of Earth from space. He watched. In very short time the planet grew smaller while space grew larger, and he had to concentrate on his breathing.

Do you have a name? he asked the creature.

Brahm, it replied.

Brahm, he repeated. And who’s with you?

No one.

No one? Brahm had been touching the screens with his fingers but he pulled the hand back sharply, as if he’d been given a shock. He dropped his eyes to the floor and stood completely still.

You’re alone? David asked again. The creature swallowed, and barely nodded. You’re alone, but you had nothing to do with me coming inside? Nothing to do with the launch?

Brahm clasped his hands together. I…don’t understand.

I do, David said. I think there's something you're not telling me. And he took a step closer because he was sure, fairly sure, that the alien was afraid.

I...don't understand, Brahm insisted.

David took another step. You know I don't believe you.

Believe? The filigree eyebrow twitched like mad. David kept coming, slowly, until they faced each other, close enough to shake hands.

I have said, Brahm told him.

What does that mean? The screens chirped away as if they wanted to join in. Brahm still hadn't moved so David leaned forward. Look, he said, All these monitors. You couldn't need them unless this...whatever we’re on...is pretty big. Am I right? The alien nodded. How big?

It's an evacuation craft. It can carry the entire population of Udor.

Udor...is that where you came from?

Yes.

Is it far? David asked, but Brahm just shut his eyes.

Please, the alien begged.

Oh, to hell with this! David turned to the screens. You can't possibly have a spaceship all to yourself that you can’t control. He started to touch the monitors at random; they were very responsive. Brahm dealt with each one after he’d been, but didn't try to stop him. When he'd interfered with them all, the entire collection suddenly went blank.

Right, said David. That should get attention.

A polite tone pipped. Then one by one, each screen came back to life with a different image: him driving up the street in the village, him parking the car, him locking the car, him crossing the street and finally him standing in the foyer of the deserted restaurant.

You took these.

No, Brahm insisted.

You did!

I have said.

I have said, I have said! David waved both hands in the alien's face. What the hell does that mean?! The creature cowered. It tried to back away but David followed.

So when do you plan to stop messing around? he snarled. Brahm shut his eyes again, as if that would make his tormentor disappear. David grabbed him by the shoulders.

Last chance. Tell me what you did.

I..., it gasped. But after that nothing. David gave him a shove. Then before Brahm could regain balance he came again, put his fists together and slammed the Udoran in the ribs. The thin body curled and rolled across the monitors. With one last lunge David pinned him to the wall. He got his hands round the pale throat and squeezed, squeezed until the eyeballs bulged.

Tell me! he shouted.

Brahm had skin so cold and yet his hands felt so warm.

Tell me!!

Then pain, like molten pins, drilled through his palms. David shrieked. He let go but the fire didn’t stop. It raged over his knuckles and wrists and elbows, scorched up both arms to his shoulders. He felt himself fall but not land. The crown of his spine ignited and the cord burned nerve by nerve. It blazed inside his head and melted his senses; his brain flashed up final memories but all of them charred at the edges.

How long hell lasted he didn't know. Over time the heat died away, though wn his senses returned their ability was patchy. The first thing they felt was the blessed coolness of the floor on the back of his head. Then he heard the chatter of the screens. Still blind, he rolled over and pressed his face against the tiles. Shortly after that there was breathing on the back of his neck, and thin fingers prodded him gently.

Please..., Brahm's voice, anxious, sounded miles away, ...do you think you might be dying?

CHAPTER THREE

When Brahm got no answer, he didn't ask again. No Udoran had ever needed to use his defensive system before now. He watched the pink alien swell, turn red and writhe on the floor making noise he could hardly stand to hear. It was too much, after everything else that had happened to him. When eventually the creature opened its eyes, Brahm was afraid but couldn't ignore suffering. He came as close as he dared.

What happened? his visitor asked hoarsely. Then it spotted its own hands, because they happened to by lying near its face. Brahm saw them too, the bloated flesh and oozing sores. The pink alien moaned.

I'm sorry, Brahm said, please tell me if you think you'll recover.

Either the creature didn't know, or felt too weak to care. Brahm waited until his back ached from stooping over, then returned to the screens. He asked them for a space configuration. If I were back home, he said to them, I would suggest genetic modification. The symptoms are too severe. A fever or itching could be just as effective.

A noise made him turn and see the alien’s stare. It made sounds he didn't understand.

Do you feel better? he asked. Then Navigation beeped, and his attention was diverted. The screen gave him a view of the space through which they currently travelled. The alien’s planet had disappeared, along with its sun. No other objects lay in scope, only a screen full of stars. Perhaps we will return, he added softly.

Can’t you even turn this thing around? his visitor asked.

No.

So how did you get on board?

Brahm would have preferred not to remember. He came on board through the hold, just like the pink alien, except without falling on his head or being confused. Confusion came later. I am the designer.

He heard the alien grunt. You designed this ship? Designed it but can’t control it?

I could. I had full access to all systems.

He checked to see if the alien understood. It was sucking the tip of one finger.

So, it said, what happened?

This was the part he hated. He felt so guilty. I couldn’t sleep.

Okay.

It has always been a problem. As a child, I would lie awake when--,

Yeah, I’m with you, the alien interrupted, but can we get back to the story?

Brahm sighed. The ship had just been finished. A government delegation would be coming to inspect when we woke, so I wanted some time…

A final check on things. Just you.

Yes.

Then?

Then? He found nothing out of order, until he came back to this Control Room, and found every screen alive and calling for attention.

It launched.

How?

Brahm lifted his hands and let them drop again to show what he’d been saying all along. I don’t understand.

Did you try to turn back?

Three times. Each time I was denied access.

Did you check your access level? Maybe it changed.

No. It was exactly the--, he was so tense the next sound from the screens made him jolt. Exactly the same. So I asked for details of the launch--who had authorised it."

Good idea.

Someone might have seen me board the ship, Brahm pressed a hand against his ribs where he’d been hit. And I had broken the rules.

They’d blast you into space for a little insomnia?

Brahm waved the other hand. He wanted that gesture to speak for him, though it would have to say a lot. The alien, meanwhile, was trying to sit up.

So who? it asked. Who set off the launch?

What made it so hard to say? Udorans were not space travellers. Space travel had failed them, stranded them on a toxic planet with a cooling sun. Any resources they found after that, any technology they developed had to keep them alive in a place that hated life. An evacuation craft was the only thing he could get permission to design.

Guilt made it hard. And that guilt was not that Brahm boarded the ship secretly. It was that he wished he could go exploring. Whenever he did sleep, he often had dreams where he clawed his way up from their underground community and speared through space like a comet.

I did, he said, but he couldn’t hear himself.

What?

The commands to launch, he cleared his throat and tried again, were all in my name.The pink alien, wobbling on its knees and elbows, slipped and landed on its stomach. It left its mouth open without using it for anything.

Is this a joke? it finally asked.

Joke?

If you launched the ship, why couldn’t--,

I didn’t launch it.

But you just said--,

I—don’t—understand. Then Brahm coughed again, swallowed and neither of them spoke for his next nine difficult breaths.

You launched, but you didn’t launch, the alien said. Your security access remained the same, but you couldn’t make anything work. Oh, it pointed to the compartment, except the elevator.

Brahm glanced at his visitor hopefully, in case it had another suggestion. While he waited there was time to consider its peculiar face, with so much loose skin that folded and bulged and had so many hair follicles. Its eyes, he thought, were so small. They always felt sharp when they looked at you, the way they did now, suddenly.

You expect me to believe this ship launched itself?

...believe?

And that it merrily took itself to Earth, planted itself inside a tandoori restaurant, and snapped pictures of me while I walked into a deserted building?

Tan-doo..., Brahm frowned, I don't understand.

I bet you don't.

The face might be unreadable, but not the tone of voice. Why are you angry again?Because I don't believe a thing you've said. You haven't given me a single believable explanation for why I'm here, or why you're here, or what's happening.

Brahm tried. The problem words were 'believe' and 'believable'. He'd always been a quick learner; he could often guess meaning from context. But no matter how often he reviewed the sentences, this was a concept he couldn't grasp.

But I have said.

And I'm bloody sick of your 'I have said'!! the pink alien shouted.

As a precaution Brahm moved away, but the visitor didn't prepare another attack. It stayed where it was, continued to fuss over its hands. Brahm watched it prod the skin and wince.

Blasted sores, it grumbled.

Would water help? he offered. External Systems showed your world had abundant surface water, so I wondered--

The visitor's eyes shrank to ugly slits. Brahm turned, touched the wall so the blue light would open it and get him out of the room for a while. I will bring you some, he said, and fled.

CHAPTER FOUR

David woke. The room was brighter than all the previous times he'd looked, up there where the room actually was. He checked his watch and sighed. Udorans, apparently, slept below floor level in trenches roughly the shape and depth of coffins. As tired as he'd been when Brahm showed him this bed last night, he didn't think it would matter.

But it did. Sleep had been sporadic, and today he might have to run on fumes. But before anything else, he brought his hands to his face for inspection. Relief – the fingers were back to their normal size, and when he set them on the floor to help him sit up, he felt no pain. He climbed out of his trough to have a better look round.

Brahm had called this place the commander’s quarters, but he couldn’t be serious. The sleeping area wasn’t much larger than the bed, with a bench along one wall where his clothes and raincoat lay. He now wore ship’s standard issue: a grey, featureless shift. He wandered out from that room into a second spartan space with a table and more benches, presumably for meetings. Finally he came to the third and final section. Here was something like a desk and chair, the chair out of character with its surroundings because it had padding and a backrest. He sat in it. He had considered sleeping in it, every time he woke up in his coffin. But he thought that might remind him of his new office chair that was—who knows—maybe light years away.

The desk fit against a wall, over which were screens like the ones in the Control Room, cheeping and pipping and printing out text. Well, he assumed they must be words. How big was a single character? He couldn't tell. And what if they weren't letters, but more like hieroglyphs? Or maybe the whatchama...what did they call that other sort of writing?

He fidgeted against the backrest and found he could make it recline. There’d been a wedding not so long ago, and he had a memory that some relative of the groom bored him silly about ancient languages. One of them had symbols that stood for whole syllables. Udoric might be like that. Not that he'd really followed the conversation; he certainly didn’t ask questions in case it kept the bugger talking.

It had been his wife’s family--David remembered just as his eyes closed. Lucy's niece and her boyfriend. They had a church wedding, which he thought was daft since his wife had been the only religious one there. Though it had been a pretty church, and a pretty village. Very pretty bridesmaids. What was the tallest one called again? Kyla? Kara? She didn’t like her dress because the neckline cut her tattoo in half. Turned out it was a mermaid.

He sat up with a start. He didn't think he'd dozed off but his watch told him, as soon as he could focus, that he'd been out for two hours. He covered his ears to muffle the noise that woke him. And then he uncovered them. He stood out of the chair. Noise? But it was there, overhead. Clanks like jackboots marching over sheet metal and a great roaring in the background.

He listened longer, just to be sure. That's when he made out voices. They sounded more like bellows or croaks but they definitely came from throats. Then a single, explosive crash left his ears tingling. He pushed the chair away. He made the exit walls open with a touch, the way he'd been shown, and turned left immediately to get back to the Control Room. The noise was even louder here. But Brahm stood facing the monitors, and didn't seem concerned.

Where are they? David asked.

The alien turned. They?

David pointed to the ceiling.

The others you said we didn't have.

Brahm looked up and back at him, eyes confused.

On the next level, he pointed more vigorously, you know, upstairs. I knew I was right. I knew you weren't alone.

The single brow, hovering, crashed to an angry point between Udoran eyes. Not a hint of shame in the expression. I give up, he said.