SciFriday Entries

Lost Sheep - SciFriday #18

Lost sheep.

That's all these people were. Mindless animals shuffling around their entire lives.

Uranai shuddered and pulled her ratty blanket tighter. The bay was full of them, Regnalian refugees. Why can't they just get jobs and settle down? Uranai thought to herself. She shouldered her way through the eerily tall crowd and toward the starship which had "Betty Sue" written in paint that might have been red at one point. The thing was enormous, at least a kilometer long, and white-washed from too much exposure to the UV rays in deep space.

The behemoth was being held up by a magnetic field that the dock produced, keeping it at least ten feet above the ground at all times. Uranai would have been impressed if she could get over the smell. Everything around her, including the refugees, smelled of waste and oil.

She saw the main boarding platform and avoided it completely, going around almost half the ship's length to a less busy area and went down closer to the laser-wire fence. She walked along it until she saw a section of laser-wire that was a shade off from the rest, steeled her nerves, and walked into it. She passed through easily. She sighed heavily, collected herself, and walked toward the underbelly of the ship. The electromagnets were audible now. As she kept walking they grew in volume until she could feel them coursing through her. And still she walked. It's a very specific magnetic lock, it won't affect me, she repeated to herself, trying not to hyperventilate. Finally she came to a rectangular portion of the ship that jutted downward from the rest of the underbelly. She pulled a pen-like instrument from under her blanket and pushed the top button on it. The button flared blue and the pen rocketed out of her hand and struck the rectangle, creating a loud clang. The rectangle immediately began to drop, and stairs could be seen leading up from it. She stepped onto the platform and began climbing. The platform began rising and fit back into the place it was originally.

Being inside didn't calm Uranai as much as she thought it would. The stairway itself was dimly lit every twenty feet, so she could barely see where she was going. She walked up the stairs for what felt like a very long time and finally came to a door. She put her hand to it, paused, and then knocked three times. For a moment nothing happened, then she heard the door unlatch and open a few inches. A short man peered out at her, and sized her up.

"Special order?" He asked, his accent curbed by intentional annunciation. Uranai nodded and pulled the blanket off of her head. Her sapphire hair was done up in intricate laces of gold, which matched her eyes. Her skin was sky blue and flawless, giving away her life of luxury if nothing else did. The man behind the door grunted and opened it.

"Welcome aboard the Old Bitch," he said, standing aside. Though he was short, his bulk more than made up for it. He was almost as wide as he was tall, with trunk-like limbs and a wide shoulders. His skin was maroon, with patches of black hair on his arms and face. Uranai flinched at the swear, but walked in anyway. The man closed and latched the door, then started walking down a hall. Uranai, not knowing what to do, covered up again and jogged to catch up.

"Since you're going straight to the tubes, there's no reason to give you the grand tour." They reached a large room where dozens of other people with the same body type as the first man were bustling about. He stopped and pointed at double doors at the far end of the room.

"Just head over there and use this to pick a tube." He handed her an electronic card. "Once you're in you shouldn't have any problems until after we've arrived." Uranai nodded her head in thanks and began to hurry across the room when the man stopped her.

"Hey!" He looked around and then stooped the short distance to her height. "Be careful, yeah? Regnalians aren't known to be troublesome, but it never hurts." Uranai met his gaze. After a second, she bowed her head low, then shuffled across the expansive room. When she got to the doors she pushed on one. It creaked open to reveal an even larger room brimming with Regnalians and a handful of other races; however, that wasn't the most striking feature of the room. Cylindrical, see-through containment units were being ferried in an enormous array that visited and managed row upon row of other containment units. The throngs of passengers were lined up to one-by-one enter their own prospective units, which were then whisked away to be filed among the others. The entire system took up the entirety of the room, which appeared to be the main cargo hold. The room itself had to be hundreds of meters long.

She caught herself gawking and forced herself to look around for a suitable tube. She moved away from the end and wondered how she could get one of the higher units with just a card. As she was looking up, she walked into something soft and thin. Urania let out a yelp and jumped away, suddenly aware of the Regnalian she bumped into. It was a man, about seven feet tall; about average among his species. His skin was bluish gray and his hair white. His clothes were an assortment of browns, and all of them looked worn.

He spoke to her, but in some other language. She shook her head, trying to keep the blanket over her features. He tried again, using another language. Again, she had to shake her head.

"... Perhaps Ulkhani?" She inhaled sharply. He noticed. "Ulkhani it is. And why would someone so young be alone in such a place?"

"You are certainly knowledgeable of many tongues, sir Regnalian." She avoided the question.

"When one has been to as many places as I, one must learn to communicate in all of them. But enough of that. You didn't answer my question, Miss Blanket." Urania sneered under her covering. Apparently sarcasm wasn't limited to the higher class.

"I am traveling alone because I wish it that way. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm to find a suitable unit." The Regnalian looked confused.

"You're to find one? The line is over..." Urania, seeing her mistake, began to walk away. The man called after her and, using his obnoxiously long arms, reached out and grabbed her arm. The blanket slipped, and he saw her face. She hissed and pulled it back over, but it was too late. He was frozen in shock, then began to kneel.

"Princess Urania of the line of Thurmein! I am not..." She pulled him back up and slapped him. She fixed him with a cold glare.

"None shall know." He met her gaze and slowly got up. "Yes, your highness," he said, not knowing where to look again.

"Now help me. I wish to board this unit," she randomly pointed to an empty one. "Make it so." She then handed him the card.

"Yes, your highness," he said again. He went up to a console she hadn't seen before and pressed the card against it. It came to life, and he poked at the screen until the unit in question was mechanically taken off the rack from storage, brought down, and placed in front of Urania.

"Get yourself one next to me," she ordered. A few seconds later a second unit sat next to the first, and he returned the card to her. They both went into their units, which sealed shut and were raised back to the storage area. The glass paneling doubled as a networking device, so Urania synced with the Regnalian man who helped her.

"Anything I should know about FTL travel?" She asked.

"Oh, plenty." He responded, then shook his head and said, "I mean, yes, your majesty. In order to go faster than light, the entire ship will lose its mass. This includes you, me, and our containers. Basically that means our bodies will act like light. No real problems there, but it's weird when your head particles mingle with every other particle. Oh, and you don't lose consciousness when it happens. The harsh part is when you're coming out of it. All of your body then feels like it want to take up the same space, which, comparatively, it does. The stress of your body figuring out what is and isn't your body will be... jarring. The entire process ages you at least a year."

Urania listened through it all. "Ages? So will I be taller?"The man laughed. "Not quite, but if you don't have wrinkles you will. I should know. I've been to nine planets in twelve years and it's starting to show."

They reclined and waited.