'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 36: Pods

She walked slowly forward, figuring she must be in one of the connecting spokes. Ahead was another closed hatchway. Reaching it, she swiped the touchpad and - once more to her surprise - it slid open. Peering through she could see the same red-lit semi-darkness and a mesh-lined corridor curving away to left and right. She turned left and began to follow the walkway. Almost immediately, there was a hatch on her right. She stopped in front of it. Unlike most of the hatchways, this one was covered with large Alien symbols in red and yellow. She had an intuition that it was some kind of warning. Taking a deep breath, she swiped the touchpad. It opened. 

If this is one of the ‘no go’ areas, they’ve not done a very good job, she thought.

She stepped through and for a moment her eyes and brain registered shock at what she saw. She was in a very long chamber that followed the curve of the wheel. Ranged in a double-row along its entire length were cylindrical pods that looked a little like closed tanning beds. It was like a massive dormitory and she quickly estimated there must be as many as 50 of the pods in her immediate field of view. She walked slowly down the aisle between the two rows and stopped next to one of the pods. It was made of smooth plastic and steel, with tubes and cabling sprouting from one end and disappearing into the floor. The top of the pod was inset with a transparent panel but even when she peered closer she could make out nothing of the inside. Examining the pod further she found a row of controls at one end. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought - and pressed one of the buttons.

There was a loud hiss that made her jump, then the lid of the pod swung slowly upwards along its entire length. Trembling, Laura stepped forward and even in the dim light she could see that the interior was taken up by an anatomically-shaped couch, not unlike the ones on the bridge. The ends of a number of flexible tubes and wires rested on the couch, reminding her of the hookups they attached to patients in hospitals. A part of her brain was relieved to find the pod empty. She stepped over to another pod and opened it. Also empty. She walked on down the curving aisle until she figured she must have gone at least halfway round the wheel - and still the pods continued. She didn’t need to count them all to realise that this was where the 200 abductees would be held.

“I thought it would be you,” said a voice suddenly from behind her.

She spun round, terrified.

Standing so close behind her that they were almost touching was - Teo. In the dim light, his black coveralls almost disappeared, making his face and hands seem almost disembodied. Too confused to speak, she just stared back at him. The stern look on his face relaxed into a small smile.

“It’s alright,” he said, “it’s probably a good thing that you see the arrangements our planet has been making.”

“So this is where the women would be kept?” she said, indicating the pods that surrounded them.

“Yes,” said Teo. “This chamber extends around most of the wheel’s circumference.”

“But why the pods? What are they for?”

“Suspended animation. Once each woman was inside, she’d be hooked up to the pod and placed in stasis for the duration of the voyage. Like being asleep.”

“But why do that? Why not just let them remain awake, like us.”

“It wouldn’t be practical or possible. There is no knowing how long any voyage might take - our own took us most of a year -  and the ship simply could not feed and support over 200 people for that length of time.”

“That’s treating them as nothing more than cargo,” said Laura.

“No harm would come to them. They’d be carefully monitored and would wake up feeling no different from when they went in - ”