'I'm going back to the Eagle to nap,' the Captain announced to the room as she touched down on the ground floor. She carried on walking and pointed to our mechanic. 'I'm leaving Jaq in charge, so if any of you need anything, talk to her.'
'Leader!' The Conductor exclaimed, wagging his lanky arms, 'you cannot leave yet! You have much to see!'
'Seeing my ship torn apart isn't fun. I'm also tired. I haven't slept in, let me see...' She checked the chunky plastic watch on her wrist, 'look at that! Twenty-four hours. I'm also starving, so I'm going to chew on some nutri-bars and then sleep.'
The Conductor moved his attention to Jaq, who was watching the flitting white dots zip around above her head. 'You are the Leader now? But you are an engineer.'
'Il ne faut pas se fier aux apparences,' Jaq spat back.
'Français?' The Conductor responded in a perfect Parisian accent. I swayed a little in shock at how faultless it was.
'Bien!' she replied, 'but, for everyone else's sake, lets talk in English, oui?'
'Phew!' Sam sighed. He laughed and said, 'all I can say in French is, "Hello", "goodbye", "thank you" and "death".'
'As I keep telling you, if you want to learn, I'll teach.' Jaq didn't even look down. She kept her eyes locked on the hologram.
'Doctor,' the Captain growled, 'with me.' She grabbed his buttocks and aimed a sly wink in my direction. I folded my lips around my teeth and raised my eyebrows. It wasn't like the Captain to be quite so brazen about her love life.
The couple moved to the doorframe. Captain Maximova stopped and pointed at The Conductor. She opened her mouth to say something. Her face shifted from a look of determination to an expression of tiredness, and with her shoulders slumped and eyes half-shut, she turned on her heel and left without saying a word. Seconds later, I heard Doctor White's mischievous laugh echo from the tunnel.
I considered moving, but being up so high and watching everything unfold below me gave me a sense of detachment. I didn't have to chime into any conversations, and I didn't have to worry about blurting out something silly. I was tired, just like the Captain, but instead of feeling exhausted I felt fulfilled. We'd completed the mission and now I could let my brain rest.
'So...' Sam made clicking sounds with his tongue and rolled his eyes. 'What now?'
'Reclamation is almost complete. I have engineered a way to use your engines. We will depart soon.'
'Terrific,' he replied with a smile that quickly fell from his lips.
'Isn't The Conductor so clever? He's done all this for us, and so quickly, too!' Hoshi raved, 'I think he's amazing.'
The Conductor ignored the praise and edged his body over to Jaq. 'I have a question about your vessel. Are you in a position to answer it?'
'Why wouldn't I be?' she said. I barely heard her voice from atop the platform. The urge to move rose inside me. I could sense tension in the air.
'Your engines are instable, dangerous and toxic,' The Conductor dipped one of his fingers into the hologram and the remains of the Pangaea's hull swelled in size. 'They also do not contain enough power within them for you to leave your system. Did you create them like this intentionally?'
Jaq's snort was so loud that it reverberated off the curved walls. 'À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents.'
'I am unsure of the connection between a horse and your ship.'
'Oh, bloody Hell...' I whispered under my breath. I moaned as I pulled myself up and traversed down to the floor. I felt a twinge of nervousness run through me as I opened my mouth. 'It's a saying,' I told The Conductor as I rejoined my crewmates.
The alien peered at me. 'I have observed the phrases spoken by your kind. Many of them are perplexing.'
'I can explain what Jaq meant if you like.'
'That would be beneficial.' The Conductor bowed his bulbous head.
'The phrase, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth," means that if you're given something, it's bad manners to inspect it and find things wrong.'
'Manners?' The Conductor recoiled. 'They are part of social protocol, yes?'
'This thing doesn't know what manners are?' Sam scoffed, 'I guess that explains the gravity well, am I right?'
'The Conductor doesn't need manners. He's wonderful.' Hoshi boasted. She looked around; hoping one of us would react to her words.
I put my hands together. 'Manners are predetermined social behaviours, passed on from generation to generation. It's a way of exercising self-control and kindness.'
Sam came over and flicked my helmet. 'Or if you want a less complex answer, manners are what you're taught as a kid so you don't turn into a pri--'
'How interesting!' The Conductor roared, cutting off Sam's swear. 'So your engineer believes that I am not kind?'
Jaq barked out a coarse laugh. 'Insulting my engines isn't nice,' she hissed. 'I spent a lot of time on those.'
'I was stating fact,' The Conductor argued, 'your engines contain radioactive materials. You explained that to me. Radioactivity in large amounts is fatal to humans. I am merely wondering why you would create such dangerous engines and then ride on them.'
'Qui ne risque rien n'a rien,' Jaq fumed. She turned her hands into fists. The tension in the air was stifling.
'A complex response...' The Conductor said. 'Do humans purposely seek out adversity?'
'Sometimes I wonder that myself,' I confessed.
The hologram above our heads flickered and the blue light that flooded the room was replaced by a dazzling whiteness, just like the spotlight on the front of the Conductor's ship. My vision was impaired for a couple of seconds as everything was saturated with light. It gradually dimmed, leaving me with red and blue blobs swimming around my eyes.
'Success!' The Conductor yelled through his raised palm. 'The Vultures have repaired much of my internal systems. The results are better than I expected. We can start travelling right away.'
'Oh, how wonderful!' Hoshi clapped her hands and whimpered with joy.
The Pangaea was now little more than a steel cage with misshapen pieces of metal attached to the welded beams. The Vultures had wholly erased the emblem that decorated the hull, leaving a few letters behind. P, A and G.
The Conductor bumbled round his silver cigar-shaped machine, leering at the hologram from every angle. Under the lights, it was now impossible to ignore how ugly he was. His wrinkled and writhing skin showed a network of honeycombed veins and arteries. His sunken eyes never blinked, but endlessly stared at whatever was in front of him. Upon his slinky neck, the bumps of his spine rose and fell like warped speed bumps. I felt my toes curl as I caught sight of his protruding ribcage. Long dark scars lined his torso, leading all the way down to his scrawny legs. The pipes that ran around The Conductor's stomach had dried streaks of blue fluid caked onto them and I felt my lips turn into a pout as I turned away in disgust.
Jaq wiped her visor and stared at her feet. A streak of dirt covered her forearm. 'What're you waiting for? Take us home, spaceman.'
'I obey.' The Conductor plunged his hand into the hologram and swirled his three fingers around. The Pangaea disappeared and was replaced by a 3D image of The Conductor's ship, which now looked more like a teardrop than a sphere. The beams and girders that held up the Pangaea's frame were now being used to hold our engines in place. I could see the blue glare of the reactors, and the silver exhaust vents that Jaq used to polish relentlessly. The Vultures had been efficient, for sure, but they hadn't been programmed with an eye for aesthetics. The cobbled together mass of metal and piping looked precarious, at best.
'Is that safe?' I yelped, feeling my voice shake.
The light played off The Conductor's eyes, making them twinkle. 'Absolutely. Whilst it may look dangerous, the Vultures are not ineffective. We will depart now.'
'Right now?' Sam pointed to the floor.
'Yes. Is there an issue with the time of departure?'
'It's just...' Sam pulled his brows together, 'on Earth, we normally strap ourselves to something, or sit down. You're saying we don't need to do any of that?'
'Yes, I have noted that behaviour. You attach yourselves to highly explosive engines and then travel. I must inform you that none such protocols are followed upon my ship. It would be too dangerous.' The alien drooped his head and toyed with his armour. 'I hope that is not a problem with you.'
'Of course not!' Hoshi snatched The Conductor's arm and rubbed it gently. 'Nothing is a problem when you're around.'
Sam turned to me, pointed at his skull and made a corkscrew action with his finger. I returned his gesture with a shrug.
'Then we will begin,' The Conductor said decisively.
He swished his hand and the remains of the Pangaea were washed away. In its place, a row of miniature twirling rocks appeared and extended around the room. In the middle of the arrangement, a tiny icon showed The Conductor's ship surrounded by asteroids.
'That's the Kuiper belt,' Jaq said, marvelling at the ghostly expanse. 'How're you going to get this thing out of here?'
'Now that reclamation has occurred, I can command this region.' The Conductor moved his middle finger to the left and his two other digits to the right. The tiny white dots that represented the Vultures crowded around the asteroids in the way and started to push them out, leaving an opening for us to slip through. My heart started racing. We were almost ready to go.
'No way,' Sam said, taking a step back. 'That's amazing. You just... You just pushed them out the way!'
'Do my methods confuse you?'
'No! I mean, I'm a little jealous, if I'm honest. We were going to blow them up, you know? Smash those pebbles into pieces and sail through, but you... You just parted the waves.'
'He can do anything,' Hoshi gave Sam a look as if to suggest he was stupid for being astonished. 'He's an angel.'
'Right, yeah...' Sam flared his nostrils as he stared back at her. 'I totally forgot about that part.'
'What about your helpers?' I asked. The white dots hadn't moved since they cleared a path.
'The Vultures will stay here.'
'Why? They seem useful.'
'They are.'
'So why leave them?'
The Conductor moved his hand out of the projection and waved his hand across the tip of the silver machine. The Kuiper belt melted and The Conductor's spherical ship, with our engines haphazardly welded onto the sides, reappeared in a big wispy haze. 'They have their own objectives. We have ours. We are now leaving.'
I felt such a faint and pathetic shake that it took me a minute to realise what was going on. The hologram to my left was now showing the upgraded craft whooshing along through space, with glyphs and symbols dancing around beside the exhausts. A puny blue ball with patches of green and white was shrinking behind the vessel. Neptune.
I couldn't feel a thing. I wasn't thrown onto the floor and I wasn't lifted into the air. It was like we hadn't moved at all, and yet we were rushing through space at an unprecedented speed.
From somewhere in my head, giddiness started to grow. The room began to wobble around and The Conductor's monstrous face swirled back and forth. I felt my legs tremble. I heard voices but I couldn't hear what they were saying. With my teeth clenched, I closed my eyes and put my arms around my head.
Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and tried to say something, but I still wasn't listening. My legs steadily gave way and I sat down on the metal floor with my helmet rocking in my hands.
I felt more people touching my body, but it was too late. My consciousness was slipping away and I couldn't do a thing about it. The rest of my body met the floor and I succumbed to the dark.