‘No,’ she insisted. ‘You must take up positions in the control frames.’
He looked at her, uncertain.
‘Hurry!’ she hissed. ‘Can’t you tell that the ship’s about to break through? It will…’ Her body was wracked with a huge cough. ‘It will destroy the Bay.’
She stepped awkwardly away from the cylinder, and indicated to Megan that she should use one of the scooped frames. Megan looked to Owen for confirmation. When he nodded to her, she leaned back and sat in the middle frame.
Owen took the one next to her. Sandra was already helping Megan to fasten the tendrils around her in the frame, like a seat belt. Next she did the same for Owen. The tendrils went taut, and he could feel them forcing him back against the hard frame.
‘Ow!’ shouted Megan. ‘Oww!’
Owen laughed, and settled into his frame. ‘Is it a bit tight again? Get Sandra to loosen it a bit.’
Then Megan began to scream.
Owen wasn’t sure whether to call out something calming and reassuring, or to tell Sandra that she should release Megan for a few minutes. He craned his head forward to see what Sandra was doing.
Sandra was standing by the pale cylinder in the centre. Her whole posture made her look exhausted, like she was ready to drop down in front of him. But her eyes were different. They were alive, glittering with satisfaction, and in the soft green light of the room her grin was a startling rictus.
He didn’t have time to say anything. The tendrils around him snapped tight, and pulled his head back hard against the frame. Megan’s screaming abruptly stopped. By squinting sideways, Owen could see Megan’s head slump forward like an abandoned rag doll.
‘Let her go!’ he yelled at Sandra. His voice seemed lost in the room.
Sandra limped over to him, still showing that terrible smile. ‘We only just made it in time, Owen.’ The effort of speaking racked her. ‘This particular body’s reached the end of its use. But I couldn’t relinquish it until we got here.’ She indicated the whole room. ‘I’m not sure it will survive very much longer. But that’s of no consequence now. See you again! Soon.’
The light in her eyes seemed to vanish, like an extinguished candle. Where previously there had been a kind of triumph in her expression, now there was only incomprehension, confusion, and pain. Sandra glanced around the room in bewilderment. She said one word: ‘Oh.’ And then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she dropped to the floor like she’d been poleaxed.
Owen struggled against his restraints, yelling and cursing and utterly failing to get free. His futile efforts were cut short by the buzzing noise and brightening light that engulfed the frame beside him. With a whipping sound, the tendrils around Megan withdrew and vanished.
Megan stepped out of her frame.
‘Get me out of this thing, Megan!’ called Owen. ‘It hasn’t released me.’
‘It’s not supposed to,’ said Megan. Her voice was calm and secure. She walked slowly around the cylinder, with the confident gait of someone who knew she was safe.
Megan held her hands in front of her, turning them over, examining them as though they were a thing of wonder and novelty. When she looked at him, Owen could see there was no more terror in her eyes.
‘Hello again,’ she said to him.
He struggled vainly against his restraints once more. ‘Not funny, Megan. C’mon, Sandra needs help. Get me out of this thing.’
Megan considered Sandra where she had fallen heavily against the pale cylinder. The blonde woman’s eyes were closed, and she was taking frequent, shallow breaths.
‘I think Sandra’s beyond help now. And I certainly have no further use for her.’
Owen studied the woman he thought he knew, standing right in front of him. ‘Who are you?’
Megan smiled brightly. ‘Let me show you.’
She placed her palms on the top of the pale cylinder. Lights within it responded to her touch as she stroked the surface.
The jade cabinet at the front of the circle cracked from top to bottom as a pair of irregular, hinged doors opened up. Suspended inside, seated in a larger version of the scooped J-shaped frames, was a tall, ugly alien. Bipedal, broad-shouldered, with binocular vision. Its head lolled in the seat, and its skull was a carapace of etched bone. Its thin arms ended in long, thick, dirty claws. The whole of the creature’s torso heaved as it took shallow breaths through the slit of its mouth.
Megan walked over to the cabinet, checking what must have been medical readings that played continuously on the inner edge of the jade cabinet. Satisfied with the results, she looked over her shoulder at Owen.
‘This is the real me,’ she said.
TWENTY-FIVE
You’re tingling. It’s a fantastic feeling, isn’t it? You’re not sure whether it’s relief or worry or excitement or anticipation. Or is it that your lover’s here with you, and he’s hanging on your every word?
You met him at the university disco, what sort of a cliché is that? Or a ‘cleesh’, as he’d say. Owen was the thin-faced, nervous lad with the good cheekbones you’d seen in Anatomy, and joked with Amanda Trainor that you’d like to examine his Anatomy more closely, and did she know his name. Amanda had identified him as local boy Owen Harper, and declared him to be a rat-faced loser with a cruel mouth. You’d seen something else in him. And then, there he was, nursing his pint at the back of the disco, while his better-looking mate was hitting on your better-looking mate and eating her face off during some slow Alanis Morissette record (bloody hell! what were they thinking?). He was never going to make the first move, was he? Though you could see his hungry eyes following you around the dance floor, peering into the bright maelstrom of red and blue and green and white, surveying your every move. So you’d banged into his table and spilled his drink, and thus it began. The following morning was the first of many when you would wake first and see him sleeping beside you, admiring his long dark lashes above his freckled white cheeks.
Can you ever see yourself as others see you? Most recently, as Sandra Applegate, you caught sight of your face in the mirror at Wildman’s apartment. Pale and tired, the blood smeared over your mouth and chin and staining your favourite coat. Before that, you watched your reflection in the shop windows as you ran for safety down the high street and into the building site. And, earlier still, you studied your nakedness in the mirror that hung over the corner sink in your room at the barracks. Amazed and amused that your pale pink body, with its curious musculature protected by a thin epidermis, was considered by humans as a peak of fitness.
Confusingly, you thought you were in peak condition, too. It’s a curious double life to live.
And now here you are, facing yourself as you cling on in the life-support unit. This is a new perspective, indeed. Look at you there — the proud warrior, laid low by the accident. And yet also the inventive explorer who possesses the means of your own salvation.
You close the doors to the life-support unit, and seal your true self into the protective cocoon. When you turn around, you can see Owen in the restraint chair. He’s not looking at you with hungry eyes now. His look is full of fear and fury. ‘What are you talking about, Megan? What the hell is that thing in there?’
You shared everything with Owen when you were together in London. Your hopes, your aspirations, your dreams. You kept nothing from him, even when you knew he was never wholly open with you. It seems entirely natural to share your latest secrets with him now.
‘I told you,’ you tell him calmly. No need to shout. ‘That thing is the real me. My body is in stasis, to protect me from the crash injuries. The rest of this warship’s crew were killed during the collision that brought us to this strange place. I need to return to Bruydac for medical attention.’