Designated Driver

Knock, Knock, Knock – Knock…Knock…Knock… Knock, Knock, Knock.

There it is again.

I thought I was hearing things.

I’m tired after my daily, ten mile run around the ship, despite or maybe because of the shower. Marion decided to share it with me today. She’s great between the sheets, in the shower, in the lift or in any of the numerous, inventive places we’ve tried on the S.S.Wheeze. She’s more than just a companion, she’s my alter ego; though I wish she’d remember that I’m the captain of this ship on our thirty year journey to Planet XP12. Just because she does that thing with her toes, doesn’t give her the right to question my decisions.

Who am I kidding?

She’s asleep now: eight hours; then we have four hours together; then it’s my bed time; then another four hours of two of us monitoring and maintaining this vast craft.

This noise is unlikely to be her, or any of the cargo: two thousand people in suspended animation, with all the sundries needed to start human habitation on a distant planet. So what is the Knocking?

I ask Virgil: our virtual guru, automatic pilot and mega computer; but don’t ever call it that: computers are beneath him.

His boring Brummie voice sounds like I’ve got him out of a day-dream. ’It appears to be coming from a piece of space junk that’s just drifted alongside of us.’

‘Space junk, out here? We’re light years from our solar system and it’s P.A. 109.’

That’s one hundred and nine years, Post Apocalypse.

‘I know.’

I’ll never get used to his accent. They said it would add character. If character is a half asleep, superior depressive, then I guess they were right but thirty years of his drone is going to take some stomaching; though Marion doesn’t seem to mind.

He drawled on, ’Strange, isn’t it? I’ve tried communicating with it but it’s not responding… except for the knocking.’

‘Try again. It sounds like it’s using morse code.’

‘Okay… I’ll see what I can do.’

It’s three years since we left our base on Titan, the last colony of humans, and this is the most exciting thing that’s happened. I should wake Marion but she’ll need her sleep after our shower together. Besides, I can handle this without her “advice”.

Virgil’s voice lifts with excitement. Well, almost. ‘I’ve got it. Some obsolete amplitude modulation system of radio communication. This thing must have come out of the ark. I’m digitalising it now. Here it comes, enjoy your chat.’

A crackle comes from the sound panel.

‘Hello,’ I say. ’This is Captain Brian Buckingham of the Star Ship Wheeze, please identify yourself.’

‘Oh, at last,’ a male voice with a soft lilt says. ‘Been asleep, have you? Or popped out for a Pizza, I was thinking. Anyway, Selwyn’s the name. Exploration Vessel Klondike, in answer to your question. We were searching the asteroid belt for minerals when some silly bugger blew up the earth. The shock wave shot us out of the solar system like a flea off a shaking dog.’

‘And you’ve been drifting in space all this time?’

‘Aye, boring, isn’t it? Until you came along and smashed into us. Where are you off to in such a hurry?’

I tell him the bare bones of our mission, while scratching my head to make sense of his story. I fail to mention Marion; I can handle this alone.

‘How many in your crew?’ I ask.

‘We were five.’

‘Were?’

‘We found a dormant virus on a sample from the Kuiper Belt. Nasty thing, it was. Just yours truly now. Anyway, are you going to leave me on the doorstep, rattling around in my tin can, or are you going to invite me in and put the kettle on?’

‘Of course, Sorry.’

I study the screen, where Virgil has put up a shot of the EV Klondike, tiny by comparison to ourselves.

‘Virgil, open up the loading bay.’

‘Okay, but you’re not thinking of letting him come aboard, are you?’

‘Why not? he’s been in isolation for over a hundred years.’

‘Yes… with a virus. He’ll have to go in Quarantine while I run tests. Do you want me to wake Marion?

‘No, I don’t.’

But I guess Virgil’s right and instruct Selwyn to dock. There’s no point in waking Marion if he’s going to be in solitary for a while.

The sound panel crackles again. ‘Hello, I’m in.’

I check the screen, now showing the loading bay. The EV Klondike looks lost in the wide expanse.

‘Manoeuvre over to the Quarantine room:’ I tell him, ‘that’s the strawberry door on your left.’

‘Is that necessary: I’ve been fine since the other’s died, eighty two years now.’

‘Virgil, our control system, insists. It shouldn’t take more than a week.’

‘A week! Trouble is, you see: when you ploughed into us and snagged us up in your sticky-out bit, you sort of made a little hole in our oxygen regeneration unit. Can’t you override your computer?’

‘I wouldn’t call it that if I were you.’

‘Why not? Who’s in charge here?’

‘I am. But Virgil is sensitive. It doesn’t do to upset it.’

‘What’s it going to do, sulk?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

I watch the craft coast toward the strawberry door with an air of reluctance and flop to the floor. A telescopic walkway emerges from the Quarantine rooms and engages the EV’s hatchway.

‘Brian? I can call you Brian, can’t I?’

‘What can I do for you, Selwyn?’

‘It’s the door: I can’t shift it. Just wondering if you could come down and give me a hand?’

‘How could I help?’

‘I was thinking, maybe you could yank on the outside handle, while I heave on the inside one. It hasn’t been opened for over a century, see?’

“A century” I repeat to my self. ’Selwyn?’

‘What is it, Brian?’

‘How old are you?’

‘Wondered when you’d work that one out. I’ll be a hundred and fifty, tomorrow.’

I shake my head. ‘Wow. You don’t sound that old.’

‘Don’t look it either, Boyo. I haven’t aged a day since we got the virus. I suppose you could say it was a kill or cure bug. Now can you help me with this damn door before my air runs out?’

‘Okay… I’m on my way.’

I mount a transpod and instruct it to take me to the Quarantine bay. As I’m saying it, the penny drops. How can I open the EV’s door without entering Quarantine?

I ask Virgil.

‘You can’t. Even if you free the lock, there’s a risk of contamination if the door moves a nanometer. I can’t allow that.’

‘But it’s low risk. Surely we can stretch a point here, Virgil.’

‘Low risk is some risk. I can’t jeopardise the safety of the crew or the cargo.’

I sigh and bury my head in my hands. ‘Then what do you suggest? We can’t leave him stuck in there to suffocate.’

I’ve arrived at my destination by the time Virgil comes back.

‘He can use his onboard tools to open the door. He should be equipped with mining implements and small explosives if necessary.’

I ask Virgil to connect me once again and put the idea to Selwyn.

‘All the tools are stored in an outside compartment and I jettisoned the explosives. They were well past their best before dates.

‘Oh come on, Brian. It’ll be my hundred and fiftieth birthday in three hours time and I’ll be out of oxygen by then. Can’t you just override this Virgil of yours?’

I see his point. I have all the tools I need and hydraulics to do the job. I could cut through the lock if I had to, no sweat. But defy Virgil?

Virgil asks, ‘You sure you don’t want me to wake first officer Marion?’

‘I’m sure.’

She gets grumpy if she loses sleep. She’s a creature of habit, and she’s always scoring points off me: “Can’t you do anything on your own, Captain.” Of course I can. It’s just polite to ask my first officer’s opinion. Isn’t it? Well maybe this once, I won’t ask her. I’ll decide without her help, advice… interference.

‘Virgil, open the quarantine door, I’m going in.’

‘Captain, I don’t think Marion –‘

‘I know you don’t but I’m the captain and I’m overruling you. Do as I ask.’

Virgil generates a deep, emphatic sigh. Yes, a computer (sorry, virtual guru) has taught itself to sigh. He hasn’t got it quite right, it has a strange squeak to it but I get the message well enough. ’On your head be it, but I’ll highlight my objection in the ship’s log.’

Pompous machine. ’Just get on with, Virgil.’

I collect a bag of levering equipment from a store and enter the quarantine rooms. They’re artic white and shiny from floor to ceiling and one wall is a bank of probes and sensors. I make my way through the red door onto the telescopic walkway and check Selwyn is ready.

‘When you are, Brian.’

We heave and the lock moves freely… easily. The door swings and a blinding light has me covering my eyes. I back away and sense Selwyn’s breath following me. I hurry back inside the quarantine room, his footsteps slapping behind me in pursuit. His hand grabs my arm. It’s cold and his fingernails are long and hard. He swings me round and I stare into his scaly, reptilian face.

I’m locked onto two pinprick eyes and only catch the darting tongue through my peripheral vision. It stabs my neck and my body goes limp.

‘Really nice to meet you, Brian. Did I forget to mention I am the virus. I’m living in Selwyn’s body – with a few modifications.’ He opens his wide, fang-filled mouth in an open smile. ‘As you can see.’

He drops me to the floor and strolls around the room studying and playing with the instruments, his thick tail swishing the floor as he goes.

‘Interesting stuff, this. What does it all do?’

I roll my eyes but can’t speak.

‘No, you can’t, can you? But I know you can hear me.’

He gives me the grin again.

‘My dilemma is,’ he runs a hand across a bank of sensors, ‘I want to learn all your technology. I’m guessing your computer is programmed not to obey an alien, so it’s you I need to learn from.’

What’s the dilemma? I’m thinking. And I’ve told him about calling Virgil a computer.

‘But,’ he says, ‘I’m hungry, Boyo – Very hungry.’

Drool drips from his lips and his eyes fix on me.

‘Human liver is, oh, to die for. And that appendix is so sweet; do tell me you haven’t had it removed. Oh, you can’t.’

He pushes his face close to a large lens that looks like a window.

‘Fascinating equipment, this. You’ll tell me all about it when the tranquilliser venom wears off. I can re-apply it at any time, so don’t get any ideas. And if you should refuse to educate me – I will just have to eat you.’

He’s going to eat me anyway. He said he was starving, didn’t he? And what else can he… Oh no.

‘Your cargo,’ he suddenly blurts. ‘I can eat your cargo. Two thousand of them, you said. Didn’t you, my lovely?’

He reaches the door from which I’d entered; my heart is playing The Flight Of The Bumble-Bee. He runs his hand over the access pad but it doesn’t respond.

‘Looks like I will be needing you.’

He drags my rag doll body across the room and places my palm on the pad. The door opens.

He drops me in a heap, staggers back and falls.

I roll my eyes round to see the doorway. Marion stands there, grit-faced and legs astride as if thrusting a bayonet. She has the cylinder of a large, injection syringe in one hand while the other is firmly pressed on its plunger.

She steps over me like I’m a rubbish sack, prods Selwyn with her foot and says, ‘You were right, Virgil: allergic to penicillin. You did well. But it’s very brave of the captain to act as a decoy, wouldn’t you say?’