Chapter 4
"Honest, John, I was shot at" said Lyndon, trying to catch his breath.
"For goodness sake, Lyndon, just remember where you are" said John crossly. "This is an alien ship. There could be dangers anywhere."
"This wasn't an alien. Whoever it was, was wearing an AE suit" said Lyndon.
"You mean it looked like an AE suit?" asked Elizabeth.
"No, I mean an actual AE suit, like what we've got in the Lab" said Lyndon.
"I don't even know what an AE suit is" said Shaun.
"That doesn't make any sense at all" said Carol. "We're all here. We're all accounted for. Could you tell who it was?"
"No, she was wearing a helmet" said Lyndon.
"So it was a woman?" asked Ed.
"Yes, definitely a woman" said Lyndon. "I'm sure of that."
"How can you be sure if she was wearing a helmet?" asked Janice.
"She had big 'uns!" said Lyndon.
"Lyndon!" exclaimed Janice. "Don't be so sexist!"
"You asked me how I knew it was a woman!" protested Lyndon, turning inwards to face Anthony. "Right good rack, she had!"
"I heard that!" said Janice. "I won't tell you again, you're not too big for a good hiding, my lad!"
"Never mind that now" said John. "This just adds to the complications. Now we really do have to stop Jaydev before he raises the alarm. I just hope we're not too late."
"What if we run into this woman in the AE suit?" asked Anthony.
"I don't know for sure, Anthony. It depends whose side she's on" said John.
"If she's wearing an AE suit, she must be a Tomorrow Person, mustn't she?" said Rachel.
"But who?" asked Elizabeth. "I'm sure she's nobody we know."
"But she was wearing one of our AE suits" said Lyndon.
"If only we could contact TIM" said Carol. "If she's wearing one of our suits, he'd surely know."
"Why don't we split up?" suggested Elizabeth. "Three groups. One down each corridor. One to find Jaydev, another to get to the control room, and the third to find this mystery woman."
"Good thinking, Liz" said John. "Okay. Ed, Rachel and Shaun, you go with Lyndon the way he came and try to track down this mystery woman. Carol, Helen and Anthony, to the left. Elizabeth, Janice and I will go down the middle. And for goodness sake be careful."
The three groups split up and explored the ship. Lyndon led his group back the way he came towards the corridor where he'd seen the woman in the AE suit.
"Who do you suppose she is?" asked Rachel.
"Dunno" said Lyndon. "Can't be anyone we know. She shot at me. Nobody I know would have shot at me."
"I thought we couldn't kill" said Shaun.
"You can't" said Ed.
"But she tried to kill Lyndon" said Shaun.
"That was probably a stun gun, or at least I hope it was a stun gun" said Rachel.
The second group had found their way into a storage area. Tall racks of equipment and supplies providing an ideal hiding place. Helen thought she saw something behind one of the racking units.
"Jaydev, we know you're there. There's no point in hiding" Helen called. No answer.
"We just want off the ship" said Anthony. Again, no answer. Carol approached the racking. "Carol, get back!" She ignored the warning and proceeded. On reaching the racking, she took one glance, the turned.
"Nobody there" said Carol.
"Wait a minute, I think I saw something" whispered Helen as she crept towards another rack of equipment. Slowly and silently, she sidled up to the rack before suddenly and swiftly making a grab for whoever was behind. She felt an arm, and pulled the arm and its owner out. To her surprise, this was not Jaydev, but someone else. "Romy! It's Romy, isn't it?" Helen had exposed a young woman. A young woman she had met before, and probably the last person she expected to see on an alien space ship.
"Yes", said Romy. "Please don't hurt me!"
"It's all right" said Helen. "Nobody's going to hurt you. What are you doing here?"
"I live here" said Romy.
"What? On this spaceship?" asked Anthony. Romy nodded her head.
"But you work on that perfume counter. You sprayed my husband in the eyes, remember?" said Helen.
"I was a plant" said Romy. "I was looking for a telepath, and I sensed him."
"So it was no accident?" said Helen, a hard edge creeping into her voice.
"No" said Romy, meekly. "I'm so sorry, but I had to do it for the survival of my people."
"Your people?" asked Helen.
"I was born on this ship. We're the Seran" said Romy.
"Did you take one of our AE suits?" asked Carol.
"AE suit?" repeated Romy.
"It looks a bit like a space suit" said Anthony.
"Are you missing one?" asked Romy.
"Not exactly" said Carol. "It's just that we've see someone on this ship wearing one."
"Well, I don't know who that could be" said Romy.
Meanwhile, John, Janice and Elizabeth were heading in the direction that they hoped would lead them to the control room.
"Have you noticed something?" asked Janice.
"Noticed what?" asked Elizabeth.
"There's nobody about. I mean aside from us and Jaydev, and that woman who took a pot-shot at Lyndon – just let me get my hands on her!" said Janice.
"You're right" said John. "Odd, that. Very odd. Great big ship like this and hardly anyone about!"
"So where is everybody?" asked Janice.
"Well, we don't really know, do we? It is strange, though, isn't it. Not a soul" said John.
"Maybe it's automated" said Elizabeth. "Perhaps it's meant to run with just a skeleton crew." As they turned the corner, they came across a large door at the end of a corridor. The door was open ajar, with scorch marks around the lock. John approached the door and examined the lock.
"It looks like it's taken a blast from an energy weapon" whispered John. By now the women had joined John to take a closer look.
"What kind of weapon?" asked Janice, equally hushed. "Are we in any kind of danger?"
"I don't know" whispered John. "It's impossible to tell without equipment. Whoever did this, they're not likely to be on the ship's manifest."
"So what do we do now?" whispered Elizabeth.
"What do we do now? I'll tell you" said John. "We go in!" John gently opened the door wide enough to squeeze through. He proceeded alone before calling back a few seconds later. "Elizabeth, Janice! Just look at this!"
"Is it safe, John?" asked Elizabeth.
"Yes, yes perfectly safe" said John. "Come in here!" Janice, followed by Elizabeth, moved through the door and found John standing at a handrail, looking straight ahead. In front of him were row upon row of what looked like bodies – human bodies – lying horizontally with no more than a couple of feet between each layer.
"Oh my God! Are they dead?" asked Janice.
"I don't know" said John, "but what would be the sense of filling a spaceship with dead bodies?"
"Organ harvesting?" suggested Elizabeth. Janice looked repulsed at the suggestion.
"It doesn't explain those blast marks on the door" said John.
"Maybe whoever it was has gone" said Janice. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to hang about here too long."
"I'm going to take a closer look" said John, as he made his way down a ladder onto the floor level. Once on the ground he walked over to the closest rack of bodies. He found them covered in what appeared to be a synthetic membrane, all dressed in the same dark blue uniform that they had found themselves wearing. Although they appeared lifeless, they also appeared to be far from dead. "I think they're in some sort of suspended animation."
"Could they be the crew?" asked Elizabeth.
"Possibly, but I don't think they're all crewmembers" said John looking at a few more bodies. "There seems to be a few different types like they're from a few different planets."
"Abductees?" asked Janice. "You mean they've been abducted by aliens?"
"That's exactly what I mean, Jan" said John. By this stage, nobody had remembered the open door or the blast marks. All seemed preoccupied by the abductees. "That's what happened to us. This is where we would have ended up if it hadn't been for Shaun's intervention. I think I owe that young man an apology." He turned the corner as he spoke, into a darkened area, to be met by the barrel of a gun, pressed into his forehead.
"Back, now, alien" said the voice, clearly female. It was too dark for John to see even the slightest details of the owner of the voice. "Back, now, alien" repeated the voice. John walked backwards, the gun still pressed into his forehead. As he approached the light, he could see, as Elizabeth and Janice could see, that the figure was the AE suited stranger, and the gun buried into John's head, was a stun gun.
"Where did you get that suit?" asked John. The stranger did not answer. "That suit belongs to us."
"The suit belongs to me, alien" said the stranger, still wearing the helmet.
"We're not aliens" said John. "I think we've got more in common than you think. I think you're the same as us. Are you going to use that gun?"
"If I have to" said the stranger.
"I don't think you will" said John.
"I will if I have to" said the stranger.
"What you have there is a stun gun" said John. "It's not designed to be lethal. It's designed to knock you out for a few minutes. It emits a wide angle energy beam, but at this range, if you were to pull the trigger, you'd take my head straight off my shoulders. You know what I'm saying, don't you?"
"I'm not afraid to pull the trigger" said the stranger.
"I know you're not" said John. "That's not what I mean. What I mean is that you can't because you're just like me. Why don't you lower the gun? Go on, lower the gun." The stranger's hand began to tremble. "You got the suit from TIM, didn't you?"
"You know TIM?" asked the stranger.
"Yes, we know TIM" said John. "Now why not give me the gun and take the helmet off, and we can get to know each other?" The stranger lowered the gun, and John gently took it from her before she took off her helmet, her eyes streaming with tears. "That's better" said John. "My name's John. What's your name?" Before the stranger could speak, they were alerted by a shout from the doorway. In the doorway stood Carol, who immediately recognised the stranger.
"Francesca!"
