Under normal circumstances, Zim would have found some way to blame this on Dib. And vice versa. But really, it was no one's fault. Maybe Zim should have checked the pressure before they left. Maybe Dib should have heard the ever-so-slight hissing next to his seat. Either way, laying on the blame was not gonna fix the Voot.
In a one-to-a-million chance, they had managed to crash onto a planet with an atmosphere. Zim was suddenly glad that he had paid attention in geography. There was slightly less oxygen in the atmosphere, and a little more hydrogen. But it was breathable. Zim's atmospheric adjustor compensated for him, but Dib… The Earth boy breathed hard, as if he had just run very far. For a moment, he had wondered about carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. He smirked at that now. What could he do about it if there was? Not breathe?
He envied Zim's pak more now than he ever had. He was totally prepared for everything. There was a generator that made 'food' in a word. Irken food. It wasn't that bad. It felt like eating chalk, but he wasn't hungry.
Zim walked around the barren plains. Well, actually, he bounced. It was a small planet. There were a few straggly plants, but that was it. No sign of intelligent life, or even stupid life. Just plants. And then he walked into the 'night'
"DIB! C'mon, we gotta move. NOW!" Zim jumped back into the sunlight, knocking small pieces of ice off his green skin even as they melted. Dib saw the ice. And he started moving.
(Ok, here's what is happening here. The little compassy-thing says which way North is. The sun here rises in the South. It's setting in the North. And they have to follow it to keep from freezing to death. Everybody get it? OK)
They moved at a quick pace until they were about a mile north of nightfall. Then they had to slow down. Running is hard on Earth, where there's plenty of oxygen. So they bounced slowly along, once in a while looking behind them to see if the darkness was getting any closer. It was.
"Proximity warning: Planet ahead. Are you LISTENING, Earth-monkey?" Gaz shook her head, purple hair falling to her shoulders. It wasn't comfortable in the ship, built for a 4-foot Irken. At 4 foot 11, she was quite squished in the little ship.
"HEY! Wake up, or I'll jettison you and take off on my own!"
"You will do no such thing." Zim's computer flared the screens to prove that he was there too. Invisibly, Tak crossed her arms and pouted.
"What were you saying about a planet?"
"Oh, yeah. Do you know how long you've been asleep? Almost twelve hours. I told you not to stay up so long before. You just watched the stars move for the first twelve, and then you slept for twelve, and now we're gonna be there in an hour, and your sleep schedule is gonna be really messed up."
" All I really needed to hear of that was 'we're gonna be there in an hour' Jeez, you Irkens and your 'we're always right'..."
"We ARE always right, human."
"Then why is Zim so incompetent?"
"NO FAIR!" Both computers shouted in unison. "Zim's a defective. He doesn't count."
"Oh, yes he does!" Yelled Gaz gleefully. This was great.
"Well if he's so incompetent, why do you like him so much?" Asked Tak. Gaz paled. Why did this keep coming up?
"I DON'T!" She yelled. The computers shared a malicious grin. This was gonna be fun.
"Yes you doooo!" Said Tak.
"You talk in your sleep." Said Zim's computer.
"No I don't." Said, Gaz, confused. The computers looked guilty.
"Ok, fine. We just listened to your thoughts. We can do that, you know. That's how Tak got her personality into the ship."
"Yeah. You do like him. You dooo!" Gaz settled back in the half-moon seat to think. So what if she did like him? It wasn't like he liked her. She'd barely ever said anything to him. Not counting threats of disembowelment, that is. She'd probably scared him off.
Just like she scared everyone else off.
She shook her head. It wasn't her fault. How was she supposed to get close to anyone after what had happened?
"Dib did." Said Tak.
Gaz glared. Tak cowered. "Maybe we should just stay out of this." Said Zim's computer.
"Yeah." Said Gaz. She fell back into herself and thought.
"You know," Said Tak "I hate Zim, but since I'm a computer, I really don't care about revenge, or being an Invader. And I've listened to enough music to know that if you like somebody, you should tell them".
"Maybe." Said Gaz. "If I can find them. If they haven't gone and blown themselves up." The computers had nothing to say to that.
Dib fell slowly onto the cold yellow dust. Zim tried to pull him up, but he was tired too.
"C'mon, Dib. We've gotta keep going. If we don't we're gonna get caught in the dark. The dark is very, VERY cold, Dib."
"Why? Why keep going? We've gotta keep going until what? Who knows we're here, Zim? The only person who even knows we left is Gaz. We've been bouncing ahead of the dark for twenty-four hours, Zim. We're racing the sun. And it's not stopping for rest breaks."
"I don't know why we have to keep going. But we do. We can't just stop and die when we can keep going."
"This is real funny coming from the guy who would have let himself die because his abandoners felt like killing him"
"SHUT UP! That's different! Loyalty is bred into us from generations of modifications. They try to eliminate all emotion except loyalty. Are you humans bred to give up?"
"No! But we're running on energy we don't have. On hope that is groundless."
"Yes. Groundless. That's why they call it hope, Earth-monkey."
Dib stared up at Zim. Then he looked back at the advancing darkness. And he stood up. And started bouncing again.
Several hours later Dib looked at the ground. It was yellow dirt. No rocks or sand or even plants. It flew up at him, then retreated, then came up, and retreated. He fell into a pattern, not paying attention to anything other than the ground. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.
"Dib?" The question jerked him out if his lull. The exhaustion flew back at him.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry we were enemies for so long. I should have seen the world around me. I was too wrapped up in trying to do my job."
"Wow. An apology. From you. Am I dead? This can't be real."
"All jokes aside, human. I am sorry"
"I'm sorry too. I wonder if anyone has noticed we're gone yet. Certainly not my dad. He probably hasn't even come home yet."
"Not yet? We've been gone for over three days. I never knew he spent so long at work. It must be awful trying to live with just yourself."
"Just me and Gaz."
"Don't answer if you don't want to. What about your mother?"
"Mom died when I was five. Gaz was only four then. She got sick. Really sick. I don't even know what she had, but one day she was fine and the next…" Dib trailed off. Zim didn't say anything.
"Dad couldn't find a cure in time, and he hated himself for it. So he wrapped himself up in his work. He became obsessed with making everything perfect. And I got paranoid. Every time someone coughed, I was sure they were sick with the same disease. After a few years, the paranoia spread to other things." He sighed.
"I wish that we had been a better family."
"Irkens don't have families. But they sound like desirable things. We aren't supposed to feel 'affection' as you humans call it. But I do. I feel it." He looked over at Dib.
"I like you. I was always led to believe that any emotion was bad and could jeopardize the mission. But now there is no mission. And I can feel what I like."
"You really need a girlfriend, Zim. Really." Zim's eyes shut. His antenna stood straight up. Then he opened them.
"I would have. I did like an Earth girl. Almost since before the Tallest abandoned me. But I couldn't admit it to anyone. But now, since we're probably gonna die… I liked Gaz." Dib's eyes almost fell out of his head.
"SEE! If I'd have told you that earlier, you would have strangled me."
"That's true. Wow. Gaz. I never even would have thought. The thought of Gaz with a boyfriend is really weird."
"She doesn't like me anyway. I don't think she likes anyone."
"We better go faster. The dark is right behind us." Zim turned. The night was no more than a half-mile behind them. As he watched, dark ice crystals grew on the flat landscape.
Gaz looked at the approaching planet. It was pretty small.
"At least it has an atmosphere." Said Tak. "You should be Ok without a spacesuit. Good thing, because we don't have a spacesuit."
"Approaching Voot coordinates." Said Zim's computer. The ship set down next to the remains of the Voot. Gaz gasped as a layer of ice formed over the windshield of her ship.
"Wow. Cold." She said.
"Oh, don't worry about that. The sun's coming up. It should hit the ship…now." The ice melted away instantaneously as the sun's rays hit the ship. Gaz jumped out, and walked to the Voot. She climbed through the broken windshield into the cockpit. The half-moon seat was slashed in several places. But the ship was empty. She climbed back out, and looked around for evidence of life. She saw two sets of footprints heading north. There were no returning prints. She turned back to her ship.
"They're somewhere on this planet. And they were alive when the sun set here. We need to find them. They've been trying to escape the sunset for a day and a half." She climbed into her ship, and it flew off, following the footprints.
"That's it. The water condenser is broken. There isn't any water left to be had, unless we wait for the ice." Zim sat on the dry ground. Dib sat next to him, then leaned back and lay on his back.
"What do the Irkens think about death?"
"It is to be avoided at all costs. That is what I know."
"We can't avoid it anymore."
"I know. I know."
Zim lay on his back too. They looked up at the alien sky.
"No pictures in these stars."
"No, there is. Look there, Dib. There's a snake. Or maybe it's a gopher."
The two boys laughed as the dark washed over them.
"There they are!" The ship dived toward the ground, and the two still forms on the ice-coated ground. Two robo-arms cam out, and grabbed them. A second later, they were inside the ship. Warm air filled the cramped area, and water pooled on the ground as the ice melted. Gaz went first to her brother. He probably had frostbite. But he was alive. And he was beginning to come around. She pulled a piece of ice out of his hair.
"GAZ!" yelled Zim's computer. "Gaz, Zim isn't breathing!" Gaz forgot the expansive array of Irken technology that surrounded her, and applied the kiss of life. Dib grimaced a little. 'Please, Zim, don't be dead'
"I've released the nanobots. They should be fixing your frostbite. If you feel a little-"
"SHUT UP! Forget me, help Zim! HE'S the one who's dying!"
"Oh, no, he'll be-"
"REACTIVATE!" Yelled a female voice. Tak looked at the floor. "Sorry." She said quietly.
"Like I was saying, I think he'll be ok." Finished the computer.
Gaz looked around.
"He's breathing again. Tak, is he gonna be ok?"
"Oh, I'm sure he'll be fine." Said the embarrassed computer.
"Yeah, once the circuits in his pak thaw out he'll be back to normal. Interesting revival technique you humans have." Gaz blushed.
"Oh, be quiet."
"Anyway, I've released the nanobots. They should clear up any frostbite you two have. They sometimes go a little overboard, though. You might have to get your eye-lens prescription changed." Dib rolled his eyes. Like that was one of his worries right now.
Zim moaned, and opened his eyes. He saw Gaz, and quickly sat up, dusting himself off.
"Is this Tak's ship?" He asked. Dib nodded. "Gaz, how you got this thing working is beyond me."
"Irken technology is programmed to fix it's self." Said Zim, confused.
"I knew that." Said Gaz. "It was just a matter of persuasion." Tak giggled.
"Your sister is a lot meaner than you Dib. All you ever did was cuss at me. Like I would respond to that."
"Shut up, Tak." Said Dib.
"Are there any spare parts on this ship? I want to see if I can fix the Voot. It might be cramped in this ship for two days." Said Zim. The Dib and Gaz nodded. They flew back to the crash site. Zim managed to fix the ship well enough that it would fly, at least. He got the disc of his computer, and put it into his ship to make sure that he would be informed of any problems. The computer ran a diagnostic, and the Voot came up OK. Just to be safe, Dib and Gaz went in Tak's ship. The two ships rose into the black sky, and flew off toward home. A plant turned to another, awestruck.
"Did you see that?" Asked one.
"Yeah! Aliens! They sure were ugly."
"You kids know not to stay out past ten!" Professor Membrane said. "It's dangerous out there. You know that." Dib and Gaz looked at each other sadly. They had been gone for almost a week, and their Dad only knew that they were gone the last hour.
"Yes, dad. We know. We won't do it again." Said Dib. Gaz went to her room to write in her journal. Dib went to his room, and locked the door. He pulled out the old box of drawings he had done so long ago. Slowly, methodically, he tore them all into pieces.
"Dib!" His father yelled from downstairs. "Dib, the spaceship you parked in the backyard is gonna kill the grass! Put it in the gar- No, never mind, it's moving itself." Dib dropped into bed, and was asleep in an instant.
Dear diary,
I haven't written in you for a while. I've been in space looking for Zim and Dib. They almost killed themselves. What do you expect from a bunch of boys though, really?
Two days of sitting in a ship thinking showed me a lot of things. The two computers babbling to me all the time helped too. I guess I really do like Zim. But it doesn't matter, really. He wouldn't like me. I've always been mean to him. Except I guess I kinda saved his life. Maybe that counts for something. Maybe not.
Something about him tells me that he's not trying to conquer Earth any more. I think maybe something happened to him. Something really bad. He's not so high and mighty any more. I think most of the 'Irkens are superior' stuff is now more out of habit than conviction. Maybe Tak's right. Maybe I should talk to him. I dunno. I'm going to bed.
In the house next door, Zim put the finishing touches on Gaz's game. This would take her a while. The last level was statistically almost impossible to beat. Today had been her birthday. They had spent most of it peering out the window, looking for the first glimpse of Earth. They had just gotten home a few minutes ago. Zim decided to give her the game tomorrow. She was probably asleep now anyway.
He envied the human's ability to sleep basically at will. Irkens needed to be in a supreme state of exhaustion. Once a month usually sufficed to keep them well rested.
Ah, well. Suddenly a spark of an idea formed in his head. It grew into a flame, then a bonfire. He began working on the game again. A level beyond the last level. Statistics had nothing to do with beating this one.
To be continued....