VIII

After talking to Nathan, I decided to go with his better judgment. He was a doctor, after all. Anyway, I realised it was best to assume that Cara was alright, so I went back over to the centre of the room, where she still sat, and asked if she was feeling hungry. She said yes, and Brad, as previously discussed, agreed that he would make lunch for her and the rest of the crew. In the meantime, we were all allowed to go back to our quarters for half an hour. Before we left though, Nathan told us all to wait, and that he had something for us. He then went around the room and handed each of us a four-page blue booklet.

"What's this, homework?" I asked, looking down at the coloured paper.

"Hilarious, Matt." He replied, not amused. "You all know full well that after hypersleep, all crew members must take a test to ensure that their mental wellbeing and intellectual capacity has not decreased, as well as to establish that there has been no significant loss of memory, in accordance with-"

"-Omicron Alpha Regulations." We all said in unison. The amount of times we'd all been into hypersleep, and the amount of times we'd all woken up and taken this test, was truly staggering. If they didn't change the questions every time, I'd have memorised all the answers by now. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, for that exact reason, in fact.

Looking at the clock above the door, I decided that I might as well do the paper now, in the half an hour before lunch. Peering around the room, it seemed that everyone else had the same idea. So, paper in hand, I headed out into the corridor, and walked around the corner to my living quarters. Stepping in, I went straight to my desk, which of course was still cluttered with letters. I simply pushed them aside onto the floor, and slapped the blue booklet down on the desktop. The front cover read 'MIKE : Knowledge, Intelligence and Mentality Examination', and had a box at the bottom for my name and rank. I pulled a pen out of my front pocket and wrote 'Matthew Harvey Aloysius Jones, SenNav.'

Turning over the page to the first set of questions, I knew at once that this test was going to be easy. For a start, the very first question was 'What is wrong with the title of this booklet?' Of course, it was that the words 'Knowledge, Intelligence and Mentality Examination' didn't spell MIKE. They spelled KIME. The next question was 'The Great War began on the 23rd October, 2077. When did it end?' Again, the answer was simple: it ended on that same day (two hours later, to be exact.) And so, the questions went on, each one as easy as the last. Some were general knowledge, like naming moons or giving dates, whilst others were mathematical and scientific equations. The mental stability questions were easy. Basically, you just have to write that you've never been compelled to kill anyone, and that you can't see a nuclear explosion in the last ink blot.

After about twenty minutes, I had reached the last question: 'What is the exact speed of light in a vacuum?' I scribbled down the answer, 299,792,458 metres per second, and closed the booklet. I then proceeded to leave the room, to take it back to Science and Medical for Nathan to have a look at. When I arrived, I saw that nobody else had yet handed in their own paper.

"Done already, Matt?" He asked as I placed the paper on his desk. "Not rushed, I hope."

"No, not rushed." I replied. "Just piss-easy."

"Well, it's not a question of difficulty, Matthew," He assured me, placing the booklet in his drawer. "It's a question of whether or not hypersleep has had an effect on your IQ, memory, or sanity."

As Nathan and I continued to discuss the necessity, and indeed the validity, of the hypersleep test, we were interrupted by Archie's voice, telling us that lunch was ready. And only an hour and a half late, mind you. I waited for Nathan to log out of his computer, and the two of us headed over to the dining hall, where Bradley was currently serving up pasta Bolognese, with a side of garlic bread. Alan, Ryan and Cara were all already sat down, the latter of whom now looked as cheery as ever before. Nathan and I sat opposite them, leaving a space on the end of the row for Brad, who was still bustling about with trays and cutlery. Once the last tray of Bolognese had been handed out, he sat down with his own meal, and we began to eat.

No sooner than I'd bitten into a forkful of Brad's meal, the table became abuzz with conversation. Nathan and Cara spoke about how she was feeling, and about this morning's mission in general. Ryan and Brad spoke about ship maintenance, mainly whose turn it was to perform ventilation checks. And Alan and me? We simply discussed how great Brad's Bolognese was. Soon, the dialogue shifted, and I found myself talking to Brad himself, about a magazine subscription that he'd forgotten to renew before leaving Earth. Then I chatted to Nathan about the recent election on Enceladus, one of the many moons that he'd lived on over the years. Eventually, I'd conversed with everyone at the table, even Ryan, briefly.

"…and that is why it's impossible to deny that the chicken came before the egg." Nathan finished, concluding what I considered to be a very convincing argument, and a definitive answer to the age-old question.
"Well, I'm convinced," I said, leaning back in my chair as I swallowed my last forkful of pasta.

"Me too," Alan agreed, "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't heard everything that you've just said."

"Yeah, I'm glad I didn't miss that conversation." Brad said, standing up from his seat. Then he asked us if we were all finished, and began to stack up our empty trays to take away into the kitchen.

I realised at this point that Cara hadn't really said much for the last few minutes. I looked over at her and saw that she leaned back in her chair, seemingly exhausted. Her face was a little paler than usual and her breathing was deeper than normal.

"You alright, Cara?" I asked, moving over to the seat next to hers. "You haven't said much."

"To tell you the truth, Matt, I'm feeling a bit sick." She replied. "I didn't want to say anything to Brad, in case he thought I was criticising his cooking."

"Don't be ridiculous," I chuckled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure he'd have understood." She smiled weakly, but I could see that she was in some sort of pain. I told her not to worry, and that I'd cover her duties for the rest of the day if she wanted to go back to her quarters, but she insisted that she was fine.

A few moments later, Brad came back into the room, regrettably empty-handed. He told us all that he was very sorry, but he hadn't had time to make dessert. I stood up, and walked closer to where he stood, so as to speak to him privately.

"That might be for the best." I said quietly, nodding discretely in Cara's direction.

"Ah, bit under the weather, is she?" He replied. "Understandable, given what she's been through today." I agreed, and looked over at a still quite pale-looking Cara. As I watched, her face suddenly turned red, and she began to clutch at her stomach. Everyone's attention was immediately directed towards her as she let out a gasp of pain.

"Jesus Christ!" Nathan shouted, rushing over as Cara lurched forward in her seat. "Cara? Are you alright, can you hear me?"

"Smith, what's going on?" Alan asked, worried.

"I don't know!" He replied, trying to hold Cara down as she shook in her seat. Her entire body had now stiffened up, and her face became redder still. Suddenly, she lurched forwards again, this time knocking Nathan back, and slumped onto the floor.

I continued to stare in disbelief as she writhed in agony on the ground.

"What the fuck is that?" Brad shouted, pointing towards Cara's stomach. I looked down and saw that a large bulge had appeared under her shirt, as if something was pushing its way out from the inside. Then, I heard an ungodly tearing of skin and muscle. I forced myself to look away, but I simply couldn't. Blood shot into the air as a huge, yellowish larva erupted from Cara's stomach. Before anyone had time to react, it shot out of the room, off into the corridor behind us. But that wasn't the end of it. As I looked back at Cara's now motionless body, I saw a second, smaller larva slump out onto the floor, before wriggling away at less than half the speed of the first. Alas, it was still too fast to be chased, though.

"Oh, God." Alan said, cupping a hand over his mouth at the spectacle before us. The very sight induced terrific nausea within me. I was still trying to process what had just happened. One moment, she'd been fine. The next? Well, that mental image spoke for itself. But it couldn't be so. Nathan said he'd run an X-Ray and a CT scan, and found nothing out of the ordinary. Evidently, he was wrong. And I knew at once what this meant. It meant that the Facehugger really had done something to her. It had laid an egg, birthed an embryo (or two in this case). It meant that the safety of the entire ship could now be at risk.