Keith Fenwick - Skid 01 - A Planet Called Skid

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Skid
The tasting of the plant
Written and Published by Keith Fenwick
PO Box 90312
Auckland
New Zealand
mailto: sam@iprolink.co.nz.
Copyright (C) Keith Fenwick 2000
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or
translated into any other language or computer language,
in any form or by any means, whether it be electronic,
mechanical, magnetic, optical, manual or otherwise, without the
prior written consent of Keith Fenwick.
A planet called Skid
Keith Fenwick
Also by Keith Fenwick in the Skid series
Skid 2
Return to Skid
Skid 3
Another place called Skid
The tasting of the plant
"We thank you almighty for this harvest." Inel wondered what the words really meant, for
on this planet he was the almighty.
It was a tedious, but possibly the most significant duty of Skid's ruler the annual tasting of
the plant. The origins of the elaborate ceremony were long forgotten, as was the reason the
ceremony was enacted year after year.
Whatever the case it seemed best to carry on regardless. It was a case of continuing a
tradition for traditions sake without question, for to question the need for this ceremony, in this
age would question all Skid's traditions, the very reason for there being a Skidian society at all.
Despite its tremendous significance there was not much to it really. Trying not to tumble
headfirst into the bubbling liquid from his platform, Inel dipped an exquisitely carved, long
handled ladle, into one of the vast open vats where the planet's synthofood was produced. Then
after much chanting and exaggerated gesturing, he tasted some of the latest batch. It was
considered a propitious sign if that he did not keel over on the spot.
It would have been quite a simple process except it proceeded only after an hour or so of
solemn declarations, affirmations of duty, and the usual drama that turns a simple ritual into
one of great complexity and length. A theatre which assumed more importance than it
warranted in this enlightened and technological age.
Completely unaffected by the ritual the enormous fermentation vats bubbled away quietly,
providing the planet' sustenance, the way they had for several thousand years.
Towards the rear of the little group of witnesses, pressed up against the containment wall of the
vat, stood a man whose appearance marked him out as someone who was clearly of a different
race to the others. Noslow was short, slim, and had a swarthy complexion, in a crowd that was
mostly very tall, grossly overweight, and whose skin color almost matched that of the brilliantly
white robes they all wore.
Noslow carefully opened a small vial in the sleeve of his robe and concealing the vial in his
hand he tipped the contents into the vat.
With a nervous smirk Noslow listened to the final chant. A relic of a more superstitious age
when the Skidians believed their survival depended on placating the spirit world, as Inel went
through the motions of ensuring Skid would have sufficient food for the coming year. If all went
well Noslow hoped one of his own people; perhaps even himself would lead next year's
ceremony.
One man and his dogs
Wednesday 11/09/99
Bruce could feel a vein pulsing at his temple as he drew a deep breath and bellowed the next
command at the dogs.
"Get back Punch you moron!" he screamed. "Pheep pheep, pheep pheep," he whistled. "Get
back! Walk up, phip phip. Get in behind Punch! Walk up Can. Sit down Punch! That'll do Cop!"
Finally the cattle trotted across the hill, mooing and snorting unhappily, then slid down the
fence line and through the gate where Bruce stood as it began to rain again.
"Stop that, Cop, you senile old goat," Bruce screamed. The dog sat and waited expectantly on
the side of the hill like a wound up mechanical toy waiting to be let loose, his stubby tail
wagging furiously, instead of diving through the fence to head the mob of cattle off like he
thought he should. Can thought she had better sit too, while Punch, back up the empty hillside
just kept on barking like the lunatic he was.
Hunching his shoulders against the squally rain, Bruce counted the cattle through the gateway
and slammed shut it behind them.
"Bloody mongrels!" He grunted, as if the cattle were solely to blame for getting him wet. Well,
by being unnecessarily pig headed and all but refusing to budge, as far as he was concerned
they had been.
"Good boy." Bruce gave Punch, the pup a quick pat, aimed a kick at the other two dogs who
also decided that they deserved some attention, then stomped off towards his motorbike.
The rain shower passed but the wind still howled in off the sea, picking sand up from the dunes
and flinging it into his face as if he were standing in front of a sandblaster. Bruce pulled up the
hood of his swandri and trudged off through the dunes leaning into the wind, brushing through
the dead and dying lupines that he had planted as part of a halfhearted erosion control measure
in the spring.
At last he clambered over a fence and wearily threw his leg over the motorbike parked on the
other side. After a moment he kicked it into life and headed off up the track towards the next
mob of cattle that needed shifting, glancing around several times as he rode to make sure that
the dogs were following. Once he had to stop and yell at Can who was forever scavenging,
inspecting decomposing turkey or sheep carcasses, or anything else she thought had potential.
Anybody would think the dog was never fed.
The bike's rear slid about as the tire fought for traction on the steep, slick track while Bruce
dangled his feet off the foot pegs an attempt to keep it on course. The track was almost
impassable but Bruce did not believe in walking where he thought he could ride or drive.
To make matters worse his swandri hood had blown back and was slowly filling with water,
which trickled down the back of his neck.
Eventually the rear wheel did what it had been threatening to do ever since he'd started up the
track, and slipped out from under him before he could steady it with an out thrust leg.
"Bugger ya then." Bruce gave the bike a kick and left it lying where it dropped, the rear wheel
spinning until the motor finally stalled with a clunk.
The track was almost as difficult to walk up as it had been to ride up. For each step Bruce took
he seemed to slide half a one back, heavy clay sticking like lead weights to his boots.
Eventually he made it to the top and started across the paddock towards the last mob of cattle
waiting expectantly behind the electric fence for him to shift them onto a new break of grass.
Occasionally Bruce fantasized that he was the only person left on earth when he was out the
back of the farm, heading for the cliffs that dropped straight into the sea. Then he would catch
sight of a truck on the road that ran inland of the farm or hear somebody doing their nut at their
dogs a few miles away. Even so, if he had an accident, fell off the bike, or over the cliff or
something, the neighbors might not realize that he was missing for days.
Deep space patrol
Protected by stealth systems that had been activated since before entering this solar system,
the patrol ship carrying the members of Committee 21 flew through the planet's atmosphere
completely undisturbed. The crew was confident that they would remain undetected by the
unsophisticated tracking systems arrayed on the planet below although they really had no idea
how anything aboard the ship worked.
An argument raged aboard between the crewmembers as a great empty continent fell away
behind the ship as it headed westward towards a group of smaller islands and the vast empty
spaces of a large ocean beyond.
"Just how do we judge the suitability of likely candidates? Interrogate them? What questions
should we ask?" Mulgoon demanded.
Cyprus was all for simply transporting a likely-looking specimen aboard the ship and disposing
of him, her, it, or them, if they proved unsuitable for their needs. However, because of his lowly
status his counsel was not taken seriously. He was the token commoner of the committee that
formed the crew. He was not supposed to be there to offer an opinion on anything and the
others ignored most of what he said. To make matters worse, Toytoo, the chairman of the
committee was notorious among a planet of procrastinators, for never being able to make a
decision.
Mulgoon was wavering, almost on the point of deciding the whole scheme was really too risky
and felt that they should return home empty-handed.
"How can we decide where most of their food is produced?" Mulgoon, who should have known
better, asked. He had made a special study of the subject after all.
In an unusual departure from protocol Myfair was inclined to agree with Cyprus. The planet
was obviously populated by primitives and any one of them could provide the assistance they
needed. Furthermore, he, more than the others knew it was dangerous to loiter around the
planet. Despite their low level of technology, the inhabitants below could possibly have
developed systems that could sense, damage or destroy, the ship since the last time a Skidian
vessel ventured this way.
Unnoticed by the others Myfair slipped into the control room and studied images of the planet
unfolding beneath them. A lone figure suddenly appeared on the screen, moving across an area
of organic material.
Intrigued by this lonely figure, for Skidians were never really alone, Myfair instructed the ship
to hover while he studied the potential candidate and its accompanying four-legged
companions.
"He'll do," Myfair decided impulsively. This offworlder had to know something about the
organic material over which he moved. He stole a quick glance over his shoulder at the others,
who were still arguing in the conference chamber, and activated the transporter beam to bring
the offworlder on board.
"What the bloody hell?" Just as Bruce had been about to give Punch a good kick in the ribs for
rolling in a nicely rotting sheep carcass at the top of the cliff something had grasped him by the
scruff of the neck and yanked him skyward.
One moment he was struggling across a paddock leaning into the near gale force winds to keep
his balance lashed by driving rain. The next he was here. Wherever and whatever here was.
For a moment Bruce decided he must have been blown off the cliff somehow and smashed his
head on something. Was he on his way to heaven? If it wasn't heaven then it must be a
hallucination of another kind. Was he still asleep? Had he just fallen over and bumped his head
on a rock?
The three dogs? What were they doing here? Surely they wouldn't have been stupid enough to
follow him off the cliff. They didn't look particularly happy though. At first they trembled and
whimpered fearfully, tails between their legs, their eyes rolling in their sockets. Then all three
of them tried unsuccessfully to climb up under his swandri. Finding the struggle beyond them,
they gave up and cautiously sniffed the floor instead.
Cop was the first to venture off the platform to investigate a ghostly apparition that was
approaching from the far end of the dimly lit room. The apparition solidified into the figure of a
man wearing a long white robe of some kind that brushed the floor as he moved.
Bruce tensed. His heart thumped wildly behind his ribs, so hard that he thought it might leap
from his chest, as the figure stopped several feet in front of him.
Bruce wondered if it was Saint Peter, whether he might indeed be in heaven. Cop sniffed,
whined, and then scuttled back to cower behind his master, resting his head against Bruce's
feet, peering suspiciously up at the man.
"Gidday." Bruce could not think of anything more intelligent to say off the top of his head, and
immediately cursed himself for sounding so idiotic. This bloke probably wouldn't understand a
word he said.
He shifted uncomfortably and tapped his foot in the puddle of water that had run off his swandri
and leggings while the figure continued to stare at him, distastefully twitching his nose.
Despite his pallid skin and dark blue rimmed eyes, Bruce thought he appeared quite human,
though he had never seen anybody with such pale skin before. Not even on the bare legs of
tourists fresh from a northern winter wandering down a beach.
And if he were in fact a man, he was a big man, standing well over two meters tall like a
basketball player or rugby lock with a hormone imbalance.
Bruce started to step backwards, but the man loomed over him and placed his hands on his
shoulders, drawing Bruce forward and brushing his lips over each cheek.
Yuk!" Bruce wiped his cheeks on the sleeve of his swandri. "What the?" He stepped forward
to avenge the insult, but was halted in mid stride by a raised hand.
"Welcome. Thank you for joining us here." Myfair greeted Bruce in the traditional manner of
Skid where visitors were shown every courtesy, no matter what the host really thought of his
guest. "My name is Myfair and I am at your service."
Cop took this opportunity of an apparently friendly greeting to leave the dubious safety of
Bruce's presence and begin an exploration of the room. He cocked his leg against a cabinet
squirting a stream of urine at it, then trotted off his tail wagging jauntily. This was fresh turf
and as the boss dog here, he was staking his claim.
"What's going on?" Bruce managed to blurt out, pinching himself at the same time to make
sure that he was indeed still alive and maybe experiencing some extra surreal dream.
Myfair frowned, wondering whether the offworlder was as stupid as he looked. Surely that was
obvious?
"You are aboard a Skidian deep space patrol vessel in orbit around your home planet," he
stated the obvious just in case.
"Bullshit. You're having me on." The alien, if that's what he was pretending to be, spoke with a
mid-Atlantic drawl that was almost too good to be true. Bruce was sure now that he must be
dreaming. On the other hand, a victim of a CIA plot maybe!
"Kindly step this way and look into this monitor."
Bruce peered into the monitor for perhaps thirty seconds, and then stepped back, stunned at
the sight. This was either some kind of elaborate trick, or what? He wondered. On the screen
the earth had unfolded like a satellite picture from a television weather forecast. Bruce stepped
forward for another look and watched the earth's surface disappear behind them at an alarming
rate. They were flying above a sea. Which sea? He wondered. Not liking to ask, he glanced at
Myfair, scratched his nose, and reached into his pocket for his smokes.
With a nonchalance he certainly did not feel Bruce lit the cigarette and took a deep puff.
Myfair or whatever his stupid sounding name was, certainly wasn't pulling his leg. He might not
be on a space ship but he was in the air.
Too astonished by the idea to feel much fear or anxiety, Bruce asked, surprised at the
steadiness of his voice. "Well what happens now?"
Bruce had already decided that Myfair was neither God nor an angel and that he wasn't in
heaven or some other dream world. That vision had been replaced by a sudden fear of being
spirited off to be an exhibit at an alien zoo or research specimen at an alien laboratory.
Adrenaline coursing through his veins, his muscles tensed, Bruce prepared to run. Anywhere.
Then he realized there was nowhere to go.
Myfair seemed to sense his apprehension and laid a kindly hand on his arm. "Do not worry, we
merely wish to make use of your talents, for which you will be well rewarded," he lied.
"Eh? Whatdoyou mean?" Bruce asked, the question emerging from his mouth as one word.
"We have traveled to your world." Myfair stopped short at the point of explaining the purpose
of their journey as he caught sight of his fellow crewmembers watching him. He realized he had
some explaining of his own to do.
"All will be revealed to you in good time. Now you must be tired. Let me show you to our
hospitality suite." Myfair's tone was diplomatic, but the grip on Bruce's arm convinced him he
had little choice in the matter so he complied without a struggle. The alien was far too big to
argue with.
Bruce was guided towards an unmarked wall, which opened to reveal a large empty space. He
stood hesitantly on the threshold until Myfair gave him a firm shove.
"Please ask your companions to enter with you."
"Get in." His heart beating even faster now, Bruce stood in the center of the room, anticipating
who knew what.
"You will be comfortable in here while I consult with my associates."
Bruce tried to decide whether there was a hint of malice in Myfair's voice. Deciding there
wasn't, he relaxed a little.
Myfair motioned to a small keyboard on the wall beside the doorway. "These buttons will call
up any amenity you may require." He pressed one to demonstrate, and a toilet appeared. A
good old-fashioned dunny, complete with a wooden seat quite out of place in the stark sterile
chamber.
Bruce had been anticipating a slip that would prove he was caught up some kind of elaborate
hoax. Surely a real spaceship would have something more high tech to sit on. The toilet was so
terrestrial in appearance that Bruce almost found its presence reassuring.
Myfair pressed another button and the toilet bowl disappeared.
"Each button has a symbol for the amenity required," Myfair explained as he stepped outside
and the wall slid shut behind him with the finality of a cell door closing on a condemned man.
Bruce took a nervous drag on his cigarette, waiting for something to happen. Exactly what he
wasn't sure. He still half expected to wake up to find himself lying on a bed with needles and
tubes sticking out of him and a team of doctors poking him about. He wasn't sure whether he
imagined himself to be in intensive care at the hospital, or in some alien laboratory.
Unable to find a suitable receptacle for his cigarette butt Bruce dropped it, grinding it into
the floor with his boot. Seconds later he almost jumped out of his skin as the silence of the
room was shattered by a shrill whirring sound.
"What the hell?"
A trap door flipped open in the seamless wall below the keyboard and a small drone, shaped
like a toaster laid on its side with a bowl on top, rolled out.
The dogs cringed against the wall as the drone shot across the floor and stopped over the
cigarette butt. Emitting a sound like a vacuum cleaner it sucked up the butt and ash then spun
on its axis with an excruciating squeal and bolted back into its hole.
Bruce shrugged his shoulders as if to say nothing else could surprise him. He lit up another
smoke and had a close look at the buttons on the wall. The various symbols etched onto the
buttons made as much sense to him as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics would so he pushed a few
at random. A circle with a dot in the middle evidently meant 'toilet'. A sideways 'L' represented
a bed. An open-ended rectangle caused a shower, complete with running water, to appear in a
corner of the room.
Now that looked like a good idea Bruce thought. For the moment though he continued to push
the buttons randomly, vainly hoping that the door would open. Finally he decided that Myfair
must have locked it from the outside. Not that Bruce had the faintest idea what he would do if
he escaped from the room. He simply would have felt better if he could have got out. He
pressed the bed button. A bed shot out of the wall, joined moments later by the shower cubicle.
Temporarily cowed by the sudden appearance of the bed, and with Punch's heavy tail thumping
a slow steady rhythm on the floor, the three dogs watched Bruce peel off his clothing. Boots
first, then the plastic leggings, swandri, jersey, socks, shirt, singlet, trousers, and under strides.
All dropped in an untidy heap on the floor.
Almost as an afterthought, Bruce reached into his shirt and pulled out his smokes, chucking
them onto the bed for safety then stepped into the shower.
After several moments of standing under the comfortably warm jets of water Bruce
instinctively reached out for the soap, only to realize at the same time that the water itself
contained some sort of detergent.
"Shit hot!" He said, working a lather up all over his body. Then the dogs started barking
furiously.
"Shut up!" Bruce leaned out of the cubicle to see what the dogs were barking at just in time to
see a larger version of the drone that had sucked up his discarded cigarette butt in the process
of doing the same to his pile of clothing. Bruce leapt out of the shower, slipped as his foot
touched the floor, and missed the drone by inches as it bolted back into the wall.
"Bugger."
Bruce stood dripping in the middle of the room, cursing his loss. There was nothing like
nakedness in an alien environment to make a man feel completely inadequate.
"Shut up ya bastards!" He yelled at the dogs who were still barking maniacally at the wall the
drone had disappeared through. He could do without that racket as well.
Cultural superiority
Myfair followed his companions into the chamber where their discussions had been rudely
interrupted by his impulsive beaming up of the offworlder.
"Explain yourself Myfair!" Toytoo demanded.
"I. Er." Myfair fumbled for the right words with which to express himself as the other three
crewmen waited expectantly for an answer.
"The expert candidate is now resting in one of the accommodation units along with three other
unidentified specimens which were accompanying him at the time of his transportation."
"What were you thinking of Myfair?" Cyprus hissed, offended by Myfair's break from
procedure. "Why did you preempt the consultative process?"
"Haven't we all, my friend?" Myfair reminded him dryly, "by deciding to come here in the first
place?"
"Be that as it may, we were deciding on how we should identify likely candidates. How do you
know that you have made a suitable choice?" Cyprus blustered, suddenly unsure of himself in
the company of his peers.
"I am certain he will be ideal for our purposes," replied Myfair, hesitantly. Well he had to be
did he not?
"What gives you the right to take this sort of action yourself?" Mulgoon demanded, affronted
that his own counsel had been ignored so precipitously.
Unabashed, Myfair made no further effort to justify himself. He knew from his cultural
programming that silence was his best defense. Besides none of his fellow crewman was
sufficiently his social peer to remonstrate with him at any length. Certainly not Mulgoon or
Cyprus.
Toytoo recognized the parallels between Myfair's actions and their collective one by being in
this part of the universe at all. Rather rapidly for a Skidian he made up his mind.
"Although I believe Myfair's action to be precipitous, he has forced us to act in a manner that
will prove to be productive." The others nodded solemnly. This was Skidian decision making in
action. A problem was generally debated at length and then the most effective course of action
was taken. In other words, decisions were based on expediency and the self-interest of those in
the decision making process. Myfair could not be censured too heavily, for they relied on him
to pilot the patrol vessel home to Skid.
"I suggest we observe the candidate in order to assess whether he will meet our needs," he
continued. His pronouncement was greeted by three solemn nods. "Meanwhile I suggest
Myfair transports several more candidates to the ship so we will have a balanced sample from
which to make our final selections."
Mulgoon, Toytoo, and Cyprus watched the primary candidate, who now lay naked on the bed,
having completed his ablutions, on one of the internal monitors.
The offworlder was obviously too stupid to find himself some clothing after the drone had
automatically disposed of the garments he had carelessly discarded on the floor. Didn't the
offworlder realize that the drone management system would immediately sense and remove
any waste products from its designated zone of responsibility? If he did not know now, he would
soon learn.
Myfair rapidly developed a theory about the offworlders as he returned to the control room.
Being concerned with organic food production, it followed in Myfair's mind that the best
candidates would come from areas of the planet below covered by the larger examples of
vegetative organic material displayed on his monitor. He accepted that he might have erred in
the selection of the first offworlder and he now sought to redeem himself in the eyes of his
colleagues by refining his selection process.
Not that Myfair had the faintest idea of what organic material was; organic was simply a
technical term used to describe some of the material the vessel's sensors identified. That some
of this organic material might be inedible did not occur to Myfair either. Surely anything
organic could be consumed as a nutritive source?
Myfair made his selections. He chose a cross section of candidates so they could weed some of
them out if necessary and dispose of the one he had already transported up to the ship. Myfair
punched several sets of coordinates into the computer and made the necessary alterations to
the vessels' flight path.
In this manner the Skidians became host to an aged prospector from Australia's Northern
Territory who had been on an illicit prospecting trip through an Aboriginal reserve. A Swedish
forester, who had been checking for signs of regeneration in a forest devastated by acid rain,
joined him seconds later.
Before either man could begin to come to grips with this sudden change of scenery. The
Australian thought that he was suffering a severe attack of the DT's, while the Swede was sure
forest elves of ancient legends had kidnapped him, they were joined by a woman who had given
up all hope after becoming lost on a tramping trip in the northwestern United States.
Myfair studied the candidates standing before him, registering their expressions of surprise,
fear, and, in the case of the female, surprisingly of relief. For a fleeting moment Myfair
wondered how he would feel if suddenly transported onto an offworld spaceship. He did not
dwell on that unlikely event as his attention was drawn to an instrument warning light that had
begun to flash.
One of the planet's primitive detection systems had stumbled across the ship's presence in
their atmosphere. This was not a major problem as the ship could easily outstrip any pursuit
offered from the planet below. Nevertheless, it would not do to allow a close inspection of their
ship.
Myfair quickly adjusted the controls. With a barely perceptible jolt the ship accelerated,
leaving the earth's atmosphere and the as yet disorganized attempts at identifying and pursuing
a possible unidentified intruder wallowing in its wake.
A slight turbulence jostled the ship as it approached the light barrier; all pretense of stealth
forgotten in Myfair's haste to escape, and the ship became a bright speck in the sky visible to
millions on the planet below. Seconds later the ship ripped open a wormhole terminus that
would deposit the ship within a light day of its homeport on Skid.
The other members of Committee 21 alerted by the warning joined Myfair in the control room
to look over the new arrivals.
Both groups watched each other warily. The Skidians with a curious detachment and
indifference, after all these primitive offworlders were lesser beings than they were. Whatever
they might think or feel was of no importance when the future of Skid, the most advanced
society in the known universe was at stake. The offworlders unsurprisingly viewed their
situation with mounting anxiety.
The euphoria felt by the members of Committee 21 dissipated a little as they examined the
unlikely group on which their futures depended. For better or worse they were committed to the
scenario they had hastily conceived unless they dispatched the offworlders into space and
returned home empty handed.
A bump in the night
"What was that?" Bruce was a light sleeper. The barely perceptible jolts as the ship left the
earth's atmosphere and accelerated into space and the slight stutter as the ship ripped open the
wormhole terminus woke him. He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and looked around.
Can looked up, glanced around the room, and dozed off again. Cop made little doggy snuffling
sounds in his sleep, while Punch watched Bruce, his tail thumping against the deck as it wagged
lazily from side to side.
Bruce scratched his groin, deciding this was a funny sort of dream. Wasn't he supposed to
wake up and find it had all been a dream? Then he remembered the room, the room that the
alien had shut him into, the one in which he was sitting.
Although the room was comfortably warm, Bruce wished he had some clothes to put on. His
nakedness accentuated his feeling of vulnerability and added to his general discomfort.
To his great relief, despite the deprivations of the drone and his own body, Bruce discovered
that his smokes had survived intact, jammed between the bed and the wall. He reached down
and flipped open the cardboard lid. There were seven cigarettes left in the packet. Bruce
wondered whether he should ration himself. Who knew when he would get anymore?
He put a cigarette between his lips, took out the lighter which had been resting inside the
packet and lit it.
"A cup of coffee would be nice," Bruce suggested wistfully to the dogs, "a feed wouldn't go
amiss, either." However, perhaps he was not as hungry as he imagined. His stomach rumbles
could well be caused by tension and worry. Butterflies! He chuckled at that thought. If he was
really on a space ship, anything was possible.
"What was that?" Bruce heard a faint noise that sounded like a woman screaming as he
thought about his empty stomach. He shook his head. Not likely here, then he noticed the dogs
had pricked their ears up.
Suddenly it occurred to Bruce that the spacemen were probably watching him. This was more
important than some imaginary noises in his head. He belatedly dropped his hands to cover his
genitals. Then he realized they had probably seen all they wanted to by now, so he dropped all
pretence at modesty, stood, and wandered over to the keyboard by the door.
Before he had a chance to do anything a tray shot out of the wall laden with a pile of light
cotton sheets.
"A bit late for that. Eh boys?" Bruce picked up one of the sheets and shook it out. "A bloody
dress!" He grunted in disgust tossing his cigarette butt away. This time Bruce didn't bat an
eyelid as the little drone shot out of its lair to clean the butt up almost before it hit the ground.
"Too small." He tossed the first robe at Cop who got to his feet, shook it off, and lay down on
it. There were three smaller robes and one large one that Bruce guessed was meant for him.
He regarded the garment dubiously and then held it up to his body to check it for size. Not the
sort of clothing he would have chosen for himself, still he didn't seem to have a choice right at
that moment.
He pulled the robe over his head, fought his arms into the sleeves, and began to shake the rest
of it down over his body, missing the sound of the door sliding open in the process.
"Agggh, aghhh, let me go you creep!"
Bruce's first thought was that the screaming hadn't been imaginary as he tugged the robe down
in order to cover his extremities. The he realized he was giving whomever a full frontal and
tried to turn away.
"Bugger!" He exclaimed as he lost his balance and fell to the floor still struggling to dress
himself.
The screaming stopped abruptly, replaced by the sound of someone sobbing. Bruce finally
regained his feet, arranged the unfamiliar garment about him with a series of firm tugs, and just
about tripped over the floor length hem in the process. Then he turned to see what all the
racket was about.
A woman stood, back against the wall, peering at him through her hands that covered the lower
part of her face. Her eyes were red and puffy as if she had been crying for hours and dark and
tangled wisps of hair stuck to damp patches on her face and hands.
Bruce's eyes were drawn to the twin globes of her dark breasts that the open front of her robe
revealed. The woman caught his eye and clutched the material of the open neck together,
hunched her shoulders and slid down the wall until she was sitting against it with her legs out
stretched.
"Who are you?" Bruce wondered if she might be some sort of slave sent to minister to his
needs against her will. "Probably not," he muttered to himself. She was a fellow victim.
Cop got to his feet, stretched, and wandered over to investigate the new arrival. While Bruce
wondered what else to say, Cop broke the ice by licking at the hands covering the woman's
face. He was quickly joined by Punch, who took a quicker route to her affections by trying to
stick his head up her robe, which had bunched up around her thighs as she slumped against the
wall.
"Oh you horrible animal. Get away. Shoo!" She struggled feebly to push both dogs away.
Bruce couldn't blame her he wouldn't want Cop, whose favorite pass time was dining on
decomposing turkey, licking his face either.
"Go on, get out of it!" Bruce kicked Punch in the ribs and he slunk off to lie down in the corner
as if nothing had happened. Cop sat by the woman's side like a bodyguard, hesitantly watching
Bruce and occasionally taking a quick sniff at the woman.
"Gidday." Bruce tried again. However, not for the first time recently he cursed himself for not
having anything more intelligent to say. "Well here we are then," he tried again after a few
moments.
The woman didn't respond she just stared at him with wild confused eyes.
"Get away from me!" She screamed leaping to her feet as Bruce moved a little closer.
"Ok, lady, ah. Um." He was still stumped for something to say as he raised his hands in a
placatory gesture. She didn't think he was one of them, did she? Well, why not? How would she
know otherwise?
Bruce backed away, sat on the bed, and groped around for his smokes. Cop came over and
rested his head on his thigh while his eyes flicked like a metronome from Bruce, to the woman,
and back again. With great deliberation Bruce selected and lit a cigarette.
Trying to sound convincing as possible he said, "I'm not one of them, you know." He shook a
cigarette out of the packet and offered it to the woman. "Smoke?"
"She looked up and shook her head. " No."
"Sure?"
"I don't."
Bruce took his cigarette from his mouth and stared at it contemplatively
"I hope you don't mind me then."
"Yes I do," she replied sharply, "but it won't stop you, will it?"
Bruce shook his head. "No, it won't, I'm afraid. But not to worry. I've only got a couple left."
"Then why don't you just go and get some more?"
"Eh? Where the hell am I going to get a packet of smokes around here?"
"From your friends, of course, your fellow space cadets. What is this, anyway? Some kind of
joke?"
"Look here you stupid woman, do I look like one of those other blokes out there?" Bruce
tapped some ash onto Cop's back, "I imagine that just like yourself I was minding my own
business and then suddenly here I was. And I've been here for I don't know how long," he
added.
The woman glanced from Bruce to Cop, who was still resting his head on Bruce's knee, to the
other dogs, and then backs to Bruce. "You're not one of them, then?" She asked hesitantly.
Definitely an American, Bruce decided from her accent.
"Of course not!" he snarled. "Do I look like a bloody alien?"
"No, I suppose not," she conceded. "Not that I've ever met one before," she sobbed. "Ohhh."
Bruce reached out and patted the woman tentatively on her shoulder hoping to offer her a little
comfort. She immediately tensed as he touched her and started to shrug him off. After a
moment she relaxed a bit and sat down on the bed beside him.
"Now what?" Bruce took a closer look at the woman. Well, girl really, because she didn't look
that old. He tossed away his cigarette and felt her jump as the drone shot out of the wall
alongside her to clear up the butt.
"What's that?" She asked, fearfully
"Just the cleaning lady," Bruce joked, and she relaxed again. With his free hand Bruce hooked
her hair back so he could see her face more clearly.
"What's your name?"
摘要：

SkidThetastingoftheplantWrittenandPublishedbyKeithFenwickPOBox90312AucklandNewZealandmailto:sam@iprolink.co.nz.Copyright(C)KeithFenwick2000TheAuthorassertsthemoralrighttobeidentifiedastheauthorofthiswork.Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,transmitted,transcribed,storedinaretrie...

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