Chapter One
Carrie Hatchett was late. She was trying to find the room where she had been interviewed for her job as a Transgalactic Intercultural Community Crisis Liaison Officer, and the seam of her fluorescent orange jumpsuit was working its way uncomfortably high.
She was walking alongside her colleague and friend, Dave. Dropping back a step or two, she stealthily tugged at the seam and jiggled her leg to ease the tension.
“What are you doing?” Dave had turned and was watching her.
“Nothing.” Carrie cleared her throat. “Now, where is that room?”
“I thought you’d been here before?”
“I have, but I kind of stumbled on the right place by accident. I can remember what it looks like from the outside, but I’m not sure how to get there.”
They were in a set of cream-coloured ceramic tunnels that had large oval recesses embedded in the walls, floor and ceiling. Bordering each recess was a line of symbols, some black, some luminous, some flashing. They approached a recess that crossed their path and were forced to leap over it before taking a left-hand turn. The tunnel walls emitted a soft glow.
“You know,” said Dave, “I shouldn’t have come along.”
“It’ll be fine, honestly. Anyway, I need you. I really do.”
Dave had accompanied Carrie on her previous—first—assignment, and she was sure she could not have succeeded without him. When the Transgalactic Council had contacted her about her next task, she had persuaded her friend to come with her to the briefing, though he was technically an ‘unauthorised companion’. Glancing at Dave’s profile, Carrie sighed. Dave was stunningly good-looking, but also—for her—disappointingly gay.
He shook his head. “You’ve shown you can do the job. I’m sure you can manage.” He looked nervously from side to side. “Maybe there’s some way I can go back? I could feed Toodles and Rogue for you.”
Carrie’s brow wrinkled. Dave knew as well as her that when they returned through the green mist that had conveyed them there from beneath her kitchen sink, no time would have passed. To Toodles, her sweet, affectionate cat, and Rogue, her lovable, handsome dog, it would be as though they had never left. Studying her friend’s face, Carrie saw beads of sweat, though the temperature was only pleasantly warm. She realised what the problem was. “Stop worrying. Gavin won’t hurt you, you know.”
“I know, but...” Dave’s shoulders slumped and he swallowed. “You’ve got to admit...those eyes, and the j-j-jaws, with the extra set of jaws inside and razor sharp teeth, and the legs...He’s definitely got far too many legs. I mean, why does he need that many?”
Gavin, Carrie’s manager in the Transgalactic Council, was a massive insectoid alien with ten pairs of legs, a bronze carapace and two sets of viciously sharp mandibles. At moments of high tension, his inner jaws had the unnerving habit of protruding several centimetres, and he had a poor understanding of the human need for personal space.
Rolling her eyes, Carrie said, “Gavin’s lovely. You just have to get to know him.”
Dave tugged at his shirt collar and grimaced.
As always, he looked effortlessly stylish. He was wearing denim jeans, brogues, and a button down shirt under a crew neck pullover. Carrie looked down at her orange jumpsuit, the uniform for her role in the Transgalactic Council. The colour was intended to help Council officers stand out in conflict zones and mark them as neutral personnel with diplomatic protection. Carrie’s jumpsuit squashed her breasts to one homogeneous lump and the tight material neatly profiled her pot belly. The central seam had worked its way too high once more. She reached behind to pull it lower.
Glancing at her, Dave said, “That jumpsuit’s too small for you.”
“I know.”
“Didn’t they have a bigger size?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Then why didn’t you—”
“Because I’m on a diet,” Carrie said between her teeth. She sighed and tilted her head. “I thought it would fit me when I lost a bit of weight, okay?”
“Okay,” said Dave, raising his eyebrows.
“Wait, is this it?” The symbols alongside a recess looked familiar. One was a black circle above a triangle with two long rectangles below, like the symbol for the women’s restroom. Carrie slipped her bag off her shoulder and put it down. The bag was her Transgalactic Council Officer ‘toolbox’ and held a translator, magnetic field neutraliser, briefing screen and other useful devices.
Carrie rubbed her palms together, then lightly rested one hand on the surface of the recess. Nothing happened. “Maybe not.” She put her hands on her hips.
“Come on, Carrie,” said Dave. “Don’t you have any idea where this room is? We’ve been here for ages. We’ll be wandering around forever at this rate.”
She looked up and down the corridor. Dave was right. Their situation was difficult. The tunnels were endless and she did not know where they were nor how they could get back to the place where they had entered. Not that it would do any good to retrace their steps. The green mist that transported lifeforms between worlds always disappeared within a few minutes, and only authorised Transgalactic Council staff could open the gateways. Carrie was not high enough in the Council to have the authority.
She needed to find Gavin soon because he would be wondering where she had got to. Though he was far nicer than his appearance suggested, he was still her boss and he would not be pleased about being kept waiting. “Right. Let’s go this way.” She set off decisively.
“That’s the way we just came.”
She halted mid-stride and about-faced. “Okay, this way then.”
Dave rolled his eyes as he followed her. Traces of a rich, complex, spicy scent appeared in the air. As they walked on, the odour grew stronger. It seemed to be coming from the area they were approaching.
“Can you smell something?” asked Carrie.
Dave sniffed deeply as they turned a tight bend. “Yes, it’s kind of musky, like a—” Before them loomed a huge, twenty-legged, razor-jawed, bronze-shelled alien. “Whoa.” Stumbling back, Dave grabbed the wall to steady himself.
“Gavin! Great to see you again,” said Carrie.
The head of the massive alien insect turned from vertical to horizontal, and the spicy scent grew stronger. Antennae quivered on the wedge-shaped head as its ten pairs of legs were set in motion. The bug approached Carrie, its inner jaws protruding until they were centimetres from her face.
“G-Gavin?” said Carrie, taking a step backwards.
Bobbing up and down, the creature advanced, forcing Carrie to continue her retreat. Its one hundred eyes blinked, transparent membranes flashing over their surfaces, and its antennae weaved to and fro.
“Carrie, are you sure...?” asked Dave as they retreated around the bend in the corridor. He reached out and clutched her arm. “Are you sure Gavin’s okay?
“Errm, now that you come to mention it...”
The scent became a reek. Carrie covered her mouth and nose as she gagged. The alien increased its pace and so did Carrie and Dave, walking in reverse so quickly they were nearly running. As the creature’s inner jaws flashed out, Dave cracked. He turned and sped off down the tunnel. Carrie was not slow to follow, wondering what was wrong with her boss as she ran. Why doesn’t he say something? His English is great.
The seams of Carrie’s jumpsuit tugged painfully as she ran, and she cursed her idiocy in choosing a size that was too small. On the floor ahead was her Transgalactic Officer’s toolbox. She had left it behind after trying to open the recess, and Dave was heading straight for it.
“Dave—” she called, too late. Her friend, in his blind panic, didn’t see the bag. He tripped over it, landing sprawling on the floor. Carrie had no choice but to stop to help him. As she tugged on his arm to pull him to his feet, the alien caught up, its massive form overshadowing them.
Dave’s muscles relaxed under Carrie’s grip. “Oh, okay,” he said. Unfastening Carrie’s fingers from his arm, he turned to her. “It’s all right.” His foot was caught on the handle of her handbag. He disentangled it and fished inside the bag. “Here,” he said, handing her the translator, “I think you need this.”