Inseminoid Read online

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on Mark. He’s a good soldier.”

  “He’s a good soldier all right. But he’s got to learn who’s running this show.”

  “You gotta understand it’s hard for him to take second place after having a command of his own for so long. Especially,” Karl hesitated, “second place to you.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, Mark is just another crew member. But I’ll tell you what I will do. We’ll have a meeting and decide there whether to continue with the expedition. If the vote is no, we return to the space station as soon as possible. Is that fair?”

  “Fair enough.”

  Karl continued the examination.

  Holly smiled “Why is it that a doctor’s hands are always cold? Anything wrong with me?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be. Here’s a robe. Get some clean clothes on and you can get back to work.”

  Holly took the robe and Karl pulled back the curtain. Sandy was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling.

  “How’re you doing?” Holly asked. “Karl says you’ll be back with us tomorrow.”

  Sandy’s face turned a bright shade of crimson. “I’ll get back to work just as soon as I damn well please and no bitch like you is going to tell me what to do or when to do it!”

  Holly’s smile turned stone cold. The commander eyed Karl who looked as taken aback as she did. “The lieutenant’s been under a psychological strain,” Karl tried to explain.

  “The lieutenant,” Sandy mimicked him, “has had a gut-full of all of you. Both of you, leave me alone!”

  Karl ushered Holly out of the room and closed the door behind them. “I don’t know what’s come over her. There wasn’t any sign of emotional stress before.”

  “Maybe this latest incident just set her off,” Holly suggested.

  “We’ll see,” Karl said, returning to the infirmary. “We’ll see.”

  He closed the door and stared at Sandy, legs spread apart and hands on his hips. He was waiting for some sort of an explanation.

  “Well?” he said when it seemed none was forthcoming.

  “Well what?” Sandy asked.

  “What was that all about with Holly? She could have you in chains for talking to her like that,” Karl said.

  Sandy smiled coyly and let the top of her robe fall open, revealing a large nicely shaped breast. Sandy reached out to Karl and in a low husky voice replied, “Doctor, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now come over here. Just for a moment.”

  “What’s got into you, Sandy?”

  She let out a loud laugh, “Nothing yet, but we’ll see what we can do about that. Come here, Karl, I want you.”

  Sandy lowered a shoulder and the robe fell down to her hips. “I want you now, Karl.”

  But he backed off. “Uh, it looks like you’re having some problems readjusting, Sandy. Maybe you’d better take one of those pills I gave you before.”

  “I don’t want any pills. I want to feel you inside me . . .”

  Gary stormed into the room. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in the middle of an examination . . . Doc, we’ve put the remains of that creature back in the lab. I don’t think it’s going anywhere this time.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “Holly wants you in command as soon as you’re free.”

  “I’m free now,” Karl decided.

  “Gary,” Sandy said. Her breasts were still bare.

  Gary stepped forward uncertainly.

  “You’ll screw me if I ask you, won’t you?”

  Gary didn’t know what to say. “Er, our rotation was up last month. I’m with Holly now.”

  “Come on, you know what it’s like with me. You want it, don’t you?”

  Karl broke in. “Sandy’s not feeling very well, Gary. I think it best if you ignore what she’s saying.”

  “Uh, sure, Doc.” Gary began to leave the infirmary.

  “Tell Holly I’ll be right up.”

  When Gary was gone, Karl closed the door and walked up to Sandy. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m going to give you a shot that will relax you.”

  Karl reached for a syringe and grasped her left arm tightly. She resisted and winced when the long needle penetrated her skin. She lashed out with her free hand, leaving three long scratches on Karl’s cheek.

  Karl pulled the needle out of her arm and slapped her hard across the face. Sandy took the blow and said nothing. She only smiled.

  “I’ll see you later!”

  “Can I have your cock then?”

  Karl’s temper raged and he slammed the door hard behind him.

  The others had already assembled by the time Karl made it to command. Holly had a clipboard under her arm and when she saw Karl enter she called the meeting to order. “Now we can begin. Mark has made a point. He believes the expedition should abort and we should return to the space station. Normally, I as commander would make the definitive decision. But circumstances being what they are or rather have been, I’m making it a free vote. You decide whether we stay or go. The station’s sun shield is due to be down this time tomorrow and we can be off this planet a day later. What you have to consider is what we’ve accomplished and what more we can do here.” Holly paced around the room as she spoke. “Let’s talk about it.”

  Karl began slowly. “We’ve got enough information on this culture to take back with us and study in more secure surroundings. We could load the tablets on the shuttle along with the remains of the creature and our mission would by all accounts have been a success. We’ve already lost three able comrades. And we don’t know how many more of those Things are still out there, waiting to be woken up after God-knows-how-many years of sleep. I believe we should cut our losses and return.”

  “No!” Mitch shouted anxiously. “There are no others.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked Sharon.

  “Because of the tablets,” Mitch explained. He went to a corner of the room where he had placed one of the rock slabs found in the cave. He carried it to the control console and put it down. “This tablet is the key. There are no more creatures waiting out there.” Mitch motioned with his arm. “It says so here!” He pointed to the slab. “Once this whole planet was populated with them. They were born in pairs and they had a great appetite. Then a situation occurred here similar to what happened on Earth. They reproduced at such a fast rate that all vegetation and wildlife became extinct.

  “Now, this part of the slab explains the purpose of the creature we found in the glass case.” The professor paused to catch his breath.

  “Go on,” Karl urged.

  “Before the species had died out completely a fertile young specimen was sealed in a container. Not to be removed until the planet restocked itself with nutrients sufficient to support a regenerated species or until there was an opportunity to leave the planet for, if you excuse the expression, better hunting grounds.”

  Holly understood. “That explains its insatiable hunger!”

  “Exactly!” Mitch concurred. “As traditional food supplies grew scarce the inhabitants turned on themselves.”

  “You mean they were cannibals?” Gary asked.

  “That’s just what I mean.”

  A silence fell over the crew as the meaning of this new information sank in.

  Sharon moved away from the group while she ran over in her mind what Mitch had just told them. “If we had brought the creature back with us to the space station, it might have ended up destroying all of us.”

  “It’s an horrific thought,” Barbra said.

  “There’s something still bothering me.” Karl took the discussion a step further. “If this Thing, this monster, was meant to regenerate its species, why is there only one of them? With what was it going to mate, to produce its offspring?”

  “Maybe,” Holly was guessing, “it’s a hermaphrodite. Maybe it laid eggs. There are a number of possibilities. Perhaps you could find out from the remains of the creature.”

 
; “I’ll give it a try,” Karl promised.

  Holly took a deep breath and asked the key question. “Do we stay or do we go?”

  One by one the crew members cast their vote. When it appeared unanimous that the expedition would continue, Mark agreed to stick by the decision.

  “Good,” Holly said. “Now let’s get back to work. Gary, there are still quite a few of the slabs still in the cave, aren’t there?”

  “At least a couple of hundred. But I could use some help loading them on to the forklift.”

  Holly looked over at Mark, “How about giving him a hand.” Mark said he would.

  “Okay then. If there’s nothing else, let’s get to it.”

  Karl waited until the crew had dispersed. Then he said to Holly, “I need to talk to you. It’s about Sandy.”

  Holly nodded. “Is that where you got those scratches?”

  “Yes. She’s becoming uncontrollable. I’m going to keep her heavily sedated until tomorrow. Then I want to put her through some more tests. Is it okay with you if she’s kept out of action for a few more days?”

  “Take as long as you want. We want her back in good shape. Any idea what’s wrong?”

  But Karl just didn’t know.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Gary’s suit was grimy. He’d been working hard to transport the final group of tablets from the tomb and get out of there. It made him nervous working alone in the tomb. Who knew what evil forces still lingered there? The way events had developed the only thing known for certain was that nothing was certain. He’d kept looking over his shoulder, even expecting a creature to jump out and ravage him. Though there was hardly disappointment when it didn’t happen that way.

  Gary stuck his head inside Mitch’s study. The professor was engrossed in his research. “Got a shitload of those slabs for you. Where do you want them?”

  Mitch was deep in thought and couldn’t be bothered with what he considered unimportant conversation. But Barbra was there, organising his notes; she took the responsibility for keeping Mitch clear of such mundane matters. Barbra understood Mitch. She felt honoured to be able to keep the little things in Mitch’s life under control so he could devote his valuable time to search for life’s answers.

  “You do want the slabs, don’t you?” Gary asked.

  Barbra stood up from her desk and looked around the room. It was already filled to the brim with tablets. “There’s a bit of space along the wall. Will that be enough?”

  Gary shook his head. “I’ve got enough on the wagon to fill another room.”

  “Oh,” Barbra said. “Well, leave as many as you can here and put the remainder in our cabin.”

  “Your cabin?” Gary wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. That’ll be fine.”

  Just then, Mitch pounded his fist against the top of his desk. “Please! Please! I must have complete silence for my work. It’s not easy to concentrate when there’s such drivel about. If you have to discuss this bullshit then please go out into the corridor to do it.” He flicked his wrist into the air as one might shoo away a pestering insect.

  “Hey . . .” Gary began.

  But Barbra cut him off. “Quiet! He must have quiet.”

  “Everybody’s a star,” Gary grumbled. Then he unloaded the tablets into the professor’s study, depositing as many as he could before moving the wagon on to Mitch and Barbra’s sleeping quarters.

  “Taking your work to bed with you is one thing, but this is ridiculous,” Gary was still grumbling.

  But Barbra didn’t mind overcrowding their cabin this way. She was certain that Mitch would be grateful to be only an arm’s length away from a new discovery. Having the tablets so close might even provide him with fresh inspiration. Barbra settled back behind her desk and watched him work.

  Mitch had finished studying one tablet and reached for another. He copied each character into a notebook and next to it translated its meaning. He felt so close to learning yet another secret of this secret civilisation.

  “What do we have here?”

  Barbra could see he was on to something big, but she learned long ago not to say a thing that might interrupt his train of thought.

  Mitch’s eyes darted from the notepage to the tablet and back again. He scribbled words and symbols on to the paper, considered them for a long moment and scribbled some more. Then he put his pencil down on the desk, leaned back in his chair and read through the notes.

  “Hmm. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed!”

  Mitch stood up and pushed the chair out of the way. He was suddenly in a hurry. He held the notebook tightly in his hand and raced through the corridors to the lab.

  Barbra watched him disappear around a corner and all she could do was marvel at the man she loved.

  The creature, or what remained of it, was laid out in sections on the examining table. Karl was about to start on the autopsy. His laser scalpel was held firmly in his hand and he was about to open the creature’s chest cavity when Mitch rushed in. Karl stopped what he was doing and looked up. Mitch’s eyes glowed.

  “The crystal,” the professor shouted to him, gasping for breath. “It’s the life-force!”

  Karl switched off the laser and put it on the table next to the creature. “What do you mean, life-force?”

  “Come here. Look at my notes.” Mitch opened his notebook and pointed to the entry he’d just made.

  Karl was still confused. “I don’t understand.”

  Mitch tried not to lose patience. He kept forgetting that people were rarely on his wavelength. “Okay, I’ll try to explain it as basically as I can. The specimen, the creature—it would have stayed without life for all eternity if it hadn’t been for those crystals we found in the tomb.”

  Karl scratched his balding scalp and Mitch could tell he wasn’t getting through to the doctor. He tried again.

  “The crystals brought the creature out of a deep sleep.”

  “You mean to say, the crystals were like smelling salts?”

  “Yes,” Mitch replied excitedly. “I mean no. It’s nothing like that at all.”

  “Will you relax, you’re making me nervous.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t relax. Now listen. The crystals were the current that drove the creature. Think of a solar battery and a toy spacecraft. The craft is an empty shell until the battery gives it the power to take off and fly. Only the crystals gave the creature more than energy. They reactivated its thought process.”

  “But the creature never came in contact with the crystals,” Karl reminded him.

  “Ah, but he did. When the creature and the crystals were sealed in air-tight cases, neither had any power or abilities. But when the glass was broken, the crystals reacted with the atmosphere and melted into a liquid.”

  “I remember, we almost died from the gas.”

  “Precisely, the gas! The crystals evaporated and the resultant gaseous matter, which humans find poisonous, wafted over to the creature and caused its life juices to flow. It gave the Being power and strength. Without the contact with the crystals, this thing on your table would always have been a seed from a mighty oak without sun, soil and water. A shell and nothing more.”

  Karl finally understood and that made him tremendously angry with himself. “So if I had listened to you in the first place and waited for you to break the code,” he paused, trying to grasp the situation, “and for you to translate the writing slabs before going ahead and breaking into the cases, it would not have come alive.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Strong emotion welled up within Karl. “And Kate would still be alive.”

  Holly had been standing in the doorway listening to their every word. She too had thought about Kate dying needlessly because of the expedition’s scientific eagerness for all the answers.

  Holly remembered the night she and Kate had spent together wrapped in each other’s arms. She’d never felt so close to another human being bef
ore and she wondered if she might ever again. Thinking of Kate at that moment Holly bit her lip and forced back the tears. The tears she had warned Kate about.

  The secret of their one-night affair would always be kept. It was too pure to allow anyone the opportunity to misinterpret it or call it dirty. Holly breathed deeply and bit her lip again, so hard she tasted blood. Silently, she stepped back into the corridor. At that moment, she didn’t want to face Karl and Mitch. And the truth—that Kate might still be alive if they’d heeded Mitch’s warning.

  By the time she’d reached the infirmary, the commander had regained her composure. Holly decided to look in on Sandy. She rapped lightly on the door, waited an instant and entered.

  Sandy was sitting up in bed reading an out-of-date magazine. “Hi, Holly,” She was glad for the company.

  But Holly was still a bit apprehensive after Sandy’s bizarre behavior the day before. She watched her words, not wanting to set her off again. “How are you feeling today?”

  Sandy smiled. She looked quite refreshed. “Oh, much better, thanks. I don’t know what got into me before. That’s not like me at all.”

  “There’s been a lot of excitement. Too much excitement.”

  Sandy thought it over. “Yeah, excitement. That must’ve been it. And all those drugs Karl’s been popping into me. I’m sure they couldn’t have done much to help my frame of mind.”

  “I suppose you’re right about that.”

  Sandy rested the magazine in her lap. “You know, I really want to get back to work. Lying here all day is driving me crazy. I’m sure you can use all the able-bodied crew members you can get right now.”

  Holly didn’t know how to answer that. “I suppose that’s up to Karl. But yes, I’d like to have you back as soon as you’re able.”

  “Karl won’t even let me get out of bed,” Sandy complained.

  Holly brought down her guard and relaxed a bit. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll have a little talk with Karl and see if you can be sprung for a couple of hours of light work. Okay?”

  Sandy was pleased. “Oh, thanks, Holly. I really do appreciate that.”