Come into my Parlor

Posted on Mon 2nd Jul, 2018 @ 3:19am by

668 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Oblivion
Timeline: A while later

Someone technically inclined might point out that the thing moving along the ceiling of the corridor was made of metal; that it had ten ball-jointed legs, not eight; that the lowest part of each limb was striped in yellow-and-black caution livery. And all of that would be true, but an arachnaphobe would surely see a spider the size of a pony moving surely along toward the open doorway. It let go of the ceiling, flipped as it dropped to the deck, and stuck its sensor-studded head into the observation blister, narrowly avoiding crushing an empty bottle under one foot. "Geeze, Doc," the drone said in a little girl's soprano, "are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Blearily, Doctor Holly Day turned her head to regard the drone. "No," she said, but she nodded. "A dock," she started, blurrily, but was interrupted.

"Is a place to transfer cargo. Yeah, yeah." The drone moved to the doctor's side, turned off the Glasperlenspiel board and slipped it into one of the Doctor's waistcoat pockets.

"I have clearly expressed my preference not to be called 'Doc,'" the woman said, trying to stand.

"More than once," the drone agreed, helping her stand, and then sit, and then collapse on its abdomen. It pulled a piece of strange metal from its spinnerets, carefully tying the doctor in place.

"The fact that you continue to ignore this preference constitutes bullying."

"Quite possibly," the drone said, moving back out into the corridor. It reached up and manipulated the door controls, closing the observation bubble off again before moving down the corridor. "Possibly even harassment."

"Oh," the Doctor said. "Harassment. That's a good word. 'Her ass meant nothing to me, your honor.'"

"Hardy-har-har," the drone responded, entering an airlock. "Keep your extremities inside the bubble at all times, please," it said, triggering the airlock to cycle.

"No one knows where ol' Rosie goes," the Doctor sang, off-key. "No one knows where she gone. I saw her, she walked down the thin road that moved past your door...."

"I think those are two different songs," the Drone said, stepping out into space and crawling up the outside of the old hulk's hull. It came to a ten-centimeter braided metal cable and moved along it.

"Maybe," the Doctor conceded. "I don't remember." She watched the distant light of the stars as the spider-drone swayed along the cable. "We forget," she said, sounding now as if she were quoting something or someone. "We forget how terrible space is, that it always wants to kill us, as we cling to our islands of warmth and comfort."

"Good thing for you I have a force-field generator to hold atmosphere," the drone agreed.

"You are good for me in so many, many ways," the Doctor murmured, her eyes slipping closed.

"Go to sleep, Doc," the drone said. "Yer drunk." There was no answer. The drone came to an old, old shuttle wrapped in cables, suspended between hulls. It manipulated the controls, cycled in through an airlock. Inside, it moved to a transparent aluminum cylinder welded in place where a bunk had once been. A woman shimmered into being -- or a caricature of a woman. Naked, her hips and breasts were improbably large; her waist impossibly slender. Her hair was red. Not the coppery or brownish color Humans called red, but actual red, the color of a ripe apple, of a dragon pepper, of a warning light.

"Rosie," the doctor murmured as the woman and the spider drone worked together to lay her inside the tube. The red-haired woman bent over and kissed the doctor on the forehead, then closed the cylinder. She touched controls while the drone moved away, plugging itself into a charging socket.

A hissing sound filled the interior of the small shuttle as the hyperbaric chamber filled with oxygen and the custom-designed nanites Doctor Day used to keep herself alive. "Sleep well, Holly," Rosie murmured, fading again from view. "I'll see you in my dreams."

 

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