Floating

 

I float in space like a cork let loose in a lazy stream’s back water circling me around a space ship hopelessly off course.

Butler’s voice hissed in dread in my head set like escaping air, each breath thick with panic that we might never find our way back and will have to keep each other’s company until food, air or old age wears us out.

I’m still not sure what went wrong, how the gyro got so fouled up that the ship steered a course into uncharted space. But if we have any hope to recalibrate our course so we can reverse it, we must fix that cause first.

Butler thinks we’re as good as dead so opposed me leaving the ship, telling me he doesn’t want to die alone.

His panic makes it hard for me to think and at a time when thinking may be the only thing that can save us.

He follows me as I move from one part of the ship to the other, checking and rechecking the circuits for the one circuit that might have thrown the gyros off.

Since all of these check out, I think the only other possible cause is outside the ship.

Some claim that a meteor strike might cause such havoc on the gyros, but I can find no evidence in our data banks of such a strike, and the best answer I can come up with is that we somehow dragged something with us when we took off from our last port, some kind of living matter that can somehow survive the depths of space.

When I am far enough from the hull I see the first signs of the creepers gripping portions of our lifters like vines.

I report this to Butler and hear him whimper, “We’re doomed.”

But strangely, the creepers give me how because at least we now know what the problem is and may be able to work out some solution, a burn off perhaps or an electric charge.

And then I see the eyes, and these eyes see me, and I know immediately this is no accident just as this is no mere plant, and that this plant is thinking about what it should do with me, just as I am thinking what to do about it.

I know it intends to kill me.

At which point, I lose all hope.