Chapter 17: Sandra

Prior to ending up on this bizarre journey, Sandra had experienced long distance space travel twice before. While that doesn’t qualify her as a seasoned spacer, she at least knows enough to recognize changes in the operation of the ship. Variations in the faint hum of Dog Star Six’s power hub, and the subtle changes in the artificial gravity, alert Sandra to a change in their speed and trajectory. Even older spaceships like Dog Star Six are designed to make space travel comfortable for the frail and temperamental bodies of humans. Consequently, it’s impossible to estimate how fast Dog Star Six is travelling from within the cocoon of the passenger compartments. The ship could be travelling at inter-stellar speed or slowly orbiting a planet. All Sandra knows is that the speed and course have changed.

The absence of a human crew on Dog Star Six has already sparked speculation among the women. Normally any ship carrying passengers has at least two human crew. Providing passengers with the comfort of having a human capable of taking charge in an emergency is one of the golden rules of space travel, notwithstanding the sophistication and reliability of modern android AI technology. That the women are being treated like bulk cargo is at odds with the enormous cost of transporting them to wherever they are being taken.

The only logical explanation is that this journey is a one way trip for both women and ship. If that supposition is accepted, then the frightening answer to the mystery becomes clearer. In fact, to Sandra, the reason for the selection of the sixteen victims, and their probable fate, becomes obvious. It’s like stepping out of a fog and into a nightmare.

As human exploration of space expanded, it was inevitable that intelligent alien species would be encountered sooner or later. Most alien species are too different to human life for any form of meaningful interaction to be possible. Even communication is all but impossible. Generally the different species simply ignore each other beyond observing from a safe distance. The only exception as far as humans are concerned are the Valkyries. At least, that’s the name humans give the alien species first encountered when an alien spacecraft landed on the planet Valhalla about twenty years ago.

“What do you know about the Valkyries?” asks Sandra.

“Only the stuff they teach at school,” replies Gemma. “Why?”

There are sufficient similarities in human and Valkyrie physiology to enable development of a more advanced lexicon for communication, and permit limited forms of trade. Neither species can exist in the other’s environment without artificial protection, and neither manufactures goods of use to the other. Only knowledge and ideas are of value. The hyper-speed engines powering Dog Star Six are developed from technology blueprints bought from the Valkyries. The corporate overlords of human space have a huge appetite for Valkyries knowledge, but they have a fairly limited set of offerings in return. One such trade item of interest to the Valkyries are humans for their ‘zoos’ (at least, that’s the uncertain translation of the Valkyrie word). Earth’s central government has prohibited such trade, but like every other regulation, there are ways for those determined enough to be able to circumvent the ban.

Clearly, one such method is to kidnap sixteen of Earth’s undesirables, and ensure all trace of them lost in the shadowy underworld of the Thirteenth sector flesh markets. Sandra and her cohorts have disappeared from every database that might enable them to be found. Not that anyone in authority will be looking for them. No official on Earth is going to worry about the kidnapping of a banished troublemaker. Any of the women’s friends or family who try looking for them will soon hit a dead end. As for the Valkyries, they are unlikely to concern themselves with the numerous breaches of human law. They have acquired human stock for their zoos, and to them, that must be worth the technology or knowledge provided in return.