Chapter 6

After leaving the bridge, Lambert’s stomach lurched as he looked down the way they had come, his mind sure that he was about to tumble off a tremendous height. The bridge was up on the very highest level of the nexus, with dozens of levels running all the way down to the ‘floor’, like the façade of a skyscraper. The other doorways were spread randomly throughout the narrowed walls, no two alike in terms of spacing. The aliens who designed this ship didn’t care much for symmetry.

“Mind if I check out a bit of your ship?” Lambert asked, holding onto a handrail as Mezul followed him out.

His companion braced herself against the doorway, shrugging at him as if she didn’t care what he did, even though that gesture was her way of saying she didn’t understand him.

“I’ll show myself around,” Lambert said, beginning his tour by picking a hatchway at random, floating over to it with Mezul in tow. His first stop was adjacent and one level down from the bridge, the sounds of many chittering voices reaching Lambert’s ears when the doors slid open.

The space within was wide enough to fit a corvette inside twice over, two thick pairs of support columns that stretched from the silver floor to the curved ceiling filling the space. They were covered in seats and tables bolted onto their thick surfaces, hundreds of them jutting out to accommodate the dozens upon dozens of aliens packed into the room.

The aliens closest to the hatchway turned their beaks, cutting their conversations to stare at the human. The closest group was a trio of winged females sitting sideways in relation to him, Lambert floating over and greeting them with a wave.

“How’s it going ladies?” he asked, grabbing a seat to steady himself. The one closest to him reached out to touch him, hesitating as it turned to Mezul to say something. Maybe she was asking her if she could pet him?

“I’d prefer if we keep our hands to our ... never mind.” The alien brushed her claws through his hair, tickling his scalp as her friends leaned in to examine him. It wasn’t long before he was being petted from all sides, Mezul chuckling as he glared at her annoyedly.

“What’s on the menu?” he asked, waving them off as he peered at their table. They’d been holding tiny silver things that looked like lunchboxes in their hands, the smell of cooked meat reaching his nose when one was offered to him. What at least appeared to be food sat within the recess, little flip locks securing smaller parts of the lunchbox to hold presumably more food.

There was some sort of assembly line trailing up the side of the column nearby, the thin tracks crawling up and down the entire length. There were hundreds of the small boxes fasted against the slow-moving line, secured by magnets maybe, Lambert watching one of the Balokarid’s pluck one from the line. It produced some kind of meat slab from within, its sharp teeth showing as it began to chew on it.

“Food place,” Mezul explained, taking a meat chunk for herself and demonstrating how to eat food. The space could accommodate hundreds of aliens, packed in tightly as they were, but he assumed there had to have been several other identical rooms spread throughout the large ship.

He watched one of the females produce some kind of bottle, upturning its contents onto her chosen piece of meat. What looked like herbs sprinkled out onto the flesh, the alien slathering it on like glue. She wasn’t alone, Lambert noticing every alien was spicing up their chosen dishes. They must like their herbs.

One of the curious aliens finished her meal early, deciding to kill time by touching and fiddling with his suit. It eventually figured out how to work one of his pockets, not in the least bit apprehensive as it reached in and pulled out his music player.

“Hey!” he said, snatching the device away. His finger brushed the play button, and music started blaring through the alien mess hall. So far Lambert had gone fairly unnoticed, but now nearly all alien beaks snapped in his direction, closing in on the source of the sound like vultures around a corpse, Lambert quickly surrounded by the curious creatures. They chirped along with the sound, their heads bobbing and throats warbling as they began to whistle in time with the beat.

“You guys like Collins too, huh?” Lambert asked, laughing as the Balokarids mimicked the tune down to a fault, one of them devoted just to the drum snares. He watched as Mezul craned her long neck down, peering at the little play and pause symbols on the tiny screen.

Eventually the aliens grew disinterested, Lambert switching the music off and heading back out to the nexus, Mezul by his side. She seemed fascinated by his music player, repeating the tune while tapping her chest with a claw, like how a human might tap a rhythm on a desk.

“You got a nice voice Mezul,” Lambert said. “You like music?”

“Music,” she said, whistling like she was cat-calling someone.

He handed the alien his player, Mezul turning it over in her hands. He was surprised to see such a large creature handle the device like it was made of glass, keeping her claws from scratching at the little screen. She quickly figured out how to scroll through his playlist, the

Balokarid skipping through the songs until it found one that she liked.

“That one’s a classic,” he said. “Carl thinks they’re too old, but they’re not bad, huh?”

Mezul took charge of the music while Lambert led the way, the two floating down the nexus, attracting the attention of many passing Balokarids. Lambert picked another hatchway at random, floating through the opening doors with only curiosity as his guide.

This space was just as populated as the mess hall, hundreds of aliens filling the microgravity with their large bodies as they travelled up and down a tall, cylindrical room, three bands spiralling up to the ceiling, Lambert coming out of the band in the middle. Each band consisted of about five circular entrances, the doors ringed with supports for the aliens to push off from, giving the distinct impression of balconies. The sound of doors sliding open was constant, the aliens disappearing by the dozen behind the portals all around him.

The Balokarids here were dressed differently than Lambert had seen so far. Gone were their colour-coded, bulky jumpsuits, their suits featureless and black, their heads exposed as the aliens watched the human explore. It was a remarkably ‘civilian’ type get-up, or maybe these crew were off-duty. They didn’t try to stop him, even as he picked a random door and opened it up like he’d seen the aliens do.

He floated through the threshold, a strange sight making the man blink. Built into the walls of the confined space were rectangular sections a couple feet deep, the edges curved rather than meeting at a point. There were dozens of them, each containing identical accommodations: fluffy cushioning padding, a belt that loped around the middle, along with a kind of cloth that looked as thick as a quilt and larger than any king-size sheet Lambert had seen.

Almost all of the sections were occupied, the aliens using the strap to strap themselves against the soft padding, their beaks resting on their sides as they dozed beneath their sheets. A few who had been nodding off peered down at Lambert, their lazy eyes blinking groggily as he intruded on their sleep, their large frames just barely able to squeeze into the bunks.