LOST REVENGE (5 page)

That is Not Lily! I
recite it in my heart again and again. Then I slowly move closer to Roy
watching his reaction, but I can’t read whether he knows Lily is an alien or
not.

“How is she doing?” I
ask.

“He is fine.” Roy
says as he turns to me. His eyes widen a bit, but soon drop to normal.

“She will be
alright.” He adds quickly.

Should I tell him
this is not Lily?

I don’t know whether
Roy is an alien or not. If there is any alien left, it is still thinking I am
not aware of its existence. If I expose myself, what will happen?

“Roy, how is your
wife doing back on Earth?” I ask.

“Commander, I am not
married,” Roy says with a surprised look.

“Oh, sorry, I was
thinking about Charle.”

“Well, Charle is not
married either. I think that head pain is messing up your brain.” Roy sounds
concerned.

“I am alright. It is
getting worse, but I am alright.” I say and go to the cabinet where all
painkillers and sedatives are stored.

I open it and pull
out the draw labeled painkillers.

Nothing. Not even one
pill.

“Where are all
painkillers?” I ask angrily.

Roy joins me at the
cabinet and takes a thorough look.

“I have no idea.”

I pull out the draw
labeled sedatives.

Same here. Empty.

“What do you need
sedative for?” Roy asks seriously.

“I can’t really fall
asleep.”

“I see.”

“Commander, do you
notice anything weird about Dr. Akio before he disappeared?”

Here it comes. I know
someone would ask me questions like this.

“Let me think. Ah,
ah, not really. You notice anything?” I say innocently.

“No.”

Suddenly it hits me.
Yes, there is something weird. He didn’t use the chopsticks he loved so much.
He used forks! How could you miss that!

“Commander,
Commander?”

“Yes.”

“You are kind of lost
there. Anything I should know?”

“No, no, I was just
thinking...” My voice trails away.

“OK. I will leave you
and Lily alone.” Roy says as he heads for the door.

Should I tell him? It
seems he passed the memory test. Then I have to prove this thing lying here is
an alien. I reach for the laser knife in my pocket. I can’t just tell him that
this body doesn’t have the right scent and birthmark. He would probably suggest
using a DNA analyzer, but I know it is no good any more. I will have to cut
Lily’s body open. This alien wouldn’t have the same organs like human.

Roy is about to leave
the compartment. I haul out the knife, but it suddenly feels so heavy in my
hand and all my memories about Lily is flooding my sight, the images of her
sweet smiles, kind gestures and soft body bombarding me one after another.

Roy is gone and my
knife is hanging above Lily’s body. I can’t do it. Even if I know this thing
here is not Lily, I still can’t do it.

“Fuck. Fuck!” I hate
myself.

After several
minutes, I calm down and recompose myself, thinking what to do next.

First, I need to test
everyone and make sure they are what they are. Thinking about this, I am
leaving the medical bay. At the door I see Bertha hanging around in the
corridor.

Right! I can start
from her.

“Bertha, you are
busy?”

“No, not really.” Her
soft voice reminds me of Lily.

“I have some
questions to ask you.”

“I am listening.”

“Let’s go to kitchen.
I am a little hungry.” I am not hungry at all. I just don’t want to ask those
private questions in the corridor.

“Sure.”

We soon arrive at the
kitchen. I take out a quick-soup from fridge and press the button on the
container. It is ready in 30 seconds.

“You sure you don’t
want some?” I ask as I stir the soup using a spoon.

“No. No. No!” She
acts like the soup is something devil and gets a glass of water.

What is the big deal?

I take a sip of the
soup.

“Ah.” I can’t help
but voice the awful taste. I don’t know why whatever I eat now tastes like
shit. I put the soup aside.

“So how are you
doing?” I ask.

“I am doing fine.
What about yourself?”

“Except the head
pain, I am alright.”

“You want to ask
something?”

“Yea, actually, I
thought we didn’t have the chance to sit down and chat a little. We use to find
some time to chat every three days.”

“I forget about it. I
am still thinking about Dr. Akio.”

“Me too.” I say
quickly and look away. After I started dating Lily, I didn’t have the luxury to
have casual chat with Bertha. Lily was a jealous girl and she didn’t even like
to see me talk with other girls. Bertha understands that and she only talks
with me when it comes to business.

“You know, I was
thinking the other day to pay you back the money I borrowed for the wedding
ring. Was it 400 or 600?”

“Ah... I don’t really
remember the exact number. Let’s deal with it when we finish this mission.” She
gives me that sweet smile of hers.

“Sure.” I never
borrowed money from her for the ring. Lock lent me 1200 dollars and I haven’t
paid him back.

“You know, your
parents will be so proud of you. What is your mother’s name again? I remember
it is Anita, right?”

“Right. I am quite
sure she will be.”

“Good. Good.” I let
out a silent sigh. I remember Bertha once told me she made a mistake when she
filled in the forms for ESA. Her mother’s name is Anika and her aunt’s name is
Anita. She even joked that she loved her aunt more than her mom.

I yank back and push
the spoon off the table.

“How clumsy of me!
Can you get me another spoon?” I ask using my softest voice.

“Sure.” Bertha stands
up and walks to the cabinet.

I quickly pour some
soup into her water. It gets a little murky, but one has to look hard to notice
that.

She comes back with a
spoon.

“Thanks. You see, I
am doing all the talking here. Usually you are the talking one.” I say while
taking over the spoon.

“It’s just I have a
lot of things in my mind. I am a little—”

“Nervous. That
sometimes happens to me as well. Drink some water. It usually helps.”

Bertha smiles and
takes a sip. Then her face changes right away as if someone is choking her. She
falls from the chair, her eyes staring at me, her hands quivering. Now I think
she knows what I did.

“I thought it just
tasted awful.” I say slowly.

She wants to say
something, but couldn’t utter a word. Now she is changing, her body shrinking,
her arms extending, her head swelling sideway. Her five fingers on each hand
are morphing into four long fingers with dozens of suckers on each finger; her
eyes red, her nose gone, her skin bluish.

“So this is what you
look like.” I murmur in a rather calm tone.

Still trembling, she
starts to change back to human form. After back and forth between human and
alien forms several times, it finally stops at the human form.

I carefully stick my
head out of the kitchen door. No one in the corridor. I go back to the table,
remove the water and leave the soup as it is. For a second, I am thinking wipe
off my finger prints, but I give up that idea. My crew can show up in any
minute. I need to get out of here.

When I run back to my
cabin, a brilliant idea starts to surface in my brain. This will save the
trouble of memory tests.

Now I know there were
at least three of them. Apparently they are messing with my food, but why? They
are trying to poison me? I have been eating that shit for three days. They
couldn’t find a better poison?

“Commander?
Commander?” Roy’s voice from intercom breaks my thought.

“Yes.”

“We need you at
medical bay.”

“On my way.”

Please don’t tell me
Lily is awake.

In the medical bay,
all my crews are standing around one bed, but not Lily’s bed. They are talking
something I can’t really hear. When I get close enough, they stop and open a
path for me. Now I see Bertha lying on a bed. It will be interesting to see her
real form.

“Now at least Lily
has a company.” I try to sound funny.

Nobody laughs.

“Sorry. What is going
on?”

They all look at Roy
as if he is now Dr. Akio.

“I don’t know.” Roy
says, eyes on Bertha.

“Is she alright?” I
ask.

“Not good.” Roy says,
one hand pointing at the screen next to the bed.

I don’t understand
all those numbers on the screen.

“We have to get the
medicine soon. If—” Bud says with tears in eyes, but he stops immediately when
he meets Roy’s cold eyes.

“Where is the
medicine? On Earth?” I ask.

A long silence.

Damn! I guess they
really don’t like me. Maybe Roy and Bud are also aliens. We will know soon.

We are just standing
there silently.

“Where was she
found?” I break the silence again.

“In the kitchen,”
says Lisa.

“Anything abnormal?”
I ask.

“We see a cup of soup
on the table,” says Charle.

“Is it expired?” I
ask.

“No, it looks fine. I
drunk one yesterday.” says Lock.

“Me too,” says
Charle.

“And me,” says Lisa.

“I will run some
experiments on the soup,” says Roy.

“Please do that. In
the meanwhile, we also need to share Bertha’s duty. Now we don’t have pilots on
duty. I will do that.”

“The rest of us can
share her other duties.” Lock looks around others.

“Also put in schedule
one more thing. We take turns to look after these two.” I add.

“No problem.” Roy
says gratefully and others nod.

Lock volunteers to
take the first round to look after the two girls. Then we leave the medical bay
one after another.

I go to check the
mainframe. I am the only one who knows the access code to Achilles’ mainframe.
It is located in a special compartment built in the center of Achilles.
Everyone can get into this compartment, but only I can access the mainframe.
Most operations don’t require access to the mainframe and can be done at the
bridge.

The access code is
actually a slew of numbers. At the very beginning, the design was a combination
of several biometric identifications. Later I made the request to change it so
that if I was incapacitated, someone can still access the mainframe. I
certainly hope I never need to deal with that.

I should have checked
the mainframe right after I woke up three days ago. Now I can see from the
flight record that nine days ago the crew opened the door at the docking bay.
Then there must be another ship. I guess this happened after the asteroid
shower.

Hold on.

I quickly scan
through the data, but couldn’t find any record of the asteroid shower.

Why?

“Commander,
Commander?” It’s Jim.

“Yes.”

“We just resumed
communication with flight control at Luna station.”

“Good. Finally. On my
way.” I sprint off the chair and dash to the door.

In the bridge, my
crews are looking at the main screen. When I join them, they don’t even glance
at me.

The message reads,
“Achilles, we have been trying to contact you since 09/06/2055. Please reply
this message as soon as possible. Fight control, Luna station. Message sent
16:35, central time, 09/16 /2055.”

Now is 17:01, so they
sent it about 26 minutes ago.

“How are we going to
reply?” Roy asks.

“Start recording.” I
say.

Roy touches the
screen and a window pops out.

“Flight control, this
is Achilles. We were hit by an asteroid shower on September 6th 2055. Our main
antenna sustained severe damage and the backup antenna malfunctioned. Only
today we were able to fix it. Jim did a very good job.” I stop for a second
looking for Jim, but he is not among us.

“Except communication
problem, we are also short on manpower. Dr. Akio left us in the escape pod. I
still don’t know what really happened. Lily and Bertha are sick and in coma.
Right now we have seven people here to do all the work. Commander Jason Yang.”

Roy presses the send
on the screen.

A window pops out. It
reads, “Message sent successfully. Received at 17:02, central time,
09/16/2055.”