A Simple Little Mistake

By Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Cold. It was so cold, But why? Mioko Diana Kathleen Brodie shivered involuntarily, but she shouldn’t have needed to. It was high summer, and even in Maine it was usually warmer than this. Yet it felt as though she were in deep winter with nothing but her summer coat for protection. Slowly she tried to force her eyes open, only to discover that she couldn’t see. Oh there was light, a bright light she remembered from her one stay in the hospital when she’d broken her leg, but right now her eyes would barely open. Had she become ill? Was that why she was in hospital, not her hotel room? Automatically she tried to bring her left hand up to her eyes, only to discover that it was like lifting a log. Slowly, yet without any of the pain that she would have expected had she been ill, her fingers reached for her eyes.

Gritty sleep tumbled away at her touch. Cascading down her cheek like tiny boulders. Closing her eyes again Mioko rubbed her long lashes, breaking away the dried organic glue that had gummed them up. “Nurse?” she called. Her voice came to her ears as a rough sound, as though she had been yelling. “Nurse?” she called again, louder this time. No one answered her call, so pushing away the final gummy material she reopened her eyes.

It was no hospital. Not unless hospitals placed you in some sort of pod. Above her she could see that a curved canopy had lifted away, hinged apparently behind her head. From what she could see it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, yet the interior of her bed, or pod, was as clean as she could hope for. Pushing away the thin sheet that covered her she was in for another shock. Expecting to be wearing some useless hospital gown, or naked, she discovered that her body was clothed in the same evening outfit she last remembered donning before taking her walk. What was going on? Had there been some sort of terrorist attack? There had been stories in the local news about such possibilities, she well remembered reading about them just that morning. Or at least, some morning.

Laying about though wasn’t going to give her any information. Reaching up she grabbed the pods edges, her fingertips reporting that whatever surface was outside her pod, it was as dirty as the canopy above her. Her long fingernails slipped on its slick surface, a dry grit like a thin coating of graphite. This was even more confusing, for outside of the occasional science fiction movie she had never heard of anything like this pod thing. Pulling as she tried to sit Mioko discovered that her muscles were just as strong as ever. They simply acted as though they hadn’t been used in a long time. A very long time. And she was thirsty.

“Hello? Is there anyone about” she called again from her sitting position. Other than a soft hum of electrical power, a slight smell of ozone and the sharp echo of her own voice from the hard walls nothing responded. No one came to her calls, weak though they were. Looking around her she discovered several other pods. Five more to be exact. Each had dozens of flickering, or steady lights on their sides, each had a placard on the side facing her. Listening carefully she realized that each pod was making different noises, as though they too were readying to open. Yet the canopy’s were so filthy she couldn’t see inside them. There were, she realized, only two options open to her. Remain in her strange pod-bed or get out. Getting out sounded the better idea. So did finding something to drink, and a bathroom.

Exiting her pod proved to be harder than she had expected. Not because the sides were high, in fact they were very low. She could actually turn in a sitting position and let her legs hang over the side. No, her problem was her body. It simply did not want to obey her brains commands correctly. Eventually though she was on her feet, though not quite as steadily as she could wish for. Cold seeped from the floor into the bare pads of her feet, for her shoes were missing. Not quite an ice cold, but cold. It was odd that her shoes were missing, but nothing else. Taking a deep breath of the chill dry air Mioko decided that it was time to discover where, and why she was.

Behind the pods she discovered was a door, or hatch. Currently it was closed, and at her first attempt it remained closed. Stronger attempts failed as well. She finally decided that it was locked from the other side and turned away. Yet from vents high on the ivory white walls came a sightly metallic tasting breeze. It tasted almost like air that had been held in pressurized tanks for a long time. Had Mioko ever scuba dived she would have recognized the taste. As it was, this was a completely unknown experienced to her.

With nothing else to do she wandered the room, in the process her body limbered up as it warmed, her reactions slowly returning to normal. She discovered a bathroom and used it, drinking water from a faucet that first hissed as air was pushed out. There was one difference though she noted, she felt lighter than her normal weight. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. Had she lost weight she asked herself? But no, her evening clothing was just as tight as before. Perhaps it was simply her reactions from whatever had happened to her. Since no one had arrived in answer to her calls, and she abhorred a filthy condition when it could be easily cleaned, Mioko started checking the cupboards she found. Each opened with a soft hiss of compressed air, as though it had been hermetically sealed and the pressure was slightly different. One delivered a treasure trove of small hand towels. Taking two she went back to the bathroom sink. Wetting one towel she closed the tap, then went to the other pods. In the least she could discover who was in them.

It turned out that all five pods held women. Women of different species, species she’d never seen before. One was a skunk, that she was certain. The other, a what? There was no fur upon her face, and she looked like no animal Mioko had ever seen before. But the redhead was obviously a vixen, a fox. And what a fox she thought. At least from what Mioko could see. Then there was a reptilian looking female. Odd she thought, that a reptile would be physically built along the same framework as a human woman. Why would a reptile evolve breasts?

That last pod though held something from her deepest nightmares. A wasp, almost human sized, and just as deadly looking as its smaller cousins. It must be female she realized, as every other creature she had found was female, but why? Forcing herself to study the creature she soon realized that its head was too small by far to hold much intelligence. Then why was it here? This bit of information made no sense to her. Nor, when she checked, did its pod seem readying to open.

Yet it really didn’t matter, because after some effort she decided the rest must be dead. Dead because they were not breathing, and no amount of pounding on the tough material caused any reaction. That was sad in more than the normal sense she realized, because all four humanoids were attractive in their own ways. One more so than the others, but then she had this weakness for redheads, and this one was a delightful red all over her body. At least, as much of her body as could be seen, considering that sheet.

Sitting on the edge of her own pod, after carefully cleaning it as well, Mioko was about to start crying when one of the pods suddenly lit up. For a few seconds various colors flashed from within the pod, then its lid popped and with an audible hiss its canopy lifted. As it did so Mioko heard a soft moan. Alive, this woman was alive. As she started towards the opening pod another started flashing. “Some type of ICU?” she asked herself, unaware she was speaking. A cough came from the first woman, breaking through Mioko’s wonder. Moving quickly she went to help this new companion. Still not knowing where she was or why, Mioko Brodie felt a great deal better just knowing she wasn’t alone anymore

Deep within the ships belly a single computer worked to waken, and warm the humanoid creatures it had captured. Originally there had been males as well, but their testing a century ago had proved a failure. Each and every one had fallen to the Kattell wasp that had been sealed in with them. If it was to find a race capable of defeating the Kattell swarms, one of these creatures must succeed. Else intelligent life among the universe was forever doomed. It had chosen these females from the same worlds as the males. The males had attempted to reason with the wasp, only to fall one by one as they eventually attacked it. After it had killed two of them that was. Perhaps females would be a better choice. From what the computer could tell of its studies, the female of any race seemed to have a better grasp on survival than males.