TRIXIE & ME: 2:04 Awake

The darkness gave her no reason to wake.

Trixie's body ached. Her right shoulder was in agony, the muscles sore and stiff. Spasms of pain shot down her arm, throbbing close to the bone. She moved, arching her back only to have her body rebel against the surge of pain, and so she folded back in on herself, curling up in a fetal position yet again.

Lying there was strangely familiar, almost comforting in the midst of the pain. These were her first memories repeated, the dust on the ground, the roots uncomfortably winding across the floor beneath her. This time, though, she was dressed. The torn jacket kept her upper body warm. Dried blood had caked on her face. She brushed it with her hands, feeling the thin cuts still raw beneath her fingertips. Fresh blood oozed from the wounds on her neck, hundreds of small bites formed painful welts. Her fingers brushed against them, feeling the raw bite marks and scratches.

She opened her eyes. That simple act reinforced something she hadn't expected. She was alive.

Beside her lay the backpack, its contents strewn across the ground.

Cylinders lay scattered haphazardly against the roots throughout the chamber.

Her rivet gun was there, as was Berry's welding torch, but the gas cylinder had been removed and lay idly to one side, just a few feet from her.

Dents and scratches marred the cylinder, making it seem much older than it had appeared under the bright lights of the Swift. The creatures had vented their frustration on these strange instruments from another world. She wondered if they understood them. She didn't. She knew how the torch worked, but she didn't know why. Perhaps it was lost on them as well.

In the darkness, Trixie could hear sounds, clicks and grunts, along with tapping on wood, or, at least, the alien equivalent of wood. Workers raced past, ignoring her. They seemed to have more purpose than she'd seen before. The phosphorescent glow lining their shells cast a soft light along the roots within the vivisection chamber.

Trixie knew exactly where she was before she rolled over to see Berry suspended in a force field again. It was the smell. The stench of rot filled her nostrils, only the smell was slightly different. It was sharper, crisper than the pungent odor she'd woken to last time. The smell seemed to be a contrast of different odors, confusing her.

Two thinkers stood in front of Berry, their hunched shell-backs towering over him. An array of long, thin, crab-like arms extended from below each carapace, allowing them to manipulate objects like humans would with their fingers. Trixie had never been this close to a thinker. Hundreds of arms extended down what appeared to be the thorax, slowly thickening into a cluster of legs near the ground. Their carapaces were different to those of the workers, with more of a matte sheen than a shiny shell. Their backs were thick and rough, like worn leather.

The closest thinker turned toward her and she froze, somehow hoping she was invisible. Its cold dark eyes didn't betray any emotion beyond a clinical detachment.

“She doesn't know anything,” Berry cried, seeing Trixie was awake. “Leave her alone.”

Trixie got to her feet and started backing away as the thinker moved toward her, its sea of legs carrying it smoothly off the vivisection platform and down toward her.

“No,” she moaned, terrified by this vision of the night. Given its size, it could have swallowed her whole. In the darkness, its black limbs danced around her like shadows.

Trixie started to turn when she felt thousands of needles piercing her skin, running from her lower back, up her neck and across her skull. A flash of pain cut through her like lightning. Her body broke in spasms as she was caught from behind by another thinker.

::Zzzzzht Xxxxxht Cccccht.

“Don't let them in, Trix,” Berry shouted.

::Vvvvvht Bbbbbht Nnnnnht.

Trixie moaned. A searing pain stabbed at her forehead as though someone had jabbed a razor-thin knife up behind her right eye and into her brain. The world seemed to narrow. Her torso twisted with involuntary muscle contractions. Her legs felt as though they were disconnected. The right side of her body, from her lips and cheek, to her arm, hand, leg and foot all trembled, shaking in a quiver.

::Mmmmht Kkkkkht Lllllht.

“Stay strong,” Berry yelled. “You can do this, Trix. Keep these bastards at bay. Don't let them inside your head.”

It was too late. Trixie didn't know what they'd done or how, but the bizarre sounds shouting within her skull fell quiet. Slowly, they formed into words. While before she had thought for herself, speaking within her head, articulating her feelings for herself alone to hear, now others did the same, thinking for her.

::Does she know?

::She does not know.

::How could she know?

The terms were coarse, the words broke with staccato inside her mind, but somehow they made sense.

::The female is weaker than the male.

::He is the thinker. She is the worker.

::She is his play-thing, his pet, his toy.

“Oh, Trixie,” Berry wept, seeing her eyes rolling into the back of her head. She could hear him, but she couldn't respond. Her mind and her consciousness seemed to be separated one from the other, so that she could observe herself but couldn't act.

::She does not know where the star-wanderer resides.

::They are pathetic. They know nothing. Their thoughts are so shallow. They have no concurrency and they process thoughts sequentially, so slowly. How have they been able to traverse the stars?

::He pilots his ship, but he knows nothing of where he goes or where he came from. How is that possible? Who would have a pilot so stupid?

“Fight it, Trix. They push their way in, but you can push them out. You've got to focus. You've got to think about something else, anything else. Crowd them out.”

::Can we burrow from her mind to his?

::Maybe he lies.

::Maybe he knows but he buries.

::We shall link them, drain him and examine him with her.

For a moment, the thinkers relaxed, and Trixie slumped in the arms of her captor. She watched as the thinker on the platform reached through the force-field as Berry struggled.

“Stay away from me, you spawn of hell. Stay—”

Tears ran from her eyes. Berry's head jerked back as he struggled to resist, but his efforts were brief.

Her thinker renewed her interrogation and Trixie felt herself propelled back into the depths of her mind.

::Cross them, dump them.

::She shall see, then we shall see.

::She is weak. She will reveal all. She will tell us what he knows.

Her mind flooded with thoughts, visions, sounds, colors, smells, words.

Trixie found herself standing on the broad deck of the Rift Valley.

The flight deck was sparse. She was surprised by its size. Everything she'd known since she first awoke on the alien craft had been cramped and claustrophobic. Even the vivisection chamber with its high ceiling wasn't that wide, but the hanger deck on the Rift Valley extended for hundreds of yards around her. Thick lines painted on the deck directed the motion of construction craft and starships in broad curves, being designed for the safety of the engineers and mechanics. Exclusion zones were marked with thick stripes of yellow and black, sectioning off portions of the floor. Couplings and valve handles lay level with the deck, covered with transparent plexiglass. Hatches and access ways lay just below the surface, hidden by steel grates.

Commander Anderson stood at the head of the small group of pilots, addressing them informally before they departed on their reconnaissance mission.

He shook each man's hand, smiling as he spoke.

Five craft rested in the launch bay, their hulls floating just a few feet from the ground. Each of them was slightly different, individually crafted, with their antenna boom folded up prior to launch.

Trixie didn't recognize the Swift, but Berry did, and that recognition excited her. She beamed with pride looking down at their lifeboat. But where was she? She wanted to look around, to turn and look behind her, but Berry hadn't looked behind so neither could she. Mechanics poured over the Swift, making last minute adjustments, triple checking systems. Anderson was talking with Berry, but she couldn't hear what he was saying. Berry, it seemed, couldn't recall the exact words to mind.

::Still he fights, still he resists.

::We must break him down, make him reveal.

::They are sensitive. They feel damage as a physiological response. We can exploit this.

Suddenly, Trixie was standing in the hydroponics bay in the mid-decks of the Rift.

Leafy green plants swayed in the artificial breeze around her. It was humid, she was sweating, Berry was sweating.

As Berry turned, she turned, she could see orchids, resplendent in their blues and reds. She wanted to look more closely at them, but Berry walked past them and she floated on with him. Trixie could smell frangipani, the sweet fragrance wafted on the breeze. A hand reached out from in front of her, but it wasn't her hand. It plucked a red apple from a tree and bit into the crisp fruit. Juice ran down her chin, but it was his chin, and he wiped it, although she felt as though she had wiped it. Her mouth salivated for more, but it was a memory, not reality.

A cat wound its way between his legs, its tail wrapping lightly around his calf muscle for the briefest of moments as it peered up at him affectionately.

Berry reached down and scratched the cat on its head. Trixie could feel the soft fur beneath her fingertips.

Something moved in the bushes.

The cat went still.

Berry seemed to be amused, he knelt down, watching as the cat stalked off into the undergrowth, its black hair disappearing in the shadows. It was the cat in the photograph, from the cockpit of the Swift, thought Trixie.

A bird took flight, its colorful wings beat at the air as it lifted gracefully into the artificial sky, flashes of green, red and yellow pumped back and forth as the bird escaped into the branches of a tree.

The thinkers may have taken charge of his mind, but Trixie could see Berry was choosing his memories, steering his thoughts, trying to tell her something, but she wasn't sure what.

::It is their storehouse, their vault.

::They consume some, they admire others.

::The diversity is vast. Our Masters suspect there must have been billions of permutations to reach this time.

::We will harvest. We will trace and rebuild and explore the branches of their evolution.

Trixie blinked and found herself sitting in the cockpit of the Swift, at least, she thought she'd blinked. She wasn't sure, but the cockpit looked as real around her as it had just an hour before.

The photo of Berry and his cat was in a different spot, squished up against a control panel to the left.

The Bonsai was smaller.

The screen wrapping around the cockpit showed the image of a comet, its frozen tail breaking up the darkness, flaring behind it in a stream of white and pastel blues, soft greens and browns.

Berry adjusted the image, examining the comet at various wavelengths. In some, the comet appeared almost transparent, a rocky core with jets of gas streaming from its sunlit surface before peeling off behind it in the tail. In others, the blur of different colored overlays meant nothing to her.

As quickly as that thought had occurred to her, she'd understood what she was looking at. Images ranging from ultra-violet to infra-red. Somehow, she understood these concepts, concepts she had no previous understanding of were now clear.

Trixie perceived the notion of wavelengths, of the small band that dominated the visible spectrum, of the emission lines that indicated different chemicals and molecules.

The comet was composed of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide. There were trace elements of fundamental organic compounds, basic sugars used in the formation of DNA, like Ribose and Glycolaldehyde. She understood all this, but she wasn't sure how, and yet, in her mind there lay an unbroken chain of realizations linking these carbon molecules to the instructions for life. It didn't mean there was life, but it meant the building blocks were present. This was Berry’s understanding, and now she perceived it too, admiring the comet for far more than its aesthetic beauty.

Music played in the background, but it sounded muffled and distorted.

Berry bit into a protein bar. She recognized the taste, but the lack of sound alarmed her. On the Rift, she couldn't hear Anderson speaking even though he was barely a foot or two away. In the garden, the cat never meowed or purred, even though she could feel its skull resonating beneath her fingers. The bird, taking flight, had done so in silence. And onboard the Swift, the music was dull, barely recognizable.

::She sees how he fights.

::She knows the value of oscillations and waves in transmitting ideas between them.

::She sees him blocking all. Let them talk. Let us learn.

And Trixie found herself again in the cold dark of the alien craft. Again, the stench flooded her nose. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Her pupils had contracted with the memories, having involuntarily adjusted to a bright light she had never seen. Berry still floated in the force-field.

The thinkers retreated, watching them.

“We were never going anywhere, babe,” Berry said with blood running from the corner of his lip. “It was a ruse, a con. Our escape was never real. They played me for a fool.”

Trixie bit her lip, fighting back more tears.

“Don't be afraid of dying, Trix. We all die. It is the lot of man. Run as we may, there are some things from which we cannot escape.”

Trixie sank to her knees.

“They're going to kill us, Trixie. Oh, I am so sorry I brought you into all this.”

“No,” she wailed, the corners of her mouth pulled down in anguish. She was barely able to speak. Her lips quivered.

“I'm not afraid of dying, Bellatrix, my beautiful star. Everyone dies, each star fades at some point. At least I get to choose how. I get to choose to die protecting those I love. I will not betray the Rift.”

“I don't want to die,” she said, surprised by the coherence in her voice. The mind-tunnel between them had flooded her perception with so many concepts. Death was a waste, of that she was sure.

“You smell that?” Berry asked. “That smell. It’s the smell of fear, the smell of death.”

The thinkers edged closer, wanting to know what had been said.

“That smell, Trix. Do you remember the smell?”

Trixie barely moved as the thinker's razor-like claws dug into her spine and neck. She was numb to the pain.

“Remember, Trix,” said Berry, as a thinker loomed over him. “I'm ready to die.”

Her sight faded as her body fell limp, unable to fight the mind control.

::They talk about detecting trace-chemicals in suspension within the atmosphere, but why?

::They have sensory organs for this, but they are almost vestigial.

::The broad sinus cavity inside their skull functions, but only in a rudimentary way, at a fraction of what we calculate for other allied species from their planet.

::This smell is not a means of communication.

::Their primary communication is through the oscillations in the air, then through sight, what can this mean?

::It is more lies.

::We shall make him suffer, force him to reveal all.

::He wants to die, but we shall keep him alive, even at the extreme.

::What about the breeder?

::This female?

::She is a joke. She is harmless. Without him, she is nothing.

::She is for our sport. We shall play with her.

::We will feast on her before our Masters.

Trixie found herself flung to the ground. She felt weak, drained of energy. Beside her lay a couple of cylinders, the welding torch, the rivet gun and the backpack.

Several other cylinders were scattered haphazardly beside the platform. The acetylene cylinder that had been screwed into the torch hissed softly beside her. The valve was damaged, the cylinder was leaking.

“It's the smell, Trix. The smell of death.”

And then she finally knew what he meant, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't kill him. Her hands were trembling.

A thinker straddled his body, reaching out with its claws through the force-field. It made a small incision at the base of his neck, cutting down to his groin.

Berry screamed in pain.

With meticulous care, the thinker cut beneath the skin, separating the subcutaneous flesh from his rib cage, and opening up his abdomen.

Berry howled.

Behind him, another thinker cradled his head in its claws.

Berry moaned, fading in and out of consciousness as they tormented him, probing his mind and his body. He was reeling in shock.

Trixie whimpered.

The thinker leaning over Berry peeled back his skin. It seemed particularly interested in the defunct arteries leading to his severed belly button, examining them closely.

Berry trembled, calling out incoherently.

Sweat broke out on his forehead despite the cold. He was panting, struggling.

The thinker standing over him probed his exposed diaphragm, observing how it controlled his breathing.

Berry screamed.

“TRIXIE... TR...IX... IE...”

Trixie curled up in a ball, paralyzed with fear, unable to move. She wanted this to end, for the nightmare to go away, but it wouldn't. She could close her eyes, but she couldn't shut out the noise, the screams as Berry called for her.

He was hyperventilating, unable to break through the pain. Blood dripped on the floor with a constant rhythm. He steadied his breathing, puffing his cheeks to catch the outbound air and slow down his distress and panic. His eyes stared straight ahead, as though he were looking past the thinker blocking his view, peering through the dark creature at something in the distance. He fought to compose himself, fighting to block out what was happening to him.

“Trixie... please...” he pleaded, his head turning toward her. “Please, Honey. You know what to do.”

His voice was calm, almost soothing amidst the cruelty. She looked into his eyes and started crawling forward, over near the vivisection platform.

“Thank you, Trix.”

The thinkers were preoccupied, examining Berry's kidneys and liver in close detail. The principal thinker leaned back, his claws grasping Berry's side, opening up the view.

Trixie hadn't noticed it before, but there were hundreds of thinkers in the chamber, lining all four walls, each one aligned by local gravity so they could watch what was unfolding on the platform as though they were staring at something on a distant wall. The pyramid-like shape of the chamber afforded four equally advantageous viewpoints above the operation. Tapping and clicking resounded through the chamber, but it was resonating through the roots and branches more than the open air. She could feel the micro-pulses beneath her fingertips as she crept forward.

Trixie opened the valve on the cylinder leaning against the platform. Without a regulator, the viscous acetylene flowed out as a liquid, seething and bubbling as the gas came out of suspension. A fine mist hung low to the ground, drifting among the roots.

Workers streaming past along one of the main roots became agitated. They swarmed in, trying to clean up the spill, capturing it in silken bubbles extending from their abdomens before carrying it away.

As they scurried off, Trixie noticed some of the transport bubbles contained rich, red blood, cleaned off the floor above her.

The workers seemed incoherent, spreading out through the chamber rather than all heading in a single direction.

Berry was panting, chanting over and over again under his breath, “Do it, Trixie. Do it. Set me free, babe. Set me free.”

Trixie looked up at the thinkers on the platform, keeping her gaze on them as she backed away, over to another cylinder lying to one side. They ignored her. Without breaking her eye contact, she reached down, feeling with her hands and twisting the valve on the cylinder. Liquid acetylene began to flow slowly.

Again, workers streamed in, trying to contain the liquid as it seeped out on the ground and vaporized into a gas. The heavy acetylene soaked into the gaps beneath the roots, following the course of least resistance. A fine fog spread across the dark ground.

Moving slowly, stepping backwards over the tangle of vines and roots, Trixie made her way to the backpack, keeping her eyes firmly on the vivisection platform. Berry was unconscious. The thinkers were excited. They tapped in unison. The pulses through the roots held a steady rhythm, like a crowd chanting in unison.

Trixie wanted to slip a couple of spare cylinders into the backpack, but the thought of metal clanking on metal scared her. She picked up the welding torch along with one of the cylinders, tucking it under her arm. Moving slowly and deliberately, she opened the valve on the closest cylinder to her and left the rest where they lay. Silently, she tiptoed over toward the tunnel as the thinkers reveled in their torture. They must have had some success in breaking into Berry's mind, she thought, as the phosphorescence glowing from beneath their shells rippled with color and excitement, lighting up in a variety of patterns sweeping throughout the chamber.

Trixie had seen Berry do this twice before. She knew how to light the pilot flame. Trixie tripped the ignition switch, flicked open the safety catch, and gently squeezed the trigger. Even without an acetylene cylinder attached, a flare of blue flame erupted from the tip of the torch. Its soft glow went unnoticed, as did the hiss and crackle in the air. With her eyes still locked on the thinkers, Trixie reached down, holding the flame just inches from one of the roots. The thin fog hanging low against the ground caught fire.

Flames spread rapidly, curling over the roots as they raced throughout the chamber, spreading out in a circle. But they were soft, muted, barely the glow of a candle burning in the dark.

The thinkers turned, seeing the flames racing out in a broad front. They chattered with their legs.

Workers arced up around Trixie in response, climbing over each other to form into branches reaching up to surround her. She'd seen this before in the narrow tunnel.

Trixie lashed out, swinging the cylinder with one hand and striking at the column of workers. They flexed, absorbing the blow, and swung back in place. The tiny creatures were forming a prison around her. Within seconds, she would be trapped.

The glowing flame whipped out through the chamber like a ripple in a pond, reaching the first of the cylinders and the pool of liquid acetylene flooding a root ball beside it. Flames burst into the air, curling up toward the ceiling.

With temperatures in excess of three thousand degrees being reached within the fiery pool, the cylinder ruptured, exploding, releasing a fireball that enveloped most of the chamber.

The air compressed in front of Trixie, knocking her and the workers over as the radiant heat scorched her skin. Trixie fell, falling into the tunnel where gravity realigned and she found herself having moved onto a different plane. It seemed like she was now sitting beside a fiery pit, with flames curling in the low gravity, licking at the roots framing the chamber and setting them alight.

Workers scattered, fleeing from her, their connection with the thinkers severed. In the chamber, several more explosions erupted as cylinders ruptured. The oxygen-rich environment fed the flames. Trixie could hear the crackle and pop of shells bursting open in the heat.

She staggered away from the opening and further down the darkened tunnel, moving away from the searing temperatures in the chamber.

Trixie watched as the flames behind her pasted the vast, twisting tube in front of her in flickering bursts of yellow, orange and red. Her hands trembled. She dropped the cylinder. Flicking the ignition switch, she cut the pilot flame on the welding torch and let it slip from her fingers.

Falling to her knees, she sobbed. The hair on her arms had singed. Her eyebrows were burnt. The tiny hairs on her eyelashes had curled. The smell of smoke and death hung around her.

Workers streamed past her in a futile attempt to contain the fire raging in the chamber beyond.

Trixie cried.

Tears streamed down her cheek. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

Berry was dead. She'd killed him.

There was no other way, she told herself, but that was no comfort.

She hated what she'd done. Sitting there, she knew she should have been pushing on through the maze of tunnels, weaving her way back to the Swift. It was wrong to collapse here in self-pity. The autopilot would take her home. How did she know that? Trixie remembered the autopilot, but she wasn't sure how. Then it dawned on her, the thoughts flooding her mind were a mixture of her memories and his. Somehow, she still remembered things he’d seen, thoughts he’d had. She shared his desire to escape, to warn the Rift Valley, to protect the crew. Yet those thoughts were cold. Although they were in the depths of her mind, they felt alien, as strange and foreign as the roots entwined around her.

She couldn't run. As much as she knew Berry would have wanted her to, she couldn't. It didn't feel right. The reality of what had happened stunned her. Trixie was in shock. Her arms felt numb. There didn't seem to be any purpose anymore, not now Berry was dead. How bittersweet her escape had been. She could run, but to where? To the Rift Valley? The only conscious thoughts she had of that spaceship were his. And what awaited her there? The only man she'd ever known was dead. Nothing would ever change that.

A dark shadow loomed over her, blocking out the glowing fires beyond. Trixie looked up. Through her tears, so large in the low gravity, she saw the distorted outline of a thinker crouching over her. She should run, escape, try to get away. But it was all too much. Why postpone the inevitable? Why fight? There was nothing left to fight for.

Trixie sat there defeated, looking up at the imposing alien.

The thinker staggered forward, its multitude of legs stumbling as it crossed the roots. Smoke rose from its back, drifting in the breeze. A cluster of long, spindly arms stretched down either side of its shell. They waved back and forth in changing patterns and combinations, as though their symmetry was a reflection of its thoughts within. The creature seemed to be looking right through her. Trixie didn't care. She wasn't afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was already as one dead. There was nothing more to lose. She stood, facing the creature defiant.

“Why?” she yelled. “Why would you do this?”

The huge beast swayed in front of her. Its cold, impersonal eyes as black as coal. Its silence intimidating.

“Was it worth it? Is any of this worth it? We live. We die. And for what? For this?”

Rage swelled up inside her. She grabbed the cylinder.

The thinker reached out with its tiny arms, trying to touch her. Trixie lashed out, swinging the cylinder around and bringing it down like a baseball bat on the side of the animal. She struggled to hold the cylinder with both hands, determined to transmit as much force as possible with each blow, each time crying out, “Why?”

The thinker fell on its back, its smoldering shell-casing lying across the roots. The alien made no attempt to defend itself. Trixie pounded it, using the butt of the cylinder and driving hard at the creatures eyes, hoping its brain was somewhere behind them.

“Why? Damn you. Why?”

Dark body fluids ran from the open wound and crushed eye stalks of the thinker, but it never fought back. Slowly, Trixie's thumping softened. Black fluids stained her hands and clothes. She tossed the cylinder to one side, looking at the pathetic creature lying there. Was it mercy it craved? Was it absolution? Was it understanding? Why should it expect any, when it had shown none? And she realized these were her thoughts, her feelings, projected onto this alien creature that seemed to have no recognition of any such concepts.

She couldn't kill it.

Looking at her black stained hands, she felt pity. Killing this creature wouldn't bring Berry back. Nothing ever would. She touched the creature's arms, running her soft fingertips over its hard exoskeleton. What had it seen in its life? What would be lost with its death? Did these alien creatures have any concept of individual consciousness? Did they realize the pathetic waste of death? A feeling of tragedy and loss overwhelmed her. Life should not be so, she decided. Life should be lived above death, it should not perpetuate the misery that all creatures endure given time. And yet, neither she nor Berry had brought this fight. These dark creatures had.

Trixie had no desire to kill, she had a desire to survive. She had to survive, and if that meant the alien's death, then it had to be so. There was a confusion of thoughts in her mind, some of them hers, some of them Berry's, but that realization gave her a new reason to hope.

Trixie stepped back from the creature, picking up the bloodied cylinder and the welding torch as she started down the tunnel. After a few feet, she stopped and looked back at the pathetic alien creature that had once held so much power over her.

She remembered the interrogation, the pain as her mind was jacked, the humiliation, and yet she still felt sorry for them. They were brutal beasts. For all their intelligence, they had succumbed to the base ideals of conquest and exploitation. These were new concepts to her, but Berry had understood them, and now she did too. The irony wasn't lost on her, that to reach such heights as interstellar conquest and yet to be driven by greed and power was a waste of intelligence. These had been Berry’s thoughts, but she embraced them as her own. For her to survive, they had to die. It was no longer personal, it was her primeval survival instinct kicking in.

Trixie reached the junction where she had lost sight of Berry on their first escape. From here, it was a dog's leg back to the Swift. Several hundred yards further on, she had to cut back on an angle of 120 degrees, and then straight on to the surface a couple of miles away. These were Berry’s thoughts. She knew that because she hated dogs and would never use a dog's leg as an analogy in her thinking. Carefully, she screwed the cylinder into the welding torch, preparing to use it as a flamethrower in the same way Berry had.

The workers scurrying around her had gone dark, switching off their chemical lights and leaving the intersection in darkness. A soft yellow glow appeared down one tunnel, and she remembered Berry's plan, but the makeshift fuse Berry had built had gone up in the inferno.

Stepping out of the intersection and into the narrow tunnel, Trixie noticed her hair drifting in front of her again, bouncing softly as she walked, just as it had several hours ago.

Walking around the circumference of the tunnel, Trixie found she could turn to what had once seemed to be upside down while always staying upright, always experiencing that giddy sensation of weightlessness around her head as she edged down toward the massive ball of dust in the far chamber.

Trixie stopped halfway, thinking, realizing she could use this effect to her advantage. Were these her thoughts or Berry’s? They were hers, she decided, as it seemed all they shared were memories. If this worked as Berry had suggested, she might just destroy them.

Trixie unscrewed the cylinder, taking the regulator off. She held it parallel to the ground, with its brass-threaded end facing her, and lifted it up slightly above head height. Letting go, she watched as the cylinder floated in zero-gravity, defying the pull she felt at her feet.

Within the confines of the narrow tunnel, the cylinder was stable, floating freely between the circular walls. Trixie opened the valve, making sure she was out of the way. Globs of liquid acetylene leaked out, floating in small spheres, bubbling as they released their gas.

Trixie gave the cylinder a gentle shove, propelling it down the tunnel toward the glowing sphere of dust. She watched as it disappeared into the haze. Moving back to the intersection, she followed the stream of slowly shrinking bubbles drifting in the opposite direction. As they reached the intersection, they became subject to differing gravitational strengths and fell into the roots. Trixie lit the pilot flame on the welding torch and held it up to the gas stream in the mouth of the narrow tunnel. A pulse of fire flashed down through the tunnel. Trixie threw the welding torch down the tunnel as well for good measure, before darting back and up out of the intersection.

Her heart raced.

Time seemed to slow.

Nothing happened.

Maybe Berry was wrong and that powder wasn't flammable after all.

Maybe the flame never reached down into the heart of the swirling dust storm.

Maybe the dust storm smothered the pilot light, starving the flame of oxygen. Maybe a thinker or a bunch of workers had smothered the flame.

Trixie charged along the main artery, remembering Berry's warning that without disabling the ship she could never leave. All of a sudden, leaving was important. The idea of escaping was now real. The cloud over her mind seemed to lift with the prospect of freedom.

A flash of light broke around her. The air compressed, throwing her down through the tunnel as a wall of fire erupted behind her in the intersection. The noise of the roar deafened her.

Getting back to her feet, Trixie had newfound excitement.

In the low gravity, it was difficult to move as fast as she wanted to, so she leaned forward, almost falling over, and used her legs to propel herself along at a rapid pace.

Grabbing at the roots and vines in front of her, Trixie used her hands like a monkey, guiding her motion, correcting her course as she charged through the tunnel.

Explosions rocked the alien craft as fire billowed through the interior, ripping through the interconnecting tunnels between the swirling balls of fine, almost gaseous particles.

Trixie had a rhythm, a cadence allowing her to cover the distance to the Swift in under fifteen minutes. She was moving much faster than she had with Berry, when they felt their every move was being watched. Now, she didn't care. She wanted to go as fast as she could, as fast as her legs and lungs would carry her. With each bound, she could feel the artificial gravity wavering beneath her, and she wondered how long it would last.

Explosions continued to resound through the alien spacecraft, although they were deep, far away from her. The branches and roots around her flexed and groaned. Ahead, she could see the main artery narrowing as it began splitting, close to the surface of the craft.

Trixie recognized the charred remains of the workers that had been scorched by Berry in the recess of the narrow side-tunnel leading back to the Swift. She felt electrified. Thoughts of Berry seemed so distant. The charred bars had been pried open, probably when the aliens had dragged them unconscious to the vivisection chamber. Trixie came up to the entrance and froze. There, blocking her way, was a thinker.

She backed slowly around the main tunnel, away from the entrance as the thinker moved out to face her. She was powerless, helpless.

The thinker seemed to be sizing her up, not rushing to any one action or another. Trixie noticed the workers in this region. They aligned themselves on the sides of several roots, ready to spring in her direction.

Explosions continued to resound in the distance. The whole structure of the craft vibrated.

The thinker advanced on her as though it were trying to corner her rather than attack her.

Trixie felt the gravity fluctuations becoming more extreme. While before they had put off her cat-like jaunt through the tunnel, now the tremors caused her to sway back and forth as her center of gravity shifted in response to the surge of gravity around them.

With her arms in front of her, Trixie determined to go down fighting like a wild animal.

The thinker seemed to feel the fluctuations. If anything, they made him more cautious, wary of what she might do, and she realized she held an unforeseen advantage.

They feared her. She had killed hundreds of them. She had set their craft alight. They thought they knew her, but they had underestimated her.

Trixie decided to test her theory. Rather than backing away, she lunged forward, curling her fingers like claws. The thinker and the workers reacted, pulling back, clearly not knowing quite what to expect. Perhaps the thinker was thinking too much. Maybe it thought she could spit out flames.

She lunged again, being more aggressive, baring her teeth and yelling with all her might. The thinker flinched, turning partially to one side as though it were expecting to be struck down. It was stalling, blocking, buying the aliens time. But the bluff was on both sides. She could no more hurt a thinker with her bare hands than she could breathe fire. The bulk of the creature reaching up almost two feet above her was intimidating.

Gravity pulsed around her.

The outward force keeping her anchored on the tangled roots increased rapidly. Instead of feeling light and buoyant, Trixie suddenly felt as though lead weights had been strapped to her shoulders, arms and legs.

The craft was coming apart. Its environmental controls were starting to fail.

Waves of heat surged up through the tunnels.

Trixie crumpled under the increased weight. Even her cheeks felt heavy, sagging away from her cheek bones. Her jaw was pulled open. She knelt, spreading her hands in front of her, trying to take the weight with her bones, but the surge was too strong and she collapsed to the branches. It felt as though an elephant had sat on her, crushing her body. The massive surge in gravity made it hard to breathe. She wanted to lift her head and look at the thinker to see if it could cope with these extremes, but her skull felt as though it was being squeezed in a vice.

Trixie's ribcage felt as though it was going to crack and burst. Her vision began to blur. On the edge of her sight, she could see the thinker twitching.

The workers were nowhere to be seen, having slipped into the cracks. The thinker lay face down on the roots, pools of dark fluid seeping out of it.

As suddenly as it had come, local gravity rebounded, returning to the soft level she'd become accustomed to before swinging wildly in its orientation again.

Trixie dug her hands into the roots, holding tight as her feet flipped out from beneath her and she found herself hanging from the ceiling. The dead body of the thinker fell to what now seemed to be the floor of the tunnel below her.

A few seconds later, Trixie was lying on her side before being dragged over to the other side as the gravitational direction fluctuated, gyrating around the main tunnel.

The body of the thinker rolled around the tunnel with each gravitational pulse. Finally, gravity aligned to what had been the horizontal, and the tunnel she had bounded through just a few minutes earlier became a deep shaft, a well dropping away beneath her feet.

The thinker fell into the distance.

Hanging from the side of the tunnel, Trixie looked down for several hundred feet, looking at a small kink in the winding passageway that had now become a landing. The falling body of the thinker struck the landing with a thud. Dark fluids sprayed out from the dead creature.

Shadows danced in the flickering light of the distant fires.

Trixie's inner ear was spinning. Vertigo swept over her at the counterintuitive view below her.

Moving hand over hand and digging her feet into the gaps between the mesh of roots and branches lining the shaft, she moved slowly around to the side-tunnel. Her footing slipped, and she thought she was going to fall to her death.

Grabbing hold of loose branches was dangerous. Each one felt firm at first, as though it would hold her weight, but they could easily pull away from the side of the shaft like loose vines.

The thick roots were hard to clamber over. Their smooth husks gave her little to hold on to, and she struggled to reach for handholds. With the muscles in her arms burning and her legs weary, she made it into the side-tunnel where there was gravitational normality.

Inside the cramped tunnel where the thinker had lain in wait, gravity still pulled in only one direction, down toward the heart of the ship, but Trixie had a thick mat of vines and branches to crawl on.

Within thirty feet, the side-tunnel petered out, dissipating into a thick cluster of new growth. Clawing her way through, Trixie pulled at the fresh tendrils, climbing between them, trying to make her way back to the Swift.

She was lost.

The alien superstructure looked entirely different. The tracks carved into the inner hull were gone. Were they overgrown, or was it that she had taken a wrong turn? Perhaps she had started tearing through the undergrowth at a slightly different angle, and after several hundred yards was off course.

In the darkness, she could pass within a few feet of the hull and still not notice the Swift. She began to panic, retracing her steps, second guessing herself. Nothing looked familiar. She pressed on, sure she was going to miss the craft when suddenly there it was, right in front of her. Her heart leaped as her hand touched the smooth metal.

Trixie clambered over the hull, searching for the hatch. The Swift had been moved, drawn deeper into the alien craft. It had been turned over on its side, forcing Trixie to drop down beneath the ship and climb in through the hatch from below.

Lights. She never thought she'd be so glad to be blinded by lights.

As she secured the outer hatch, the lights in the airlock came on automatically. On entering the main cabin, she could see the pilot's chair above her instead of out in front of her, as it had been before.

Something on the ground caught her eye. It was her bracelet, the one Berry hated. It was so pretty, with its woven, colored threads, like the bands of a rainbow. The silver disc glistened in the light. The bell rang softly as she picked it up. The sound was soothing, comforting, but she wasn't sure why. She slipped it over her wrist.

“Computer,” she called out, remembering how Berry had called the ship by this name.

“Online,” came the electronic response.

“Computer, get me out of here!”

“I'm sorry, you will have to be more specific.”

Trixie clambered up over the engine cowling, past the navigation console and into the pilot's seat. Lying on her back, she squeezed her legs up in front of her. She'd seen Berry in this position, so it seemed like the right thing to do.

“Take me home,” she called out with tears welling up in her eyes. “Please, take me home.”

“I'm sorry, I do not know where home is.”

A red light blinked next to the picture of Berry and his cat.

“Computer, what is...”

“Fuel cells at 2500 degrees Celsius. Containment will suffer a catastrophic failure in approximately fifty minutes. Computer recommends...”

“Yes, yes,” Trixie yelled. “Shut it off, or turn it off, or do whatever you have to.”

“Safety protocols reactivated,” replied the computer. “Coolant circulating.”

“Please, take me away from here.”

“Where do you want to go?”

Now that she was in the pilot's seat, a holograph appeared before her. Several stars glowed inside the image, along with a series of razor-thin lines that looked like they described contours, marking gravitational strength rather than the height of land. The flat tabletops were interstellar Lagrange points, reaching up above the valleys in which each of the stars were set. A rendezvous point showed up in soft green. Trixie reached in and touched the glowing light and the computer acknowledged.

“Plotting a course for rendezvous point ASZ/787/S1201.”

Trixie felt the roar of the engines coming to life.

The craft surged and pulled, fighting against the dying ship that held it captive.

Trixie held onto the straps looped over the seat. She could hear the sound of metal scraping against the toughened roots and limbs outside the craft.

The Swift shuddered, shaking as it inched forward. Finally it broke free, punching through the outer skin of the alien craft in a ball of fire. The metallic craft shot out into space, dragging its shattered communications boom with it. Immediately, Trixie felt the gravity shift. The Swift was accelerating, so she had the sensation of being pushed back in her seat.

Trixie quickly learned she could control the view in front of her with a series of simple hand gestures, and waved her fingers in such a way that she had a view of the alien craft as the Swift receded, pulling rapidly away from the dark warship. From without, a few specks of light were visible on the alien vessel, highlighting those areas burning close to the hull. The alien craft lurched, turning slowly. The craft was splitting, breaking apart. Debris floated in the cold vacuum. Zooming in, Trixie could see fragments of the hull coming loose and creatures being sucked out into the void of space. Within minutes, though, the Swift had moved so far away that she lost sight of these finer details.

The engines on the Swift cut as the computerized autopilot spoke.

“Calculating burn times and orientation based on the strength of the current gravitational well. Please wait.”

Trixie drifted forward in zero gravity as the acceleration slowly ceased. She smiled. Although she only had a vague recollection of what the computer meant, and that recollection wasn't hers, she knew she was going home. Home, it was such a foreign concept for her, just a sentimental attachment Berry once had for the Rift Valley.

For the first time, she relaxed. Her eyes closed. The nightmare was over, but the vision of Berry caught in the force field still flashed before her eyes. She was terrified by the image of him being transformed into some primitive beast and writhing in agony.

Her teeth clenched as her muscles tightened.

She breathed deeply, trying not to think about anything, wanting to let go and move beyond the horror. The tension in her muscles slowly gave way and her arms drifted up as she floated just inches from the pilot's seat. The bell on her wrist rang softly each time she moved, and that familiar sound soothed her soul, comforting her against the loneliness and loss.

The cockpit was cramped. Trixie opened her eyes as she drifted softly into the overhead console. She wanted someone to talk to. There were so many questions floating around in her mind. The Swift was small. The cockpit only held one seat. Where had she sat? And there was only one hammock. Where had she slept? And why had Berry given her his clothes to wear? Where were her clothes?

All she had of her own was her bracelet. With her left hand, she pulled at it, looking closely at the dirty fabric. It needed to be washed to restore its brilliant colors, she thought. She slipped her fingers beneath the cord, running them around under her wrist. Trixie was fascinated by this tatty piece of jewelry, but without understanding why.

The photo of Berry and his cat caught her eye.

She pulled the photograph off the control panel and smiled, looking at Berry in happier times. He looked content. His hair was messy. His blue shirt had grease stains on the sleeves. He was laughing, holding his cat up close to his face so it would make it into the photo.

The cat was pretty, with black hair like hers. The eyes looked warm and friendly. A cute collar encircled the cat's neck, hidden slightly by its dark fur. Strands of the rainbow-colored cord were just visible in the photo, as was the silver tag hanging from the collar along with a shiny silver bell. In her mind, Trixie could hear the bell ringing even back then.

There were words written on the photo. She couldn't read them. Trixie didn't know how to read, but she understood what they said, months before someone on the Rift Valley confirmed it for her. They explained everything, they told her all she needed to know.

Those few words read, Trixie & Me.