An Empty Tank
By Rivka Crowbourne
For Norman
Grey
As the Prince of
Denmark observed long ago, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.” Unwarily, he neglected to mention hell, perhaps
because he had an iambic pentameter to maintain. Nonetheless, the remark holds
true of all three locales; and when the citizens of one sphere unveil
themselves in another, drama rarely fails to result.
My name, friend, is
Friar Blaise. I live and work in the asteroid town of Lindisfarne, deep in the
glimmering reaches of Sagittarius B2. And if ever you’ve harbored a doubt about
the Lord’s goodness, I refute it thus: that seraphic expanse is made up of
billions of gallons of Space Alcohol. My brother monks and I harvest this bounty
and prayerfully refine it into beer for all the peoples of the cosmos. And
because truth is greater than humility, I cannot conceal from you that our
blessed brew, though made of earthly stuff, is to be counted among the elixirs
of paradise.
I was aboard a good
ship called the Long Haul, accompanying a delivery to my beloved friends
at Dill’s Deep-Space Diner, on the Enoch Station, in the Kenoma System, far
away from home. Kenoma lies in a guttering galaxy, and colonies are sparse.
When our reserves grew low, we had to stop at an unmanned fueling station
orbiting a small, barren moon. Being a rather inexperienced traveler, I left my
cabin and headed for the bridge to watch the process.
“Hullo, padre,”
said
Captain Adriana Kingsford, a tall, greying woman of staunch character.
“Good evening,
Captain. Permission to enter the bridge?”
“Granted. We’re
just
stopping to refuel.”
“Yes, I gathered.
Are those the pumps?”
“Yup. Take about
half an hour. We’ll be at Enoch by morningtide.”
“Lovely, thank
you.”
A thunk went through
the deck as the fueling rods grappled onto us. Ernest Beauregard, the first
mate, glanced at the captain and gave a silent nod, presumably to indicate that
all was proceeding as it ought.
“All right, Bo,
you’ve got the conn,” she said. “I’m gonna go check on the—what the hell is
that?”
I jumped at her tone
and stared at her finger. Then, following her gaze, I saw a bizarrely beautiful
woman in a red dress stepping out from the station onto the nearest fuel rod.
For the merest sliver of a moment, I didn’t understand the captain’s reaction.
And then it registered on me that the lady in red was walking, unsuited,
through the ghastly dark of outer space.
We stood
open-mouthed as the woman pushed gently off the fuel rod and came wafting like
a red zephyr toward the Long Haul’s hull. Could she be an angel, I
wondered? But there was—there was something in her smile. Something other than
heavenly.
The voice of Kayla
Southerly, our mechanic, crackled on the intercom, and I jumped again. “Cap’n?
Are y’all seein’ this?”
“I dunno what
I’m
seeing, Kay.”
Then Ernest pointed.
“Captain.”
A pale thin man and
a second woman were now gliding across the rods as well. An eerie dread coiled
within me, and I nearly yelped out, “Away! Get us away!”
“Can’t uncouple
from
a dock while you’re shipping fuel, padre. Not unless the system recognizes an
emergency.”
“We’re being
boarded! Surely—”
“Not according
to
this reading,” Ernest said grimly. “They don’t scan as life forms.”
“Robots, Bo?”
“No ma’am.
System’d
recognize robot boarders as a threat.”
From the intercom:
“Oh my goblins, they’re spooks! We’re gettin’ boarded by spooks!”
“Calm down, Kay,
they can’t get inside. And oh yeah, there’s no such thing as spooks.”
The two newcomers
were heading for the airlock. The woman in red reached the ship and, like some
ghoulish arachnid, began to crawl across the hull toward the viewscreen.
“She got weapons?”
the captain asked tightly.
Ernest shook his
head.
“Then we sit tight.
Let her scratch at the window all she wants.”
The red lady splayed
herself across the viewscreen with a cruel and crimson smile. As we stood
watching her long dark hair float languidly about her, she focused her gaze on
Ernest. He gazed back for a long moment, and the fear and confusion seemed to
leave him. Then, suddenly, he jerked forward and slapped a button on the
console.
“Bo!” the
captain
howled.
Before I could
wonder what fresh horror was upon us, the ship’s computer spoke: “Stand by for
airlock ingress.”
Ernest blinked and
frowned. “What—what just—”
“You let the damned
things inside, is what just happened. Now prepare to receive hostiles!”
“I—yes,
ma’am.” He
shook off his daze and opened a compartment in the bulkhead, producing two
photon rifles for himself and the captain.
“Stay here, padre!”
she shouted, and the two of them dashed from the bridge.
I obeyed for a
moment, chewing on her chance phrase: “damned things.” The men of science have
found and forged many wonders since Our Lord arrived in the stable; but the
natural world dwells cheek by jowl with the spirit realm, no less now than in
the day of that Grand Miracle when heaven trod the dust of earth. I glanced up
at the viewscreen, where the red lady was still grinning down at me, and then I
clutched my crucifix and sprinted from the bridge.
The airlock had
already irised shut behind the boarders. The pale man was standing in the
hallway, leering at Ernest and Adriana, as I came up behind my shipmates. Of
the woman there was no sign.
“. . . fully
licensed ship of the Peace,” the captain was saying, her rifle and tone both
level. “Just tell us what you want, and maybe we all walk away from this with
our brains in our skulls.”
“Don’t worry,
Captain,” the invader replied, and his voice was a razor in silk. “I promise
you’ll want what we want.”
Then another hard
sweet voice: “Look what I found!” The strange woman came sauntering back up the
hallway with Kayla in her clutch. She was holding our stout mechanic up in the
air with one hand, negligently, as if carrying a kitten by the scruff, and
Kayla was frozen with terror. The woman opened her mouth wide, and her incisors
began to grow and sharpen.
Adriana shouted,
“Let her—” but Ernest had already opened fire. A blast of force hit the strange
woman in the chest, and should have splattered her lungs all the way down the
hall. But she and the pale man merely laughed. The woman lowered her fangs
toward Kayla’s neck.
And then I moved. Or
no, the One Whom I serve moved within me, and I had just enough will and grace
to respond. Lunging forward with the cross held high, I roared in a voice far
greater than my own, “Back, in the Name of Christ! Back, Satan, I command you!”
The invaders hissed
like cats and cringed away, shielding their faces. Ernest darted forward,
caught Kayla by the arm, and thrust her behind him. “Toldja they was spooks,”
she stammered.
“Get to the escape
pod, Kay,” Adriana ordered. “We’re right behind you.”
“Yes, Cap’n.”
She fled, and the
three of us began to back away. The two boarders followed us as closely as they
dared, snarling and spitting, their eyes now shot with blood and hate. Ernest
and the captain stood at my right and my left, still aiming their useless
weapons, as I brandished the blade of Christ and bellowed His words at our
foes. “Get thee behind me, Satan! God the Father compels you! God the Son
compels you! God the Holy Spirit compels you!”
As we passed a
branch of the corridor, the pale man turned and sped off down another hall with
the speed of a nightmare. The woman continued her slow, flinching advance,
spasming forward to swipe at me with her lengthening claws as I jabbed with the
crucifix like a cornered lion-tamer.
“Dammit,”
Adriana
muttered. “That guy’s gonna get around behind us. There’s no way we make it to
the pod.”
We rounded a corner,
and there he was. “Careful what you ask for, holy man,” he jeered. “You said
you wanted Satan behind you.”
Adriana punched a
button on the bulkhead, and a large metal door slid open to our left. “In here,
padre. At least we can get our backs to a wall.”
As Ernest and I
followed her into the room beyond, I realized it was the cargo bay. Off to one
side were four huge pallets of Lindisfarne’s finest beer. On the other side, a
single porthole gazed out upon the soundless majesty of the stars. At least it
was a fitting last view of God’s Creation.
The creatures
advanced, now grinning again, and we retreated slowly to the far bulkhead. My
arm was tiring, and my will was beginning to waver. “Back!” I shouted again,
but my voice cracked, and they laughed at me.
“You should have
stuck to making beer, old man,” said the woman. “All you’ve done is work up our
thirst.”
And the Light of
Heaven dawned.
“Captain, shoot
the
beer!” I shouted.
“Say what?”
“Shoot the
blessed beer!”
She and Ernest
opened fire on the pallets. Wood and glass debris exploded all around us, and
the precious brew deluged the cargo room. The two invaders shrieked, twisted,
and burst into rampaging flames. We hit the deck, splashing into foamy head, as
the cold creatures were fierily consumed.
Then, quiet. Flakes
of ash came sifting down to settle into the hoppy pool around us. For a long
moment, no one moved or spoke.
“Okay,”
Adriana said
finally. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
“There’s
still one
of ’em clingin’ onto the ship,” Ernest said.
“Good. Once we
make
the Jump, she can float out there alone till the end of time. Just don’t make
eye contact.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Captain, if I
may?
I believe it will still be some minutes before the system allows us to
uncouple. Perhaps the best thing is for us to invite Ms. Southerly back to the
cargo hold, and the four of us to investigate the wreckage for surviving
bottles. It would be a shame if every drop went to waste.”
“Works for me,
padre. Although considering it saved our lives, I wouldn’t exactly call it a
waste.”
“Ah, but you haven’t
tasted Lindisfarne brew.”
“Well.”
She smiled,
and the light came back into her eyes. “Let’s fix that.”
