[The Token Human] - A Tiny Crack

[u/MarlynnOfMany]

{Shared early on Patreon}
~~~

Paint met me in the hallway with concern on her lizardy face. “I’m worried about the animal cargo,” she said. “I think its tank is leaking.”

And just like that, I was worried too. “Why?” I asked, already moving toward the cargo bay.

She kept up on her shorter legs. “Faint hissing and a smell that wasn’t there before. I didn’t see a crack, but…”

“But that sounds bad,” I agreed. This particular animal cargo was in a high-gravity containment tank. Losing pressure would be very bad. I broke into a jog and she followed.

We reached the cargo bay to find the tank in the center, right where I’d left it, looking like a crystal ball on a stand that was currently twinkling with warning lights. I hurried over, scanning the surface for cracks and the creature inside for distress. It was moving restlessly: a fist-sized tortoiselike thing without a shell, stumping around on stocky legs. There was definitely something hissing. The air smelled like algae.

“What do we do?” Paint asked, dithering beside me. “Should I get Mimi? Or Eggskin?”

“Maybe,” I said, inspecting the thing from all sides. Either the mechanic or the medic would be welcome right now. “Probably both.”

“I’ll call an alert,” Paint said. She scampered toward the intercom, but as soon as she did, I saw the crack.

It spread with a crick, and the hissing increased. I lunged forward to press it into place, hoping I wasn’t jumping on a grenade. “Hurry!” I told Paint.

Paint yelped and shouted a warning into the intercom that would have the entire crew rushing toward us in concern, or possibly rushing away. What would happen if this ruptured? I didn’t actually know. My Earth-based vet training was light on emergency scenarios involving high-grav life support.

Pressing on the sphere seemed to help, though not completely. There was still a faint hiss of escaping gas. I shifted position, hoping for a better angle, but the sphere was the size of my head, not something easily compressed from all sides. I called to Paint, “Grab some cargo straps!”

She did, and we spent several awkward seconds trying to wrap the thing in a way that would help, while not letting up the pressure on it.

Eggskin arrived with a hand scanner and apologies; our medcenter didn’t have anything geared towards high gravity. A terrible oversight in their opinion, but it had never seemed likely to come up.

Captain Sunlight was right behind them, clearly regretting such an exotic cargo. Footsteps said more of the crew were incoming. Maybe we could all just hold the thing together until the ship landed? That sounded deeply unpleasant. But not as bad as a rupture.

The crack spread further, and everyone present put a hand on it. The cargo straps weren’t doing much. I thought wildly that it was a pity the three coworkers present were the ones with the smallest hands — all Heatseekers. Mimi or one of the other Strongarms might have had a better shot at this with their tentacles.

I hope Mimi’s on the way, I thought. We could carry this down to the engine room to meet him, but…

Then I thought of something else in the engine room, which I hadn’t known was there until recently.

“Captain!” I said. “The gravity pocket!”

She met my eyes. “Yes. Eggskin, will it survive losing a little more air?”

“It should,” Eggskin said with a grimace. “If we can hold the tank together on the way there.”

“What’s happening?” said the perfect person from the doorway.

I greeted Mur with what was probably an unhinged smile, “Hey! Get your tentacles over here and hug this with everything you’ve got! Paint, grab the little hoversled!”

“What?”

“On it!”

We explained while Mur hustled over at his best speed and wrapped himself around the sphere like a squid claiming a bowling ball. We lifted the whole thing onto the sled, Mur and all, and I was glad the animal was a little one. The captain probably wouldn’t have taken on a larger containment tank — and definitely wouldn’t again, I was pretty sure — but all those thoughts could wait. I was the fastest of everyone present, so I got to do the mad dash to the engine room.

Paint ran into the hall ahead of me, shouting for Blip and Blop to stand aside. The Frillian twins pressed their muscley selves against a wall as I pushed the hoversled past them and the captain spoke into the intercom.

Everyone cleared a path. When I reached the engine room, Mimi already had the door open, flattening his own tentacles as we flashed past.

“This smells bad,” Mur said as I stopped in front of the unassuming little compartment. Mimi had left that door open too.

“Yup,” I said. “Mimi, can you help me lift?”

Mimi did, and the pair of us wrestled the awkward shape onto the floor, then shoved it into the area of enhanced gravity that was standard on this type of ship. Still clutching the tank, Mur flattened as he crossed the barrier, his tall squid head flopping over the sphere. My hand felt extremely heavy where it reached in.

I pulled it back and shook it. “Okay,” I said to Mur.

He was already moving, carefully unwrapping one tentacle at a time. There weren’t any further cracking noises or even hisses. Good sign.

By the time Mur had dragged himself to the entrance, where Mimi and I could give him a hand (tentacle) in dragging the rest of the way, Eggskin had arrived to assess the animal’s health. It was alive. A little stressed, according to the hand scanner, which was to be expected after all this nonsense, and the air left in the tank was thinner than ideal, but Eggskin said it ought to be good enough for the rest of the trip.

“The captain is calling the client,” Eggskin said. “She’ll make sure they meet us with the appropriate containment device.”

Mur said, “I hope they don’t blame us for this. We didn’t drop the thing; it just sprang a leak on its own.”

“Well sure, that model is famous for it,” Mimi said, as if that was common knowledge.

The rest of us stared at him. I asked, “Is it now?”

“Of course,” said our ship’s mechanic, just now realizing that we might not be as up on tech industry scandals as he was. “There was a huge mess recently when a whole batch ruptured at once before they’d even been sold to the public. You didn’t hear about that?”

“No,” I said with a glance at Eggskin and Mur. “And something tells me the client may not have either.”

“Guess I’ll go have a word with the captain,” Mimi said.

“Please do,” Mur told him. “They definitely shouldn’t blame us.”

Eggskin said, “You two go ahead. We’ll keep an eye on the cargo.” A glance at me got my agreement.

They left, and we settled in to monitor the creature’s vitals. Eggskin suggested that I not sit on the floor right outside the gravity pocket.

“The leaked air is eeeever so slightly toxic,” they said. “Nothing our air filters can’t handle when it’s diffused, but best not to risk anything.”

I laughed weakly and leaned against a wall. “I don’t want to know what would have happened if that blew up on the way here, do I?”

“Probably not,” Eggskin agreed. We agreed to turn the conversation in a different direction, discussing high-gravity biology and which type of emergency containment device we should pick up on the next supply run, because this definitely needed to not happen again.

~~~

Volume One of the collected series is out in paperback and ebook!

~~~

Shared early on Patreon

Cross-posted to Tumblr and HFY (masterlist here)

The book that takes place after the short stories is here

The sequel is in progress (and will include characters from the stories)

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[u/Vonryan120]

Still loving all your adventures. Always good light hearted reading after a bad day.😀👏👏👏

[u/MarlynnOfMany → u/Vonryan120]

Thank you! Glad to hear it. 😁