Passage to Paradise Read online

  Passage to Paradise

  Carrie Hatchett, Space Adventurer #2

  J.J. Green

  This novel uses British spellings.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – Belligerent Bug

  Chapter Two – Paradise Revealed

  Chapter Three – Off to a Bad Start

  Chapter Four – A Poor Reflection

  Chapter Five – Trouble in Paradise

  Chapter Six – Revenge of the Squashpumps

  Chapter Seven – Uninvited Guest

  Chapter Eight – Apate Makes Herself at Home

  Chapter Nine – Down the Pub

  Chapter Ten – Apate’s Excursion

  Chapter Eleven – Resistance Is Not Futile

  Chapter Twelve – Double Trouble

  Chapter Thirteen – Rogue in Disgrace

  Chapter Fourteen – Inside the Dandrobian Mind

  Chapter Fifteen – The Penny Drops

  Chapter Sixteen – Carrie’s Mistake

  Chapter Seventeen – Dry as Dust

  Chapter Eighteen – Zombie Attack

  Chapter Nineteen – Dave’s Weak Spot

  Chapter Twenty – Faux Pas

  Chapter Twenty-One – Revelation

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Carrie Thwarted

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Squashpump Surprise

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Secret Message

  Chapter Twenty-Five – Out to Sea

  Chapter Twenty-Six – Window to the Past

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – Revelation

  Chapter Twenty-Eight – Carrie’s Struggle

  Chapter Twenty-Nine – Superhuman Race

  Chapter Thirty – Flight into Danger

  Chapter Thirty-One – Deceptive Appearances

  Chapter Thirty-Two – Surprise Arrival

  Chapter Thirty-Three – Rogue’s Rescue

  Chapter One – Belligerent Bug

  Carrie Hatchett was late. She was trying to find the room where she had been interviewed for her job as a Transgalactic Intercultural Community Crisis Liaison Officer, and the seam of her fluorescent orange jumpsuit was working its way uncomfortably high.

  She was walking alongside her colleague and friend, Dave. Dropping back a step or two, she stealthily tugged at the seam and jiggled her leg to ease the tension.

  “What are you doing?” Dave had turned and was watching her.

  “Nothing.” Carrie cleared her throat. “Now, where is that room?”

  “I thought you’d been here before?”

  “I have, but I kind of stumbled on the right place by accident. I can remember what it looks like from the outside, but I’m not sure how to get there.”

  They were in a set of cream-coloured ceramic tunnels that had large oval recesses embedded in the walls, floor and ceiling. Bordering each recess was a line of symbols, some black, some luminous, some flashing. They approached a recess that crossed their path and were forced to leap over it before taking a left-hand turn. The tunnel walls emitted a soft glow.

  “You know,” said Dave, “I shouldn’t have come along.”

  “It’ll be fine, honestly. Anyway, I need you. I really do.”

  Dave had accompanied Carrie on her previous—first—assignment, and she was sure she could not have succeeded without him. When the Transgalactic Council had contacted her about her next task, she had persuaded her friend to come with her to the briefing, though he was technically an ‘unauthorised companion’. Glancing at Dave’s profile, Carrie sighed. Dave was stunningly good-looking, but also—for her—disappointingly gay.

  He shook his head. “You’ve shown you can do the job. I’m sure you can manage.” He looked nervously from side to side. “Maybe there’s some way I can go back? I could feed Toodles and Rogue for you.”

  Carrie’s brow wrinkled. Dave knew as well as her that when they returned through the green mist that had conveyed them there from beneath her kitchen sink, no time would have passed. To Toodles, her sweet, affectionate cat, and Rogue, her lovable, handsome dog, it would be as though they had never left. Studying her friend’s face, Carrie saw beads of sweat, though the temperature was only pleasantly warm. She realised what the problem was. “Stop worrying. Gavin won’t hurt you, you know.”

  “I know, but...” Dave’s shoulders slumped and he swallowed. “You’ve got to admit...those eyes, and the j-j-jaws, with the extra set inside and razor sharp teeth, and the legs...He’s definitely got far too many legs. I mean, why does he need that many?”

  Gavin, Carrie’s manager in the Transgalactic Council, was a massive insectoid alien with ten pairs of legs, a bronze carapace and two sets of viciously sharp mandibles. At moments of high tension, his inner jaws had the unnerving habit of protruding several centimetres, and he had a poor understanding of the human need for personal space.

  Rolling her eyes, Carrie said, “Gavin’s lovely. You just have to get to know him.”

  Dave tugged at his shirt collar and grimaced.

  As always, he looked effortlessly stylish. He was wearing denim jeans, brogues, and a button down shirt under a crew neck pullover. Carrie looked down at her orange jumpsuit, the uniform for her role in the Transgalactic Council. The colour was intended to help Council officers stand out in conflict zones and mark them as neutral personnel with diplomatic protection. Carrie’s jumpsuit squashed her breasts to one homogeneous lump and the tight material neatly profiled her pot belly. The central seam had worked its way too high once more. She reached behind to pull it lower.

  Glancing at her, Dave said, “That jumpsuit’s too small for you.”

  “I know.”

  “Didn’t they have a bigger size?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Then why didn’t you—”

  “Because I’m on a diet,” Carrie said between her teeth. She sighed and tilted her head. “I thought it would fit me when I lost a bit of weight, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Dave, raising his eyebrows.

  “Wait, is this it?” The symbols alongside a recess looked familiar. One was a black circle above a triangle with two long rectangles below, like the symbol for the women’s restroom. Carrie slipped her bag off her shoulder and put it down. The bag was her Transgalactic Council Officer ‘toolbox’ and held a translator, magnetic field neutraliser, briefing screen and other useful devices.

  Carrie rubbed her palms together, then lightly rested one hand on the surface of the recess. Nothing happened. “Maybe not.” She put her hands on her hips.

  “Come on, Carrie,” said Dave. “Don’t you have any idea where this room is? We’ve been here for ages. We’ll be wandering around forever at this rate.”

  She looked up and down the corridor. Dave was right. Their situation was difficult. The tunnels were endless and she did not know where they were nor how they could get back to the place where they had entered. Not that it would do any good to retrace their steps. The green mist that transported lifeforms between worlds always disappeared within a few minutes, and only authorised Transgalactic Council staff could open the gateways. Carrie was not high enough in the Council to have the authority.

  She needed to find Gavin soon because he would be wondering where she had got to. Though he was far nicer than his appearance suggested, he was still her boss and he would not be pleased about being kept waiting. “Right. Let’s go this way.” She set off decisively.

  “That’s the way we just came.”

  She halted mid-stride and about-f
aced. “Okay, this way then.”

  Dave rolled his eyes as he followed her. Traces of a rich, complex, spicy scent appeared in the air. As they walked on, the odour grew stronger. It seemed to be coming from the area they were approaching.

  “Can you smell something?” asked Carrie.

  Dave sniffed deeply as they turned a tight bend. “Yes, it’s kind of musky, like a—” Before them loomed a huge, twenty-legged, razor-jawed, bronze-shelled alien. “Whoa.” Stumbling back, Dave grabbed the wall to steady himself.

  “Gavin! Great to see you again,” said Carrie.

  The head of the massive alien insect turned from vertical to horizontal, and the spicy scent grew stronger. Antennae quivered on the wedge-shaped head as its ten pairs of legs were set in motion. The bug approached Carrie, its inner jaws protruding until they were centimetres from her face.

  “G-Gavin?” said Carrie, taking a step backwards.

  Bobbing up and down, the creature advanced, forcing Carrie to continue her retreat. Its one hundred eyes blinked, transparent membranes flashing over their surfaces, and its antennae weaved to and fro.

  “Carrie, are you sure...?” asked Dave as they retreated around the bend in the corridor. He reached out and clutched her arm. “Are you sure Gavin’s okay?

  “Errm, now that you come to mention it...”

  The scent became a reek. Carrie covered her mouth and nose as she gagged. The alien increased its pace and so did Carrie and Dave, walking in reverse so quickly they were nearly running. As the creature’s inner jaws flashed out, Dave cracked. He turned and sped off down the tunnel. Carrie was not slow to follow, wondering what was wrong with her boss as she ran. Why doesn’t he say something? His English is great.

  The seams of Carrie’s jumpsuit tugged painfully as she ran, and she cursed her idiocy in choosing a size that was too small. On the floor ahead was her Transgalactic Officer’s toolbox. She had left it behind after trying to open the recess, and her friend was heading straight for it.

  “Dave—” she called, too late. In his blind panic, he didn’t see the bag. He tripped over it, landing sprawling on the floor. Carrie stopped to help him. As she tugged on his arm to pull him to his feet, the alien caught up, its massive form overshadowing them.

  Dave’s muscles relaxed under Carrie’s grip. “Oh, okay,” he said. Unfastening Carrie’s fingers from his arm, he turned to her. “It’s all right.” His foot was caught on the handle of her handbag. He disentangled it and fished inside the bag. “Here,” he said, handing her the translator, “I think you need this.”

  Chapter Two – Paradise Revealed

  “What is the meaning of this behaviour?” A voice resounded in Carrie’s mind. She had taken the translator from Dave and was gripping it tightly, her other arm linked with her friend’s to provide the contact that meant he, too, would hear the translator’s broadcast. The two humans sat close, knees raised, while the bronze insect loomed over them. A dribble of mucus from the creature’s mouth hit the floor. Carrie squirmed and eased away from the splatter as it steamed.

  Looking up from beneath, Carrie noticed for the first time that Gavin had an opening at the centre of his abdomen, surrounded by soft tissue and leading to darkness within.

  “I’m sorry, Gavin, I didn’t expect you to talk to me with pheromones, I—”

  “Gavin? Who is this Gavin?”

  Carrie frowned. “But...aren’t you...?”

  The alien loomed closer, until its knife-like inner mandibles were filling Carrie’s field of vision. “I will ask you once more. To whom are you referring? I know no one of that name. And who is this other human accompanying you? Who gave you permission to bring him with you? Are you aware of the laws regarding the use of transgalactic gateways? I authorised only one entity. Why are there two of you?” The jaws retracted and the head lowered and tilted, bringing the multitude of eyes within an inch or two of Dave’s face, which turned a ghostly white.

  “C-C-Carrie, I did say this wasn’t a good idea.”

  Carrie squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed. “Right, let’s sort this out. Come on,” she said to Dave, grabbing his arm and pulling him up as she rose to her feet. Recalling Gavin’s cultural misunderstanding of the human need for body space, she said, “Would you mind stepping back a bit, please? You’re crowding us.”

  The insect shuffled marginally backwards, and Carrie and Dave simultaneously exhaled.

  “Gavin,” said Carrie, “what’s going on? Why aren’t you speaking English?”

  A vanilla odour crept into the spicy scent and the creature’s head reverted to vertical. Its antennae became still. “I believe I understand your mistake, though it is hardly credible. You imagine me to be your former manager.”

  Carrie’s eyes widened. “You aren’t Gavin?”

  Antennae wildly waving, and bobbing up and down on its long spider-like legs, the bug said, “If that was the Earth name of your previous manager the answer is no, I am not him. Of course I am not. Do you have some kind of visual sense dysfunction? I had heard that humans had excellent eyesight. Are you unable to perceive the clear difference between myself and your former manager? ”

  Peering at the creature’s head, body and many legs, Carrie said, “Umm...no?”

  The creature scuttled around, turning full circle.

  “Ow,” exclaimed Carrie, and unfastened Dave’s vice-like grip on her arm.

  The spicy vanilla odour became laced with a growing stink. “I am female,” spat the creature.

  In the following pause, a flush crept up Carrie’s cheeks. “Whoops, sorry.”

  The bug turned away and reached out, touching a recess in the floor with a claw. “We will speak further in here,” she said as the door melted away and she disappeared through the entrance.

  Carrie peeped over the edge and down into the room below. The drop was about two metres, but there seemed no other option but to follow. She sat down, dangling her legs beneath her, and lowered herself down as far as she could before jumping the rest of the way.

  Dave followed and landed heavily next to her. “Ouch,” he said as he stood uncertainly, rotating his ankle. “I think I twisted it.”

  Inside the room the lighting was dim, and the insect’s many eyes glimmered in the glow from the passageway above. Carrie held the translator out to Dave and they gripped it together. The alien seemed to have forgotten Carrie’s earlier request for some body space. As she approached them closely once more the two humans moved backwards until they could go no further, their backs pressed against the wall.

  “Your confusion results from your expectations,” said the alien. “My name is Errruorerrrrrhch.” A stench of rotting fish filled the air.

  “I—I’m sorry,” said Carrie.

  “I said my name is Errruorerrrrrhch.”

  “No, I heard you, I just...never mind.”

  “You expected to meet the manager who formerly held responsibility for your assignments, but he is investigating the threat posed by the placktoids.

  “For the foreseeable future you are under my management, and I can see that you require close supervision. Your previous manager was unreliable and I doubted his glowing recommendation from the outset. I see my suspicions have been confirmed. Your failure to perceive the clear differences in appearance between myself and him are evidence of poor observational skills. You will need to work hard to remedy this.

  “You were also so late in attending our meeting that I was forced to roam the corridors to find you. Thirdly, you have brought with you an unauthorised companion. Your previous manager informed me of this human, but I did not give permission for him to attend your briefing. He is not to accompany you again. Unauthorised persons moving through gateways is a serious transgression of transgalactic law.”

  “I told you,” murmured Dave.

  “Now that I have given you your formal warnings, I will explain the nature of your forthcoming assignment, though I am uncertain of your ability to complete this task.”

&nb
sp; Carrie’s heart sank. All her life she had failed at her jobs, but she’d thought she was beginning to turn the corner. Her work as a call centre supervisor was going quite well, and she thought she’d made a great impression in her first assignment for the Transgalactic Council. Now it looked as though her new manager had a low opinion of both Gavin and her. She sighed. Just as things were starting to improve she was back to square one.

  Dave nudged her. “Wow, look at that.”

  Beyond the alien bug’s imposing body, in the centre of the shadowy room, a hologram was forming. A wide landscape spread out. A snow-capped mountain range, surrounded by deep blue, wide lakes that disappeared into the horizon. Lush, verdant trees and plants cloaked the mountainsides up to the snow line, and on the lake beaches were tiny figures. The hologram zoomed in and showed people frolicking, laughing and chasing each other along the shore, swimming in the clear, turquoise water and relaxing on the sand.

  “This is the planet Dandrobia, the site of your next assignment” said Errruorerrrrrhch.

  “They’re aliens?” blurted Dave. “They look like us.”

  “Your observation is correct. The dandrobians’ resemblance to humans has been noted and widely studied as a remarkable example of convergent evolution.”

  Carrie recalled the beautiful Belinda, the stuck-up bank manager Gavin had called in to replace her when she wasn’t doing too well on her first assignment. Belinda had said she was half-dandrobian. Gazing at the idyllic scene, Carrie became lost in thought. What a wonderful place. I wonder what it would be like to live there?

  Her insect boss’ tone cut through her musings. “Dandrobia is a prison planet.”

  “Prison?” said Carrie. Prison? What had the dandrobians done to get sentenced to confinement on their home planet? As a Transgalactic Council Officer, after ten years’ service she could retire to the world of her choice. Dandrobia. She made a mental note of the name and wondered if they allowed dogs and cats.