Apollonia felt light-headed as the aide told her to follow him.
He was grim, and she wondered if the . . . thing . . . had spoken to her honestly. If it had even gotten a chance to talk to Captain Brooks.
Maybe she was being taken to the airlock. The Governor might be wanting to kill her rather than let her go.
Lord knew the man had hated her from the moment she’d come onto the station.
It was the same everywhere she’d been, though. People disliked her from the moment they met her. Just something about her – no matter how much she’d tried to overcome it, once people made their judgments they were hard to change.
They came to a juncture. To take the left path would lead to the more public docking stations. The right would lead to the more deserted airlocks. Where she could be disposed of quietly.
Part of her wanted to fight, to not go down easily.
But enough of her still wanted it to be over, to let the end come. She wouldn’t have the will to fight hard, to the bitter end.
She was almost disappointed as they went left.
Moments after, she felt a burning sense of fear that left her knees weak. The possibility of her own end was overwhelming, and yet it had been averted.
She heard a sound and looked over. She often heard them, but they were nothing – a literal figment of her mind.
But this time it was real. It was a person noticing her. He’d dropped the box he was carrying, and it had floated into the wall. He was just staring at her.
Another man stopped, looking first to him quizzically, but then his gaze was drawn to her. He leaned in to whisper something to his friend.
It didn’t even surprise her at this point. She smiled to them, a smile laced with threat, and they wilted away.
At least that part was amusing. Until people started throwing stones.
They were now in one of the busier parts of the station, an area she rarely had frequented. The brightness was exotic to her, and she looked around. Would the ship that Brooks commanded be like the colony? Smaller, maybe?
The aide stopped. “My instructions are to take you to this ship and observe you boarding. You are not to return to the colony.” He regarded her with a confused look. Part of him seemed to be drawn to her, another part seemed revolted.
“What about my belongings?” she asked.
“I was not informed of-“
“I’m kidding, I don’t own a damn thing.” She gave the man a look up and down. “Don’t worry, I’m never coming back to this shithole again.”
She went towards the ship – or rather, the docking hatch. The ship itself was on the other side of a thick wall that protected them all from the vacuum of the dock. The image of it was just projected.
It wasn’t a big ship at all. Did they really want her to live on that thing . . . ?
Going up to the airlock hatch, she wondered what she was supposed to do.
A voice came out. “Identify yourself,” a computer voice said.
“Uh . . . I’m Apollonia Nor. The Captain is expecting me.”
“You are not on the itinerary. One moment.”
The airlock door opened almost immediately, surprising her – but then she realized just what it was that had opened the door.
The thing that called itself Kell stood there, watching her impassively.
“Are you going to let me in?” she asked. He was blocking the way.
Without a word, the being turned and moved back in.
It didn’t push off anything. It simply moved . . . the body was an illusion. Real and physcial constructions, yet a lie. The true thing, the . . . Shoggoth . . . was nothing like it.
Slowly, she followed. The airlock door behind her closed and the one at the other end opened.
Brooks was there, looking surprised.
“Thank you, Ambassador,” he said with surprising calm to the being.
Part of her wanted to scream to him that he should be afraid of that thing, not act nice to it. But she didn’t voice the words. Too many people had said things like that about her for it to ever sit right with her.
“Captain,” she said. “I was brought here. Am I now your prisoner?”
“No,” Brooks assured her. “There’s no evidence to make any charges of murder stick in a real court. The Governor has asked that we take you off this colony – and we will do that. If you then decide you do not wish to join my ship’s crew, then we will be fine dropping you off wherever you wish when we next make port.”
She wasn’t sure she believed that. People generally were not this nice – unless they were pretending.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come along.”
It wasn’t like she had a choice.
Other Terrestrial 