James hated spaceships. And now here he was, being dragged through the corridors of one by a bearded hillbilly, breathing through what he was pretty sure were lungs filled with poison, with soaking wet clothes which were gradually stiffening. Never in his life had he imagined he’d wind up on one of these. He had, in fact, been trying to destroy this very ship. Sort of. He hadn’t actually known which specific ship would have been destroyed, but the fact was that if he had succeeded with his plan this ship would have gotten blown up, and now he was aboard it alternating between running and vomiting. It occurred to him how fully his initial feelings on spaceships were being confirmed.
They exited the first room they had been in- which James thought looked as much like a room aboard a spaceship as any room could possibly look- out into a hallway…where he immediately realized he had been wrong. The wall was a gigantic window, looking out on Malyria, which was in turn surrounded by empty space… a magnificent vista James had never, ever wanted to see. To add insult to this considerable injury, the windows were framed with brushed white metal and what looked like hundreds of little digital access panels. Red and green lights blinked in random patterns, threatening him from their tiny little faces. He would have thrown up again if there had been anything left inside him, but he had had a light breakfast which, all in all, he didn’t regret right now. He accidentally looked out the window again as the bearded behemoth continued half-dragging him down the hallway and realized that from this height Malyria was pretty ugly, nothing but brown swirls interrupted by toxic green swathes which he assumed were the farming regions but couldn’t actually be sure of because he had never really been out of his quadrant. He WAS sure it was ugly, and the view was just more reminder that he had never wanted to see it on this level anyway.
“Hey!” James shouted. They were moving at a fairly brisk pace and the fuzzface was much larger than he was. It made him feel disconcertingly like a child’s doll. “Hang on!”
The beard stopped and looked down, smiling like a real idiot. James had a feeling that was going to be happening a lot. He wasn’t sure he liked it all that much, but at the moment he didn’t have any options in the companion department and decided to get the necessary pleasantries out of the way.
“What’s your name?”
“Well it’s Gareth. Gareth Will. Thanks for asking.”
“Yeah, hello Gareth Will. Listen, first of all, I’m good to walk now, so you can let go.” The smile didn’t drop but James did, heavily and to the floor. Concern flashed across Gareth’s face, which James appreciated solely because it meant he wasn’t smiling literally every second. He waved a hand at the big man’s concerned attempts at assistance and pushed himself up off the ground.
“Now, where exactly are we going?”
“Figured I’d take yeh to Recruitment. That way we could make things official and get yeh some New Clothes. Gon’ freeze in about an hour if we don’t. Freeze again, mind.” And Gareth started laughing. Though the joke was directed at his failings, this was an aspect of things James could both appreciate the humor in and see the sense of. One thing, however, did concern him.
“Recruitment?”
“Yep. Ya work for Gasocorp and they give ya a uniform and food. All ya gotta do is work and try not to die. That second one’s more optional but I recommend it. Pretty good deal, all in.”
‘Try not to die.’ This didn’t sound encouraging to James, who was good at not dying but uninterested in having to prove it with any modicum of regularity. Dry clothes and food certainly sounded good though, so he didn’t argue as they continued down the insultingly spaceshipian hallway featuring the unavoidable vista of his incredibly ugly home planet toward (apparently) Recruitment.
