by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
With some degree of trepidation, Captain Carroway led her new first officer and most worrisomely dissatisfied officer off of the bridge towards The Wanderlust’s multi-purpose room. When they arrived, she announced, “I’m going to synthesize a cup of coffee. Does anyone else want something?”
Ensign Diaz narrowed her eyes but didn’t say anything. Commander Chestnut asked for a cup of eucalyptus tea sweetened with honey. Captain Carroway made a point of taking extra long fetching the coffee and tea from the synthesizer so that Chestnut and Diaz would have a moment to talk as they settled at a table on the opposite side of the room. She kept her ears pointed away from them, so it didn’t look like she was listening. But she was definitely listening.
Impatient with the situation, Ensign Diaz wasn’t willing to wait for better privacy to question and challenge her original captain. “What are you thinking? We’re not union,” the canine hissed under her breath at the golden-mantled squirrel.
“You want to get home, right?” Captain Chestnut chittered back at her softly. Diaz didn’t say anything in response, but she probably nodded. Carroway couldn’t see. But the squirrel continued on, talking fast and low: “Our chances of getting home are so much better this way. You didn’t hear what this cat was saying to me in private. She knows the union has problems, but she believes in its principles. She’s the kind of captain who will succeed at leading us home. I’m a warrior, not an explorer. If we’re going to make it out here for months or years without falling apart, we need someone in charge who sees the universe in the beautiful, deranged way this cat does. We need her as our captain.”
From what she’d seen so far, Captain Carroway was shocked that Commander Chestnut thought of himself as a warrior. What she’d seen so far was an extremely attuned, sensitive leader. He seemed more like a diplomat than a warrior to her, but then, she hadn’t seen him operating in the rebellion fighting around and on Lupinia. She didn’t know his background.
More importantly, now Captain Carroway knew why Commander Chestnut had agreed to work with her. She knew what he was hoping for and expecting from her. And it was something she could deliver. She didn’t need to worry about him turning on her, unless this was a very savvy way to misdirect her. And no matter how much respect Captain Carroway had already developed for the golden-mantled squirrel’s skills — he was definitely capable of such a complicated, subtle misdirect — she didn’t think the canine was capable of playing along. According to Chestnut, Diaz was brilliant, but Captain Carroway hadn’t seen evidence of it yet.
Figuring she’d given the squirrel and canine enough time to whisper to each other, Captain Carroway made her way over to the table with a coffee mug in one paw and eucalyptus tea in the other. She set the tea down in front of Commander Chestnut then sat down and took a sip of her coffee.
This was an extra cup of coffee, above and beyond what she’d thought — only this morning — she would ever get to experience, and that made the bitter elixir taste extra sweet on her tongue.
Over the next hour, Captain Carroway, Commander Chestnut, and Ensign Diaz hashed out sleeping arrangements, work shifts, and plans for both memorial services for Maple and Wilder and a promotion ceremony for practically everyone aboard. Without pushing too hard, Captain Carroway was able to arrange for Ensign Diaz to share one barracks room with Lt. Lee and Ensign Melbourne, keeping her under a close watch, while the other barracks room would have Lt. Cmdr. Vossie with Ensigns Werik and Risqua. Captain Carroway hoped that the Anti-Ra Morphican would be able to help her Morphican friend cope with his new situation, devoid of a computer implant. For even if Vossie’s implant turned out to be undamaged once they separated it from the fungal flesh growing over it, The Wanderlust simply didn’t have any officers up to the challenge of performing brain surgery.
Lt. Cmdr. Vossie would need to learn how to be a natural Morphican like Werik, whether he liked it or not. Captain Carroway was worried about her friend and what he was going to be facing — which now included losing his private quarters to Commander Chestnut. The Norwegian Forest cat was also sad that she no longer had her rabbit-like best friend right at her side, helping her navigate all of the strange things happening today. She’d never expected to be a captain without Vossie right by her side as first officer. That had always been their plan together. And no matter how much she liked this new golden-mantled squirrel, it simply wasn’t the same as commanding a spaceship side by side with her best friend.
Captain Carroway was going to need to make new friends. The Wanderlust was a long way from home, and its officers were going to need more than just working relationships to survive the ordeal they were facing. They were going to need to develop personal relationships as well, because there was no one else out here for them to rely on for friendship.
Today did not feel real. But it kept happening anyway.
The surrealness of Captain Carroway’s already bizarre day was about to grow exponentially.
Ensign Melbourne appeared in the open doorway of the multi-purpose room, white tail twitching behind him with an uncharacteristic nervousness. “Captain, I think you’d better report to the bridge.”
“Are the Anti-Ra officers’ uniforms ready?” Captain Carroway asked.
“Yes, Captain,” Ensign Melbourne meowed. “All except for one.”
“What do you mean?” Captain Carroway asked.
The white tomcat had already interrupted their planning meeting to scan Ensign Diaz, and she didn’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be able to have scanned both Werik and Risqua by now.
“Like I said… you should come to the bridge.” Ensign Melbourne’s tail started swishing more widely, showing his irritation with his captain’s reticence to do as asked.
Captain Carroway sighed. The Norwegian Forest cat had never liked it when subordinate officers told their captains they needed to come see something rather than just explaining what was going on. She’d always planned to hold a crew of her own to a different standard, but she was tired and didn’t feel like arguing with Ensign Melbourne in front of Ensign Diaz. The Norwegian Forest cat didn’t want to let the canine officer see any divide between her and the original Wanderlust officers, any crack the canine could try to drive a wedge into.
“Very well,” Captain Carroway meowed. “I think this meeting was over anyway.”
The Norwegian Forest cat followed her white tomcat officer back down the central corridor of The Wanderlust, and when she arrived on the bridge, she could immediately see why Ensign Melbourne hadn’t wanted to explain what was going on. She wouldn’t have believed him, not about any of it.
“What is that?” Captain Carroway asked before she could collect herself properly. Her eyes had immediately gone to where her injured friend, Lt. Cmdr. Vossie, had been stationed. He wasn’t on the bridge anymore, but something — or someone??? — else was.
The fungal flesh coating Lt. Cmdr. Vossie’s yanked-out implant had continued growing until it was almost the size of a small squirrel like Commander Chestnut. And as it had grown, the fungal mass had developed a more complicated shape, extruding from the amorphous glob it had begun as into the form of a vaguely anthropomorphic toadstool, complete with stubby little legs and arms coming out of its stalk and what looked like a face just beneath its pinkish cap, still connected by a shaggy beard of mycelial fibers to the console it was sitting on. Not set upon. Sitting on. Because the funny little toadstool creature was definitely that — a creature, not merely an object.
“I am a physical manifestation of The Wanderlust’s onboard AI,” the toadstool answered mushily, speaking from the fleshy mouth-like orifice on the underside of its mushroom cap-like head. It seemed to have a whole row of slit-like eyes, looking the bridge over and taking everything in.
Captain Carroway didn’t know how to feel about this. The Wanderlust was short on officers, but she hadn’t expected it to just start growing new ones because she happened to need them. There were all kinds of ethical ramifications going on here, and Captain Carroway didn’t feel at all equipped to handle them.
Though, the Norwegian Forest cat supposed that since this officer had grown directly out of The Wanderlust’s computer system, she could absolutely trust in its loyalty to the Tri-Galactic Union’s fundamental principles and the established chain of command aboard the ship. So, that would be useful.
Ethical ramifications could get sorted out later. For the moment, practicality won out, and when it came down to it, Captain Carroway didn’t really see an alternative to accepting this new fungal officer into her crew. It was here. It was acting alive. Its brain was her ship’s computer, which was already an essential part of The Wanderlust.
It was going to need a name.
“Do you have a name?” Captain Carroway asked the fungal officer.
“After analyzing my extensive archive of arts and literature,” the mushroom creature said, “it seems to me that Mike, short for Mycelial Mass, would be an appropriate and likable name for myself. Please use they/them pronouns for me, as I am technically an amalgamation of many mycelial neural sub-organisms. And thank you for asking!”
“Fine,” Captain Carroway meowed, musing that she seemed to be growing numb to surprises. “You can be an ensign too. Melbourne, please scan them and synthesize up another uniform for Mike here.”
Captain Carroway wondered just how funny a little mushroom guy was going to look wearing a Tri-Galactic Union uniform. It was about the strangest image she could imagine. And then she looked up at the viewscreen. She peered at it for what felt like a very long time, green eyes narrowing as she struggled to understand the shape she saw in the darkness. The viewscreen was mostly still black, but there was a shape in the middle that was a subtly different shade of black. It was oblong with sickle-like protrusions and a knob at one end.
The Norwegian Forest cat tried really hard to understand the dark shape on the viewscreen as something celestial, something that belong in the depths of outer space. Some sort of squashed planet or unusually shaped asteroid. But that wasn’t what it looked like. It looked like something else, something very specific, something that didn’t belong on The Wanderlust’s viewscreen.
The knobby part at the front looked like a head; the sickles looked like flippers; and the oblong shape looked like nothing more than a shell. At a complete loss, Captain Carroway meowed plaintively, “Why is there a silhouette of a sea turtle on my viewscreen? Is it some kind of practical joke?”
“I told you that you needed to come to the bridge,” Ensign Melbourne muttered, failing to provide any useful sort of analysis of what was going on. To his credit, though, he was busy scanning Mike to get a proper fit for the fungus’s uniform. It might be tricky to make a uniform fit a fungal officer. There’d never been one in the Tri-Galactic Union before.
Captain Carroway turned to look at Lt. Lee, hoping for a more enlightening response. The Papillon was now the star member of her crew, the officer she felt that she could most depend upon. However, his butterfly ears were splayed, and the expression on his pointy muzzle bespoke confusion and uncertainty. The poor fellow was out of his depth. They all were. Regardless, Captain Carroway needed a report from him. “Well, Lieutenant?” she pressed. “What is that? It can’t be a turtle. So what are we looking at?”
The Papillon looked at his captain hopelessly for a moment before turning to the reptile-bird beside him who was already wearing her new union uniform. Ensign Risqua squawked, “The object on our viewscreen is the closest object we’ve been able to find. Sensors show that it’s the size of a small moon, that it’s moving away from the Tetra Galaxy at a steady speed, and life sign readings for it are off the charts.”
“It’s populated?” Captain Carroway asked with wonder in her voice and delight in her eyes. Maybe they weren’t alone out here after all! She might get to make first contact with the people of the Tetra Galaxy! That kind of mission was what every Tri-Galactic Union captain dreamed about. “It must be a spaceship,” Captain Carroway announced, peering more closely at the silhouetted shape. That was the only explanation. A very large, intergalactic spaceship. It must have come from the Tetra Galaxy, meaning there was a highly advanced, space-faring civilization in that galaxy who could likely ease the difficulty of The Wanderlust’s journey home.
Not only could Captain Carroway make first contact with the people of the Tetra Galaxy, but also, by the time The Wanderlust made it all the way home, they’d be deeply familiar with the peoples whose society they spent months passing through. They would be experts, their hard-gained knowledge absolutely essential to the Tri-Galactic Union proceeding with diplomatic relations. Her position as captain was secure. And she’d be able to follow through on all the promises she was making to her crew — the field promotions, the sponsorship of their applications to the union. It would all work out.
“These readings are stronger than I’d expect for it being merely populated,” Lt. Lee woofed. “I think the object itself is alive.”
“A living spaceship?” Captain Carroway breathed between her fangs, absolutely delighted beyond all measure. “Set a course for it! Any people who can design such an impressive intergalactic spaceship should be able to help us get started on our journey. They’ll have maps and information, resources we might be able to borrow.”
Captain Carroway could tell she was getting ahead of herself, but she couldn’t help it. This news was far too exciting to stay even-keeled about it. The Norwegian Forest cat glanced around her bridge, making sure to read the reactions of all her crew members. Lt. Lee looked uncertain; Ensign Risqua was still unreadable to her, as was the new fungal officer, Mike. Ensign Melbourne looked cautiously excited, though he was on his way out of the bridge, presumably to synthesize another uniform. Commander Chestnut, who was standing in the back of the bridge by the entrance to the central corridor, looked deeply pensive. Vossie, Werik, and Diaz weren’t on the bridge, so Commander Carroway couldn’t gauge their reactions. Regardless, it seemed that her crew wasn’t going to object to her order. They didn’t look a fraction as excited and hopeful as she felt about the intergalactic living spaceship on their viewscreen, but then that was why she was the captain, not them. She could see the potential in this situation.
Continue on to Chapter 13…