Interstellar Caveman by Karl Beecher

Author:Karl Beecher [Beecher, Karl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2019-11-18T22:00:00+00:00

25

The metallic roof of the spaceport hangar split into segments and opened up like a blooming flower. Through the gap descended the Ceti ship.

Spudge watched it lower towards its assigned landing bay. What a beautiful sight: a Guinel-Simova Lightfoot in chrome. They didn’t make them like that anymore. Sleek, rounded, she looked like a giant silver hamburger, right down to the warp field accelerator, the dark band that bulged out the middle of the hull like a beef patty.

Other apprentices of Spudge’s age made fun of him for liking those old, foreign ships. For them, new was all that mattered. But, as he would always reply, when you finally get something right, why change it?

The whir of the landing jets echoed around the huge hangar’s grey walls as the Lightfoot lowered the final few metres towards the ground, kicking up some dust in the process. The ship finally touched down, and her engines cut out, leaving only the sound of the breeze outside brushing along the hangar’s exterior.

Ah well, thought Spudge. No time to waste admiring the lady’s curves. Back to work.

From his tool belt, he grabbed the roster, a sturdy handheld computer that logged everything about the ships arriving and departing Procya.

“SS Turtle: check,” he muttered to himself, tapping at the screen and filling in the various forms for registering a ship’s arrival. “Arrival time: check. Assign job to Apprentice Technician Spudge: check…”

A moment later, he heard the ship’s airlock. Spudge looked up and saw a door opening in the hull and an exit ramp lowering. Two passengers emerged from inside and began to descend the ramp.

Spudge’s eyes were drawn immediately towards the figure in front: a woman, but not the sort of woman seen on Procya. For one thing, she was wearing her hair down instead of in a tight bun, letting her long red locks flow over her shoulders. She was dressed in sturdy, masculine clothes: trousers, boots, and a canvas jacket over a t-shirt. Spudge was used to seeing women wearing modest dresses that buried their bodies in several layers. He was reminded of something he’d only recently learned: women’s bodies were actually curved in oddly pleasing ways.

He was getting that funny feeling again, the tingly one that made his palms moist and his heart beat a little faster. It was the feeling that was supposed to have been explained to him at some point but never had. For a couple of years now, Mama had been pestering Papa to have something known only as ‘the talk’ with him, but when she did Papa always rolled his eyes and slipped away, muttering about how he had to mend the drains or put up a shelf. After one particularly insistent pestering, Papa had mentioned something to him along the lines of “don’t touch it, or it’ll fall off.” Spudge’s first thought had been that Papa was talking about the new picture frame he’d put up, but certain experiences since then had suggested other interpretations.

Out of habit, Spudge averted his gaze, even though the woman hadn’t even noticed him yet.

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