Spaceship Down

By Beverley Spencer

Treat never asked to be dragged across the galaxy from one survey station to another. She hates hyperspace travel and she despises being forced to get along with other unwilling “space brats.”
Take Rafe, for instance. There’s something seriously wrong with the guy, pointing a gun at her like this. Here they are, crash-landed, adults dead, no radio, not enough food. But they’re on a living world!
On such a world, resourceful space brats might find food, water, shelter. In fact, they might survive. If they can deal with the aliens, and they don’t kill each other either.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beverley Spencer
• Release date: Dec 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9780993953217

Beverley Spencer

Beverley Spencer first became fascinated with writing during high school and soon developed into an amateur singer-songwriter. After some years as a free-lance writer of articles for newspapers and magazines, Beverley began to write novels. One of her books was nominated for the Silver Birch Award.

Book preview

SPACESHIP DOWN

by

Beverley Spencer

Smashwords Edition

Spaceship Down

Copyright ã 1993 by Beverley Spencer

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

ISBN 978-0-9939532-1-7

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

About the Author

Other Books by Bev Spencer

Chapter 1

Treat yawned hugely. She ran her tongue over her teeth, which seemed to be covered with old woolen socks.

Why can't they train a computer to deliver the really important things – like a toothbrush, she mumbled.

Good, her tongue was in working order. Treat considered that her best feature. And she could hear herself speak. That meant her ears were working too. Three working parts! She must be alive.

She opened her eyes. A computer panel pulsed above her head, obviously wearing its little chips out, monitoring her heartbeat, respiration and brainwaves. Unpleasant chemicals had just revived Treat from cryogenic sleep – a condition known affectionately among space brats as Deep Freeze. Across the small circular chamber, two other children hung in harnesses, like so many electric sardines. Electrodes and tubes connected their bodies to the thick walls. Other harnesses hung empty.

Yup, here she was, in the survival pod of an Alliance spaceship. Treat wished fervently that the computer hadn't thawed her out yet. She didn't care much for the view.

There wasn't a space brat in the Seven Sectors who would admit to knowing the meaning of the word rear, and Treat was no exception. She hated being in space. She hated cryogenic sleep – chemicals shunting consciousness down into a deep pit where most bodily functions were suspended, and a computer decided how much spit you were allowed. In a galaxy where it took months or even years to get anywhere, Deep Freeze was the only practical way to travel. That didn't make it pleasant.

Treat despised everything about space travel: the lift-off procedures, where a single false move would turn the ship into a fireball; the heavy g-forces which, if not handled properly, could mash a brain like a ripe banana; the cold vacuum between the stars, where a pinhole in the ship could burst a set of lungs like an old water balloon.

But if asked, she would say it was a piece of cake.

So when she woke up, to the hum of computer circuitry and the sting of needles and the cold vastness of outer space, she thought about her teeth. Yes, they were fuzzy. Her whole mouth felt disgusting, to be honest.

Once there had been a place where existence didn't depend on luck and technology, on keeping your wits about you every second of the day, where you didn't need a pressure suit and a breather, canned water and synthetic food. Once there had been a planet lush and green, with turquoise oceans and crowds of laughing children. Earth. Home. But Treat didn't dare think about that now. There was a saying among space brats: Stay alert or get hurt – permanently!

If it were up to Treat, she would never have left. Earth to begin with, let alone spent the last six years flitting about the galaxy with a bunch of survey scientists. Yet, in spite of her feelings, here she was again, hurtling toward some unexplored planet in a Quaddro 10 survey spaceship.

On the other side of the pod someone groaned. Since the computer wasn't capable of feelings – good or bad – the groan probably came from one of the boys.

Two boys! Of all the rotten luck. Why couldn't Treat have shipped out with at least one girl her own age? That never seemed to happen, though statistically . . .

Another groan. That was definitely the older boy. What was his name? Oh yes, Rafe. Treat wondered briefly whether she would be able to talk to him.

Space brats had very little practice in talking to anyone remotely human. Survey scientists didn't count – usually their conversation consisted of instructions to pass the slide.

Even if Rafe was decent company (and the signs were not good – in their brief contact before Deep Freeze he had been a darkly sarcastic boy), Treat might not remember how to have a real conversation. It had been a long time. A long time since Earth – sunshine, waffles on Sunday mornings, friends.

Once, there had been a younger girl on a survey with Treat who was almost human. They had found ways to laugh. That was almost worse. For six months they had relaxed, learning the twists and curves of another person's moods, fitting together better each day. Then their parents had been assigned to different ships. Treat would never see Erin again.

That was why most space brats found it better to forget how to talk to other kids – though they never stopped wanting to try.

Go ahead, Treat told herself. You never know.

"I said, my teeth feel like moldy bread, and taste even worse. Must have forgotten to brush them last night."

Talking always took Treat's mind off less comfortable topics, like potential explosions of eyeball and lung.

We've been in Deep Freeze for seven months, and all you can talk about is your teeth? Rafe rasped. Clever.

This was not a good beginning.

"You have no idea how important teeth can be: Treat said lamely. A minute later she thought of a stunning answer. It was amazing how brilliant she could be about five minutes too late.

"I think I remember where the sani-kits are" Treat said.

She swatted at a few buckles, determined to get up and find a toothbrush.

Rafe grimaced. Try walking now and you'll fall on your face. It takes a full hour for the body to recover its reflexes after cryogenic sleep. Don't you know that? Rafe gave the impression he was talking to a mentally deficient infant.

Of course Treat knew that! A space brat of two knew that! But protesting her intelligence now would only make her seem more stupid.

Treat hated waiting in the suspensor harnesses for the hour after thaw. Waiting had a tendency to make her think and thinking was dangerous.

In fact, Treat's body was doing what it wanted to do now, not what Treat wanted it to do – just as Rafe said. Treat was developing a deep dislike for him.

Yes, concentrate on Rafe now, not on the zero pressure a few short inches from your face.

This is my last trip out, Treat told herself. After this, no more Deep Freeze space travel. No more extended stays on desert planets without palm trees and fork-tailed catfish and silver surf. No more years spent with peculiar scientists and their even more peculiar children – different ones each year! In six months I'll be old enough to say what I want, and I want my own seaside shack on Earth, the shack Mom and I built together on the Australian beach: palm trees crowding next to the white sand lagoon; races with friends out to the sand spit (would they even remember me?); reef-diving and clam-digging and swims in the luminous night-time pools. Oh yes, and miles and miles of blue sky and sweet-smelling air overhead, air that had never seen the inside of a bottle.

I want to go home.

Besides, my stepfather will be glad to get rid of me. He can't stand me. He just brings me with him on these surveys because it's cheaper than putting me in a boarding school! If Mom were still alive . . .

That's what happens when you can't get to a toothbrush. All sorts of dangerous thoughts slide in through the cracks in your brain.

So where are you from? Treat asked Rafe.

None of your business, girl

What