The Thing in the vents that eats people

5

I get my backpack back within a few hours, it had no radiation so the rather relaxed med bay hands it over. Then I make my way to my bunk, which is just like it sounds, a cubby with a floating sleeping bag, and a little light.
My mother's journals are all I need, all on her tablet. She had a comprehensive study of most non-human species on there. Of course she was most devoted to mine. But right now I need information on the Kestryls.
"Kestryls are two to five ton tentacled creatures, similar to the octopi on the planet Earth—means nothing to me mom," I mutter, reading along. "Kestryls can change shape but not form, fitting into impossibly small spaces such as boxes, pipes—and vents."
It is undoubtedly in the vents.
"How do you kill them?" I mutter, flipping through pages. Can I do it? Myself? I really don't want to I'm very very scared of it. But while I wouldn't personally mind finally dying, I can't let all these people die. I can do something. So I have to try.  Of course I and it can survive outside the space craft, if I lured it outside maybe in front of the engines?
"One of the most sure ways is to expose the Kestryl to high temperatures, over 200 degrees centigrade. This can burn their skin causing irreparable damage, however death from burns can take up to a week—."
A few minutes later I'm bursting into the comms room again. Weaver doesn't seem to care I can get in and out, and this time he does not react half so violently.
"What temperature do the engines burn at?" I ask closing the door behind myself.
"It's cold nuclear reactors, Van Helsing, you can't burn up the thing in the vents that eats people," he's tipped back in the chair, dropping cheetos in to the air and eating them with tongs.
"Damn it," I say frowning, then "Why did you re-name me? I liked my first name."
"What?"
"You called me Candy before," I say.
"I didn't NAME YOU. I told you I don't own things. You are not my pet," he scoffs.
I'm quiet. I liked that name.
"Also, you didn't tell me your name, ever. And I couldn't find you on the manifest for the Eurydice so I just assume you're a stow away but that's cool because we're all gonna die."
"Oh," I say.
"This is the part where you tell me your name so I can call you that instead of whatever comes to mind, Candy."
"You can call me Candy I like it," I say, quietly.
"But you do have a name? That your parents gave you? That you're legally recognized by?" Weaver spins a little.
"I—," I'm supposed to find my name. It's different for everyone. "What's your name?"
"Weaver," he points to his name tape.
I nod.
"So what's your name?"
I shrug, not wanting to charm it away yet unable to bring myself to make something up. If I lie then I'll be called the lie forever. And I don't want that.
"Fine, I'm just gonna call you fucking Candy then, Jesus Christ, you're fucking weird."
"You're locked in a control room with a cat and more candy than you can eat in your very short life," I say, angry now.
"Never said I wasn't fucking weird," completely immune to my annoyance. That makes me even more angry.
"Have fun hunting the thing in the vents that eats people," in a sing-song voice, as I leave.
I have a thing in the vents that eats people to find.
But what to do with it once I find it? I float around the rec deck. As it happens, a decent number of passengers seem to believe in the thing in the vents that eats people, so Weaver's announcements are not in vain.
But a lot of people don't seem to care. Children play in the grassy area, flipping on gyms and learning to navigate in 0-g. I'm one of the few in uniforms just floating about, most of the military it seems change into civvies if they're not on duty.
Weaver gives helpful updates via the comms. When he's not making official announcements regarding the time (doesn't really matter, we're in space, time is meaningless), or specials at the club (the club turns out to be like a nice mess that the passengers can pay for), he updates us on apparent location of the thing in the vents that eats people, and offers alternate routes to avoid it, and announces the missing. Any other time he is either performing or playing pre-recorded music. He does this whenever he is supposed to be announcing something he considers dumb like 'weather', or 'traffic' or 'Admiral's quote of the day'. 
Everyone seems to take these announcements as a matter of form, and when it is announced that the thing in the vents that eats people is likely to be in the passageway from the galley to the bunks, a significant number of people don't seem to care. They also don't care to ask who I am before giving me their unsolicited opinion.
"Oh you don't really believe the propaganda that there's something in the vents eating people?"
"It's all to make the crew look good, like they're saving us."
"Haven't—-haven't people actually been disappearing though?" I ask.
"People do die."
"Yes I don't know who half of those people are anyway, they're probably saying it to boost their numbers."
Me: "isn't that blood smeared on the wall."
"Pretty sure that was always there."
I make it back to my room safely, half hoping this will all be a dream. I mean, I know it won't be, but for now I can pretend so I can go to sleep. I don't know or care what time it is, time has no meaning in space, nor does day or night, those are just human things that are of no consequence here. I sleep when I'm tired. When I smaller, I would curl up on one of my mother's backs, just cling to them, while they went about their chores, listening to their heartbeats, until I was peacefully asleep leeching warmth from them. I get cold when I sleep. I don't think that's a species thing. I think that's a me thing. My mother couldn't find it replicated in any others that she studied.
When I was first found, my mother left me in the lab like she was supposed to. Then of course I cried and was very sad, and she noticed the moment she took me out of my cage to study me, I tried to curl up in her arms or on her back to fall asleep. That was when she found out I'd imprinted on her already. From then on, she took me out more and more often, until eventually I could just ride on their backs around the whole ship as they went about their day.
But now the closest I can get to loving arms or a heartbeat is my mother's journal. Her writings, and pretending she's reading aloud to me. It's not much. It's not enough. But it's all I'm going to get right now, I'm aware.
I curl up with the tablet, zipping myself tightly into the sleeping bag so I can pretend it's a hug. Pretending doesn't work but.  It's all I have.
I turn on the tablet, flipping to the sections on me. I need to know as much as I can. I'm alone here she's not around to tell me about myself or my species and I already don't know how soon I'll be hungry again or how long I can go without the sugar or if this air is all right for me to breath.
I also don't know how long I can go without bonding to something.
Changelings, while parasitic, in general seem to develop empathetic bonds with their chosen hosts. In fact, out of all of those studied, a rare few seem to use the charms vindictively, or at least more vindictively than can be forgiven. The current subject has used charms to obtain extra sweets or access me, but that is forgiven as the subject is clearly a juvenile acting out similar to the manner in which human children learn to lie or deceive parents. The majority of the subjects show no ill will, and in fact upon peaceful communication were of easily human level intelligence. Our juvenile can replicate human speech beautifully, and has shown not only critical thought but debate when posed with questions or options in complex games.
All the adults seem eager to attach to a host or set of hosts, going little time between hosts. They do not seem eager to leave a host either even if a more profitable one becomes available, implying an emotional connection exists as well as a pragmatic one. Juveniles bond to parent or parents, as the creatures reproduce parthenogenesis, they only have one biological parent, though some changelings are inter-bonded. More often than not, though, the changelings bond to a host of another species prior to conceiving their offspring. We shall see with time when our juvenile seeks its own host, as it seems to have attached to us as parents.
The juvenile hopefully can maintain a bond with researchers, as the last attempt to reunite one with it's own kind on a planet went terrible wrong. It seems when the creatures are born in deep space any amount of gravity proves fatal. Twice we have lost specimens carelessly bringing them back to Earth, other research has proven that if a bond is in place the specimen may survive, however I don't intend to test it with this little one.
Well I need my own host, now. And unfortunately everyone on this ship is either crazy or—well I guess crazy covers it. That cat was nice. But it already had a host so it probably wouldn't like me.
I sniffle, wiping tears from my eyes. I miss my moms. I want to go home, to the research ship. Even to my little cage where they had to leave me sometimes. Usually my mama would come and rescue me as soon as her shift ended. I would have curled up, sobbing, the necklace pressed in the palm of my hand, and she'd pick me up and tuck me against her chest, and let me listen to her heartbeat. I can't fall asleep without the sound of a heartbeat, a nice soft pulse, and the swish of blood, the steady moist rasp of human lungs contracting and expanding.
But the other bunks are only half occupied now and I don't know anyone here. Basically. That Admiral introduced himself but he wasn't nice and he surely wouldn't like me showing up at his quarters to ask to sit and listen to him breath. Nobody likes that. That's why I'm supposed to charm my way into it, but I don't want to do that. I mean I do in that I want it to happen but I don't in that I know my mothers taught me the charm is wrong especially if I'm just using it to make people do things for me. It's okay if I'm in danger or something. But they worked really hard to teach me how to be human and how to pass as a human I don't want to use the charm the first night.
But I can't sleep and I need to sleep and I'm cold and I can't sleep alone and I'm scared and I only know one person and that person probably hates me. Well. Probably.
I slip back up to the comms room, minding the vents and using service ladders which are smaller, but have fewer ducts. I still remember the code for the comm room, so I swipe my finger down the card slot, unlocking the hatch for myself.
"Do you hate me?" I ask Weaver, as I float in, hauling the big door closed behind me.
"With the burning passion of ten thousand suns," he says, without missing a beat or turning around. But his pulse is steady and slow, not fast like he's mad I'm here. Of course, he watches the cameras. He knew I was coming.
"Okay," I say, picking up his cat and cuddling it. It immediately starts purring.
"Couldn't sleep? You didn't try very long," he drawls, floating in front of the screens and tapping one idly to change the camera location.
"I miss my moms," I say, quietly, floating in the farthest corner where I can still hear his steady heartbeat.
He grunts sympathetically,  I think. Heartbeat still slow and sure, soft and melodic. I know it's rhythm almost. One, two, three, then it sort of jumps, then a fourth. Wait. The human hearts aren't supposed to skip like that.
"Are you military?" I ask, surely they checked.
"Yeah," pushing himself off the table to another set of screens, "Why?"
"No reason," then he probably knows. I wonder if I can pull his medical file? "How many tours did you say you had?"
"Five."
I frown, "How old are you?"
"If you're looking to sell my organs that's been done," he scoffs.
"What?" I ask. I thought humans liked their organs.
"I'm from Earth. Rich people who don't trust the cyborgs bits, or who already have too many cyborg bits to replace their faulty bits, buy healthy organs from young people who have good ones. What did you grow up in a box, Candy? Nobody ever told you that?" He scoffs.
"No—I mean, yes I kind of did grow up in a box," I say, thinking of my safe little cage where I could almost hear my mother's heartbeat all the way in the ship's quarters.
"Lucky you I guess?" He shrugs, "But they got you all fixed up huh? I guess if your parents didn't believe in the natural transplants, went for machine."
"I guess," I say, diplomatically. The fewer lies the better. But this is really disgusting me. Like really. "That's what you did? You sold your organs?"
"I didn't. Family did. When you're ten you're eligible for most kids. Five surgeries," he says, tapping his chest, "First was heart, that's one of the more expensive. It's not too bad I just got one with an arrhythmia, it isn't even gonna do anything to me considering I'm gonna die in the next few months. Then after that one kidney, those are cheap you only need one, and two bone marrow transplants, and then a whole mess of skin grafts—-shit I miss counted also just took the spleen, didn't trade that one out, heart I got the defective one. So six—make that seven. Eye." He taps his eyes, one a very dark brown, the other a creamy pale blue. "Just one. Needed to pay for school.  That was just some rich dude, I didn't get a bad one in replacement so that was something. There now you know more than you need to about how poor people feed their families and by families I mean drug addictions."
"The military still took you?" I know my mama had to undergo all sorts of flight tests.
"If they disqualified for this shit they wouldn't have enough dumb bastards to launch into space. You think this is a desirable job, Candy?" He scoffs, "Bullshit. It's surprising I didn't die out here sooner. This universe is gonna kill me hell of a lot sooner than garbage organs will."
"Maybe not," if I can kill the thing in the vents that eats people he can get to Alpha Centari. "What would you do? If you got to Alpha Centari?"
"Probably sign up for another dredge to earth. I'm at my contract, they go in fives—I'm not good for much else, and the colonies don't want people like me. They're all—whatever. They want to pretend what happens on Earth didn't happen, they like everything real neat, clean, conservative, it's not my style. Also I can't afford Alpha Centari, after room and board and medical care, then I'm kind of something very close to broke? I might be able to get a tablet which I need. I'll be lucky if I can pay the fines on the damn cat."
"But what would you want to do though? If you had the choice? Like you didn't have to go to space again to make the money?" I ask, cocking my head. His voice, however sarcastic most of the time, is soothing and I'm feeling relaxed and sleepy listening to the odd beating of his second hand heart. "Would you go back to Earth?"
"Fuck no," he scoffs. It's probably a stupid question. Of course I've never been to any of these planets. "You're talking if they give me a goddamn medal and pension of being this awesome all the time or some fantasy like that?"
"Yeah," I say, cocking my head.
"Probably stay on Alpha Centari, or one of the outer rim Goldilocks where it's less stuck up—but like out in the forest some place. In a cave or shit, just like one of those tree houses, where you see the sun everyday, look at the trees, maybe some water. I've never seen a waterfall, or a lake, but I learned how to swim when I was on Earth, but those pools were mucky, dirty, grey water you couldn't see if people were in it or not. They say it's clean out there, clear. I'd be far away from everybody, and everything, not have to talk to or see people, live what's left of my life in the sun. What's left isn't so long, by the way. Garbage, used heart remember?" He scoffs.
"I like it—I mean don't call it that it's yours now."
"Had it longer than the original," he scoffs, "Doesn't mean it works right."
"Can't they—treat it? I mean there are doctors—,"
"Can't afford a cyborg heart, don't want one. Would accept pills, can't afford them either, ergo one day I'll just die. That's fine Candy, everybody does," he says.
"Surely you could find a low cost doctor?" I feel like I've overheard people talking about that sort of thing.
"Find. I think I have mentioned I hate people. Very. Very. Very much."
"Well you're on a ship full of them," I say, quietly.
"Less and less so, you know we started with over a thousand?" He asks.
"How many are on now?" I ask, slowly.
"Just under four hundred. For the mathematically challenged, that's a roughly sixty percent mortality rate we got goin' here, Candy. That ain't good. In fact it's real bad," he says.
"We have to stop it. I can I—,"
"You are small and full offense because I really offending people, it's like my only hobby, you don't look like you could tear a sheet of paper, let alone kill a four ton thing in the vents that eats people," he scoffs, turning to look at me. I set the cat in its basket (it appears that he made a little basket out of cardboard, stapled a fluffy towel in it, and strapped it to the ceiling so the kitty can nap. Now I float over to join him.
"Kestryl's killed my mothers," and my biological parents, "I have no one, anymore. Nothing to lose. You say you have to get on another ship to live? At least you know somewhere will take you, to rest your head at night. I have nothing. No family. No people. Nothing to hold onto. Let me try to save all of you. Even if I die trying. At least it will have been worth it."
"Wow. You have as fragile of a will to live as I do. That's really sad. I'm sad for you, Candy," he flicks a couple more screens, emotionlessly.
"Look, I was only an intern I have no skills, nothing, they'll never keep me and I won't get work on another ship. You at least have a job—what is your job technically?" I'm assuming it's not making sassy announcements every hour on the hour and barricading himself in a room with a cat and a ton of candy.
"Dual flight and computer systems management certified thank you so much for asking a very obvious question, now I know you're not staring at my tits," he says, patting his chest. Of course he has the constellation and rocket patch, as well as mathematical symbol.
"Flight certification takes years," I frown. My mama did that, she had to take many tests and do hours and hours of flight and nav practice.
"Yes thank you, I know, I did it."
"How old are you?" I ask, frowning. I can't imagine his other thing is easy to certify in either.
"Twenty three, how old are you?"
"About twenty," I say, wanting to hit myself for the hesitation. I'm a disgrace to my kind.
"You don't know?" He raises his eyebrows.
"I was adopted as a toddler, we guessed my age," I lie, smoothly. It's close-ish to the truth. I was something like the equivalent of a human toddler when my mothers found me. Fifty years on we expect that I'm something like the equivalent of a young adult human. I never will have a home will I? I'll out age them all.
"Ah, okay, that makes sense," he shrugs, flicking a few more cameras.
"Yours doesn't though—how old must you have been? School ends at sixteen flight school is an eight year course you've been on five tours those are six months each at least—,"
"I'll spare you the math. I graduated early. Yay me," with no enthusiasm.
"Do you not have any family to go home to on earth?" Surely they must have been proud of him. He's not only succeeding at being a human but he's graduated early and all that. nobody spent hours coaching him to walk, talk, hold his head, shake hands, and all around not be discovered as a freak.
"No. I do not have family to go home to. See previous comment about selling organs," his voice growing cold.
"You said they needed the money for drugs," I say, slowly.
"Illegal drugs! Christ, Candy, what is it like to be you?" He puts his face in his hands, heart rate rising a few beats per minute.
"Terrible, why?" I ask.
He starts laughing, face going red, "Hell I needed that."
"You're welcome?" I frown, not sure why he's suddenly happy after he seemed mad, but I'm glad he is.
"You're cute," he pats my hair. I lean into the gesture, closing my eyes to savor the warm hand on the top of my head.
"Okay, take your touch starved ass to the corner over there and go to sleep if you're not gonna sleep in your room. I can completely keep talking if you want but it may not be about anything special," he says, waving a hand dismissively.
I push away a little, withering that he's not going to touch me again but glad I got what I did, "But I have to kill the thing in the vents that eats people."
"Candy, you're gonna get eaten doing that."
"I have to try. Surely there's a way to make a contained fire device, somehow, on this ship, and then I can wound it until it's fragile enough for us to kill. That's got to be possible, it's worth trying," I say.
"You don't know where it is to even do that," Weaver groans.
"I do. Okay no I don't but you do. I've heard your stupid announcements, you're right most of the time you have pretty good track of it. You could tell me where it is," I say, smiling hopefully.
He holds up a hand so he doesn't have to look at my face, "For the record, this will not work. I will not attempt save your ass when you inevitable get yourself into a fatal situation. I do not like you at all.  And I am completely against every part of this but mostly the part where I have to talk to you, a person, considering I really truly hate people."
"You'll help?" I push myself from the floor to the ceiling happily.
"Christ you're the Golden Retriever of people, Candy," he says, getting a set of ear pieces out of a drawer.
"What does that mean?" I ask, still flopping up and down happily.
"Do you not—-what did you do with your time as a child?"
"I read books I really like Chaucer but my favorite was Portrait of Dorian Grey," I say, with more bopping.
"This one, goes in your head. This one, goes in mine. I will direct you around the ship, warning you where the thing in the vents that eats people is. That way you can talk to me like you think you need to do all the time, without busting in here every goddamn minute, and I can ignore you and avoid becoming emotionally attached to you more effectively, got it?" He asks, handing me an ear piece, "Wait, what the fuck did you just say you did as a child?"
"Read books," I say, I found candy and am eating it since I'm here.
"Of course you did," he says, patting my head again. I smile happily since I was not expecting that show of affection at all, and bend my head up so he can keep petting it if he wants.
"Hell," he mutters, just pushing back to his desk, "Now will you get some sleep? I think you've had enough sugar. Now take a fucking nap or something. There are hooks on that wall, and probably some sleep masks floating in a corner someplace total disclosure I'm a math major so I'm not what you'd call an 'organized' person in fact I'm more what you'd call 'very incredibly lazy',"
"I don't like light," I say, rubbing my eyes. My mother always said I had doe eyes because it made me look more innocent. That's just how I naturally thought I should look. Maybe it is so I can be appealing. Either way I've always hated the light. I was born in deep space, I shouldn't be too near any star. And these humans love their florescent lights. My eye balls ache after all this time. "I had glasses but they got lost when I our ship got attacked—-ow—,"
Weaver throw a pair of pilot's glasses at my head. Pilots have glasses to block starlight when flying, so I assume that's why he had them, he's flight certified. They are identical to the ones my mama gave me, an old pair of hers, standard issue from the Space Force. But these smell like him.
"Let's get this straight. This is not a show of affection. This is so you will quit whining. This is not an adoption experience quit tipping your head like you want me to pet it goddamn it. I do not like you, we are fragilely casual acquaintances I may become your mortal enemy later on for entertainment reasons. When, not if, when the thing in the vents that eats people inevitably eats us, I want you to go find some corner of the Underworld or Heaven or wherever the fuck you think you're going, and stay there, because I will be actively avoiding you, is that clear?"
"Crystal," I nod, very hard, hoping he'll pat my head again.
"Good," he grunts, spinning around.
"But I can keep the glasses?"
"Sure—-ARE YOU SMELLING THEM?"
"They remind of my mama's," I whisper, tears glittering in my eyes from his harsh speech.
"You called your—sorry you had a nice family and then lost it, Candy. Must hurt when things went well for you at one point," he mumbles, not turning around, "You ready to tell me your fucking name?"
"Candy."
"Most insufferable, pain in the ass, stupid rabbit eyed looking paper doll of a person," muttering to himself, "Now go to sleep. We'll probably get eaten in the morning."
"Okay," I say, hooking myself to the wall and putting on the glasses.
Weaver, for his part,  mumbles for a little while then goes and gets his cat for a cuddle. I hook myself into the wall, hugging my knees to my chest like I like to to sleep, slowly forcing my breathing to slow as I focus on his second hand heartbeat. The rhythm is peculiar, every few beats jumping one, only not to do it all for a while. Slowly I focus on it, letting the beats fill my mind until eventually the rhythm of his heart clears into a steady, natural flow.
I realize it's presumptuous of me to presume to bond to him enough to fix his unsteady, worn heart. But I doubt if I'll live long anyway, nor will he more than likely. The Kestryl is aboard the ship. We shall eventually be eaten.
Because, I read my mother's records.
No ship has ever survived a Kestryl infestation. Not a military ship with arms.
None.
All the clever people, they've never succeeded in finding a way to stop even a small, injured one. Let alone a full grown one that has been feeding for weeks.
So we'll all probably die.
But I was going to probably die anyway. And I do quite like listening to his now steady heart, the swish of each ventricle. The the soft pulse now regularly beating in his wrists, his lungs as contract and expand gently in his chest. I don't mind this at all. And even if he doesn't like me. That's okay. At least I was able to do something for him after he shared his candy with me.