Escape from the Nursery Planet (Commission) - Chapter 2

Stephen and Kelly took turns in the shower. Stephen went first, and as he dressed in his grey clothes, Kelly took her time cleaning up. Apparently, she felt particularly dirty. Then, wearing a towel wrapped around her chest and hips, she gathered up her uniform and took it with her back into the bathroom to put it on in private.

They had a quick snack, and drank plenty of water, trying to get over their hangovers. Neither of them spoke as they ate. Then, they left to track down the science officer that had led the two of them on the away mission.

“What was his name?” Stephen asked. “Richards?”

“Richardson,” Kelly corrected him. “I think he’s probably on this deck.”

“Good.”

“Don't say anything about last night, please.”

“I won’t,” Stephen assured her, although it pained him to know that she felt ashamed about it. “I promise.”

They found Richardson in a work room, examining a stone artifact under a microscope camera.

Seeing them enter, he said, “Hello, you two. Good to see you survived the chaos yesterday. What brings you here? If it has to do with that cracked artifact you were holding, Stephen, don’t worry. No one blames you for that, what with everything that was happening.”

“It’s not that,” Stephen said. “Something very strange is going on, and I need someone who could listen with an open mind.”

“You’ve come to the right place, then,” Richardson said. “Take a seat. Explain.”

They all sat down, and Stephen recounted the events that occurred following them transporting back to the ship. Richardson listened without interrupting once, letting Stephen get through the whole story, until he reached the point of entering Kelly’s room last night, where Stephen paused, uncertain what to say next.

“What happened in her room?”

Kelly said, “We ate dinner, and he went to sleep on my couch. This morning he woke up, and I noticed that he looked younger than I thought he had been. He said he felt younger as well.”

“And, all the records on the ship say you are supposed to be 14 years old?” Richardson asked Stephen.

“Yes,” Stephen said. “But, that’s not the truth. Yesterday I was 18. Then, after everything that happened, I became 14 again.”

“Do you have any evidence of this?”

“Do you remember me being older?” Stephen asked.

Richardson took a long pause as he concentrated. “I know that you don’t look any different to me now, but I remember you being on the away mission. I would never have taken a 14 year old on a dangerous mission like that. That doesn’t add up in my mind. I must have thought you were 18 yesterday, even if I can’t remember it now.”

“What is going on?” Stephen asked.

“I’m not sure,” Richardson said. “But, I think it must have something to do with this planet and the black hole, and I intend to figure out what is happening.”

***

Later that morning, Stephen was back in sick bay, resting on a bed as Richardson watched the doctor examine him. Kelly had headed off to engineering to work her shift, and Stephen felt her absence. Somehow, having her near had made all of this easier to handle. With her gone, he felt even more adrift.

“So?” Richardson asked the doctor. “Have you found anything?”

“He appears to be a perfectly healthy young teen,” the doctor replied. “No signs of infection or injury. At worst, I see some scattered traces of cell damage that might be related to radiation exposure, but they could just as easily have been caused by him falling repeatedly during the incident yesterday.”

“Why does he look 14, then?”

“He is 14, that’s why.”

“I’m not,” Stephen said.

“I believe him,” Richardson said. “Look closer. Is there anything?”

The doctor sighed. “I can sequence his genes, if you want. There might be something there.”

“Do it,” Richardson said.

The doctor drew some blood from Stephen and walked to the lab tables across the room.

“How are you holding up?” Richardson asked Stephen.

“I’m a little worried, but I suppose I’m fine for now.”

The door to sick bay opened and in walked the captain. “Richardson,” she said. “Status report.”

“Captain,” he replied, standing up straight. “The doctor is looking Stephen over, trying to find anything unusual that might explain his condition.”

“Yes, you briefed me earlier. Has the doctor found anything?”

“Not yet.”

“How about the artifacts?”

Richardson gave her a slight smile. “They’re fascinating,” he said. “We haven’t been able to decipher the language engraved on them, but material analysis has revealed a lot. For one thing, they’re old, very old.”

“How old?”

“Millions of years,” he said. “You would expect them to be in worse shape, but they look almost new still.”

“Why?”

“That’s the other thing,” he said. “We found traces of tachyon particles in them, as if they were deliberately added as part of the substance used to make them.”

“Would that explain why the artifacts are so well preserved?”

“It might,” he said. “Tachyon particles are able to alter the flow of time. They might have caused time to pass more slowly for the artifacts than the rest of the local area. The black hole might have interacted with them as well. That’s still a theory, though.”

“Would the tachyon particles explain why Stephen appears younger?”

“Possibly, but they would not explain how records about him have changed, or why other people do not remember him as an adult.”

“You still believe he was older before.”

“Yes,” he said, glancing at Stephen. “As talented as he might be, I would never take someone so young on an away mission. Never. I do remember him on the planet with us yesterday. He must have been older then.”

“You said he dropped an artifact after transporting it onto the ship…”

“Yes,” Richardson said. “That particular artifact had a much higher concentration of tachyons on it. And, there was another strange thing about it.”

“Yes?”

“It was constructed like an hourglass with golden sand inside. The sand spilled out after it broke open.”

“Have you examined the sand?”

“No,” he said. “We can’t find it. I went back to check the teleporter room, but there was no sign of it, not a single grain of it anywhere. I even checked other transporter rooms, but there was nothing in any of them, and there was no record of it being cleaned up. It just… disappeared somehow.”

“Intriguing.”

“I think that the missing sand might have something to do with Stephen’s condition, and I think that the waves from the black hole might be related as well. However, I need to do a little more analysis.”

“Could the sand be affecting the ship’s computers and the memories of the crew?”

“I can’t say for sure unless I can find some of it. I’ll check with engineering about detecting traces of it somewhere. We might be able to rig up a long-range tachyon scanner of some kind, but that will be difficult to do while the replicators are down. Even with them up it might be challenging.”

“Keep at it,” the captain said and watched as Richardson walked away to check with the doctor one more time. Then, she turned her attention to Stephen. “How are you feeling, young man?”

“Fine,” he said, feeling a bit hesitant about discussing emotions with a Vulcan. “Just a little unnerved.”

“I was informed that your living quarters were damaged yesterday. Have you found a place to stay until they are repaired?”

“I was staying with my friend Kelly, but…” He thought about her discomfort this morning. “I might need to find someplace new. I feel that I’ve... overstayed my welcome with her.”

“I believe that the room next to mine is currently unoccupied. Would that be acceptable.”

“Sure,” Stephen said, although he felt a touch of apprehension about being quartered so near to the ship’s captain. “I would appreciate it.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ll make sure it is ready for your arrival after school.”

“School?” he said, dreading what she meant. “Why would I go to the school?”

“You are scheduled to be in class right now,” she said. “I am aware that yesterday you were supposed to be a cadet working in engineering. That, unfortunately, is impossible for someone at your age right now.”

“But,” Stephen said, indignantly. “I’m not really a 14 year old. Why do I need to go back to school again?” Even he was aware of how whiny he sounded.

“It will just be until we figure out what is happening. For now, that is the least disruptive place to send you while we investigate.”

Stephen sighed. “I understand, captain. I’ll report there after I am cleared to leave.”

“I’ll check in with you in your room later today,” she said. “Farewell.” Then, she turned and left.

Stephen lay there in bed, contemplating playing hooky for the first time in many years.

***

After a long time spent dragging his feet on the way to the schoolrooms of the ship, Stephen arrived quite late for when classes were supposed to begin. Fortunately, he had a doctor’s note. Still, he wondered what he would find inside. Would they be expecting him? Would they remember him having been there before as other people had forgotten him elsewhere? He stepped up to the door, and it opened for him.

He was hit by the sound of animated children at play, squealing and giggling and shrieking. He paused at the door, thinking that he might be in the wrong place. Then, he spotted a window near the side door. Inside the room beyond the door, he saw older students working at desks, studying. He walked in that direction, but he had to dodge a pair of preschoolers chasing each other around.

As annoyed as he was by the situation, he was relieved at least that he was old enough still to not have to deal with children that young. He made it to the door to the older student’s classroom and entered. The brief burst of noise of the play behind him that followed him in while the door was open drew the attention of everyone in the room, even the woman he presumed was the teacher.

Seeing so many pairs of eyes focused on him, Stephen felt himself blush. Simultaneously, he was equally as embarrassed as he was amazed at how many students there were in the room, at least thirty by a quick count. There had been an almost equal number of kids in the other room he had passed through. That raised some questions. Were there really over 50 school-aged children on this relatively small ship? How had he never noticed all of them before?

“You must be Stephen,” the redheaded human woman in the front of the room said. “I’m Ms. Bell, your teacher. You were added to my roster today without much explanation, but I welcome you in. There is a seat in front here.”

He walked over to her, ignoring the stares of the other teenagers in the room. Soon enough, though, they ignored him as well.

He sat down in front of Ms. Bell and handed her his doctor’s note, while saying that he had just been in sick bay for an examination. He considered explaining that he was not supposed to be there at all, but that seemed like it would only lead to frustration, much like his conversation with the doctor. He decided it would just be best to go with the flow for now and act as though he belonged there.

“Based on your age,” Ms. Bell said. “I assume that you should be in your second or third year of secondary school.”

“Fourth year,” he said. “I’ve been in advanced classes.”

“I see,” she said. “We were working on mathematics during this period. I’ll grab you a tablet and assign you some work. Just wait here a minute.”

Stephen sat there, looking around at the classroom until he noticed the girl sitting next to him was glancing at him surreptitiously. “I’m Stephen,” he said to her.

“I heard,” she said. “I’m Vicky.” She had dark hair and brown eyes which looked as though they did not get enough regular sleep. He estimated that she was about the same age as he was now.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Same,” she said. “Hey?”

“Yes?”

“Where did you come from?” Vicky inquired, eyeing him suspiciously.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never noticed you on the ship before, and this is your first day of class. You didn’t just arrive on the ship yesterday. We’ve been out of port for weeks.”

“I’ve been…” he tried to think up a plausible story. “I’ve been doing a special study program with engineering. It’s... complicated. Of course, after all the damage, they thought it was best if I just worked in a regular classroom while they made repairs. You know, to keep me out of the way, I guess.”

“Hmm,” she said, not appearing at all convinced by his story. “How… interesting.”

“All right,” Ms. Bell said, interrupting their conversation to hand Stephen his tablet. “Your work is loaded and ready to go. Please let me know if you need any help getting started.”

“Thank you,” he said and watched her walk back to her desk.

He opened his first assignment and started to work on it.

“I know that something weird is going on,” Vicky whispered to him. “I think you know it too.”

Stephen was unsure of how to reply. Should he confirm her suspicions or just try to keep his head down?

“Vicky. Stephen,” Ms. Bell said. “Enough chatting. Focus on your work, now.”

“Yes, Ms. Bell,” he said, opting to avoid any confrontation with the teacher. Then, to Vicky, he added, “Excuse me.”

He turned his attention back on his tablet. Vicky stared at him a long while and then turned her attention back to her own tablet, but for the rest of the class period, she gave him occasional sidelong suspicious glances.

***

The morning dragged on as Stephen sped his way through boring busywork he had outgrown years ago. Lunchtime came and Stephen ate his meal alone, not being interested in making small talk with school kids. As he ate, his mind had time to consider his situation again. He thought of Kelly and how he loved her. His heart ached as he realized that she wanted nothing to do with him now that he was too young for her. There were many other serious negative consequences of his return to his early teens, but that hurt the most. As he stared off into the distance thinking of Kelly, he became aware of someone staring at him. Vicky was seated on the opposite side of the room eating her lunch alone as he was. He worried that she might invite herself over to sit with him, but she kept her distance.

Lunchtime ended, and then it was time for science class. The students were given their various assignments, and some were handed lab equipment. When Ms. Bell circled around to Stephen and Vicky she let them know that they would be working together on using tricorders to analyze some samples in jars.

“Vicky,” Ms. Bell said. “There should be a few tricorders in the store room. Could you go and grab them, please?”

“I think they’re on a high shelf in there,” Vicky replied. “I might need a hand with the ladder.”

“Fine,” Ms. Bell said, turning her attention to Stephen. “Would you please assist her?”

“Sure,” Stephen said, and the two of them stood up together.

Stephen followed Vicky’s lead to a door in the back of the room. She pressed a code to open it, and stepped inside. Stephen joined her in the store room, but before he could ask her where the tricorders were, she shut the door behind them, sealing them off from the rest of the class.

“What are you doing?” Stephen asked.

“I wanted a few minutes to talk alone,” Vicky said.

“Won’t someone hear us in the classroom?”

“No,” she said. “This room is specially shielded since there’s a lot of sensitive scientific equipment in here. That also makes it practically soundproof. Watch this.” She took a deep breath and yelled, “Ms. Bell come here! I need your help now!”

Stephen shushed her with a finger to his lips. Then, they stood there silently waiting for a response, but the door did not open, and there was no sound to be heard outside of the room.

“See,” she said with a proud smile.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Stephen said. “I would have believed you anyway.”

“Come on,” she said, grabbing the ladder and walking it over to some shelves in the back.

He helped her position the ladder and held it with one hand for her.

“So,” she said, climbing up onto the ladder. “Tell me the truth. You know something. What’s going on.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied as he took hold of the ladder with his other hand below her. A quick glance up made him realize just how close his face was to her butt.

“I know that you lied about what you’ve been doing the past few weeks.”

The skirt she was wearing showed off a lot of leg beneath it. He looked away out of modesty and said, “How do you know that?” He glanced back at her legs, noting how shapely they were for someone her age.

“Because I begged to get into the same kind of ‘special study program’ you described. The chief engineer said that he would never let someone as young as me anywhere near the controls, no matter how advanced I was as a student.”

“Bergh said that?” Stephen asked, looking back up at her and letting his eyes linger a bit too long on her broad behind as she dug around in a box.

“Yep,” she said, nodding. “I study day and night. I don’t sleep much. I want to get into the academy early if I can. It’s my dream.” She looked down at Stephen, and he felt himself blush, wondering if she had noticed him checking her body out from below.

“I see,” he said, looking away.

“So,” she said, handing down the tricorders to him, one at a time, “tell me the truth. Where have you been? And, what’s going on?”

He stepped back and let her climb back down to his level.

She stared at him curiously, waiting for his reply, but he was struck by how pretty she was despite her tired eyes.

“Well?” she said.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” he said.

“There is something going on?”

He nodded.

“Well…?”

He tried to think of a way to explain it. “My body is… changing.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded.

“There’s a name for that,” she said. “It’s called puberty.”

“No,” he explained. “I’m not growing up. I’m growing down.”

The confusion on her face told him he needed to explain more.

“You see, yesterday I was 18 years old. Today I’m 14. Something happened to me when I went on an away mission and returned to the ship. After all the waves from the black hole hit, I became younger. Nobody remembers how old I was. Even the ship’s computer thinks I’m supposed to be this age.”

She looked even more confused. “Are you… making fun of me? Is this a joke?”

“No!” he said. “It’s the truth. I swear. I know it sounds crazy, but it really happened.”

“Do you have any kind of proof?” she asked, sounding curious but skeptical.

“One of the science officers believes me, but that’s about it right now. I wish I could prove it to you and everyone else somehow. If only…”

He was interrupted by an alarm going off on the ship’s speakers. “Energy waves approaching from the black hole. Brace for impact,” said the captain’s voice. “These appear to be even more distorted than before. Hold on.”

Stephen and VIcky gripped the shelves next to them and braced themselves immediately before the first wave hit, rolling and shaking the room around them. As the captain had warned, these waves seemed even more shaky and distorted than the previous ones. Loose items fell from the shelves around them, but they held on tight, waiting out the barrage.

After a long minute passed, the shaking calmed down. The captain’s voice announced, “It appears to have passed. Head to your duty stations and send damage reports immediately.”

Stephen felt an urge to run to engineering, but he knew that he no longer belonged there. Instead, he just sighed.

“What in the…?” Vicky said, looking him over.

“What?” he replied.

“Your clothes…” she said. Then, after looking at herself, she gasped again. “My clothes!”

Stephen stared in wonder at the dress she was wearing. Before the waves, she had worn a dark skirt and a somewhat formal looking top, similar to how a crew member might dress. That had been suddenly replaced by a lacy peach babydoll dress, as you might find on a preschool girl. She even wore a pair of white leather flat sandals. Although it was an outfit clearly intended for a young girl to wear, it ended up looking unintentionally sexy on Vicky’s curvy body.

Seeing how she was dressed, Stephen hesitated to look down at himself, but he knew he had to face his own changes, whatever they were. Looking down he found that the youthful clothes he had been wearing had been mysteriously replaced by an even more childish outfit. It appeared to be a zip-front onesie that a preschool boy might wear, only sized up to fit his teenage body. The sleeves and legs ended in skin tight red elastic fabric. The remainder of the outfit was covered in horizontal blue stripes, interrupted on the chest by the printed images of cartoon puppies, dressed in emergency service uniforms. Below all that, he saw that he was wearing a white and blue pair of gym shoes that fit the age level of the onsie.

He ran his hands over the fabric to check if the onsie was real. It felt real enough, even if it made no sense how he had come to be dressed in it.

“You were not wearing that when we came in here,” Vicky said. “And, I know I was not wearing this earlier. I’m certain of it.”

“You’re right,” Stephen said. “You noticed the change, too. That’s… interesting.”

“‘Interesting’ is an understatement. This is incredible. It’s like reality itself changed with that wave.”

“We should go find that science officer now,” Stephen said. “He needs to see this, and he should talk to you as well.”

“Okay,” she said. After a quick nervous glance down at her odd clothes, she walked to the door and told him, “We’ll have to sneak out, but I don’t think anyone will notice after all of that.”

The door opened and they stepped out into the classroom. Before they could leave, they were distracted by what they saw. It appeared that many of the other students’ clothes had changed as well. Most of them were simply wearing more childish outfits in teenager sizes, but a few of the students seemed to be dressed up as teenaged babies. One boy had on a pair of footie pajamas with a pattern of cartoon birds on it. He was sitting there, sucking on a pacifier. Another girl was wearing only a diaper, her bare breasts hanging loose for anyone to see. Her thumb was jabbed in her mouth and she was sucking it vigorously as if to calm herself down.

Besides the ones who had changed clothes, a few of the teenagers seemed to have become younger as well. There was a girl that looked barely old enough for grade school, and a boy that seemed to be many years too early for puberty yet.

A redheaded toddler wearing a pair of purple overalls with an incongruously determined look on her face approached Stephen and Vicky as they stood there, trying to absorb the strangeness around them.

“Dere you awr,” the young girl squeaked up at them. “I was wowied that somefink fewl on you in dere. Awr you awlwight?”

“We’re… fine,” Vicky said, sounding just as confused as Stephen felt. “Are you lost?” she asked, crouching down in front of the toddler to get closer to her level.

“‘Wost?’” the girl replied. “Whewe ewlse woud I be? Dis is my cwasswoom. You awr my studens.”

“Ms. Bell?” Vicky said, standing up and taking a step back. “What… what happened to you?”

The toddler Ms. Bell gazed up at Vicky with a confused look on her face.

“Look at yourself,” Vicky said, gesturing down at the girl’s body.

Little Ms. Bell looked at the cute white toddler sneakers and purple overalls she was wearing and replied, “Wuts wong wif how I wook?”

“She doesn’t notice,” Stephen said, scanning around the room to see if anyone was reacting in any way to how their clothes or bodies had changed. None of them seemed at all concerned by their altered appearances. “None of them noticed the changes. It’s just like what happened to me last time.”

Vicky asked him, “Why did we notice when no one else did?”

“Wissen,” little Ms. Bell said. “Wetuwrn to youwr seats. Wets focus on owr werning fo now.” She turned to lead them back to the front of the classroom, but stopped after a couple of steps. “Uh oh,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at Vicky. “I fink I need a diapa change.” She glanced around at her students and yelled, “Can someone pwees bwing me to the changing tabwl?”

Stephen and Vicky glanced at each other and silently agreed to back away from that mess. As a couple of girls went to take care of Ms. Bell, Stephen and Vicky walked to the classroom door and exited into the halls.