Liana's Ship (#ONC 2021)

9. Liana: The right tools for the job.

The whirring, the constant noise of a spaceship.

 A humming that I couldn't get used to, along with the occasional dropping of leaves and the slimy sound of tendrils creeping. Tendrils moving, growing, digesting the remains of the noodles I ate a day or so ago. Well, I prayed it was noodles I had eaten, they were blue in colour. Once you stopped looking at them, they had been quite good. 

Food, my mission for replacement chocolate had failed. I'd failed to find a substitute for my lost confection. It was possible to order some to be delivered from Earth if you could stand to wait a month. Since I was going home by then, there was no point. 

All hope seemed lost until I discovered Xeran wine. Called moonwine and surprisingly strong, it made a month without chocolate bearable. To be honest, I'd have drunk floor polish if it caused me to forget about this stupid vegetable in space for a few hours. Even someone like me who would never win employee of the month on a good day knows that going to work with a hangover is never a good idea. Especially on your first day, so I stuck to the one drink, despite the temptation to have another glass of the blue coloured moonwine. However, there are other ways to upset your prospective employer, being late.

I couldn’t find my secateurs anywhere in my tiny cabin. 

Yes, my employer probably had some, most likely blunt and dirty like all borrowed ones. They'd be too big and slowed me down. Everyone knows that one size fits all is one of the biggest lies on Earth. What it means is one size fits all average sized people. Women of short stature and small hands and feet? Not so much. Oversized uniforms, too big steel toe caps and secateurs that open so wide, you need to soak your hand in Epsom salts at the end of a hard day's pruning. 

The solution? Either put up with it, which I did for years or fork out on smaller tools. When I finally scraped enough to afford some, my work speed increased, I could out prune most of my colleagues. It was only when I resigned myself to inflamed tendons that I found them.

Or, rather someone had found them for me. The vine was wrapped around them, waving the blades in front of my face.

"Stop reading my mind," my voice shook. I swore that the ship could read my mind. Surely not? “I would have found them eventually,” I said, snatching the secateurs from the vine. Did you thank a plant or did you just get on with it? I thought. I mumbled a thanks to Thera. The plant must have been satisfied with my response, since I hadn’t been restrained by her vines. I left my cabin into the wooded corridor. 

I hoped I knew where I was going. I made some improvements in orientation in the last couple of days. I found the observation deck yesterday. It was overgrown and looked like it hadn't been used for a year. I didn’t spend long there and judging by the appearance of it, neither did anyone else. Alarm bells went off in my head, why did a flagship have such an unkempt area on public display. Perhaps that was to be my job for the next month?

 I wandered into an area that smelt decayed like the water in a vase of flowers after a week on a warm windowsill. The sweetness of decay, you don't forget that, it's hardwired into your brain, it stops you eating something that would make you ill.

This was ridiculous, I thought the ship probably needed a good pruning. Something I could do with Ms snippy on the job. Yes, I named my secateurs, after what I paid for them and their long service, they deserve it.

I will definitely stop talking about them now, I promise. 

I found the office at last only a few minutes late. After several wrong terms and directions from random helpful Xerans. Most of them were friendly and courteous, though one was disguising a smirk when I asked for Dr. Zan's office. In fact, come to think of it, most of them were either puzzled or amused. Fine, so the Doctor was likely to be eccentric, a little unusual behaviour I could deal with. Maybe he was one of those who liked working alone? That would be harder to deal with but I’m here now outside his office. I took a deep breath as I found the sealed doorway marking the office.

 It won't be bad I told myself, it's better to be doing something useful even if I'm not wanted. What was the alternative? Sitting pretty in the cabin until the ride home? I knocked on the doorway, hoping that knocking was a universal gesture for ‘let me in please’.

It was, a barely grunted "come in" was uttered. Sounded grumpy and somewhat familiar. The doorway parts. Tendrils pulled apart until the Doctor was revealed.

Oh goodness me, of all the people I have the misfortune to meet, it had to be him. Same old scowl, pale blue and violet eyed. Black boots ready to crush any unfortunate fruiting body.

Suddenly a month in my cabin sounded really desirable.

"Well don't just stand there, staring,"  said the Pumpkin killer, “I’m very busy and I have no time to wait for an unwanted assistant. Well I suppose you had better come in.”

I gritted my teeth, praying that Dr Zan wouldn’t meet with the pointy end of Ms Snippy before the month was out.