How they came together, they really couldn't say, and for how long they would stay together, was yet another random event, all they knew was that they were on some kind of journey. To where, well don't ask them, they couldn't really give you a legible answer, within the six bodies, housed six different reasons for being there. And of course in each of those six bodies was the idea that THEIR personal journey was of Utmost importance.
They had been travelling for roughly a year when they decided that they should probably make a pit stop, and stock up on a few necessities.
"Nip Nib Blip Trip." began Scrept
Rard tapped her on the shoulder. "You forgot to turn your translator on you dope!"
Blushing, Scrept repeated "We're about to reach our destination, yep yep. Everyone prepare for landing."
Safety harnesses buckled, murmurs were heard as Rard and Scrept began to land the ship. They had been travelling around this new Galaxy for about 3 weeks, and were beginning to get a sight hungry. Tondroid mumbled the commands, and the ship landed, quite ungracefully mind you.
The safety harnesses were released, and the six travellers scrambled for the door. Tondroid made it there first, but forgot to duck, wedging himself firmly in the doorway.
"Sheeeesh!! Tondriod! Why do you ALWAYS do that??? Narf! C'mon, get your lug of a head outta that doorway." screeched K-wheel. Tondriod muttered something in reply, but because of the inaudible tone of his voice, they were unable to distinguish what exactly was said. (though they guessed it was a slight abusive term in K-wheels direction)
It was quite an annoying occurrence though. It seemed that every time the ship landed, he would race to the door, and get stuck. After being in the craft with him for many years now, they thought that maybe he might remember what happens, but no luck so far.
Harpi pushed through them to reach Tondroid. She had many a time before, had to decipher how to remove his body, piece by piece from the doorway. It pissed her off though that she had to dissect him to remove him. In most (ordinary) circumstances, where (ordinary) travellers where concerned, it would be fine to remove, maybe the head, and then slip the rest out. But No. Tondriod had to meteamorph into small spaces, she never understood why, and it became ominent to her, that it was all for her benefit! Or was that Discomfort.
"Tsk Tsk, Tondroid. Would you stop moving please." as she unscrewed first his head, placing it down beside her.
Within the next minute she had removed Tondroids form from the door, and all five travellers, plus the many pieces of Tondriod exited the ship.
"Yep Yep, this is real land. True blue Terra Firma." Scrept was bouncing all over the place, just making sure she had no need of her gravitational boots, and to her great happiness, with every bounce, she returned happily to the ground.
Whistling as she walked ahead of the others, she really enjoyed getting out of that little dark Space craft. She was more of an out doors person. 'Yep Yep that's me' she said to herself. 'I'm one of those ancient Leyland Sisters.' she giggled to herself.
Shella watched as Scrept bounced along. Though it was no secret that Shella was jealous of the bouncing. Since an early age, she thought that having no knee joints or elbow joints was the "Normal thing", that was until she met up with her Travelling partners. Between them, they had a Droid, roller baby, K-wheels (who didn't really have a species, she just was), a translator, the other two were rather unknowns, kinda space orphans, had been travelling since they knew how to glide. (But gliding is a totally different story) Now, as Shella saw Scrept bouncing away, made her wish that they were all alike, instead of so vastly different.
For people who had to share such small confines, they tended to get along rather well, every now and then they had fights, and it seemed that Scrept was ALWAYS the brunt of all the jokes, but it was never a bad place to be. She didn't mind that attention, thought she really wished that people could understand her, and she could ditch the translator computer.
"Graip, Neight, bLIP!" spat out Scrept's Trans. Puter.
The rest of the gang ran to see what was up. As it turned out, they had gotten out of the ship, unstuck Tondroids head all for nothing, cos the place wasn't open for business anyways. On passing Shella, Tondroid picked her up and carried her back to the ship, cos he really wasn't in the mood to wait for her to struggle back to the ship.
From then on, the day's mood kinda slipped. Tondroid was agro cos he hadn't had his annual feed of micro chips and cheetos, K-Wheels was suffering serious VB deprivation, and the rest of the guys, well they all missed certain things in their own small ways.
This time, for once!, Tondroid DIDN'T get himself caught in the door. It would have been a time to celebrate had they not all been preoccupied with their nagging hunger, mixed with not so nice thoughts about being stuck on the ship for a long period of time again.
Each member began mumbling to themselves, Scerpt was off in her little land of nope nopes and yep yeps and all the blips and zipps a person could stand, while Tondroid was standing there, looking intently at the door; not saying a word, just looking (which meant he must be in contact with some greater force, cos a guy just doesn't stand there like that, and not say a word). They were each calling there respective societies, to tell them of the latest chapter of their "journeys". That was when K-wheel began to start twitching. Whenever she spoke to the leaders of her society, she began twitching erratically, and acting super strange, her voice quietened as she heard the orders given to her. Sooner than they could have stopped talking to their own superiors K-wheel was out of the door, and back on the ground they had just left. She was racing towards the nearby building, and once there pulled out chains (from God only knows where) and locked herself to the door of the building.
"What are you doing!! This is just Shockin'!" Rard screeched.
"I'm......I'm....Well I'm not allowed to leave this planet." answered K-wheel. That was the news she had received whilst talking to her elders, her Journey was to come to an end here. Here! Of all the places she could have been shipped to, she was to be here. As she blankly stared around her, she noticed the vast bleakness of the surroundings. The building which she had strapped herself to, was no longer in use, and from the looks of things, was the only building for a LONG while.
The only thoughts that were racing through her head were "Shit! Crap! Dammit!" She couldn't believe that this was what she had been searching for. To her this didn't seem like such a great end to her journey, and it was extremely disappointing. All this time, on the ship with the others, she always thought that she had a brighter destiny. She always pictured that her destiny would have others in it too, and from the looks of things here, there were no "others" to be seen anywhere, besides of course her Travelling companions, who were still looking at her rather curiously.
"What?"
"Well Um, you still haven't really explained what's going on here." Harpi piped up.
"Um.... Well, it looks like I'm parting company with you. This" K-wheel pointed out, "Is where my journey ends. The elders told me, This is my destiny."
The others could hear the bitterness in her voice, as she quietly repeated.
"THIS, is my destiny."
Ideas crossed the minds of the others, no one had ever thought of deceiving the elders, it had just never been done, but seeing how unhappy their companion was, and how hopeless this planet was, they couldn't bare to see her like that.
They walked away from K-wheel, leaving her chained to the door, quietly talking between themselves.
Tondroid had a plan. Though it had never been recorded, or established that anyone had been kidnapped whilst on a space journey, he thought that it was probably about time to see if they could change the history books.
They could all see the angst in K-wheel, and agreed that maybe it could work. And even if it didn't, the worst punishment they could get, would be to be banished to that ghastly place called "earth", but at the moment, that didn't seem all that important.
They agreed on a plan, and began going through the motions, Harpi and Rard made their way back to ship as Shella, Screpti and Tondroid, circled each other for a while, just thinking of how to first approach the scheme.
Tondroid left to approach K-wheel, and with one swift movement he had her out of the chains and held snug under his arm. Running away from the scene of the "crime" he bounded into the ship, tying K-wheel to her chair then, waiting patiently next to her in the next chair, awaiting Shella and Screpti's next move.
The two "girls" (well girl type creatures) ran around the vacinity of the building looking for anything with any type of life force. This search proved totally fruitless, so they had to settle for the inanimate object idea. If K-wheel's elders ever checked up on her, they would just have to believe that she had turned her life force off, until some sort of life returned to bring her back. Sure, the idea sounded a but weak, but K-wheel didn't really come from a smart planet, and they weren't all that particular really.
So Shella and Screpti arranged a K-wheels impersonator type thingy to take K's place, and once in tact, made a dash to the ship. Now when they dash, it's not all that fast, since Shella has quite an awkward disadvantage, but they ran back to the Ship as fast as they could.
Once inside they ordered Tondroid to kick ass outta there. K-wheel was still in Shock, stunned, at defying her elders, and by what had just occurred.
Once they were safely away K-wheels found the nerve to ask what in earth was going on!
"Ok Cmon guys, spit it out, what the HELL is going on!"
Tondroid thought that it could be a good time to try and explain himself now.
"Well K, we saw how you DIDN'T want to be there, you know that you didn't want to stay on that planet. So we decided a little kidnapping was in order. We did it for you ya know."
Sighing a deep sigh. K-Wheel turned to her companions.
"Yeah, I know that you did this for me. But the Elders have been old for a long time, and do you honestly think that they're just gonna let me run from my 'journey'. Well I'm not in la la land, and I know that they wont stand for this. I just, I could have handled it. I mean, getting bored to death, isn't that bad a way to die."
The others could see right through her, and even though they were just as scared of the outcome, they knew it had been the right thing to do. Whilst they were all pondering this whole thing, the ship began to quake and shake. Shrieks, and screeches arose from all quarters as the controls ceased to work for Tondriod. The ship was no longer moving forwards, but slowly being drawn back to the planet they had just fled.
K-wheel sat there her head in her hands, while the others panicked. She knew what was happening, and well, the thought wasn't so terrifying now. To have been left on that planet alone, that was her main fear, but now that they all seemed doomed to reside there, she sat back to go with the flow.
The elders had heard and seen the whole thing, and decided that the only way to teach the Vagabond Travellers was the never let them leave. Instead of fulfilling their journeys they were to remain that planet with no other company besides themselves.
Slowly the Ship landed, funnily enough, no one rushed to leave the ship, nor did they even move to unbuckle their safety belts. K-wheel was the first to move, she had dreaded what the elders would do, but now, well she had built her bridge, and she was over it, she really didn't see the point in fighting.
As soon as the others came to their senses, the ship vanished. One minute there they were, sitting in their bucket seats, then the next moment, they landed hard on their butts on the dusty barren ground. Tondroid was in total shock, as were the others, that is, all but K-wheel , who, without any hesitation walked back the gloomy building, and chained herself to it once more. She softly laughed at the others as she turned her own life force off, until there came a time when she would be "reborn". She slumped against the building.
Rard stared, shocked, then slowly said 'Damn, this always happens when we've got a whole friendship thingy going." sighing she turned her life force off.
The others were silent, the planet was deserted. All except for the lone travellers, whose journeys next were now something of the future, something to wait, and 'live' for. Well they knew they would be roused again one day, and this would happen all over again. A new travel partner would be welcomed into the group, and another journey would be fulfilled. But unfortunately that's for a totally new story all together.
Copyright J.Reeves 1998
