To Ineffability and Beyond, Chapter 5: Thrilling Conclusion!
Chapter 1: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/198741.html
Chapter 2: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/199132.html
Chapter 3: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/199301.html
Chapter 4: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/199441.html
Chapter 5
Aziraphale convinced a human to give him an atmospheric suit with the help of the little hypnosis trick Crowley was so fond of. Obviously nothing they had would fit Crowley, so he would have to make do with miracles to keep himself alive on the surface of the planet. A human could survive for a few minutes unprotected, but what the limit might be for native fauna was still unclear.
Aziraphale stepped out of the airlock onto the barren surface of Kepler-442b. The sun was just starting to come up, casting long shadows from every rock and irregularity in the surface, washed-out reds and purples. Crowley scuttled by his feet.
Aziraphale’s lips moved from behind his visor.
“Can’t hear you, angel. You have to turn your microphone on.”
A light came on inside the helmet.
“That’s the light. The microphone.”
“I said, you should go on ahead and lead the way,” said Aziraphale.
Crowley skimmed the surface of the planet, quickly moving off into the distance. “I hope you’re ready for a bit of a walk.”
“Slow down, you’re going to leave me behind.”
The planet was dreadfully monotonous and empty. They passed the time by amusing themselves with conversation, two human voices breaking the otherwise absolute stillness of the barren surface. Aziraphale now found it much more exciting knowing that there was such activity right beneath his feet.
“How intelligent do you suppose they are?”
“Dunno,” said Crowley. “I didn’t see anything besides rock tunnels while I was down there, but I didn’t go in very far, so who knows if they build things? They don’t have eyes, but with no light they don’t really need them. I suppose the antennae gestures and vibrations are varied enough to make a language of sorts. And I think they were worried about me, so they must have some concept of empathy, unless they had been trying to cannibalize me and I just misinterpreted it.”
Aziraphale grimaced. “Well, if that turns out to be the case, we can just leave and let the humans deal with them as they may.”
“…Right.”
They came to the place, finally: an upraised hill, sloping gently upwards. The air above it wavered with heat. The old atmosphere suit was still there, lying empty a few paces off.
Crowley skittered up and perched on the lip of the entrance. “Stay right there, angel. I’m going to see if I can find anyone and bring them up.”
“All right.”
“Don’t make too many sudden movements. Just let them feel you.”
“Right.”
Crowley slithered into the hole. Aziraphale waited uncomfortably, listening to his own breathing inside the helmet.
Crowley reappeared a few minutes later and zoomed over to Aziraphale, wrapping around his leg. And two similar-looking creatures appeared behind him, sticking their heads out of the hole and waving their antennae.
“Hello,” said Aziraphale nervously.
The two creatures jerked backwards towards the hole.
“You’re talking too loudly,” said Crowley. “They’re very sensitive to vibrations.”
“Hello,” said Aziraphale in a whisper.
The two creatures eased back out, waving with renewed curiosity. Crowley tapped his leg, and Aziraphale stepped forwards, holding his hands out.
Two bodies plopped out of the hole and slid down the mound towards him. Their feelers battered him immediately, and they began to hum and vibrate.
“Hello!” said Aziraphale. “Crowley, I think they like me.”
One of them crouched low to the floor and approached Crowley, flicking its antennae at him and rumbling. “What’s it saying?” said Aziraphale.
“Blast, I have no idea,” said Crowley. “It could be anything.”
The second creature tugged at Aziraphale’s leg, then his hip, then his shoulder, running back to the top of the mound then back again in a flash, chittering and humming. The first one bumped Aziraphale’s legs from behind.
“Oh, ah,” said Aziraphale unsurely. “I-I think I’d better stay out here, sorry.”
The two creatures stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of him, rearing up, their tapping antennae never leaving him. He held his hands out again, and they tugged at him.
“I can’t go down there,” said Aziraphale. “Your bodies are designed to move through spaces like that easily and mine isn’t. I have to stay on the surface.”
One of them gave a great shiver, threw itself on the ground, turned itself over, legs wriggling, and then fell still.
“Goodness, are you okay?”
The creature rolled back upright, pulling at him again.
“Crowley, did you see that?” Aziraphale gasped. “That one just pantomimed dying. They want me to come inside because they think I’ll die if I stay up here.”
“Angel.”
“Crowley, look! There’s another one coming out! And look, that one’s wearing some sort of hat or a jacket or something! It’s-Crowley you were supposed to let that moss on your back grow out! It looks so handsome like that.”
“Angel!” Crowley suddenly appeared in front of him, pushing the other two creatures out of the way. They scattered, retreating back to the top of the hill, waving their antennae indignantly.
“Crowley! What did you do that for? They were just starting to warm up to me.”
Crowley scaled Aziraphale’s body, clamped one leg on each side of his head, and wrenched his gaze around back toward the colony.
“We need to go now.”
“What? Why?”
“Look up.”
Aziraphale did so. The sun was just beginning to touch the tips of the colony. The new light struck the shining surface of the Aphelion not far above the bubble. And the wheel of that great metal ship was perfectly still, hovering ominously over the colony like a bad omen in the sky.
The microphone within Aziraphale’s helmet crackled to life.
“Hello?” said Aziraphale.
The static resolved into a voice. “Hello, Aziraphale.”
“Lily?”
“Do you think Heaven is ready to receive 9,827 new souls? Or do you think they shall go to Hell instead? Or are we too far away, and they’ll just stay here somewhere?”
The three alien creatures watched Aziraphale and Crowley’s backs receding into the distance from the top of the mound, their antennae on the ground to feel the vibrations of their retreat. And if it were at all possible, they looked a little disappointed to see them go.
***
The shuttles that carried people to and from the Aphelion were actually launched a bit away from the colony, on a separate landing platform out in the cold desert. Aziraphale suddenly remembered with startling clarity what the captain had said about going up the Aphelion at first light, and he moved with supernatural speed across the planet’s empty surface towards where he knew the landing pad was.
The shuttle was still there, nose pointing up at the sky. As they approached, they saw a gaggle of humans in atmosphere suits nearby, gawking up at the Aphelion, which was never supposed to stop spinning and was now completely motionless.
Crowley had curled up into a ball, and Aziraphale was holding him against his chest for efficiency’s sake. Aziraphale had his wings out and had been using them to rocket across the wasteland, phasing them through the atmosphere suit. He had meant to pull them in before getting into sight of the humans. He really had.
But he accidentally just kind of didn’t. Their amazed gazes ripped from the Aphelion to him.
“Don’t stop!” Crowley shouted. “Keep going!”
Aziraphale caught sight of the captain’s incredulous gaze as he barreled through them, straight into the shuttle. The door miraculously sealed itself shut behind them. The humans were probably yelling at him to open it, but he didn’t listen as he made his way to the cockpit and chucked Crowley onto the co-pilot’s seat.
“You know how to fly this thing?” said Crowley, uncurling.
“In theory,” said Aziraphale, strapping himself in. “It’s mostly automated. I read a book.”
“You read a book?”
“You told them I was a robotics engineer, so I went about trying to learn about robotics! It seemed the least I could do!”
“Oh, well, that settles it, then, might as well be a five-star pilot.”
“Crowley, if you’d have the decency to stop yapping right about now, making yourself human-shaped again would probably be a big help, seeing as how the seat belts are made for human bodies.”
“Right…” said Crowley.
With a thought, Aziraphale summoned the holy water from his sock drawer. The thermos appeared beside him, but it tumbled down toward the bottom of the ship when he didn’t grab it in time.
He looked over to see that Crowley was decidedly still not human-shaped, but he had managed to strap himself mostly in nonetheless.
“Right, I suppose this is as good as it’s going to get,” Aziraphale said. “Let’s just hope they have the decency to clear the landing pad when they hear the countdown.”
The flight went more smoothly than one might expect. Docking turned out to be a challenge though, because the computer was programmed to land them on a moving ship, not a stationary one. Aziraphale grabbed the holy water before they moved through the airlock to the Aphelion.
“Shit,” said Aziraphale as the door swung open and they realized the entire ship was in zero-G. “Crowley, you’re sure you can’t turn back to man-shaped right about now?”
Crowley’s spindly legs hooked onto Aziraphale, who was still in his atmosphere suit. “I’ll keep trying. I’ll just stick to you, don’t worry about me.”
Aziraphale used the emergency handlebars on the wall to move the two of them into the hallway and onto the ship. The lights were strobing on and off, the intercom was crackling static, and objects never intended to be in zero-G floated by them and bumped them gently.
The intercom exploded into a voice warped by static decay. “Good to see you finally get with the program, Aziraphale. Nice to meet you, I’m a demon, and I won’t be ignored.”
The hallway echoed with a laugh that did not seem to be coming from the intercom alone, and the lights flicked out one by one until they were only lit from below by a red emergency light.
“Have I finally got your attention now?”
“Angel,” said Crowley, tapping him and gesturing upwards. The maintenance tunnel access they had used to mess about in the voyage to Kepler-442b was right above them.
“Can you find me?” Lily’s voice rattled the pipes and metal grating under them. “I’ll give you a hint: I’m not in a publicly accessible area.”
Aziraphale popped the maintenance panel off and crawled in. They weaved through the crawlspaces as they had before, this time much more urgently; Crowley’s new shape fit smoothly into the tunnel, legs tapping the metal as he zoomed through. When they reached the ladder, it went straight up into pitch blackness.
“I ejected the crew into space when I docked,” said Lily’s voice, barely recognizable through the electronic distortion. “Did you see them on your way up? The Aphelion is actually big enough to have a slight gravitational pull, so I’d imagine they’d be in orbit around us.”
“This isn’t funny, Lily!” Aziraphale shouted. “The Aphelion is vital to the colony’s continued function. You need to stop whatever you’re doing to it right now.”
The lights in the maintenance tunnel strobed in a line towards them, flashed mockingly, then went out again.
Aziraphale reached the top of the ladder and kicked off against the wall, soaring into the enormous empty space that had once held all the robotics on the ship.
“What about your directions, hm? That you’re not supposed to destroy the colony?”
“Hell isn’t here right now! They’ll never know anything but the version of the story that I tell them! You should have just listened to me earlier!”
“The demoness of chaos,” said Aziraphale, moving past the locked door and kicking off, floating upwards. “Hell was bragging about how much better than Crowley you were, and this is your plan? To throw a temper tantrum when your nemesis ignores you?”
“I have the power to single-handedly plunge an entire interstellar vessel into pandemonium,” her voice seethed. “You will not ignore me.”
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale. “I might have to use this holy water.”
Crowley clung to him more tightly.
“I’ll give you the suit.”
“I’m not shaped right to fit in it.”
“Then figure something out!” Aziraphale snapped.
They had made their way to the enormous hollow shafts running to the center of the ship by now. Aziraphale could feel the second demonic presence growing nearer. Lily’s shrieking laughter echoed down the shafts like a clanging bell, carried down with the harsh electric light from the engine.
Aziraphale braced against the ceiling and shot towards the cords, which were still zipping up and down with enormous speed. The lights flickered and sparks flew out from the walls as they rode it up.
“Crowley, get ready,” said Aziraphale, beginning to unzip his suit.
“Angel, I’m not ready!”
“Hold on tight!”
The wall was coming up fast. Aziraphale threw himself off the cord and simultaneously twisted out of the atmosphere suit, leaving Crowley clinging to it as it spun in a different direction.
Aziraphale went tumbling head over heels, catching sight of Lily as he did so. She was hovering in front of the swarming mass of blue light that was the engine with her wings out. She was in a significantly more demonic form: forked tail, cloven hooves, sputtering fire and ashes, glowing embers in the dark broken only by the cold blue light bathing them all. She turned to face Aziraphale as he appeared, and he smashed into the invisible barrier isolating the engine.
“Crowley!” said Aziraphale. He craned his neck to see the demon’s progress.
“I’m trying!” came the frustrated response.
Lily’s hands morphed into a beastly set of claws, and she lunged at Aziraphale. He cursed and pushed off of the barrier, just narrowly missing being disemboweled. Lily continued on her vector towards the wall, while Aziraphale went careening towards the floor.
He smashed into the surface, bouncing off and floating at an angle away. Lily had sunk her claws into the wall and pushed off again, coming directly at him.
Aziraphale struggled in midair to right himself. A hand yanked on his leg, turning him back upright, and Aziraphale’s vision was suddenly filled with the visor of the atmosphere suit. Crowley’s human face stared back at him, yellow eyes aglow with triumph. “Let her have it, angel!” he said, zipping the suit up.
Aziraphale nodded, and with Crowley’s help he pivoted to face Lily, who was descending on him like a bird of prey. He removed the thermos from his jacket, flicked the lid off, and threw the liquid out with one swift motion.
The water arced out, wobbling and splattering and resolving into large boluses and droplets, fanning out like a shotgun pellet. Lily gave a shriek as she realized what was about to happen, but it was too late to try and change direction.
Aziraphale and Crowley held tightly to each other as she collided with the holy water. She exploded into a fit of hisses and shrieks, crying out in pain and anger. Nothing was left but an amorphous grey goo by the time it reached them, stray droplets of holy water pelting them.
“Ah,” said Crowley as a bubble of holy water broke on the visor. “This is better than gloves and tongs.”
“You’re all right,” said Aziraphale, trying to ruffle the demon’s hair and obviously failing.
The lights snapped back on, and the warbling engine fell back into relative calmness.
“Look at that,” said Crowley, voice still shaking with adrenaline. “We did it. Haha. We’re real space heroes, we are. We should get a medal. Two medals!”
Aziraphale clunked his forehead on the visor, smiling and bathing in that reciprocal smile, one that went all the way to the eyes, that very human smile for a demon.
“I’ll get you all the medals you want, my dear.”
***
Returning the shuttle would have been easy, except they also needed to avoid getting caught. They did manage to pull it off, though. The Aphelion was spinning as it should once again, so they launched back down to the planet with considerable speed. They had an ungraceful landing a ways away from the landing pad and took off before anyone could get to them.
They had seen Aziraphale’s face, though, of course. Aziraphale simply changed his corporation, all the facial features and even the skin tone, and insisted to anyone who asked that he had always looked like this. That strange winged creature caught on camera at the landing pad? That’s not Aziraphale. Hah, why would you even think that? Clearly the two look totally different.
Angels and demons are very good at persuasion, so it worked reasonably well. Tampering with the personnel files in the computer also helped.
The staff who went up confirmed that the Aphelion was working properly despite the hiccup earlier, which they were still trying to explain. The colonists had begun to panic anyway, though, with the realization that a malfunction that could wipe them all out was so possible.
The strange phenomena prompted the authorities of the colony to wonder if they had been a bit too hasty in their assumption that humans were the only lifeforms on Kepler-442b. And lo and behold, a further investigation showed the presence of an underground civilization, insectoid eyeless cave-dwellers. The crew that made first contact did not have the nerve to stomach the other species’ constant touching and apparent lack of understanding of the concept of personal space, so in the end the historic moment only consisted of about two minutes of a group of humans nervously standing about, then running back to their transport and driving off.
They got the call from Earth that they were to abandon the colony shortly after that. Unethical to try and develop an already inhabited planet, they said. Aziraphale and Crowley wondered if it was really Earth’s decision, or if the combined force of the settlers who now hated the thought of living on Kepler-442b had pushed to come home despite protests. Earth did not seem to have a plan for contacting the beings already living there, and the humans kept their distance as they speedily packed their things back onto the Aphelion.
“It seems a little sad,” said Crowley. He was on the bed looking at a screenview of the planet as Aziraphale fussed with the laundry, just as he had on the inbound trip. “We’re going to break contact once and for all before we’ve even had the chance to say hello.”
Aziraphale managed to get all their belongings into the drawer, then slid it shut. He sat down and wrapped an arm around Crowley. “It’s out of our hands.”
“I know,” he said. He looked around the suite. “You know, I really didn’t miss this tiny room. Even the apartments in the colony were bigger.”
“Think of it like a hotel room.”
“Mm-hmm. Sure.”
“Well, now that we’re alone, I’m sure the return journey will be a lot less stressful.”
“Mmm. Not looking forward to the cryosleep again, though.”
Aziraphale pushed him down into the bed, lying on top of him and wrapping his arms around him. “You know, the two of us could sleep for 500 years without a cryopod.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?”
“You know. The rules.”
“Screw the rules. Think of it. 500 years of cuddling.”
Crowley turned to give Aziraphale a kiss. “Ooh, I like it when you talk dirty, angel.”
“Soon we’ll be able to step on the grass again.”
“Yeah, that’s good.”
Aziraphale pulled the blanket up over them both, snugging close. Crowley suddenly went rigid.
“What’s the matter?”
“I…I forgot Nick Jr. Jr. Jr.!”
Aziraphale burst into laughter. “You remembered to go back out and grab your screen before takeoff, but you forgot things from our own apartment. I suppose you’ll have to get yet another plant, then.”
“But it just won’t be the same.”
“Hm, it’ll be at least a thousand years in the future once we get back. A lot of things won’t be the same. Will you be ready for it?”
Crowley smiled and nuzzled his jaw. “When you’re with me, I’m ready for anything, angel.”
THE END
Happy holidays, vulgarweed, from your Secret Writer!
Chapter 2: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/199132.html
Chapter 3: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/199301.html
Chapter 4: http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/199441.html
Chapter 5
Aziraphale convinced a human to give him an atmospheric suit with the help of the little hypnosis trick Crowley was so fond of. Obviously nothing they had would fit Crowley, so he would have to make do with miracles to keep himself alive on the surface of the planet. A human could survive for a few minutes unprotected, but what the limit might be for native fauna was still unclear.
Aziraphale stepped out of the airlock onto the barren surface of Kepler-442b. The sun was just starting to come up, casting long shadows from every rock and irregularity in the surface, washed-out reds and purples. Crowley scuttled by his feet.
Aziraphale’s lips moved from behind his visor.
“Can’t hear you, angel. You have to turn your microphone on.”
A light came on inside the helmet.
“That’s the light. The microphone.”
“I said, you should go on ahead and lead the way,” said Aziraphale.
Crowley skimmed the surface of the planet, quickly moving off into the distance. “I hope you’re ready for a bit of a walk.”
“Slow down, you’re going to leave me behind.”
The planet was dreadfully monotonous and empty. They passed the time by amusing themselves with conversation, two human voices breaking the otherwise absolute stillness of the barren surface. Aziraphale now found it much more exciting knowing that there was such activity right beneath his feet.
“How intelligent do you suppose they are?”
“Dunno,” said Crowley. “I didn’t see anything besides rock tunnels while I was down there, but I didn’t go in very far, so who knows if they build things? They don’t have eyes, but with no light they don’t really need them. I suppose the antennae gestures and vibrations are varied enough to make a language of sorts. And I think they were worried about me, so they must have some concept of empathy, unless they had been trying to cannibalize me and I just misinterpreted it.”
Aziraphale grimaced. “Well, if that turns out to be the case, we can just leave and let the humans deal with them as they may.”
“…Right.”
They came to the place, finally: an upraised hill, sloping gently upwards. The air above it wavered with heat. The old atmosphere suit was still there, lying empty a few paces off.
Crowley skittered up and perched on the lip of the entrance. “Stay right there, angel. I’m going to see if I can find anyone and bring them up.”
“All right.”
“Don’t make too many sudden movements. Just let them feel you.”
“Right.”
Crowley slithered into the hole. Aziraphale waited uncomfortably, listening to his own breathing inside the helmet.
Crowley reappeared a few minutes later and zoomed over to Aziraphale, wrapping around his leg. And two similar-looking creatures appeared behind him, sticking their heads out of the hole and waving their antennae.
“Hello,” said Aziraphale nervously.
The two creatures jerked backwards towards the hole.
“You’re talking too loudly,” said Crowley. “They’re very sensitive to vibrations.”
“Hello,” said Aziraphale in a whisper.
The two creatures eased back out, waving with renewed curiosity. Crowley tapped his leg, and Aziraphale stepped forwards, holding his hands out.
Two bodies plopped out of the hole and slid down the mound towards him. Their feelers battered him immediately, and they began to hum and vibrate.
“Hello!” said Aziraphale. “Crowley, I think they like me.”
One of them crouched low to the floor and approached Crowley, flicking its antennae at him and rumbling. “What’s it saying?” said Aziraphale.
“Blast, I have no idea,” said Crowley. “It could be anything.”
The second creature tugged at Aziraphale’s leg, then his hip, then his shoulder, running back to the top of the mound then back again in a flash, chittering and humming. The first one bumped Aziraphale’s legs from behind.
“Oh, ah,” said Aziraphale unsurely. “I-I think I’d better stay out here, sorry.”
The two creatures stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of him, rearing up, their tapping antennae never leaving him. He held his hands out again, and they tugged at him.
“I can’t go down there,” said Aziraphale. “Your bodies are designed to move through spaces like that easily and mine isn’t. I have to stay on the surface.”
One of them gave a great shiver, threw itself on the ground, turned itself over, legs wriggling, and then fell still.
“Goodness, are you okay?”
The creature rolled back upright, pulling at him again.
“Crowley, did you see that?” Aziraphale gasped. “That one just pantomimed dying. They want me to come inside because they think I’ll die if I stay up here.”
“Angel.”
“Crowley, look! There’s another one coming out! And look, that one’s wearing some sort of hat or a jacket or something! It’s-Crowley you were supposed to let that moss on your back grow out! It looks so handsome like that.”
“Angel!” Crowley suddenly appeared in front of him, pushing the other two creatures out of the way. They scattered, retreating back to the top of the hill, waving their antennae indignantly.
“Crowley! What did you do that for? They were just starting to warm up to me.”
Crowley scaled Aziraphale’s body, clamped one leg on each side of his head, and wrenched his gaze around back toward the colony.
“We need to go now.”
“What? Why?”
“Look up.”
Aziraphale did so. The sun was just beginning to touch the tips of the colony. The new light struck the shining surface of the Aphelion not far above the bubble. And the wheel of that great metal ship was perfectly still, hovering ominously over the colony like a bad omen in the sky.
The microphone within Aziraphale’s helmet crackled to life.
“Hello?” said Aziraphale.
The static resolved into a voice. “Hello, Aziraphale.”
“Lily?”
“Do you think Heaven is ready to receive 9,827 new souls? Or do you think they shall go to Hell instead? Or are we too far away, and they’ll just stay here somewhere?”
The three alien creatures watched Aziraphale and Crowley’s backs receding into the distance from the top of the mound, their antennae on the ground to feel the vibrations of their retreat. And if it were at all possible, they looked a little disappointed to see them go.
***
The shuttles that carried people to and from the Aphelion were actually launched a bit away from the colony, on a separate landing platform out in the cold desert. Aziraphale suddenly remembered with startling clarity what the captain had said about going up the Aphelion at first light, and he moved with supernatural speed across the planet’s empty surface towards where he knew the landing pad was.
The shuttle was still there, nose pointing up at the sky. As they approached, they saw a gaggle of humans in atmosphere suits nearby, gawking up at the Aphelion, which was never supposed to stop spinning and was now completely motionless.
Crowley had curled up into a ball, and Aziraphale was holding him against his chest for efficiency’s sake. Aziraphale had his wings out and had been using them to rocket across the wasteland, phasing them through the atmosphere suit. He had meant to pull them in before getting into sight of the humans. He really had.
But he accidentally just kind of didn’t. Their amazed gazes ripped from the Aphelion to him.
“Don’t stop!” Crowley shouted. “Keep going!”
Aziraphale caught sight of the captain’s incredulous gaze as he barreled through them, straight into the shuttle. The door miraculously sealed itself shut behind them. The humans were probably yelling at him to open it, but he didn’t listen as he made his way to the cockpit and chucked Crowley onto the co-pilot’s seat.
“You know how to fly this thing?” said Crowley, uncurling.
“In theory,” said Aziraphale, strapping himself in. “It’s mostly automated. I read a book.”
“You read a book?”
“You told them I was a robotics engineer, so I went about trying to learn about robotics! It seemed the least I could do!”
“Oh, well, that settles it, then, might as well be a five-star pilot.”
“Crowley, if you’d have the decency to stop yapping right about now, making yourself human-shaped again would probably be a big help, seeing as how the seat belts are made for human bodies.”
“Right…” said Crowley.
With a thought, Aziraphale summoned the holy water from his sock drawer. The thermos appeared beside him, but it tumbled down toward the bottom of the ship when he didn’t grab it in time.
He looked over to see that Crowley was decidedly still not human-shaped, but he had managed to strap himself mostly in nonetheless.
“Right, I suppose this is as good as it’s going to get,” Aziraphale said. “Let’s just hope they have the decency to clear the landing pad when they hear the countdown.”
The flight went more smoothly than one might expect. Docking turned out to be a challenge though, because the computer was programmed to land them on a moving ship, not a stationary one. Aziraphale grabbed the holy water before they moved through the airlock to the Aphelion.
“Shit,” said Aziraphale as the door swung open and they realized the entire ship was in zero-G. “Crowley, you’re sure you can’t turn back to man-shaped right about now?”
Crowley’s spindly legs hooked onto Aziraphale, who was still in his atmosphere suit. “I’ll keep trying. I’ll just stick to you, don’t worry about me.”
Aziraphale used the emergency handlebars on the wall to move the two of them into the hallway and onto the ship. The lights were strobing on and off, the intercom was crackling static, and objects never intended to be in zero-G floated by them and bumped them gently.
The intercom exploded into a voice warped by static decay. “Good to see you finally get with the program, Aziraphale. Nice to meet you, I’m a demon, and I won’t be ignored.”
The hallway echoed with a laugh that did not seem to be coming from the intercom alone, and the lights flicked out one by one until they were only lit from below by a red emergency light.
“Have I finally got your attention now?”
“Angel,” said Crowley, tapping him and gesturing upwards. The maintenance tunnel access they had used to mess about in the voyage to Kepler-442b was right above them.
“Can you find me?” Lily’s voice rattled the pipes and metal grating under them. “I’ll give you a hint: I’m not in a publicly accessible area.”
Aziraphale popped the maintenance panel off and crawled in. They weaved through the crawlspaces as they had before, this time much more urgently; Crowley’s new shape fit smoothly into the tunnel, legs tapping the metal as he zoomed through. When they reached the ladder, it went straight up into pitch blackness.
“I ejected the crew into space when I docked,” said Lily’s voice, barely recognizable through the electronic distortion. “Did you see them on your way up? The Aphelion is actually big enough to have a slight gravitational pull, so I’d imagine they’d be in orbit around us.”
“This isn’t funny, Lily!” Aziraphale shouted. “The Aphelion is vital to the colony’s continued function. You need to stop whatever you’re doing to it right now.”
The lights in the maintenance tunnel strobed in a line towards them, flashed mockingly, then went out again.
Aziraphale reached the top of the ladder and kicked off against the wall, soaring into the enormous empty space that had once held all the robotics on the ship.
“What about your directions, hm? That you’re not supposed to destroy the colony?”
“Hell isn’t here right now! They’ll never know anything but the version of the story that I tell them! You should have just listened to me earlier!”
“The demoness of chaos,” said Aziraphale, moving past the locked door and kicking off, floating upwards. “Hell was bragging about how much better than Crowley you were, and this is your plan? To throw a temper tantrum when your nemesis ignores you?”
“I have the power to single-handedly plunge an entire interstellar vessel into pandemonium,” her voice seethed. “You will not ignore me.”
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale. “I might have to use this holy water.”
Crowley clung to him more tightly.
“I’ll give you the suit.”
“I’m not shaped right to fit in it.”
“Then figure something out!” Aziraphale snapped.
They had made their way to the enormous hollow shafts running to the center of the ship by now. Aziraphale could feel the second demonic presence growing nearer. Lily’s shrieking laughter echoed down the shafts like a clanging bell, carried down with the harsh electric light from the engine.
Aziraphale braced against the ceiling and shot towards the cords, which were still zipping up and down with enormous speed. The lights flickered and sparks flew out from the walls as they rode it up.
“Crowley, get ready,” said Aziraphale, beginning to unzip his suit.
“Angel, I’m not ready!”
“Hold on tight!”
The wall was coming up fast. Aziraphale threw himself off the cord and simultaneously twisted out of the atmosphere suit, leaving Crowley clinging to it as it spun in a different direction.
Aziraphale went tumbling head over heels, catching sight of Lily as he did so. She was hovering in front of the swarming mass of blue light that was the engine with her wings out. She was in a significantly more demonic form: forked tail, cloven hooves, sputtering fire and ashes, glowing embers in the dark broken only by the cold blue light bathing them all. She turned to face Aziraphale as he appeared, and he smashed into the invisible barrier isolating the engine.
“Crowley!” said Aziraphale. He craned his neck to see the demon’s progress.
“I’m trying!” came the frustrated response.
Lily’s hands morphed into a beastly set of claws, and she lunged at Aziraphale. He cursed and pushed off of the barrier, just narrowly missing being disemboweled. Lily continued on her vector towards the wall, while Aziraphale went careening towards the floor.
He smashed into the surface, bouncing off and floating at an angle away. Lily had sunk her claws into the wall and pushed off again, coming directly at him.
Aziraphale struggled in midair to right himself. A hand yanked on his leg, turning him back upright, and Aziraphale’s vision was suddenly filled with the visor of the atmosphere suit. Crowley’s human face stared back at him, yellow eyes aglow with triumph. “Let her have it, angel!” he said, zipping the suit up.
Aziraphale nodded, and with Crowley’s help he pivoted to face Lily, who was descending on him like a bird of prey. He removed the thermos from his jacket, flicked the lid off, and threw the liquid out with one swift motion.
The water arced out, wobbling and splattering and resolving into large boluses and droplets, fanning out like a shotgun pellet. Lily gave a shriek as she realized what was about to happen, but it was too late to try and change direction.
Aziraphale and Crowley held tightly to each other as she collided with the holy water. She exploded into a fit of hisses and shrieks, crying out in pain and anger. Nothing was left but an amorphous grey goo by the time it reached them, stray droplets of holy water pelting them.
“Ah,” said Crowley as a bubble of holy water broke on the visor. “This is better than gloves and tongs.”
“You’re all right,” said Aziraphale, trying to ruffle the demon’s hair and obviously failing.
The lights snapped back on, and the warbling engine fell back into relative calmness.
“Look at that,” said Crowley, voice still shaking with adrenaline. “We did it. Haha. We’re real space heroes, we are. We should get a medal. Two medals!”
Aziraphale clunked his forehead on the visor, smiling and bathing in that reciprocal smile, one that went all the way to the eyes, that very human smile for a demon.
“I’ll get you all the medals you want, my dear.”
***
Returning the shuttle would have been easy, except they also needed to avoid getting caught. They did manage to pull it off, though. The Aphelion was spinning as it should once again, so they launched back down to the planet with considerable speed. They had an ungraceful landing a ways away from the landing pad and took off before anyone could get to them.
They had seen Aziraphale’s face, though, of course. Aziraphale simply changed his corporation, all the facial features and even the skin tone, and insisted to anyone who asked that he had always looked like this. That strange winged creature caught on camera at the landing pad? That’s not Aziraphale. Hah, why would you even think that? Clearly the two look totally different.
Angels and demons are very good at persuasion, so it worked reasonably well. Tampering with the personnel files in the computer also helped.
The staff who went up confirmed that the Aphelion was working properly despite the hiccup earlier, which they were still trying to explain. The colonists had begun to panic anyway, though, with the realization that a malfunction that could wipe them all out was so possible.
The strange phenomena prompted the authorities of the colony to wonder if they had been a bit too hasty in their assumption that humans were the only lifeforms on Kepler-442b. And lo and behold, a further investigation showed the presence of an underground civilization, insectoid eyeless cave-dwellers. The crew that made first contact did not have the nerve to stomach the other species’ constant touching and apparent lack of understanding of the concept of personal space, so in the end the historic moment only consisted of about two minutes of a group of humans nervously standing about, then running back to their transport and driving off.
They got the call from Earth that they were to abandon the colony shortly after that. Unethical to try and develop an already inhabited planet, they said. Aziraphale and Crowley wondered if it was really Earth’s decision, or if the combined force of the settlers who now hated the thought of living on Kepler-442b had pushed to come home despite protests. Earth did not seem to have a plan for contacting the beings already living there, and the humans kept their distance as they speedily packed their things back onto the Aphelion.
“It seems a little sad,” said Crowley. He was on the bed looking at a screenview of the planet as Aziraphale fussed with the laundry, just as he had on the inbound trip. “We’re going to break contact once and for all before we’ve even had the chance to say hello.”
Aziraphale managed to get all their belongings into the drawer, then slid it shut. He sat down and wrapped an arm around Crowley. “It’s out of our hands.”
“I know,” he said. He looked around the suite. “You know, I really didn’t miss this tiny room. Even the apartments in the colony were bigger.”
“Think of it like a hotel room.”
“Mm-hmm. Sure.”
“Well, now that we’re alone, I’m sure the return journey will be a lot less stressful.”
“Mmm. Not looking forward to the cryosleep again, though.”
Aziraphale pushed him down into the bed, lying on top of him and wrapping his arms around him. “You know, the two of us could sleep for 500 years without a cryopod.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?”
“You know. The rules.”
“Screw the rules. Think of it. 500 years of cuddling.”
Crowley turned to give Aziraphale a kiss. “Ooh, I like it when you talk dirty, angel.”
“Soon we’ll be able to step on the grass again.”
“Yeah, that’s good.”
Aziraphale pulled the blanket up over them both, snugging close. Crowley suddenly went rigid.
“What’s the matter?”
“I…I forgot Nick Jr. Jr. Jr.!”
Aziraphale burst into laughter. “You remembered to go back out and grab your screen before takeoff, but you forgot things from our own apartment. I suppose you’ll have to get yet another plant, then.”
“But it just won’t be the same.”
“Hm, it’ll be at least a thousand years in the future once we get back. A lot of things won’t be the same. Will you be ready for it?”
Crowley smiled and nuzzled his jaw. “When you’re with me, I’m ready for anything, angel.”
THE END
Happy holidays, vulgarweed, from your Secret Writer!