The Space Spoon

3. Tejeda Hajar

Tejeda was heading towards somewhere, and by saying 'somewhere', that is the most accurate way to put it. Simply strolling through an unknown ship with an unknown name. Unknown faces passed by him, most of them not even noticing his current persona.

“Hey, Karl, weren’t you supposed to be on duty today?”

The voice came from a short olive-skinned man with small, apricot-shaped eyes who stopped right in front of him. Paying more attention to this man, Tejeda realized that he wasn’t so short; Tejeda was too tall. Oh, right, he was Karl now!

The Nubilae giggled with a sheepish smile on his face. That face had such an easy way to make a fool's appearance, and those muscles looked like they were accustomed to make him look like that.

“I,” he coughed softly, trying to alter his voice and tonality. Tejeda wasn’t used to that low pitch. “It seems like that spoon hit me harder than I thought.”

The unknown human’s eyebrows furrowed as perfect cylinders. “Spoon? What is that?”

Tejeda shrugged. “Nevermind. Just point me in the right direction. I can’t seem to remember where I was supposed to work today.”

“You have clearly hit your head! Go up the corridor, and the last door on the right is Shayla’s office. She gives the duties, and you are late. I don’t want to be in your shoes now.”

“You would stump and fall anyway. Besides, I can’t possibly be late. The speed of time is a second per second.”

Tejeda left the baffled man behind and went straight to Shayla’s office. He stopped for a second before entering, arranging his ragged outfit. Was Shayla fond of muscle men, or should he change this body? That thought crossed his mind without any notice. He shook his head as if to toss away that idea.

After he entered the second in command’s office, Tejeda went for an official salute. His body froze in the middle of the movement upon realizing that he didn’t know what salute to use. There were no clear indications of what faction this vessel belonged to, no badges on people’s chests. Most likely, these were hooligans or a rogue crew and, therefore, no salute was necessary. He remained slightly bent, with his right hand awkwardly half-raised in a dumb pose.

Shayla didn’t see his gawky stare and posture as she didn’t look at him at all. Instead, she greeted him with words thrown at him with harshness. “You are late. I put you on the exterior repair crew. If you die, there won’t be any losses, and we are overcrowded anyway.”

Tejeda nodded. He was able to get important information from what she stated. That was the reason they put people to fight when new recruits came in. As it turned out, Karl was on the bottom of the list of needed crewmen. He should work his way up the ranks if he wanted to avoid fighting or dying in the near future.

The perfect opportunity for him emerged sooner than he thought. A pair of bickering men in white suits barged into Shayla’s office.

“I told you already. There is nothing wrong with it, biologically speaking. I have taken tissue samples, and there is nothing close enough to explain the problem.”

The other man pouted and raised a hand. With a swipe-down movement, he opened a transparent screen in the middle of the room. A message appeared in red letters at the top left corner of the screen. “Welcome, Harland King, doctor in chemistry, the leader of the synthetic team. Species: Human. Security level threat: 0/10.”

Harland opened data streams whizzing at light speed on the screen, mainly statistics and tables. “Shayla, please come and take a look. You haven’t replied to any of our messages, and we are in dire need of you to decide if we throw all our carrots.”

“What are the side effects of a non-carrot diet?” Shayla asked, rising from her chair and paying no attention to Tejeda.

“Well, the substances we take from them keep blood sugar levels under control, strengthen bones and improve eyesight.”

Shayla nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “We can make do without carrots for a while. Can’t you find the source of this disease and cure the carrots we have?”

The two men shook their heads as their helplessness could clearly be seen in their eyes. “We tried everything. Testing various methods has been done in order to determine if something can delay the rotting process. Nothing worked.”

When Harland King finished talking, he saw Tejeda looking at his screen over his shoulder. The blonde muscle man laughed. “I think I have an idea.”

The Nubilae pushed the scientist aside and started working on the transparent screen in the middle of the room. Various data and formulas appeared as he continued typing. Shayla whispered into Harland’s ear. “Do you know what he is doing?”

The man shook his head vigorously. “I have no idea.”

Suddenly, Tejeda stopped and turned around to face the audience. “I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”

Shayla smiled in amusement. “I will indulge you. Give me the good one.”

“I have found a way to cure all the carrot stocks in the cargo bay and the hydroponics.”

“Wonderful! I could applaud now if it weren’t for the bad news.”

Tejeda was lost there for a moment because of her smile. He recovered quickly and continued. “The bad part is that the carrots must be in a thermodynamic equilibrium on a descending vector from the orbit of a blue star.”

Harland King burst into laughter. “This is the craziest idea I have heard in my entire life. And I work with people having underdeveloped brains. Yours is simply overflowing with muscles."

The doctor in chemistry touched the screen and swiped up, making it disappear. Tejeda wanted to stop him but wasn’t fast enough. The Nubilae smiled. “Ha, I can do it too. I saw you doing it once before.”

When Tejeda raised his hand and swiped down, the screen reappeared. This time the message in the top left corner was a bit different. “Welcome, Tejeda Hajar, Major in the Interplanetary Police, undercover expert for the Supervising Unit. Species: Nubilae. Security level threat: 10/10.”

Tejeda whistled, the right corner of his bottom lip curled in an idiot stance. “Oops, I did it again!”