An excerpt from a novel by Sarah Prineas ’89
Chapter 1
Outer space is dark and empty and silent, and it’s really, really big. There are stars, but they are distant and cold. You could drift through space for a long time without meeting up with anything. You could drift for so long that you might forget where you come from and where you are going.
I am a shapeshifter. Currently I am traveling through space in the form of a blob of goo. In this form I’m about the size of a large rat, but without shape or color, like a big, squishy amoeba.
After a long, lonely time floating through the cold, dark, silent nothingness, I detect a space station. When I’m in my blob form I don’t have eyes, so I don’t see, exactly, but as I get nearer, I can sense that the station is shaped like a huge ring, spinning slowly, brilliantly lit against the darkness.
For someone like me, a space station means danger.
It also means warmth and light and other beings and food.
Don’t worry. I don’t mean that other beings are my food. I am a shapeshifter, and I am very hungry, but I don’t eat people.
Slowly, I drift closer to the station. Closer.
You know what a pseudopod is?
Yep, that’s right. It’s like a fake leg or a fake arm. It’s just my goo stretching out so I can hold on to things and pull myself along.
As I drift right up close to the station, I extend a couple of pseudopods and grab on; then I ooze along until I find a hatch — a door leading from outer space to inside the station. Molecule by molecule, I ooze through the crack into an airlock, and from there, inside.
I rest, clinging to a ceiling in a corridor, feeling very hungry. People who live on the station pass below without noticing me. There are insectoids with shiny exoskeletons, and scaly lizardians with big beady eyes, and humanoids with skin that is lavender or brown or peachy pale or tinged with green.
Then along comes a young humanoid with brown skin, pointed ears, and blue hair. Following her is a smaller creature. It is cute and fluffy and has a pink tongue that hangs out of its long snout, and it has a frondy tail. I know this kind of creature — it’s a dog. As they walk below me, I sense that the small humanoid reaches out and pats the dog on the head. Then she pulls something from her pocket.
Food. It’s a little piece of food. She feeds it to the dog, and the dog’s tail wags and wags and wags.
After they pass, I wait until nobody is coming and I drop to the floor of the corridor and shift into a new shape.
Cute, fluffy, four paws, floppy ears, sad eyes.
That’s me — a dog puppy.
I practice wagging my tail.
I figure out how to walk with four paws.
I practice making sounds. A whine, a yip, a growl. A bark!
And then I set off to find somebody who will pat me on the head and feed me treats, somebody I can wag my tail at.
I figure I’ll have the best luck on the station’s docks, a cavernously huge, cold, bright place that is lined with shops and bars and restaurants. It’s busy with people from all over the galaxy. The docks are where spaceships come in to pick up passengers and cargo. It’s noisy and interesting, and there are giant screens everywhere showing 3D news reports and advertisements, but none of it is colorful, because dog eyes mostly see in black and white. I spend a lot of time going up to people wagging my tail and being adorable and fluffy, but all I get is kicked and shouted at. Everybody is too busy rushing around doing important things; they don’t have time for a puppy.
I’m getting better at scrounging for scraps and finding warm places to sleep when something on the docks starts smelling strange — different and slightly wrong. I crouch behind a cargo pod, the deck cold under my belly, and with my keen puppy nose I sniff the air. It smells like danger.
The danger-smell makes me feel prickly all over, and it makes me remember three things that the long, dark cold of space made me forget until just now.
One: I am fleeing from something, but I don’t know what.
Two: I am trying to find something, but I don’t know what that is either.
Three: I am a shapeshifter … but I am the only one.
Chapter 2
The space station docs are echoing and deserted, brilliantly lit and colder than ever. Huge barrel-like cargo pods are lined up neatly near each ship’s closed hatch, the shops and bars are shut, everything is locked down. The cutest dog puppy on the station has not found anywhere to hide from the danger, whatever it is, and I’m starting to feel a little bit desperate.
Hearing the tramp of heavy footsteps on the cold metal deck, I slink on my belly behind a cargo pod, then peer out to see what’s going on.
There’s a group of people wearing gray uniforms; on the front of each is a patch with the words StarLeague over a picture of a galaxy. Shivering, I watch an officer in their midst who seems more important that the others. He is a tall, broad humanoid, with a heavy chin and a bulging forehead, and in addition to his patch he’s wearing a shiny pin at his collar.
Something about him make me tuck my tail between my hind legs and want to run away and hide.
The big StarLeague officer is giving orders to search the station, something about a hunt for an escaped prisoner.
“The prisoner,” he says in a deep, booming voice, “escaped from a class-four military prison. It is devious, ruthless, and extremely dangerous. We have good reason to believe that it is somewhere on this space station.”
I don’t linger to hear any more. Staying in the shadows, I sneak away, then slither through a narrow passage between two shops, where I rest, panting.
My stomach growls, hungry. I growl back at it.
What I’ll do, I figure, is stay hidden until the StarLeague soldiers catch their devious, dangerous prisoner, and then I can go on with my hunt for a person who will be nice to a cute puppy. Feeling safe in a shadowy alley, I curl into a fluffy ball, and my eyes drop closed.
When I wake up, there is a pair of shiny StarLeague shoes standing right in front of my nose.
“Got one!” the soldier yells in a shrill voice. She’s an insectoid, and she reaches down with three of her four arms, and before I can squirm away she grabs me by the scruff of my neck and shoves me into a metal cage.
Wait. What?
I yelp, but she ignores me, picking up my cage and carrying me along the dock until we get to a place with a bunch more soldiers in gray uniforms milling around, and cages like the one I’m in.
She drops my cage to the metal deck with a clang, and goes off to report in. I crouch in my cage, panting; it’s so cold on the docks that my breath comes out in steamy puffs. Shivering, I peer out to see what’s going on.
The cage nearest to mine has a rat in it. Stacked on it are three more cages, all also holding rats.
That sounds like a lot of rats, doesn’t it? Four rats is nothing. Believe me, there are a lot of rats on this space station.
The next cage is a glass box holding a swarm of insects with brown carapaces, and then there’s a glass tank with liquid in it that holds a creature that looks like a swirl of fangs and tentacles. In another cage there’s a ball of shiny scales that makes a high-pitched crooning noise.
I don’t get it. The StarLeague soldiers are hunting for a dangerous escaped prisoner, right? Why did they capture a bunch of other animals, some rats, and me?
I’ve only just caught my breath when there’s a ring of heavy footsteps on the metal deck. An inspection. The big scary StarLeague officer is going from one cage to another, examining each creature.
I crouch in my cage, making myself as small as I can. My dog tongue lolls out of my mouth; I pant with fear.
I am a dog puppy, I think. I am harmless. Pay no attention to me.
From my cage, I see the officer’s feet, encased in shiny black material, coming closer. My dog nose tells me that he smells like something acidic, with the faintest tinge of metal.
“This, General Smag,” says the insectoid soldier, pointing at me with an antenna, “is one of the creatures we caught. Just a dog pup.”
The important military officer — the general — steps closer, then bends and peers in at me. I cringe away, squeezing myself into a corner of the cage.
“Maybe it’s a dog,” he says, “and maybe it isn’t.”
What? What does he mean by that?
Between his bulging forehead and his large chin, his nose and mouth seem too small. His eyes, though, are very sharp. They are completely black and shiny, and he does not blink as he examines me. Reflected in them I see a small, frightened, shivering dog, but I’m not sure what his eyes really see. If they see me.
“Hmmmm,” his deep voice rumbles. Then he straightens abruptly. “Once we’ve completed the search, we will examine the creatures more closely. In the meantime, continue to monitor for the energy pattern.” The general stalks away, trailed by soldiers. He issues more orders, and some of the soldiers hurry off, while others cluster around some sort of computerlike device that has antennae and blinking lights.
I have a bad feeling that to be examined more closely by the general will be an extremely unpleasant experience.
I have to escape.
It’s not going to be easy.
Nearby, the rats are sitting quietly in their cages. If I know rats, they’re plotting something. Beyond them are the soldiers. There are a lot of them, but they’re busy and not actually paying attention to the animals in the cages.
Carefully, quietly, I let myself relax into my blob of goo form. It takes only a few moments for me to ooze between the metal slats of my cage. Using my pseudopods, I creep over the floor, and then I pause.
The other creatures who have been captured. I should let them out.
For one thing, it will create confusion, and maybe the soldiers won’t notice that the dog puppy is missing.
For another, they deserve a chance to escape too.
Fortunately, the soldiers are all distracted by their computer device, which is making funny beeping noises. Quickly, I ooze from one cage to the next, extending a pseudopod to open each latch. The rats scurry out, the silver-scaled ball unrolls into an armored animal that trundles across the floor, the insects spill out of their tank and disappear into cracks and crevices, and the fang-tentacle creature plops to the floor and slithers away.
Once they’re all free, I creep over the metal deck and hide behind a nearby cargo pod.
And that’s when one of the soldiers finally looks away from the blinking, beeping device and notices that the cages are all empty.
“Aaaahhhhh!” he shouts.
At the same moment, General Smag marches back up with a bunch more soldiers. Several of them draw their weapons, on high alert. “What is going on?” the general rasps.
Even my fearless blob of goo self trembles at the sound of his harsh voice.
“The cages.” The insectoid soldier points with one of her antennae. “We must have left them unlocked.”
The general’s beady black eyes flicker, surveying the docks, and then he whirls, barking orders. “The creatures have escaped! We must recapture them all immediately!”
I shift back into my dog puppy form and dash into a nearby alley as alarms start to blare, lights flash, and all the screens on the docks play an emergency warning message. My puppy heart pounds with fright, and I race away, turning corners and ducking into the shadows between two shops, where I crouch, panting and shivering.
A moment later, two StarLeague soldiers running past pause, catching sight of me. With their shouts ringing out, I race down another dark alley and scurry out onto the wide metal deck of the docks. The lights blast down; more alarms blare. General Smag’s giant face appears on all of the screens on the docks. He’s shouting orders. There’s nowhere to hide.
And I still don’t understand. The StarLeague is here to hunt for a dangerous escaped prisoner. So why are they chasing me?!
I race in the other direction, and my sharp dog ears hear more footsteps coming.
Skidding to a stop, I look for a place to hide — anywhere.
I dash to hide behind the nearest set of cargo pods, but it’s the first place they’ll look, they’ve got me, I have nowhere else to run.
Then I see it.
The nearest ship at dock is an old beat-up freighter, here at the station to take on cargo. It is not a military ship, not StarLeague — its closed outer hatch door is scratched and dented, and there’s part of a name stenciled on it in flaking paint: H n gh.
And as I crouch nearby, panting, its hatch door buzzes and then slowly starts to creak open.
I don’t hesitate.
Somehow the StarLeague soldiers don’t see me as I bolt from my shadowy hiding place, my paws scrabbling on the slick metal deck. Panting, I race up the ramp, through the open hatchway, and into the ship.
Safe!
From Trouble in the Stars by Sarah Prineas. Philomel/Penguin Young Readers. Copyright 2021 by Sarah Prineas