I've Seen Better Hares on a Lavatory Brush

"I felt as if I'd been entombed, buried alive. In a plastic coffin."

The lid made a gentle clunk as Spiron dropped it down. Darkness. I heard a faint hiss and I felt a twinge of panic - Were they going to suffocate me? The box must have been soundproof - I couldn't hear anything from outside and the ship had been making a low droning noise ever since we reached the orbit we were parked in.

---*---

The sky had slid through every shade of blue from a bright morning blue you would only describe a s "Sky" onto royal colours, to the blue known as midnight and finally onto black. The strange thing was the clear sunlight streaming into the front of the craft. My hackles raised to see a black sky with such bright daylight.

Spirion tweaked something and the inertial damping field holding me dissolved from the viscosity of jam to water then air. My hand jumped to the latch of the seat-belt, which was the only thing now holding me down, and clicked my freedom.

"Careful!" The blue captain shouted at me, "We've on minimal gravity, and you won't be used to it!" I was surprised to hear such concern for my well being, maybe first impressions weren't everything.

Then maybe not.

Spiron had then hopped over to me and stared down at me. I felt so light I thought I was going to float up at him. "I don't want you knocking anything over until you what it is you're knocking!" Then his voice softened and he held his hand out. "This will be your first proper look at your home-orb, come here."

He helped me up and I stood gingerly in the low gravity field the ship was generating. Don't we all wish I knew enough physics to say what laws this ship was breaking?

My chin hit the floor, or would have done had the gravity has been strong enough. The sight of Earth, hanging above me brought the word "epiphany" to mind.

"I feel like I'm on The Ledge" I said to him. "There should be green grass beneath my feet and my friends gathering round me singing songs of home." Spiron frowned at me. I let out a little laugh and cocked my head, "I assume you aren't au-fait with coney religion?" He shook his head. "Me neither." I had said smiling, "But there were some songs sung at school assemblies that really made their mark." I looked at the Earth, smiling.

"It is magnificent." Spiron had said, "I always find a green orb a thing of beauty from space." He took a deep breath. "It is time to get you checked over by the auto-doc." He motioned to the door. "We need to get your medical details on file - then it can generate some implants for you and we can get rid of, "He waved at the spider's webs of wires adorning my head, "This!"

He had walked towards the exit and the sphincter opened as he approached it. He barked out orders at the other crew and they followed us through the doorway and hopped and plodded and scuttled into the ship in all directions.

"The 'doc, " He said, "will need to do a full analysis. Your planet has been interdicted for " then the translator made a <ghhshk> noise - I assume it couldn't translate his phrase, " And so your species won't be on file." We reached an alcove which held, what looked like, a large plastic container. "We have some more repairs and chores to perform before the ship can Translate." Apart from the one <ghhshk> the translator had been perfect, so I assumed he must mean some form of travel. "We should have completed all checks by the time you get out. A full check-up could take.." He stopped for a second and his eyes seemed to lose focus., "A full check-up," he repeated, "could take half a rotation of your planet." Twelve Hours! Well, I could do with the sleep I'd missed from last night, but I don't think I could sit still in a box not much bigger than a coffin for that long.

I tried to make him understand but he just bullied me into the auto-doc unit.

The lid made a gentle clunk.

---*---

A low hum entered my ears - it appeared to be coming from below my feet. I raised my head as far as I could and stared at my lower paws. A curtain of light was moving slowly towards them, standard "We're being scanned, Captain!" fare.

The light touched my toes and I flinched. As it made it's way over my feet I could feel them getting numb!

The light reached my ankles and I could not feel my feet anymore! I was gripped with a bout of panic and tried to bang on the lid to no avail. I couldn't get much of a swing in the confines of this coffin and the materiel of the lid seemed to bounce my feeble blows away.

The light reached my knees and I could tell that my lower legs were either numb or not there at all!

I attempted to calm myself down: If my feet had been disintegrated I would have felt something. I concentrated on this thought. Hard.

The light reached my waist. What would happen when it reached my heart? Did these creatures know enough not to accidentally kill me whilst examining me?

The light passed over my paws and my feeble banging stopped. If the light was not halfway up my chest I'd have attempted to hyperventilate, just for the fun of it.

I closed my eyelids and said a short prayer to Bugs.

---*---

The lid was raised and light streamed at me. A very concerned looking Spiron stood over me, holding his hand out again.

"Are you alright?" He asked. I knew it. The machine had been trying to kill me!

I clenched my hands. They were alright, I grabbed at his offered paw and levered myself up. I was nearly too scared to look at my feet. But yes, they were still there and looked fine.

I realised that I was okay! I told him so.

"It's only been five minutes!" He said. His eyes defocused again. "The 'doc says that you are already on file." He raised an eyebrow. "Intriguing..."

I stood up. "Good news!" Spiron said. "The machine has three implants that you can have straight away!" He hopped away and I followed. He inserted his left paw into a hole in the wall and when he brought it out it was covered in a thin translucent film. He motioned me over and I could see that a small drawer had come out of the wall with three small balls, each the size of a large peanut, one yellow, one blue and one green. Spiron took the yellow peanut and mashed it on the side of my neck. It felt strange, as if he had rubbed acidic plasticene into me. My lip twitched.

"That's the translator." He said, ignoring my discomfort, "It'll take the nano's a few minutes to build it and a few more minutes to wire you up." He smiled as I stood, confused, "So you'll be able to take the external translator off in a little while." He took the green one and pressed it into the back of my head. Again, that feeling of burning modelling clay.

"That's a memory unit. It'll take longer to build because it's got to integrate with your optics and to the translator." This explanation was going over my head, higher than, A Planet! "I'll explain that later."

"This one," he said grabbing the third one and slapping it on my rump, "Will also take an hour or two before the nano build it." He smiled at me, "You'll like that one the best. It augments your digestive system, once your normal system has removed the usual nutrients this kicks in." He smiled, it sounded gross. "You should find that, according to the Ship anyhow, you only need to pass waste once a week. The implant will convert what it can into fuel for the other implants. Any extra it will beam back to the ship." He put a more sombre expression on. "If you are away from the ship for any length of time you should de-commission it or else it won't be able to beam the excess energy away. You'd heat up from the inside." He smiled a little again, "Not very pleasant."

I wasn't sure this was my particular cup of tea. I appeared to have a number of small machines inside of me, building other machines.. I felt like the baby rabbit who had eaten the bread-dough and felt it rise inside his stomach.