by Rok Chillah
"All dead," Tomson said as he walked from one incubator to the next. Brenna, Lantz, and Ridge did the same in other aisles running among the receptacles.
"These remains are mummified with age," Ridge said. "This happened a long time ago." It was a bone house, a charnel place, Ridge thought. What had happened here? What was going on?
"Look," Brenna said pointing along the floors. Many of the bodies had been lifted roughly from their resting places and left of the thinly carpeted floor. Few of those bodies were intact.
"They've been gnawed," Tomson said in a disgusted voice. Lantz stifled a choking sound, and Ridge felt overwhelmed by the cruelty and insanity of this overwhelming sight. "Mudmen," he said. "It had to be mudmen."
"They had quite a feast here," Brenna said. "What a terrible place."
Ridge walked numbly with his rifle hanging. "For some reason, the ship's crew left their offices and other work stations. They came here, expecting to sleep through their emergency, whatever that was. They never woke up again, because they never expected to be attacked while they were asleep."
"Why asleep?" Lantz said. "On the Luna-Neptune run?"
"Expecting help," Tomson said. "It would save oxygen to go into suspended animation like this. Maybe the hull was punctured."
Ridge frowned. "Thousands of people. How can that be? Unless it was a colony ship, there wouldn't be this many people on board. And I've never heard of a ship where each person had a deep sleep incubator."
Brenna said: "You think the plan was to go to sleep? That would imply a much longer journey." She stared at Ridge, Tomson, back at Ridge. "There is no place in the solar system that would require a fast-moving ship to have deep sleep capabilities. Besides, those are experimental, and I can't think of a single ship that had them." She bit her lip, realizing she had said something that might not make sense.
"Poor kid," Lantz said. "What memories of ours are real?"
Tomson said: "If the hull was punctured, which is my bet since we saw all that slag and charcoal and all those missing decks that simply burned away, then the ship has done a great deal to repair itself. Or it's been repaired a lot. By whom?"
"People like us," Ridge said. "WorkPods. You saw how old Caulfield was. He must have been the last one out of WorkPod09 in many years."
"You saw incubators in WorkPod01?" Tomson asked.
"Yes." Ridge pictured once more the calm, secure, shadowy interior he'd glimpsed. He pictured again the orderly array of incubators. "I think the ship grows generations of us. For generations we've been repairing the ship. Generations of us." He trailed off. Lantz cried again. Brenna sniffled. Ridge continued: "Venable, that son of a bitch, if he's real. He and a few people, working behind the scenes, out of reach of these damned baseball-heads, have been growing generations of us to slowly get the ship back into shape. For some reason, nobody has come to rescue us, so it all just keeps going like this." He walked among the scattered bones and dried-up scraps of skin of the ship's humans. As he stepped over it all, laughing madly, he saw their clothing disintegrate into puffs of dust. "There is no question now," he said, "we can't deny it. This is a generational ship of some kind, purpose unknown. Colonization? Maybe. It's anyone's guess. I want to know the answer!" He shouted at the rows and rows of dead people. "I want an answer, you bastards!" He shook their incubators, and kicked one. It was heavy and barely moved. "Serves you right, you heartless bastards!"
"Look down here," Tomson said. He pointed down a long central aisle wider than the rest. His three companions followed him into a wide central area crammed with dead machines. Stillness, shadows, emptiness hung eerily over the machines that were choked with dust and had not run in many years. "If I can fire some of these up," Tomson said, "we might be able to figure out what year it is and where we are. We might be able to figure a lot of information out."
Lantz held up her hand. They all fell silent and listened to a distant medley of flute sounds. It was like the noise made by wind pushing gently through drainpipes on a rainy night, Ridge thought. He had no idea where the image came from, but it felt eerie and creepy. Chills traveled up and down his back. Lantz ran a wrist over her forehead and leaned against the metal skins of the computer cabinets. "I don't know how much longer I can take this." She slumped down in one of a dozen or more chairs that stood randomly about. She rested her arms on the armrests and lay back tiredly for a few moments. Tomson did the same in another chair, and looked longingly at Ridge. Tomson said: "Ridge, don't you ever get tired?" He looked at Brenna: "You okay?"
Brenna hugged herself and nodded uncertainly. Her lips trembled, and her eyes flicked sideways as if she were glancing back into her wonderful memories. "I'll be okay once I get over it," she said faintly.
Lantz spoke for her. "I wish I knew if any of it was true. Do I really remember smelling the moss on foggy morning? Or is that just bullshit, like the memory of a butterfly wing beating in stillness so profound you could almost hear the wing flutter as the little guy moves from one big purple flower to the next. Or are the purple flowers bullshit too?"
"None of it is bullshit," Brenna declared in a small, firm voice. "All of it is real and sacred because those are our memories. We are people, and that is our soul. Our memories are our souls, and it doesn't matter how the memories got there." She suddenly burst into tears. "I had two beautiful babies and they were not bullshit." She threw herself against a tall computer cabinet and hugged it, crying. She hauled back and planted a resounding punch on the cabinet surface, which echoed like a flat cracked gong down the corridors. The flute music paused a second, then grew louder.
"They are getting closer," Tomson said. He moved weary eyeballs right and left as if wondering—should he run again? Was it worth it? Ridge had the same feeling, but wouldn't let it get the best of him...not yet, anyway. "Come on," Ridge said, "we need to find our way into the CP. We need to interview Captain Venable."
"I'd like to strangle him," Lantz said, jumping to her feet. "Come on," she said, offering Tomson a hand. "Let's go."
"Yeah," Tomson said with a sigh as he pushed himself erect. "Ridge, lead the way. Where's that man with the answers? Where is that handsome captain of ours? I'd like to have a few words with him before I wring his neck."
Ridge grinned. He listened carefully and heard the flute sound getting closer from several directions. He could have sworn he heard running feet. If the mudmen could run that fast, then there was little hope of escaping them. Sooner rather than later, they would catch up with the four remaining team members. Until then, Ridge thought, we'll give them a run for their money. "I think I see more elevators down there." Ridge pointed down a main artery to its end against the curving hull. "We're close to the nose area. Maybe we can get into the CP and barricade ourselves in. It's a small area and we can defend ourselves."
"If there is food and water," Lantz said.
Brenna shouldered her rifle and stepped forward. "I'd rather die of thirst than have those things tear me apart."
Once again, Ridge found himself a step closer to falling in love with Brenna—or was it awe? Her demand for dignity made Ridge feel quiet and content inside, even if they were about to be killed.
Brenna said: "Everyone, stop looking so glum. We have each other, we are still alive, and we have a CP to find. Let's go!" She started briskly off in the direction of the elevators by the hull, and Lantz was the first to scramble to try and keep up with Brenna. Ridge and Tomson followed, Ridge feeling glad for once he did not have to lead.
Behind him, the dull brush of mudmen vocal chords on rounded mouthfuls of air grew louder.
Chapter 11
Slowly, cautiously, they stepped out, one foot at a time, into a carpeted receptionist area on the top and final floor. This was no lobby, but some kind of executive suite. The curvature of the nose area was evident on all sides. The two elevators opened on a small round area that was comfortably claustrophobic. It was a tight little space with inward curving walls narrower on top than bottom by a goo
d two feet. The ceiling looked like a plate that could be removed, probably revealing miles of tangled cabling. Under the tan, stylish modesty of the ceiling were two banks of tiny silvery light globes on tracks. These lit up as the four stepped into the room. Several single-panel doors led away into unknown rooms, presumably the Bridge or Command Post or command module of the entire operation. Around the walls were thick greenish glass windows inset in small, massively built sills. Breaking the circle of doors and windows was a cramped reception counter built directly into the wall on their right as they stepped from the elevator. The four eased in and Ridge nearly expected to hear music softly playing. Instead, a screen in the wall behind the receptionist's abandoned desk flickered suddenly.
"Watch it!" Lantz said jumpily. She turned and nearly emptied a charge into the empty air where the receptionist had long ago risen and walked away to the elevator, never to return.
"It's a view screen," Ridge said. "Hold your fire."
For a few moments the screen—a square about two feet per side—flickered with grainy bluish light. Then an image of Captain Venable resolved itself against a bright background. Under white lighting, Ridge clearly made out chairs, cabinets, even a young woman sitting in the distance at a console chewing gum and sipping coffee. The background was blurry in the extremely bright light bathing Venable's background. "Greetings," the Captain said.
"Can you hear me?" Ridge said, leaning across the dark-blue counter of the receptionist desk. "This is Ridge. I'm the Lead Engineer from WorkPod01."
"I can hear you and see you just fine," the Captain said. His eyes looked merry, and his fresh youthful cheeks were stipple pink. His teeth were bright, his lips shiny, his enthusiasm infectious.
"We're dying out here," Ridge said, slamming a heavy palm down. He felt too overcome to say anything more.
"It's rough out there," Venable agreed.
"Get us out of here," Ridge said. "Get us to safety."
"Sure. Can you get in here?"
"Can we get in?" Ridge said, phrasing the question in a different tone that suggested 'may' instead of 'can.' As he spoke, Tomson and the others tried door handles. "All locked," Tomson muttered. "Same here," whispered Brenna and Lantz. All were angry, yet all were suddenly overcome with a memory of respect. This was their captain, and he should save them, after all. Ridge burned with concern as he leaned into the view screen. "Captain, I've lost four people in the last few hours."
"Really?" Venable said vaguely. "Who were they?"
"Mughali, Mahaffey, Yu, and Jerez."
"That's very sad," Venable said sincerely. "You should be safe where you are."
"Then you know about the mudmen?" Tomson barked.
"Yes."
"And you let us go out there without even a warning?" Tomson's face was contorted with rage. He looked old and betrayed. His mouth hung open, and his teeth were parted in a gesture of utter contempt. He showed a pink tongue rumpled in utter distaste.
"I had no choice," Venable said. "I have no choice about these things. We are locked in a crisis, and we have no choice. I'm terribly sorry."
"We?" Brenna said. She pushed Ridge aside. "Do you know I thought I had two children? Or did I? What happened to my babies?"
Venable blanched. His features retained their smooth, handsome babyness, but his eyes grew more sympathetic. "You understand, Brenna..."
"You know my name?" She placed her fists on the counter top. Her shoulder dug into Ridge's ribs, though it was a rounded shoulder and did not hurt. Ridge did feel the tenseness in her body, and wished she did not have to suffer so.
"I know all of your names," Venable said. "I know you all."
"What about my children?" Brenna said. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Venable shook his head. "It seemed better to let you be happy than to have you know the truth."
Lantz shouted over Brenna's shoulder: "It was more efficient to have us think we had lives, is what you mean."
Venable looked sad now. "Don't think that way. I am a prisoner here, and I have no illusions. I have only the thought that we are serving mankind. We are on our way to a better world."
"Isn't this the Neptune Express?" Ridge asked, feeling foolish. He felt as if he were a passenger who had taken the wrong train after a night of drinking, and now must ask strangers the embarrassing questions to get home. "Isn't this a cargo ship traveling back and forth between Luna and Neptune?"
Venable shook his head with a sweet, sad smile. "What a fine story."
Ridge waved a fist. "So what is the story here?"
Behind Venable the scene changed to one of deep space. Ridge glanced at the stars in their various diamond hues, but did not recognize any constellations. The sun was not visible. Gone was the lovely, glowing blue orb of Neptune, with the crescent Triton rising like a gray bubble of nitrogen over the Sea God's shoulder. Venable said: "The engineers and thinkers who made you dreamed up a nice name. The real name of our expedition is Nebula Express." He turned his head slightly and flicked his eyes like pointers to the crabbed tangles and spidered webs of stars that looked almost like explosions of wetness in a meadow. "That is deep interstellar space, and we are many light-years from Earth."
The little lobby was silent as they digested this. Ridge felt a hardness in the pit of his gut. "Things can't get any worse now, I'm sure." As if to give his hope the lie, he heard distant thumping noises in the bottom of the elevator shaft. With a sudden inspiration, he said: "You won't let us in there, will you?"
Venable blinked sadly. "I can't."
Brenna said suddenly: "We're not the first ones in here, are we?"
Venable blinked again, this time with a slight shake no of the head.
"Then this has been going on for a long time," Lantz said.
Tomson said: "You had no right to do this to us."
"It was either this or let mankind die out. Earth perished in a swarm of comets that circle around every hundred million years or so. There is no home left to go back to. The Nebula Express is moving faster and faster through deep space seeking a new home."
"Do you know the mudmen ate all the colonists?" Tomson said.
"Not all of us," Venable said. "Not any of us, in fact. Those were the original colonists who set out. We all donated our memory information, our DNA, our hopes and ambitions and the good and the bad of us, into the ship's laboratories. It's all automated and a hundred times redundant. The cleaners started turning sour and eating the freight, but we have plenty of growth stock and the electrochemical soup to cook it with. That's how we made you."
"You cooked us from stray memories and left-over love affairs," Brenna said in a tone that made Ridge cringe, and he hoped Venable felt her disdain. "You made soup from human lives and created us for what purpose? To fix things that cannot be fixed?"
Venable gave his clean-cut, cheerful smile. "You fix things that will require generations to fix, but they can be fixed. They must be fixed, even if eons are required. The ship was badly smashed by a stray comet."
"That would explain the charred and glazed wasteland out there," Tomson said.
Venable said: "Your kind have been laboring for ages to set things right. You are winning the battle."
"Yes, but we live our lives in those cold black tunnels," Lantz said, "while you sit in your nice cozy little CP. Is it warm in there?" She ran around the desk and banged her fists on the view screen. "Is it cozy in there?" Tears flowed down her strong features. "Is it like our workpod in there? Do you lift weights? Take showers? Listen to music?"
"No," Venable said, "I am all alone." He said it so plaintively that the four humans fell silent. Ridge felt all anger and rage leave him. It was clear that Venable was somehow as much a victim as they were. "Are you real?" Ridge asked Venable. "Are you a person?"
"Yes."
"You are the captain of the ship?"
"Yes."
"You are the captain but you are trapped in there and cannot help us?"
"I am safe from the cleaners," V
enable said simply.
Tomson grew animated in the remnants of his own anger. He waved his arms and made faces to imitate the mudmen. "Those are the baseball-heads with the stitches and the slits for eyes? Round mouths?" Tomson made fishlike mouth gestures at Venable, thrusting his chin aggressively forward. Sweat glistened on his dark skin, and his eyes looked ravaged from the continuous succession of frightening revelations.
"They are the cleaners," Venable said. "They were made to take away your bodies when you die."
"Damn!" Lantz welled up with anger, then punched the desk with a loud bang. "Just like that, eh?"
"I'm sorry. It is the truth. It had to be. Things got out of control. We are hoping you can make it right. Then we can all be free again."
"What do you mean?" Ridge asked.
"When the ship is fixed, then we can go away."
"Like my children and my husband," Brenna said.
There was a moment of silence in which Venable appeared to be thinking, while the gossamer cobwebbing of stars sprawled behind his head. "Think of it this way, Brenna. You are a composite of many people, but you are the impression of some primary woman who lived a life much like the one you remember. Your babies lived in Buenos Aires and probably grew up to be fine men. They would have listened to tango and drunk and played futbol in La Bombonerita..."