“Angela,” Marie said. “You’re early.”
“I couldn’t stay there, not on my own,” Angela said.
Marie shot Matt a sharp look. Matt forced himself to look back evenly despite a very primal sensation urging him to run. Marie was . . . dangerous. She reminded him of some of his unarmed combat instructors back when he’d joined the corporation. They’d been very dangerous men. Marie looked different, but she gave him the same impression of someone it was best not to annoy.
“I escorted her down,” he said. “She wasn’t alone for a moment.”
“Good to hear it,” Marie said. Her lips twitched into something that might, charitably, be called a smile. “You’ll find ration bars in the next room, and water. Grab something to eat before you go on duty.”
“Thanks,” Matt said. He glanced at his wristcom. He had ten minutes before he had to be at his post. Carla would kill him if he was late. “I’d better hurry.”
Angela followed him into the next room. Matt heard her groan as she saw the pile of ration bars on the table, each one wrapped in a brightly colored packet that couldn’t disguise the awfulness within. It was a law of nature, and probably of man too, that ration bars had to be as cheap and disgusting as possible without actually being poisonous. He’d been told that it was to keep people from being dependent on free food, but he suspected the taste had more to do with corporate laziness. It wouldn’t be hard to turn the processed glob into something edible.
“They’re not that bad,” he said unconvincingly. Had Angela ever eaten a ration bar in her life before boarding Supreme? He doubted it. “Just cram them down your throat as quickly as possible.”
“God help us,” Angela muttered.
“You can’t buy these things,” Matt said, trying to sound enthusiastic. It was true. No one would pay money for a ration bar if there was something else on hand. He unwrapped his bar and took a nibble. The label said it was blueberry, but the food tasted like cardboard. “Just take a sip of water with each bite.”
He poured them both a glass as he chewed the bar, trying to work up the nerve to swallow it in one gulp. It didn’t taste any better when he took a sip, but at least it made the bar easier to swallow. Angela eyed him as if he’d just swallowed a live insect and then started to eat her own bar. Judging by the way her face twisted, it was hardly haute cuisine. He poured her a second glass of water without being asked, although he knew it was pushing the rationing limits. The captain had announced strict water rationing as soon as they knew there was no way to refill the tanks.
“Disgusting,” Angela said. “People eat these?”
“If they’re desperate,” Matt said. The lights flickered again. “And we are desperate.”
He gave her a quick hug, then hurried out of the room and through the main chamber. Marie watched him as he left, her eyes boring into his back. Matt wondered, absently, just what she was, but he suspected he’d probably never know. Angela might not know either. She seemed to have as little to do with her governess as possible.
“Matt,” Carla said when he reached the duty station. “Where were you?”
“Angela’s bed,” Matt said, without thinking. “I—”
“Be careful,” she said. “That poor girl has gone through a lot.”
“I know,” Matt said. “But—”
“So remember it,” Carla said. She motioned for him to follow her. “And keep one hand on your shockrod.”
Matt frowned at her back as she strode down the corridor. The shockrod was largely useless, unless it was used as a club. He would have preferred a pistol, but he hadn’t been allowed to carry one off duty. It struck him as an absurd precaution—they were always on duty now, in the lobster pot—but there was no point in arguing. Besides, they didn’t have enough pistols to go around.
The air blew hot and cold, chilling him. The life-support systems, or at least their control processors, were clearly on the verge of breaking down. A handful of passengers were scrubbing the decks as they passed, supervised by a couple of crewmen. Matt felt a spark of amusement at watching rich men and women do menial chores, but the tiredness made it hard to feel anything. Others were emptying the swimming pool, filling buckets, and carting the water towards a makeshift purifier. Matt grimaced at the thought of drinking water that had been used for swimming, although he knew it was perfectly safe. The improvements spliced into his genome would keep him from getting ill even if the water hadn’t been boiled. But the notion still felt icky.
“We had a fight over food two hours ago,” Carla said quietly. “Some people aren’t doing their fair share. Others insisted on arguing over what was their fair share.”
“Joy,” Matt said.
A tiny form stepped out of the crowd. “Matt,” the little girl said, “is it true you met aliens?”
Matt gaped at Susan, and Maris following her. Rumors had already spread out of control . . . he wondered, absently, why that surprised him. He’d served long enough to know that good stories were always repeated, growing with each retelling. Someone on the lower decks probably believed he’d fought buglike aliens with a flamethrower in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.
He hesitated, unsure what to say. The truth? Or something a little more reassuring?
“We found some dead aliens,” he said. He looked Susan up and down. She didn’t look to be hungry, thankfully, but her dress was dirty and torn. He made a mental note to suggest that the richer passengers share their wardrobes with the poorer ones. Supreme no longer had any laundry services. “They didn’t seem to be dangerous.”
“Because they’re dead!” Susan announced. She waved a hand at the deck. “I’ve been washing the floors.”
“The decks, dear,” Maris corrected. She looked at Matt pleadingly. “Is there any hope of getting out of here?”
“Yes,” Matt said. “We do have a plan.”
Maris rubbed her forehead. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “The voices are growing louder.”
Matt opened his mouth to respond, but he heard the sound of a fistfight breaking out down the corridor before he could say a word. “Excuse me,” he said. “We have to deal with this.”
He drew his shockrod and hurried down the passageway. A fight would be bad enough, but if the brawl sucked in more and more passengers . . . he didn’t want to think about it. Better to shut the row down as quickly as possible. Behind him, he heard Carla speaking into her wristcom. Backup would be on the way within seconds.
Matt just hoped they would arrive in time.
“There was another fight on C Deck, sir,” Jeanette said over the wristcom. “Seven men arrested, all dumped in the makeshift cells.”
“Understood,” Paul said. He stood just inside Main Engineering, looking at Roeder’s collection of giant power cells. “Keep me informed.”
“We should space them, Captain,” Roeder said. “That’s . . . what? The fifth fight in the last few hours?”
Paul was starting to think that spacing the Brethren and a few of the worst offenders might solve at least some of his problems. But it would be flat-out murder. There was no real justification for killing them, save perhaps for allowing the rest of the passengers and crew to live. And yet, if his calculations were correct, they’d either make it out in the next two days or die anyway.
He looked up at the closest power cell. “What is this thing?”
Roeder beamed. “Practical engineering, Captain,” he said. “Do you know that, in all my career, I’ve never had to do anything like this? This is real engineering.” His smile grew wider. “We tore a dozen power cells out of Gladys and transported them over here,” he explained. “There’s nothing actually wrong with them, sir; they’re just dead. Once we hooked them up into our power systems, we were able to charge them from our own power cells. Sharing the load a little gives us a chance to muster the power we need to open a vortex without having the power drained completely. It’s not safe, but . . .”
Paul frowned. “Just how unsafe is
it?”
Roeder hesitated. “Put it this way,” he said. “If we’d rigged this up in realspace, we would probably be unceremoniously fired. The power cells themselves appear to be in good order, but the linkages aren’t designed to handle such a surge for long without melting. I’ve actually had to remove about half the safeties to keep the system from breaking down in the middle of the jump. There is a very good chance that at least some of the linkages will explode during transit.”
“Ouch,” Paul said. “Just how bad is it likely to be?”
“Unknown,” Roeder said. “Captain, no one’s been stupid enough to try this before.”
“How very reassuring,” Paul said. “What are the odds . . . ?”
He shook his head. It didn’t matter. A 10 percent chance of getting out in one piece was worth more than a 100 percent chance of being drained by the flickers. If they were lucky, they’d make it out; if they were unlucky, they’d deny the aliens a source of food . . . until they snatched the next starship that happened to pass too close to their distortion. The entire experience made him wonder what had really happened to all those ships that had entered energy storms and never been seen again. No one had any conception that they might have been transported to an alien realm and . . . well . . . eaten.
And when we get out, we’ll have to warn everyone, he thought. But what are the governments going to do about it?
He dismissed the thought for later. “When can we jump?”
“I’ve got engineering crews working out the last of the kinks in the system now,” Roeder said. He pulled a notebook from his pocket and checked it. “I’ve decided it would be better to overload the vortex, if only because they will try to drain us the moment they notice the power surge. If my calculations are accurate, we should have enough power cells and linkages in place in twelve hours. That should give us the best chance of opening a vortex and escaping.” He lowered his voice. “Captain . . . we don’t have the slightest idea where we’ll pop back into realspace,” he added. “We could be . . . anywhere.”
Paul nodded. If Supreme popped back into realspace at random, there was a very good chance that they’d arrive light-years from the Commonwealth. Given that the flickers had been snatching ships from a large area of space, they might emerge so far from human territory that they wouldn’t have a hope of getting back home. And the vortex generator itself might not survive the transit . . .
“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” he said. Hyperspace had always been tricky to navigate. Even the UN beacons, now replaced by newer systems, hadn’t made travel any easier. “Besides, at least we’d have a chance.”
“Yes, sir,” Roeder said. He paused. “I’ve also rigged a nuke on Spider . . . ah, the extraterrestrial ship . . . as well as a standard explosive charge. The antimatter will detonate as soon as the magnetic fields are gone. I have a crew pushing her out of position too.”
“Good,” Paul said. They weren’t entirely sure how much antimatter the alien ship was carrying, but he didn’t want Supreme anywhere near the blast. “Twelve hours, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Roeder said. “That is how long it will really take, in case you were wondering.”
Paul had to laugh. “I’ve not slept for far too long,” he said. “That actually sounds funny.”
“Yes, sir,” Roeder said gravely. “We were warned not to exaggerate repair times to our commanders at the academy.”
“A very good idea,” Paul agreed. He took a breath. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Nothing you can get for us, sir,” Roeder said. “We’ve started looking at other ways to generate power, but we haven’t found anything the aliens aren’t able to . . . ah . . . influence and drain. We haven’t even been able to figure out where the power is actually going.”
“Pity,” Paul said. He looked up at the giant power cell. “Is there any way you can stop the drain altogether?”
“We’ve found nothing, so far,” Roeder said. “I don’t think the . . . ah . . . spiders came up with anything either. The flickers just didn’t want to detonate the antimatter, so they left the magnetic bottles alone. On the other hand, it is possible that something very low-powered might be able to last for quite some time. If we had the tools to build something primitive—”
“But we don’t,” Paul said. He smiled, humorlessly. “A terrible oversight.”
“Yes, sir,” Roeder said.
Paul rubbed his forehead in frustration. If . . . if he’d had the slightest idea what could possibly happen, he would have made sure that Supreme was crammed with emergency supplies. Corporate would have to take a good hard look at its protocols in the future, whatever else happened. Someone would be liable for the whole mess . . . particularly if Robert Cavendish was correct and Supreme had been deliberately exposed to danger. But no one, absolutely no one, could have predicted the flickers.
Our imaginations were far too limited, he thought. But who would have imagined this?
His wristcom bleeped. “Captain,” Jeanette said, “we’ve got a major problem.”
Paul swore. “I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Having trouble sleeping? Hearing voices, perhaps?”
Constable Hamish Singh gritted his teeth. The stimulants on Supreme were civilian rather than military, designed for short-term use. Two days of using various booster drugs to keep himself awake and on guard inside a brig already overflowing with unwanted guests had taken a toll. And the voices, buzzing in his ears, weren’t helping. It was growing harder to tell what was real and what wasn’t.
He forced himself to stand upright, glancing up and down the line of cells. Roman Bryon had been left in his very own cell, although Hamish wasn’t sure if that was a curse or a blessing. Serial killers were rarely popular in prison, along with child molesters and outright traitors. Someone forced to share a cell with Bryon likely would have killed him in short order. Hamish knew he shouldn’t be quite so pleased at the prospect, but it was tempting. The ship was trapped, and they were probably about to die. Who cared if a serial killer was murdered or thrown into space?
“Be silent,” he growled. A pity the sleeping gas dispensers were offline. They shouldn’t be, he was sure, but the brig’s processors were fried. Trying to liberate the gas canisters from the control systems might be dangerous. “Be silent or I’ll put you to sleep.”
Bryon snorted. Hamish ignored him as best as he could. He should never have accepted the job. It had sounded ideal: two weeks guard duty, then a month of leave on Britannia before taking a ship back home. The bonus was enough to keep his wife and children happy, even though his wife had protested loudly when she’d realized he was going. No doubt she was disappointed that she wouldn’t have anyone to nag for two whole months. He loved her dearly—he admitted that much—but she could be a bit much at times.
He glanced at the other two guards, both of whom looked uneasy. They were definitely tired too, twitching at the slightest movement or shimmer in their sights. Hamish didn’t like the thought of having two armed, jumpy men right next to him, but he hadn’t been given a choice. A trip that should have been simplicity itself—Bryon would have been in stasis for the entire journey—had turned into a nightmare.
I should have gone to those ships, he thought. He’d heard plenty of stories about the alien vessels but hadn’t seen them. He was a qualified space-capable marine. And yet he was stuck guarding a man who should be put out of everyone else’s misery. The chance to visit a real alien ship . . .
The voices grew louder, whispering in his ear. He glowered down at his hands as he fought to silence them, knowing it was a losing battle. The words seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, echoing through his head, yet he couldn’t make out any of the words. He felt as though he was going insane.
He rose and paced the chamber, ignoring the uneasy glance from one of the guards. The cells were sealed. There were no force fields that could fail, no computer-generated codelocks that cou
ld be hacked or tricked into unlocking without permission. The only way to open the cells was from the outside . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . a sense of unease grew within him, warning him that the cells weren’t safe. He peered into the last cell, eyeing Brother John and his latest convert carefully. They were trapped. Logic told him they were trapped. Still, he had his doubts.
The voices grew ever louder, egging him on.
“You’re definitely not in a good state,” Bryon called. Hamish spun around. The serial killer was standing against the cell door, staring through the grate. For a hazy moment, the door appeared to be open before reality reasserted itself. “Perhaps you should get some rest.”
“Perhaps I should beat you to death,” Hamish yelled. He was too tired to care about possible consequences any longer. “Or throw you in gen-pop and watch you get knifed in the back.”
Bryon leered at him. “There’s no gen-pop on this ship, is there?”
Hamish stamped up to the grate, careful to check the door as he approached. It was locked. Of course it was locked. He was tired. His mind was assaulting him with tricks. Bryon’s words were scissoring into his skull, poking at weaknesses he hadn’t known he had. There was no way anyone could get out of the cell without help. He’d made sure to check the records. Its security had been proved, time and time again.
“No,” he growled. “But I could still beat you to death.”
Bryon looked back at him, seemingly unintimidated. Hamish felt a surge of hatred that staggered him, an urge to open the cell and just smash Bryon’s smirking face into a bloody pulp. It would be easy. So easy . . . his hands were halfway to the lock before he caught himself. Opening the cell wasn’t advisable at the best of times, certainly not when he was in a bad state and his backup not in a much better one.
“I’m sure a big strong man like you could think of better things to do to me,” Bryon said. He leered. “Do you want to come and try your luck?”
“Shut up,” Hamish said. The anger was back, stronger than ever. “Now.”
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