by Thorne Moore
‘What’s up?’
‘Weasels,’ said Siegfried, tensely succinct.
‘Okay!’ said Tim, with juvenile relish. ‘Where do you want me?’
‘Take over here,’ said Tod. ‘See what you can read as it comes in.’ He left Tim to it and returned to one of the central stations.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Smith. He appeared silently at Yasmin’s side. ‘I heard the hum changing tune.’
‘Weasels,’ she explained.
‘Uh?’
‘God knows. Don’t ask me.’
‘Don’t ask anyone,’ said Tod, without looking round. ‘Shut up and keep out of the way. Tim, what are you getting?’
‘Um, I’m just trying to – Oh hell. Lost it. Wait a minute.’
Smith was already by his side at the Ultima. ‘Isolate the target,’ he suggested, summing up the jumbled data on the screen at a glance.
‘I know what I’m doing!’
‘Smith, leave it to Tim,’ said Tod, exchanging quick glances with Addo.
‘I’m nearly there,’ said Tim, with a hint of panic.
Smith reached under and tapped at the controls before Tim could stop him. ‘There!’
‘I told you—!’
‘Back!’ said Tod. ‘Leave it, both of you! Doesn’t matter, we’re taking a spin anyway. All yours, Major.’
‘Thank you,’ said Addo calmly.
There was a shift. Yasmin swayed on her feet, readjusting her balance. The hum of the ship changed dramatically, even to her ears, then, with shocking suddenness, ceased altogether. The lights dimmed. Recovered.
She held her breath.
The humming began again, rising quickly. Again there was a shift, one that seemed to leave her stomach behind. Then there was a hollow boom, a vibration.
Siegfried span round. ‘What the fuck was that!’
‘Watch your monitor,’ said Tod crisply. He glanced at Addo. ‘Major?’
Addo looked up from the navigational controls. ‘We tied a neat knot, but something snapped. One of the laterals lost it.’
Tod scrutinised Siegfried’s screen. ‘Well?’
Siegfried stared at it for a few moments longer, before declaring, ‘No one’s on us.’
Tod nodded. He turned to the intercom. ‘Tucker? What’s up?’
There was static for a moment, then some muttering, and finally Tucker’s voice. ‘Shit.’
‘More specific please, Tucker.’
‘I don’t fucking believe this.’
‘The laterals?’
‘The laterals are fine. Do you think we’d have swung like that if they hadn’t been? It’s one of the fucking anchors that’s snapped.’
‘Snapped?’
‘There’s a fracture. I don’t know. Maybe buckling.’
‘How bad?’
‘Christ, give me time to check it, will you? I’m not clairvoyant.’
‘OK, check it.’ Tod switched off.
‘Have we got problems?’ asked Tim.
‘Nothing we can’t fix.’ Tod turned and saw Yasmin still watching. He was calm, but angry beneath it. He snapped his fingers at Smith, ordering him out of the Ultima’s annexe, then he pointed towards the doors. They took the hint and left.
‘Tell me,’ asked Yasmin. ‘Did any of that make sense to you?’
‘Interesting,’ said Smith. ‘Another ship was shifting direction, possibly towards us. That’s what triggered the alarm. The scanner was showing trajectory projections, I think. It was still a hunch. They’ll know if the suspect ship was really after them when they analyse the Ultima’s readings, but they took evasive action just in case, to throw the scent. They were relying on a combination of blanking, decoy signals and rapid deceptive manoeuvres. Effective, I suppose, as long as the hardware’s up to it.’ He laughed. ‘A defective anchor. That doesn’t sound healthy. Hope this ship isn’t cracking up around me.’
‘Nothing we can’t fix, according to Tod.’
‘You believe that?’
Yasmin smiled. ‘If that were me, speaking for my old department, I’d say we had a major catastrophe on our hands.’
Chapter 18
The voyage progressed, day after day the same. Too much the same. The day when Smith failed to turn up and cook was a major crisis, raising talk of mutiny. Selden, with a shrug, accepted the inevitable and sat down to a dish of brown fibrous meat-like substance. David accepted a dish and ate in a state of oblivious grace. The others weren’t so easily resigned.
Clytemnestra studied the choices on the NDP with a worried frown. Egg? There couldn’t be anything wrong with egg. If she chose ‘granular’ for texture, it would be close enough to scrambled egg, surely.
It was yellow. It was granular. A slight egginess, but very little taste of any description, which was fine because, tiger skin and leather basque notwithstanding, Clytemnestra still preferred her food bland. She sat down and began to eat as delicately as a piranha.
Abigail looked at the dish she had conjured up. ‘It’s foul. There must be something better than this.’
‘The store cupboard’s still full,’ said Yasmin, contenting herself with a vodka.
Abigail’s lip curled. ‘You mean, we should cook?’
‘Yeah,’ said Merrit. ‘Come on, let’s get something civilised.’ He disappeared into the galley with Abigail. There was a banging of cupboard doors and the heated discussion of options.
‘Wouldn’t that have to be cooked? I’m not cooking anything.’
‘For Christ’s sake, I just want something to eat!’
The door opened and an unapologetic Smith finally sauntered in. ‘How are we doing? Not the NDP!’ He winced at Clytemnestra’s dish, and opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, sampling its bouquet fastidiously.
‘Yes, I know it’s got no meat,’ said Abigail from the galley. ‘I happen to like mushroom soup, okay?’
Smith poured himself a glass. ‘Don’t tell me you put her in charge of the kitchen.’
‘Be flattered,’ said Yasmin. ‘We’re demonstrating how much we depend on you.’
‘I was wondering how you’d cope.’
‘Desperately.’
‘Yes, but how?’ Abigail was demanding.
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Abigail!’ Merrit yelled in frustration. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heated a can of soup before!’
‘You’re so good at it, you do it!’
Smith shook his head. ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Open the can, Abigail, and read the instructions.’
She looked out of the galley. ‘There you are! What kept you?’
‘A good film. One of Nessy’s best.’ Clytemnestra glowered at him. Smith smiled back at her. ‘How’s the dinner going?’ he called. ‘I’m ready for it.’
‘If you want it, why don’t you come and—’
‘I’ve already done it!’ said Merrit, furiously.
‘Already?’
‘It only had to be heated, Abigail.’
‘If it’s that simple, I can’t see what all the fuss is about.’ She returned to the galley and emerged with a steaming bowl. Merrit appeared with another.
Smith leaned across the table to dig a spoon noisily into Abigail’s soup.
Abigail looked at it.
Merrit gagged on his.
‘It’s hyper-concentrated,’ said Smith, carefully balancing the spoon on end in the glutinous mixture. ‘You add water. This should have made about twelve litres.’
‘Hell, how was I supposed to know?’ complained Merrit.
Yasmin lit a cigarette. ‘It’s no good, Smith. They’re determined to leave all this complicated can heating to you.’
‘You’re so good at it,’ said Abigail sweetly.
Smith took their bowls back to the galley and got to work. ‘I love the way you’re all so pathetically helpless. Anyone else want some? There’s enough in here to feed us all for a week.’
David was the only one who didn’t respond, but when Smith brought it through, Yasm
in passed him a bowl anyway, and he ate obediently.
‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Smith, watching them tuck in. ‘You guys are never going to make it as cooks on Triton.’
Selden was already wiping his bowl clean. ‘Not much call for cooks on Triton. Anything else up your sleeve, Smith?’
Smith smiled. ‘Let’s say, I’m keeping my options open. At least I have options. How exactly do the rest of you plan to earn your keep? Seven years is plenty of time to demonstrate your uselessness.’
There was a long moment of silence. Selden kept his thoughts to himself, his career already decided. The others glanced at each other. Only Clytemnestra seemed geared to a specific role. Yasmin shrugged as if her fate didn’t matter.
Abigail bit her lip. ‘I suppose they have something sorted out for us. Will they keep us together, do you think?’ She looked at Selden.
He topped up his whisky. ‘Togetherness isn’t Pascal’s thing. He likes to keep competition on the boil.’
‘Sure,’ said Merrit. ‘Hell, I’ll compete with anyone.’
‘You might have to,’ said Selden. ‘He’s been known to pit a couple of so-called friends against each other. The winner lives.’ He surveyed their stunned faces. ‘Especially if he thinks they’re too soft for Triton. The survival test. Weed out the weaklings and the whiners. I wouldn’t get too fond of easy living, if I were you.’
‘You’re right, Selden,’ said Tod, strolling in. ‘I may have to start making things uncomfortable for them all. Harden them up.’ He crossed to the galley, patting Merrit’s head in passing. ‘Or thin them down in Merrit’s case. A hundred press-ups, ten kilometre runs. Strip ’em off and hose ’em down with ice. That should do the trick.’
‘What if we refuse to play Pascal’s games?’ asked Abigail, ignoring him. ‘If we refused to fight each other.’
Selden shook his head. ‘But you won’t.’
Abigail looked at the others, then away, contemptuously. What chance of any of them making a stand?
Tod emerged with a bag of coffee beans. ‘I draw the line at NDP coffee.’
‘You don’t mind NDP food?’ asked Smith.
‘What is there to mind? You get used to it. And you’ll have to. It’s all you’ll get on Triton. Isn’t that right, Selden?’
Selden nodded.
‘Although it may have more flavour there. It probably depends on the base ingredients. This...’ Tod thumped the sturdy grey NDP, ‘Was it the one we picked up on Triton? I can’t remember. They’re designed for standard myco-nutritional compounds, but Pascal’s far more inventive with ingredients. High mortality rate on Triton. And great emphasis on recycling. Cremation is just plain wasteful.’
They stared at him in horrified disbelief. Clytemnestra squealed.
‘You are joking!’ said Merrit, turning green.
‘It’s common knowledge, isn’t it, Selden?’
‘I’ve heard it,’ said Selden, ambiguously.
‘In fact...’ Tod took a step back to consider his victim. ‘I’d say they’ll take one look at you, Merrit, and decide not to wait for an accident. All that meat. When you came aboard you looked positively athletic. Unpleasant but athletic. Now you just look flabby. Been to the gym at all? I would, if I were you, or you’ll find yourself posted straight to the pie factory. You’d feed the entire colony for a fortnight.’
The green faded to white.
‘David, there’s a project for you,’ continued Tod. ‘Work out the exact calorific value of Mr Burnand, if rendered down.’
David obediently turned to Merrit, lips working as he calculated.
Abigail put her hand to her mouth, her mushroom soup suddenly rebelling.
‘It’s all quite edible,’ Tod reassured them. ‘Didn’t you enjoy our specialities on the way to Ganymede? The Medallions Heloise, for instance. They went down very well, I thought. What did you suppose was in them?’
There was an appalled silence, and some heaving, before Yasmin calmly replied, ‘Pork, Tod. With a hint of freezer burn.’
‘Miss Gwynne, you are no fun.’
‘Oh shit!’ said Merrit.
‘That too probably,’ said Tod. ‘Pascal lets nothing go to waste.’ He paused to study their faces.
Abigail, with great deliberation, walked to the machine, made a selection and waited for the dish to drop. Then she removed the lid, turned to face Tod and ate a spoonful.
‘You can’t taste the dead rat?’
‘I can’t taste anything. Except salt and... yeast? Why? Have you poisoned this too?’
He smiled. ‘You’ll have to wait and find out, won’t you? All right, David, you can forget the calculations. I’m sure the fat content of one little piggy will have decreased by the time we reach Triton.’ He walked out, shaking his coffee beans.
Smith took a sip of wine. ‘Maybe they’ve got a health club on S97, Merrit. We’re due there in a week or so. You can start burning off some of that surplus. Unless you’d like it removed surgically. I don’t mind experimenting. If I can cook with canned shrimps and spaghetti hoops, I’m sure I could do wonders with a Merrit steak.’
Merrit rose and rushed from the room.
Abigail glanced at Selden. ‘Is it true? They process dead bodies?’
Selden shrugged. ‘I’ve heard that it was tried - and met with resistance. But that wouldn’t stop experiments continuing, or rumours spreading. Does it matter? Believe me, when it’s time to eat on Triton, you don’t care what it is.’
‘So that’s it,’ said Merrit, gawping up at the screen. He’d come in from the gym, at the news that S97 was in sight. No obvious sign of weight loss yet but sweat was trickling from his brow. ‘Looks promising, doesn’t it?’
‘As long as it has engineering facilities,’ said Smith, watching with equal curiosity. ‘If I’m going to be stuck on a ship, I’d prefer it not to have chunks falling off.’
S97 service and relay station looked as if it might have all possible facilities, engineering included. It was an impressively vast gleaming mass, encrusted with a belt of rust-red steel modules, gantries, antennae and docking ports. After weeks confined to one deck of the Heloise, the thought of a new environment was positively exciting.
‘It doesn’t look too bad,’ said Abigail.
‘But not quite Platinum City,’ said Smith, studying the clustered antennae dubiously.
As they approached, they could see three other freighters docked on, like piglets on a sow.
David was staring at it with a fascination he never afforded his fellow passengers.
‘I suppose it’s got to be...’ Merrit stopped, blinked, looked again. Something unnerving was happening to the station. It was distorting, expanding even as they watched. ‘What the fuck!’ A slow-motion explosion? Catastrophic failure? S97 quaked, elongating and contorting, as a huge section on the far side began to detach.
‘Superbitch,’ said Selden calmly. ‘Leviathan class.’
‘Uh?’ Merrit looked again, as the detached section drifted clear. It was a ship. A ship that dwarfed the station. He could see it now clearly. A separate entity. Super was an understatement. ‘Christ, look at it!’
They did look at it, briefly, as it hovered, monstrous, steely, revealing the Ragnox insignia. The space station shrank in its shadow. Then the ship gathered itself and shot away, a screech across the emptiness of Space.
‘Look at it go!’
‘Acthridium power cells, pp drive with argatron boost,’ said David. ‘Capacity of 497...’
‘So that’s a Leviathan,’ said Smith. ‘I wonder if Tod has ever taken on one of them.’
‘No, he hasn’t,’ said Yasmin. ‘He’s still alive.’
‘Even so...’
‘Leviathans are corporate command centres. Military bases. You don’t challenge them.’
‘She’ll have an army on board,’ agreed Selden. ‘A couple of squadrons in the hold. Enough weaponry to take out an alpha station. No one messes with a superbitch.’
‘
Except another superbitch?’ suggested Smith. ‘OCN was reporting the loss of a Astromarina Leviathan, while we were on Ganymede.’
‘A skirmish. It happens. Occasionally they have a full-scale war to clear the air. When they do, you don’t hang around to watch. Get a Ragnox squadron one side of you and an Astromarina squadron on the other – you run. Fast. It’ll be nasty.’
War was a distant possibility. It was the present nastiness of what was left of S97 that occupied Abigail: the rust-red steel modules, gantries, antennae and docking ports, a battered junk heap, abandoned in its lonely orbit. ‘Dear God.’
They watched as the Heloise docked. Considering that, according to Smith, they had suffered a major structural failure, the docking procedure was faultless, though their gentle glide up to a port was nerve-racking to witness. They held their breath until an almost imperceptible vibration told them the connection was complete. The drone of the ship, which had been changing pitch gradually, built up to a loud purr, before fading away to the faintest somnolent wheeze.
No one moved, for fear of shattering the uncanny stillness.
Then Tod’s voice came through.
‘A few formalities to attend to, before you can go and play on the swings. In half an hour, I’ll switch the elevators on and open the port on C-Deck. We’ve got fifteen hours, and not a minute more. Don’t be late back and don’t catch anything nasty.’
S97 looked so grubby, flea-ridden and lonesome that any itch to escape the Heloise evaporated - almost.
‘Are you going?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Check it out, maybe.’
As they regrouped at last by C-Deck’s outer hatch, Addo appeared, stretching as if he’d woken from long hibernation. ‘Ready for the city lights, everyone?’
Tim bowled up. ‘What’s keeping us?’
‘Tucker’s setting up the repair channel.’
‘He’s done it,’ said Tod, striding up to join them. The hatches slid open in orderly sequence and they turned to look out across the threshold of S97.
A dank, littered passage awaited them. It merged with another, a major arterial route judging by the miasma of stale tobacco, oil, unwashed bodies, electrical burning and urine.
‘Don’t expect it all to be this classy,’ said Tod, steering them towards a lighted kiosk at the end of the passage.