by E M Gale
Mark shook his head and stood up.
“Hey, what about the rest of it? Why’s my name different to my logon? Did whoever it was change your names? What else did you find out? Where did the crew come from?”
Mark shook his head. “No, I don’t think we’re working together any more.”
“But… we are.”
“No, I’m going to keep the details of my investigation private. And I’m gonna find out what you think you’re hiding from me.”
“I’m not hiding anything, OK? I was just trying to hide that I slept with Hemmingway, but somehow you know that, that’s all.”
“Nope, that’s it. I gave you a chance–hell, two chances–to come clean, so that’s it.” And with that he left.
‘What is his problem?’
* * *
Another shift, another evening. There was not much to do on board ship in the evening, so I went to meet Anna at the bar. Cleckley was there again. I thought he had decided to stake out a seat up at the bar to wait for Price.
“Clarke!” Anna squealed. “That nice Mr Price from yesterday was the vampire!”
‘Oh, so she found out as well.’
“Whoa,” I said, somehow not too sarcastically.
“I didn’t know!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide.
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I just nodded.
“He didn’t seem too bad,” she said thoughtfully. “Not like a monster at all.”
“He was rude,” I said. Rob wandered in at that point.
“Hi, guys,” he said, grinning at me.
“Where’s Mark?” I asked.
Rob threw his hands up into a flamboyant gesture. “He’s vanished from the face of the earth!” I smirked.
‘He’ll be with Jane then, who is also conspicuously absent. Heh. And better there with her than arguing with me.’
“Yeah, I looked for him too, and I couldn’t find Jane either,” said Anna. I waited to see them put one and one together.
“Maybe the vampire got them!” whispered Rob.
‘Oh, bloody hell, they put one and one together and made five.’
“Really?” said Anna, her eyes wide with fear.
‘OK, time to stop this now.’
“Guys! They’re screwing each other,” I said.
“Who?” asked Anna.
“Jane and Mark.”
“How do you know? Did they tell you?”
“No.” I thought for a moment. “They don’t like me.”
‘And I guess that is true.’
“Of course they do,” said Anna, somewhat taken back. She didn’t like to have anything to do with conflict generally. “Really,” she added.
“Uh-huh.”
‘Well, Jane definitely doesn’t. And I suspect Mark isn’t too keen on me now he’s in with Jane, though we used to get on fine. Nowadays all I hear from him is criticisms.’
“But it’s OK. You guys like me,” I said with a sappy smile.
“You’re chirpy,” said Rob.
“Sorry, sir, entering grouchy mode now!” I said, snapping a dumb salute at him in what I thought was a funny gesture.
“Too much time playing soldier,” he muttered. I glared at him, but, for once, he didn’t start that argument up again.
‘Woo!’
“But hey, I like you chirpy,” said Rob, smiling at me.
“Tweet, tweet,” I chirped, smiling again. Anna was frowning, at my silliness, I think.
“Rob, did you hear? Mr. Price was the vampire,” she said.
“Really?” He looked shocked. I guessed it took a while for the gossip to reach engineering from the bridge and catering, which were the two hot zones for it.
“He was kinda pale,” I remarked, somewhat amused.
They started discussing vampires again. I kept half an ear on the conversation just in case they said anything about vampires being evil, so I could try to subtly disabuse them of that idea. But they didn’t, so I let my mind wander.
I hadn’t had time to really think about much other than Price in the last few days, but that comment of the major’s–‘surely you’re quite famous’–kept coming back to me.
‘I’m famous. For something. Several people have recognised me; the major knew me from before, but the captain didn’t. But he still knew which one of us was Clarke. I thought that it was the teeth, but no one has noticed Price’s. And he is way more obviously a vampire than me.’
‘So… I guess I should bite the throat and look myself up on the computerised notepad. After all, that was why I got all that information anyway, wasn’t it? But I really don’t want to know my future. What if it’s terrible? Still, it can’t be that bad. I already know that I survive for about two hundred years, as there is an older version of myself running around. And she has all her limbs, so that’s one less thing to worry about.’
Suddenly I was aware of Price. I could smell him even though he was around the corner. I could hear his soft footfall on the metal steps of the stairs.
‘What on Earth does he do during the day? He has no stupid team exercises to occupy him.’
He wandered into the bar. I didn’t look at him. He bought himself a drink and seated himself by the window. Cleckley went over to join him.
“Do you think I should apologise?” Anna asked.
I swirled my wine round. “To who? For what?”
“To whom,” she corrected without thinking before answering, “Mr. Price.”
I gave her an odd look. “What would you apologise for?”
“For not knowing he was a vampire!”
I shrugged. “Well, if he cared about that he would have told you he was one.”
“And… I think I said bad things about vampires to him,” she whispered, looking mortified.
“I’m sure that he’s heard them all before,” I whispered back.
‘Yeah, in a year. What is he up to anyway? What is his problem with soldiers? And why does he seem to enjoy winding me up? And, more importantly, why am I wasting my time thinking about him?’
I frowned.
“Well, I’m going to go and apologise to him,” she said.
“Be my guest,” I said with a flourish. “I’m sure the nice doctor will look out for you.”
She nodded at that, then stood up and stuck her jaw out; she looked very determined. She pulled her brows down, nodded to herself and walked over, looking like she was telling herself to be brave.
‘Don’t worry, Anna, he won’t bite. You, at least. Heh. Me, well, maybe later. Hopefully.’
Rob was watching Anna and he looked troubled.
“Rob,” I said, “hypothetically speaking”–we were in public and Price would be able to hear us if he wanted to–“if… a person were to time travel, for example, to the future–”
“Yes,” he said, forgetting Anna and eagerly leaning forward, his interest caught.
“–and that person were to, say, download historical records and documents–”
“Right.” He was nodding. I thought he could see where I was going with this.
“–would it be a good idea to read them?”
“Aaaah,” he said, leaning back in his chair, grinning like a wise old professor. “That is an interesting… uh, hypothetical question.”
‘Oh, honestly, Rob, don’t pretend to be subtle. You’ll overdo it.’
“Well?” I demanded. “Your thoughts?”
“Well… it depends. I presume you’re meaning if this person were to read them and then travel back in time?”
I nodded. “Yes, yes, the question would be meaningless if they didn’t go back.”
“It depends on causality really.”
“Riiight…”
“If causality doesn’t exist then everything that they read that happened was only conditional based on what they chose to do. Thus they can change the future by their actions.”
I nodded. “That was what I concluded. But if it exists?”
“Well… if the
cause of the future events had already happened, then even if you looked, you couldn’t undo it if you went back. There’d be nothing you could do.”
I considered that for a moment.
“Think of light cones,” he said.
‘OK, dredging here. A light cone is a cone of light spreading out across space and time.’
“The event happens, but you can only know about it when the light of that event reaches you, so you can see it. So for anything within the range of light the event has happened, that’s causality. Anything outside doesn’t know about the event, so effectively it hasn’t happened for them. If a star explodes into a supernova, has it happened until you see the light from that?”
I frowned, feeling like my mind was being pulled through a wringer.
“Yeah… but it’s still happened, right?”
He shrugged. “Well… maybe. It’s deep theory from now on in,” he commented. Then he grinned. “Your speciality.”
I frowned. “Relativity: it’s different depending where you’re standing.”
Rob grinned.
“And anyway, I like playing with the mathematical equations rather than thinking about what they mean. After all, it’s easy to write down equations for arbitrary higher dimensions of space, but have you ever tried to visualise four-dimensional space?”
He shook his head. “I’m an experimentalist, I don’t try to visualise things like that.”
“I have. Anyway, that’s stars. We’re talking about people instead. Would it be different?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps if the news of an event hadn’t reached a certain person, but had reached you, you could change that event for them, but you couldn’t change an event that you personally knew about the outcome of.”
I nodded.
“So if the future you knew about involved you not looking, then if you did look at the history it might change the past and thus your future.”
‘Huh. Well.’
“So,” he continued, “if the outcome was good and you didn’t look, you’d want to not look.”
“Yeah.” I chewed on my knuckle. I thought I got where he was going with this.
“If the outcome was bad and you didn’t look you could look and try to change things to avoid the outcome.”
‘Yup. And the other two possibilities?’
“Or… the outcome could be good and dependent on you looking. Or bad and you’d need to look.”
“Of course the only way to know is to look,” I said.
He nodded.
“So… A time traveller would have a fifty-percent chance of a good outcome, whether he or she looked or not.”
He nodded. “Yup.”
I frowned. “Except that’s all wrong. There are more than two outcomes and it depends which stuff I read. I mean, it depends on what the time traveller reads, how accurate it is and what actions he or she then takes.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose.
‘This is difficult. If I look, every decision to be made will become a question of which outcome it’s moving me towards, and there are so many millions of possibilities. God, and I thought making a decision was hard already!’
Rob looked perplexed.
“So… the best thing is to not look, and let things happen, because that is the only outcome I can predict–except of course that I can’t predict it,” I said, accidentally dropping from the hypothetical to the actual case again. “Nothing will change as a result of time travel if I don’t look. But… of course, I wouldn’t be able to know what will happen. Hmm…”
“Nah, that’s wrong, Clarke,” he said. “Even if you don’t look, if you remember travelling in time and you’ve learnt something whilst there, then things will be different when you return.”
‘Ah. Fair point.’
“Argh!” I said.
He smiled. “I thought you liked theory.”
“This is beyond theory, into philosophy, and possibly heading off towards religion. And anyway, I think I’m going off theory.”
‘Yeah, look where it got me. You do experiments, you built the time machine and brought us here. I’m not angry, I like it here more than back home. I did theory, and I get to talk to my future self and worry about destroying the universe through my actions. That’s less fun.’
Anna came bounding back. “It’s fine,” she said, smiling.
“You didn’t need to apologise in the first place,” I said.
“Are you still sore because he was rude to you?” asked Anna in a whisper.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Anna, he can hear every word you’re saying and he’s listening. I know he is.’
I shook my head. Price was sitting with Cleckley in the corner. Cleckley was interested in something and I could hear them discussing biology.
‘I wonder if Price would be stupid enough to allow Cleckley to investigate him? I’d like to say I’m not, but I’ve already proved I am.’
Price then got up and walked to our table.
“Goodnight, Anna. It was lovely to talk to you again,” he said politely.
‘Hmm…’
“Uh… Goodnight,” she said, smiling.
‘Why is he polite to everyone but me?’
“Rob, Clarke, good night,” he said to us. I nodded, saying nothing. Rob mumbled a goodbye.
‘How soon can I leave the bar without making it incredibly obvious where I’m going? I wonder if I can affect a cough or something.’
I coughed a few times, pitifully.
Anna covered her mouth and yawned. “I’m tired. Rob, would you walk me back to my quarters, please?”
‘Wow, that was majorly convenient.’
“Well, uh”–he looked flustered–“what about Clarke?”
‘Heh.’
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll head down to the grunt bar and see if I can find something to break or set on fire.” I smiled encouragingly.
Rob gave me a funny look at this.
‘Oh, yeah, no jokes about being a mercenary. Oops.’
Cleckley strolled over to our table.
“Are you OK, Anna?” he asked. “You look tired.”
“Yes, I am.” She yawned again. “I’m just going to bed now.”
“Ah,” he said. “Rob, could you possibly walk her back? I want to have a quick conversation with Clarke about work.”
‘OK… This is fishy. I smell an ambush. Teamwork. Something. However, it suits my purposes.’
“Uh, sure, catch you later,” said Rob.
‘Hmm, will he come back here to look for me? How soon can I scarper without making it obvious whose quarters I’m going to?’
Rob and Anna left the bar.
“So, Cleckley, what’s up?” I asked. Cleckley grinned for a moment but he looked a bit distracted, like he was thinking about something more important.
“He said he’d help me.”
‘Oh? I didn’t think he would. Is that why Cleckley wanted to get rid of Rob, so we can chat about vampires?’
“Uh… that’s great,” I said.
‘How long…?’
Rob and Anna were out of the bar now.
“But…” Cleckley looked confused. He shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “I’ll go and set the equipment up now.”
I looked over to him and frowned. “Umm, are you OK, Cleckley?”
“Yes, of course.” He looked clear-eyed and compos mentis. “I’m just going back to my office.”
‘He looks OK, but he’s acting odd.’
“Huh. Look… I’ll walk you there.” We headed to the medical bay. “You really want to work, now? This time of night?” Cleckley was on the same shifts as the engine and bridge staff; it was when most of the accidents were.
“Oh, yes. Don’t worry about me.”
I was puzzled, but I just smiled and nodded. Leaving him, I nonchalantly wandered to where the guest quarters were located and found Price’s room by following his scent. I knew he was in there.
I looked around. There was no-one
in my eyeline. I couldn’t smell or hear anyone coming my way so I turned into a mist and floated under the door.
‘Well, I can’t knock, can I?’
“Hi,” I said, re-materialising. He was seated on the bed, grinning at me.
“Took your time.”
“I was being subtle. No need to be obvious.”
He stood up and walked towards me. He stopped and said: “I’ll go first this time.”
I smiled.
* * *
Kreegle Pirates
I was enjoying Price’s blood when a piercing scream broke the night. I pulled away in shock. It continued.
‘What is that?’ he thought, since we were in the mind-meld.
‘I have no idea. Oh, hold on. That’s not a scream, it’s an alarm. That’s bad. It means we’re under attack. Shit! I’ve got to go!’ I stood up, found and pulled on my clothes.
Price sat up too and looked quizzical. ‘Go and do what?’
‘Fight. Get out of my head, Price, you’re distracting.’
‘Good, I should be.’ He grinned, seductively.
‘Not the time. How do I get you out?’
‘Uh… well. You do know that vampires tend to fight in this state?’
I shook my head. I had to go, not chat. I ran out of the door and pelted it down the corridor.
‘No, why?’ I asked as I ran.
‘To coordinate their moves.’
‘Oh, you going to watch my back?’
‘No.’
‘A great help you are. Get out.’
I rounded the corner to the rendezvous point: the training room. Other than the two mercenaries on duty there, I was the first people there, presumably because I had been already awake and I could run fast.
‘Person, not people,’ corrected Price.
‘Well… there’s two of us in here,’ I thought.
“Clarke,” said Connor. He looked relieved.
‘That’s bad. I wouldn’t be relieved seeing me.’
“Put this on.” He handed me a pressure suit.
‘Shit. I hate those things.’
I jumped into it. The helmet was down, folded up in the neck. Connor hadn’t ordered me to put it up and I wouldn’t. From the practice I knew that if I did it would be like fighting in the dark: I wouldn’t be able to hear or smell anything.
‘Nice suit,’ remarked Price in my head.