by E M Gale
“Nothing.” She laughed nervously. “Why would you think anything is up with me?”
I looked at her suspiciously. Something was fishy.
‘Hold on, Price isn’t meddling, is he? Perhaps she’s been hypnotised to try to get Rob to the bar for some reason. Maybe so Price can get Rob away from me and thus get me alone?’
‘Oh, dear. What is Price up to now?’
I clicked my fingers in front of her face. She looked a little surprised, but nothing seemed to change. I clapped my hands. She was not being un-hypnotised.
“Follow my finger,” I said, moving my finger back and forth in front of her eyes. She stared at me, not my finger. “Uh, are you OK, Anna?”
‘What the hell are the symptoms of hypnotism? Where’s Cleckley when you need him?’
“I’m fine,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Look at my finger.” She did. I moved it backwards and forwards. She followed it with her eyes. Her reaction seemed normal, but still, she had been acting oddly.
‘I’m not a doctor. How would I know if she was hypnotised or not?’
Rob was looking confused. I looked at him. “I think there’s something wrong with her. She’s acting out of character, don’t you think?”
“Uh, well, Clarke…” He tailed off.
‘Now, how can I ask her if Price has hypnotised her without giving away that I know that he can do that? Or even that it’s possible for him to do that? It will be hard to get anyone to look me in the eyes again if they find out that vampires can hypnotise people.’
“What have you done today, who have you seen?” I asked Anna, hoping that wouldn’t be specific enough to give anything away.
“Uh, well… lots of people.”
‘Oh, honestly, Anna, help me out here!’
I thought for a moment. “OK, don’t worry, Anna. Here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to take you to Cleckley, he’ll think of something.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she protested, frowning.
“Uh… Clarke…” started Rob.
I turned to him. “Look, she’s acting out of character. I think she’s sick or something. We need to take her to a doctor!”
He looked taken aback. “But Clarke…” He stopped himself from finishing and frowned.
“Take me to Dr. Cleckley?” said Anna. Then she smiled happily. “Yes, Rob should take me to Dr. Cleckley. You don’t have to go, you can stay here and get on with whatever you were doing.”
Rob frowned at this.
‘Bloody hell, she has been hypnotised by Price! And he doesn’t want me in the bar, he wants me alone here! No bloody way!’
I grabbed her hand.
“No! We’re going to see Cleckley now!” I burst out of the room pulling Anna along behind, leaving Rob to bring up the rear.
“You’re leaving your room unlocked?” he asked.
‘Well, yes, Price can get in whether the door is shut or not.’
Entering the barroom almost at a run, with poor Anna struggling to keep up, I found Cleckley; he was drinking up at the bar.
“It’s Anna. There’s something wrong with her, see,” I said to him, nudging Anna in front of me. She was out of breath, even though I had gone slow. Jane and Mark wandered up at this point, looking curious and concerned to varying degrees.
“What seems to be the matter, Anna?” asked Cleckley.
“Uh, well…” She blushed.
‘What to do? I can’t tell Cleckley what I think is the problem.’
I felt like hopping from one leg to another in anxiety. “Check her reflexes,” I suggested.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Something you want to tell me, Clarke?”
“She’s been acting very out of character.”
Cleckley shone a light in her eyes. I shut mine pretty sharpish when I saw that instrument coming out of his pocket. He took her temperature, and her pulse once she’d gotten her breath back from running.
“There’s nothing wrong with her,” said Rob darkly.
“She was acting very oddly, Rob,” I countered.
“How do you feel?” Cleckley asked Anna.
“Uh, fine.” She was a little overwhelmed. Cleckley looked at me, and then jumped to the conclusion she’d had some orcian coffee.
“Any shortness of breath?”
She shook her head and I did too to indicate that wasn’t it.
“Any muscles spasms? Memory problems? Jitteriness?”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and frowned at her.
“I’m fine, really.” Then she smiled nervously.
“Like I said, there is nothing wrong with her,” said Rob, looking at me as if trying to communicate something, but I really didn’t know what he was trying to say.
“What? What is it, Rob? What do you think is up with her?”
Cleckley looked from Rob to Anna to me, then nodded.
“She’s acting like a little girl,” Rob muttered to himself, but I heard it due to my sharper hearing and stared at him.
“I think she’s OK, Clarke,” Cleckley said. I looked at him in astonishment.
“Really?”
“She’s in fine physical health.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, looking at Anna. She blushed. “Hmm.” I scrutinised her. I supposed that whatever Price had done had worn off. Either which way, I wasn’t going back to my quarters just yet.
I let out a sigh. “OK then, you’re the doctor,” I said with a relieved smile.
“Oh, I was expecting one of your ‘I love the way you practice medicine, Cleckley,’ comments,” he said with a smile and a bad rendition of my voice. Rob was frowning at this. “Well, are you staying for a drink, Clarke? Red wine, I presume?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I wasn’t going back to my room by myself for now. I would have to bite the bullet, so to speak, and go and talk to Price at some point. Or try to avoid him, but how the hell would that be possible? “I’ll get this one, Cleckley, you got the last one.” I turned to Rob. “Rob, what do you want to drink?”
He was frowning at me.
“What’s the matter?”
Rob glared at Cleckley, then frowned at me and then sighed. “Nothing,” he said.
I looked from Rob, to Cleckley, to Anna and back again, completely confused. Anna was blushing, Rob looked angry and Cleckley, well, he was enjoying a personal joke.
“Just get the drinks, Clarke,” said Jane wearily. “I’ll have a beer, thanks.”
I nodded, took everyone’s drinks order and bought them. Cleckley ushered everyone to the table in the corner by the viewscreen window. It was my favourite place to sit as it had a great view of the stars. He then came back to the bar to help me carry the drinks.
“Is she really OK?” I asked him, looking over his shoulder at Anna.
“Yes, fine,” he said with a sigh. I shook my head.
‘Damned if I understand what’s up with her then.’
“Now, Clarke, how do you feel?” asked Cleckley.
I frowned at him, confused.
“I expected you to come by my office.”
‘Eh?’
“Why?” I asked, sipping my wine and regarding him over the glass.
“I was told you were injured in the… exercise this morning.”
‘Huh, that wasn’t an exercise, but I suppose we can call it that if you want to keep things quiet.’
“Ah, well… I sort of was,” I admitted.
“Are you OK now?”
“Fine, I just…” I trailed off and shrugged, not wanting to educate him about how weak I was.
“What was wrong with you?” he asked, his interest caught. I looked over at my friends at the table. Rob was watching us.
‘Now, how to get away from the curious doctor?’
I coughed pitifully a few times.
“I’m allergic to curiosity.”
He laughed at that. “OK, Clarke, I’ll leave it for now, but as your doctor I really ought to know ab
out such things.”
“I’m fine,” I said, and then stuck my tongue out for good measure.
He laughed again and picked up the drinks. As we walked over I noticed that Rob looked sullen.
‘Now why is he looking like that? Obviously Price hasn’t hypnotised him, so why is he acting up?’
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
‘This is all so confusing. What the hell is going on?’
“So, why isn’t there a version of the internet in hyperspace?” Mark was asking as I walked up. I stared at him in shock.
‘Nice one, Mark, we’re trying to pretend that we’re from this time. If there is no intragalactic internet, even asking that question you’re making it obvious you’re a time traveller or a history major. And since the only universities are on Earth and we can’t fake having been there easily, why bring up the question at all?’
I looked at Cleckley. He had already handed out the drinks he’d been carrying and was sitting down.
“Good point, there should be,” said Rob. At least he wasn’t obviously sulking any more.
‘What was wrong with him?’
“The companies that colonised space didn’t install it,” said Cleckley. He didn’t seem perturbed at the question, in fact he seemed amused at something, so I guessed this was an OK question to ask.
“But why not?” asked Anna. “The internet’s great.” I looked at her. Even she looked OK now. This was puzzling. I wondered if she remembered the whole hypnotism thing. Everyone seemed to be normal again. I pinched the bridge of my nose again and shook my head.
“There’s internet planet-side,” said Jane.
‘Is there? I suppose I never looked for it.’
“But why didn’t they install it?” asked Mark. “It seems like an obvious thing to me.”
“It’s obvious why they wouldn’t install it,” I said, giving up wondering about what was going up with my friends.
“What? Why?” asked Mark.
“Well… think about it. The internet was designed by scientists, then it exploded out amongst geeks before the governments and businesses knew what it was. And the geeks had certain ideas about freedom of information.”
He nodded.
“The companies and governments didn’t like those ideas much. Hacking was invented. People wanted to share their music, opinions and instructions on how to build bombs. But by the time they realised what a Pandora’s box the internet was, it was too late.”
Cleckley was looking at me curiously.
“So, obviously, when expanding off the Earth, no one would be stupid enough to allow that much power to people.” I sipped my wine.
“How on earth do you manage to think like that?” asked Mark.
I shrugged. “What do you mean? It’s all pretty self-evident.”
He narrowed his eyes at me.
‘Oh… I’ve not pissed him off now, have I? Damn it!’
“Sorry, Mark, I didn’t intend to be rude,” I said.
“It’s OK,” he said, shrugging and smiling easily. “But aren’t they right?”
“Who?”
“The geeks?”
‘Ah. Well. It depends which side of the fence you’re standing on really.’
I shrugged. “I suppose that depends on whether you’re a geek or a government. On the one hand, it might be good for the human race to share information freely and the internet is a source of commerce. On the other hand it’s a type of mob rule and full of anarchists, political dissidents and criminals, who are given room to spread their ideas and behaviour.”
“I’m sure there’ll be some sort of a hypernet some day,” said Mark. Cleckley looked confused.
“I think you’re wrong, Clarke,” said Rob. “There’s no internet in normal space because there is no way to get the information from planet to planet. It has nothing to do with whether whoever built the first colonies wanted the internet or not.”
I thought about that.
“Light’s too slow.”
I smiled at him. “Actually, yeah, you could be right.”
‘But if light is too slow… then how does information get passed from planet to planet? It obviously does somehow.’
“They’d have to use hyperspace to pass the signal,” mused Rob.
‘Or a ship that travelled in hyperspace.’
I stared at Cleckley here. I wanted to ask him about information smuggling.
‘A fast ship would be the only way to get information from one planet to another privately and quickly. Ah, I now know why I am being paid ten kilos of coffee to deliver a letter. It’s nice to know what I’m smuggling.’
“That would make sense,” said Mark. “The internet could be run over hyperspace communications.”
“Ah… but who owns those?” I pondered.
‘Maybe I’m wrong, maybe there is something like the internet here: pirates moving information around via their ships flying at hyperspace speeds.’
“Large capacity, large lag,” I muttered.
“What?” asked Mark.
“A spaceship, smuggling information.”
Rob grinned and looked at me like a teacher at a favourite student who had just understood the lesson.
“Ah, very clever, Clarke.”
‘Yeah, I understood piratical information-smuggling before you, Rob.’
But I smiled at him nonetheless. Anna frowned at me.
“I guess that might be the sort of thing a smuggling ship might smuggle, to avoid government and private networks. Of course, I’ve never seen a smuggling ship and would know nothing about such nefarious goings-on.” I even managed to say it with a straight face. Jane raised her eyebrows at me.
“What? What are you two talking about now?” asked Mark.
“Smuggling ships probably make most of their money moving information,” said Rob. I looked at Cleckley. Luckily he still didn’t seem to find this conversation weird. The last thing I wanted was him asking why we did not have such common knowledge.
“And not cigarettes,” I added pointedly to Jane. She rolled her eyes and sighed at me.
I became aware of Price heading up the corridor. I felt somewhat… naked. Normally I’m quite comfortable being unclothed, but now, in the bar and fully dressed, I felt rather uncomfortable and I thought I would need at least a sword to feel OK.
‘I am a complete idiot. I bought those ankle and wrist holsters for the small knives, why the hell aren’t I wearing them?’
‘I decided not to so that the marines wouldn’t notice that I stole weapons from them. But what the bloody hell was the point of stealing the weapons if I then sit in the bar, completely unarmed, as Price comes in?’
“What sort of information?” asked Mark. Rob shrugged.
Price entered the bar. I looked straight at him. He stared back, his face unreadable.
‘Oh, dear.’
“Whatever people don’t want the governments or the big companies to know,” said Rob.
‘Oh, this is very, very bad. Will he attack me here? How will I defend myself? He’s at least as strong as me. How will I stop him from hurting my friends? And if the worst happens, how can I do all of that without making it patently obvious I’m a vampire as well? OK, that’s the least of my worries. I’ll deal with the consequences of that if it comes up.’
I was staring straight at him.
“May I join you?” asked Price, walking up. The question was roughly directed at me, but I couldn’t answer. With my whole being I wanted to say ‘no’ but that would raise all sorts of difficult, in fact unanswerable, questions.
“Of course,” said Cleckley, with a sideways look at me to see how I reacted.
‘Argh, you don’t know what you are doing, Cleckley! He’s not an interesting specimen. This isn’t an opportunity to learn about vampire-vampire or vampire-human relations or whatever you think you’re doing! Now all you guys are hostages. Shit!’
Under the table I fisted my hands and dug my nails into my palms.
‘So bloody calm now, aren’t you?’
‘Shit, what do I do if he decides to hurt them?’
I tried to wipe off my frown and replace it with calmness. I think I succeeded. What I really wanted to do was leave the bar, but that would a bad idea. Either Price would follow me, which I didn’t want, or I would leave him with my friends unguarded.
I sat and daydreamed about twenty marines armed with sharpened training swords. There were five in the bar and they were unarmed.
“Do you think Clarke’s correct and that’s what this ship is smuggling? Information?” Mark asked Rob, who shrugged.
Price looked slightly amused. I stared at Anna. She seemed fine other than she was a little awkward under my scrutiny. I unclenched my hands and picked up my drink.
“We’re nearly at Antigua Nuevo,” said Cleckley. “That’s where you leave the ship isn’t it, Mr Price?”
“Yes, this has been a speedy voyage.” “Shame really,” he added, sub-audibly for a normal human.
‘What the hell, he came over to flirt with me? Despite chucking me off a balcony and hypnotising my friends!’
“What did you do to Anna?” I whispered sotto voce. I was gripping the stem of my wine-glass, thinking desperately about the weapons that were in my quarters.
“You’re a vampire then?” Mark asked Price conversationally. Price looked shocked. He was facing Mark but I thought his attention was on me.
“What are you talking about?” He did a good job of acting confused.
“Sorry if I was a little blunt,” said Mark.
Price smiled politely. I could see the effect of all those years of expensive education. He would be at home in a drawing room.
“Not at all,” he said. “I’ve only hypnotised her the once,” Price replied to me.
“Yeah, right. Then explain just what she was up to. She was definitely trying to separate me from Rob for some reason. And who else would want to do that?”
Price frowned, then looked at Rob and Anna, and then smiled for some reason.
‘Really, all he had to do was wait. Rob wouldn’t have stayed there all night. Maybe I ought to find a nice, strong marine to cuddle up to tonight, then Price can’t come in without making a scene… which he won’t do… I think. And if he does at least I’ll have backup.’