by E M Gale
“Apparently not. Though I only have his word for that.”
Cleckley nodded. “I suspect he’s telling the truth, in that at least. Given your future self’s reputation and skillset, he would have to be very, very good to come after you.”
“Not necessarily, those pirate assassins weren’t very good.”
“They didn’t know who they were after,” he countered.
“Then there were the ones in the dust sculpture, but I have no idea if they were good or not.”
‘They nearly got me though. Don’t think about that, Clarke.’
“What?” asked Cleckley.
“The three bounty hunters? Who shot up my ship?”
Cleckley looked bemused.
“You really didn’t hear about that?” I asked him incredulously.
He shook his head.
I blew the air out of my mouth in an annoyed fashion. “You should listen to gossip, you know.”
Cleckley shrugged. “Well, I don’t. So why did you introduce the hunter to me and your friends?”
“Oh, your job was to keep him in the bar so I could search his quarters,” I said.
Cleckley’s eyes went wide. “You searched his quarters? Was that wise?”
“Very wise. Although there was nothing there to tell me who he was after and plenty to tell me he’s an idiot.”
“Why?”
“Bibles, garlic, crucifixes.”
Cleckley nodded. “So, religious artefacts don’t do anything against you?”
“Well, OK, I’ve not tested that. Though I didn’t burn from touching them in his quarters.”
Cleckley nodded. “And how did you get in? I thought that you had to be invited in?”
I shook my head at that. “Obviously not.”
‘Is he still labouring under that misinformation? What exactly would stop me from getting in? Some sort of mysterious force? Custom? Imagine a physical force that could remember, somehow, who owned which bits of space, then somehow identify a vampire as not invited and repel them. Nah…’
“Oh,” said Cleckley, filing that fact away for future papers.
“Normal living being, not supernatural,” I said drily, pointing my thumb at my breastbone.
‘Honestly!’
He nodded.
“Hey, Cleckley, do you believe in ghosts?”
‘I thought doctors are supposed to be sceptical.’
“Eh? Er, no. Are you saying that vampires are ghosts?” he asked.
I shook my head and laughed. “No, I was just wondering how far you were planning to take this whole belief in the supernatural undead thing.”
He raised his eyebrows at that. “I am not a superstitious peasant,” he said, slightly offended, I thought. “But there is no need for belief when I am sitting across the table from a member of the undead.”
I pointed a finger at my chest. “Alive. You’ve tested that yourself.”
He nodded. “Ah, yes, that reminds me. Whilst you’re here I want to test your strength and reflexes.”
“Sure.”
We ran through the tests; I had gotten a lot stronger and faster, it seemed.
“Well, Clarke, this would have given you away as newly turned, were I not already aware of it.”
I sighed and nodded at that.
‘I guess it makes sense that I would grow stronger rather than start off strong. And anyway, haven’t I been training by swinging all those two-handed swords around?’
“Maybe,” I said. I got Cleckley to describe the analysis he had done on the first blood sample as he started the preparatory work for the second blood sample, namely making up smaller samples and spinning them down in a centrifuge.
“Well, now that’s done, would you care to join me for a drink?” asked Cleckley whilst we left the blood to spin down and separate out into red blood cells and plasmids. He frowned. “You didn’t come back yesterday. You weren’t scared of the hunter, were you?”
‘Eh?’
“Scared? No. I got distracted,” I said. The major was good company. “I’ll meet you there, but I’ve got something to take care of first.”
Cleckley nodded. “Ah, ‘the summit’ as you put it?”
‘How did he know about that? Oh, I see.’
“They told you about that? What did they say?” I said.
“Only that you ordered them to attend a summit in your quarters. An odd turn of phrase that. Do you plan to work out a treaty?”
‘Eh?’
“No. I could work out a treaty with the hunter perhaps, but not them.” I shook my head. “No, Mark’s been wibbling on about wanting to avoid pirates and smugglers, and how we are going to get back.”
Cleckley nodded, understanding.
“So I need to persuade them to stay on the ship.”
Cleckley narrowed his eyes at me. “By hypnotising them?”
I was somewhat taken aback by this.
‘Does that mean that he knows that vampires can do that? I don’t know how, but Price hypnotised Cleckley once. Does he know that that happened, like I know Mr. Does It Matter did it? But I get the idea that my remembering being hypnotised is unusual.’
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. He looked a little awkward.
‘Ah, he doesn’t know vampires can do that, he was guessing based on what he had read.’
“I intend to persuade them with well-reasoned arguments.”
Cleckley looked quite embarrassed. I think he felt overly credulous at that moment.
“Of course.” He fiddled with his glasses then changed the subject. “Why are you staying on the ship? Not that we don’t like having you here, of course; the marine injury rate has gone down since you joined the ship, you know.”
“Ah, well, it seems that there are many people who are gunning for me, so I need to get my combat skills up to as good a level as I can as soon as possible. I don’t think that swanning around in one of my future self’s ships is a good idea, since people will think I’m her and then I’ll have to deal with the people she’s pissed off.” I shook my head at that. “And I think I know where the time machine is and I know I’ll be heading there if I stay on this ship, so I’ve gotta keep them on board.” I sighed.
“Where?” asked Cleckley, leaning forward.
“Where what?” I asked having been completely distracted by my thoughts about my friends.
“Where is the time machine?”
“Ah, you’re not going back in time to discover penicillin, Cleckley,” I said with a wave of my hand.
He laughed at that. “I don’t actually think I want to travel in time. I might have considered it before I saw how difficult it was for you and the others.”
I shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. Their shift finished about ten or twenty minutes ago, so at this rate I’ll have to round them up out of the bar,” I said. “Because obviously I can’t discuss the peculiar problems relating to time travel in the bar,” I whispered.
Cleckley nodded. I did seem to have disabused him of the idea that I was going to hypnotise them all.
* * *
I strolled up to my quarters and saw them all there waiting for me.
‘Great.’
Jane and Mark looked a bit nervous. I supposed I was taking up valuable couple time. Rob and Anna looked impatient.
“Hi, guys,” I said breezily. “Thanks for waiting.” They moved out of the way so I could unlock my door. I had picked up the tendency to leave it open for two reasons–all my valuables were usually carried on my person and no one who knew I was a vampire would be stupid enough to go into my quarters without permission. However, with the hunter on board I was suddenly cautious again. I opened the door, but waved them back so that they couldn’t step in whilst I looked and smelt for traps: nothing.
“What are you doing, Clarke?” asked Anna.
“Checking for traps. Nope, it’s clear,” I said, walking into the room. I gestured that they should come in. “Enter freely and of your own free will,” I
said, quoting Dracula’s comment to Jonathan Harker. I think it was all those discussions about Alucard that had put me in mind of the book.
‘Oh, now this is interesting.’
When I had said that, Jane’s heart rate had risen, but no one else reacted. They strolled in. Only Jane paused at the threshold and looked around her. Noticing that I was looking at her, she fixed her eyes straight ahead and walked into the room, taking slow, deep breaths.
‘She knows I am a vampire, doesn’t she? Has Brannigan told her? Why her? And when?’
I sighed.
‘That stupid robot was right, they will find out, how could they fail to find out?’
“Who would put a trap in your quarters, Clarke?” asked Anna in amazement, as she switched the light on.
I shrugged. “Do you guys want some coffee?”
They arranged themselves on the low sofas. “Yes, please,” said Rob. The others chorused an assent.
It might be hard to explain why I needed to make up a separate pot of stuff that they couldn’t drink, so I located some of the normal coffee I had left over from before I took up my orcian coffee habit.
“Coffee?” Anna sighed in exasperation. “We could have had coffee in the bar.”
I nodded.
‘That’s true, but why would you when there was wine there?’
“Not good coffee,” said Rob with a smile for me.
‘Also true.’
“Sorry I was late,” I said, as the coffee started to gurgle.
“What were you doing?” asked Anna.
‘Time to test Rob’s assertion.’
“Chatting with the nice Doctor Cleckley who I apparently like so much,” I said, watching her and Rob; Rob fidgeted, but didn’t tell me off.
“‘Whom I apparently like so much’,” Anna corrected. “And ‘chatting’? We could have met you in the bar.”
“Well, you could have. I would have known where to find you.” The coffee was ready so I poured it out into the bright yellow mugs that the orcs had stolen and started handing it out. To me, the coffee would have the effect of water, but I liked the taste nonetheless.
“Jane said we had to wait for you, so we did,” said Anna, now annoyed at Jane.
I nodded. Anna shot a glare in that direction, Jane missed it as she was looking at me and she was… nervous for some reason.
‘Why? Does she know? Or just suspect? Maybe that’s why no one else is acting oddly–she only suspects, and hasn’t told them from fear of being thought stupid?’
They all had their coffee and were sitting on the sofas. I went and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of them so I could see them all at once. I set my coffee down in front of me and sighed. Jane was still nervous, so I stared at her, which made her fidget.
“What’s the matter, Jane?” I asked her.
She started at my use of her name and stared at me wide-eyed. “Nothing,” she said.
‘She does know I’m sleeping with the marines. Perhaps one of them let it slip? But then again, why would she not confront me about it? Unless she’s scared of me now? She didn’t seem scared of Price or Alucard, but who knows. Maybe she’s looked me up and what my future self goes on to do. How to test this? Or should I just tell all of them outright?’
I chewed on my knuckle and shook my head slightly.
‘First, sort out Mark’s problem.’
“OK, well, I’ve been thinking. I know that you don’t like associating with wannabe smugglers, Mark, but I really think that we should stay on this ship for a while–”
“Yeah, sure,” said Mark easily. I was stunned.
‘I was just about to explain about the UESF and the time machine I think that the late Rob has stashed for us at Tortuga. I’m sure that’s how we get back. But this is odd. Doesn’t he have a problem with the UESF? What changed?’
I stared closely at him. He didn’t get nervous under my scrutiny so I surmised that Jane hadn’t told him I was a vampire.
“Mark, before we went to Tortuga, you declared that we should leave the ship at the next port and seek passage on a more salubrious vessel. Would you mind telling me what has changed your mind?”
‘Ah, that was dumb, Clarke. You got them to agree to what you want with no effort and now you’re doing your best to undo that piece of luck. Still, I don’t like things I don’t understand. They make me nervous.’
He looked from me to Jane to the others.
‘Well?’
“Uh… well, I kinda thought that we should do what you suggest,” he said.
‘Oh? Not that I mind that sort of thing but…’
“Why?” I asked.
‘Shouldn’t he rely on his reasoning the way I rely on mine, rather than just changing his mind to do what I say?’
He shrugged and looked at Jane again.
“Uh, Jane persuaded me it was a good idea.”
I flicked my eyes back towards her. She looked down at the floor.
‘Interesting.’
But Mark rescued her from any further questions.
“Since you figured out everything about the robot,” he said, “we figured you were perhaps right about staying on the ship too.”
I nodded. It sounded almost logical. Personally, I wouldn’t be satisfied with that reasoning, but I was well aware that most people would be satisfied with less than I would.
“What do the rest of you think?” I asked.
“I’m happy to stay here for the time being,” said Rob. “I know we must get back somehow to conserve causality, but until then, I get to play with the hyperdrive engines, which is cool.” He grinned at me.
‘There we are. Didn’t I say he’d be happy so long as he had some engines to play with? Shame we don’t have a choice about going back really.’
I sighed.
‘He’s happy now. Would he be happy knowing the ship’s UESF? Let’s not tell him.’
“Do we definitely get back?” asked Anna. I nodded.
“I have to publish my papers!” said Rob with an erratic gesture. “Although there’s one thing I don’t understand. Since I now have a copy of my future work, what’s to stop me from publishing them all at once and then doing new work? But if I do that, won’t that break causality?”
‘Eh?’
“Rob, when we get back, you will release your papers one by one,” I said.
“Why? What’s to stop me from publishing them all at once and being hailed the greatest scientist of the twenty-first century?”
I shook my head and gulped some of my coffee. “Rob, you already hold that title.”
He looked amazed.
“There are three reasons you won’t release your papers all at once,” I continued. “One: you still need to actually do the experiments and build the prototypes. And not every little detail will be in the paper, as you well know.”
He nodded at that. “Bloody vague methodologies,” he commented darkly. I chuckled, having come across that problem before.
“Two: if you release all your papers at once, you will be in the same position as all the other physicists, namely not understanding more than what you have read and fighting for funding. If instead you release your papers slowly, well, you’ll never have to struggle for funding again. Every time they get uppity, or you need a new grant, you can just release a paper, leaving you to work on what you want.”
He nodded at that.
“Three: it’d be mightily suspicious if you managed to release a lifetime’s amount of work all at once.”
“Yes, but I’ve got nothing to hide. It is my work.”
I shook my head. “Three words, Rob. Time traveller dissection.”
He looked confused. “They wouldn’t do something like that to me, would they?”
I nodded. “I wouldn’t risk it.”
“Yeah, but you’re paranoid.”
‘No… cautious.’
I grinned, and held my index finger up as if reciting. “And, if you release your work when we get back, your sup
ervisor will take all the credit.”
He went pale at that. “No! It’s my work!”
I nodded.
‘Your work that you stole fair and square. It is kind of cheating, Rob, but hey, I know you don’t want to share it with someone who didn’t even travel through time with you to get it.’
“Then I suggest you persuade someone to fund you to do a fellowship or something on the subject of your first paper.”
He nodded at that. “OK, that makes sense,” said Rob, looking thoughtful. He was planning grant applications in his head.
“What will he work on then, if he doesn’t work on the stuff in the papers?” asked Mark.
“A time machine,” said Rob.
I gave my suggestions: “From what we know of Rob’s future self, robots to wind me up, flagships, weapons…”
‘Plots to steal flagships.’
I turned my attention back to Jane. “And you, Jane?”
She started at the sudden shift of attention to her.
“Are you OK staying on the ship for the time being?”
She looked at me, wide-eyed.
So I smiled at her. It didn’t put her at ease.
‘Hehe.’
“Yeah. I’m fine,” she said in a quiet voice. I nodded, and waited for a sarcastic comment.
‘Nope, none is forthcoming.’
The silence filled the room until Anna broke it.
“Was that all you wanted to discuss in private?” asked Anna.
I nodded. “Couldn’t really discuss that lot in the bar, could we?”
She shook her head.
“But we can go there now if you want.”
“Why? Do you want to see the hunky Brannigan?” asked Anna, with a grin and a sideways look at Rob.
I sneered at the mention of the vampire hunter’s name. “No, definitely not!”
She looked confused.
‘Oh, I see, like Cleckley, she pegged him for my latest lay.’
“Oh. I thought he was your type,” she said, somewhat confounded.
‘Yuk. No way!’
I shook my head.
‘Oh, well, I guess Jane already knows.’
I had a sudden urge to get out the field-spotter’s guide and open it to my page and show it to them. “Did you know he’s a vampire hunter?” I said darkly. Jane gasped at that.