Patav chimed in. “If she’s from the future where she was found guilty, isn’t that pretty damning? Shouldn’t she, at least, come from earlier in the timeline to stop Sossios from committing those crimes, but arrived just too late?”
“So, you still want her to be a time traveler, just an inept one?” asked Lorav.
Medow had a huge grin on her face. “Even better. You’ll be free by the ninth episode in the miniseries.”
“Wait! The beginning or the end of the episode?” asked Tarke. “If it’s the beginning you might have a chance. There’s always ten episodes to a miniseries. If it’s at the end of the episode, it means a worse ending is impending.”
“Are you from Earth?” asked Medow, her head cocked, accentuating her small upturned nose.
“I know so much about Earth TV, they should give me honorary citizenship. If I didn’t, you know, have actual citizenship. I grew up there, with Frankie!” It explained a lot about Tarke, but not much more about Frankie.
“No, I’ll just tell them the truth. I was raised by the Chakrabartis and I don’t know anything about those crimes.”
“As your attorney, I don’t recommend that, but since you’re not paying me, I guess that’s OK. We will set up your alibis, and I’ll do some research on the ‘Inept Time Traveler’ defense, just in case.” Medow cocked her head as she started the phone call.
“Wait, do you want to know what I learned about the adoption agency?”
“Nope, not part of the defense.”
This was going to be fine, Frankie lied to herself.
SIX
“Do you know the story of the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe?” Gail asked from the captain’s chair. She had called a bridge drill, so that she could speak with her crew without her family present. Tarke had shirked the drill, so Frankie sat in her seat. She shook her head, along with the triplets. Quaja’s tentacles waved back and forth, in a ‘so-so’ answer.
“I was taught the story in primary school. I won’t tell it to you, as it’s meant to add fuel to your conscience when it comes to lying and murdering bodies and hiding them in the walls.”
“—did you kill someone?” asked Lorav. The fact that Lorav was asking was a frightening concept. What was she trying to confirm?
Patav laughed, enjoying everyone’s stunned worry.
Frankie threw a ping pong ball found tucked in the crevices of Tarke’s seat—previously spent ammunition to summon Tarke’s attention or disrupt it.
“No, it’s just. Weird things have been happening, and I think it’s my conscience bugging me because I lied to my family.”
“You always lie to your family,” said Frankie in the gentlest way. She realized too late the statement might not be that helpful, even with the most delicate of tones.
“Not to their face. Not constantly throughout the day. They think I’m the captain! And if I’m the captain, why do things keep falling from shelves?”
“Cause it’s a spaceship. I’m not even sure why we have shelves…” said Quaja, shaking the tentacles best suited for engineering and design work.
It was then that a bobble-headed figurine on Tarke’s console slid down the front and fell to the ground.
“See!”
“It always does that,” said Patav, who was frequently asked to turn around and retrieve the item for Tarke. “It’s a whole line of toys that don’t stand up properly.”
“More proof that Earth products are purposely built to displease their intended users,” said Lorav.
Patav nodded.
Frankie also knew the figurine did that, but it had been good timing. Besides, Tarke usually had her feet up on the console and knocked it over that way. And, who cared if they didn’t stand upright? They were adorable and licensed. “She wasn’t supposed to take it out of the box,” said Frankie.
“Why would you not take a toy out of its box?” asked Quaja, who couldn’t imagine enjoying anything she couldn’t touch.
Frankie shrugged with no answer for the copious EGRL in merchandise currently kept in its original packaging.
“Plastic was not Earth’s greatest contribution. Amazon was,” responded Lorav. “No, they’re not the same thing.”
Everyone looked around to guess who was behind the thought to which Lorav had responded. No one confessed to thinking such an Earth-centric statement. Even Lorav began to look confused, trying to visually suss out who might have been the thought-originator. She looked to her triplet, who only shrugged.
“Maybe Tarke or your family?” asked Quaja, automatically naming everyone not present.
“Someone who didn’t register the thought at all?” asked Patav.
They all instinctively glanced at Gail. She was pulling at her hair in distress.
With her accoutrements, Gail was taller than Frankie and could thus both sit in the chair and have her feet touch the floor at the same time. She stomped her foot. The boot made a metallic clunking sound like a single isolated press cut of an industrial machine. On the other side of the bridge, the metal floor creaked. “I think the ship is haunted,” whispered Gail as she stared in the direction of the creak and slowly backed up to the door.
“Haunted?” Frankie immediately took off her heavy-set goggles and searched the surrounding areas, through walls and ceilings and floor with her x-ray vision. She did not have infrared vision, but from what she gathered from the bouncing electrons—there was no fertisrat infestation…yet.
Still, Frankie’s disaster mode kicked in. “Compi, are any systems offline?”
Compi didn’t say anything.
“Compi?”
There was silence. Sometimes Compi couldn’t hear you. Other times it didn’t realize you were talking to it. And sometimes it just flat-out ignored you. So, it wasn’t unusual. But Frankie was concerned.
“Has anyone heard from Compi?”
It was then she realized she hadn’t received any welcome, congratulations, or random cat fact since she had gotten on board. Looking around the room, it was clear everyone was trying to remember the last time they had spoken to Compi. Or actually, the last time they had spoken to Compi and she’d answered.
“Maybe she’s muted? Compi, unmute. Compi, increase volume.”
“Maybe turn her off and back on again,” suggested Lorav.
While generally helpful advice that everyone should take before asking someone else to solve their problem, the fact that it was a regularly employed technique of Atalan’s pilot was a bit disconcerting.
“Does anybody know how to do that?”
“Compi, turn on Compi,” Gail tried helpfully. Then, “Oh, mevix.”
“I guess maybe we click on something?” Frankie took her place in front of the captain’s console, edging forward in case she needed to select something on the top of the screen.
As Frankie’s screen began to populate with icons, it stopped at four. Frankie waited for more to load. She had had almost her entire desktop filled with shortcut, files, and, she was sure some other things. She swiped at the screen, hoping to find another that looked more familiar. She did not. She only found a newly installed entertainment organizer. It offered the latest episodes of The Great Alien Baking Challenge and a movie miniseries entitled The Quiet Life of Sponges.
Frankie began to ask Compi, then stopped. Frankie began to manually work the intercom, then stopped. “Gail, as captain, will you please ask Tarke to come to the bridge immediately.”
Gail nodded and repeated the words through the intercom. “Tarke, come to the bridge…immediately.”
Frankie fumed as the minutes passed and neither Tarke nor more desktop icons appeared. “Try again. Tell her Code 92.”
Frankie opened the bridge door to make sure Gail’s voice was making it through the intercom. Maybe Compi wasn’t the only thing offline; maybe fertisrats were going to come barreling through the air vents any moment.
*Attention, Tarke. Code 92. Code 92. Please come…here.*
She gave Gail a thumbs up an
d then waited with the door open. Not a very captain-like thing to do, but she wasn’t necessarily captain right now. And they never really treated her as such anyway…clearly.
After a few more minutes of desktop icons not appearing, Tarke sauntered toward the bridge and through the door as Frankie held it open. “Is Code 92 the unclaimed dessert code? You finally used it! See, I told you it would come in handy.”
Frankie shut the door behind them.
It didn’t take long for Tarke to realize there were no unclaimed desserts, although she did ask Quaja twice.
Frankie ignored her. She pointed to her console. “What did you do with my stuff?”
Clearly, the cake was a lie.
“It was my stuff at the time, Captain. Captain’s console,” explained Tarke, but she’d lost a good bit of her swagger, and not just from the lack of dessert. If Tarke had had a reason to replace Frankie’s desktop during a rescue of Frankie, it appeared she could not recall it at the moment.
Frankie sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose just in front of her goggles, leaving it as the only spot that did not change in exasperation.
“Okay, thank you for being…honest, I guess.” Without Compi’s help, Frankie had to navigate to the console utility system to restore the desktop.
Frankie waited as her screen did nothing. “Mevix, okay. Seriously, what did you do with all of my stuff?”
“I deleted it. I’m sure you have all of those things on your console, just not accessible from the desktop.”
“No, all of the setup files were on the desktop when the ship was towed…er, delivered to me.”
“It is really bad form to keep files stored on the desktop. It slows the computer down. And, it’s supposed to be temporary. That’s why there are shortcuts. That’s why there are folders.”
“Bad form?! You know what’s bad form? DELETING COMPI!”
Sensing panic bubbling around the anger, Quaja stepped in. “I don’t think Compi could’ve run on the console desktop. That would have been…well, I guess it would explain a lot, but… may I?” Parts of Quaja motioned assistance.
Once in place, Quaja pressed keys and searched through system files. “Has anyone spoken to Compi since we landed on Beramuda?”
When everyone shook their heads thoughtfully, Frankie asked, “What happened in Beramuda?”
“What happened in Beramuda stays in Beramuda,” said Gail, forcefully.
“I don’t think Tarke deleted Compi. Atalan’s circuits were fried passing through that Van Allen radiation belt. I think Compi went offline then,” offered Quaja.
“I will search for an install file. I’m sure there is one in the depth of the computer somewhere. Does anyone know what the file or program was actually called? I have been on a lot of ships and none of the programming has ever been named Compi.”
Day One, Frankie had asked the on-board computer if she could call it Compi, and the computer said yes. Frankie wondered if she should have asked it what it preferred to be called. Compi didn’t have feelings. She wasn’t sentient, although the crew sometimes wondered if she was being a smart ass on purpose. Despite not having realized Compi was gone until just now and there not being any actual loss of life, a sense of mourning fell over the crew—a confused emptiness for something that had seemed intrinsic to the ship and their lives. It hit hard, as if the usual “What if Frankie goes to prison and we lose the ship and our jobs”-stress and “Ugh, my family’s here”-malaise weren’t enough.
“How will we go on without Compi? She was a spectacle of graphics and sound,” declared Gail.
“We already did,” Tarke smarted, but with a bit of rattle in her voice.
Gail wailed. “Maybe she’s the one haunting the ship! I can’t stand it!”
“Whoa! What’d I miss? You’re haunted, cursed, gassy?” asked Tarke excitedly.
This did not appear to comfort Gail. Her smooth face crinkled in fear, guilt, sadness, and the passage of gas, before she removed herself from the bridge.
“She couldn’t do that after leaving?” asked Quaja.
“Maybe if the doors were automatic…” chirped in a nasally sounding Tarke, who’d pressed down on her nose to prevent the passage of smell.
“Maybe we should go check on her,” the triplets said, also taking their leave.
#
“Where are you going?” the triplets asked.
“I don’t know,” Gail responded in a daze. Upon closer inspection, Gail’s hair had begun frizzing at the ends and her eyes had sunk into dark circles. How much wit she’d begun with was irrelevant at this point—she was at her end. Something was wrong. Either that, or her family was visiting.
Going to the cargo bay was not a viable option in this state. The triplets led Gail to their room, where Gail’s family would not overhear and ‘help’.
The futon over a tetami floor mat was wall-to-wall, perfectly cut to fit. Small cubbies held the women’s few belongings. It was nothing like Gail’s supply closet that housed… many supplies. All the supplies. Gail didn’t mind the space even smaller than the tiny sleeping quarters. She had free roam of the cargo bay just outside her door. While everyone else was crammed on the bridge, she enjoyed almost half the ship to herself.
That was until now.
Lorav and Patav always hosted guests in the same way. They widened their two-being circle to fit a third in a cross-legged meditation circle.
“It won’t leave me alone,” whispered Gail.
“Your tell-tale heart?” asked Patav. Her antenna danced with the emotional energy in the room, or maybe there was a draft.
“Yes, I have to tell Fala. I think I’m going crazy. I constantly feel as if I’m being followed. Things are flying off tables like there’s a really bored and invisible cat….”
“If you tell Fala the truth, do you think she will continue to represent Frankie?” asked Patav.
“I don’t think cats are going to stop Medow. She’s not allergic or anything.”
“Wait, there’s a cat?” asked Lorav. Being a reader of thoughts was not much help when it came to someone like Gail.
Gail shrugged. “Or Compi.”
Gail drew swirls on the futon with her mechanical finger. It gathered a bit of static charge, which she transferred from digit to digit until it had dissipated and left her with the question. “…do you guys sense anyone… else… on the ship?”
Gail hadn’t spent that time trying to know and relay the question. She was worried about the answer—that the ship was not haunted, only her conscience.
The two sisters didn’t need to exchange glances, but they did so anyway.
“It’s difficult to tell. There are lots of new emotions—” said Patav.
“And new thoughts,” added Lorav.
“Part of that or all of that could be accounted for with the addition of your family and everyone’s novel thoughts and feelings on the subject.”
“It’s hard to get a read. A lot of the time, the Atalan is pretty well…stagnant. We’re not used to so much.”
“Getting rusty. I understand that,” said Gail.
Lorav gave a small squint and tilt of her head.
“There’s just too much noise to know your answer at this time,” explained Patav.
“So, I’m stuck figuring this out on my own?” asked Gail, who had been hoping for some comfort.
“Never,” said the sisters in unison. “There’s a way to quiet the noise. Will you join us for meditation?”
“Oh, I think I’ll just add to the noise,” stammered Gail, who had never taken part in such a practice. In some self-fulfilling prophecy or a Don’t Think About X moment, Gail did add significant noise—and also simultaneously lost The Game, which meant that Lorav had lost The Game for which she had to announce and make Patav lose The Game.
Gail initialized the rising process for her lower body exoskeleton. She would have to take it slow on the soft surface; otherwise the stabilizers would overcompensate and create a feedback loo
p that would have Gail doing a fairly alluring shimmy.
Just then, a figurine from the shelf landed on the futon with the quietest thud. All three immediately looked over to see Earth’s Prince face-first on the ground.
“See, now did I do that?” Gail asked as her lower body vibrated slightly with the oversensitive balance sensors that had been adjusted for Gail’s fall risk.
The sisters didn’t need to share a glance to confirm such a small noise shouldn’t have drawn their attention, not with the emotional, mechanical, and intellectual noise around them. “No, sit down,” said Lorav.
With it, she could hear the sounds of her environment more. She heard the gentle hum of the microprocessors in her machinery. Gail wondered how much human was needed for meditation. Did she even pass or was she a soul-less toaster?
“Toasters are in a constant state of meditation,” assured Lorav.
Motivation to know something more surely seemed to eliminate some of the more distracting thoughts of assessing sanity, processing guilt, and insecurity. Gail accepted the electronic noise as part of her, like her heartbeat, and allowed it to be as it was—for a few moments before becoming distracted again. She stayed quiet. She hoped the sisters were having better luck than she was.
Lorav and Patav blinked their eyes open. Gail knew this because her eyes had been open, although she didn’t really remember opening them.
“…anything?” asked Gail.
“We saw…a drawing on the surface of a plane. There were squares with numbers inside them.” The sisters squinted to keep the vision stable in their mind.
“Bingo?” asked Gail.
“No, we know Bingo!” Lorav laughed. The sisters could wipe a room of senior citizens if they weren’t first kicked out for drunken and disorderly mind-reading.
Patav pressed a finger into the futon and traced out a rectangle before drawing a line down the middle, then drew another square of the same size atop that. She began to repeat the process, stacking a larger rectangle divided into two squares atop the single square.
Atalan Adventure Pack: Books 4-6 Page 16