“Can I talk to you in the other room?” Byron said softly.
“Sure, why not?”
The door to the orb room opened automatically. Ray entered and Byron followed him. Seth’s voice suddenly boomed in their ears.
“Warning, unauthorized access in the orb room.”
“It’s all right, Seth,” said Ray. “Byron has permission to be in here with me at this moment.”
“Understood.”
“I guess I really can’t get away with anything on board,” said Byron, staring at the orb.
The door slid closed quietly.
“No, you can’t. What’s up?”
“I want to join the game.”
“We’ve been over this before, Byron.”
“Yes, but now I have something to offer you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Have you ever noticed how Christie always rubs the back of her neck when she has a good hand?”
“No.”
“Well, she does. Everyone has a tell like that, some have several. Would you like to know what yours is?”
“I don’t have one.”
“That’s what you think.”
Ray crossed his arms. “Okay, what do I do?”
“The hint about Christie was a freebie. Anything else is going to cost you.”
“Cost me what? I think you’re full of shit.”
“Fine, think that if you want. Watch Christie for the next few hands, and tell me if I’m not right. I imagine you’ll be more receptive when you see for yourself.”
“Okay, let’s say you’re right. What are your terms?”
“I’ll tell you what your quirks are for fifty units. For the others, ten units each.”
“That’s all?”
“It will be enough for me to start participating.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll watch Christie more carefully for the rest of the night, and we’ll talk again afterward.”
Ray moved back towards the door to the galley, which opened. He motioned for Byron to return. Byron winked at him and exited the orb room.
John was shuffling the deck.
Byron was right about Christie, but the subject didn’t come up again until after the next flight combat sim. Ray was in an exceptionally good mood because they’d kicked the crap out of an armada of imagined enemy spacecraft. It may have been useless considering their complete lack of knowledge of any enemy, but it was damn entertaining nonetheless. Ray had entered the galley to get a drink of water before the after action review about to take place in the conference room. Byron was sitting in the same place he had been an hour ago. Ray was trying to ignore him.
“So?” asked Byron after a moment.
“So, you’re right,” Ray said reluctantly. “Christie’s tell is so obvious now that you’ve pointed it out.”
“Good, then we have something to work out.”
“Not really. You probably noticed that I’ve eliminated any tells of my own, whatever they happened to be before. So your request of fifty credits for the information is moot.”
“I noticed that. It’s true that you quit doing what you were doing when you have a good hand. You’re a regular Sphinx at the table now.”
Ray drank from his glass. “You’ll have to find some other way of buying into the game, Byron.”
“What about the others? My offer of ten credits for their tells still stands.”
“Byron, you fail to realize that I don’t care what the tells are. I don’t take the game seriously enough to try and hedge my bets against the other crewmembers. They’re my friends, and I’m not going to be duplicitous just to gain some extra cups of tea or a frigging Riesen.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
“Why don’t you ask Ari? She’s more the type to try and gain an advantage.”
The color drained out of Byron’s face.
“I, uh... she’s not...”
“You’re afraid if you so much as look at her the wrong way that she’ll rip your nuts off. I gotta tell you, Byron. You shouldn’t take Ari so seriously. She acts tough for sure but she’d never hurt anyone who didn’t have it coming.”
“When you phrase it like that, it’s hardly reassuring.”
“Okay, then. Rest assured that the rest of us won’t let any harm come to you.”
Byron’s former veneer of confidence visibly returned, as if he’d suddenly noticed his fly was down and had corrected it.
“I was going to say, actually, that I didn’t think Ari would bargain for tells because she would never accept help from me. If she did, she’d be forced to admit that I knew something she didn’t, and in that single way, that I was superior to her.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “You managed to combine an apt observation with your own egotistical viewpoint. Does this come naturally to you or did you receive specialized training?”
“I am right about Ari.”
“Yes. Between the two of you, it’s a wonder anyone else has any room left to feel self-assured.”
Ari came down the stairs from above and entered the galley.
“Has the AAR started?” asked Ray.
“No, they’re going on about something or another,” said Ari, grabbing a glass from the cabinet. “I decided you had the right idea.”
“I’ll meet you back up there. Byron has something he wanted to ask you.”
“Oh?”
Ray waved sweetly at Byron as he climbed the stairs. Byron flipped Ray off and immediately regretted it as Ari caught him doing so.
“What do you want, Squirt?”
“Well, nothing really, I just...”
Byron took a deep breath. Ari raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
“Sometime today?”
“I want in on the poker games.”
“With what? You’ve got nothing. Actually you’ve got worse than nothing because you still owe us for not deep-sixing your ass back near Regulus.”
Byron smiled. “What I do have is information.”
Ari opened the fridge and obtained a can of cola. They’d only brought two cases of soda to begin with. Byron saw his chance.
“I’m listening,” said Ari, opening the can.
“You did very well in the simulation just now.”
“As usual.”
“No, not as usual. You do well in the infantry sims but you’re not so good at the space combat sims. You won that can of soda in a poker game. You only use items you’ve won in the games when you’ve done well in the space sims.”
Ari calmly filled her glass halfway with ice and poured in the cola.
“I suppose from what you can see in your limited scope, that’s true.”
“Yes. I can’t see what you do with anything you don’t keep down here. However, it seems to me that you don’t do any of your drinking except during the poker games and after dinner. Since Dana spends so much time on the bridge, you often smoke your cigarettes down here as well. I guess you smoke in your room occasionally, but I know how you hate to be in there all by yourself.”
Sipping from her glass, Ari nodded, and said, “You’ve got it all figured out, I take it. All simple observation, really. If I had nothing to do but watch us all the time I’d probably be observing things like that as well.”
Despite Ari’s outward appearance, Byron’s comment about her dislike for being alone aboard the ship had made her very uncomfortable. Byron was right, and that went beyond casual observation.
“It seems to me that regardless of your attitude, you’ve got the greatest self-doubt of anyone on this ship.”
Ari laughed. “You’ve been spending too much time with Dana. She’s probably projecting some of her shortcomings onto me as a defensive measure. It’s understandable, though. It’s no secret that she and I don’t get along very well.”
Byron felt his adrenaline swell, and he stood up.
“Oh no, Ari. Didn’t I just say Dana spends most of her time on the bridge? In fact, when I do listen to her talk to
the others she maintains a very professional attitude about you. No, Ari, I’m talking about you, and your problems. You can try to pass the buck but it won’t work with me.”
“So what? Is this bullshit supposed to convince me to let you play poker?”
“Not directly. You can take your cola and go to the after-action review, and think about how right I am. You don’t have to admit it, even. I understand your need to save face. Enjoy your victory soda, and think about how my ability to figure people out can help you win more often at poker. For the last thing I’ll reveal is again something you already know. You suck at poker.”
“Christ, you are a pain in the ass. I’ve got half a mind to leave one of the kitchen knives lying around and double-tap you in the head and claim you attacked me. Hell, why bother with the knife?”
“WARNING,” Seth’s voice boomed suddenly, “UNAUTHORIZED WEAPONS USE DETECTED IN THE GALLEY.”
“What the fuck?” Ari said, shocked.
“Don’t look at me,” Byron said, equally surprised. “You’re the one making all the threats!”
Ari drew her Glock with lightning speed and centered it on Byron’s chest.
“Get your hands up, damn it!”
“I said I didn’t do anything!”
Byron complied, a look of horror edging across his face. Seconds later John, Ray, Christie and Richter came barging down the stairs from above.
“What’s going on down here?” John barked.
Ray and the others fanned out around the rear of the room.
“I don’t know,” said Ari, “we were just talking and...”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Byron interrupted, “This crazy bitch has finally gone off the deep end.”
“Shut up, both of you,” said Ray. “Seth, what is the current situation in the galley?”
“There was an unauthorized use of a weapon detected at 2307 local time,” replied Seth. “The violation ended zero point three seconds later.”
“Point three seconds?” asked Christie.
Ari lowered her weapon. “That means it was over before you even got here.”
“Seth,” began John, “what was the nature of the unauthorized weapons use?”
“Unable to identify.”
“What kind of weapon was used?”
“Unable to identify.”
“Who instigated the violation?”
Seth was quiet for a moment before responding. “Ari.”
“Bullshit,” Ari said. “I only drew my weapon after Seth started freaking out.”
“That much is true,” said Byron.
“You see? Seth, who told you to be concerned about weapons use aboard the ship?”
“It is part of my normal programming.”
“No, it’s not,” said Christie. “At least you never mentioned it before.”
Ari holstered her pistol and crossed to the galley terminal. “You know how Seth is. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of his lost bits of programming.”
Ari typed away at the terminal.
“Could this be a result of your efforts to restore his systems?” John asked.
“I hope so. At least, I... yeah, come look at this. There’s a new program that was detected during the time of the alert. It’s just labeled as gibberish, but it’s got to be what Seth was running. I can work with him to try and restore it completely.”
“Seth, what are the parameters of a weapons detection alert?” said Ray.
“Those parameters are not available.”
“He did it for no reason,” said Ari. “It was a malfunction.”
“I’ll agree to that,” said Byron.
“Okay, fine,” began John. “You work on it and figure out what the deal is. It’s been a long day so work on it tomorrow if you want. I’m going to tell Dana what happened.”
“What about the AAR?” asked Richter.
“Forget about it for now. We kicked ass anyway, there isn’t much to tell.”
John went upstairs. Ray shrugged and went with him. Richter holstered his pistol.
“Byron, would you excuse us, please?” Richter said flatly.
“Sure, fine.”
Byron exited into the aft cargo hold. Ari glanced up briefly from the terminal.
“What’s up, Chance?”
“What really happened here, Ari?”
“You already know what happened.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you do. You know Seth’s been skittish lately. We don’t know half of what’s locked away in his memory. We’re lucky he doesn’t evacuate all the air on board thinking we’ll enjoy the experience.”
“All right,” said Richter. “Are you going to stay up?”
“Yes. I want to find out what the program is meant to do.”
“Okay. Good job on the sim tonight. We’re up for the usual in the morning?”
“Yup.”
“Fine. Do get some rest before then. I don’t want to get shot because you’re snoozing.”
4. Day Eighteen
Forty-five minutes later Richter had almost fallen asleep when there was a tap on his door.
“Lights to fifty,” he said, and sat up. “Yo!”
“Richter, it’s Ari. Can I come in?”
Richter stood up and crossed to the door. The effects of the rum he’d imbibed earlier were still very much present. He pressed the controls and the door slid open. Ari was standing there, looking tired.
“What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Come in, then.”
Richter moved out of the way and returned to his bed. He sat on the edge while Ari took the desk chair.
“Aren’t you going to close the door?”
“Oh, sure, if you want.”
Richter did so and sat down again.
“This isn’t easy for me,” Ari said slowly.
“I understand. The first time never is. Just say what you feel.”
“I’m coming to you because you don’t know me as well as John or Ray, and because we have a special friendship. I almost feel like you’re the most neutral and impartial member of the crew, and the one most likely to be able to give me good advice.”
“Oh... Okay. But I’m not a preacher by any stretch of the imagination.”
“I know that all too well. It’s the nature of my concern that makes you particularly approachable.”
“Well, whatever is said between us is confidential.”
Ari picked up Richter’s hat from the desk. It was a black baseball cap with no logo. He was wearing it their last night on Earth. Ari was surprised to find it dusty, and she remembered that Richter had been wearing it only in the sims. Ari spoke, staring out of the window at the stars past her own transparent reflection.
“Most of the time we’ve spent together has been in a fantasy world, fighting foes of our own devising. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I can keep that line distinct. Times like this make me feel like I’ve lost the ability to discern fact from fantasy. Perhaps that overwhelming feeling of strangeness I experience when this whole affair started never really went away. Life on this ship is becoming normal, which makes the lack of knowledge about the rest of the mission all the more terrifying. Byron may have been right about my self-doubt, although I hardly imagine mine is the deepest of those present. What he did was not to make me doubt myself even more, but to solidify a feeling I’ve had about him ever since he made himself known to us.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Before that alert earlier tonight, he and I were having a conversation. He had some observations about myself that he wanted to share, to try and gain a psychological advantage over me. Over all of us, by a roundabout manner. Most of it was crap, but some of it wasn’t. What he was right about made me decide something. I made the decision that I was going to kill him.”
“We all have our breaking point. Byron betrayed you and almost got you all killed. Since then he’s done nothing to try and
make up for it, or endear himself to the crew. I don’t condone killing him, but I understand your motivation. The important thing is that you didn’t do it.”
“You don’t get it. I had made up my mind that I was going to kill him. Right then. I’d sent the message to my muscles to draw my weapon. Before I so much as twitched, Seth blared out that warning. Seth knew what I was about to do.”
“We all know Seth can join with our minds. It’s not surprising that he can detect our thoughts even when we’re not linked with him.”
Ari laughed, and began to cry. “I love that about you, Richter. You’re so analytical about things even now. Is my decision to resort to homicide really so not surpising to you?”
“No.”
“Figures. I almost allowed myself to go down a path, a path that would have corrupted me forever after. I came that close. If Seth hadn’t chosen that moment to freak out, I would have done it. I would have killed him, and I would have lied to cover it up. I don’t want to be that person, Chance.”
“Lucky Seth did intervene, then. Add to that your willingness to admit that it’s a path you don’t want to take, and to talk to one of us about it. Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards getting rid of it.”
“It’s not just that. I wanted to project strength and competence to you and the others. I wanted to seem strong and capable. I never realized that one result of that would be this; your complete lack of emotion and my confession.”
“Well, don’t judge too deeply off of my reaction. I’ve seen things that most people never want to so much as hear about. I’ve seen the best and worst of my teammates, and I’ve seen the best and worst of humanity. So no, your conviction doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think the others would have suspected you’d actually whack Byron. Pardon the expression.”
“What should I do now?”
“Can’t you just try being nicer to people?”
“Are you kidding? I’m Mother fucking Teresa to everybody else.”
“No, you’re not. Comments like that prove it. Just don’t try so hard to come across as cynical, aloof, and sarcastic. Treat others as you would have them treat you.”
“I guess so. What about Byron?”
“Why don’t you let me handle Byron. You worry about being the best crewmate and friend you can to the others. We need your help, desperately. Focus on your good qualities and we’ll all benefit.”
The Tarantula Nebula Page 4