Eclipse

by K. A. Bedford

  Anything known.

  I felt cold. Dragging my feet along the halls, riding the lift up to Deck A, I kept rubbing my arms, feeling chills down my back.

  There was a routine security checkpoint and airlock you had to clear before entering the viewing gallery. The checkpoint interrogated my headware, verified my ID, and let me in. The air smelled of extreme antiseptic procedures. There was a harsh tingling as the airlock systems sprayed me with scrubbers. I’d have to stop by the Infirmary tomorrow and take the refresher pill to replace my internal fauna and flora.

  The second door unlocked.

  As I moved to step out of the lock, I heard Ferguson, yelling, “It’s goddamned well up to you! If this is what you want to do, then do it!”

  And then Rudyard, howling and crying. At first I thought he might be laughing; it had that sort of sound to it. The captain was babbling something that I couldn’t make out. And Ferguson was yelling at him again, trying to get him to decide something, and hurling extraordinary abuse.

  That wasn’t the most disturbing thing I heard. As I took a further step, I heard a deep thumping, occasional and heavy, followed by wet splashing and a distant sound such as I had never heard before. I had chills up and down my back.

  I took another step. Telling myself I’d find out what was happening, I pressed on. There was more splashing, like something big thrashing around. I was thinking about how the fluid in the isolation tank would probably be a ­water-like liquid by now, after days of slow warming. And that the creatures would probably be active and possibly ­hungry.

  I couldn’t see into the viewing gallery from here, but I could hear the captain’s bellowing sobs and screams now. “Get these fucking monster bastards out of my head! Kill them now, Ferguson! That’s a fucking order!”

  Ferguson shouted back, “I cannot accept that order!” There was more, lots more. Rudyard threatening Ferguson with court-martial. I heard him thumping walls, kicking chairs, wailing incoherently, screaming at God.

  And, above this, the thumps of something heavy and muscular pounding at the thick plastic walls of the tank. In my head, I saw the creatures clustered together near the walls, thrashing at those walls with their two-meter sensor whips. They were struggling, but for what? Escape? Food? I didn’t know.

  That otherworldly ululation was coming through the gallery sound system from sensors inside the tank, a bleak, atonal chorus.

  Suddenly, I heard volleys of gunshots. Rudyard screamed, “Filthy fucking monsters! Filthy, filthy bastards!”

  I felt something inside me go cold and weak. Through my headware data channel I saw a display of the aliens’ strange life signs, including what we thought was their brain function and circulation. I saw them flat lining, one by one. And saw the indicators measuring composition of the liquid in the tank showing a new combination of spikes. I wondered, in cold shock, if that was the creatures’ blood entering the medium.

  Shaking, I stood there, listening to the flat line tones, over which I could hear the captain’s voice, cackling, screaming with laughter that shifted to sobbing and then back to laughter again.

  God … I thought, and turned around, heading back to the airlock. During the out processing, I felt numb with horror. I squeezed through the door before it was fully open, and ran like hell away from there, terrified. It was more than I could deal with.

  Lacking other ideas, I headed for the Infirmary, and ­messaged the duty doctor through my headware: “Doc, it’s the captain. He’s killed the aliens!”

  Ten

  “All right. Tell me again, from the beginning.” Eclipse’s security team’s leader, Lily Riordan, towered over me, her blue-fire eyes studying me. I imagined her weighing my soul.

  I swallowed, and looked up at her. She circled my chair, arms folded. I said, “You’ve got all the relevant files from my headware.”

  Riordan leaned over, getting her face right into my ­discomfort zone. “Headware can be hacked, Mr. Dunne. Did you not know that?”

  Of course I had received standard Service indoctrination on issues of data security, especially as it relates to ­personal headware, but the Service employed the best encryption artists in the business. It was still true that a hacker with sufficient motivation and the right tools and skills could break into any secure system; headware was no different. Yet I had always felt so innocuous that I had never worried about the risk of having my own onboard systems invaded and the contents altered. Now that I stopped and thought about it, I realized that the contents of my brain-mounted data management ­systems were suddenly very important indeed.

  “I am aware,” I managed, “that headware is theoretically vulnerable, ma’am.”

  “Bright boy,” Riordan said, resuming her orbits. She ­reminded me of a bird of prey, hovering on a thermal ­updraft, watching her target before diving in for the kill. I was sitting in her office on Deck C. There was very little decoration on her walls. She had framed a hardcopy of her Service graduation certificate, and there was a series of others noting her achievements in the fields of starship security operations, information warfare, and conventional warfare. She had a violin in an old-looking leather case resting on a wall shelf next to some books on the history of music. Soldier and musician, it was hard to reconcile the two images in her.

  Riordan circled my chair, absorbing my account of what had happened, recording everything, storing it all in her own headware. She had my brainwaves, heart function, respiration, gland activity, and my actual statement. She had the records my own headware had made as I left the airlock and headed into the viewing gallery, which verified my reported statements, and the logs from all the doorways I passed through, which showed my movements were as I reported. Plus she had the vital signs and other sensor logs from the isolation tank.

  Now she sat on the edge of her desk, hands either side, and looked at me hard. “You’ve had a bit of a rough time since coming aboard, haven’t you, Dunne?”

  I winced. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She said, “I’m talking to you, Dunne. Look at me.”

  Expecting the same burning glare, I glanced up at her. She was nearly smiling at me. It was the kind of almost-smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. It occurred to me that this could be Riordan’s “good cop” mode.

  All the same, my breath caught from the shock of it. It seemed wise to say nothing.

  Riordan said, “This is not the Inquisition. You’re not a suspect. But we do need to establish what happened.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Ferguson tells me you’re a good officer. Dr. Grantleigh and Dr. Blackmore, too. They—”

  I was nearly choking. “Ferguson said what?”

  She allowed herself a wry curl of the lips. “He said you made a mistake on your first day, but you got over that. Your performance on the Contact Team mission was as good as could be expected, considering the work involved. We think you’ll probably do all right.”

  “Ma’am…?”

  “Even the captain’s put a note in your file acknowledging your bravery during the Contact mission.”

  It took me some time to find the right words. “That’s … good to know, Miss Riordan. Thank you.” My voice was dry; my guts were in knots. Praise was, in its way, as disorienting as abuse if you weren’t expecting it.

  She nodded, acknowledging my remark, then stood up again. “You’re a bit of a mixed bag, aren’t you, Mr. Dunne?”

  The predatory look was returning to her face. I decided to say nothing. The confusing glow of praise was slipping away from me.

  Riordan paced back and forth before me. “What I mean is that on one hand you’re brave and keen to get on and do the right thing. On the other hand, you seem like a magnet for trouble. Like this business, with the captain shooting the animals. What were you doing up there in the first place?” she asked, her
voice sharp. Her tone suggested she thought my inability to sleep was suspicious in itself.

  I looked at her, more confused than ever. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping the past week. Like I said.”

  “So you wound up at the tank viewing gallery? Strange place to visit in the wee hours, wouldn’t you say?” She sat on the edge of her desk, arms folded, staring down at me and tapping her long fingers against her flank. I saw that she bit her nails.

  I felt myself fumbling, feeling guilty, trying to answer. “It’s hard to describe.”

  “Give it a shot.” There was a tone of drop-dead irony in her voice.

  “I didn’t kill them, you know.”

  Her face softened momentarily. “Never said you did, Dunne. Did I say you killed them?”

  I took a breath, looked at the floor. Damn, it was quiet in here. And a slight smell, some kind of scented talcum powder. “No, ma’am,” I said. But I still felt guilty, not for killing the aliens, but for having evidence that could lead to the end of Rudyard’s career.

  “So what were you doing there, as opposed to, say, pop­ping out to the nearest fab for a cup of cocoa or something?”

  “I already tried all that. Nothing seemed to work.”

  “Look at me when you answer my questions, son.”

  I looked at her. Her brown hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense braid. I could see her neck muscles bunching and relaxing. Her eyes were hard, but, now that I had a good look, I had the sense that she wasn’t trying to crush me like a bug; she was trying to establish the truth of what happened. It made a difference in how I saw her.

  She said, “This is a big ship, son. What were you ­doing visiting the animals?”

  I tried again, ignoring the term she used for the aliens. “It’s like I felt a kind of call, that they wanted me to come.”

  Riordan leaned in close again, staring deep into my eyes, as if trying to see the truth for herself. She squinted at me, looking a little disgusted. “You actually entered their ship, didn’t you, Dunne?”

  “I did, ma’am.”

  Shaking her head, suppressing a shudder. “God, I don’t know how you could have done that.”

  “Just following orders.”

  She leaned back, but still watched me with that frightening intensity, looking me up and down, trying to extract every bit of evidence from me she could. I felt conscious of my hands. My uniform was rumpled. “None of the other Contact Team members report this sense of being drawn to the isolation tank. Just you and the captain. And the captain wasn’t even on the team.”

  “He conferenced most days, ma’am.”

  She sat back and thought about this for a moment. “What a goddamn mess.”

  I remained silent, but agreed.

  Riordan said, “I don’t understand why you were visiting the tank, but for the moment let’s just focus on what you saw and heard.”

  “I didn’t see anything, ma’am, other than the sensor feeds through my headware. I told you that.”

  She rubbed her face. “Yes. I’ve got my people comparing your record of what you heard with Ferguson’s record. So, you went up to Deck A, went through the airlock to the viewing gallery—”

  “I didn’t get as far as the viewing gallery.” I explained again about hearing the voices as soon as I left the airlock.

  “Right. And then you heard the captain’s voice. You say he sounded upset.”

  “More than upset, ma’am.”

  “Since you came aboard this ship, have you had any reason to suspect the captain might be suffering from any kind of stress or overwork?”

  This seemed like a dangerous question. If I said no, I might look stupid and unobservant, but if I said yes, I might be damning the captain. Not that I felt any great loyalty to Captain Rudyard. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You’ve seen the captain in Contact Team meetings. He’s your own department head. You’ve had dealings with him. What was your impression of the man?”

  I looked away from her. “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

  “Of course, James.”

  “In my opinion,” I opened, looking at the halogen light bars on the ceiling, “the captain is the sort of man who would prefer to drive starships, rather than have to deal with people. He seems uncomfortable with personal ­contact.” I caught myself holding my breath, having said this, feeling like I had just set myself up for some kind of trouble.

  “I see. Would you say the captain was in any way sick or disturbed?”

  I felt my eyes widen in shock. “That is not for me to say, ma’am!”

  “So you don’t deny the possibility?”

  “Of course I deny it!”

  “Well how else would you explain what happened in the viewing gallery last night?”

  “I don’t bloody know,” I yelled, panicking, “I don’t know!”

  “Steady, Mr. Dunne. You’re not on trial.”

  “I sincerely hope not! Uh, ma’am.”

  Riordan got up and went back behind her desk, where she settled in her large black chair, hands crossed behind her head, ankles crossed on her desk. She smiled at me. I felt doomed. “Why do you think you might be on trial?”

  Surprised, I didn’t know what to say for a moment. She waited for an answer. “I seem to attract a lot of trouble for some reason.” I managed to explain at last.

  “Like this spying incident on your first day?”

  My face felt hot. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “There’s a note on your file from Mr. Ferguson about that incident. Did you know that?”

  I thought back to what she said earlier about Ferguson saying I would probably be a good officer. What else had he said? “Not specifically, but I’m not surprised.” I said.

  “He says you’re on the cusp, that you could go either way at this point, depending on a range of things. What do you think?”

  “I think Mr. Ferguson is entitled to his views, ma’am.”

  “James?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Between you and me, Miss Riley had good reason to be concerned about Mr. Ferguson’s motives.”

  “Is that so?”

  Then she was sitting forward in her chair, arms crossed and resting on her desk. She looked fierce and grim once more. I was confused by these shifts. Maybe she was trying to keep me off-balance; it was working. “You went to the Infirmary this morning, as soon as you heard the shots and registered the animals’ failing life-signs.”

  “I did. I saw the duty doctor. I’d sent a message ahead to alert him, and he sent a crash team to the tank. The doctor downloaded my records of what happened, like you did, and explained he would have to report this to the med team leader, Dr. Critchlow, and they’d have to decide what to do about the captain’s fitness for command. He gave me some stuff to help me with the shock and stress, and sent me back to quarters. Which is where I was when you sent for me.”

  Riordan chewed on a stray brown hair, still thinking, staring at her cluttered desk. I didn’t envy her position: trying to find out if the captain was fit for command or if some alien presence was somehow influencing him.

  “Well,” she said, getting up, “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “I can go?”

  “Yes, get up. And thank you for assisting us. This is a difficult time for all of us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, standing. “Uh, ma’am?”

  She was coming around her desk, preparing to see me out. “Yes?”

  “I am … concerned about my career, if you take my meaning.”

  She looked at me hard, eyes full of businesslike compassion. “Mr. Dunne, if I were you, in your boots right now, I would be worried about my career, too.”

  “What can I do?”

  “
If the captain goes down, he will take anybody he can with him. I’ve seen this before, when I was on HMS Halifax. My advice? Make allies.”

  I looked up at her. “Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate the advice.”

  “Good luck.”

  I called Sorcha after I left; she invited me for post-chunder coffee in the Mess, at 2100.

  When I got there, I found her talking to a guy I didn’t recognize. He looked a bit older than I was, and his jacket sleeve bore an engineering team patch, a stylized wrench against a brilliant yellow sun. Dark hair, decent-looking features, tall, laughing with Sorcha; he had a big, booming laugh.

  Sorcha turned and saw me, and flashed one of her starburst grins. “James!” she called, waving. Her companion looked around, saw me, and recognized me as the SSO1 who had gone to the alien ship, and his face appeared to stall in the process of smiling.

  Sorcha made the introductions. “Alastair, this is the guy I was telling you about, James Dunne.”

  Feeling awkward, standing there, I stuck out my hand, trying to do the right thing, but already feeling like I should leave.

  Sorcha said, “James, this is Alastair Richards. He’s a three on the propulsion systems unit.”

  “Good to meet you, Alastair,” I said, wearing a smile that felt awful, like a uniform two sizes too small. Richards reached up, gripped my hand briefly, flashed his teeth. He looked like exactly the sort of tall, handsome git who ­believed they were entitled to the best of everything, and therefore the best of everything landed in their laps. There had been plenty of guys like Alastair at the Academy. They were all stupid as porridge, and yet miraculously got good grades and their more colorful transgressions, after lights-out, never got them expelled. “Dunne, Dunne … Ah yes, you’re the chap who went…” He tilted his head to one side, gesturing “over there.”