Both females were admitted to the Region 29 General Hospital half an hour later. The uncle, a member of the Celestrian parliament, was never charged. He left the household before Yuki and her mother returned, and although he was never seen again, that primal fear of the man with the beer bottle always lingered with the biologist.
She wandered through the metal tunnels that laced the ship, crosshatching like a labyrinth. She checked her Halo-Core; saw that there were still a few hours to kill. She decided to try and use the observation room, instead of walking aimlessly throughout the ship. She could just scan her eyes over the screens every now and then and play some chess on her Halo-Core or something. Chess apparently hadn't had its rules changed in millennia, and the history of it appealed to Yuki. She started to make her way over there, the only sounds she heard were the sound of her footfalls on the grating, and she clearly heard her own breathing, slightly exasperated, as she ascended the ladder from the lower hatches.
She seated herself down in the observation room, eyes slightly dazzled by the array of screens. There was so much information before her; it was a wonder how anyone on the design team thought that they were going to be able to keep track of it all. Yuki wondered if she had something remote-controlled, if she could guide it throughout the entire ship, the coverage was that good. Looking over it all, it was scary how lifeless the entire view before he was. There was no movement, not even the flickering of a Halo-Core left on by the side. It was eerie, peculiar and somewhat off-putting to Yuki, and so she decided to turn her attention away from it. Chess was what she wanted, and chess was what she would do.
The game progressed, Yuki straining to conceive of all the possibilities and alternatives she could use. Her mind flitted, wandered, walking across the board like she was roaming the ship. Occasionally she would flick her eyes up, checking on the cameras. There never was anything, of course, just the lull of the ship on its course towards civilization once again. Even strands of hull had stop floating off into space now from where the explosion had occurred. Before now it had been noted that often a shard of the hull would detach from the ship and shoot out into the black. Debris from the incident, though what actually caused it, they had never rightly discovered.
Yuki thought about it, often it crossed her mind during the course of her games against the A.I of her Halo-Core. She didn't want to believe that it was Nightingale malfunctioning any more than she liked to believe that Holden was actually a serial killer; which she didn't think anyway. It was too distressing and would make her nervous about any further voyages out into the distant nothingness, that void of silence inside which not even stars burned in their constant glory. However, the alternative to it was far worse.
The alternative suggested a form of life. Although a biologist, she was wary and nervous about the possibility of another species. Not because she was particularly xenophobic, she had dated a Soorvite at one point, many a year past, but because it seemed to have a kind of malevolence to it. It was violent, destructive, intending to harm. It didn't just appear and say 'hail, we come in peace. Our weapons are up, gee, isn't it nice to see someone else out here? We thought we were the only ones, although we did see you putting up that outpost just on the edge there, and I have to say we think it is coming along swimmingly. Mind if we come aboard? We could bring some snacks, sit down and have a drink, share our tales of nothing much because there's nothing here, but I'm sure we could agree on something, and maybe we could even join your Empire. Wouldn't that swell? I think it would let's do it, peace y'all.' It was a darkness, a kind of evil that was hanging over her, and it disturbed her. More than once since the whole charade sequence had begun, she had felt the hairs rise up on the back of her neck, as if something was there, watching her. For now, all was calm, and she was in a relatively pleasant mood, serenely moving her bishop along that Ruy Lopez diagonal that she loved to utilize so much.
She thought of the dream she had had last night. She had been...
In the dark, though where exactly she was, she couldn't discern. There had been a luminous moon though, bright blue, dazzling, highlighting mists that swelled and floated around her like phantoms of the night, whispering to her. She had been scared, looking around for something, eyes searching out through the black. And then she had seen him. It was him, The Man of her reoccurring nightmares, the plague of her subconscious. It was The Man in The Top-Hat. He was shrouded in a long black coat that reached well past his knees. It was buttoned up, the buttons gilded in glorious silver, like the blood of a unicorn. In his right hand was a long knife, sleek and deadly, poised and ready to strike out at her, lashing swiftly. She could not see his face, but she knew it was a man from the way he stood. Confident, legs ever so slightly apart. And The Hat, that manifestation of all evil, inside there could be anything. It was the black hole, that demonic chest inside which all the impending dooms of the world hid, waiting, biding their time for the grand entrance that he would give them when the time was right. He raised his left hand towards the rim. He tipped it towards her, slowly, deliberately. It was this movement that terrified Yuki. More than the darkness, more than the knife, more than the figure itself. It was the tipping of the hat. She had seen it many hundreds of times, and she was sure that Holden would say it was some subconscious manifestation of a traumatic event in her childhood and had he known her childhood intimately he would know, as well as her, which incident it would be the embodiment of. But it wasn't. She had seen it before that night, she was sure of it. It scared her every time, petrified her right to her very core. She turned and ran.
Her footfalls were silenced somewhat by the mossy undergrowth of the forest she found herself in, the trees moving past her ever too slowly for her liking. She willed them to move more quickly, to assemble behind her like a protective garrison, barring the way of the man. But she knew they wouldn't. He always made it to her. She caught her foot on the knot of a tree that had clawed its way out to meet her, and she fell face-first to the floor. The mist clung to her eyebrows. She began to cry, it was useless after all. Yuki felt the presence of the Man in the Top Hat, looming over her, monolithic in his imperial might. His hand reached down and yanked her head up by the head. Slowly, but with an inhuman deftness, the knife was placed underneath her chin, cold as the grave against her neck. She looked ahead of her, into the distance...
She looked at the monitor before her, and a black face with two red eyes stared back at her.
Yuki stumbled backward in her chair, tipping it and spilling her out onto the floor. She flung her arms out to try and steady herself but just succeeded in flipping herself over and smashing her nose into the floor. She winced in pain, stumbling onto her feet, ignoring the pain. She looked for the monitor again, but there was nothing there. Just the slumber of the ship, lulling her along, rocking ever so slightly against the hum of the whirring engines.
Her heart rate was increasing, pounding against her chest like a Magna-train with a suicidal driver. What had she witnessed exactly? She couldn't recall, save for a black mass, shaped like a human head, with two eyes. They had seemed to be somewhat squinting, evil, as if they saw through the camera, into her very soul. She stood, rooted to the spot, a cold sweat creeping over her. She was beyond scared; it was creeping over that tipping point into sheer, unadulterated terror. It could have been anything, a Brykthylosian, a Kozolequinian, some unseen terror with five hundred tentacles writing and pulsating all over, and it would not have gripped at her fear as much as those two eyes did. They knew her, it seemed, and they would punish her for an unseen sin. She had to do something.
She went for her Halo-Core. She knew she should investigate it herself, see if it was just her paranoia and memory of the dream, but something told her that it was real, what she had just seen. There was no way it couldn't have been, it was the evilest thing that she had ever witnessed. If it wasn't her mind playing tricks on her, Holden had said her head was perfectly fine after all, then something was there, and she needed back-up and emotio
nal security. She went to alert Duma and then looked back to the screen. It had been outside Duma's quarters, isolated from the rest of the sleeping areas. The door to his room stood open, and she watched it slide shut again. Yuki was paralyzed for a second, her body refusing to follow her brain's orders. She needed to go to Duma, to get there instantly, to protect him. Yet her body seemed to be arguing against that loyalty which her brain was plucking at, telling her brain, in no uncertain terms, to sod off with that idea.
Her brain eventually won. She reached for her gun and her Halo-Core. She turned on the coms in Duma's room. She shook nerves in her veins. Would he answer? What if it was too late? What was now behind that door, that stood closed against her. There were no cameras for the rooms during sleeping hours, so she couldn't know what was happening. She pressed for the coms.
'Duma?' she whispered, her voice shaking and cracked, like the earth in a desert, baking under a sun so hot it burned all that walked under it. There was no reply. Terror gripped at her heart. She asked again. Still nothing. She was frantic now, ready to move on out. Then, his voice.
'Yuki?' He sounded groggy as if he had just woken up. Most likely she had woken him, or the door had.
'Duma, something, something's there,' she said, trying to sound as calm as possible. Under the circumstances, she thought she was doing pretty darn well.
'What do you mean? What are you...?'
'Your door just opened, and I saw, I saw something. It...' she couldn't bring herself to describe what she had seen. It was so simple to describe, and yet she knew nothing would ever be able to depict it.
'What did you see? Yuki?'
'Just stay there, and arm yourself. Shoot anything that moves until I get there.' She had warned him. She dropped the Halo-Core and moved with all the speed she could muster.
That flight through the ship was horrifying for Yuki. She saw all of the beams, the pipes, and the trusses turn into trees. Their branches clawed out to her, called to her, beckoning at her. Her heart raced the same way it did in her dreams when The Man in The Top Hat was behind her, closing in every second, an unstoppable force on a collision course with her final, ultimate end. The ship seemed to be conscious, twisting away from her. She never had full focus, her vision was blurry, and she fell twice, grazing her elbow but ignoring the pain. The cold steel was ever colder, the dark spaces ever darker, and the lights overhead, oh those warm Celestrian lights; they were ever dimmer onboard the ship.
She skidded to a halt at his door, whacking the Halo-Core with all her uncontrollable might to activate it.
'Duma, it's me, Yuki. Let me in.' Her voice was raised, hurried. Her breath was short and sharp. From inside she heard nothing, the hum of the ship just continued as it always did. The silence continued.
'Duma, let me in!' she was on the verge of shouting now, and still, there was nothing inside. It was too quiet; there was no reply, not even the sound of movement. Yuki felt tears reach for her eyes behind the lids, seeking the way out in the midst of her panic. There had to be something going on now, and far more than a mixture of cabin fever and paranoia.
It was then that she heard Duma scream. It curdled her blood. He screamed, not in pain it seemed, but in sheer terror. It was as if he had witnessed the very thing that created fear itself, down in the darkest parts of the human mind, manifested before him. Never had Yuki heard such a noise, such an expression of pure, unbridled horror, unchained and let loose inside her ears.
'Duma! I'm shooting my way in!' She unloaded her gun at the Halo-Core, then twice more for good measure. The door didn't open. She shot at the edge, hoping to break in. Duma cried out once more, gargling on something. In her mind, Yuki saw him drowning in his own blood, his throat slit by the knife of her dreams, lording over him, The Man in The Top Hat. In a blind panic, Yuki flung herself at the door. It didn't open, but she felt it buckle. Again, inside, he screamed. It was more distant, disembodied somehow.
Once more she threw herself at the door, and an intrusive thought of 'Well at least the doors were made solidly enough' found its way into her head. She ran at the door a third time and a tiny crack appeared at the side. Duma's vocals, pleading out for help and the end in his crying and screaming; Yuki pounding at the door. She felt she would run out of time any second. His scream was cut short, dead-clean. Her heart rate passed out of the scale.
The door broke, and she tumbled in. She got to her feet, looking for her new-lover with panic-stricken eyes. He was nowhere to be seen. She looked into the room; over by the desk, the chair was toppled. Behind her, the door shut, swinging back to as close a position as it could get. She turned. Duma, stood over her, his throat slashed, blood dripping onto his nightclothes. Before Yuki could comprehend what was happening, his eyes flashed red, and he sliced through her young, perfect neck in one swift slash.
Chapter 9:
Leon threw himself out of bed at the sound of the screams. He clothed himself frantically, snatching the gun off the counter, and ran from the room.
'What the hell is going on?' Holden's voice over the coms.
'No idea, something's up. Everyone report in,' Leon answered, slowing to a jog to attempt to hear where the screams were coming from. Inside Nightingale, a single footstep sounded like it was coming from a thousand different directions.
'I'm here,' Jenny answered.
'Count me in' Prissy returned.
'Wasn't I screaming,' Oliver called back. The whole ship seemed to come to a jarring halt, as the five crewmembers listened out for the replies of Yuki and Duma. They didn't answer.
'Yuki, Duma, come in,' Leon called. Silence ensued.
'Duma, Yuki, are you guys ok?' Still nothing.
'Shit, the hell's happened to them?' Nobody answered. Leon took a deep breath, tried to steady his nerves, and then started running towards Yuki's quarters. He found the door locked, and no amount of tampering at the Halo-Core would get it to open.
'Prissy, get up to the observation room and see if Yuki is in her room, she isn't opening up. Oliver, get to the cockpit and arm yourself. The rest of us will go to Duma's room, they might be there. Now move it!'
The crew did move and with alarming speed. Nobody complained every sense was on full alert. This mission into uncharted territories of space had turned out to be far more serious, and not a second could be wasted. Oliver hastened to his familiar surroundings in the cockpit, taking the weapons he had and placing them near him. He strapped in and looked over the controls, remotely shutting the door behind him. Nothing was going to get in through that door, not in ten years of banging on it.
It occurred to him then, that nobody had thought to ask Nightingale about the locations of either their archaeologist or their biologist. It was on oversight that Oliver almost had to laugh at; it was ridiculous when you thought about it.
'Come in, Nightingale,' he called out.
'Yes Oliver,' it replied in her calm, soothing voice. It was almost irritating in the panic and uncertainty of their situation.
'Where are Yuki and Duma?' Nightingale paused. It was only for half a second or so longer than her usual replies to his questions, and anyone else's for that matter, but Oliver noticed it. It was processing, calculating, trying to work something out. It was a simple enough question. 'Where are Yuki and Duma?' It was a simple location, followed by a read-out of their current position. It was not as if he had asked the ship to calculate the Anthropic principle to ten decimal places. It was unnerving, out of place, and wrong. If Nightingale had to physically take time out to try and find two out of seven life forms in its hull, there was something amiss.
'They are not on board the ship.'
It took a second for it to register exactly what had been said, and Oliver had to question it again.
'What do you mean, they aren't on board?' Where are they?'
'I will repeat what I have said, Oliver. The humans called Yuki and Duma are not onboard Nightingale.' Oliver sat in silence. There was something up with the ship again, there must
be. He tried to think of ways to trick it into giving him the right answer.
'How many people are on board then?' He sat there smugly, he had got it.
'There are five life signs on the ship.' He looked out of the ship, out into the darkness. He was beginning to see a few specks in the distance. Nightingale was certain there were only five people on the ship. That could only mean one thing, and he didn't want to think about it.
At that moment, Prissy came in over the ship's coms.
'Guys, I, in Duma's room. It...' she stuttered. Holden got to the door just seconds after and saw it broken down. Inside the room, Yuki lay face up, drowned in blood, her throat slashed. Crimson painted the walls, arterial splattering, homage to the blood painters of Androssos IX. Holden looked at his fallen comrade for a second, turned tail to behind a corner and threw up. Leon and Jenny gazed on her body for a few seconds longer, somehow transfixed by the corpse. Even in death, the woman had retained her beauty, the blood somehow enhanced it. Jenny solemnly walked in, leaned over her dead friend, and closed her eyelids. She stayed there awhile, crouched over the body. She breathed in a deep sigh, the smell of blood repulsing her nostrils. Her eyes began to tear up, and then long, loud, excruciating wails of pity, grief, and rage-filled the ship. In the observation room, Prissy joined in with stifled, quiet sobs, though no less mournful.
Blank Space Page 5