"Also," said d'Branin, "we must continue with our preparations. Our sensory instruments must be ready for deployment as soon as we shift out of drive and reenter normal space, our computer must be functioning."
"It's up and running," the cyberneticist said quietly. "I finished this morning, as you requested." She had a thoughtful look in her eyes, but d'Branin did not notice. He turned to the linguists and began discussing some of the preliminaries he expected from them, and in a short time the talk had turned to the volcryn, and little by little the fear drained out of the group.
Royd, listening, was glad.
* * *
She returned to the lounge alone.
Someone had turned out the lights. "Captain?" she said, and he appeared to her, pale, glowing softly, with eyes that did not really see. His clothes, filmy and out-of-date, were all shades of white and faded blue. "Did you hear, Captain?"
His voice over the communicator betrayed a faint hint of surprise. "Yes. I hear and I see everything on my Nightflyer, Melantha. Not only in the lounge. Not only when the communicators and viewscreens are on. How long have you known?"
"Known?" She laughed. "Since you praised the gas giant solution to the Roydian mystery."
"I was under stress. I have never made a mistake before."
"I believe you, Captain," she said. "No matter. I'm the improved model, remember? I'd guessed weeks ago."
For a time Royd said nothing. Then: "When do you begin to reassure me?"
"I'm doing so right now. Don't you feel reassured yet?"
The apparition gave a ghostly shrug. "I am pleased that you and Karoly do not think I murdered that man."
She smiled. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the room. By the faint light of the holograph, she could see the table where it had happened, dark stains across its top. Blood. She heard a faint dripping, and shivered. "I don't like it in here."
"If you would like to leave, I can be with you wherever you go."
"No," she said. "I'll stay. Royd, if I asked you to, would you shut off your eyes and ears throughout the ship? Except for the lounge? It would make the others feel better, I'm sure."
"They don't know."
"They will. You made that remark about gas giants in everyone's hearing. Some of them have probably figured it out by now."
"If I told you I had cut myself off, you would have no way of knowing whether it was the truth."
"I could trust you," Melantha said.
Silence. The specter looked thoughtful. "As you wish," Royd's voice said finally. "Everything off. Now I see and hear only in here."
"I believe you."
"Did you believe my story?" Royd asked.
"Ah," she said. "A strange and wondrous story, Captain. If it's a lie, I'll swap lies with you any time. You do it well. If it's true, then you are a strange and wondrous man."
"It's true," the ghost said quietly. "Melantha—" His voice hesitated.
"Yes."
"I watched you copulating."
She smiled. "Ah," she said. "I'm good at it."
"I wouldn't know," Royd said. "You're good to watch."
Silence. She tried not to hear the dripping. "Yes," she said after a long hesitation.
"Yes? What?"
"Yes, Royd, I would probably sex with you if it were possible."
"How did you know what I was thinking?"
"I'm an improved model," she said. "And no, I'm not a telepath. It wasn't so difficult to figure out. I told you, I'm three moves ahead of you."
Royd considered that for a long time. "I believe I'm reassured," he said at last.
"Good," said Melantha Jhirl. "Now reassure me."
"Of what?"
"What happened in here? Really?"
Royd said nothing.
"I think you know something," Melantha said. "You gave up your secret to stop us from injecting him with esperon. Even after your secret was forfeit, you ordered us not to go ahead. Why?"
"Esperon is a dangerous drug," Royd said.
"More than that, Captain," Melantha said. "What killed him?"
"I didn't."
"One of us? The volcryn?"
Royd said nothing.
"Is there an alien aboard your ship, Captain?" she asked. "Is that it?"
Silence.
"Are we in danger? Am I in danger, Captain? I'm not afraid. Does that make me a fool?"
"I like people," Royd said at last. "When I can stand it, I like to have passengers. I watch them, yes. It's not so terrible. I like you and Karoly especially. You have nothing to fear. I won't let anything happen to you."
"What might happen?" she asked.
Royd said nothing.
"And what about the others, Royd? Are you taking care of them, too? Or only Karoly and me?"
No reply.
"You're not very talkative tonight," Melantha observed.
"I'm under strain," his voice replied. "Go to bed, Melantha Jhirl. We've talked long enough."
"All right, Captain," she said. She smiled at his ghost and lifted her hand. His own rose to meet it. Warm dark flesh and pale radiance brushed, melded, were one. Melantha Jhirl turned to go. It was not until she was out in the corridor, safe in the light once more, that she began to tremble.
* * *
False midnight. The talks had broken up, the nightmares had faded, and the academicians were lost in sleep. Even Karoly d'Branin slept, his appetite for chocolate quelled by his memories of the lounge.
In the darkness of the largest cargo hold, three sleepwebs hung, sleepers snoring softly in two. The cyberneticist lay awake, thinking, in the third. Finally, she rose, dropped lightly to the floor, pulled on her jumpsuit and boots, and shook the xenotech from her slumber. "Come," she whispered, beckoning. They stole off into the corridor, leaving Melantha Jhirl to her dreams.
"What the hell," the xenotech muttered when they were safely beyond the door. She was half-dressed, disarrayed, unhappy.
"There's a way to find out if Royd's story was true," the cyberneticist said carefully. "Melantha won't like it, though. Are you game to try?"
"What?" the other asked. Her face betrayed her interest.
"Come," the cyberneticist said.
One of the three lesser cargo holds had been converted into a computer room. They entered quietly; all empty. The system was up, but dormant. Currents of light ran silkily down crystalline channels in the data grids, meeting, joining, splitting apart again; rivers of wan multihued radiance crisscrossing a black landscape. The chamber was dim, the only noise a low buzz at the edge of human hearing, until the cyberneticist moved through it, touching keys, tripping switches, directing the silent luminescent currents. Slowly the machine woke.
"What are you doing?" the xenotech said.
"Karoly told me to tie in our system with the ship," the cyberneticist replied as she worked. "I was told Royd wanted to study the volcryn data. Fine, I did it. Do you understand what that means?"
Now the xenotech was eager. "The two systems are tied together!"
"Exactly. So Royd can find out about the volcryn, and we can find out about Royd." She frowned. "I wish I knew more about the Nightflyer's hardware, but I think I can feel my way through. This is a pretty sophisticated system d'Branin requisitioned."
"Can you take over?" the xenotech asked excitedly.
"Take over?" The cyberneticist sounded puzzled. "You been drinking again?"
"No, I'm serious. Use your system to break into the ship's control, overwhelm Eris, countermand his orders, make the Nightflyer respond to us, down here."
"Maybe," the cyberneticist said doubtfully, slowly. "I could try, but why do that?"
"Just in case. We don't have to use the capacity. Just so we have it, if an emergency arises."
The cyberneticist shrugged. "Emergencies and gas giants. I only want to put my mind at rest about Royd." She moved over to a readout panel, where a half-dozen meter-square viewscreens curved around a console, and brought one of them to life. Long fingers
brushed across holographic keys that appeared and disappeared as she touched them, the keyboard changing shape even as she used it. Characters began to flow across the viewscreen, red flickerings encased in glassy black depths. The cyberneticist watched, and finally froze them. "Here," she said, "here's my answer about the hardware. You can dismiss your takeover idea, unless those gas giant people of yours are going to help. The Nightflyer's bigger and smarter than our little system here. Makes sense, when you stop to think about it. Ship's all automated, except for Royd." She whistled and coaxed her search program with soft words of encouragement. "It looks as though there is a Royd, though. Configurations are all wrong for a robot ship. Damn, I would have bet anything." The characters began to flow again, the cyberneticist watching the figures as they drifted by. "Here's life support specs, might tell us something." A finger jabbed, and the screen froze once more.
"Nothing unusual," the xenotech said in disappointment.
"Standard waste disposal. Water recycling. Food processor, with protein and vitamin supplements in stores." She began to whistle. "Tanks of Renny's moss and neograss to eat up the CO2. Oxygen cycle, then. No methane or ammonia. Sorry about that."
"Go sex with a computer."
The cyberneticist smiled. "Ever tried it?" Her fingers moved again. "What else should I look for? Give me some ideas."
"Check the specs for nurturant tanks, cloning equipment, that sort of thing. Find Royd's life history. His mother's. Get a readout on the business they've done, all this alleged trading." Her voice grew excited, and she took the cyberneticist by her shoulder. "A log, a ship's log! There's got to be a log. Find it! You must!"
"All right." She whistled, happy, one with her system, riding the data winds, in control, curious. The readout screen turned a bright red and began to blink at her, but she only smiled. "Security," she said, her fingers a blur. As suddenly as it had come, the blinking red field was gone. "Nothing like slipping past another system's security. Like slipping onto a man."
Down the corridor, an alarm sounded a whooping call. "Damn," the cyberneticist said, "that'll wake everyone." She glanced up when the xenotech's fingers dug painfully into her shoulder, squeezing, hurting.
A gray steel panel slid almost silently across the access to the corridor. "Wha—?" the cyberneticist said.
"That's an emergency airseal," the xenotech said in a dead voice. She knew starships. "It closes when they're about to load or unload cargo in vacuum."
Their eyes went to the huge curving outer airlock above their heads. The inner lock was almost completely open, and as they watched it clicked into place, and the seal on the outer door cracked, and now it was open half a meter, sliding, and beyond was twisted nothingness so bright it burned the eyes.
"Oh," the cyberneticist said. She had stopped whistling.
* * *
Alarms were hooting everywhere. The passengers began to stir. Melantha Jhirl leapt from her sleepweb and darted into the corridor, nude, concerned, alert. Karoly d'Branin sat up drowsily. The psipsych muttered fitfully in her drug-induced sleep. The xenobiologist cried out in alarm.
Far away metal crunched and tore, and a violent shudder ran through the ship, throwing the linguists out of their sleepwebs, knocking Melantha from her feet.
In the command quarters of the Nightflyer was a spherical room with featureless white walls, a lesser sphere— control console— suspended hi its center. The walls were always blank when the ship was in drive; the warped and glaring underside of spacetime was painful to behold.
But now darkness woke in the room, a holoscape coming to life, cold black and stars everywhere, points of icy unwinking brilliance, no up and no down and no direction, the floating control sphere the only feature in the simulated sea of night.
The Nightflyer had shifted out of drive.
* * *
Melantha Jhirl found her feet again and thumbed on a communicator. The alarms were still hooting, and it was hard to hear. "Captain," she shouted, "what's happening?"
"I don't know," Royd's voice replied. "I'm trying to find out. Wait here. Gather the others to you."
She did as he had said and only when they were all together in the corridor did she slip back to her web to don some clothing. She found only six of them. The psipsych was still unconscious and could not be roused, and they had to carry her. And the xenotech and cyberneticist were missing. The rest looked uneasily at the seal that blocked cargo hold three.
The communicator came back to life as the alarm died. "We have returned to normal space," Royd's voice said, "but the ship is damaged. Hold three, your computer room, was breached while we were under drive. It was ripped apart by the flux. The computer automatically dropped us out of drive, or the drive forces might have torn my entire ship apart."
"Royd," d'Branin said, "two of my team are…"
"It appears that your computer was in use when the hold was breached," Royd said carefully. "We can only assume that they are dead. I cannot be sure. At Melantha's request, I have deactivated most of my eyes and ears, retaining only the lounge inputs. I do not know what happened. But this is a small ship, Karoly, and if they are not with you, we must assume the worst." He paused briefly. "If it is any consolation, they died quickly and painlessly."
The two linguists exchanged a long, meaningful look. The xenobiologist's face was red and angry, and he started to say something. Melantha Jhirl slipped her hand over his mouth firmly. "Do we know how it happened, Captain?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, reluctantly.
The xenobiologjst had taken the hint, and Melantha took away her hand to let him breathe. "Royd?" she prompted.
"It sounds insane, Melantha," his voice replied, "but it appears your colleagues opened the hold's loading lock. I doubt that they did so deliberately, of course. They were apparently using the system interface to gain entry to the Nightflyer's data storage and controls."
"I see," Melantha said. "A terrible tragedy."
"Yes," Royd agreed. "Perhaps more terrible than you think. I have yet to assess the damage to my ship."
"We should not keep you, Captain, if you have duties to perform," Melantha said. "All of us are shocked, and it is difficult to talk now. Investigate the condition of your ship, and we'll continue our discussion in the morning. All right?"
"Yes," Royd said.
Melantha thumbed the communicator plate. Now officially, the device was off. Royd could not hear them.
Karoly d'Branin shook his large, grizzled head. The linguists sat close to one another, hands touching. The psi-psych slept. Only the xenobiologist met her gaze. "Do you believe him?" he snapped abruptly.
"I don't know," Melantha Jhirl said, "but I do know that the other three cargoholds can all be flushed just as hold three was. I'm moving my sleepweb into a cabin. I suggest those who are living in hold two do the same."
"Good idea," the female linguist said. "We can crowd in. It won't be comfortable, but I don't think I'd sleep the sleep of angels in the holds anymore."
"We should also take our suits out of storage in four and keep them close at hand," her partner suggested.
"If you wish," Melantha said. "It's possible that all the locks might pop open simultaneously. Royd can't fault us for taking precautions." She flashed a grim smile. "After today, we've earned the right to act irrationally."
"This is no time for your damned jokes, Melantha," the xenobiologist said, fury in his voice. "Three dead, a fourth maybe deranged or comatose, the rest of us endangered—"
"We still have no idea what is happening," she pointed out.
"Royd Eris is killing us!" he shouted, pounding his fist into an open palm to emphasize his point. "I don't know who or what he is and I don't know if that story he gave us is true, and I don't care. Maybe he's a Hrangan Mind or the avenging angel of the volcryn or the second coming of Jesus Christ. What the hell difference does it make? He's killing us!"
"You realize," Melantha said gently, "that we cannot actually know whether the good cap
tain has turned off his inputs down here. He could be watching and listening to us right now. He isn't, of course. He told me he wouldn't and I believe him. But we have only his word on that. Now, you don't appear to trust Royd. If that's so, you can hardly put any faith in his promises. It follows that from your point of view it might not be wise to say the things that you're sayin." She smiled slyly.
The xenobiologist was silent.
"The computer is gone, then," Karoly d'Branin said in a low voice before Melantha could resume.
She nodded. "I'm afraid so."
He rose unsteadily to his feet. "I have a small unit in my cabin," he said. "A wrist model, perhaps it will suffice. I must get the figures from Royd, learn where we have dropped out. The volcryn—" He shuffled off down the corridor and disappeared into his cabin.
"Think how distraught he'd be if all of us were dead," the female linguist said bitterly. "Then he'd have no one to help him look for volcryn."
"Let him go," Melantha said. "He is as hurt as any of us, maybe more so. He wears it differently. His obsessions are his defense."
"What's our defense?"
"Ah," said Melantha. "Patience, maybe. All of the dead were trying to breach Royd's secret when they died. We haven't tried. Here we sit discussing their deaths."
"You don't find that suspicious?"
"Very," Melantha Jhirl said. "I even have a method of testing my suspicions. One of us can make yet another attempt to find out whether our captain told us the truth. If he or she dies, we'll know." She stood up abruptly. "Forgive me, however, if I'm not the one who tries. But don't let me stop you if you have the urge. I'll note the results with interest. Until then, I'm going to move out of the cargo area and get some sleep."
"Arrogant bitch," the male linguist observed almost conversationally after Melantha had left.
"Do you think he can hear us?" the xenobiologist whispered quietly.
"Every pithy word," the female linguist said, rising. They all stood up. "Let's move our things and put her"— she jerked a thumb at the psipsych— "back to bed." Her partner nodded.
"Aren't we going to do anything?" the xenobiologist said. "Make plans. Defenses."
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