by Adam Carter
I then realised what it had just said.
“Hold on, you mean there’s no one else here?”
“Unfortunately, there has been …”
“Computer?”
A pause. “No. There is no one here.”
I hung my head. There was no doctor, but there was medical equipment. If the computer was programmed to diagnose with a scanner it would be programmed to aid in surgery. That meant it could talk me through the procedure. I could still do this. First I would have to get on its good side.
“Computer, do you have a name?”
“Most of the personnel called me Wraith.”
I wondered what personnel that could have been, but the knowledge would not save Arowana. “Wraith, you’re going to have to talk me through this.”
“Explain.”
“Surgery. Tell me what to do.”
“To repair the damage sustained by your mate?”
“She’s not my mate.”
“Lover, then.”
Arguing was wasting time. “Yes, yes, whatever. Can you talk me through how to save her?”
“I am forbidden.”
“What?”
“I am forbidden from taking actions that can harm humans.”
“This isn’t harming her, it’s saving her.”
“If it goes wrong, it will be harming her.”
“You won’t be doing anything but talking. I’ll be doing all the manual work.”
“A moment, please. I am searching my dictionary for the precise definition or ‘semantics’.”
“Right, stop. Stop doing anything except what I tell you. This woman is going to die unless you tell me what I need to do to save her. Or I can poke around myself, without your instructions, and you can watch while I accidentally kill her, even though you know how to save her.”
I waited.
“You are making sense, Mr Hawthorn. I will talk you through how to save your lover.”
“She’s not … Fine, good. Well, what do I do?”
“Step one: wash your hands.”
I considered telling the computer where to shove that step, but it would be quicker to obey. Besides which, I was filthy. There was a sink off to one side and I quickly ran water over my hands, lathering them up with some soap I found. I dried them on a towel sitting nearby and returned to the table.
“Step two?” I asked.
“Take up the scalpel.”
I obeyed, looking at the blade with trepidation. I had never before even attempted something like this and could not shake the feeling I was going to do something terrible.
“Step three,” Wraith said, “stop shaking.”
Swearing at the annoying machine, I nevertheless attempted to obey and listened very carefully to every single word my new ally had to say.
Following its instructions, I first put the scalpel down – it turned out the computer had only made me pick the thing up because it wanted to see how much I was trembling. Either that or it was sadistic. Taking up some scissors, I cut Arowana out of her clothes, discarding the bloody rags as I removed them. Her blood had begun to coagulate, which stuck some fabric to her skin, tearing the wounds even more badly. Blood oozed darkly across the bed, soaking through the protective sheet, but I fought back my queasiness as I soaked a cloth in water and cleaned the areas closest to the wound. The amount of dirt and sweat coming off on the cloth was incredible, and I worked with a fervour, not wanting to face the very real possibility that she was already dead.
“Hold on,” I said, stopping. “You’ve got me cleaning the wound, but she’s not even breathing. Shouldn’t I get her to breathe before patching her up?”
“Subject is breathing.”
“But she’s so pale.”
“Subject is pale. Subject is also breathing.”
“She’s not a subject. Her name is Iris Arowana.”
“Miss Arowana is breathing.”
I was not convinced, but I had asked the computer for help and that was what it was giving me. If the thing was faulty it meant Arowana would die, but I had to accept the computer knew more about saving her life than I did.
“Mr Hawthorn, is your moment of indecision over? If so, we can resume saving the life of your lover.”
It seemed even the computers on Ceres were picking fault with me.
Over the next hour I did everything the computer told me. Sometimes I had to ask for clarification on just what it was asking, for it pulled medical terms from its database I had no hope of comprehending. Most of what I did was on automatic, doing precisely what I was told. The scalpel came back to my hand and I shuddered at the incisions I was forced to make, only to shred my nerves entirely when I was calmly instructed to sow the wound up. All my life I had tinkered in workshops, building and rebuilding machinery. The difference was that machinery does not bleed all over you; and also that if you make a mistake with an engine you can always start again.
The computer told me to go to the refrigerator and I had visions of it asking me to open a beer for it. As I pulled open the massive door I found a vast amount of plastic sacks, each of which contained a store of blood. I picked up one at random and found it labelled by blood type.
“Surely this has all gone off by now,” I said.
“The storage unit keeps the blood fresh for up to one hundred years.”
“How long has this place been abandoned?”
“It is not abandoned. I am here.”
“You’re a computer, you don’t count.”
“The blood is still fresh.”
The computer was not being evasive, just literal, and I did not push the issue. I selected the precise sack the computer instructed and took it back to the bed, hooking it up to the machine and setting up the intravenous tube so the blood could flow directly into Arowana’s body. She still looked dead to me, if a little cleaner, but the computer continued to insist she was still with us.
By the end of the process I was exhausted, shaking even more badly than ever and covered in blood. Sinking into a chair, I looked at the woman sleeping peacefully on the bed. Some colour had returned to her cheeks, thanks mainly to the blood being pumped into her. For the first time since the explosion she actually seemed alive; I was finally beginning to look at her with a little hope in my heart.
A noise sounded beneath me and I frowned, looking down as though I would be able to see through the floor. It was a clatter, like something thumping against pipes. I assumed it had been caused by my turning on the taps, allowing water to flow through the system for the first time in a long while.
“Wraith?” I asked. “Tell me that was water pipes.”
“That was water pipes.”
“That’s a relief.”
“It wasn’t water pipes.”
“What? But you just told me it was.”
“You told me to tell you it was. I was merely obeying orders.”
Wraith was reminding me why talking computers had never caught on. It was bad enough having your I.T. department suggest turning your system off and on, but when it was the computer telling you I could see how it would quickly become infuriating.
“Fine,” I said. “What was that noise, then?”
“That would be citipati.”
“Assume for the moment I don’t have a computer brain.”
“Citipati were oviraptoridae.”
“Were?”
“Correction: were and are.”
“You mean they’re dinosaurs?”
“Yes.”
“And they’re living in the basement?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”
“The citipati have nested in the basement.”
“A bit late.”
“My apologies, Mr Hawthorn. They have not bothered the crew for so long that I did not see it relevant to report their presence.”
“Why did they stop bothering the crew? Was it possibly because they killed all the crew?”
“Yes
.”
“Think about that a moment, Wraith.”
Silence.
“Oh dear,” Wraith said at last.
There did not seem any point in reprimanding a computer. Glancing to Arowana, I could not accept that I had saved her life just to have her killed. “How many ways out of the basement are there?” I asked.
“One. It was blocked by Major Forest, but the citipati broke through.”
“And Major Forest was eaten by the dinosaurs, I take it?”
“My databanks report that Major Forest was tried on grounds of gross misconduct for providing an insufficient barrier. She was sentenced to display and pay.”
“Don’t you mean pay and display?”
“Explain.”
“It’s where you buy a parking ticket and put it inside your windshield.”
“This is not similar, no. Major Forest was stripped naked and bound hand and foot to two pieces of crossed metal. She was then placed into the corridor close to the basement entrance.”
“I can see that’s not similar, yes. You wouldn’t happen to have any footage of the citipati, would you? I’d like to see what I’m up against.”
“Certainly. One moment. All executions are recorded and stored.”
“Whoa, I changed my mind.” I did not know who had built the tower but they were sick individuals. I was almost glad they had been wiped out by the local dinosaurs. “All right, I’ll need weapons.”
“I can lead you to weapons’ storage.”
“Light the way.”
I was hesitant to leave Arowana but to stay would be to die with her. The only chance she had to survive was for me to confront the dinosaurs and hold them back, perhaps get a proper barrier up. It was not an ideal solution, but it was the only one presented me.
Placing a hand upon her face, I brushed away a loose strand of dark hair. She looked so peaceful, so carefree, that all I wanted to do was make sure she survived.
Kissing her lightly on the forehead, I turned from her and followed the lights Wraith was providing me. The fight was far from over yet.
CHAPTER TEN
The armoury was well-stocked, but I had no idea what most of it was. As an engineer I knew the inner workings of a great deal of mechanical objects, but guns had never been by forte. There were entire crates of incendiary devices, some of which were payloads to be attached to missiles, but blowing holes in the tower did not seem like such a good idea. I found a combat knife which I shoved into my boot while I inspected the old-fashioned guns. I saw a pistol I should have been able to use and located a couple of boxes of ammunition for it. Aside from this, I did not think it a good idea to take anything. There were Gatling guns hanging from the walls, high-powered rifles and even a stack of bullets larger than my head. I presumed if I looked hard enough I might well be able to find a tank or something. Whoever had built the tower came from a militaristic civilisation which prided aggression over everything else.
It had certainly not been of much use to them when faced with dinosaurs.
“All right, Wraith, let’s go see what we can do about blocking that basement.”
At the last moment I also grabbed a net gun. I had never fired one before, but I knew it shot nets, which would have been a good way to catch animals.
Rushing down the metal corridors, I followed the lights until I came to a hole in the wall. It was ragged, with a mesh cover torn apart from the other side. There were also pieces of barriers cluttered about the floor: twisted metal, scraps of plaster, splintered wood. How something could be strong enough to smash through plaster I did not want to know, although I wondered whether I was getting plaster mixed up with concrete.
I caught sight of two thick metal boards, the remains of frayed rope still attached in places, and my heart sank for poor Major Forest.
Then I had a strange thought.
“Wraith, you there?”
“No and yes. I am nowhere, yet everywhere.”
“Because that’s not creepy.”
“How may I be of service?”
“There’s a lot of destruction here, but no bodies. Not even any blood or clothing.”
“No.”
I supposed I deserved that: I had not, after all, phrased it as a question. “Why is there no blood?”
“I dispatched a cleaner to remove any trace of the bodies.”
“A cleaner? You mean like a little robot?”
“Yes, sir.”
I had not realised cleaning robots even existed, but nor did I know everything about every society all across the Jupiter system. As an engineer, the concept aroused my interest, but it was not an immediate concern.
Peering into the darkness beyond the door, I could see nothing of any dinosaurs, but had no desire to stick my head through. Examining what was left of various barriers which had been erected over time, I believed I could scavenge them into a workable temporary measure. I did not have to hold the animals back indefinitely, just enough time for Arowana to recover. What we would do then, I could not say. She had been hoping this tower might have had some form of escape craft, but I was beginning to have my doubts on that. If there was an escape craft, surely one of the crew would have taken it.
A rumbling beyond the door made me concentrate on the moment and I picked up Major Forest’s cross, which was pretty much still stuck together, and decided to use this as the basis for my defence. Wedging one end against the wall, I tried to fix the other over the mesh on the doorway, intending to put enough weight on it for it to be difficult for anyone to move.
Before I could do much of anything else, a shape burst through the doorway.
It was roughly the size of a horse but the shape was a cross between a dinosaur and an ostrich. It had the basic oval body of a dinosaur, but its counterbalancing tail was a long feathered thing, while its huge thigh muscles were coved in the same coarse layer of feathers, making the beast look like a chicken. Indeed, its feet were the scrawny raison-looking claws one might find on just such a bird. The arms were bent, like wings, with the same dried-up claws indicative of a bird, while its neck was tilted upwards and ending in a relatively small skull which was mainly rounded beak. Its eyes were entirely round and fearsome, while atop its head stood a hollow crest which I was certain I had seen in modern animals.
The creature looked about in quick, jerky movements, bobbing its head and looking ridiculous. Then it snapped its beak, revealing at least some teeth, the sound sending shivers down my spine. If that beak connected with my arm it would snap the bones to splinters.
The citipati jerked its head towards me, noticing me then, and cawed, backing away slightly as it did so. I raised my pistol and fired, the report of the gun like thunder in the enclosed corridor. The citipati flapped its arms so madly I feared it was about to take flight, but the panic in its eyes told me it did not know what it was doing, either. I don’t know where my shot went, but it certainly didn’t go into the animal.
A second beast appeared, poking its head into the corridor as though to ask what all the noise was about. I took a step backwards, realising I had come severely unprepared.
“Wraith,” I whispered. “Wraith, you there?”
“Ah, you have found the citipati. Good show, Mr Hawthorn.”
“Shh! I can’t get the barrier up.”
“No.”
Wraith was back to being helpful again. The citipati reminded me so much of birds that a part of my mind assured me they could not possibly be meat-eaters. However, then I was reminded of vultures, and also that these citipati were nesting in the basement. If they had starving young down there, they would not be particularly fussy about what they ate.
“Wraith, any ideas?”
“Alas, I only know what I am programmed to know.”
“Then tell me something in your programming.”
“Something to do with the citipati?”
“Yes.”
“They wiped out the entire crew.”
I already knew that, and having su
ch a blunt reminder shoved in my face did nothing to increase my confidence. The second creature was in the corridor by this point, with a third appearing behind. If I was going to act against them, I had long missed my chance.
The first citipati had regained some of its confidence by this point and started for me angrily, cawing and snapping its beak. Without a second though, I raised my net gun and fired. A great mass of netting shot out from the barrel, enclosing upon the creature and tangling its limbs. The citipati fell, while the other two reacted with shock and panic. The creatures were so jittery I could only believe they had slaughtered the crew because they had been terrified of them.
Dropping my spent gun, I turned and fled back down the corridor.
“Mr Hawthorn,” Wraith said, “what are you doing?”
“Getting out of here. Light my way to the infirmary.”
“But the citipati?”
“I’m not going to fight them with my hands, and I think I’ve proved I can’t shoot a gun to save my life. Lights?”
“The citipati are a clear and present threat …”
“Thanks for your opinion. Lights?”
“You would lead them back to Miss Arowana?”
That stopped me short – in thought, but not in movement. I could hear the steady pounding of dinosaurs behind me and was under no illusions of being able to outrun an ostrich in a long stretch of corridor.
“Wraith, is there somewhere I could trap them? A large meeting room with lockable doors or something?”
“There is the dining area.”
“Take me there.”
A light came on to the right and I darted down the turning, thankful to no longer be running in a straight line. A citipati turned with me, snapping at my face. I had not realised the thing was so close and I cried in terror, only surviving because its feet were unused to the smooth floor so it slid into the wall. Without stopping, I ran full tilt, turning whenever the lights told me to, barrelling through doors when the disembodied computer’s voice gave me the order.
Finally I made it into a large mess area within which I could imagine the entire crew would sit and eat. There were several long tables, about which were a score of seats. A counter stood to one side, behind which the food would be served, various pots and pans hanging from the walls. There was no longer any sign of even a single crumb of bread, but it was easy to imagine everyone sitting down for a shared meal. I could almost see the ghosts wandering the large room, laughing and joking, exchanging stories of the day they had just experienced.