“Oh?” Hamilton said. “And what did you dream about? Setting up your own scientific foundation?”
She smiled faintly. “No, I’ve kind of decided to give science a long break after this mission.”
“How come?”
“Oh, I don’t know. When I was a kid, I guess I took to science because I wanted to know about things. You know, what makes them work, that sort of thing. I guess it was also a way of forgetting about my illness.” she chuckled bitterly. “Maybe I even thought that I could find a cure. Now though…”
“Go on.” Hamilton prompted.
“Well,” She continued. “It’s just that I’ve never really had much of a ‘normal’ life. It’s always been science, science, science. There were things I couldn’t do because of my illness, or my parents thought I couldn’t do. When I was old enough to decide for myself I was really too ill to do anything exciting.”
“So you want to live a little, huh?” Hamilton smiled.
She returned his smile. “I suppose so. What about you?”
He shrugged again. “I really haven’t thought about it much. I don’t know, I suppose there won’t be much point in continuing with my present line of work. Maybe I’ll just get myself a small ship and do some exploring on my own.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that dangerous? On your own, I mean?”
“Not really. I always did like to explore places. That’s one of the reasons why I joined the Corp in the first place. I only left because I felt I couldn’t trust my companions.”
“It would be kind of lonely, though?”
He shrugged. “That’s never really bothered me. I enjoy being on my own from time to time. It’s peaceful.”
“But lonely.” she repeated.
“If I get lonely,” he said. “I’ll come back.”
“Is life really that simple to you?”
He shook his head. “Life’s never simple. It’s more like a minefield. But so long as you watch where you put your feet it’s easy to move along.”
“So you’re a philosopher now?” She smiled.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “If I’m not certain what to do, I can philosophize a reasonable course of action.”
“You’re a complicated guy, Hamilton.”
“The way I see it,” he said. “Each person is like a building…”
“Just a minute,” she interrupted. “Is this another of your similes?”
“Yes it is.” He replied. “And don’t interrupt whilst I’m in mid-flow.”
“Sorry, carry on.”
“As I was saying.” he repeated. “Each person is like a building. On the outside they’re functional and it’s easy to guess what goes on inside. Inside, however, there can be all sorts of rooms and twisting corridors which no one except the owner knows properly. Sometimes not even then.”
She looked at him worriedly. “Have you got any more of these similes?”
He nodded. “Plenty. Want to hear some?”
She smiled tolerantly. “Maybe another time.” She glanced at her watch. “I ought to get back to the labs. I’ve still got plenty of equipment to check over.”
He stared at her in mock disappointment. “But I haven’t even explained my ‘River of Life’ theories yet. Or my…”
“Another time!” she laughed, rising.
“OK.” He relented, also rising. He glanced at his empty food tray, remembering. “Say, I don’t suppose you’ve got any non-meat delicacies?”
“I didn’t think you were a vegetarian.” she said.
“I’m not,” he answered. “But I was supposed to get my associate something about a long while ago.”
“I see,” she smiled. “Let’s see what we can get out of this pile of junk.”
Jones was not impressed by Hamilton’s slow service.
“I asked for something an hour ago!” he moaned.
“Well? Here it is.” Hamilton answered.
Jones scowled at it. “What is it?”
Hamilton shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s no meat in it though.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course! Would I lie to you?”
Jones scowled at him, accepted the offered food and took an experimental bite. “Mmmm! Hey! It’s not bad!”
“What did I tell you?” Hamilton said. “Anything suspicious going on?”
Jones shook his head. “No. Just people going on and off shift. Klane says we’re about to make the transit.”
“About time, too!”
Jones glanced at his watch. “Christ! I’ve got almost a whole hour left yet. I’ll never make it!” He looked at Hamilton askance.
Hamilton sighed. “Go on! I’ll take over now.”
“Thanks! I don’t know if I could have taken another hour of this.”
“You’d better get used to it. Once we’ve made the transit I reckon we’ll be doing four hour stints each, round the clock.”
“Four hours! Oh man!”
Hamilton nodded. “Four on, eight off.”
Jones shook his head wearily. “I’m going to go and get some sleep. I’m wrecked.”
“OK. See you later.”
Jones left, taking his food with him.
Hamilton sat down and began to check out the controls. They were fairly simple. Eight screens to watch, continually flicking at short intervals between four views each. They were placed so that movement on any of them was almost certain to be noticed by the watcher. The constant flicking of scenes swiftly began to annoy Hamilton. Careful fiddling soon had all the screens changing at the same time, rather than randomly. It was less irritating that way.
Hamilton settled himself in for a long stay.
After a short time Klane’s voice crackled over his headset. “Jones? We’re about to make the transit.”
“I’m asleep. I don’t care.” Jones replied from somewhere.
“I’m on the cameras now.” Hamilton said. His voice lacked any enthusiasm about the task.
“Oh, right. Well, we’re about to make the jump, any second….now!”
The familiar lurching sensation appeared. This was much subdued from their experiences on the survey vessel, however. The fields were being more efficiently tuned now that Veltin was no longer in control of them.
Everything settled down in only a few seconds.
“Is that it?” Hamilton asked, surprised.
“It seems to be,” Klane replied. “At least, the normal starfields have vanished into a grey blur on the screen.”
“Impressive shift.”
“Hmm,” Klane agreed. “Veltin looks a little upset, though.”
“Not enough jolts for his liking.”
“I guess not.” she agreed.
“There’s no point in you manning the console any more until we get to the other end. You might as well go and get some sleep.”
“Yeah, I could do with some. I might check on the doc’ first, though. I haven’t spoken to him much yet.”
“OK, whatever you feel like.” Hamilton agreed. “I’ll talk to you later. You’re next up on monitor duty, though.”
“How long?”
“Spell me in four hours. We’ll do a four on, eight off rota.”
“Fair enough,” she sighed. “See you later.”
“Yeah, see you.”
The Hope’s Breath sped on through the nothingness of hyperspace, travelling far in excess of the speed of light. Only one person on the ship knew exactly what was going on and even then, that person was not entirely certain of what awaited them at their destination. For now, that person merely waited, and watched, and smiled.
CHAPTER TEN
Most of the crew had little to do whilst the ship was in hyperspace and, at first, they tended to wander about a great deal, exploring the ship. This kept Hamilton, Jones and Klane fairly busy for the first few days. All three took several days to get used to their four-on eight-off rota but they managed nonetheless. They continued their investigations into their assigned sub
jects but failed to uncover anything of note. They also continued the search for unusual or hidden areas, also without success. The ship was simply too large to notice any such suspicious areas in reality. There could be any number of them, was their conclusion. Further, Jones was unable to locate the computer room, if one even existed.
Vogerian kept a low profile, appearing at meal times with Carl, who was scarcely more apparent himself. He tended to preach to anyone who happened to be in the mess at the time about the glory and fame that awaited them. Consequently, most people shifted their meal times.
The ship itself ran smoothly, flawlessly. Simmonds commented that he’d never seen such an efficient and maintenance-free vessel. Indeed, there were no problems with it at all, making Simmonds and his fellow engineers mostly superfluous. Not even the food dispenser broke down.
Although it was unnecessary, Vogerian ordered one person to be on the bridge at all times. Hamilton excused himself and his companions from such duty and Simmonds, not slow to recognize a potentially boring duty, announced that the engines needed constant attention also. The scientists were also excused this onerous task and the bridge duty therefore fell to either Veltin, Puckett, one of the two navigators or LeGault, Lewis or Walsh. Lewis and Veltin made a big thing out of it, complaining all the time. Lewis did it because she was inclined to be difficult. Veltin did it because there was nothing for him to do on the bridge.
Time passed slowly, dully for most of the crew. Once in hyperspace there was little for none-essential crew to do. The rec room incorporated a small gym, but most people were not that energetic. Once the ship had been explored most of the crew had nothing to do but sleep and eat.
For Hamilton and his companions, however, each day that passed increased the tension that they felt. They now had less than three weeks before they reached their destination.
Hamilton amused himself during his off-duty hours by exploring the ship, much as the rest of the crew had. The three security officers had fallen into a pattern whereby one manned the security screens whilst another patrolled the ship and the third slept. This, unfortunately, meant that they got two, four hour sleep periods out of every twenty four. The trio found out how difficult it was to change the sleeping patterns of a lifetime and they found slumber somewhat elusive at times.
Hamilton’s explorations were mostly perfunctory except when it came to the hangar decks. The area they had arrived in was known as deck one. It held a variety of small atmospheric flyers which could be dropped from orbit and one or two orbital shuttles. All were of standard design and construction. Hamilton checked out their interiors to make sure that there were no nasty surprises waiting for them. He found nothing, but had Jones make up some simple little alarm tell-tales that would alert them if anyone tampered with the craft.
The second hangar deck, on the other side of the ship, held a very different collection of craft. Hamilton was first alerted to this fact after only a day or two by Veltin, the pilot. He had conducted his own examination of the craft the Hope’s Breath held. He had been somewhat excited by his finds. Excited, but also a little disturbed. When Hamilton got around to making his own inspection, he was no less amazed or concerned.
There were two huge military transports and an air/space supremacy fighter in the bay. The transports’ armament had been heavily upgraded and extra armour had been laid onto the hull. After some tinkering by Jones, Hamilton was able to get inside them. The interiors were cramped under normal circumstances but had been further reduced by the addition of the extra weaponry and enhanced sensory capabilities. The fighter was a two man affair capable of atmospheric or space combat. It, too, was packed with additional arms and sensors. Hamilton checked them all over but found no booby-traps or explosives. As with the normal craft, he set tell-tales to warn them of tampering.
Above the hangar decks, stretching across both of them, was the cargo storage area. Like the hangar decks, it was off-limits to most of the crew and, therefore, had no security monitors. Hamilton found all the usual stores one would expect on an exploratory mission, medical supplies, additional food stores, ammunition for the weapons, survival equipment and practically everything else one could think of. He checked the inventory over and found everything in order. The cargo deck was reachable by hydraulic freight elevators from each of the hangar decks or by a normal, personnel elevator aft of the hangar deck entry locks.
Hamilton also visited the three science labs. Each of the three was dedicated to a specific set of sciences. Lewis, whose official function was as a planetologist, was often found in the lower forward lab. She ignored Hamilton pointedly and he, her. The upper forward lab was concerned mainly with the space sciences, astrophysics and the like. Johnson made Hamilton welcome here and was glad to show him around. Hamilton sensed the growing bond between them and wondered if it were a good thing. He had not been entirely honest with her so far and wondered what her reaction would be when everything came out in the open. He genuinely liked her and hoped she wouldn’t be too upset. On the other hand, he thought, he was merely doing his job. The third lab was amidships, above the cargo deck and slightly aft of it. This lab was concerned with sciences like zoology and botany and their derivatives. This was where Tong, Hamilton’s room-mate on the survey vessel, conducted his experiments. As yet, however, there was little to be done and Tong, like the rest of the scientists, merely contented himself with making sure his equipment was in full working order.
The engine room, which Hamilton visited briefly, was a mass of lights and control panels. Simmonds greeted him affably, showed him around, and attempted to explain the theory of the matter/antimatter drive system. Hamilton nodded politely and didn’t try too hard to understand the process. Simmonds also showed him the auxiliary engine room, aft of the main area and reached by a long corridor. It was more subdued than the main room and mostly inactive. Simmonds explained that the backup fusion drive system, which most vessels had as their main drive, was operated from here. There was an elevator at the far end of the chamber and Simmonds explained that it provided access to the emergency airlock assembly below and the escape pod launch tubes above. Hamilton inspected these at a later time and found little to complain about. The airlock assembly was to be used in case the main lock systems, around the hangar decks, failed for some reason. The escape pods numbered thirty and were of the latest, long range design, capable of traversing an entire star system, albeit somewhat slowly. A person could survive within the capsule for several months and full facilties were included for the comfort of the passenger. In case of deep space evacuation, cryogenic freezing facilities were also included in each pod. Hamilton checked four of these out carefully, intending them for use by himself, Klane, Jones and Johnson if it became necessary to abandon ship and laid in extra supplies and equipment aboard them. He then coded them so that no one could interfere with, or enter, them. In an emergency, however, the ship’s computer would automatically unlock all pods for anybody to use as a safety precaution. The pods he chose were the four farthest from the elevator so it was unlikely that anyone would use them under normal evac conditions anyway. Frightened people headed for the closest avenue of safety.
The Hope’s Breath continued on its course unswervingly, whilst its occupants went about their business quietly. Hamilton and his companions busied themselves as they saw fit, always with a mind to looking for the destroyer of the survey vessel and Vogerian’s possible accomplices, whom they assumed were all one and the same. Whether Vogerian had approved of his partner’s destruction of the survey ship was another matter entirely. No incidents occurred during that first week of hyperspace flight and people began to settle down into routines, becoming complacent. That complacency, however, was shattered very shortly thereafter.
Klane was manning the security console and Hamilton was patrolling the ship. As was usual by now, they wore their headset transceivers. Hamilton was wandering along the upper corridor that linked the two upper science stations and allowed ramp access to the up
per accommodation area. He had just been to the forward science lab and found it empty of life. He had rather been hoping for another chat with Johnson and had been disappointed to find her absent. He was, therefore, heading along to the other science lab. He had almost reached it when Klane called him over the headset.
Her voice spoke urgently. “Hamilton! Get down to the mess area sharp! Lewis is beating up Tong and Lutess!”
“What!” Hamilton exclaimed, turning to retrace his steps to the nearest ramp. He thought better of it, remembering there was an elevator in the mid-ships lab and headed that way. Klane repeated her message.
“What happened?” Hamilton inquired. He burst into the lab and ran over to the elevator.
“Tong made some smart comment to her,” Klane told him. “She flew off the handle and pushed him. He pushed back. She kicked him in the bollocks. Lutess tried to help him. You know how close those two have become. Lewis punched her. You better hurry. It could degenerate into a general melee very quickly.”
“I’m on my way!” Hamilton barked, impatiently. He descended in the elevator, arriving near to the engine room. A ramp nearby led down to the mess and rec area. Shouts and the sounds of smashing objects drifted up it. Hamilton ran down it, arriving at the entrance to the mess area. The rec area and showers lay beyond it. Hamilton, however, did not need to go beyond the mess area. The source of the noise came from centre of the mess.
A ring of people stood around Lewis, Tong and Lutess, who were fighting between two tables. Hamilton ran over, pushing onlookers aside with casual brutality.
In the middle of the crowd Lewis was administering a knee to Tong’s face as he struggled to stand up from a previous blow. Lutess lay on the floor, groaning. There was a crunch of nasal cartilage and blood sprayed onto the floor from Tong’s nose. He collapsed, moaning faintly.
“OK. That’s enough Lewis.” Hamilton said, advancing into the circle.
Lewis rounded on him with wild eyes. Hamilton saw his death written in them. It didn’t worry him too much. He’d seen his death written many times before.
Humal Sequence 1: A Breath of Hope Page 15