Orion Lost

by Alastair Chisholm

“Uh-huh.”

  Beth walked towards the door of her quarters.

  “By the way,” she said, in as casual a voice as she could manage, “did you ever manage to find out what happened to my diary?”

  There was a tiny pause. There was, wasn’t there? Just a brief hesitation. Then Ship said, “I do not believe you asked me to look for it. Many things were damaged or misplaced during the Event.”

  Beth nodded. “Yeah.”

  The hologram watched her leave.

  Up the corridors she walked, from camera to camera. Each one showed a tiny red glint as she passed. Cameras everywhere, Lauryn had told her once. Watching everything they did. Listening to everything they said. Monitoring their life signs. Heart rates. Perspiration.

  She tried not to walk too fast. She tried not to show anything on her face. The cameras watched her.

  Mikkel was still on the bridge. To her surprise, Lucille had returned too. When Beth came on to the bridge the girl turned, saw her, and immediately turned back.

  Ship was there too.

  Beth walked to her chair and sat down. She ignored the others, concentrated on her breathing. She stared at the hologram.

  SHIP IS LYING TO YOU.

  That evening they ate in silence, then went to bed early. Beth lay, gazing at the low ceiling of her dorm, listening to the sound of the others’ breathing as they slept.

  She didn’t sleep at all.

  At breakfast the next morning they sat with their heads down. Ship hovered next to them.

  Beth knew what she had to do. She’d thought about it all last night. She waited a moment, finding the gap between her heartbeats where she had the courage to speak. Then she blurted, “There’s something I’ve discovered.”

  In the quiet room her voice boomed out too loud. She said, “I mean. Something you all need to know.”

  Arnold and Mikkel looked up. Vihaan gazed at the mural. Lucille and Lauryn didn’t move.

  “I’ve discovered…” Beth said. She trailed off.

  She tried again. “I’ve discovered that Ship—”

  Ship was looking at her too, with its wide, patient eyes.

  What are you going to do?

  She tried one more time. “I’ve discovered that the ship … is … more damaged than we thought.

  “Lauryn told me yesterday. The emitter framework has been damaged. It’s out of alignment.”

  Lucille slumped further in her chair.

  Beth said, “It can be fixed. But we’ll have to do some random Jumps to recalibrate it. I thought … I thought you should know. That’s, uh. That’s it.”

  The room stayed silent. She coughed. Vihaan scraped his chair back, stood, and walked out without a word. The others turned back to their breakfasts.

  “Right,” she muttered. “Lauryn, could you… Could you show me where the damage is?”

  Lauryn nodded meekly and pointed at her pad.

  “Here,” she said in a small voice. Beth thought she’d never sounded so young. “The frame has shaken loose with the hull stress. It’s all over the hull really.”

  Beth stared at the schematics of Orion, pretending to take in the complex detail Lauryn was showing her.

  “Could you show me for real?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “I mean – can we have a look from this inspection hatch?” She pointed at the nearest one, the one Mikkel had said had been attacked.

  Lauryn shook her head. “It’s damaged,” she said. “All the cameras are offline – we can’t see.”

  “But … we could go there in person? Why don’t we go and have a look, yeah?”

  Lauryn stared down at the pad for a while. Then she nodded and stood up.

  They walked down the corridors towards the inspection hatch. They were quiet. Beth watched the glint of red lights flicker off each camera as they passed.

  When they reached the hatch, Ship’s hologram was waiting for them.

  “Hello, Beth,” it said. “Hello, Lauryn.”

  Beth nodded. “Ship.”

  “This service hatch has been damaged. Safety may have been compromised. I recommend you stay away from it.”

  Lauryn frowned.

  Beth said, “We’ll be OK, Ship. Let us through.”

  “I will not be able to monitor you within the inspection hatch. If there was an accident, I would not be able to help.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Beth. “Do you think we’re going to have an accident? Is this a place where people have had accidents before?”

  “No,” said Ship, as calm as ever. “But it is my duty to protect this ship and its crew.”

  Ship is lying to you, thought Beth. “We’ll be fine,” she said. “Let us in.”

  The hologram looked at her for a second, maybe two. Then it faded and Beth heard internal locks shifting on the door in front of them. They entered the hatch.

  It was a room about three metres across, slightly domed, with windows round the top and sides like a space-age gazebo. Beth activated the controls and the room rose until it was poking out of the hull of the ship.

  For a moment, she stared. This close to the outside, she felt her chest tightening, and the sweat crawling up her arms. There was almost no gravity and her stomach was floating. She tried not to think about it and looked around. There were cameras, but their lights were off. Could she trust that? Ship had said it wouldn’t be able to monitor them, but was that really true? She peered out of the window. There were hull cameras – could they see inside the hatch?

  Carefully she turned her back to the windows. “Lauryn,” she muttered. “I found something.”

  She showed Lauryn the note. Lauryn took it, read it, looked up at Beth, squinting, and then read it again. She turned it over and examined the back.

  She said, “I don’t get it. Who wrote this?”

  “I did,” said Beth. “It’s my handwriting. Only, I never saw it before. I don’t remember writing it.” She kept her voice low, wondering how far away the nearest working microphones were.

  “You wrote this and forgot?” asked Lauryn, still confused.

  “I wrote this,” said Beth, “and folded it up, and hid it in a crack in the wall in a place only I know about, which Ship can’t see. And I don’t remember ever doing it.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would you write this? And how could you have forgotten it? Unless you’d lost your—” Lauryn stopped. “Unless you’d lost your memories,” she said slowly.

  “Unless I’d lost my memories,” agreed Beth.

  “But how could that happen?”

  “You tell me.”

  Lauryn thought. “You can’t change memories,” she said. “You can only back up and restore. You’d need access to … to…” She looked up at the dead cameras in the room, then the live ones on the hull, then back at Beth.

  “You think Ship did this?” she whispered, shocked. “Why would it do that? It must be something else.” She shook her head and said, in a more normal voice, “This is a misunderstanding, that’s all. You were upset. You must have written this and then just forgot—”

  “Lauryn, where’s your pad?” interrupted Beth. “The pad you had before, the one you’d fixed so you could tap into Ship diagnostics. The one you left by your pod when you went to Sleep. Where is it?

  “And my diary. The one physical record of what’s been going on, the one thing Ship couldn’t change or wipe. Where is that?”

  Lauryn shook her head. “It can’t be. It’s just crazy—”

  “Lauryn, Ship has been lying to us. I don’t know why! But stuff has happened, and it happened after the Event, and I dunno but maybe even some of the damage wasn’t the Event at all!”

  She stopped. Lauryn looked around again. She was still shaking her head vaguely, but she was thinking now. “It would have to be during Jumps.”

  Beth nodded. “It could put back our old memories during Sleep. It would be like a … a reset. All it would have to do is tidy up the evidence and—”

  She st
opped and gave a small laugh. “I was in the Sleep room,” she said. “I knew there was something wrong, I couldn’t put my finger on it. All our parents, in the pods. All of them – yours, mine, all put into emergency Sleep, all at once, right?”

  “What about them?”

  “If they all went to Sleep at once … who put them into their pods?”

  Lauryn breathed out. “They should have been on the floor. Where they fell. Someone must have put them back.”

  “We put them back,” said Beth. “The first time around. It was us.”

  The small girl examined the piece of paper again; stared at it. “That’s why we’re in the wrong place,” she muttered. “It wasn’t one Jump. It was … I don’t know. Dozens maybe.”

  Beth nodded. “Yeah, because it’s supposed to have Woken us right after that first Jump. And it did. It Woke us, and something happened, and we Jumped and Jumped, and stuff happened to us … and then Ship reset us.”

  “Why, though? Why Wake us at all? Why reset us?”

  Beth shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s something to do with what the Scrapers are looking for. Or … the Orion’s in a pretty bad state. Maybe it needed a crew, any crew.

  “And maybe it’s to do with this note. Maybe we found something out, something Ship was doing. Something really bad. It lied to us, we discovered it, and so…”

  They sat in the half-dark in silence.

  “So,” said Lauryn at last. “What do we do now?”

  26

  Truth

  What do we do now?

  Beth rubbed her brow. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “I think we should send out a distress signal.”

  Lauryn frowned. “But we’re so far away from anyone – it could take years!”

  “I know, but it’s our only shot,” said Beth. “Look – galaxy-wise, we’re in the middle of nowhere. But there’s a popular Jump point a light year from here. There might be other craft drifting out from there – six months away, three, one, who knows? And maybe … maybe Captain Kier.”

  Lauryn’s face lit up. “You think he’s still out there? Really?”

  “It’s possible. He wouldn’t give up. If he survived, he’ll still be looking for us. I know it.”

  “But Captain Murdoch’s looking for us too,” said Lauryn. “Sending rats to find us. If we broadcast a distress signal, it might be her that picks it up!”

  “I know.” Beth sighed. “We can encrypt the signal, make it so only Captain Kier can read it. But it would still be a trail, and she might find us. We need to prepare for that.”

  She raised her hands at Lauryn’s appalled face. “Look,” she said. “Murdoch made us an offer. Safe passage – she takes the ship, but we go home. And maybe she’s willing to do it, too, if we can find what she was looking for.” She tried to sound confident. “That’s our bargaining chip. Murdoch doesn’t just want the Orion – she wants whatever it is we’re carrying. Find that and we can make a deal.

  “And right now, I’d rather be in Murdoch’s hands than Ship’s.”

  Lauryn looked doubtful, and privately Beth agreed – it sounded crazy. But she couldn’t think of anything else. She stared around the little inspection room, at the dead cameras. Here, they were safe – maybe. Everywhere else, Ship was watching them, listening to them, monitoring their location and physical signs.

  Lauryn folded the piece of paper and handed it back to Beth. Her face was grey with worry, but the little hacker inside her was whirring, turning it into a technical problem.

  She nodded. “OK, so we send out a signal. What happens when we Jump?”

  “We’ll delay as long as we can – get all the emitters repaired. Two, three weeks maybe,” said Beth. “When we do Jump, we’ll leave beacons behind, saying we were here.”

  “We’ll have to stop Ship noticing,” Lauryn mused. “I can mask the signal at the sensor levels, if I can get enough access.” A sudden idea caught her. “Hey – we could turn off the Sleep!”

  “But we still can’t Jump unless we Sleep. And as soon as we Sleep, Ship will reset us. We have to get off this ship.”

  “OK…” Lauryn shook her head. “But we could stop Ship being able to put us into Sleep without permission?”

  “Good idea,” said Beth.

  Lauryn nodded. “OK. We send a distress signal, and mask it from Ship. Mikkel might notice, but he can hide it—”

  “No,” Beth interrupted. “We can’t tell anyone else.”

  Lauryn stopped, her face frozen into an expression of stubborn dismay.

  “Look, I know it’s wrong,” said Beth. “But if Ship gets any idea of what’s happening, it will reset us again – we’ll forget we ever knew this.

  “How do we tell Mikkel? Another conversation in the inspection hatch? Ship will realise something’s up! Or what if we tell Lucille, do you think she’ll be able to keep it secret? Or Vihaan – he just won’t believe us. He’ll challenge Ship.”

  Beth said, “I want to tell them, but if we do, we’ll be discovered. It’s got to be just you and me. I told you because you’re the only one who can get around the ship systems.”

  It wasn’t fair to do this to Lauryn, who hated secrets, who spent her life trying to bring hidden things to light. But after a long while she nodded.

  “Right,” said Beth. She breathed out. “I’ll get you access. You get the distress signal going, mask it from the scanners, and see if you can figure out what it is that Murdoch is looking for. But remember, anything you do – you must not let Ship know. Not even a suspicion!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Lauryn grimly. “You get me the access and I’ll take Ship apart.”

  Beth peered through the inspection windows one last time, and then pressed the button to return. The room sank like an elevator and she felt reassuring tendrils of gravity draw her down.

  When they came out, Ship was waiting for them.

  “Hello, Beth,” it said. “Hello, Lauryn. I am glad you are unharmed.”

  Lauryn said nothing. Her mouth was rigid. She didn’t even look at the hologram. Beth said, “Yes, we’re fine, Ship. Thank you. We were taking a look at the damage.”

  “The damage is significant but can be repaired,” said Ship, nodding. “Repairs should be started as soon as possible. It is likely that Scrapers will be searching for us. We should prepare to Jump.”

  “And Sleep, eh?”

  Ship looked at her. “Sleep is required for Jump.”

  “Of course,” said Beth.

  “Incidentally, Ship,” she said, as they walked back, “Lauryn is going to be doing some communications enhancements. I’m granting her full access to the communication and sensor arrays.”

  Ship moved with them as they walked, its avatar occasionally fading out and reappearing at the next set of holographic projectors. Now it turned to Lauryn.

  “It is unlikely that you will be able to enhance the communications. What modifications are you considering, Lauryn?”

  “Just an idea,” muttered Lauryn. “Something I want to try.”

  “If you tell me what you are trying to achieve, I may be able to help.”

  Lauryn snorted.

  Beth said smoothly, “It’s just a hunch. It’s probably nothing, but I’ve decided to let her try. Grant her the access, Ship – that’s an order.”

  She listened to her own voice. It sounded natural, didn’t it? The more she lied to Ship, the more confident she felt.

  The hologram bobbed next to them for a moment, then said, “Permission granted to Lauryn Hopper: root access to communication and sensor systems. I recommend that I monitor Lauryn’s activities in order to prevent accidental damage.”

  Beth glanced at Lauryn, who just shrugged.

  “Of course,” said Beth. She guessed that Lauryn probably knew five ways to distract Ship from what she was really up to. After all … she was Limit.

  They walked to the bridge in silence, and Ship followed them all the way. Occasionally Beth reached into her p
ocket to feel the little folded piece of paper.

  For the next few days Beth lived with her heart in her mouth. Every time Ship spoke to her she felt it hammering; she heard the blood roaring up into her face, heard her words trip too quickly over themselves. Surely Ship knew something was wrong. Its sensors must have picked it up. Increased colour to cheeks suggests elevated blood pressure. Reduced facial expressions. Signs of sweat. It would be cataloguing these signals; it had to know something was wrong.

  So perhaps it was fortunate that, as far as Ship was concerned, something was wrong with all of them.

  Ship had restarted their schedules. Every day they got up, did their rounds, went to training, ate, carried out ship duties. Ate, sat, slept. But when they ate, they ate in silence. When they sat, they looked at the walls, unseeing, considering their failures. Above their heads the two Gizmos clumped round the hull, fixing the emitters, repairing the parts of the Orion they could; but within, no one could mend the crew.

  Beth felt their breakdown like a lump in her stomach. She wanted to help them, wanted to say the things that would make it better, but she didn’t know how; it was as if the secret she was carrying had taken over her mouth.

  So she went through the motions like the rest of them. She sat through training sessions, where Ship – ever-present – drilled her in techniques to improve morale, which she dutifully learned and then didn’t use. She knew what the fundamental problem was, after all.

  It was Ship.

  Only Lauryn kept going with any energy, and her old happy enthusiasm had been replaced by a flint-faced determination. She worked on the comms console every chance she got, and sat up into the night on her pad, staring fiercely at the screen.

  * * *

  A few days after their conversation in the inspection hatch, Lauryn called Beth to her desk. They were on the evening bridge shift, sitting in silent gloom and monitoring for threats.

  “Have a look at this, Beth,” she said casually.

  Beth walked across to see a screen full of communication systems schematics.

  Lauryn said, “I’m still trying to understand the systems, but I’m making progress, look.” She swept a schematic aside to show an overview of the communications array, and as she did so, just briefly, Beth saw on her screen the words: COR 3 J 2 PANEL.