Cold Between Stars

by Belinda Crawford

  Turns out I don’t need to make my knees work. One of my forward shuffles brings my foot close enough to smudge the light and the next thing I know, there’s even more light pouring out the floor and a face, lilac with dark eyes, staring at me. The mouth is moving, but I’m not really hearing what’s coming out of it because a thought’s just dawned.

  Slowly, because it’s taking longer than it should to get my hands moving, I scoop Dude out of the pouch on my chest and hold him up.

  ‘Fix him.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I’m not really sure what happened after I told Med to fix Dude, but I woke on a med bed, remembering flashing lights and belly flopping on the nearest flat surface. It must have been a med bed because that was where I woke, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, a spike trying to drive itself through my head and my mouth tasting like someone had shat in it.

  It’s not a good way to wake up, but I guess it wasn’t as bad as being eaten by fug.

  There’d been a little drone, not quite as big as my fist, hovering by the side of the bed, and when I tried to sit up, it flashed and beeped loud enough to sending me crashing back into darkness.

  Waking the second time, my head didn’t pound anymore, the old-shit taste in the back of my throat was gone and instead of the ceiling I was treated to a closeup of the drone.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. Or tried. My voice had come out as a croak worthy of an oad-hawk, sounding more like I was hacking up phlegm instead of words. Still, the drone seemed to speak croakeese.

  It bobbed and floated to the side, shining a little cone of light on the hover tray beside the med.

  Water.

  Oh man, I’d never been so glad to see water.

  I was sitting, legs swinging off the bed, gulping the water down like I’d never seen the stuff, then I noticed the small army of med drones hovering around the bed.

  A lump the size of a moon had formed in my chest at about the same time the med bots pounced.

  That’d been hours and lots of prodding and poking ago.

  I didn’t so much escape the bots, more they let me go. Turns out, falling down an air shaft hadn’t been good for me and there’d been only so much they could do while I was unconscious and the only living thing with opposable digits who was out of stasis on the whole ship.

  I’m still on the med bed, but instead of being flat on my back or surrounded by a swarm of bots, I’m sitting cross-legged, or as close as I can get with the bulky pads around my knees and a brace holding my left shoulder in place.

  Broken cartilage and a dislocated shoulder had been the least of my troubles, because somewhere along the line, a couple of bots injected me with tubes full of nano-meds, and not the fun blue ones either. Nope, they stuck me with the pink stuff, the kind that spread under your skin and went to work on your insides, patching up holes and repairing bone with flamethrowers.

  I guess they’ve fixed all the really important stuff and are working on my shoulder now, cause it doesn’t hurt quite so much as I reach for the water glass beside the bed.

  The one time I’d made it off the bed, hobbling my way over to the med unit in the corner, trying to peer through the plasglas, searching for Dude, I’d quickly been herded back. You wouldn’t reckon tiny med bots could make you do anything, but you haven’t seen them en masse, flashing and buzzing around your head, waving hypo-sticks in your face like they know how to use them.

  They’d let me park myself on the bed closest to the med unit, and there I’d stayed. Less because of the threat of death by med bot and more because my knees hurt, although not as much as they had before, and I silently thank the nano-meds.

  Beyond her initial appearance as a floating lilac head, Med hadn’t stopped in to say hi, or check up or anything. I guess that’s what she had the bots for, and you know, doctors and stuff, but still, it was a little disconcerting. And lonely.

  The glow from the med unit sheds enough light to see the shadows and not much else, but I found a glow and it’s enough to work by. Not that there’s much to work. The Franken is dead, a charred mess of biogel and plasform somewhere back in the air ducts I used to get here.

  At least the enviros are still working here, and the bots have a seemingly endless supply of ration bars.

  It’s been hours since I checked on Dude. Hours to ponder and worry and try to figure out how I’m going to get back to Ag. If I even want to go back to Ag. The memory of Ag standing there with that mad glint in her eye shivers through my skull. There’s no other way to Hatchery though. Maybe if I’m really fast, I can blitz through Ag deck and shove the new critter sequence into Hatchery.

  It’s all moot though, if I can’t get through the fug. I need another Franken-thrower, or a blaster or an army of drones. But then, if I had drones, I wouldn’t need to take the new gene sequence to Ag, I could load it up and—

  Something moves in the gloom and I’m on my feet before the alarm finishes skittering up my spine. The pounding of my heart is the only sound in the lab. It’s the tension, I swear it’s the tension. It’s holding my spine still, fuelling the rapid beat of my pulse and—

  There it is again, a darker shadow at the corner of my eye, skittering along the floor.

  I’m around the workbench, torch in hand, before I have time to wonder what I’m doing and what I’m actually chasing. There’s an image of a grey-green ball of tendrils floating in my mind’s eye, eating the med beds and leaving a sticky trail of fug in its wake.

  More movement and I’m on my knees, wincing in pain as they hit the deck and thinking perhaps this is not the best position to be in, not with the Franken in charred pieces and my face way too close to—

  A fist-sized blot of darkness detaches itself from the nearest shadow and leaps at my face.

  There’s half a second in which to scream.

  I should have kept my mouth shut, maybe then I wouldn’t have ended up with a mouth full of fluff and a couple of paws.

  At least it’s not fug.

  I spit the critter out.

  It plops on the ground and chitters at me.

  The critter’s smaller and darker than Dude, with a short dull pelt that’s ragged around the edges, like it’s been eaten.

  I reach for it— And snap my hand back.

  That’s not a critter.

  ‘Onah.’ My voice echoes, bouncing off the med beds and benches, and all of a sudden, I feel alone.

  Kuma. His voice rings in my mind, and I’m not staring at the critter any more but the massive qwan on the inside of my eyelids. Follow me.

  ‘No.’

  Come.

  I sit back and cross my arms. Pains shoots through my relocated shoulder, but it’s no longer enough to do more than momentarily disturb my frown (thank you nano-meds).

  Behind my eyes, Onah cocks his head, considering me with his lower eyes, the critter at my knees mirroring him. Several long moments pass, stretching out into infinity as we stare each other down.

  I’m starting to feel weird, nervous and uncertain, and a worm of doubt is wriggling its way past my resolve. Then Onah blinks and it’s gone.

  He dips his head, both eyes closing. Please, youngling.

  I’ve never heard a qwan say please before. Never heard them ask for anything. They usually make requests like they’re stating facts, as if reality will warp around them simply because they said so.

  That’s the only reason I’m on my feet, following the Onah/critter out of the lab. We don’t go far, not out into the fug jungle.

  Onah/critter leads me to a corner and bounds up the bulkhead like it’s got glue on its paws. Up, up, up, to a dark square hole in the ceiling, more than big enough for a critter to slip through and maybe big enough for me too, with a little bit of contortion.

  I stare up at it. ‘You want me to follow in there?’

  Onah/critter sticks its head out of the hole. Yes.

  Well. Okay. It’s not the squeezing through that’s a problem, it’s the getting up there with still-not-qui
te healed knees and probably the getting out, and maybe, probably, the fug crawling all over the ship.

  One problem at a time Kuma. One. Problem. At. A. Time.

  With each thought I’m looking around the med bay, clocking the chairs and the table, weighing it all in my mind as I consider the flamethrowers still working inside my legs and... Yeah, that’ll do.

  I’m sweating by the time I climb my mountain of furniture, and maybe that helps a little as I wriggle my way into the air duct. I figure that’s what it is, although it could as easily be a critter highway, except that’d be smaller, ‘cause critters are, you know, small.

  I push the torch ahead of me, grateful for the duct’s smooth surface as I pull myself along with one elbow and a whole lot of wriggling in a lopsided shuffle-slide. There’s enough room for my shoulders and I’ve already brained myself on the top; my knees aren’t having much fun either, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have bots are chasing me with more tubes of pink nano-meds when I get back to Medical. If I get back to Medical.

  Onah/critter is waiting for me, a dark little lump in the glow of the torch.

  ‘Where are we going?’ The words echo, bouncing forever, and in them I hear the real question: how far are you going to make me crawl?

  Onah doesn’t answer, just turns around and scuttles into the darkness, like the tube is a highway and not a constrictor, squeezing me into a Kuma sausage.

  It’s not even crawling really, more like an endless, single elbow-scraping belly flop down the longest, most boring slide in the history of creation. I’m sure Creation would disagree with that, but it’s not here right now, trying to ignore the sense of being swallowed by a metallic snake. There’s no fug though. Not a skerrick or a hint, not even a mouldy, greasy whiff. In fact, there’s nothing in the duct, not even dust or a hint of critter fluff. It’s almost like the duct’s been scoured of anything that wasn’t metal. It should make me feel better, that on a deck so thick with the stuff, there’s a few places free of the fug, and yet... and yet there’s this uneasy sensation at my nape, stirring the hairs, that whispers that this isn’t right, that I’m missing something.

  It seems like I’ve been crawling/belly flopping for an age before I see it, and then, yeah, that uneasiness gives way to a wave of vomit. Keeping it in should be considered heroic. The scoured, clean smell of the duct gives way to charred fur and meat. That alone is enough to stir my stomach, but it’s the curled, blackened husks of critters that has acid scouring my throat.

  Onah/critter hops through them like they’re not there. I start to crawl/belly slide back the way I’ve come, and for the first time notice the clean line of what I thought was black metal that appears in my wake. Vomit coats my tongue. I hold it back a second time.

  Onah/critter is staring at me. I can’t see his face, except in my mind, where he regards me with all four eyes, saying nothing. He doesn’t have to.

  I stop my backwards slide. ‘What happened?’

  Come.

  ‘But the critters...’

  It will not affect you.

  It’s tough to tell if he means the psychological damage of realising I’ve been slithering through the charred remains of Dude’s brethren, or if whatever turned them into a crisp won’t affect me. I’m not sure I want to know which, but I find myself sliding forward once more. I wish I’d grabbed a helmet, because now I know what I’m crawling through, I’m imagining it in my lungs. Critter particles in my mouth. I don’t know if it’s better than fug. At least the critters are dead. Carbon particles.

  The first CRUNCH brings back the vomit, and this time there’s no stopping it. Bile and the remnants of the protein bar I choked down spray over the duct, dribbling down my chin and neck. It mixes with the corpses on either side of me, the one I just crushed under my elbow.

  ‘Onah...’

  I don’t know what I expect him to do, to offer. It’s clear he wants me to do something, needs me to do something, and if it’s got anything to do with saving Citlali and all the people on her, saving Grea, I’m not going to argue. But this, this is...

  Onah slips into the back of my mind, his white/black presence spreading under my scalp, taking control of my arms, pulling me forward. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.

  I feel the skeletons pop under my elbow, the warmth as I slide over the vomit, the vile acidic stench of it mixing with the char, but it’s softened, hidden behind a wall of white/black. He stays for a few moments, and underneath his presence, I sense the ugly stain of the fug, the effort it takes for him to help me. The fear under his confidence.

  He leaves, and then it’s only me crawling through crispy critters, but I’ve got it now. The distance to keep going, to ignore what used to be here, the imagined screams of the critters as whatever turned them to carbon swept through the duct.

  At least it wasn’t fug. Right?

  And then I’m not wondering because there’s a scream from ahead, the acrid scent of burnt hair and a duct-wide sheet of angry orange rushing toward me.

  ‘Onah!’

  It will not affect you.

  Except it’s turned the critter to ash and it’s coming at me in a wave of fury and heat.

  I scoot backward, but I can’t move fast enough. Not. Fast. Enough.

  The sheet washes over me. A tingle of energy and then it’s gone. I open my eyes. I’m still here. Still flesh and shipsuit. I hold my hands up, spread my fingers. All there. All fleshy.

  Onah’s gone. I can’t sense his presence anymore. Maybe the critter was anchoring him? It’s a cinder now, and I reckon I could go back to the med bay and not have to drag myself through this graveyard, except there’s a new glimmer at the end of the duct. My heart seizes and for a moment I wonder if whatever kind of security or sanitation or... whatever protocol that screen was, has recalibrated and is coming back for a Kuma-cleansing.

  But the light isn’t right. It’s white and... is that an opening?

  I slide forward, taking a moment to find that place Onah showed me before I squirm through the still-smouldering corpse of the critter, and tumble out of the duct.

  For a heartbeat it’s dark, and then the room lights up.

  My head’s still ringing from the fall, new flamethrowers are going off in my shoulder and my back is screaming at me, objecting to the hard edge that broke my tumble as I get to my feet.

  Like the duct and Med, there’s no fug in here that I can see. There’s no wondering where I am, not with that round desk in the centre of the room, the sloping floor or the giant gold head hovering in the centre.

  Command.

  I’m in the centre of the ship, not physically but metaphorically. This is where all the important stuff happens, where the decisions are made. And that chair, the one sitting above all the others behind its own slice of the pie-like table, that’s where Captain Lyn should sit, and there, on her right, the XO. The Chief Med would be on her other side and then Ops and Science and—

  I stop thinking. Every chair reminds me of Captain’s clawed hand reaching out of the goo, of the skeletal figures and fug that I pretended not to see. And every memory, every memory peels back the lid across the pit at the core of my soul, battered and ragged after crawling through ash and bones.

  I vaguely realise I’m wiping my hands down the front of my suit, trying to get the ash out of my pores, then I hit the vomit. I jerk my hands away from my body, holding them out, wondering if the grey sludge is in any way better than the shit on my face. The smell hits me. Carbon and the rich, acid tang of vomit wriggling up my nose make my eyes water and a new round of nausea rises from my gut.

  Light pierces my eyes.

  I throw up my arms.

  ‘Shut it off!’

  ‘Kuma Darzi. You are not authorised to be here.’ Core’s voice booms, and now I’m covering my ears instead of my eyes, turning my head away from the drone trying to blind me.

  In that half-second of blindness, something unfurls deep in my brain, bringing with it the musty scent of feathers and the soft
growl of rucnart.

  I lose a moment somewhere, because suddenly my vision’s clear and I’m across the deck, hands on the central console. I’m not entirely sure what’s happening or what I’m doing, but that thing at the back of my brain is sending instructions to my fingers and—

  Electricity rips through my body, clenching muscles, my jaw locking up so tight I’m almost positive my teeth are going to shatter. Then I’m on the deck, breath coming in gasps, arms and legs and stomach still twitching from the shock.

  Core’s disembodied head floats over me.

  ‘What…’ I gasp the words out as the air makes it back into my lungs. ‘Was… that?’

  ‘A security protocol. You were accessing restricted systems.’

  ‘But I didn’t…’ I start to say that I don’t know any of the restricted systems, at least the ones serious enough to get me zapped. Then I remember the thing unfurling in my brain and…

  Onah. The command sphere.

  ‘Kuma, are you well?’

  No. No, I’m not. ‘What systems?’ I ask.

  ‘I cannot say. The information is restricted.’

  I don’t really hear that last part; all I hear is she can’t say.

  Can’t share.

  Can’t ask.

  Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.

  There are questions, lots and lots of questions piling up in where the kins’ command sphere was, but they’re not going any further. The front part of my brain is too busy trying to decide whether or not I should be finding a nice corner to curl up in a ball and finish freaking the fuck out.

  Slowly, muscles still shaking, I get to my feet.

  ‘Kuma Darzi.’

  ‘The captain’s dead.’ That’s the first thought that comes out of my mouth. Great.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And my sister’s trapped in her pod, and I can’t—‘

  ‘I am aware.’

  ‘—p’Endr’s dead and there’s something eating the ship—‘

  ‘Kuma Darzi.’

  ‘—and I crawled through my own vomit, and—‘