by Dan Wells
The airlock was a small room, like an elevator, with a door on each side: one leading into the ship, which was full of air, and one leading into the hangar, which wasn’t. He hit the button that cycled the air, and it sucked all the oxygen out of the room and back into the rest of the ship. Then it sealed the suction tubes, and a green light blinked on to show him that it was safe to go outside. He reactivated the magnets on his boots, clamping himself firmly to the floor, and then opened the door to the hangar.
The hangar was wide, easily big enough to fit the entire Drago inside of it, and maybe another half-Drago next to it. Zero looked up and remembered that the outer hull was gone here. The landing barge had been the outer hull, and with it gone, there was absolutely nothing but this space suit between Zero and the vast, empty nothingness of outer space. The incredible sense of isolation that he’d felt in the pilot’s office, looking out the window and thinking about how big the universe really was, came back to him now tenfold, and he felt weak in the knees. He suddenly felt dizzy—too dizzy to move. He swallowed, and forced himself to look away from the wide-open doors, back at the solid floor and walls around him. He was incredibly grateful for the magnets on his boots.
He clomped across the hangar to the viewscreen on the wall, which glowed faintly, just out of view from the airlock. At least he didn’t have to worry about being seen. He reached the screen, and tapped to wake it up, and found a short message from Sancho:
“Hello, Mr. Huang. I have prepared a small guide that will help you to reboot me again. I do not know when you will have the opportunity, but do not delay any longer than you have to. Get the pirates off the ship, and get their ship to detach from ours, and get me activated again so I can fly us to Murasaki. Every life on this ship is in your hands. I probably should have not said that, because I understand that humans get nervous when under too much pressure. I am sorry.”
Zero tapped on the glowing button at the end of message, and did his best to memorize the rebooting procedure: there was a certain hard drive in a certain part of the mainframe, and it was marked with a certain symbol, and he had to use a certain touchscreen to give it a certain command, and it was all very specific and technical, and Zero did his best. At the very least, he thought, he could come back here again later and refresh his memory.
After he’d read the instructions so many times his eyes hurt, he decided to see what else the viewscreen had access to. He tapped a few buttons and found that it had access to pretty much everything on the ship—though most of it required a password, which Zero didn’t have. He hoped the pirates didn’t have one either, but with Jim helping them they probably did. The only thing he could access was an information database, and Zero figured that probably wasn’t going to be very useful.
Wait a minute, he thought. If they’re really from Tacita, this database might say more about it. He opened the database, found the search bar, and struggled with the gloves a bit as he typed the word: Tacita. An encyclopedia entry appeared with a diagram of the solar system.
Dea Tacita, called “the silent goddess,” was the Roman goddess of the dead. She could not speak, and was known as the symbol of darkness and terror. Some astronomers have suggested her name for the hypothetical ninth planet, theorized to exist beyond the Kuiper Cliff at the edges of the solar system, but such a planet remains unconfirmed.
Zero thought back to the mysterious asteroid that had changed course out of nowhere. It had been billions of kilometers ahead of the Pathfinder. Any ship that had used force cannons to deflect it must have been coming from far out into the Kuiper Belt—or maybe beyond it.
A secret planet, so hard to find that no one from Earth was even sure that it existed.
But someone had found it.
That’s where they’re taking the Pathfinder, thought Zero. The one called Spider is plotting a course to Tacita, they said. And when we get there, they’ll have everything they need to build an entire colony. They’ll have buildings, food, a fleet of ships—they could build a pirate paradise, and raid every human settlement and transport in the solar system.
The encyclopedia entry had links to related articles, and Zero adjusted his gloves and tapped one, trying to learn as much as he could about the planet of Tacita. The few entries he found on the subject were all theoretical, of course—he could read what scientists thought Tacita might be like, if it existed, but none of them had any actual proof. One article talked about the planet’s size. If it really was responsible for the Kuiper Cliff, carving out a massive swath of the asteroid belt, it must be fairly large and fairly dense—twice the mass of Earth and as much as four times the size. A rocky planet that big could have a molten core, providing heat and helping to hold down an atmosphere. They had no idea what that atmosphere might be, but either way—an atmosphere. The Pathfinder was going all the way out to Murasaki, but there was a planet right here in the solar system just waiting to be colonized.
Zero felt a strange wave of emotion wash over him. Maybe these weren’t really pirates at all. Or maybe they were pirates, but with good intentions. How many more people were already living on Tacita, struggling with limited resources, desperate for a ship full of help and supplies? The Pathfinder might be able to save them.
Might. Zero still didn’t know the truth. And if he was going to learn it, he couldn’t rely on this communicator to tell him about it. Now that all five pirates were together in one place, they weren’t using the communicators anymore. He had to get closer.
Zero turned off the viewscreen and started walking back to the airlock. It was time to spy on the pirates.
Chapter Seventeen
THE GHOST
ZERO WENT BACK through the airlock, took off the space suit, and stashed it in a nearby cargo bay, hidden inside the opened crate of self-sealing bolts. There were no other sounds in the area, and he guessed that the pirates were all still up in the control center, probably eating all of his cheeseburgers in the rec room. He looked longingly at the central column, then pushed away from the wall and floated back down the hall, into the narrow aisles of stasis pods and the even narrower maintenance tubes that ran the length of the ship. He had to go through 250 Rings to get to the control center, and in the cramped tube, he couldn’t just kick off once and travel fifty Rings in one jump. He would have to cover almost the entire distance in a crawl, handhold to handhold. He groaned and started crawling.
He had to stop and rest a few times, rubbing his sore arms. This was why they had the central column, he realized—walking was effectively impossible without gravity, so without the ability to jump around your arms wore out fast.
He slowed down as he got closer to the fore, pausing to listen at Ring 290, and again at 295. On Ring 297 he finally heard some low murmuring. The pirates were here, but they were behind a wall somewhere. Probably the rec room? Or possibly the pilot’s office. Maybe both, since neither was really designed for a group of five people. Zero crawled up to 298, and then to 299, and kept back behind the corners, trying to stay out of sight. He saw a door in one of the bulkheads, leading up into the back rooms of Ring 300, but he’d have to cross a hall to reach it. He held his breath, listening, and thought he could discern some of the words of their conversation:
“. . . seven degrees left . . .”
“. . . every other time . . .”
“. . . how much molybdenum . . .”
Zero tried to remember where he’d heard the word molybdenum before. Was it a metal? Did Tacita have a mine? He had to get closer so he could hear them better. He dared a quick peek around the corner, saw nothing, and risked a quick jump across the hall. He reached another corner to hide behind, and moved quickly to the door in the bulkhead. It was square, maybe half a meter wide, and opened easily when he pushed on it. He floated up and into the dark room, and replaced the door behind him. As his eyes adjusted, he found that he was in a maze of computer banks, dimly light by soft green and red and yellow lights on some of the hard drives. Cables snaked beneath raised grates in
the floor, and all around him computer equipment blinked or hummed or simply sat and computed. It looked like nothing was happening, but Zero knew that this was the Pathfinder’s brain; this is where it monitored the stasis pods, and analyzed the sensor data, and kept the ship running and pointing in the right direction. This is where everything happened.
And the pirates were trying to break it.
Some of the murmuring was clearer now, and Zero hung in the air, quietly listening.
“I can’t plot a full course,” said Spider. “That’s not how it works. A direct route from here to Tacita would take us diagonally through the Kuiper Belt, and who knows how many more asteroids we’d bump into on the way.”
“Hey, just do it,” said Jim. “We can deflect the asteroids—that’s literally my job on this ship, remember?”
“You can only deflect them at cruising speed, which could take months,” said Spider. “If we stay straight, and clear the Kuiper Cliff, we’ll be able to raise our speed by a good twenty percent, which will more than make up for the time we spend taking the long way around.”
“Mama’s not going to like it,” said Jim.
“It’s safer and faster,” said Spider. “Mama’s going to love it.”
Zero nodded. This was good: the pirates were going to stay on the Pathfinder’s original course until they left the asteroids. That gave him a whole day to try to figure something out. If he could find a way to get them off the ship, he could turn Sancho back on and Boost to Murasaki right on schedule. If he decided to Boost to Murasaki. Maybe Tacita really was a better place to go. He couldn’t just ask them, though, so he stayed where he was, and he listened.
“So what are you doing, then?” asked Jim. “If you’re not going to set a course, I’ve got plenty of other jobs I can give you.” It sounded like they were just a few meters away; there was probably an access hatch in the pilot’s office, leading down into the computer banks, and they were having their conversation right next to it.
“Obviously I’m plotting a course,” said Spider. Her voice sounded insulted. “I’m just plotting one from where we will be, not from where we are. Once we fly out of the Kuiper, we hit the button and go.”
“What if it Boosts the Medina drive before we hit the button? We’d end up in Murasaki.”
“First of all, we’d end up dead,” said Spider. “That kind of acceleration would kill anyone not in a stasis pod. But secondly, and more importantly, the ship can’t Boost without its navigational AI, which I turned off, because I am good at my job. So stop bothering me and let me work.”
“Fine,” said Jim. “I’ve got my own work to do.”
The conversation stopped, and Zero frowned. He needed them to keep talking, or he wasn’t going to learn anything about Tacita. He looked around, trying to figure out where the rec room was from here; he couldn’t figure it out exactly, but pulled lightly on the nearest computer bank and drifted in the right general direction. He moved as silently as a ghost, which was a benefit of zero gravity he hadn’t considered before: without footsteps, he could be incredibly quiet. He heard more voices and floated toward them, and found himself by a wall, listening at a small vent to the other pirates in the rec room.
“We should have brought more people,” said Kratt. “These colonists could wake up at any minute, and we’re not equipped for that kind of a fight. Especially since you made me leave my gun on Tacita, like an idiot.”
“No one’s going to wake up,” said Mama.
“And even if they do, they might not fight us,” said Nyx. “Not everyone’s a psycho like you.”
Kratt laughed, though it sounded just as cruel as everything else he said. “You think they’re going to just take this peacefully? You think they’re gonna be super thrilled about working in a mine for the rest of their lives?”
Zero frowned. He’d been right—Tacita did have a mine. But he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in one. Was that really what they were planning?
“They won’t have to,” said Nyx. “With the materials Big Mama and I saw in the lower Rings, we could build a real colony, with real food and real power. We wouldn’t have to scrounge through the tunnels anymore.”
“You’re a dear,” said Mama, “and that kind heart of yours is one of the things I love about you. Never change it.”
“Why are you always spoiling her?” asked Kratt, but Mama yelled at him in a fury:
“You shut your mouth, boy!” Zero shifted a little, looking through the gaps in the vent, and got a glimpse of them as they talked. Mama was pointing at Kratt, her face twisted in rage, but then she paused and composed herself. “Like I was saying, Nyx, you’re a dear, but you’re not looking at this ship like the opportunity that it is. The supplies are wonderful, yes, and they’ll help the whole outpost, but the real value is the people. Twenty thousand more workers in that mine will turn Tacita into a powerhouse.”
“That’s right,” said Jim. Zero hadn’t heard him come in, but he glanced over to the side and saw him now, floating in the doorway. “We’ll have iron and molybdenum, so we’ll have steel. We’ll have tungsten and silicon for microchips and circuits; we’ll have the raw materials and the manpower to build a space dock to rival the ones on Earth and Mars. We can turn Tacita into a real power in the solar system.”
“The real power in the solar system,” added Mama.
“With slaves?” asked Nyx.
“Their great-grandchildren will thank us,” said Mama.
Well that decides it, thought Zero, peering through the vent. They’re definitely bad, and I definitely need to stop them. And I’ll need to send a message back to Earth, warning them about—
“Eyeball,” said Nyx. Zero looked at her, and saw that she was looking directly at him through the gaps in the grate. He jerked back in shock, and bumped into the computer bank behind him.
“What?” asked Mama. “Wait—I just heard something.”
“There was an eye in the vent,” said Nyx. “Something was watching us.”
“It’s an alien!” shouted Jim.
“Shut up!” shouted Kratt. The wall shook, and the light coming through the vent was suddenly blocked out. “Someone’s in there—help me get this vent off so I can kill him!”
Chapter Eighteen
CAT AND MOUSE
ZERO GRABBED THE computer bank behind him, and spun himself around. Kratt was tearing at the vent behind him, trying to wrench it out of the wall. Zero looked: where was the hatch he’d come through? He’d gotten so turned around he couldn’t find it.
“You can’t go through the wall!” shouted Mama. “Find a door!”
“It’s an alien!” shouted Jim. “An alien!”
Zero pushed off a computer bank with his foot, sailing past a row of processors. Where was the hatch! He felt like a bug, hiding inside a computer while giants tried to tear it open and squish him.
Mama’s voice crackled over the communicator, and Zero was grateful all over again that he’d thought ahead and used earphones; the sound would have given him away. “Spider!” Mama shouted. “There’s something in the computer room! Get in there!”
“Something?” asked Spider.
“I saw an eye!” shouted Nyx.
Zero flew through the rows of computer equipment, completely lost, searching for a way out. Suddenly a burst of light flooded into the room, and Zero ducked behind a tower of computer drives.
“I’m going to kill it,” said Kratt, pulling himself through the door.
“Be careful,” said Jim. “You don’t know what it can do.”
“It’s not an alien.” Kratt hefted the crowbar in his hand, eager to smash something. “It’s probably a mouse.”
“It was way bigger than a mouse,” said Nyx. “The eye looked human.”
Zero paused, hiding behind his tower, and tried to calm down. It was still dark. If he stayed quiet, he could get out. He just needed to find the hatch. He stopped, and breathed, and turned around. He could see the pirates through
a gap in the computer tower; he hoped it was too dark for them to see him.
“Be careful in here!” shouted Spider, flying into the middle of the group and grabbing Kratt by the arm. “Destroy even one of the computing devices in this room and the entire ship might be useless—it won’t fly, or it won’t stop flying, or it will open all the doors and vent us into space. This room runs the entire ship—don’t hurt anything in it.”
“I’m not going to—” started Kratt, but Mama stopped him.
“That means no crowbar,” she said sternly.
“Then how am I supposed to kill it?”
Zero ignored the talk of killing, and let them argue while he turned slowly and looked for the hatch. There! He spotted it two rows away. Light poured down each of them—faint, but enough to give him away. How could he get past them?
“Everybody just listen,” said Jim. “We’ll be able to hear it skittering across the floor.”
“There’s no gravity, moron,” said Mama. “It can’t skitter.”
“Then spread out,” said Spider, floating through the door and into the computer room. “If we’re all looking for it together, it won’t be able to hide.”
Zero held his breath—too terrified to think.
Spider picked a row—one of the two rows Zero needed to cross—and started moving slowly toward him. Kratt picked a different row and did the same. Jim hesitated in the doorway, but when Mama smacked him on the arm he grimaced and came through, probably imagining all the horrible ways an alien could eat his face. Mama came in as well, and soon all four of them were drifting through the room, scanning each row as they passed it.
