Chasing the Stars

by Malorie Blackman

  But still it kept rising.

  The nano-field was a force field or wall made of pure energy that activated whenever a hull door opened or we had a hull breach, but here it would only last for a few seconds because as far as the computer was concerned this was a requested standard procedure. The nano-field was going to drop the moment the outer door was fully open, sucking out all the air in there and everything else that wasn’t firmly secured. Mei’s knuckles were white from gripping so tightly onto the guard rail. Jaxon’s eyes pleaded with me to do something. Anything.

  ‘Take off something,’ I urged desperately. ‘Tie it around yourselves and tie the other end to the guard rail.’

  My fingers flew across the control panel outside the door as I input the command code to override the hull door opening. The code was ignored. I tried again. I had to stop it before—

  Too late.

  The nano-field dropped.

  And just like that they all vanished, sucked out into the vacuum of space in a second or less. Shocked, I stared into the empty airlock.

  They were all gone.

  28

  Next to me, Anjuli fell to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Someone was talking behind me, asking questions, but I couldn’t hear a word. I just continued to stare into the empty airlock, totally stunned. My friends . . . gone. I wouldn’t wish that kind of death on my worst enemy. The airlock warning alert stopped abruptly. The silence in the cargo hold was more deafening than the siren had been. Slowly the outer hull door slid down. The venting system gave a faint hiss as the airlock began to fill with air again from the vents above the door.

  I was still trying to grasp what had just happened. I’d seen people die on Callisto – mining incidents and accidents happened all the time – but what I’d just seen was on a whole different level. During the Barros 5 assault, we’d all been terrified because none of us knew whether or not we’d survive. That uncertainty in itself had given us hope. But the terror on Mei’s, Jaxon’s and Saul’s faces as the door opened . . . They knew they were going to die and there wasn’t a damned thing they or anyone else could do about it. The look on Jaxon’s face was something I’d never forget. I was helpless, totally useless. I was so sick and tired of feeling that way.

  ‘Aidan, damn it, what just happened?’ Vee called out. ‘Aidan, answer me.’

  A moment’s silence and then Aidan’s voice rang out in the cargo hold. His voice surrounded us on all sides, strangely disturbing in the echoing silence.

  ‘I don’t know, Vee. I’m still trying to figure that out. Somehow, someone hacked into the ship’s computer and gave the evacuation command when the three refugees were in the airlock, and whoever did it was skilled enough to make it look like the command came from inside the airlock.’

  Vee was already marching back towards the lift. ‘Aidan, where did the command actually originate?’ she asked.

  ‘I have tracked it down to a utility dispenser in the mess hall,’ said Aidan.

  What? A utility dispenser? That couldn’t be right. Those things were given verbal commands and then they created whatever had been asked for. End of story. How on Callisto had someone managed to interfere with the ship’s programming using one of those?

  I ran to fall into step beside Vee. Mum and Sam were right behind us.

  ‘Who’s currently in there?’ asked Vee.

  A second or two passed before Aidan answered. ‘Twelve of the refugees are in there at the moment, including the two children, Simone and Khari.’

  ‘No one is supposed to be able to open the outer hull door except you and me,’ said Vee.

  ‘One of the colonists has found a way to bypass my security protocols and access the system,’ Aidan replied. ‘The command to open the airlock outer door was definitely input from a dispenser.’

  ‘How?’

  The very question I’d been pondering.

  ‘My guess?’ said Aidan’s voice. ‘Programmable nanite technology. Someone introduced nanites into the ship’s computer via the service module in one of the utility dispenser panels and the nanites did the rest.’

  Son-of-a-bitch . . . Nanites in the computer meant that the ship’s computer was now infected and could be controlled at any time by the person who’d released them.

  ‘Who? Who did it?’ Vee was furious and totally focused on her conversation with her brother.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aidan’s voice replied. ‘But whoever it was, they obviously know of a backdoor into our computer system. We don’t have full control here.’

  ‘Are you broadcasting this conversation ship-wide?’ asked Vee.

  ‘No, just to your location in the cargo hold,’ Aidan replied.

  ‘Not another word until I’m back on the bridge,’ Vee ordered.

  I like to think I’m not stupid but I was still having trouble getting to grips with what I’d just heard. I grabbed Vee’s arm and swung her round to face me. ‘Hang on. Is Aidan saying someone deliberately sent my friends to their deaths?’

  A moment’s silence.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vee.

  That one word sent a chill and worse down my spine.

  ‘That’s a lie,’ Mum said furiously. ‘I can personally vouch for each and every settler on this ship. None of them would ever do something like that.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me and it wasn’t my brother,’ said Vee pointedly as we all entered the lift.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Mum was irate. ‘What possible reason could any of us have for killing Mei, Jaxon and Saul?’

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me,’ said Vee. ‘But I agree with Sherlock Holmes. When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’

  ‘Who? What?’ said Mum, perplexed.

  ‘Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, but that’s not important right now.’ Vee dismissed. ‘The point is, someone on board this ship either suggested they enter the airlock or saw or heard them in there, and once they were in place that person seized their opportunity to get rid of them. That person wasn’t me and it wasn’t my brother. Twenty-two of you came on board and three are now dead. If we discount the children, that leaves seventeen suspects.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with their deaths,’ said Sam from behind me. ‘And I resent your insinuation. I’ve known everyone on board for many months and, in most cases, years. None of us are capable of committing such an act.’

  ‘So you say,’ said Vee, adding as she looked at me, ‘but I don’t know anything about any of you – except for what you choose to tell me.’

  ‘Well, I’m telling you that every one of us has suffered over the last few days. We all lost friends or family back on Barros 5, not to mention watching our loved ones drop from disease, preventable accidents, exhaustion or ill-treatment on Callisto,’ said Mum. ‘Don’t you think we’ve each had a bellyful of death?’

  ‘If I hadn’t just seen Jaxon, Mei and Saul sucked out of the airlock then I might’ve thought so, yes,’ said Vee.

  ‘This is outrageous. How do we know it wasn’t you or your brother?’ asked Sam.

  ‘So Vee risked her life to rescue us, only to bump us off one by one?’ I rounded on him. ‘Sam, talk sense.’

  He scowled at me but I wasn’t about to back down. Vee had had about as much to do with my friends’ deaths as I did.

  ‘This is a serious business and it needs an older head and hand at the helm. Vee, you need to stand down and let the commander take over,’ said Sam. ‘You’re too young to be the captain of this ship.’

  ‘What the hell does her age have to do with anything?’ I frowned.

  ‘I’d rather take my orders from someone I respect and trust who knows what they’re doing,’ he argued.

  ‘Which is a matter of competency, not years,’ I replied. ‘Don’t be so damned ageist!’

  The brief, unsmiling look Vee gave me was speculative. She wasn’t sure about me. All of the progress I’d made with her since I’d met her was slipping li
ke water through my fingers. After what had just happened, she wasn’t sure about any of us. The lift stopped. We’d arrived on the bridge.

  29

  I headed straight for my chair and lowered myself into it carefully when what I really wanted to do was go to my quarters and curl up into a ball. Death, the unwanted, unwelcome visitor was stalking the corridors of my ship again. I closed my eyes, my head bent as I tried to marshal my thoughts.

  Come on! Think, Vee.

  What would Mum do?

  She’d be logical and methodical and try to get to the bottom of what was going on. I needed to be like her. One thing Mum and I had in common, we hated real-life mysteries. They were usually unwelcome problems to be solved. I opened my eyes. There were now eight or more other people on the bridge apart from my brother, and all eyes were on me, waiting for answers I didn’t have.

  ‘Could all of you except the commander, Nathan and my brother please leave the bridge until further notice?’ I said.

  Glances were exchanged but I didn’t need to say it twice. Sam, Hedda and all the others reluctantly trooped out.

  ‘You two are only staying because I don’t believe you were responsible for what just happened,’ I told them straight.

  ‘Thanks,’ the commander said drily.

  ‘Don’t thank me yet. I may revise that opinion, but if you were going to kill someone, Commander, I think you’d have the guts to face them when you did it. And you, Nathan, I think you would only harm someone to protect yourself or someone you cared about.’ And they could both take that any way they wanted. I turned to my brother. ‘Aidan, talk to me. What do you know?’ I said.

  ‘I’m still trying to figure out how my security was bypassed.’ Aidan shook his head, his expression grim. ‘I locked everyone out from all but the most basic computer functions when Mrs Commandant over there tried to take over the ship.’

  The commander cast Aidan a steely glare but he was oblivious.

  ‘Your security?’ asked Nathan.

  Uh-oh . . .

  ‘When it was just the two of us on board, my sister and I split the ship’s tasks,’ said Aidan. ‘I was primarily responsible for the ship’s security protocols and procedures – and I still am. Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn if you have a problem with that and I resent it that one of you lot has infected my computer with nanites.’

  ‘Aidan, what do we do to get rid of them?’ I asked, trying to bring my brother back to the matter in hand.

  ‘The only way to get rid of them completely is to shut down the ship’s computer and do a full purge before a reboot which is a twenty-four-hour job. If we attempt that here and now, we’ll be dead in space with no navigation, weapons, environmental or gravitational controls. And if the Mazon come knocking at the door whilst we’re out of commission . . .’

  ‘OK, we get it,’ I said.

  Sometimes my brother liked to beat a point to death.

  ‘That’s why reboots are only supposed to take place at space docks, not when travelling in space,’ said Aidan.

  ‘So rebooting the ship’s computer is out,’ said the commander. ‘What else can we do?’

  ‘Not a thing until we get to a space dock,’ my brother insisted. ‘All we can do is react to what happens. We won’t be able to stop it from happening in the first place. I have no way of knowing what the nanites might do next until they’re doing it, by which time it’ll be too late. This is not acceptable, someone messing with my computer like that . . .’

  ‘Aidan, the more important point right now is that three people have died,’ I said quietly. ‘If we can’t do anything from the computer side of things, then we need to find out who’s responsible.’

  ‘You monitor and record activity in every part of the ship except the sleeping quarters, I take it?’ said the commander.

  ‘I’m way ahead of you,’ I replied. ‘Aidan, could you play back the mess hall recordings from ten minutes before the . . . incident.’

  Aidan called up a series of recordings, each running in a three-by-three holographic grid that looked like one of those old-fashioned noughts and crosses boards. The commander sat down next to my brother at the navigation console as we all watched the images play out before us. The mess hall was heaving and practically every person who came and went used one of the utility dispensers in there. Some used them three and four times whilst others congregated around them.

  ‘Utility dispensers weren’t available to us on Callisto.’ Nathan must’ve seen the puzzled look on my face because he squatted down next to me and spoke softly for my ears only. ‘We had set rations which were dumped by automated planes at periodic intervals. Sometimes one or even two days could pass with no food drops, so when food did finally arrive there was always a vicious, desperate scramble for it. It’s that scramble the Authority likes to broadcast whenever there’s a news story featuring us drones. There’s nothing like giving the people what they expect to see. Those back on Earth expect to see drones behaving like animals so that’s what the Authority shows them. And no one bothers to ask why.’

  I looked at Nathan then. His eyes as he watched the display matrix were narrowed, his lips a thin, angry line, and yet at the same time he looked so . . . hurt. The urge at that moment to put my arms around him and comfort him shook me. Quickly I turned back to the display. We all continued to watch in silence for a few moments.

  ‘Aidan?’ I said at last.

  ‘I’m cross-referencing the time when the alarm started with all those within close proximity to a utility dispenser in the mess hall,’ said Aidan. ‘Discounting the children, there appear to be six possible suspects. Should I discount Khari and Simone, the children?’

  ‘I think it’s safe to do so,’ I replied.

  The heads and shoulders of Aidan’s six suspects appeared on a new display grid. I recognized some of the faces instantly. Darren was one. Another was Erica. Hedda who’d been working on the bridge almost constantly since she’d come on board was also displayed, as was Mike from hydroponics and the doctor and another face I’d seen but couldn’t confidently put a name to yet. Alex?

  ‘Can’t you narrow it down any further than that?’ the commander asked.

  Aidan shook his head. ‘Quite frankly, if the person who did this knew enough to hack into our computer system, they probably knew enough to delay the alarm going off until they were out of the mess hall or establishing a vacuum-sealed alibi.’

  ‘Which means it could be anyone on board, not just those six on display,’ I realized.

  Aidan nodded, confirming my worst fears.

  ‘That would only work if the whole thing had been set up,’ frowned Nathan, straightening up. ‘I mean, someone would’ve had to tell Mei, Jaxon and Saul to be in that airlock at that particular time for a specific reason for that to work.’

  ‘And that’s probably precisely what happened,’ I said. ‘There’s no other explanation for the three of them being in there at that time. Which means only one thing. The deaths of Mei, Saul and Jaxon were premeditated.’

  ‘No. No way,’ the commander denied. ‘I refuse to believe anyone I know could be capable of such a thing. And for what possible reason, for God’s sake?’ Commander Linedecker glared at me, challenging me to come up with a motive.

  I had none. For the time being, it might be better to keep my suspicions to myself, at least until I had proof positive. ‘I’m just speculating,’ I sighed. ‘Maybe there’s another explanation that just hasn’t occurred to us yet.’

  ‘Vee, that’s nonsense,’ Aidan dismissed. ‘We definitely have nanites in our computer which weren’t there before we picked up this lot. Those nanites mean that someone unknown can take control of the ship’s computer at any time. The deaths of those three refugees had to be deliberate. No other explanation makes sense.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Aidan.’ Attempts at subtlety were entirely lost on my brother.

  ‘But why would anyone want to do that?’ asked Nathan.

  I couldn’t sha
ke the feeling that I was missing something, but random facts, fears and feelings were firing off in my head in all directions like a fireworks display. I needed to sleep to have any hope of making sense of them, but I knew from past experience that I was now too wired to do so. Just one fact kept playing in my head. Someone on board the Aidan was a murderer. I didn’t want to believe it but the truth kept slapping me in the face.

  ‘Vee, I’m going to talk to the crew to see what I can find out,’ said the commander, standing up. ‘And I want to set up a gathering for us tomorrow afternoon so we can pay our respects to all the ones we’ve lost. I hope that’s OK with you?’

  Whether or not the question was rhetorical, at least she asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. The mess hall or the cargo hold are probably the best places. They have the most space,’ I replied.

  ‘A memorial service tomorrow in the mess hall at fifteen hundred hours it is then,’ said the commander.

  ‘Would you mind if I joined you?’

  The commander contemplated me for a few moments. ‘You’d be more than welcome.’

  I wondered how many of her friends would agree with her. Still, she knew the colonists far better than I did. I needed her help if I was going to get to the bottom of this. Then I had a thought.

  ‘Commander, most of the sleeping quarters are on the mid deck. Aidan and I have sleeping quarters opposite each other on this upper deck, just outside the bridge. If you and Nathan would rather have quarters on the mid deck with everyone else that’s fine, but there are two more empty sleeping cabins on this deck that are available if you want them.’

  The commander nodded. ‘Yes, I think that would be best. I’d like to remain close to the bridge.’

  ‘Nate?’ I asked.

  Nathan nodded.

  ‘OK.’ I turned to my brother. ‘Aidan, could you assign the commander cabin U-07 and Nathan cabin U-08?’ I turned back to Catherine. ‘Your rooms will be across the corridor from each other, close to the astrophysics lab.’

  ‘It’s done,’ said Aidan.

  The commander gave me a nod before heading for the exit. As she left the bridge, Anjuli entered. It was obvious that she’d been crying. A lot. Last time I’d seen her had been down in the cargo hold.