The Dark Ship

by Phillip P. Peterson

  Jeff felt a hand on his arm. Irons gestured for him to follow him. Clearly he didn’t want to disturb Joanne. “Time for you to go, too.”

  Jeff nodded.

  “Go to the same intersection where Castle turned off, but turn left. Look out for any rooms. There can’t be only corridors on this ship.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Jeff said. He hoped they would find something the former inhabitants of this ship had left behind. Something that would tell them more about the history and culture of this extraterrestrial civilization. Jeff signaled to Mac, and the burly mechanic slung his backpack over his shoulder. Then he picked up the flashlight and flicked it on and off a few times to check it was working.

  Jeff handed Green his handheld, and the engineer inserted an antenna into the port. Just as Jeff was about to take it, Green pulled back his hand. “Now, don’t forget to hold it against the wall if you want to talk to me,” Green sneered.

  Jeff just glared at him as he took the device. He should have said something, but he didn’t want to lower himself to Green’s level.

  Jeff strode to the door and signaled to Mac to follow him. The mechanic was smirking. He must have seen what had just passed between him and Green.

  They stepped into the corridor. It was pitch black. Mac switched on the flashlight. Even though the beam was quite bright, the dark metal of the walls swallowed most of the light and they couldn’t see far in front of them. Mac marched off ahead.

  “Wait,” Jeff said. “That’s the wrong direction. We have to go back toward the outer airlock and turn left at the next intersection.

  Wordlessly, Mach turned around and passed Jeff in the other direction. Jeff followed him a few paces behind.

  What was that?

  Jeff swung round. But all he saw was darkness.

  “What’s the problem?” Mac shone the flashlight back down the corridor. They stood still for several seconds, listening. But there was no sound.

  “What’s the problem?” Mac asked again.

  “I thought I heard footsteps behind us,” Jeff sighed. “Probably just the echo of our own.”

  This darkness! This silence!

  Jeff couldn’t shake the feeling there was something lurking in the shadows, watching them.

  “Maybe a poltergeist is up to no good on this ship,” Mac snickered.

  Or something worse. Jeff didn’t reply.

  After just a few more steps, they reached the first intersection. Mac shone the flashlight into the corridors that branched off in different directions. At first glance, they all looked exactly the same. Jeff held the handheld’s antenna against the wall. “Austin here,” he said. “Do you read me?”

  The answer came immediately. “Yes, we can hear you.” There was a slight rustling noise overlaying his colleague’s voice, but it was clear enough.

  “We’re at the first junction and turning left.”

  “Understood.”

  Mac went ahead with the flashlight. To the left and right of them were only the smooth walls of the corridor. There were no doors here. In fact, they’d seen hardly any doors since leaving the airlock. But there had to be something behind those walls. Jeff stopped and punched the gray material with his fist. The dull thud didn’t suggest an empty space on the other side—but maybe the wall was just very thick.

  “Everything OK?” Mac asked.

  Jeff nodded and they continued on their way. The next turning came after just forty feet. One corridor led to the right at a sharp angle, another to the left, going slightly downward. If they wanted to find out what was going on, then probably they would have to go deeper to the heart of this huge ship.

  “This way,” Jeff said, pointing downward. Mac shone the flashlight into the corridor. There appeared to be no doors or further turnings.

  “Sure?”

  Jeff nodded and reported their position to Joanne. He also checked the tracking system on his handheld. A line indicated the route back to their quarters. Even if his own handheld failed, they could use Mac’s. The accelerometers in the devices seemed to be working accurately.

  Mac marched ahead again, flashlight in hand. They hadn’t walked far when Jeff felt a cold draft on his neck. He spun round and peered into the darkness. Again he had the strange feeling of being watched. He got goose bumps and could practically feel a pair of invisible eyes on him.

  “Mac!” he whispered.

  “What?” his companion replied grumpily.

  “Light!”

  Without any urgency, Mac turned around and lit up the corridor behind them. It was empty. Some way off in the distance, Jeff could still see the bend in the diminishing beam of the flashlight.

  He shook his head. “I could have sworn I heard—”

  “Got the jitters?” Mac asked, amused. With his hulking physique and impassive face, he didn’t seem in the least intimidated by the strange surroundings.

  Jeff turned around and responded huskily: “No, I’m fine.”

  “Scared of the dark, huh?”

  Jeff didn’t rise to the bait. “Let’s go on,” he said flatly.

  “I didn’t realize you were such a chicken, Captain” Mac said.

  Jeff turned around in surprise. Up to now, he hadn’t received such a direct insult. Should he react to it now? Or was it best to pretend he hadn’t heard? He didn’t feel like responding to every stupid remark—Mac would just think he was being petty and like him even less than he already did. In the end, Jeff decided to ignore the remark. He’d spent too long thinking about it already.

  The corridor seemed to be endless. By the time they reached the next junction, nearly twenty minutes had passed. Jeff contacted their quarters. “Austin here. We’ve reached the next intersection.”

  “We were wondering where you’d got to,” Joanne said. The static had increased slightly, but he had no difficulty understanding her. However, he worried that the farther away they moved, the harder it would become to communicate.

  “The corridor was pretty long. One thousand seven hundred feet, according to the handheld. And we’re also a hundred and eighty feet deeper.

  “Have you passed any doors?”

  “No, just smooth corridor walls. I’m wondering what’s behind them. Have the other two found anything yet?”

  “Not really. They found a few doors they could open, but the rooms were empty.”

  “Understood. We’ll keep going.”

  “OK. But Major Irons doesn’t want you to exceed a distance of half a mile from our quarters.”

  Jeff nodded. “Roger.” He pointed down the left-hand corridor that led, as usual, into darkness. “This way.”

  “Why that way?” Mac asked.

  “That’s the direction of our quarters, just further down in the ship.”

  Mac shrugged. “How far are we from the surface?”

  Jeff looked at his handheld and changed the scale of the map. “About six hundred feet. But since it has a diameter of almost six hundred miles, we’re only scratching the surface of this thing.”

  “When we arrive at Sigma-7 in a few months, we should just keep the ship,” Mac said.

  “I doubt the computer will let that happen.”

  “Maybe we’ll find a way of switching it off. It doesn’t seem to be very efficient—it’s hardly ever available. We’ll just take over the ship and use it as a weapon against the Alliance.

  Jeff laughed. “With a range of two light years a week, it won’t be much of a weapon.”

  Mac shrugged again. “I’m sure it can be used for something.”

  “Even if we could take over the ship, it would be pretty ungrateful of us. After all, the ship’s computer did save us.”

  Mac rolled his eyes and mumbled something incomprehensible.

  This corridor, too, seemed to go on forever. Jeff kept glancing down at his handheld. Finally, they were getting closer to their quarters—albeit about two hundred and fifty feet below them. After taking a few more turns they were exactly below where their quarters must be. Inter
estingly, there was a door here, too.

  Jeff pushed the square next to the entrance and the door hissed open. Mac stepped forward and shone the flashlight into the room. It appeared to be an exact replica of their own quarters, but there was no furniture and no kitchenette.

  “Even the door to the sleeping quarters is in the same spot,” Mac said, pointing to the other side of the room. Jeff nodded and reported their discovery to the improvised base. “Thanks, Jeff. I’ve noted down the information. Castle and Shorty also found some rooms after they went back toward the surface. Also empty.”

  Jeff wasn’t surprised to hear this. Everywhere they went was deserted—it was hard to believe anyone had ever lived here. Clearly their quarters had been prepared especially for them at short notice, but there must be more on this ship. The old inhabitants must have lived somewhere.

  “How about a break, boss?” Mac asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but plunked himself on the ground near the door. He set up the flashlight so that it illuminated the ceiling and bathed the room in a dim, diffuse light. Jeff would have liked to continue, but he didn’t want to get into an argument. He reported the break to Joanne and sat down next to Mac with his back against the wall. Mac opened his backpack, took out a small bottle of water and a ration pack, and began to rip open the packaging. He didn’t show any sign of wanting to share it with Jeff.

  “Could I please have some water and food?”

  Mac didn’t hear him or acted as if he hadn’t heard him, and Jeff had to repeat his question. Without saying a word, the mechanic reached into his backpack again and handed Jeff water and a concentrate bar. Jeff sighed and tore off the plastic wrapper with his teeth. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  Mac turned around, his bar halfway to his mouth, and looked at Jeff the way you looked at an idiot. It was a pretty dumb question, since everyone in the crew knew the answer already. “Does it matter?”

  “Not really, but you don’t exactly make an effort to hide your aversion,” Jeff said. He tried to make his voice sound casual, and to hide any bitterness, but didn’t succeed.

  Mac chuckled softly. “I’m just honest. But it doesn’t make any difference to our mission. Give me an order, Captain, and I’ll obey. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”

  “But why do you dislike me so much, Mac?”

  “You’re from the Solar System—from the moon, no less.”

  A bigot? Was Mac simply a bigot?

  “Is that all? You hate me because I come from the moon?”

  Mac shook his head. “You all think you’re something special because you come from the center of the Empire. For you, we’re just rednecks.”

  “I’ve never felt that way about the peripheral areas,” Jeff said firmly. “My family always tried—”

  “Your family,” said Mac dismissively. “Your family are aristocrats.”

  Jeff shook his head. “My family has never held a high office in the Imperial Government.”

  Mac snorted. “Same difference. You’re all in each other’s pockets. Where did your parents work? Hermes factories? Artemis production?”

  “My father had a little company and was a subcontractor to the Nubium shipyards. He produced navigation sensors.”

  Mac craned his head forward. His eyes radiated pure hatred. “I can tell you something about the Nubium shipyards and their clean, shiny facilities run by robots. Where do you think the stable fermium for the Casimir converter comes from?”

  Jeff didn’t reply.

  “From the asteroid belt around Ross 339. We don’t have any beautiful planets like Earth in our system. Not even a terraformable dust ball like Mars. We don’t have any planets at all—we live in miserable containers on barren pieces of rock in the belt. If it hadn’t been for the fact that fermium could be synthesized in that shithole of a system, nobody would have dreamed of settling there. We slave away for you with shitty equipment under a burning sun to produce your oh-so-important fermium. And you pay us next to nothing, although it’s the backbone of your industry. And you know what the best thing is?”

  Jeff didn’t reply. Mac had talked himself into a rage. “The money we earn we have to spend on water, food, and air, for which you charge crazy shit prices. We’re just slaves to you, with no chance of leading a better life.”

  Jeff swallowed. He had heard second-hand reports of political activists, who were constantly ranting about conditions on the outskirts of the Empire. Of course, those stories were immediately refuted by lawyers and the public relations machine. Since there were no commercial flights to many of the systems, the reports were difficult to verify independently. In fact, Mac might be exaggerating.

  “And yet you’re fighting in the war for the Empire against the Alliance,” Jeff pointed out.

  Mac spat on the floor. “I don’t give a shit about the Empire. I didn’t volunteer to be here.”

  “You could have refused.”

  “That might be possible in your central systems. Where we come from, it’s not. There’s enough human garbage rotting away in jail who can be blackmailed into service.”

  “You were in jail?”

  Mac nodded. “Where I come from there isn’t enough to go round, and there are too many people strung out on drugs trying to escape their pathetic lives. There are constant skirmishes. About drugs, weapons, women, food. Until the war started, your prick of a governor didn’t give a damn if we were cutting each other’s throats. Now all the roughnecks are being sent to jail and forced into military service. When the alternative is twenty years’ labor camp on Doom 3, you don’t ask any more questions about which mission you’ll be sent on with the Imperial fleet.”

  What could Jeff say in response?

  “So don’t tell me we live in a just world,” Mac continued. “We on the margins are the slaves, and those in the center are the masters. And you guys from the Solar System are worst of all. And another thing …”

  Jeff didn’t reply.

  “If you were stuck in the cockpit, wounded, I wouldn’t risk my ass to save you. You better get that into your thick aristocratic skull,” Mac smirked. “And if you don’t like my choice of words, you can go and report me to the major. Then I’ll have a nice rest in my cabin and spare myself these little expeditions through this alien shithouse.”

  Jeff couldn’t think of anything to say. In fact, he felt kind of sorry for the guy.

  While he was still searching for the right words, Mac threw the empty packaging of his ration carelessly into the corner of the room. He put the bottle back in his backpack. “I’m done. We can go on, if you like.”

  Jeff hadn’t even taken a bite of his ration bar. But he’d lost his appetite, anyway. He stuffed the bar in the pocket of his combat suit and tucked the water bottle in his belt. Mac stood up, picked up the flashlight, and opened the door into the corridor. It was as dark out there as it had been before. They spent two more hours wandering through seemingly endless corridors, searched through some more empty rooms, and finally returned to their quarters with the help of the handheld. They got back at almost exactly the same time as Castle and Shorty, who hadn’t found anything interesting, either.

  Jeff had difficulty hiding his disappointment. But Irons was more optimistic. So far, they had only searched the area relatively close to their quarters and that didn’t even represent a fraction of what there was to explore, considering the size of the ship. Irons showed them the map Joanne had created with the data they had sent back. She corrected the sketches using the data stored on their handhelds and identified some corridors nearby, which they hadn’t been down yet. Tomorrow, two more squads would be sent off to explore these; then they would start to expand the radius of their reconnaissance. They would be spending several months on this huge ship. At some point, surely, they would find something interesting.

  5.

  “Hello guests. Have you settled in comfortably?”

  Jeff started at the sound of the onboard computer’s synthesized voice. O
ver dinner, they had just been discussing the fact that there’d been no contact for more than twenty-four hours. The food—another stew—had again suddenly appeared outside the door. After the knock at the door, Irons had leapt up from the table and reached the door in seconds, but once again there were no robots or aliens to be seen in the corridor. The night before, the trolley with the cleared-up crockery had disappeared just as mysteriously after they had left it outside the door.

  “Good evening,” Irons said, looking up at the ceiling as if the mind of the computer were floating up there. “Yes, thank you, we’ve settled in well. And thank you for the food.”

  “I hope it is to your liking.”

  “It’s very nutritious and tasty. We were unable to make contact with you for a long time.”

  There was a pause of a few seconds before the answer came. “That is true. I apologize. This is a big and old ship with a multitude of monitoring and maintenance needs. Due to its age, some computer banks have failed. Since they could not be replaced, I am unable to offer my full attention and must divide up my capacities.”

  Jeff nodded. That was exactly what they had assumed.

  “So I will continue to be available only sporadically, and apologize in advance,” the ship’s computer continued. “Did you have a good night?”

  “Yes, the rooms are more comfortable than we could have expected. Thank you,” Irons said.

  “How did you spend your day?” the synthetic voice asked.

  “We had a look around the vicinity of our quarters. I hope this is OK with you.”

  “As I said, you can move around freely.”

  “We noticed that the corridors are very long. And there don’t seem to be many rooms.” Irons waited for an answer, but none came. “What is the bulk of this ship made of?” he added.

  “The jump drive takes up a lot of room and permeates the whole ship. That’s why some of the rooms are so far apart.”

  Irons nodded. It sounded like a logical explanation. Jeff wondered what the physical principle of this jump drive was. It seemed to be less efficient and slower than the technology of their hyperdrive.