The Dark Ship

by Phillip P. Peterson

  Jeff could see stars rotating around a green symbol that presumably represented the ship. The whole crew —or what was left of it—gathered around the projection cylinder.

  “That’s the map. I can zoom in and out,” said Joanne. As if to prove her point, new stars appeared on the edge of the hologram and moved inward.

  Jeff already knew about this from the photos Joanne had shown him the night before. Now they needed to find out what else this projector was capable of. “Is it possible to switch to other operating modes?”

  Joanne shrugged. “Irons didn’t want me to experiment with it too much. That’s why I stopped pressing other buttons.”

  Jeff shook his head. The device appeared to be a projector, pure and simple. He couldn’t imagine they would trigger anything dangerous.

  “Now I’m in charge. See if you can get any other information out of it.”

  Joanne nodded and started jabbing around on the console.

  Jeff turned and saw Finni pulling something out of the equipment sled. “No,” Jeff said, pushing past Shorty to reach the sled. “We have to ration the food.” Finni nodded and stowed the package of concentrate bars back in the equipment sled. They could survive for a while with the help of their suits’ micro recycling system, but unlike the mushy stuff produced by their suits, the concentrate bars at least tasted halfway decent. He needed their supplies to last as long as possible, there could be no snacking between meals.

  “Jeff, come here a sec.”

  Jeff turned around and walked back over to Joanne.

  “What do you make of this?” she asked.

  There were now blue characters projected in the air above the cylinder. Sentences that appeared to run from top to bottom. When Joanne rotated a knob, the columns of letters changed color one by one.

  “Some kind of menu?” He scratched his head. “But god knows how we’re supposed to encrypt the characters.”

  “I’ll just select one of them. I think this is the confirmation button.” She touched the button and the projection vanished for a moment. Then new characters appeared. Joanne tried out the different columns, but all that was projected every time was writing.

  “Unfortunately we don’t have a Rosetta Stone,” Castle said sarcastically.

  “What’s a Rosetta Stone?” Shorty asked.

  “He’s just trying to say we can’t translate what it says here,” Joanne answered, without taking her eyes off the console.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Jeff said. “Go back to the star map and try something else.”

  “Easier said than done,” Joanne grumbled, and pushed various buttons without anything happening.

  “It’s no use,” Owl said in frustration. “Let’s go back to the airlock and get out of here. With a bit of luck we’ll be picked up by a rescue cruiser or a freighter.”

  “We will not discuss this again,” Jeff said firmly. “And you know as well as I do, the chances of being picked up are about a million to one.”

  “Hey,” Joanne blurted out, and Jeff looked back at the projection. The writing had disappeared. Instead of a star map, he was now looking at a blue, roughly spherical but irregularly shaped structure with many differently sized projections.

  “That’s the ship!” Castle cried.

  “Looks like an outside view,” Joanne said.

  “What did you press?” Jeff asked.

  Joanne pointed to a large square button on the top of the console. “Maybe those are pre-selector switches for different display modes.”

  “Press the one next to it,” Jeff ordered.

  When Joanne touched the button, the image of the ship disappeared and the projection was filled with writing, like before.

  “No—go back.”

  The image of ship reappeared in front of them.

  “I’ll try the little buttons underneath,” Joanne said.

  The blue sphere gradually became transparent and orange structures came into focus.

  “You’re kidding me!” Castle said, stepping closer to the projection. “That’s a map of the interior of the ship!” He reached out a hand and moved it slowly through the hologram. Wherever he touched the fine lines, the projection became slightly blurry.

  “Look,” Joanne said. “You can zoom in and out and move it round.”

  “Now we need to find out where we are,” Finni said.

  Joanne pressed another button and suddenly the whole upper half of the ship projection was cut off. It looked like a huge cross-section of an apple riddled with holes made by thousands of worms.

  “With this you can create and control cross-sections.” Joanne turned the knob, and out of nowhere more levels of the “apple” appeared at the top of the projection.

  “I’ll try this knob here.”

  Now it was as if a camera had penetrated the interior of the ship. Lines and dots raced through the projection, and then the image came to a standstill again. Jeff could make out individual corridors and rooms. In the middle of the hologram was an orange rhombus.

  “Is that where we are?” Finni asked.

  Jeff recognized parts of the map. That was the gate with the long corridor. And all the narrow, zigzagging corridors that led toward the hull of the ship. Now Jeff tried operating the console and zoomed out again. There was the airlock through which they’d entered the ship. And those were their quarters—he could even count the ten bedrooms. “Yes, the rhombus marks our location,” Jeff confirmed.

  He turned the knob farther until the entire circumference of the ship was visible again. From this perspective, the symbol showing their position was at the very edge of the ship. If they really wanted to make it to the center, they had a long way to go.

  Jeff turned to Joanne. “How far are we from the outer shell?”

  She shrugged. “My guess would be about six miles. As the crow flies.”

  Owl burst out laughing. It was a desperate laugh. “Then it’s only three hundred miles to the heart of the ship. Just a stroll in the park.”

  Mac laughed hollowly.

  Jeff pursed his lips. Owl was right, of course. It was a very long way. Even if they didn’t have to take any detours and made good headway, he reckoned they would need at least a week and a half.

  “Maybe there’s some means of transport that still works,” Joanne said hopefully. “An elevator or something.”

  Jeff imagined an elevator that ran hundreds of miles into the depths of the ship. But he was determined—they had to give it a try. It was their only chance.

  “OK, let’s use the map and try and work out a route to the core.” He looked at Joanne. “Plot it all on your computer. Then we’ll transfer the map to the other handhelds.”

  Joanne nodded.

  Jeff zoomed in further and moved the center of the hologram so that their position was now on the left edge of the projection. “First we can go down this long corridor. It leads directly toward the center.

  “Pretty long …” Owl remarked.

  Jeff nodded. “Yup, probably over sixty miles.”

  “It ends at this weird, shaded area,” Joanne said.

  “What is that?” Green wondered. “Looks like a giant ellipse that has been halved along the long axis.”

  “Maybe we can rotate the view to get a different perspective,” said Jeff, trying out various knobs. Finally he was able to turn the image slightly and the cross-section changed. The outline of the large area remained, but the shading disappeared.

  “Oh my God,” Owl whispered.

  Jeff whistled through his teeth. It appeared to be a hollow chamber. And it was humongous.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Joanne asked, hardly able to hide her disbelief.

  Jeff nodded. “It seems to be a huge cavity. Deep inside the ship.”

  “If it’s a cavity, then it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen,” Shorty said.

  “At least one hundred and twenty-five miles long. And almost as wide,” Finni said.

  “The highest point o
f the roof is over forty-five miles high,” Jeff added.

  “Holy shit!” Even Mac dropped his surly tone for a moment.

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that,” Green said dryly.

  “I’m happy to give it a miss,” Owl said. “Who knows what we’ll find there.”

  “We’ll have to walk through part of it,” Joanne said. “It takes us to this corridor, which leads directly to the center.” She turned to Jeff. “Can you zoom out again?”

  Jeff turned the knob.

  “This corridor,” Joanne said, pointing.

  “Maybe it isn’t a corridor, but an elevator,” Green speculated. “That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Joanne said. “The main thing is, it takes us straight to the core.”

  “Not quite,” Jeff said and turned the view slightly counterclockwise. “There’s another cavity. It’s about the same size as the first one. We need to pass through that one too, to get to the core.”

  Finni frowned and peered more closely at the hologram. “What are those things? Huge warehouses, maybe?”

  “I dunno, but they’re situated along the main corridors,” Joanne said. “That makes them easy to reach from anywhere on the ship.”

  Jeff nodded. “Yes, the corridors only seem to have that fractal structure in the outer areas. Down there, it looks more like one of our ships or stations, with main axes leading from one section to all the others.”

  “At least we’ve found a good way to reach the core of the ship,” Joanne said. “I’ve loaded the approximate coordinates onto my handheld. I’ll transfer the data to your computers later.”

  Jeff continued to study the hologram. The corridor they’d been talking about ended in a circle, which was filled with white on the map. “The map doesn’t show the core of the ship,” he said.

  “Luckily it’s not that big,” Green said.

  “Thirty miles in diameter, I’d say,” Joanne said.

  Owl shrugged. “Then we’ll have to find the way ourselves.”

  “I wonder why that area isn’t on the map? As if there’s something hidden there, which we’re not supposed to find,” Joanne said.

  Nobody answered her.

  Jeff ended the uneasy silence after a few seconds. “Let’s get going.”

  17.

  “How much further do you want us to go today?” Owl asked. He sounded tired. “Surely we’ve gone far enough.”

  Owl’s weary voice jolted Jeff out of his reverie, and he realized that for some time he’d just been trudging along mechanically staring down at his boots. They’d been walking down the same gloomy corridor for hours; it seemed to be endless. Of course, they knew approximately how long it was from the hologram, but in reality, the march through that sixty-mile-long nave-like corridor, with its lateral columns at regular intervals that joined into black arches high above their heads, was like walking through a surreal horror-movie set. Only occasionally did corridors turning off to the left or right. Even less often were there doors leading into rooms, none of which was more than a few square feet in size.

  More than once they heard sinister noises: a mournful moan, a grinding sound, and one time Jeff thought he heard the cry of a madman echoing from far away. But because of the echo, they could never tell if the noise was coming from in front or behind. The mere thought of some weird creature following them in the darkness made Jeff’s stomach turn.

  He threw a glance at Joanne, who was stoically marching alongside him. She returned his glance and nodded. She knew what he wanted to know. She held up her handheld. “Twenty-two miles from the gate.”

  Jeff wiped the sweat from his brow. He thought they’d covered a greater distance in the last eight hours. At least that’s what his aching feet were telling him. With every step he took, he felt a stab of pain shoot through his big toe. He was sure he’d find a big blister when he took off his boot. And no doubt the others were suffering, too. But he wanted to carry on just a bit longer. The faster they got to the core of the ship, the sooner they would find out what was what—and hopefully also find a way of steering this ship in the direction they wanted to go. Also, he didn’t want the men to think he was a quitter, the first one to need a rest. And something in the pit of his stomach told him they didn’t have all the time in the world.

  But finally Jeff decided there was no point in carrying on for the day. If they exhausted themselves too much today, they’d just cover less distance tomorrow. “All right. Let’s look for somewhere to camp for the night.”

  “Night …?” Castle laughed. “It’s always night here. It’s always as dark as a shit-house. It’s starting to drive me crazy.”

  Jeff didn’t respond. “We’ll carry on until we find a room we can camp in for the night.” He didn’t want them to spread out their sleeping bags in the middle of the corridor. Beneath this cathedral-like ceiling, and with those awful noises, he wouldn’t sleep a wink. No, they needed a larger-than-average room that they could barricade from the inside, and set up a guard post outside.

  “Over there. I see a door.” Finni pointed to the left.

  The radar technician was right. As they came closer, Jeff saw there was a narrow window in the wall beside the door. Good—that way they could keep an eye on the corridor from the inside, making it harder for potential intruders to take them by surprise.

  “There’s a turnoff into a corridor,” Joanne noticed.

  She was right. About forty feet away, there was a turning into a narrow passage. But that made no difference to Jeff’s decision to use the room in front of them as their quarters for the night.

  The door into the room was closed, and Jeff shone his flashlight through the window. He pushed against the door. It swung open noiselessly and with little resistance.

  Apart from a few tables, the room was empty. It wasn’t very big, but just big enough that they would all be able to lie down relatively comfortably. The gray table legs were far enough apart for them to spread out their sleeping bags underneath the tables.

  “Put the equipment sled next to the door. When we sleep, we’ll use it to block the exit.”

  “What should we eat?” Castle asked, carelessly dropping his backpack on the floor and sliding down the wall to a sitting position.

  It was a stupid question, and in any case, the WSO knew the answer. “We’ll get the concentrate food out of the sled shortly,” Jeff replied tersely.

  Mac crouched down, took the small, wrapped gray bars out of a container, and distributed them. Everyone got one bar, and Mac made a point of handing one to Jeff last of all. If that was going to be Mac’s only act of rebellion, Jeff wouldn’t complain. He put his backpack on one of the gray tables and sat down next to it. He ran his fingers through his hair and was surprised to find that it was damp with sweat. He checked his multifunction watch and clicked his tongue.

  “What?” asked Joanne, who was in the middle of unwrapping her concentrate bar.

  “It’s gotten warmer.”

  Owl and Shorty looked down at their watches.

  “You’re right,” Castle said. “Seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. I hadn’t noticed. I guess the temperature rises the further down into the ship we go.”

  “If it carries on at this rate, it will be over a hundred and twenty degrees at the core,” Finni calculated.

  “Let’s wait and see,” Joanne said.

  “This stuff tastes like shit,” Mac said, spitting the last bit of his concentrate on the floor.

  “You’re welcome to slurp the food made from your excrement out of your combat suit,” Castle said sarcastically. “I’ll happily take your share of the concentrate.”

  Shorty yawned loudly. “I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.”

  Jeff looked at his watch and nodded. “Let’s get some rest. We’re going to take a ten-hour break and then continue.”

  “Ten hours?” Joanne asked. “Then it will be four in the morning.”

  Jeff sighed. Perhaps it would
be better not to mess up their sleeping patterns completely. It was not for nothing that a uniform time had been introduced for all ships of the Empire, which the crews had to stick to. But he couldn’t shake the vague and disturbing feeling that they didn’t have much left to save themselves from the situation they were in. It was as if an invisible stopwatch were counting down to their doom. Jeff tried to snap out of it; he didn’t know where the feeling came from. Then he remembered the major’s premonition, which had cruelly come to pass, and decided to listen to his gut feeling. But the others didn’t need to know about it. “As Castle said, it’s impossible to tell night from day here, and ten hours’ rest should be enough.”

  “Shall we set up a watch?” Joanne asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d like to take the first shift,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Joanne nodded. “I’m not that tired.”

  “OK. I’ll take over in two and a half hours. Then Green, and then Finni.”

  Jeff spread out his sleeping bag so that he was lying half under one of the tables, and then pressed the button that inflated the integrated mattress. He sat down wearily and pulled off his heavy boots with a groan. Despite the breathable material, the odor that emanated from his feet was anything but pleasant. He pulled off his socks and examined his right foot. He winced. On one of his toes there was a big, pus-filled blister. He resisted the urge to pop it and instead applied a wound-healing strip, which he took out of Joanne’s medical kit.

  Then he sighed and slipped inside his sleeping bag. For a moment he watched Joanne, who had pushed a table in front of the window, and was now settling herself down on it to keep watch. She checked her weapon and laid it on the table beside her. Then she dimmed the lamp so far that Jeff could only vaguely make out his surroundings. Somewhere next to him he could hear Finni snoring.

  Jeff closed his eyes. Although he was utterly exhausted from the long day that had begun so horrendously, it took him a long time to relax. Again and again in his mind’s eye, he saw the major’s ravaged body lying on the bed, and couldn’t help wondering which of them would be next.