by Kali Wallace
Malachi’s voice came over the radio: “Zahra? What’s going on?”
I took a steadying breath, then another. Dag was still in the airlock, his light shining directly at me. Even without seeing his face I knew his expression would be one of stolid disapproval; I should have let him clear the cargo bay before entering.
Carefully, carefully, I turned to look at the wall above the hatch.
“I’m fine.” My voice was shaky, so I said it again, more firmly. “I’m fine. I was startled.”
“By what?” Malachi asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
It was a lie. I knew what I had seen.
Boots. Legs. There was somebody above me.
I had thought I was ready for them, the dead who waited for us.
Four hundred and seventy-seven people had died aboard House of Wisdom. When I had tried to imagine them, I saw a medical bay filled to capacity, body bags bundled in neat stacks, storage rooms turned to morgues, faces hidden behind white sheets. I had dreamed about walking through gleaming, clean corridors, and all around me there were silent figures wrapped in white, with no features except indistinct shadows where their eyes should be. In my dream, I had reached out to them, to tell them they didn’t have to stay aboard the ship anymore, but every one had turned away.
I told no one of the dream. Fear, Adam often said, was more deadly than a virus. We had always known we would have to dispose of the dead to make House of Wisdom our home. Panya was planning a ceremony, something mournful and respectful, to prove to the people of Earth that we were not callous criminals.
I pulled myself along the wall, using a line of cargo clamps as a ladder. I was not going to flinch away. We had learned everything we could about the Zeffir-1 virus. We were vaccinated, we were trained, and we had come prepared with supplies for testing the air, cleansing the filtration system, detecting any active traces of the virus that lingered. The Pre-Collapse warlords who created Zeffir-1 had designed it to kill quickly and then spontaneously denature: cruelty and cowardly stealth were their goals. My mind was filled with knowledge about that hateful weapon.
“What is it?” Dag said.
His light grew brighter behind me as he came through the doorway, giving me an overlarge, distorted shadow. I climbed over the crates until I could see the corpse.
She had not finished putting her space suit on. She wore no helmet or gloves, and the legs weren’t properly sealed into the boots. Her face was waxy and shriveled. It had been cold and dry inside the ship for ten years. She was mummified. Her straight brown hair floated like a fan around her face.
Her entire torso, her shoulders, her upper arms, they were all stained with blood.
It was such a shocking sight that at first I thought my eyes were deceiving me. It could not be blood. It had to be something else—oil, paint; my mind tripped over the unlikely possibilities. The stains were so dark, the blood so thick. I could not immediately locate her wounds. I had to be wrong. I needed to get closer. I could not make myself move.
A rapid and totally fatal outbreak of Zeffir-1. A known weaponized virus, a savage artifact from humanity’s dark past, set upon the ship by a known monster. That was what they had said. Dizziness, fainting, fatigue, internal bleeding that might lead to a bloody nose or bloodshot eyes or massive bruises, but nothing like this. Rapid pulmonary failure. An hour, maybe two, from the onset of symptoms to death, after two days of incubation within the body. Within minutes the victims were too weak to move, much less save themselves. Many fell into comas almost immediately and would not have suffered. That was how House of Wisdom was lost. For ten years SPEC had been telling the same story.
This woman had not died in a coma. She had not died quietly.
“Huh,” Dag said.
There was no revulsion in his voice, no emotion at all, and for once I was glad for it. I tried to imitate his calm to quash my own growing horror. Nausea churned in my stomach, but I reached for the handholds on the wall. I needed to be closer to the woman’s corpse. But I was afraid. I desperately wanted to turn my headlamp away from her bloodied body so that it might vanish into the darkness, and when I looked again, courage regained and nerves steadied, she would be peaceful, bloodless.
“What’s going on over there?” Panya said over the radio, her voice laced with concern. “Zahra? Talk to us, sweetie. Is everything okay?”
I licked my lips. “We’re making sure the cargo bay is clear.”
“Work faster,” Boudicca said. “I don’t think our friend Barcelona is falling for our misdirection.”
“But they’re not supposed to notice yet,” Nico said. I cringed at the whine in his voice. I had not wanted to bring him along, mistrusting his sulking and contrary nature, but Adam had insisted.
“Guess nobody told them that,” Boudicca said drily.
“I only meant—”
“For fuck’s sake, shut up,” Henke snapped.
“Nico, Henke, you’re not helping,” Panya said, ever the peacemaker. “Let’s stay calm.”
“It doesn’t matter what we planned,” I said firmly. “How long until they get here?”
Malachi answered, “Nearest ship I’m reading on this side is one-fifty-two—”
“Did you see that?” Boudicca said sharply.
“No,” Malachi said. “See what?” A few seconds of silence. “What did you see?”
“There was a ship there,” Boudicca said. “Are you blind?”
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“The nearest ship I can see,” Malachi said, his voice slow with doubt, “is a Burro class transport in the MEO-3 shipping zone. Cargo on its way to Providence Station. I doubt it has the fuel to burn up to this orbit, and even if it does it will take ten or twelve hours. Next closest is Homestead, and that’s a full one-twenty degrees westward.”
“There’s another one out there,” Boudicca said. “It’s been hidden.”
“What do you mean ‘hidden’?” Nico said. His voice rose at the end of the question, squeaking with alarm. “Can ships do that?”
“What I saw—look.” Boudicca took a breath, audible over the comm. “We’ve only got basic navigation here. Our active scanning is for collision avoidance only. For anything farther out, we rely on Orbital Control tracking to locate other ships, and that means we rely on what they’re transmitting to us.”
I didn’t understand until Malachi said, “You think they’re hiding something from us?”
“I think they can hide ships from everybody, when they want to,” Boudicca said. “I saw a blip on orbital tracking that—it wasn’t there, then it was, and it’s not there now. Like it’s not supposed to be in the position data broadcast, but for a microsecond it slipped through.”
“It’s possible,” Dag put in. “And it is something they would do.”
“Liars and deceivers,” Panya murmured.
“I don’t know,” Malachi said.
“Don’t be so fucking naive,” Henke snapped.
“I’m not. I just don’t see it,” Malachi said, but his tone was defensive now, wavering in a way I had always hated. He gave in too easily when he wasn’t sure of himself. “It’s not in the record. Are you sure? How can you be sure?”
“They could have altered the record,” Boudicca said, with exaggerated patience. “The position computer takes input from Orbital Control. That’s how the tracking system works. You didn’t tamper with the tracking system, did you?”
“I didn’t touch it,” Malachi said. “They would have noticed.”
“Why would it show at all, if they’re hiding it?” I asked.
“If it’s responding to an order, it would have to transmit its position to Orbital Control,” Boudicca said. “And in order to do that, it has to connect to the master system. There might be a glitch that lets it show, especially if they aren’t using t
his system often. It’s one thing for a ship to be dark when it’s still, but once it starts maneuvering, there are a lot more variables.”
“Protocol,” Dag said, with satisfaction. “They are always predictable.”
“There’s a dark ship,” Boudicca said firmly, “and it began to maneuver as soon as we docked. That’s not a coincidence.”
We didn’t predict this. I looked again toward the dead woman. We should have predicted it. Liars and deceivers. Adam had warned us, long before our mission plans were made real, that the Councils were always watching. Their eyes were everywhere. They were as hungry as buzzards circling a dying man in the desert. Wherever we go, they will be watching, he had said once, his words ringing with certainty. Another planting of crops had just failed because of poison in the soil, and Adam paced before us, shouting at the agents he knew to be hiding in the darkness outside our fences. They will watch us until we leave them behind forever. They will not stop hunting us until they destroy us, or we break away.
Inside my space suit, my skin prickled uncomfortably. Even here, in this ship so long abandoned, so far from Earth, they would not leave us alone.
I asked, “How long before it reaches us?”
Boudicca exhaled shortly. “If it’s where I saw it and they’re accelerating from orbital velocity—”
“How long?”
“If it’s unmanned, two or three hours. If it’s got crew on board, maybe twice that.”
Malachi added, “They won’t burn higher than 3 or 4 g. Not if they want to stay hidden. The drive thermals would give them away.”
“We don’t know their propulsion capability,” Dag said.
“Is it a gunship?” Nico asked. “Will it attack?”
“SPEC doesn’t have gunships,” Boudicca said. “That’s a myth. Don’t be stupid.”
“He’s not being stupid. He’s only worried.” Panya, still soothing.
“He’s always stupid,” Bao said, and Nico spluttered.
“All we know is that it’s out there,” Malachi said. “We need more information.”
“Too risky,” Boudicca said.
“Then how do we—”
“Be quiet. All of you,” I said.
I was gratified when they obeyed. I could not allow them to fall into squabbling now.
It would be at least another six hours before Homestead reached us. That had been an unavoidable part of the plan. It needed to be safely in orbit before we seized Pilgrim 3, and the necessary launch window meant that it was not yet anywhere near House of Wisdom—but neither was anything else, or so we had believed.
We had to assume the phantom ship was real and coming for us. We had to assume it was powerful and fast. We had three hours, possibly less. Better to assume Boudicca was underestimating than overestimating. Dag was right that we didn’t know what this ship was capable of.
They will try to stop us, Adam had said, time and again as we were making our plans, his eyes shining with feverish excitement. They will use tricks and lies we won’t predict. But they won’t win. I can see their every move before they make it. I will know every wicked thought before it even enters their minds.
The hidden ship didn’t change our mission. Homestead was on its way, and we had to control House of Wisdom before it arrived. We needed time to make it ours: to give Malachi a chance to insert his takeover program into the computer system, to test the air filtration system for remnants of the virus, to locate the bridge and fire up the engines, to create a safe place for the family—if not the whole ship, then at least a level or two, enough to welcome them aboard.
We had intended to leave the hostages aboard the shuttle, out of the way and under guard, while we worked. They were our leverage for keeping SPEC away. We still needed that leverage, but we could no longer afford to spare even one or two of our team to remain aboard the shuttle. All hands needed to be working, not babysitting.
Adam had sent me in his place. He trusted me to adapt. To recognize the weapons we had when we needed them most, and deploy them ruthlessly. I had to change the plan. The dried blood on the dead woman’s clothing looked like a chasm into which no light could penetrate. I reached up thoughtlessly before remembering that I could not rub my eyes.
I said, “Panya. Henke. Put the passengers into suits.”
There was a brief silence.
Panya spoke first, “But Adam said—”
I interrupted her. “Bring Bhattacharya over first. Keep a gun on his friend and he’ll do anything you say.”
“Zahra,” Panya said, “we should talk about this. This isn’t Adam’s plan.”
“I thought we were going to let them go,” Malachi said.
“I thought we were going to kill them,” said Henke.
And Boudicca asked, “What are you going to do when you get them over there?”
“We’re going to use them to keep our people safe.” It was so obvious I was annoyed I had to explain it. Adam’s will should have been as clear to them as it was to me. “The plan has not changed, but we have less time than we thought. All of us need to be here, preparing for their arrival. That ship may reach us before Homestead, but if it does arrive, we will request that they keep their distance, or we start killing their children one by one. And—”
“We can do that now,” Henke said. “We should just get rid of—”
“Do not interrupt me,” I said. “You are not in command of this mission. We are not going to draw the wrath of SPEC until absolutely necessary, nor are we going to get rid of our only insurance against an attack. What we are going to do is work twice as quickly as we planned. We cannot afford to divide our attention.”
I made my voice as cold as I could, using the tone I had practiced to make everybody feel as though Adam himself was speaking through me, the force of his wisdom and love ringing from my own tongue. I knew what Henke wanted to do. I knew the dark iron shard he carried around where his heart ought to be. Adam claimed the Councils had broken him, but I suspected that darkness had always been there. He had not been forced to leave the Councils; he chose to leave, willingly and happily, and he only grinned when anybody asked him to explain. He could be useful, however blustery his attitude, however violent his instincts. I was not going to let him seize the control he so dearly desired.
“There is a corpse over here that died . . .” I sought the right words, stamping down my instinct to rail that it was wrong, it was all wrong. “There was violence here. SPEC has kept secrets about what happened during the outbreak. That is why you’re going to bring Bhattacharya over first. He is going to tell us what SPEC has kept from the public, and we are going to get to work. Do you understand?”
A long, tense silence stretched.
“Those lying pieces of shit,” Boudicca said.
“Adam knew this would happen,” I said. “He warned us they were deceivers. Get the hostages and the supplies over here. We are prepared for this. Go meet them, Dag.”
The cargo bay darkened as he returned to the airlock, leaving me alone with the corpse. I pulled myself along the wall, closer. Her head was twisted to the side. Her neck had been slashed several times in long gashes, tearing through her skin from beneath her chin to her clavicle. The ruined, ragged flesh allowed glimpses of white bone to show. Through the blood on the outside of her space suit I could see the emblem on the arm: the words Space and Exploration Commission around the circle, and in the center the single four-pointed star of House of Wisdom. One of the gashes had severed her jugular. She had bled out through the neck.
Her hands were bare—the skin shriveled, cold burned, and papery—and gripped in each was a long shard of blood-caked glass.
A deep grinding noise came from within the wall; Dag was depressurizing the airlock. The others were speaking, discussing the best way to move twelve hostages from the shuttle to the ship, but their voices faded beneath the thum
p of blood in my ears.
I pushed myself out from the wall to see the name on the suit. CHIN, M. There were streaks of dark blood on her name patch.
It had all been a lie. This woman had not died from Zeffir-1. The Councilors, the SPEC investigators, the forensic medical teams, the solemn-faced pathologists and immunologists dragged out of quiet labs to offer their expert opinions, the university colleagues who condemned my father without pause, every single one of them had lied. Padmavati Bhattacharya had lied every time she stood before the Councils and spoke of her sister’s death.
And her nephew, that spineless young man who had flinched from my gaze, he had lied too.
I had always known my father was incapable of doing what they said he had done. But it was little comfort in the face of the more immediate concern: We were not prepared for this. The vaccinations, the changes we planned to make to the ship’s systems, the tests we had come ready to perform, all of it was designed to protect us against the Zeffir-1 virus. We had no plan for an unknown pathogen that could force a woman to tear herself to shreds with pieces of glass.
Hand over hand, I pulled myself away from the corpse and back down to the airlock. There I hooked my feet into one of the cargo straps, drew my weapon, and waited.
* * *
• • •
Henke and Malachi brought Bhattacharya to House of Wisdom. He was obedient and quiet, offering no protest and revealing nothing of his thoughts. Henke stayed near the airlock to guard the prisoner, while Malachi looked for a functional control panel. He had designed a skeleton key to seize control of the ship’s computers. We needed light, power, air, access to every part of the ship. We needed to find the bridge and fire up the flight systems. We needed to scrub the air clean of any remaining virus. Malachi had warned us that it might take several hours, but Adam had laughed at his concerns. Laughed and ruffled his hair and said that Malachi would not disappoint us. It had not, at the time, sounded like a warning.
