by Kal Spriggs
* * *
”Ariadne.”
She drifted in that state between sleep and full awareness. She knew the voice that called would only try to wake her for something important. Even so, she did not want to open her eyes, to face the world that seemed so much more complicated.
“Ariadne.”
She forced her eyes open. Mike looked back at her from the copilot seat. “Hey, sorry to wake you, but we need you.”
She blinked at him blearily. She rubbed at her eyes, “Sorry, how long did I sleep?”
“How long did you lie there until you fell asleep?” Mike asked. “I could tell you had trouble. For that matter, I’m not sure I could get any sleep after what we’ve been through.”
Ariadne gave him a smile. She glanced at the ship’s chrono. “A few hours. Plenty.” She refused to let her worries drag her down. She would maintain her positive outlook on life, if only because to do otherwise would seem petty. “Though I think the Chxor need some notes on how to make a seat comfortable.”
“Try one that got shredded by a riot gun,” Mike grunted.
Ariadne turned a bit green at the reminder. The Chxor pilot had reacted to Rastar’s arrival with an attempt to hit some switches. Just what he intended, either surrender or to destroy the cargo boat, they didn’t know. But Rastar had killed him without hesitation.
Ariadne couldn’t say she blamed him. But she still felt nausea at the thought of gruesome death in the small cockpit. “So what’s so important,” she asked. “We find someone willing to help us?”
“Not willing, per se,” Mike said. “While you slept, I had Crowe rig up a sensor sweep with passive video telescope. We’ve picked up a few ships, some of them on similar orbits actually. I wanted to get your feedback on which ones you think we can match orbits with.”
“Right,” Ariadne pulled up the data. She frowned as she forgot which keys to hit. “I think I’m more tired than I realize. Is Run available?”
“I thought it best to keep him occupied elsewhere for the moment,” Mike said. “He seemed very insistent that he be afforded the opportunity to open up your head and take a look at the insides.”
“Ah,” Ariadne said. “Well, he means well, at least.” She could very well imagine that the little Chxor thought he could somehow grant psychic powers to all those who needed them or perhaps ‘cure’ humanity of it. She doubted either way that he thought of what others might want, but at least he had the intention of doing his work for others benefit.
“Well intentioned or not, I thought you’d rather not wake up dead,” Mike said. “I can call him in, now, if you really need his help.”
“No…” Ariadne said. “I think I got it.” She tapped a couple more buttons and the highlighted ships appeared on the heads up display, along with their projected vectors and a map of other objects on their path.
Ariadne closed her eyes. She found it difficult to explain her mental process and all it entailed.. She called it navigation, but that merely described the outcome. In reality, she didn’t understand the math for orbital mechanics, much less the differential equations necessary for even the most simple Shadow Space navigation. What she did seemed linked to her ability to sense the world around her, and to ‘feel’ the various effects of gravity, the ship’s drive, and even solar wind on the ship’s orbit. She then could adjust that, tweak it a bit, until those various pressures put the ship where she wanted it to go. She’d read once that the old Amalgamated Worlds government had called her skill cognitive navigation.
To her it seemed more about a feel or sense than any real thought. She didn’t know how she did what she did, but she knew when it felt right.
She worked for an hour, and she managed to plot courses for over a dozen of the ships before she finally transmitted the data to Mike. “There you are. Most of those we can delay any maneuvers for a day or so at least. There’s one or two we need to maneuver in the next few hours. The rest of them, I don’t think we could match, though we’ll pass pretty close to a couple of those contacts.”
Mike gave a snort, “Yeah, I noticed.” He hit a button and one ship lit up. It was one with a course that crossed theirs at almost a right angle. The difference in velocities meant they would have only a few tenths of a second to see it with the naked eye as it flashed past. “We had a discussion earlier with one of the prisoners who wondered why we didn’t harpoon that one as it passes by and just reel ourselves in.”
“Harpoon…” Ariadne shook her head. “But… there’s so much wrong with that idea that I’m not even sure where to start.”
“It took us a while to explain it to him,” Mike said. “The worst part was that anyone who even vaguely understood physics started laughing. I would have felt sorry for the guy, except he got so angry and thought we deliberately picked on him.”
“Thankfully we don’t have any kind of harpoon gun or I’m sure someone would want to try it, anyway,” Ariadne said. She giggled at the idea of someone out on the hull, like some space version of Ahab with the passing ship his white whale.
“Oh, you missed that. That’s what spawned the whole thing, Eric found a harpoon rifle in a storage locker in the engine compartment. Who knows why the Chxor had that… but he’s broken it out and worked over the entire thing like it is his personal baby.”
“Good for him,” Ariadne said.
“Sure, you say that now,” Mike said. “He’s developed an unhealthy relationship with that thing. He’s even named it already.”
“Oh, dear,” Ariadne said. Eric already seemed to have difficulty with other people. She didn’t want to think how much less he would make an attempt at talk when he had his attention locked on a weapon. She wondered if she should talk with him about it.
“Yeah. Well anyway, we’ll try to refine data on these ships to pick a likely target. Any suggestions?” Mike asked.
“You mean did I have any impending visions of doom if we go after one ship in particular?” Ariadne gave him a head shake and a smile to show she had not taken offense, “Nope. But I will say that I added notes to the ships that we can approach from aft, where their own drives might mask any maneuvers we do to match vectors. There’s three of them that I think we can do that with minimal effort.”
“Good to know,” Mike said. “I’ll look at those a bit more carefully then. Have you had a chance to grab your ration bar for the day?”
“No?” Ariadne glanced at the chrono again. “Not today. Where would I get mine?”
“Rastar and Simon have them under guard, after Rastar found Crowe with a hoard of them,” Mike said. “Though I can’t imagine why he might want to… I thought Mratha rice mush tasted bad.”
“I’m sure we’ll get used to them,” Ariadne said helpfully. “And we should be grateful for what we have, you know?”
“You haven’t tried them yet,” Mike said.
“Okay, well, I’ll do that while you and Crowe get us some more information,” Ariadne said. She thought the ration bars could not be as bad as he had suggested. Granted, she found the Mratha rice bland and tasteless, but it at least seemed filling. And Rastar had mentioned that it held most of the vitamins and minerals they needed for survival, so it would prevent any deficiencies there.
She felt certain the ration bars would have the same qualities.
Ariadne went down the corridor and paused outside the hatch for the cargo hold at the sound of raised voices. “I insist that you provide me with access to better rations,” a woman said. “Not even the abominable Mratha rice proved so unpalatable. I am an Ambassador to Nova Roma, I am entitled to whatever you have, as a diplomat and a noblewoman.”
“Lady, unless your Emperor shows up with a ship and some food, we haven’t got anything to give,” Simon snapped. “If you don’t want to eat it, then fine, don’t eat.”
“My father will hear of this. He is a powerful figure in Nova Roma, my family has connections…”
“Ambassador, you will have a hard time telling anyone about this if you
starve to death,” another man said. “Let’s go back and rest. I’m sure you’ll want to add this to your official complaints.” The man’s voice had a tone of resignation that made Ariadne’s heart ache. Clearly he put up with the majority of her tantrums.
A moment later, a tall, dark-haired woman swept through the hatch. A pair of men in the ragged remains of military uniforms followed her out. The younger one looked Ariadne over with a quick, mechanical precision. Ariadne wondered at that, but she let them pass without any questions. She stepped into the cargo hold after they passed and then walked towards where Rastar and Simon stood. Rastar had his arms crossed, and a crimson flush suffused his skin.
“Hi, guys, what’s for dinner?” She asked brightly.
Simon gave her a slight smile, “Well, we have a special on out of date ration bars. You might even say we’re giving them away.” He reached into a brown plastic bag at his feet, then lifted out a shiny black object and held it out. “Truth to tell, starvation doesn’t seem so bad after you bite into one.”
“They can’t be that bad,” Ariadne said. She took it in one hand. It seemed heavy for its size, a solid weight, almost half a kilo. She stared at the shiny exterior with confusion. She had thought it wrapped in some kind of plastic package. She didn’t see any way to open it though. She looked up with a frown. “How do I get it out of the wrapper?”
Rastar’s color had faded back towards the brown that signified calm. “That’s the outside of the bar. They’re compressed to save space.”
“Really?” Ariadne asked. “Well that seems… efficient. How do I eat it, just bite it?”
“Not unless you want to break a tooth,” Simon answered. He held up a slip of paper, “It comes with directions. Break off a piece, preferably with something metal and heavy. Then put the piece in water and let it soak for three hours. We have some bowls here, and you can get water from the head in the engine compartment. Then you should be able to chew it.”
“You read the directions?” Ariadne asked.
“Yeah, it was the first thing he did when he opened them up,” Rastar said. “The rest of us had the things out trying to figure out what the joke was. I thought they had swapped the label on the box with hockey pucks, it’s a sport I read about once, which involves men beating one another with sticks on ice.”
Ariadne made a mental note to avoid that sport. “Good thing you decided to read the directions.”
Simon shrugged, “I always read the directions. It saves time, and it prevents mistakes. If there’s a manual, someone smarter than me probably wrote it for a reason.”
“That makes sense,” Ariadne said. “And I think you probably saved me a chipped tooth.” She saw the pile of bowls and took one. “So how does this taste?”
“Like bleached boot leather,” Rastar said helpfully.
“I imagine it would be flavored for humans,” Ariadne said. “Maybe it just doesn’t taste good to you because of that.”
“No,” Simon said. “He actually seems to like them better than most of the rest of us.” He glanced over at the end of the room, “Except for Anubus; he loves the things.”
“What?” Ariadne said. She felt a sudden surge of hope, “Maybe he likes them because then he doesn’t get hungry enough to think of us as food.” Maybe we can convince him to switch over to these rather than view us as a food source.
“I like them because they have a high density, similar to that of bone,” Anubus said. “One of these makes an acceptable substitute for bone so that I can clean and sharpen my teeth. Preventive medicine of a sort, so that I can bite into something a bit more tasty.”
So much for that, she thought.
“I meant to ask you,” Simon said to Ariadne. “I heard you picked up a pistol. I wondered if I could get it. I’m pretty good with one and I seem to be the only one in the group without a weapon of some kind.”
“But…” Ariadne pulled the pistol out from the holster she’d strapped on her suit’s webbing. “What do I use then? That would leave me without a weapon.”
Simon stared at her for a long moment, “You set people on fire with your brain.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right,” Ariadne hesitated, “It’s just nice to have it on hand, like another tool, you know?” She sighed, and passed the pistol over to Simon.
He took it gingerly, and angled the barrel away. He flipped a switch on the side. “You had it on fire, you know?” He ejected the magazine and worked the slide. Ariadne saw him catch a round that ejected with smooth practice. “And loaded. Tell me you at least checked it after you picked it up?”
Ariadne shrugged, “I made sure it had a magazine in it and grabbed another one later.”
He shook his head, “I hereby forbid you to touch a weapon until I certify you on a weapons safety class. You and Pixel both. I have no desire to be shot in the back by people who don’t know the basics of firearms.”
Ariadne gave him a smile, “That sounds like it would be pretty useful. Let me know when you want to teach the class, I’ll make sure everyone attends.”
Simon frowned, “I will have to come up with a curriculum and some reading material, as well as a manual. Give me a day or three.”
Ariadne’s smile faded a bit at the thought of a manual. She didn’t mind if someone else did the reading and summed it up for her. Reading through technical manuals really did not appeal to her. Particularly if Simon felt so precise about the requirement to read it, “Well… I’ll just go set my ration bar to soak.”
She left the cargo hold and used the ship’s head and then filled her bowl with water. It took her several blows against the hatch frame to break off a medium sized piece of the ration bar. The edge looked sharp enough to use as a knife. She dubiously put her ‘breakfast’ into the bowl, pocketed the rest of the bar, and returned to the cockpit and set her bowl of water with the ration bar in it on the floor out of the way. She saw Mike and Crowe, their heads together as they read data on the tiny sensor screen. “Hi, guys, what’s the good news?”
Crowe looked back at her, “Oh… you.” He seemed nervous. Ariadne restrained a sigh. She really hoped that Mike had not told Crowe about her telepathic abilities.
“We’ve narrowed down our selection to three or four ships,” Mike said. “Most of the traffic we can intercept consists of fusion drive ships, and most of them are small boats like this one or not much bigger.” He brought up the sensor display on the heads up display. Ariadne stared at the HUD for a long moment until she picked out both the four ships he’d chosen and the courses she plotted.
He highlighted two of the ships, “These two are freighters, but they’re on courses that suggest they arrived from out system, which in turn suggests they have Shadow Space drives.” He lit up another, “This one looks like a courier ship of some sort, or maybe a customs cutter. Hard to tell, but either way it might have a Shadow Space drive.”
“And that last one?” Ariadne asked.
“It’s a freighter on a course from this other planet,” Mike said, and he zoomed out until a planet on the other side of the primary fit into the map. “It’s another world in the inhabitable zone, and looks like a nice piece of real estate, actually. Just in where I figure it would have pretty moderate seasons. Maybe not a resort world, but nice enough.”
“Three inhabitable worlds in one system,” Ariadne shook her head, “This is a pretty nice star system, and one heck of a prize for anyone to colonize. Do we know which system we’re in yet?”
“I meant to ask Run,” Mike said. Then he frowned… “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him in a while. That bothers me.”
“I’m sure the other prisoners wouldn’t hurt him,” Ariadne said. “I mean, look at how helpful he has proven himself!”
“Uh… I’m more worried about what he might have done to one of our passengers,” Mike responded. He looked over at Crowe, “Can you ask Eric or Rastar to come up here? And if you see Run around, send him up too.” To Ariadne’s surprise Crowe left
quickly and without any comment.
“Do we really need Eric to track down Run, I mean, I’m sure that he’s probably just asleep or…” Ariadne trailed off as Mike gave her a level stare. “What?”
“You need to develop a sense for danger. Whenever things get the quietest is when someone or something is up to the greatest mischief.” Mike said. “Especially someone like Run.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Ariadne said.
“LET ME GO, I MUST CONTINUE MY EXPERIMENTS!” Run’s shrill voice cut through the silence like a power drill through butter. Ariadne nearly leapt out of her seat. She looked over her shoulder just in time to see Eric carry Run up to the hatch. “Found him,” Crowe said from behind him.
“Your behavior is illogical and overly emotional. I promise that you will suffer no lasting ill effects as long as you survive the operation,” Run said, his voice lower but no less shrill.
“That last part just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy,” Eric said. He looked over at Mike, “He’s your problem now. I woke up to find he’d crept over and got his ‘tools’ out.” Eric hiked a thumb over his shoulder to point at a heavy bag that Crowe held up. “I swear he’s got a rusty saw blade in there, along with needles, some jars and vials of chemicals, and who knows what else.”
Mike put a hand over his eyes, “Thanks for not killing him, I appreciate the restraint.”
“Like I said, he’s your problem now,” Eric said. “And from now on, I say we just kill any Chxor we come across. Or we institute a no more than one Chxor on the crew policy. Maybe we can get an upgrade, get one who’s less of a hassle.”
“I am the pinnacle of Chxor genetic engineering!” Run said. “My genius is unsurpassed, as is my vision of improvement! You will not find another Chxor as competent, intelligent, and knowledgeable as I am!” His shrill voice seemed to bore through Ariadne’s head.
