by Kal Spriggs
“Wow, that’s no pressure or anything,” Ariadne said. “I’m the deciding vote…” She shook her head, “Well, I talked with Rastar before this, and I agree with the points he made. I vote for Pixel as captain.”
“This is unacceptable,” Run said. Pixel looked over just in time to see Run draw his dart gun and fire.
Pixel swatted at the dart in his neck. He stared at Run in shock, “But… I voted for you…”
The world went black.
* * *
Pixel came to propped on one of the Ghornath couches on the bridge. His head throbbed and his right eye stubbornly refused to focus. “Ugh, what happened?”
“Run shot you and the other Chxor, and then claimed victory as Captain,” Eric said.
“What happened after that?” Pixel asked. He looked around blearily, but he saw no sign of the little Chxor. His head hurt terribly and he felt like his tongue was two or three times its normal size.
“I took his gun and threw him off the bridge,” Mike said. “I won’t tolerate that behavior.”
“So where do we stand?” Pixel asked, as he managed to stand up. The room spun around him slightly but he shook his head to clear it.
“We’ve got a deadlock… again,” Mike said. “This is why we need… he shook his head, as if he’d lost his train of thought. “This is why we need… Krann as captain,” he said. Pixel stared at him, and his gaze went to Simon and Crowe as well. Simon seemed confused for a moment, but then he nodded. Crowe looked suddenly uncomfortable. It was almost as if they didn’t know what was going on or as if they were machines that had received directions that countermanded one another…
Pixel’s eyes widened and he looked over at Ariadne. She had her eyes narrowed as she looked between the three who’d voted for Krann. She felt his gaze and looked over. She seemed to understand the questioning look he gave her or maybe she just read his mind. She gave him a nod.
“I think we’ll take a break, here,” Ariadne said cheerfully. “Pixel, I wanted to talk with you about some of that capacitor fluid we changed earlier today.”
“Capacitor… fluid?” Pixel asked.
“Yes,” Ariadne’s smile grew brittle. “Remember, the capacitor lubricant that you thought Rastar and Anubus might know how to find?”
Pixel looked at both the two big aliens. “I did?”
“Yes,” Ariadne said, “You did. We should talk about that. Now.”
“Oh… sure,” Pixel said. “Anubus, Rastar, let’s go talk about capacitor… lubricant.”
He led them off the bridge and a moment later Ariadne joined them. “We need someplace we can’t be overheard,” she said quietly.
Anubus nodded, “This way,” he growled.
He led them down a corridor, and then down a narrow stairwell. That stairwell opened up on a small room whose design Pixel couldn’t guess. It had an interesting shape, though and he brought up his new datapad absently as he tried to figure out the purpose from the schematics.
“Okay,” Ariadne said. “Sorry about the capacitor fluid thing, Pixel, I had to think of an excuse to get you all where I could talk to you.”
Ariadne looked around at them, “I hate to suggest this, but did our friends seem, a bit odd during the vote?”
“They voted for that genocidal Mokta Rhagu,” Rastar said, his hide tinged red. “I do not understand how they can consider themselves my friends and still do this.”
Pixel spoke, “It almost looked like they were confused… like someone messed with their minds.”
“Exactly,” Ariadne nodded. “And I felt it happen, at least the second time with Mike. Someone in that room used their abilities to bend Mike and Simon around to vote for Krann.” She met their gazes, “And I swear to you it wasn’t me. For one thing, she creeps me out.”
“I felt it too,” Anubus growled.
“You’re a psychic?” Pixel asked. He suddenly felt even more terrified of the Wrethe.
“Only a little,” he growled. “Enough in some areas that I could sense something happen.” He glared at Pixel, “If you tell anyone else, I might have to kill you.”
“Hey man, we need to work together on this,” Rastar said. “And Pixel’s a good guy, he won’t share your secret.”
“Why just those two?” Pixel asked. “Why not all of us?”
“It takes attention and focus to bend someone’s mind like that,” Ariadne said. “I don’t think I could manage it, not against more than one person at a time, that’s for sure.” She frowned, “And truthfully… well, Mike has a mind that would be more open to that kind of thing than most of the rest of you. Rastar’s an alien and he hates the Chxor, so I doubt that he’d bend to that kind of control.”
She looked over at Pixel, “Your mind is pretty resistant, just the way you think. So I think you’re safe enough. Simon… he’s very order and logic oriented, if they went after him that way, they could do it pretty easily.”
“So someone attacked Mike’s mind and Simon and Crowe,” Rastar said. “To do what, try to get the Chxor Krann selected as captain?” He shook his head, and his hide turned a yellow color. “This makes no sense. What purpose does this serve?”
“That I don’t know,” Ariadne said. “It could be that Krann is the psychic…”
“That’s very unlikely,” Rastar said. “My people have never heard of a Chxor psychic.”
“Well, someone did it,” Ariadne said. “And that makes as much sense as anything else right now. Whoever it was, they might try again. We have to keep our eyes open for this kind of thing.”
“So we have a rogue psychic aboard,” Pixel said. “That’s bad.”
“It was probably someone in the room,” Anubus growled. “Possibly one of the new humans who wanted to join the crew. They might seek to incite division so that they can take the position of those we kill in the subsequent fighting.”
“Man, that’s pretty coldblooded,” Rastar said. “I mean, come on man, you know we couldn’t kill any of our friends!”
“I have no friends,” Anubus growled. “Only enemies who have yet to reveal their true nature.”
“Could it be someone else, doing it by remote, like you managed?” Pixel asked.
Ariadne nodded slowly, “Yes… for that matter, there could be a Shadowlord vessel trailing us right now, trying to drive us insane before they board. But unfortunately, I think Anubus is right.”
“Of course I am,” Anubus growled. “We should kill the others in the room, just to eliminate the threat.”
“No!” Pixel said. “Some of them are good people.”
“That doesn’t matter to me,” Anubus growled. “They’re still a threat because our enemy hides among them. Killing them will end the threat or drive our enemy into the open.”
“We aren’t killing anyone,” Ariadne said. “And anyway, the psychic tipped his or her hand, already. We know about this threat, so we need to keep our eyes open and stay alert.”
“How do we do that, without tipping off a mind reader?” Pixel asked. “I mean, you said he or she can’t mess with our heads, or not easily, but that doesn’t mean they can’t read our thoughts and realize what we’re up to, right?”
“Yes,” Ariadne said. “For that matter, he or she might already know that we realized what happened. But that’s a risk we will have to take. If you are around someone we’ve identified as the possible psychic, try to think of something that requires a lot of attention. I can shield my mind and those of people nearby, but if your brain is fully occupied, they won’t find our suspicions in our surface thoughts.” Pixel saw Ariadne chew on her lips nervously. Finally she let out a deep breath. “Look, I know it wasn’t Mandy or Miranda.”
“Why?” Pixel asked.
“Because the reason they wanted to talk to me is that they’re both psychics,” she said after a long pause. “And they asked me to keep it quiet. But neither of them are very powerful, not nearly as powerful as this would require. And neither of their abilities lie in telepathy.”
“How do you know?” Anubus growled, “Perhaps they deceived you. Perhaps they plotted-”
“I checked them out, pretty thoroughly after I learned they hid that from us. And it is far easier to hide psychic abilities in the first place than to mask what ones you have when you’ve revealed them, or at least that’s the feeling I get from them,” Ariadne said. “And for that matter, they hate the Chxor as much as Rastar.”
Pixel rubbed at his eyes, “Well that still leaves Elena and our Chxor prisoner…”
“And Crowe,” Ariadne said softly.
“Crowe?” Rastar asked, “But he seemed just as confused as the others.”
“Yes, but I never sensed anyone tamper with his mind.” Ariadne said. “As far as I can tell, he made that vote on his own.”
Pixel rubbed at his chin. He really needed to grow a beard or something to give him the appropriate somber look when he found himself struck by eloquence, “Well… shit.”
* * *
Pixel cornered Run in the lounge, “Run, I need to talk with you.”
“If you have an irrational grudge against me for my attack on you, I assure you that it is misplaced,” Run said. “I only attempted to follow through on my plan to—”
“Oh, that?” Pixel shrugged, “Water under the bridge. No I had a question for you.”
“Water under the bridge…” Run muttered to himself. “I see.” He looked up, “Of course I offer my assistance to whatever line of research you pursue.”
“Great,” Pixel said. He glanced around the lounge, and made certain to keep his voice low. “I want to know if the Chxor have any psychics.”
“No,” Run said.
“No you don’t know or no there aren’t any?”
The little Chxor shook his head, “No Chxor has ever manifested psychic powers. Some of the greatest minds in science, barring myself, have researched that extensively. All attempts at induction of psychic abilities to include genetic manipulation and biomechanical augmentation have failed.”
“You’re saying that you’re aware of every attempt, and that your people have tested your entire population, that’s got to be in the tens if not hundreds of billions, right?”
“The population of the Chxor Empire passed thirty trillion as of the last census, approximately three of your months ago,” Run said. He seemed almost offended at the insinuation that his people might not have complete knowledge. “Among the various tests that all Chxor receive is a test for psychic potential. This includes a magnetic resonance scan of the brain and a quantum reaction test. No Chxor has ever shown anything near the level of even a latent psychic in over seven thousand years of our recorded examinations.”
“Not even one, huh?” Pixel asked. “Well, so much for that idea.”
“Although, negative data does not disprove something, I must conclude that my race has no capabilities for psychic potential,” Run said. “Which is why I need to examine the brain tissue of human psychics, to see if their hormonal imbalances and emotional irrationality somehow ties into their abilities.”
“Yeah,” Pixel nodded, “That actually makes sense…” He looked up as Crowe stepped into the lounge. The other man looked around the room and then noticed Pixel and Run. He walked over, and something about his walk and his clenched fists suggested anger. Pixel tried to focus on the sketch he had drawn up of the computer for Crowe, even as he hoped that the other man was not the psychic they hunted.
“You voted for a captain without me?” Crowe demanded.
“I’m sorry, what?” Pixel stared at the other man without comprehension.
“I think that you suffer from mental instability,” Run said. “You clearly suffer from delusions. You were present at the vote.”
“I was not,” Crowe said. “One of the passengers passed me a message from Mike, that he wanted me to check out something in the communications array up near the bow. By the time I finished that, I ran into Eric coming back from the vote. Cranky bastard almost ran me over in the corridor, and then called me a Chxor lover!”
Pixel’s mind raced. “Who passed you the message?” Pixel asked
Crowe opened his mouth, and then he froze, “That’s funny, I’m normally pretty good with names and faces. Uh, a man, medium height… brown hair I think?”
Pixel closed his eyes, “Shit.”
“I do not follow this conversation,” Run said. “I must assume that it somehow links to human humor. If you have no further questions of me, I will speak with you later, Pixel.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pixel waited for Run to get out of earshot. “Crowe, I need you to come with me and talk with Ariadne. This is important, I can’t say more.”
Crowe frowned, “Uh, I’m not real comfortable around the mind freak. And she doesn’t like me much as it is…”
“Trust me, you’ll want to talk with her,” Pixel said.
He led Crowe down the corridors to where they had met earlier. He found the others back already. “Ariadne, I brought Crowe, you need to hear his story.”
Crowe seemed shocked to see Rastar and Anubus present, “What is this, a meeting of the outcasts? You guys planning a mutiny or something?”
“No,” Ariadne said. “But we felt it best to discuss something in private. What story is it?”
Pixel waited as Crowe repeated his story, including his inability to identify the man he’d spoken with. “So now I’m really confused. Especially since Run said I voted.”
“You did, or at least we thought you did,” Ariadne said. “The person we thought was you voted for Krann the Chxor.”
“What?” Crowe seemed stunned, “That’s ridiculous!”
“I agree,” Anubus growled, “Which is why we suspect a psychic tampered with minds.”
“But I wasn’t even there?”
“Is it possible for a psychic to… do that?” Pixel asked.
Anubus answered, “Yes… I know of one way at least.”
Ariadne nodded too, “It could be a couple of methods, some pretty subtle.” Yet Pixel saw her stare at Crowe for a long moment. “It would be very difficult to maintain that and to mess with Mike and Simon at the same time.”
“Hey, I was down in the commo room for almost forty minutes, you can check the hatch logs, if you want,” Crowe said. “I’m just pissed someone impersonated me. I mean, you’d think you guys would know me better than to think I’d vote for a damned Chxor!”
“You would?” Pixel asked.
“I mean, yeah!” Crowe said. “I hate the Chxor, and I’d be more likely to vote for the eight limbed freak or the freaky pyro girl, or even the damned Wrethe here over Krann.”
“We will note that for future reference,” Anubus growled.
“What’s our plan?” Crowe asked. “I mean, it could be anyone on the ship right?”
Pixel opened his mouth to explain the situation, but Ariadne spoke quickly, “It could. We are trying to narrow the range of suspects. Keep an eye out, and if you think you noticed some suspicious behavior, let us know right away. Don’t try to take the psychic on your own.”
Crowe nodded. “Right. Well, I guess I should probably go talk with Mike, mention the communications work I did. Should I bring this up with him?”
“No,” Anubus growled. “We think him particularly susceptible to this type of attack. We would prefer he not know information that someone else could use against us.”
“Right,” Crowe said. “Well, talk with you later.” He brushed past Pixel and headed for the bridge.
“Well, we know it wasn’t him, at least,” Pixel said.
“No,” Anubus growled, “We know that if it was him, he wanted to alleviate suspicion and to see what we knew.”
“What?” Pixel asked. “That’s pretty paranoid,” Pixel looked around at Rastar and Ariadne, “Right?”
“It is,” Ariadne said quietly. “But we have to welcome that level of paranoia. Right now, our main suspects are Crowe, Krann, and Elena. And while Crowe’s story might check out… I
don’t trust him.”
“But what about this mystery man he talked with?” Pixel asked.
“A good way to cause us to run in circles, man,” Rastar said. “They’re right, it could be his best bet to find out who suspects him.” For once, Rastar’s voice seemed serious and thoughtful.
“Well, that means I led him right to us,” Pixel said. “Shit, I’m sorry guys.”
“No need to be sorry,” Ariadne said. “You did what you thought best. And honestly, if he’s our target and already suspected you, then he could have read your mind and found out as much as we told him. We didn’t give him the details of our suspicions, so keep those to yourself.”
“Could you…” Pixel shrugged, “You know, read his mind?”
“I thought about it,” Ariadne nodded. “But I’m not very skilled at that and if he is our psychic, it would tip our hand. He could play possum and if he’s skilled enough, throw just enough confusion into his thoughts to fool me.” She shrugged, “I’m better at the whole lighting things on fire than this kind of thing.” She looked down, “Also, it feels… wrong, somehow to invade his privacy, even if I think he’s a dirtbag.”
“I guess I can understand that,” Pixel said. He shrugged then, “I’ve got good news and bad news from Run. He says there are no such thing as Chxor psychics. I guess they’ve gone extensive testing over the past seven thousand years. Magnetic resonance scans and something he called a… quantum reaction test.”
“Huh,” Ariadne said. “Seven thousand years? That’s a long time. But humans find ways around tests all the time, so I think we should at least entertain the possibility that Krann might be a psychic.”
“I will keep an eye on her,” Rastar said. “Any time Mike interrogates her, I will insist on my presence, that will ensure someone resistant will be present.”
“Right,” Ariadne nodded. “That leaves Crowe and Elena as prime suspects.” She glanced at Anubus, “Can you shadow him? See what he’s up to?”
“I would rather just kill him,” Anubus growled. “But I don’t mind stalking my prey first.”
“Okay…” Ariadne turned to Pixel, “That leaves Elena to you.”
“To me?” Pixel asked. “What can I do?”
