Ship of Ghosts

by David Bischoff

  “She needs water, now!” said D’Argo.

  Crichton moved to the bridge trough pool. He filled a beige ceramic cup with good old H2O, pleasant and cool, the same throughout the universe and thank God for that. He brought it over to D’Argo, who attended to Zhaan, letting some of the cool, sweet water slip into her mouth. Zhaan imbibed gratefully and smiled up at the warrior helping her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “How did you know I was parched?”

  D’Argo smiled down at her warmly. “There is nothing like water to feed life. Water is precious and your life is precious.” He shot an annoyed glance back at Aeryn. “Are you all right, then, Zhaan?”

  She nodded gratefully. “How soon the healer needs healing.”

  “Are you ready to tell us what you saw?” said D’Argo.

  “Yes, and why did you have that odd attack?” said Crichton.

  “I don’t know. It was as though…” She paused and a haunted expression crossed her face.

  “What’s wrong, Zhaan?” asked Crichton.

  “It was as though someone was looking at me,” continued Zhaan. “Studying me. Learning. An odd, overpowering presence.”

  “Moya,” said Crichton.

  Zhaan tilted her head to consider his suggestion. “No,” she said after some moments. “I could feel Moya—she is a strong presence as well, but one that we feel to some degree around us all the time. This was different—as if I suddenly had been caught in the beam of a great spotlight pointed at all of us.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun.”

  “No. But I’ll be fine. Thank you for the water. And Moya’s memories did help me learn more of the Nokmadi.” She smiled faintly. “Or rather, now I remember more—although some of my memories are Moya’s.”

  “The Nokmadi were explorers and warriors?” prompted D’Argo.

  “No,” said Zhaan. “They did not wage war. They did travel the universe. Mapping. Learning. They merely sought to understand.”

  “Things might have changed in a million cycles or so,” said D’Argo. “It would help us to know the weak points of this race and their ships.”

  “Wait a moment. I’m remembering…” Zhaan shook her head. “Many peoples have legends of a vessel that appeared at a distance from their home planet. It floated into their territory one day, and floated away again.”

  “Maybe the ship itself was sentient? Maybe no one was aboard?” suggested D’Argo.

  “No,” said Zhaan. “Someone was aboard. They could feel her.”

  “Her?” said Crichton.

  Zhaan opened her scintillant eyes and looked at them. The depths of the universe and of time itself glowed in those eyes. “Some kind of being, or perhaps beings. In a vessel that wandered throughout space. The legends say that the vessel never returned home.”

  “Lost navigators,” said Aeryn. “How very frelling poetic.”

  Zhaan rose from the bench and strode around the chamber, her hands clasped behind her back, her silken robes shimmering under the light. She stopped to gaze up at the vu-screen, which showed the great pits and valleys of the other ship at a range so close it seemed as if the two ships might bump together.

  “That ship is so pitted, it looks like the surface of an uninhabited moon. Like a moon, it could have been moving through space for aeons.”

  Aeryn moved beside her, craning her long neck to study the vu-screen. “So you think that this … this ship … it’s that lost ship. Only it’s found us?”

  “I discount no possibility. However, it does seem extraordinary.”

  “I am sick as hezmana of myths. Pilot, have you had any success yet on the communication bands?” asked the ever-practical D’Argo.

  “None whatsoever, I’m afraid,” returned Pilot. “However, there has been activity with the tendrils. They have sought out and found the cargo hold. I have also managed to realign my anterior screens. We can now see what’s happening along Moya’s side.”

  The screens flickered and showed a different view. Crichton could see the thick tendrils wrapped around Moya—and beyond the jagged hull of the ship. Something was happening.

  “Looks like they’re pulling us even closer, for actual docking,” said Aeryn. “They’ve scoped out the cargo hold and know what to do.”

  “Like opening a tin can,” said Crichton.

  “Crichton, Aeryn, join me,” said D’Argo. “We must greet the intruders.”

  “And me?” said Zhaan.

  “For this endeavor we need warriors,” said D’Argo. “We will contact you from the other vessel—if we can.”

  The warrior’s coat-tails and head-tentacles whirled as he swept away. Grabbing up her own gun, Aeryn gave Crichton a significant glance, threw him a pulse pistol and then followed.

  “Show time!” said Crichton.

  * * *

  His name was Rygel XVI and he was a right and royal sovereign. With dignity and composure he looked out upon his subjects, who whirred and squeaked with awe and servitude. From his lofty height, looking out over his personal chamber, Rygel held out his hand and made the royal gestures of acceptance of this adoration and praise.

  “To you, good sirrah, I bestow my beneficence!”

  Rygel twiddled his fingers. His expressive eyes lowered upon the small, metallic, bug-like subjects, who twittered and responded with a jerky motion. Rygel had absolutely no idea what the twittering meant, but he rather fancied it being something along the lines of, “Hail, holiest of masters, and hallowed be thy stool!”

  Savouring the odors of this royal moment, the Great One turned to another subject, who seemed to be doing some kind of herky-jerky backwards-and-forwards dance of praise itself.

  “To you, good subject, I bestow my beneficence.” Happy now in his element, sensing familiar smells with his delicate nostrils as the gases started to percolate and whisper up, feeling pleasant tingles, the Once and Future King felt that all was right. Rygel XVI, Dominar, was on his throne.

  “I well remember the time that two women came to me,” said Rygel to his subjects, raising his voice slightly so that they could hear every exalted word from their lowly positions. “Each claimed ownership of a baby. They came for me to judge who was the rightful mother. Now, in this era of extreme genetic confusion, it could well be that both were the mothers and there were no fathers. But, my loyal friends, in my wisdom I cut to the true matter at hand. ‘I have decided,’ I told them, ‘that I shall eat the baby and thus determine its rightful parent.’” The diminutive Dominar raised both eyebrows and looked expectantly down at his subjects.

  “And it was very tasty in a fresh Baza wine sauce, barbecued over naga coals.”

  They wiggled their eyestalks and buzzed. One began to turn around in circles, and another zoomed back and forth until it ran into a wall.

  Rygel laughed uproariously, farting with sovereign authority.

  “Nincompoops!” cried Rygel. “Of course I didn’t eat the baby! Both mothers set up such a fuss that I had it cloned, and happiness was had by all!”

  The DRDs winked and buzzed.

  Rygel XVI sighed and gazed down at his subject. Although he was grateful they attended to him, they lacked certain something. What was it? Intelligence? Personality? Character? Certainly all those things, but then those were never qualities he’d looked for in subjects before. Ah well you had to take what you got, and be grateful!

  What was it that that odd earthling had called him the other day? The Dunce and Future King? Hmm. That sounded right and royal. Rygel rather liked this new fellow. John Crichton had told him that he’d come from a world in which succession of rulers was, until recently, decided mostly by blood, so the earthling well knew the power and majesty this process visited upon the peoples who practiced it.

  In fact, Crichton had told him of a dinky and foggy island that had once been a mighty empire and that still honored and appreciated its royal line. Alas, the place was now so diminished in stature that it was best known for witty conversation, good universitie
s, and proper beer. Rygel identified with this island and thought its people might appreciate him. In fact, hearing that the current royalty was rather out of favor with its subjects rather perked up Rygel’s hopes.

  “Perhaps,” he had told Crichton, “if we find your Earth first, I can apply for the job, and they can get the kind of monarch they deserve!”

  Crichton had allowed that yes, he’d do his best to see that proper inquiries were made.

  Still, it was tough for a former Dominar, imprisoned for many cycles, tormented and terrified and abused, to tend to his needs, even in freedom. Certainly it had taken long enough to persuade Pilot and Moya to lend him some DRDs as “assistants.” Even then, if there was some kind of internal emergency, they’d buzz off to be about their duties like defender cells sensing an infection. They were just little mobile robots, the Diagnostic Repair Drones, round bug-like things on treads and wheels that patrolled the highways and byways of this intelligent ship’s innards. Crichton said that they were the first thing he’d seen when he’d entered Moya; they were the beings who’d given him the microbe injection that served as a universal translator. They were the workfolk of the place, Moya versions of nanotech custodians, techs and mechanics. When Rygel saw that the rest of the crew weren’t inclined to elevate him to the status that was his due, he immediately saw the potential of these creatures, smaller in size even than him.

  “Now then,” said Rygel XVI. “It would seem that Moya has got herself in a bit of a spot. Captured by a strange ship—my word! A careless bunch. If the other members of this silly crew would only listen to me!”

  The DRDs buzzed and chirped in agreement.

  “Yes,” Rygel said. “When you’re adored by millions of subjects, it seems to me much easier to go home and have myself restored to my rightful power. Then I can find out the location of the homes of the rest of the crew, but only after much sport, merriment and leisure. But do you think the crew listened to me? No! The fools. Yes, it is true, they pointed out that I was a deposed ruler and that not only might I be executed upon sight by the new rulers, but that they, as my associates, would meet a similar fate. Even though I told them that there were thousands and thousands of subjects who missed my benign rule terribly, they would not believe me! Can you see why I am so dejected? Can you see why I have this attitude?”

  One of the DRDs scurried off and bumped into a wall. It twittered forlornly.

  “Idiot! Fool! Lord, what I have to settle for!” The Dominar rolled his fingers over his lips, contemplating the puniness of his throne. Oh, how the mighty had fallen! But the truly mighty remain strong! The truly high-born are never less than royal. A higher breed, with higher brows and higher brains and higher intent and purpose. Somehow he must convince the others that he should be in charge, and his work with these DRDs was the only thing he could do right now.

  Yes, he would shape them up!

  “The others can deal with that little matter of being captured by an alien ship,” said Rygel XVI. “They need practice in coping with minor difficulties on their own. Besides, I need to keep my magnificent self as safe as possible in such matters, in order to preserve what hope for order this galaxy has!”

  The DRDs chittered and wobbled and bumped into walls with mechanical joy.

  “Right. Now, let’s see if we can’t teach you a few things!” said Rygel.

  He pushed the lever to flush, and then hobbled off his throne, savoring the music of the gaseous symphonies rising from his gurgling issue.

  * * *

  The docking bay of Moya was huge.

  It had to be, thought Crichton, in order to accommodate the mammoth cargo that this Leviathan must have carried in her day. He never failed to get a frisson of awe when he looked at the opening that had accepted him that fateful day of his arrival, when he was fleeing the snarling storm of the Peacekeepers. Moya had accepted him like a mother receiving a child into her arms, and she had sustained his life and his hope.

  Now the sound of something big and mighty was echoing through her massive halls like the rumblings of cymbals prefacing a Wagnerian opera.

  “The doors!” cried Aeryn.

  “Prepare for invasion!” said D’Argo, assuming his warrior stance. This time, instead of merely ritualistically touching the grip of his Qualta Rifle, he reached behind and pulled it out at a speed that seemed to rival the StarBurst itself. Tentacles waving slightly, the warrior stood alert, ready for anything.

  “Let them do their worst!” spat Aeryn. She took a stance right alongside D’Argo, her jaw set, her arms outstretched to hold her pulse pistol at the ready. Aeryn’s Peacekeeper training was first-rate, and she fought best in a group, as she had been trained—even a motley group like this one. Crichton had complicated feelings about her, but they were simplified in survival situations like this. Fighting is a good sublimation for other emotions.

  “We should be behind a bulkhead,” he said, switching off the safety of his own pulse pistol. “They could come out firing.”

  “We will retreat if necessary,” said D’Argo. “It is bad form to show anything but bravery to a stranger. Courage is courage in all languages.”

  “Call it courage or call it curiosity,” said Aeryn. With a shake of her head she flipped raven-black hair behind her shoulders. “I just want to have a look at what’s there.”

  “We’re not going to get sucked out into the vacuum, are we?” said Crichton.

  D’Argo shook his head. “Moya has seals. She will compensate for any apertures, particularly since Pilot knows we’re down here.”

  They stood poised, ready, and as they watched, the great cargo door began to ease open.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Peacekeeper ship, the DarkWind, had set loose the hellhounds. But instead of enveloping Moya in a radiant cloud of devastation, the untried weapon met the energies of StarBurst—and opened an envelope into the unknown.

  Moya shimmered and disappeared into StarBurst, and the DarkWind, blown back by the lethal power of the combined forces, erupted into space in a flurry of quanta energy. As retros and stabilizers fought for balance and equilibrium, the cutter tumbled through a new space and a new time.

  Its captain, Sha Sutt, struggled with the g-forces, fighting to maintain consciousness. She was rattled from the top of her handsome and determined face to the bottom of her prosthetic right foot. Anything that was not locked in place on the bridge tumbled and banged, scattered or thunked: the rectangular metallic case of a mobile tracking apparatus, a black light-sconce that had been jarred loose, the techs’ palmtop dataholds. Everything seemed lighter, airier, as though the crew’s minds had stopped short of their heads and their weight hadn’t quite caught up with them. A young forcefield monitor, complexion pale as a moon, threw up in his maintenance bag. A sour smell permeated the atmosphere even as lights flashed on and off and an alarm sounded deep in the heart of the DarkWind.

  “Stress levels on hull unacceptable,” barked a grizzled pilot, grimacing through the map of wrinkles that was his face. “Captain, unless there’s a transfer of energy from directional impetus to form equilibrium—we’re going to implode.”

  “Do it!” snapped Captain Sutt.

  Damn it! she thought, struggling not to be sick herself. Crais would not have ordered the pilot to sacrifice pursuit for survival—he would have driven the ship until she cracked up. But then again, Crais was light-years away. Her own judgement needed to be brought into play here.

  The pilot’s hands danced across the controls. He touched bulbs and pulled switches, and the graphs on the monitors slowly began to fill with energy—the power that would keep the crew of ten on the small Peacekeeper cutter alive. As he did so, a sub-pilot calibrated the power to stabilize the artificial gravity. It seemed to Sutt as though the universe was suddenly piecing itself back together again. The strange and hellish trip they had just experienced, seemingly through eternity and infinity, both of them lit by rainbows of an almost hallucinogenic intensity, coalesced into dull quot
idian reality. Here she was, Sha Sutt, strapped in her captain’s chair, surveying the bridge of a fourth-unit cutter, an old piece of junk that had seen far better days. The surfaces were dull and the upholstery on the chairs was thin. It smelled of Sebacean sweat glands and yesterday’s dinner—and of that idiot’s vomit, of course. But these were biological smells, and the wear and tear of a Peacekeeper’s bridge, the odd tassels and rockshells and knickknacks from other planets (forbidden on the clean and neat First Class ships controlled by the tight-rectums further up the chain of command) made her feel as though some semblance of normality had been achieved. Even the gravity was settling back to normal, and she felt the return of weight dropping through her body, until she felt newly heavy, as if she had just climbed out of water. It made her head ache.

  She shook off her wooziness and unclipped the harness that was biting into her chest. The straps fell to the sides of the chair, and she was able to breathe again. She looked up at the vu-screen. The Leviathan was gone—and so was the asteroid field.

  “Where are we?” she demanded.

  The navigator rumbled to himself for a moment, shaking his hair as though to remove the vestiges of the null-space they’d just been through, and then consulted the parabolas and digitals on the screens before him. “Indeterminate at the moment. If you’ll just give me a second, Captain. Ah. Yes. Defining. Referencing. Out of range of all Peacekeeper ships, including the LightMessenger. But still in the galaxy, Captain.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Sha Sutt. “Keep on it, Hendrin. I know you can refine our location. Sensors? Have we got a bearing on the Leviathan?”

  “Objective not within scope of parameters. Will enlarge,” said the queasy-looking woman near the sensor-bank, leaning over the sproutings of controls. Although she had the Peacekeeper veneer of calm and control, her eyes betrayed a gleam of fear. Peacekeepers were used to fear, though. They had to be in control, after all, not merely of their domain in the universe, but, above all, of their inner universe. They could not rule the outer without iron control over the inner. Equilibrium was everything—according to the rule book, anyway. Captain Sha Sutt well knew that this was not the case. One of the top Peacekeepers, after all, was Crais—and Crais was a volcano. Sha Sutt herself, despite the fact that she affected a composed and glacial countenance, knew all too well that this was a facade.