“Doesn’t matter what I said. Now, Jesi, tell me again what you found, and this time, try to do it without the tears.” Yan gave Tev a gentle push and freed himself from the boy’s arms. He was already onto the next crisis, focused on whatever danger had been relayed to him while Iris was still catching up.
What did we miss? Can you check?Iris asked VIFAI.
I don’t know. I can’t access the feed, it said—the most dreaded words one could hear from a construct. Iris had yet to tell Yan about his suspicions about the ship and already the time for his meandering was running out.
“When you and Vessel Iris got locked in the maintenance room—” Jesi started to say, but her nose began to run again, and she had to pause and take a few deep breaths and wipe it with her sleeve. “When you got locked in, Tev and I tried to cut through, but we very quickly figured out it was a waste of time. We thought we could override the door mechanism from the outside, but we needed my tools and stuff to do it. They’re back at the station, so we thought we’d get station security to get us there on a shuttle and back. You’d still have air by then, and we’d get you out, but when we went to the airlock, well—” Jesi’s nose was running again, and she looked utterly miserable.
“When we went to the airlock, the entire corridor had been cut off,” Tev said, faring a smidgen better. “There’s no path to Vessel’s shuttle either. There’s no way to get through at all. Wetried forcing the doors open, but they wouldn’t listen. We’re stuck. We tried calling Station, but both ours and Security’s radios are out, and we’re locked out of the feed.”
“We’re not stuck,” Yan grumbled and reached for Tev’s radio. After twisting and turning the dials and giving the device a good shake but getting only static, he shoved it back into Tev’s arms. “Riyu, come with me. I need someone to hold my things who won’t break down in tears every few seconds. I’ll override the door and then we’ll be out of here.”
“I’m coming too,” Iris said.
“You’re staying here, Vessel. You’ve done plenty already.”
That stung. Having proven himself capable of keeping a cool head amid certain danger, he had nursed hope that Yan would tolerate—dare he think accept?—him, as the others had. On that, Iris was wrong. Still, Yan’s remark hadn’t been sarcastic, and Iris decided he could appreciate the sentiment and keep his ego out of it. Not a complete failure, then.
“There must be other airlocks nearby,” Iris said.Map, please,he asked VIFAI, and it immediately projected the three-dimensional model behind Iris’s eyes. “It might be that the ship hull is shielding our radio signals, or perhaps there is a solar flare. If we could get past the hull, maybe we could call for help. Would that work, Security?”
“More likely someone is deliberately jamming our radios,” Yan muttered.
“Too many ifs,” one of the station security guards said, throwing Yan a glare and ignoring his quip. “Station can send a shuttle for extraction, but that’sifthe airlock is functional,ifthe path to it is clear, andifwe can get the radios to send a signal in the first place.”
The other guard just nodded along, and Iris realised he had been referring to them both as station security andnothing more, like they were background characters in a private play he had been crafting. He made a mental note to ask them for their names, but till then, he’d call them Guard 1 and Guard 2.
“I don’t particularly like what Yan is suggesting.” Ishtan hadn’t spoken up until now. Quiet and reserved, he was watching everyone from the corner where he and Riyu had been drinking tea when the news of Yan and Iris’s misadventure reached them. “These malfunctions happen on ancient ships. There’s no need to suggest sabotage.”
“And in your experience, do the malfunctions happen when the person who’s responsible for the expedition is trapped in a room and running out of air?”
Riyu clicked her tongue. “Your sense of self-importance is admirable, Yan.”
That got the engineer to smile. “You both know it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s messed with Sychi’s expeditions. We’re on unclaimed property, on a recent permit. It would be opportune timing.”
“Technically,” Guard 2, the younger one, said, “the ship is under our jurisdiction. Our gate, our ship.”
Tev groaned softly.
“No sense starting this up again,” Ishtan said, firmer this time. “I suggest we split up. Yan, his engineers, and Riyu can go and check on the old airlock. Iris, station security, and I can search for a new one. Doesn’t matter who or what is trying to keep us here. I believe we all want to leave.”
A scattered nodding of heads followed.
“Split up?” Tev chuckled. “Haven’t you watched any horror media, Doctor? That’s exactly how they get us.”
“Ah, yes,” Ishtan agreed, a mischievous smile stretching beneath his beard. “What’s most likely is that this is all the workof a radioactive and mutated lone survivor of theNicaea, sent to kill us all. Or maybe, it’s the ghosts of everyone who died here and cursed this place, out to get us.”
Tev’s face drained of colour, and Ishtan broke out into a full-bellied laugh, slapping an open palm against his knee. Iris dreaded the moment when Ishtan would learn just how close he had been to the truth with his joke.IfIris was right.
It was decided then that the group would split up and that Iris and Ishtan, under the supervision of station security, would keep to the perimeter and search for a functional and accessible airlock. Yan, Riyu, and the student engineers would take a quick look at the corridor and see if the door could be raised. Everyone was to meet back at the same spot within two hours.
Iris led the way, with Ishtan and the two security guards trailing closely behind. He kept to the map, diligently projected behind his eyes, exuding nothing but an air of self-assuredness that someone who’d been down these passages before would have. The map suggested a promising airlock not a kilometre from where they were.
Farther down the corridor, the ship’s heartbeat returned. At first, nothing but a whisper, it quickly rose in intensity. It radiated through Iris’s bare feet and echoed along his fingertips as he traced the hull.Make a note of where we are, he asked VIFAI,and keep trying the feed. Send a distress signal immediately when you break through.A deliberatewhen. No sense entertaining other options.
Already he was whispering inside his mind and glancing over his shoulder. Paranoia was never a good sign, but given the weight of the circumstances, Iris let it exist uninterrupted. As they rounded a corner, he reached for the pulsar blade, only to feel nothing but its holster. The weapon was still with Yan andthus useless to them both. If the need arose, Iris would have to get creative to protect himself and the others. Carefully, as to not disturb the stillness of the corridor, Iris lifted a heavy vine from the doorway and ducked underneath. Ishtan and the guards followed closely, the archaeologist craning his neck low to accommodate his lanky frame.
“It is rather strange how that maintenance door malfunctioned, isn’t it, Iris?” Ishtan asked, keeping his voice low.
“I heard somewhere that these malfunctions happen frequently on such ancient ships.” Poor timing for humour, but Iris was desperate to lighten the mood. What was stranger still was how the ship pulsed around him and that he was seemingly the only one to notice it. Many more things were strange here, like the lonely skeleton in its quarters with a bullet hole in the skull. Like the orchard upstairs, and a strange ping in what was supposed to be a dormant ship. Strangeness was all around them, seeped into the very walls of theNicaea. Too many things to call coincidence. An excerpt from an old sutra came to mind.
