“What?” Dante looked to Regi in confusion, but shock robbed Regi of his ability to speak.
Ignoring the inappropriateness of verbally attacking a victim, Ter continued. “Nothing on the screen is blue; therefore, you either have an inadequate ability to perceive color or your species is somehow mentally deficient.”
Regi held his hand out to catch Dante in case he lost his temper and flew into a rage. Ter had that effect on some people.
Instead, Dante laughed. “When my species was less advanced, schematics were printed on a special kind of paper that was always blue. Therefore, we started to call schematics, blueprints. But your fancy translator seems to have a good deal of trouble actually translating.”
Ter huffed. “The programming works better with logical species that do not retain anachronistic sayings within their linguistic matrix.”
Dante’s smile grew wider, showing even more teeth. “Why do I get the feeling I should be insulted by that?”
“Please do not be,” Regi said. Despite what Ter implied, most species had anachronistic structures in their language, including Ter’s people. However, Ter had an unfortunate habit of assuming his logic was more logical than that possessed by any other creature.
“Don't you worry about me. English is illogical enough that I can't go defending its honor, not without making myself seem as big of a fool as you assume I am.” He gave Ter a rather sharp look.
Ter wrinkled his nose and turned his back, ostensibly to zoom in a section of the schematics. “Deck four is one level farther from the bottom of the ship than the quarters that you have claimed for yourself.”
“So it's one level up from my room, and that would mean that if you are as logical as you like to pretend, deck five would be the level above that.”
“Deck five is the level with your room on it,” Regi corrected him.
“Storage rooms are usually placed on the most dangerous decks of the ship. That way if an engine has a critical failure, the crew is as far from the danger as possible, and only the cargo is irradiated,” Ter added.
Regi cringed at Ter's callous suggestion that Dante had been cargo. While it was an accurate description of both the common layout on a ship and the pirates’ attitude towards their slaves, that was unduly harsh. However, Dante did not react. He pointed to the schematic. “Is that my room there?”
“Only were you to study the obverse of the diagram,” Ter said. He pointed to the opposite corner. “This is your quarters.”
Dante put a long delicate finger where his quarters were and then ran the tip toward the main junction and to the right. “There are doors here that we never went in to clean. Ever.”
“Of course not. Engine areas are sealed and filtered. They should require no cleaning.” Ter made no effort to hide his general disrespect for Dante’s intelligence. Others never dismissed Regi as stupid, but they did judge him by his species. They assumed he would be violent or xenophobic. Regi knew what it was to be judged for the failings of a species. He wished he could spare Dante the burden, but he seemed to carry the burden better than Regi did.
“One of the other prisoners... she was desperate. Desperate enough to make some mighty foolish risks.” Dante stood. “She broke one of those doors, thinking maybe there was some way to escape behind it.”
Ter’s expression shifted to something that almost verged on sympathetic. “Without a radiation suit, the energy would have destroyed the integrity of her cellular membranes.”
Dante nodded slowly. “It did. They let her die in our quarters so we would see what happened.”
Horror soured Regi’s stomach. “That would've exposed all of you.”
Dante smiled at Regi. The odd reaction was nearly as disturbing as the murder of Dante’s fellow huuman. “I don't think we got too much exposure because we didn't touch her. Her skin was coming off by then, and we didn't want to cause her any more pain. But to be honest, a little irradiation or cancer was the least of our worries at the time.”
Cancer. Internalized damage to the DNA causing uncontrolled cellular growth that would manifest years after an exposure to dangerous levels of radiation. Regi should have Bevti check him for genetic damage.
As if unaware of the horror his words engendered, Dante continued in the same calm voice. “The pirates put foam around the edges of the door. I think when she broke in, it damaged the seal.”
“Wouldn’t your people have noticed that?” Regi asked.
Ter gave him a disgusted look. “We are on a ship that, until recently, never encountered any event more interesting than one of the captain’s drills or watching the captain distract you from eviscerating some assistant you deemed incompetent. None of my people would think to report a sealed door.”
“If I was going to break into the engine room, I reckon I would break in using a door that had already been broken.” Dante stepped backward, away from Ter.
Regi did tend to assume that their pirate had not been prepared for a boarding party. He had probably assumed that clinging to the event horizon of a black hole would deter security forces, but the pirates had not taken Regi’s goddess into consideration. She was difficult to ignore; in fact, had she advocated for his involvement any harder, Regi would still have been in medical having his bones fused.
“Show me where this door is.” Regi needed to confirm Dante's report.
Ter pulled a radiation meter out of a locker and offered it to Regi. “Don't risk yourself. You are one of the less stupid individuals on this ship.” From Ter, that was a heartfelt compliment.
“I plan to check the door and then call for Vk to set guards until you can retrieve the radiation suits.” At that point, any security people who could fit a radiation suit well enough to be within safety parameters would have to help clear the maintenance areas, and that included Regi. And if a Styl was in there, the work had to be done before the pirate could damage the ship.
