“That intelligent beings would finally show up and their main game is to hang out on an abandoned ship and start torturing anyone who happens by?” Voller asks. “Fuck yes.”
“You’re ascribing human motivations and intentions to something nonhuman,” Nysus says. “We have no idea what their goal is. We don’t even know for certain that they are intelligent. Or, that this is deliberate. Perhaps their mere presence causes our brains to misfire and hallucinate. We don’t know. Butsomethingis happening.” He takes a breath, sweat beading on his forehead. “My grandfather has joined my father,” he says, turning his head away. “My grandfather is dead, TL.”
So it’s not just me anymore. Maybe I’m just more sensitive to it, whateveritis. Maybe we’ll all start seeing the dead eventually. Oh goody.
“If it’s ghosts or aliens or some shit, how are you going to prove that?” Voller points out.
“If no other logical answer remains, then we have to assume that it’s something previously classified as illogical.”
“Great,” Voller snarls. “I love this plan.”
“I do have one other idea,” Nysus says. “But it’s risky and likely to make conditions more… erratic, especially during a search.”
Becausemoreerratic is certainly what we need.
“What’s the idea?” Kane asks, folding his arms across his chest.
“I think I can push the engines a little harder. Get us through maybe ten hours faster,” Nysus says, scrubbing his hands over his eyes, pushing in too hard, as if that will erase whatever he’s seeing. “It’s risky with as old as the engines are and with this level ofcharge. But the bigger problem is, with diverting more power to the engines, we may experience instability in some subsystems.”
“Meaning?” I prompt.
“The lights,” he admits. “Maybe even the temperature. It won’t drop to fatal levels, but it may not be… comfortable.”
So, dark and cold, as well as seeing people that aren’t there.
“We need some ground rules,” I say. “Like before, nobody goes anywhere alone. No exceptions. If you see someone or something that doesn’t belong, you tell your partner. If your partner is the one behaving strangely, then report back to the others.”
This is going to quickly spiral into chaos if none of us can be sure what we’re experiencing is real.
“Voller, you can crash on the bridge with Lourdes,” I say.
“Why are we listening to you?” Voller asks, raising his head. His eyes are bloodshot and narrowed. “How do we know it’s not you? That you’re not responsible somehow? You’re crazy already. Everybody knows that.”
Stung, I step back. Voller and I haven’t always gotten along well, but the genuine hate beaming from his eyes right now is disconcerting. Lourdes, too, is giving me a less-than-friendly look. And that hurts. More than I expected it to.
“That’s not how—” I begin.
“Impossible,” Nysus says. “Your theory doesn’t fit the data. It can’t explain Gerard.”
Voller mumbles something unintelligible but doesn’t push it.
Nysus turns to me. “I need to stay here to monitor the engines at the increased levels, make sure we’re not headed toward a blowout.”
So that leaves Kane and me for the search again.
I make myself glance at him, fearing for a moment that I’ll see that same hate or fear from him, but he simply nods.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“You did the right thing, you know,” Kane says as we leave the bridge.
“Yeah, we’ll see about that. Voller doesn’t seem to think so.” We’re starting at the far end of the starboard corridor this time.
“Voller is an idiot,” he says.
Maybe so, but Lourdes isn’t.
Kane reaches out and squeezes my hand. I let myself hold on for a few seconds before letting go. That’s progress, isn’t it?
