Holly and Moussa took the lift after leaving their quarantined guests to go to Consultation. Holly had thought that she would feel safer after taking the Sci-Med team under guard but it hadn’t worked that way. The creeping feeling that everything was spiraling out of control was impossible to push out of her mind. And she just wanted to get back out into the farthest reaches of the Delta Hydri system to hand off the materials and information to the probe. Then, maybe they could manage to wait for rescue. Just maybe.
“TURING,” she said, “increase ship’s thrust by five percent.”
“Increasing thrust will require deploying radiators more frequently,” TURING warned. “It will significantly increase the probability that we are detected.”
“Do it, I don’t care anymore.” She looked at Moussa while exiting the lift. “Maybe the Elios can help us.”
He just shook his head while TURING confirmed the Nineveh was incrementally increasing the power output of the ship’s magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters.
Any member of the crew could access TURING from almost anywhere on the ship by simply speaking. However, the highest security interactions with TURING had to take place in a designated location. To have the highest permissions and authority, multifactor authentication was used. You had to not just know command codes and present biometric information, you had to physically be in a place that only the Officers would know and could access.
Holly entered the hall toward Consultation with Moussa beside her. The hall had a row of small lockers for all the Officers, each with a keypad lock. She entered the pass code to open hers. Inside was a well-ordered rack of thumbdrive keys. She took the one which was currently active and then went the rest of the way down the hall. She then entered Consultation by using her key as well as submitting to a retina and fingerprint scan.
Consultation was a small, inconspicuous room. There were storage shelves and a small console in a corner. It was designed to look unimportant and, in fact, it was. Consultation was not a fixed location. The Nineveh regularly rotated various non-essential spaces into the role. Once an Officer proved their identity with biometric information, access key, command pass code, and knowledge of the correct location then TURING would grant him or her full authority over the ship – including the ability to override primary programming.
She sat down in the console’s chair and inserted her key. And then she identified herself and recited part of an old poem that nobody else would think to use. “Navigator and acting Captain Keisha Holly, command code: Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark! And may there be no sadness or farewell, when I embark.”
The security system verified the code and her voice, and then the local console booted up. “Welcome. Logging you in as acting Captain, Ms. Holly. The Nineveh is operating under condition Pinnacle and emergency countermeasures are in place, although it is evident that they will not contain the threat for long. Various systems in Aux Two and Propulsion Two are compromised. You have full authority.”
Holly reclined in the seat. Moussa came up alongside and behind her, resting his arm on the back of her chair.
“I would remind you, Ms. Holly, that access to Consultation is restricted to Line and Sci-Med Officers only.”
“I’m exercising my emergency powers, TURING. Moussa is the acting Engineering Officer and will succeed me in command should it be necessary. Transfer Zhu’s access to him.”
“Emergency powers are acknowledged. Engineer Zhu’s key is now associated with Moussa’s biometric data. An initial passcode has been transmitted to his tablet and he may change it to his liking at this time.”
Moussa reviewed recent logs on his tablet. “I got it,” he confirmed.
Holly didn’t intend to lose command, but it was her duty to leave a measure in place for that possibility. She didn’t want Sci-Med holding absolute power. She didn’t know if she could lock them out, but it was worth trying. “TURING, revoke all authority for Amanda Patterson and Jai Chandna.”
“I’m unable to comply. Condition Pinnacle has been declared. Operational Command is not permitted to interfere with Sci-Med activities.”
I was afraid of that. Admiralty Law AND the Paramount. “Then revoke privileges for Stocky.”
“I’m unable to comply. K134863R is registered as the ship’s Laboratory Technician.”
“By whose authority?”
“Leading Sci-Med Officer Amanda Patterson.”
She heard Moussa yawn behind her.
“Damn you,” Holly whispered as she yawned in turn. She paused for a moment as she fought to keep her eyes open. Stimulants had their limits. She strained to stand. “It’s getting hard to keep awake.”
“I know,” he said. “We can’t push ourselves for long with stimulants.”
She looked away, trying not to think about it. He had pronounced bags under his eyes, and she was probably just as bad, if not worse. They would soon need to sleep regardless of duty. Their bodies would force it. And that meant they didn’t have any time to spare with mundane chat. “TURING, did you receive anything unusual with the crew package for Doctor Chandna?”
“Doctor Chandna’s package conformed with company standards and was fully reviewed by former Captain De Silva and Doctor Patterson.”
“You didn’t know that he was a robot?”
“No.”
“The company lied to us,” Moussa affirmed.
“Or they were lied to by our buyer,” Holly answered. She figured that was far more likely. “How did the hibernation unit fail to identify that he was a robot?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have enough information available to determine the cause of that failure. Presumably, it has been compromised, and a full calibration check and functional test should be performed before a final diagnosis is made.”
“It’s like I said,” Moussa affirmed. “The PLC runs the thing. TURING just reads the information it gives. And Chandna or one of the service techs we brought aboard before underway had plenty of time to tamper with it.”
She nodded affirmatively. “Chandna has been against us the whole time. Can you tap into its central processor directly?”
“No,” Moussa answered. Holly looked dejected and he added, “Well, maybe. If we can find out its model number and if TURING has the proper schematics and tech manuals. It’s a long shot, Captain.” He stressed that part.
She sighed. “Alright. We’ll try questioning them first. TURING, was any personnel information about Stocky withheld from the crew on company directives?”
“No,” came the answer. “His personnel report was complete.”
“Why has the company recommended non-homo sapiens humans for the Nineveh?”
“Homo sapiens recommendations were also made, Captain. It should be noted that their performance histories were not as exemplary. De Silva believed that ‘Stocky’ was the best candidate.”
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“We’re not getting anywhere,” Moussa told her.
She silently disagreed because they were confirming a lot about Stocky. “Stocky was De Silva’s choice then?”
“Correct.”
Maybe he is trustworthy. His actions could just be the result of desperation. She couldn’t fault him that; they were all desperate. Chandna was the only one who couldn’t feel fear and desperation. “Did Sci-Med discover that Chandna was an android?”
“Sci-Med audio logs show that Stocky recently informed Patterson that Chandna possessed unusual characteristics. They alluded to the possibility. Patterson chose not to investigate the matter.”
“Why?” Holly demanded.
“No correlation with the Pazuzu infestation. Stocky testified that Chandna had been this way since arrival. That allowed Patterson to conclude that it is not a symptom of being compromised by Pazuzu.”
“What are the known symptoms of Pazuzu infestation for a human being.”
“Sci-Med has not compiled enough information to make a reasonable determination on that matter. Doctor Patterson’s belief is that symptoms regularly change. A larger sample size is needed to prove whether any known symptoms are always present.”
“Damn it,” Moussa exclaimed. “What have they been doing?”
That jogged Holly’s memory about something else. She knew that Sci-Med had been working to neutralize Pazuzu’s contagion but nobody could expect that to be a fast process. But she remembered that Chandna was alone before the attack on the Mess and so she asked, “Where were Stocky and Patterson immediately preceding the attack on Crew’s Mess?”
“They were in Berthing.”
“What were they doing?”
“Intimate contact. The audio logs suggest that Patterson disagreed with the suggestion of having sexual intercourse and things degenerated into something resembling sexual assault to an outside observer.”
Moussa and Holly looked at one another but said nothing. This was worrying news. Replicants were supposed to be safe. Examples of replicants hurting humans were extremely rare. Stocky’s behavioral conditioning was supposed to prevent such things.
“Has Stocky’s behavioral conditioning failed?” She didn’t think it possible since he seemed to be responding normally to tasking and priorities but it had to be asked.
“That’s possible. There’s not enough information to make a conclusion. Patterson has attributed the incident to pheromone activity. Stocky, unlike homo sapiens, has a functioning vomeronasal organ and is receptive to this form of signaling. This was only an initial hypothesis, however, and she hasn’t performed any verification.”
Holly looked at Moussa. “What do you think?”
He tiredly shrugged. “Patterson seems to trust him. He doesn’t seem hostile. I’d be scared if he was. The fact is we need him. We’re all human – plain homo sapiens human. We have the same weaknesses. But he’s different, and that puts a kink in Pazuzu’s plans.”
“Yeah,” she said as she rested her head in her hand. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t do any worse than Pazuzu.”
“Find out what was going on when they told us that story about being in Green Gate,” Moussa said.
She yawned again. Good suggestion. They had lied and there had to be a reason for it. Desperation was certainly behind it, but desperation led to a decision. “TURING, when Chandna falsely claimed that they were in Green Gate, where were they really?”
“They were in Propulsion Module Four.”
“What were they doing?” she asked. She couldn’t think of any reason for them to be there – except for the sabotage they discussed. Chandna and Patterson didn’t know much about the propulsion systems. Stocky did work on both the FTL and sublight systems, but he had no assigned tasks there.
“I don’t have enough information to determine what they were doing. However, audio logs show they did discuss sabotaging the Nineveh’s FTL drive immediately beforehand.”
I remember. She looked back at Moussa. “Do you have an idea on what they might have done?”
“There are many possibilities,” he answered. “They didn’t trigger any alarms, so they compromised some of the supporting systems, and not the actual FTL drive. That might still do the trick, it just takes a bit longer. We’ll have to get them to tell us or wait until we can do a full inspection. I don’t think this is worth chasing down now. We don’t need the FTL drive for months.” He looked in her eyes dead serious.
“We need it eventually to go home!” she reminded him.
“Ma’am, we have bigger problems to tackle,” he said. “But if you want that then we have to get it out of them.”
“Alright, let’s do it,” she said. She told TURING to log her off and she pulled her key out of the console. She felt a creeping fear. She wasn’t sure how far she was prepared to go. Nor did she know at what level their coercion would prevent them from coming together again if they were human. Maybe they were already past the point of no return.
God, help me.
----------------------------------------
Holly went with Moussa to the Bridge and reviewed the Navigation console and displayed messages. The spy probe had acknowledged their previous transmission stating that they were in distress, and it reported the system was free of foreign influence. It awaited secure document uploads and the material samples promised.
She thought about how Pazuzu had been here and hiding in front of their noses the whole time. This system wasn’t free of foreign influence, just made to look that way. Delta Hydri was a trap of some kind. She tried to focus on the small win they had achieved. “No matter what, our families should be safe.”
“Not yet,” he said.
“What do you mean? The science teams will find a way to beat Pazuzu.”
He shook his head. “We need Patterson’s cooperation for that. She compiled all our information on it, and she still holds that. What she’s been giving us are summary reports. She still has those ‘safe samples’ too. And the people she knows back home will need that since we found this thing on a spaceship and so others might encounter it elsewhere.”
She sighed and tiredly collapsed in a fold out chair. “Let me guess, I don’t have the authority to extract their files and find out what materials these are?”
“It’s Pinnacle, Captain. They’ve determined Pazuzu could threaten mankind as a whole. Sci-Med doesn’t answer to anyone in this situation.” He looked her in the eyes. “And do you even want to go in the Isolab?”
She began to laugh at the irony, which hurt her chest. They weren’t in control. And then she hunched over in a fit of hacking coughing, and that hurt too. She tried to relax to stop the coughing. Besides, why did it matter that she wasn’t in control when she wasn’t a real Captain?
Moussa reached over and patted her back. “You okay?”
She sat in the chair without talking for a while, trying to breathe in long, deep breaths. “We got to get her to cooperate with us no matter what.”
He looked horrified. “You don’t mean to hurt her?”
“No!” She looked back up at him in shock. “We’ll need to barter something. I’m not hurting anyone.” She began to cry over all the death. She had always been apprehensive about coming to Delta Hydri, but had trusted De Silva’s ability and experience. She wasn’t strong enough to express her fears. And she couldn’t face this new fear. “I wish we never came here.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “No fixing that. No point even spending energy worrying about it.”
She looked down at the deck thinking how true that was. Nothing to do but go on. “Let’s go.”
He helped her up. “They might feel more comfortable about us after a few hours…prove that we’re human.”
“It’ll just make her mad.”
They walked to the lift and took it to the bottom deck. It only took a moment to spot Samoylova lying face down. Moussa saw her first and ran to her, panicked. She froze in horror. Was Sam dead? And where was Nieves? I didn’t want this. Guilt seemed to be all around, suffocating her. She had brought this on all of them. Sure, Sci-Med had talked about taking her command, but she had chosen to imprison them instead of showing why she should keep it.
Moussa turned Samoylova on her back and she began to move. A surge of relief filled Holly. She knew they hadn’t killed anyone. She jogged to them and bid Samoylova to take it easy. She was visibly bruised.
“What happened?” Moussa asked.
“Patterson hit me, I think,” Samoylova said. She covered her face with one hand and kept her eyes closed. “They escaped…”
“Just rest,” Moussa said.
Nieves shouted from the entrance to the Gate from Propulsion One. “Holly! How is she?”
“Good! What happened?”
“They escaped,” Nieves said while walking to them. “They jumped us and took their equipment. I tried to tell them we’d be safer together. I…I don’t think they care about us anymore.”
“Do you think they’ll come after us?” She had made things worse. But hopefully not that bad.
Nieves looked confused. “I don’t think so. I think they would have hurt us if they had wanted to.”
She looked at Moussa. “I’m sorry. I just made things worse.”
“I was for it too,” he said apologetically.
“They do seem to be human. Chandna’s a liar…but then he ain’t a person.”
“What do you want to do?” Moussa asked.
Holly watched Nieves help Samoylova stand up. Chandna, an android, couldn’t get angry. Stocky would obey her within reason. (Pinnacle and all.) But it was better to wait for Patterson to cool down. Or at least allow her to get the space she wanted. “We’ll wait. Now that Patterson is free, we’ll wait for her temper to cool. We need to start a sleep rotation anyways.”
She looked at Samoylova, who likely had a mild concussion. “Get a few hours of sleep. Rest your head.” She turned to Moussa. “We’ll get this Gate ready for a long siege. TURING, I want to be informed of the Sci-Med team’s whereabouts at all times.”
“Understood, Captain,” TURING said. “They’re now travelling through Green Gate. Understand that I cannot undermine their activities.”
“I just want to know where they are.”
She hoped that God would put it in Patterson’s heart to forgive her. And she hoped they were both ready for what Pazuzu was coming with. Neither of them had much time.