Rear Sections.

Thief and Emily stood side by side in their grey jumpsuits. Johan kitted them out for the trip ahead, while Thief’s mother fussed around them with worry.

“Seems to me,” she said, glancing at the large map, “This is the longest trip ever attempted since the cataclysm. What if they get lost, or worse?”

Johan finished attaching Emily’s battery pack to her belt. “They won’t get lost, that’s why we have the radios. And there won’t be a ‘worse’, because Mary can track Bianca’s location and warn us if she gets close to the girls. Right, Mary?”

“That is correct, yes. Although I cannot track her in the actual target location, I should be able to provide sufficient warning if she heads in that direction.”

Thief wished the computer wasn’t so honest sometimes.

“Don’t worry, Mamma, we’ll be fine.” she said, tightening the rad counter on her wrist.

“Let’s do a checklist.” Johan said.

“Radios working?”

“Check.” The two girls answered in unison, tapping their earpieces.

“Rad counters?”

“Check.”

“Matches?”

“Check.”

“Food and drink?”

“Check.” Emily patted the backpack slung over her shoulder. They had enough nutro packs and bottles of water to last a couple of days.

“Blood sample?”

Thief moved behind Emily and zipped open the front pouch of the bag. Inside, a small vial of blood from the hospital lay wrapped in a t-shirt.”

“Check.”

“Now remember, you don’t need to find the lab. Mary will send a cleaning droid. Put the sample into that and she’ll take it from there.”

“Yes Johan, you’ve told us a million times.”

“No, he hasn’t. He’s told you four times.” Mary corrected.

“After that, see if you can find this tree. Bring a branch or two back and we’ll make these weapons. Don’t try to do anything else on your own, okay?”

Thief gave her mother a tight hug and the two girls climbed up the workshop wall and into the dark shaft.

“Welcome to my home.” Thief joked as Emily crawled into the space behind her.

“Thanks, I love what you’ve done with the place.”

Mary spoke in their ears after five minutes of crawling.

“Can you both hear me okay?”

“Yes.” They both replied.

“Good. Thief, I won’t speak again until you reach the engineering bay. That is, unless I detect Bianca moving in your direction.”

“Okay, thanks Mary.”

With Emily close by, the crawl through the dark did not seem as arduous. At each turn she would give Thief’s foot a squeeze to let her know she was right there. When the ducting grew hotter, they checked their rad counters. Still in the low thirties. They estimated this was also the temperature in Celsius. Stripping off clothes was not practical with their earpieces wired to their belts. Mary had also warned that some parts of the journey ahead may have low temperatures. And so they sweltered their way through to engineering.

As Thief helped Emily climb down, Mary came back on the air.

“I’m going to activate minimal lighting in the corridors you’ll travel through. I’ll keep it low so that your eyes can adjust to the areas with no lights. Try to conserve those archaic matches of yours.”

“Hey, is she hassling my matches?” Johan asked in the background.

“Don’t worry, Johan. We love your little sticks with dried pee on the end.” Thief replied, making Emily giggle.

Mary unlocked the door out of the storage bay, and the girls walked down the corridor. Smooth white surfaces and soft, hidden lighting greeted them.

“Wow, it’s so different to our end of the ship.” Emily ran her fingers along the clean wall.

“My cleaning droids keep it this way. And also, there aren’t hundreds of humans living here anymore. They tend to make a mess.”

***

Deck 7. Front section T. The Blood Bank.

“Bite me!” Bianca shouted at Thomas.

She’d stood him up. He wobbled and swayed, blinking. The crazed woman in front of him pulled her hair away and showed him her bare neck.

“Perhaps he prefers his food with more masculinity?” Sebastian asked from the other side of the gurney. Bianca and Thomas turned to look at him. Thomas had a hard time processing the image of a young man in a nurse’s smock, one hand on a hip, and the other twirling some rubber tubing.

“Oh yes, and where’s he going to find any masculinity around here?” Bianca asked, “Now come on, bite me!”

She grabbed Thomas by the head and drove his face into her neck. Only then did he notice how painful his teeth felt. His incisors in particular. He ran his tongue over the raw tips. These butchers had sharpened them into small fangs.

A fresh voice sounded within the room.

“I’m afraid he’ll have dental pain for quite some time,” it said, “You’ve chipped off too much enamel from his teeth.”

“Thank you, Mary, perhaps if you’d provided some guidance earlier, I would have done a tidier job.”

“I tried to warn you, but you couldn’t hear me above the noise of your drill.”

“Well, you know what they say, you can’t have pleasure without pain.” Bianca replied.

Thomas muffled an earnest rebuke of that notion, but with his face buried under Bianca’s chin, it was unintelligible. However, his lips moving against her skin excited her.

“There you go, come on, sink those lovely new fangs into me. You know you want to!”

“I suspect he doesn’t.” Sebastian said in a huff. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get myself ready for this evening.”

“What’s happening this evening?” Bianca asked, forcing Thomas’ face even tighter against her.

“The dance, of course. When you’re done with your fruitless attempts at turning him into a vampire, he’s going to be my dance partner.”

“Not again! You killed your last dance partner. Probably with boredom.”

“I did not! He was pretty much dead before the first number; you’d drained him of so much blood. So please leave enough inside this one. We shall have a lovely evening of dinner, dancing, and afterwards, who knows what the night will bring.”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Oh, yes!” Bianca yelled. “He’s biting me now!”

***

Thief and Emily walked for an hour before they heard a tiny whirring sound coming from around the curved corridor ahead.

“Please put the blood sample into the droid’s receptacle.” Mary said.

A small black robot appeared, flat and wide, like a thick dinner plate sliding across the floor. Thief recovered the sample from her backpack. A flap on top of the robot popped open to accept the goods.

The robot whirred off, back the way it had come.

“Well, that’s one job done.” Thief clapped her friend on the back.

“Yep, now we need to find this mysterious tree, make wooden spikes out of it, and stab a powerful vampire with them. Easy peasy.” Emily said as she straightened Thief’s backpack for her.

“They’re called stakes.” Mary corrected.

“What are?”

“The pieces of wood that you kill vampires with.”

“Oh, I thought steak was some meat they ate on Earth.”

“Different spelling. But please pay attention. Your chances of defeating the vampires yourselves are slim. Remember, you’re only to bring the wood back to the colony. We will select strong males to combat Bianca.”

“Do you think Earth existed, Thief?” Emily asked.

“What a random question. Of course, Em, we’ve done it in history. Plus, there are lots of pictures and vids.”

“You might see a lot more evidence too, Emily.” Mary offered. “If you can get to this Hall of Memories.”

“How far have we got to go?” Thief asked.

“It is hard for me to calculate, because part of the journey is outside my sensor zones. But, at your current speed, you have at least another hour before we lose contact.”

“Right. Let’s get going!”

“Good luck guys!” Johan spoke up. “And I’m supposed to tell you to be very careful, that’s from your parents. But from me too.”

“Yes, you’ve told us a million times to be…” Thief started

“They’ve told you seven times…”

“Yes, okay Mary!”

At the boundary of Mary’s sensor range, kneeling over a maintenance hatch in the floor, they took stock.

“As far as I can determine, there are no dangerous gases, but if you find it difficult to breathe, or you suffer any other symptoms, please return.” Mary told them. “Other hazards include electrocution from live cables or even the structure itself, and decompression if you open a bulkhead door to a section exposed to space.”

“Great!” Thief said. “Anything else that can kill us? Apart from being gassed, electrocuted, and sucked into space?”

“Unknown. Nobody has been in this lower part of the ship for centuries. There are many unknowns.”

The girls said their goodbyes to Mary, Johan, their families and the rest of the people packed into the workshop, listening.

Thief lifted the hatch open and crawled down. Emily followed close behind.

“It looks like we have to crawl along a while, under the floor, and find another hatch to get down further.”

Ten minutes of crawling later, Thief felt the ridges of a grill under her hands. She lifted another cover away, pushing it down the tunnel.

“This goes down to the next deck according to the map.” She said. Get ready to look, I’ll drop a match down.

The flaring match lit the space below, empty but for dust motes swirling in the flame light. The floor was only seven feet down. An easy drop for both of them.

Thief tried the radio, in case they were still in range, but Mary’s calculations had been precise, as usual. Background static filled their ears. They removed their earpieces, to better hear any local threats. The rectangular space below appeared to be some kind of maintenance depot. Intertwining cables rang along conduits in the walls.

Another match confirmed which general direction to move in, but soon the map grew vague. Mary had supplied the deck and section numbers and the original purpose of each area, but that was ancient history.

“It’s amazing to think,” Emily whispered, “nobody’s been in here for hundreds of years.”

A check of their rad counters showed numbers in the low teens.

“Well, that’s something at least. This is the lowest background radiation we’ve had ever. Gotta remember to tell Johan.”

They ventured further, through old working and living sections. Some layouts and furniture were recognisable. Desks, chairs, and beds glowed in the match light, covered in a thick layer of dust. But no people, or remains of people.

Faded red letters painted across one wall read, “There is no Proxima B, there is only Earth.”

“Must have been those crazy Earthers,” said Thief, “what do you think happened to everyone?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps they left this area after the cataclysm or something. Maybe we’ll see their skeletons further down.”

“I hope not.”

Emily recognised a hydroponics section. “It’s pretty much like Dad’s. Except his plants are a little healthier.” She said, crumbling crusty pieces of something that might have been a plant between her fingers.

The usual background hum grew louder and had been doing so for some time before they noticed it. A continuous boom that penetrated the ear drums and vibrated the body.

“I think we’re getting close to the engines. Johan said people couldn’t live in the sections right next to them. The noise was too loud, it drove them crazy.”

“Yet one more thing to drive people crazy on this crazy ship.” Emily said. She rubbed her arms and shivered. “Hey, it’s getting colder, do you feel that?”

At the next dead-end, they backtracked as usual to the previous duct to find a way down. The temperature dropped further. When Thief lit a match to check their surroundings, their breath plumed in the air, mixing with the ancient dust motes before drifting off.

They scrutinised each other in the brief light. Faces and bodies covered with dust and dirt.

“Do you think we’re filthy enough they’ll let us have water for a shower when we get back?” Emily shouted above the engine noise.

“They better!”

At last they reached the end of the map. A closed bulkhead door loomed in front of them. This time, backtracking did not reveal another way. No side tunnels, no hatchways, no other way around the door.

The two shivered in the dark, hopping from one foot to the other and rubbing their arms to keep warm.

“We have to find a way soon, or we’ll freeze, Thief.”

“I know. I know. Let me try that last tunnel one more time. Could be there was so much dust, we didn’t feel a grill under us or something. You eat something, that will help you keep warm.”

“Yes, Mamma!”

Thief retraced their steps, desperation seeped into her thoughts. They couldn’t return as failures. Not after hours of crawling around in the dark like this. And not with Thomas held captive. They wouldn’t have another chance. This ancient Tree was down here somewhere, bearing the wood that would kill the vampire.

Inside the shaft she turned over, as she always did to rest her knees and elbows. This time, she shuffled along like that for a while, running her hands along the roof of the tunnel a few inches above. Dust fell onto her face and up her nose, triggering a coughing fit. After a while, the smooth surface under her fingers changed. The ridges of a mesh grill! She pushed hard against it, and it lifted, raining down even more dust.

“Em! Come quick, I’ve found a way!”

Five minutes later, the two of them pushed through the hatch and into the space above.

An oval void came to life in the yellow match light. The wall curved around to either side, every inch covered in writings and drawings. Some painted, some scratched, but all forming a continuation. Lines connected diagrams and blocks of text that flowed around the room. The artwork closest to them had faded, while the work on the opposite curve seemed brighter, younger.

“The Wall of Memories.” Thief whispered in awe, studying the nearest drawings. Pictures of Earth, and a partially constructed ship in orbit. Of people holding hands and pointing to a starry sky. Next, images of the ship complete, the Earth smaller behind it.”

“It’s our history.” Emily said, walking along the curve of the wall. “You wait till the oldies see this.”

“And this!” Thief strode to the middle of the room, smiling.

The tree rose from a large circular hole in the floor. A massive natural structure with tangled limbs reaching for the ceiling.

Emily joined her in the middle. The tree’s trunk was so wide they couldn’t make their hands meet when hugging it from opposite sides.

“It’s long dead.” Emily said. “No light, no water supply to the roots, and nowhere else to grow.”

“It must be from Earth, right?” Thief started tearing up.

“Yes, I suppose. Or at least its seed was.”

“Gimme a boost, Em.”

Emily lifted her friend as high as she could and Thief grabbed onto the lowest branch, a limb thicker than her own leg. But it broke off and sent Thief tumbling to the floor, almost knocking Emily over on the way.

“Yep, it’s dead. You okay Thief?”

“Sure. Okay, it’s dead but not useless. It’s still wood, right?” Thief examined the end of the broken branch, where it narrowed and forked into smaller branches. She stood on it and pulled a thin branch up. It bent a few degrees before snapping with a sharp crack. She felt it’s weight in her hand. The thick end fit well inside her closed fingers, and the other end of its twelve inches tapered to a point.

The two inspected the other branches and found a second suitable one. Thief decided they already looked like decent weapons.

“Okay, now the vampires are in trouble!” She announced.

Emily rubbed her arms in the cold. “They… sure… are.” she said through her shivers.

Thief examined the wall, trying to remember the imagery to relay to the oldies. They’d couldn’t afford to use more matches for a longer examination. And the sheer cold that enveloped them forced them to retreat.

***

Two kilometres away, the cleaning droid drifted into the forward laboratory with its precious cargo. Mary summoned Sebastian from his suite.

“Sebastian, if I could have your assistance in the laboratory please, a droid has malfunctioned and is attempting to dispose of some important material.”

“Now? But I’m working on my tan” Sebastian answered from under the UV lights arranged over his bed. “Can’t you get Bianca to help?”

“Bianca is still preoccupied with her new fanged friend.”

“She’s leaving enough blood in him for me, isn’t she?”

“Yes. In fact, she’s losing more than he is at the moment.”

“Ugh. My sister is so weird.”

“So, will you help in the laboratory?”

“Can I go after I’ve tanned my other side?”

“It would be better to go now. Perhaps I could produce some fake tanning spray for you, if you help fast enough to save this blood sample?”

Sebastian hit his head on a lamp as he jumped out of bed.

He arrived at the lab in boxer shorts, and half a tan, and retrieved the blood tube from the droid.

“How did it get hold of this, anyway?”

“The gravity disruption could have jolted it from the analyser.” Mary answered. “Can you please place it in the tube holder? I’m flashing a light to show you were.”

“Sure.” Sebastian stood the tube upright in the indicated position, shrugged, and wandered back to his suite.

“And now you’ll make me a tanning spray, right?”

“Yes, I will. But are you aware that your ancestors were very pale in complexion, shunning all sunlight?”

“Well, what sorry creatures!”