Ariadne Page 14

  After a few more minutes, we arrive at a ladder. Hewlis is already above us, climbing. I also start to ascend, although my legs are complaining. When I get off this ship and away from Stranng and the damn Company, I’m gonna get my body back to how it once was. I think about my plan to live as a farmer on the colony worlds—a dumb idea brain-squeezed into my head by Esta. As soon as I’m fit again, I will find her. A meeting that both excites and disturbs me.

  We pass a range of hidden levels—service floors that exist between decks. Wires, hydraulics and various nodes and other tek that I’ve never seen before. I hear Xev say something above me, but he’s muffled by the other bodies. When I climb higher, I understand what he was talking about. I’ve seen a lot of things in my time. Carnage, death, mutilation, and torture, but to see human flesh mangled into the infrastructure of Ariadne is truly disturbing. Nerves, muscle and other tissue is threaded throughout this layer, connecting directly to the ship’s conventional systems. I reach out a finger and touch what appears to be a thick, stretched nerve.

  I’m hit by sudden and sharp pain. But the pain is not mine. It belongs to the ship, to Ariadne.

  Is she suffering? Has the damage inflicted by Klund on her environmental systems and the explosion in the elevator shaft injured her is some way? Can a ship like Ariadne even feel pain? Maybe I’m imagining it?

  My fingers tingle and the nerve starts to twitch. It’s alive, of course it is. This ship is made of bio-components. I’ve been aware of this since before I came aboard, but the reality?

  A goddamn nightmare.

  It’s not an intellectual response, but something visceral. Ariadne is a perversion. I pull my hand away and wipe it against my skinsuit.

  We emerge into a different ship section. Most of this deck is open. A vast lab with rooms and alcoves around the outside stretching as far as half the ship and surrounding a central pillar that houses the now destroyed elevator. At the far end of the deck are a series of desks, imposing lab equipment, and extensive and impressive-looking data stacks. The air in here is cool, no doubt kept at an artificially low temperature to the rest of the ship, accommodating the serious amount of computers and other equipment this deck is stuffed with. I also spot five dead bodies.

  Hewlis whistles. “Wow! So, this is what the Company can do when it wants.”

  I’m similarly impressed and reminded of the Zeta-Karst Labs that I visited only a few days ago. A goddamn lifetime away. “You say there is no direct connection to Ariadne’s mind?” I ask Klund. “I’ve never seen so many data-stacks aboard a ship.”

  The geek shrugs. “For diagnostics only,” he replies. “The lab is temporary—and soon to be taken down. To be honest, we have done most of the work that was needed. All that biological matter we saw between decks is functioning as expected.”

  “Except that it’s not is it? Ariadne is not functioning as expected, is she?”

  Klund shakes his head. “Yes and no,” he says like a teacher patronising a slow child. “The ship’s systems are just that. Systems. Some parts are mechanical or bio-mechanical, while others are entirely biological. But all are controlled and monitored by Ariadne.”

  Back on home ground, Klund is more confident and assured. His voice loses some of its whiny quality—in its place? Something akin to pride.

  “Ariadne is a prototype brain,” he continues, “implanted inside this space vehicle very much in the same way we might get inside an exo like a cargo loader. Of course, Ariadne has a more direct connection—via the ship’s infrastructure and neural pathways—but the principal is just the same.”

  “What do you know about exoskeletons?” I ask the geek, reminded of the ventilation shaft where the body-blank was hidden and the ripped remains of Boyd. An exo could’ve been used for both.

  “I can’t operate one, if that’s what you’re asking,” Klund replies. “But you get my point about Ariadne?”

  “Okay,” I reply irritably. “We already know you worked on the ship’s bio-mechanical systems. Do you have any way of contacting Ariadne? Her mind?”

  Klund shakes his elongated head. “We teks never had direct contact with the ship’s consciousness. As far as I can tell, Chandrasekhar was the only one communicating with her. The professor wanted her to learn. Wanted her to watch and understand human behaviour. If anyone has a chance of communicating with the ship, that someone is you.”

  “Me?” I reply aware of everyone staring.

  “Ariadne is an augmented mind,” the geek continues. “Genetically tweaked and containing the empathy gene. She is a Skilled, like yourself. Can you sense her? Can you feel Ariadne?”

  I nod, wondering why Klund is bringing this up again.

  “You can feel the goddamn ship?” Xev blurts. “What the hell is Ariadne saying to you?”

  “Nothing,” I reply. “All I can sense is her madness. An empathic wail. And too loud to make any sense of.”

  Klund laughs, a thin, weird sound.

  “What’s so fucking funny?” Xev says, walking up to the geek, putting his face in front of his.

  “It is something Chandrasekhar wrote,” Klund replies without missing a beat.

  “And what the hell was that?” Xev asks.

  “That what he was creating here was far superior to the Skilled. An evolutionary step upwards. His words, not mine.”

  “I don’t care what the professor wrote,” I reply. “We have more pressing concerns. Where are the gene sequencers?”

  “This way,” Klund says with a shrug, and walks towards the end of the lab.

  “Sequencers?” Hewlis repeats. “Huh?”

  “I think that’s obvious,” Xev says. “Vatic is gonna test us. Our DNA. He’s going to root out the bad guy here and now. And about time. I’m getting pissed off with not knowing who it is.”

  “You and me both,” Hewlis replies.

  Their eyes turn towards Drex and Rooba.

  “It ain’t me,” Drex says.

  The Jen shrugs and says nothing.

  Klund leads everyone to a data-bank near the back of the expansive laboratory where sits some quite impressive machinery, complete with dials, buttons and flashing lights. I wouldn’t know a gene-sequencer if it bit me. The geek makes himself busy, while the others look on.

  I nod to Xev. “You know what to do.”

  My old boss goes up to Rooba and roughly pulls out a few of her red hairs. If it hurts, the pain doesn’t register on her doe face. He does the same to Drex and Hewlis before approaching Klund—who pulls out one of his own short blonde hairs from his almost shaven scalp with a pair of tweezers.

  “You might as well test me, while you’re at it,” I say. “And don’t forget Xev. Better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Agreed,” Xev says, “but this ain’t my real hair,” he adds with a flash of his mangled smile. He snatches at an eyebrow and pulls away a couple of follicles and passes them to Klund. “They needed a fucking trim.”

  The geek makes a show of placing the hairs into six separate containers, marking them Vatic, Xev, Hewlis, Drex, Klund and Rooba. He shows them to me to make sure he hasn’t done anything underhand. I’m no scientist, but everything looks as it should be and Hewlis nods. The geek slots the containers into one of the machines, pressing a couple of buttons.

  “How long?” I ask him.

  “Minutes,” he replies, crossing his arms.

  I turn to everyone else. “Anyone want to own up now?”

  Silence.

  “Keep an eye on them, Xev,” I say. “Call me over when the results come through.”

  “On it,” Xev replies with relish, levelling his gun at the others.

  I bring up my wafer and start checking the bodies I spotted earlier. All dead from gassing. Nothing to see here, other than these guys were at the top of their game—juniors, but with some quite impressive credentials. My mind goes back to Velez. Her death irritates me. Sure, she deserved to die from detonating a bomb meant to kill Pirella, me and the others, but with her gon
e, I can’t interrogate her.

  And I really needed to know… who contacted her and why?

  Could it have been a play from Glaxtinian? If anyone knew about Velez’s antagonism, it was her. To become an Arbiter in the Company hierarchy meant she must’ve had a ruthless streak. And a pretty strong one at that. Did she arrange to get Velez aboard by masquerading as Neo-Dawn? A terrorist cell being found aboard the Ariadne would certainly have undermined Professor Chandrasekhar and his project. Glaxtinian could’ve exposed Velez, enhancing her reputation and making the transition of power over this project a smoother one. Or she could’ve been trying to get Chandrasekhar out of the picture altogether. Blowing him out of the ship with the other grandees would’ve certainly achieved that. But Chandrasekhar was an asset—like it or not, he came up with this ship and the cereb, Ariadne.

  If true, that’s quite some play from Glaxtinian. And a real possibility.

  But of course, Velez could’ve been contacted by the real Neo-Dawn. Taking out a roomful of Company VIPs would certainly be a major success for them. But something Xev said resonated with me. Terrorists are not particularly imaginative. The plan sounds too complicated for them. Which leads me to believe someone else is involved. And whoever created that tiny spread-bomb was a genius.

  My thoughts turn towards the ship-wide gassing…

  Could Ariadne have been responsible for killing the crew? She sure seems insane enough for such an action. The little I have felt from her seems to back this up. If so, what caused her insanity? A failure in the experiment, perhaps? Or was it simply an over-reaction to the onboard murder or the threat of Velez and her associates? Did Ariadne sense the attack and, in trying to nullify it, take out the entire crew?

  At this point, anything is possible. I check the time on my wafer.

  23:32

  Twenty-eight minutes to go. Or thereabouts. The imprecise nature of this mission only adds to my sense of unease. I like to be in control of things, of people… of the goddamn job.

  At least I can now find out if the imposter is one of the survivors. And if not? How the hell am I going to stop this ship?

  There is one possibility. A possibility with as little chance of success as Velez’s spread-bomb. I’ve kept it as the last and final option… Someone must get outside the ship and blow the Snag Array.

  Suicidal.

  That would bring the ship out of hyperspace, sure, but at what cost? We’d return to normal space with a bang. Ariadne wouldn’t survive. Not in one piece that is. She’d break up like any other ship.

  When I’m done checking the bodies, I walk back to the others who are anxiously awaiting the DNA results. “How are we doing?” I ask Klund.

  “Nearly there… a few more seconds,” he replies, looking up from his data-centre.

  “What kinda shit are we trying to find?” Xev asks, pointing the gun at what I’m guessing is the genome sequencer.

  “The imposter will give a dual report,” the geek replies. “Two types of DNA. Although it will also pick up any unusual nanite or cellular activity.”

  A beep from Klund’s data-centre and lines of information appear on its screen. He steps back to let me look.

  Sample name: ‘Vatic’.

  Genome: Empath.

  DNA augmentation: Skilled

  “No surprises there,” Xev blurts. “Except that it doesn’t mention what a bastard you are.”

  Sample name: ‘Xev’.

  Genome: Human male.

  DNA augmentation: None.

  Evidence of thirteen Juvo treatments.

  Evidence of extensive DNA damage and cellular decay.

  “That’s as close as a clean bill of health as I’ll ever get,” Xev says with a chuckle.

  Sample name: ‘Eric Klund’

  Genome: Human male.

  DNA augmentation: None.

  History of brain augmentation and illegal intelligence boosters.

  Xev claps Klund on the shoulder. “Haha. I knew you brain-boxes were just as bent as the rest of us. Intelligence boosters? You fraud!”

  Xev then turns to Hewlis, Drex and Rooba. “Starting to sweat?”

  Sample name ‘Drex’.

  Genome: Human male.

  DNA augmentation: None.

  “I’m a good guy,” Drex says with a relieved sigh.

  “You doubted yourself?” I ask.

  “A little bit,” he replies, smiling.

  I raise my gun at Rooba and Hewlis who swap glances with one another. “Just you two left. If you’re gonna reveal yourself, now would be the time.” They remain silent.

  Sample name ‘Hewlis Gray’.

  Genome: Human male.

  DNA augmentation: None.

  History of bone and circulatory system augmentation.

  “Get down on your knees!” I shout at Rooba.

  “No way!” she says. “It’s not me! This is a goddamn set up!”

  Drex jumps forward, his fists raised. “If you had anything to do with Boyd’s death, I’ll kill you myself.”

  Sample name ‘Rooba Jen’.

  Genome: Multiple detected.

  DNA augmentation: Extensive.

  Evidence of DNA suppression.

  Evidence of extensive cellular and nanite activity.

  I push Rooba down onto her knees. The Jen doesn’t resist. “Get something to bind her hands,” I say to Klund.

  For a moment all he does is stare.

  “Don’t make me tell you again.”

  The geek fumbles around in a drawer and produces a roll of tape. He gives it to Xev, who wraps it tightly around the Jen’s thin, red wrists.

  Rooba says nothing, acting passively while the engineer binds her.

  “What’s the plan?” Xev asks me, a nasty glint in his eye. “Interrogate this fucker until she fesses up?”

  “I say we off her now!” Drex blurts. “They revert when they’re dead, yes? Let’s see who she really is!”

  “No more murder,” I bark, angrily.

  “Why the hell not!” Drex shouts.

  “Because she might know what has gone down on this damn death ship, that’s why,” I reply. “I’m gonna find out what she knows, before anyone does anything.”

  Drex lurches at Rooba. I knock him to the floor with a rough elbow to his guts. As he draws breath to complain, a deep rumble comes from somewhere below, shaking the ship, the sound becoming louder.

  “Shit!” Xev blurts as the elevator doors are blown inward, filling the deck with fire and smoke.

  THE FORCE of the blast throws us all to the deck, alarms blaring accompanied by red flashing lights. The ship is vibrating—the deck, the bulkheads and everything inside. My assessment? This ain’t good.

  “What in space was that?” Drex blurts, pulling himself off the floor, rubbing his gut where I elbowed him.

  I turn to Hewlis. “What the kid said. And don’t you dare shrug.”

  The engineer pulls out his wafer, taps it and reveals red flashing schematics and readouts. “Shit! The spread-bomb caused a rupture in one of the main ship coolant systems. The explosion blew out the lower hydroponics deck. It’s totally gone. Blasted into space. Which means…”

  “Let me see that!” Klund says, snatching the wafer off the engineer, his thin fingers quickly navigating through screen after screen. Relief crosses the geek’s face. “The Snag Array appears to be unaffected. Hydroponics is gone and the deck above it has depressurised. Vacuum has entered the elevator shaft and stairwell. The rest of the ship seems undamaged, although there is sure to be a knock-on effect to other systems.”

  “Automatic hatches and panels have shut, so we’re safe from depressurisation,” Hewlis says, grabbing his wafer back from Klund’s weak fingers.

  “With Hydroponics destroyed, how long will the air last?” I ask.

  “Longer than it will take for Ariadne to reach enemy space,” Hewlis replies. “Although I think we should all suit up when we get the chance. Just in case.”

  “We have to some
how get this ship out of hyperspace and quick,” I say. “Hewlis, you’re supposed to be an engineer. With no direct access to the bridge or any control systems, is there any other way of disabling the Snag Array, without blowing the thing up? Because that’s seriously looking like our only goddamn option.”

  The engineer’s eyes widen, as if what I’ve said has sparked an idea. He rubs a hand over his grizzled chin. “Maybe we can blow the Array, or at least part of it,” he says, his eyes darting at his wafer, his sausage-like fingers tapping quickly at the screen.

  “But that’s suicide!” Klund says.

  “You’re not listening,” Hewlis replies, a look of hope on his face. “Vatic said ‘disable’.” He holds up his wafer to show us a series of flashing schematics. Technical stuff that makes no sense to me.

  “What the hell is that?” says Xev. “Explain.”

  “It’s an automated emergency damage report,” Hewlis replies. “I don’t normally work on hyperspace systems, but in ship-wide emergencies like this one, protocols are enacted to share damage information. All Company ships systems are triple protected from attack. In particular, engine and hyperspace systems. The ability to jump away from trouble in an emergency is paramount to a ship’s survival. Like the bridge, the systems are protected by some serious bulkheads, however, hyperspace arrays are vulnerable. They have to sit outside the ship. But not on the Ariadne. She can retract her array. Protecting it from attack. My guess is that is how she jumps in and out of hyperspace. If we can somehow get her legs to retract into the fuselage then—”

  “Then we can maybe stop the goddamn ship before we reach the border… before Stranng blows her up.”

  Hewlis smiles. “Because of all the secrecy aboard Ariadne, I had no idea about how the array was deployed until I read this damage report just now. It sure is sweet.”