Ariadne Read online

  “CHANDRASEKHAR?” THE name is unfamiliar.

  I check the roster.

  Professor Anil Chandrasekhar.

  Age: 162.

  Cereb specialist.

  Cereb. Short for ‘cerebellum’—brain matter. And the Ariadne is a bioship. I can understand why the Company wants to use a human brain to run a warship, or more precisely, a Skilled brain. That at least makes sense. Even if what they have done here sickens me.

  Computers developed exponentially in the early days of their construction, but the curve soon slowed and levelled. The result? Stalemate. When all your rivals have identical battle computers, no one has the upper-hand.

  It was this stalemate that led to the companies investing in banned genetic manipulation. An illegal attempt to boost the human part of the equation. That’s where I came into the story. Me and the other Skilled.

  When Earth learned of what the companies were doing, that they were flouting ‘Earth Law’, their programs were shut down and the Skilled taken away to live out their lives in Internment. That soon changed after the Companies revolted. Earth lost its power to a conglomeration of vested interest. To turnover and greed. To a percentage calculation of profit over loss.

  I can’t be too bitter. It was that change that led to my freedom. And I admit it, in those early days, I loved the Company. I lived for it.

  Until the inevitable war.

  Without the balance of an independent Earth, the Companies ended up fighting over a fucking resource map, where the resources were suns, planets, moons, and entire solar systems.

  The Company—my Company—was the victor… or at least it came out on top. Annexing Earth. Relocating its First Executive Board onto the home planet. But not without cost… The war was destructive. It’s taken quite a few years for the Company to rebuild, to get back to where it once was. The other companies have also been busy. Borders have been strengthened and many warships patrol them. That’s why Ariadne has come into being. This bioship must be an attempt to gain the upper hand, to end the stalemate forever. But whatever Chandrasekhar was trying to create here has gone gravely wrong.

  “Chandrasekhar?” I say finally. “Is he one of the survivors?”

  “He was the guest of honour,” Boyd answers, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead. “He was expected to give a speech to the party of VIPs.” Boyd’s bottom lip trembles. “The last time I saw him was this morning. Arguing with the ship’s Strategist again. The professor is now probably dead with everyone else.”

  I ignore Boyd’s conjecture. “Arguing?”

  He nods. “An ongoing thing. Those two have been at loggerheads for months now.”

  “Over what?”

  “It’s not my place to say.”

  “Just tell me!”

  “Small things mostly. They didn’t get on.”

  “And tonight’s party? The Ariadne was in a stationary orbit—waiting for the guests to arrive, is that it?”

  “I assume so,” Hewlis answers. “But I’m an engineer not a maître d’.”

  “That’s right, sir,” Boyd continues. “The guests all arrived on board this evening. Ferried in by our transports.”

  My mind goes back to the smashed cargo bay and the destroyed ships, but I don’t let myself get distracted. “Then what?”

  “They were escorted to Hospitality. Just a straightforward Company gathering,” Boyd continues as if he’d been to a few himself, although his expression tells me this was nothing like anything he’d seen before. “Guests, consorts, officers and a few waiters. Me and Drex were to be stationed by the door. Everything was normal until…” his voice dries, his eyes flicking over to the dead ensign lying on the floor just a few feet away. “Until everyone died.”

  “And you heard nothing about a murder?”

  “A murder?” Hewlis says, his eyebrows rising to disappear behind his thick, curly greying hair.

  “Let me explain,” I say, fixing the burly engineer with my one good eye. “Before the ship jumped into hyperspace, which I guess was before everyone was gassed, the coms-officer sent out a mayday. It said they’d been locked out of the ship, and that there had been a murder aboard. I don’t know who the victim was… not yet, anyway, but I’m sure the two events are linked in some way. If I find who was killed and why, maybe I can make sense of this whole thing. So, let me ask you all again… did you witness anything out-of-the-ordinary before the gas attack?”

  A shake of heads.

  I stare back at the two low-rankers. “Have you searched the ship?”

  Drex swaps a glance with Boyd. “What’s the point?” he says with exasperation.

  Before I can reply, a woman arrives in chef’s fatigues, a thin, dark-skinned Hispanic whose expression shows intrigue at my appearance, slowing her steps as she notices me, before striding purposely over.

  “What’re you doing here?” Drex shouts, rounding on her. “I ordered everyone to stay put in the Hospitality Suite while we were attempting to get access to the bridge.”

  The chef eyes Drex with disdain. I can see from her expression that she’s as impressed with the kid as I am. “Who are you?” she asks me with more authority than her displayed rank of Third Chef would suggest.

  “I’m the schmuck the Company has put in charge to get to the bottom of this goddamn mess. What’s of more importance is… who are you?”

  The woman glances at Hewlis for confirmation.

  He nods, widening his eyes.

  “I’m Chef Velez,” she replies, like the name should mean something to me.

  “From the catering corps?”

  “Yeah. Although I’m a lot more than a simple caterer.” Her voice is all calm, yet I can see the fast beat of her heart in the twitch of her neck.

  The woman possesses a peculiar beauty. Her eyes are slightly misaligned, her nose hooked and a little crooked, yet it works for her. She doesn’t look or sound like a Third Chef Technician to me. Velez carries herself with the authority that comes from long experience of ordering people around. She’s in her forties, making this exotic specimen too old for such a lowly rank. Third Chef translates to ‘chopping duty’, the job of a teenager or someone starting out. She’s an enigma. Without my empath skills to help me, she could be hiding any number of sins.

  “At ease, Velez. The cavalry’s just arrived. Or haven’t you worked that out yet?” I say.

  She takes a few calming breaths and the twitching stops.

  I tap at my wafer.

  Jurado Velez.

  Age: 46.

  Company Designate: Third Chef Technician.

  Holder of some quite impressive culinary awards. I read on. She was demoted from the top galley rank of Executive Chef, but there’s no reason why.

  “It says here you’re a whizz with food? What the hell did you do to get busted?”

  Velez’s green eyes stare at me, unfazed by the question, and I glimpse a fire within her.

  “I upset the wrong person,” she replies enigmatically. “I’m one of the best chefs in the Company and they did this to me.” She points a knife-scarred finger at her uniform and sneers.

  I carry on reading the wafer. There’s a date for when she joined the Ariadne but since Stranng woke me out of hypersleep on that colony ship, god knows how many days ago, I’m out of my reckoning. “How long have you been aboard?”

  “Two days. I requested the assignment. The more VIP functions I can cater for, the better my chances of getting my rank back,” she says, although I’m not sure I believe her.

  “How did you survive?”

  “I was in the galley,” Velez answers. “In the cold-storage area on my own with the door closed.”

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “Despite my lowly rank,” Velez spits, “I was still expected to work on my famous signature desserts. I am an artist who demands perfection, which means absolutely no interference. That’s why I was inside and alone. When I emerged…” A frown crosses her features. “I found everyone de
ad.”

  I’m wasting time—I guess they all have a similar story—and decide to move things along.

  “Okay,” I say, addressing them all. “This is how things are gonna go down. First, I want to visit the bridge and take a look at that com feed for myself. Then I’m gonna head to Hospitality and interrogate the rest of the survivors. In the meantime, I require a head-count of everyone aboard the Ariadne. Dead or alive. And if they’re dead, an assessment on how they died. The Company roster says forty-three souls aboard. If there’s anybody else on this ship who shouldn’t be, I need to know about it. If you find more survivors, take them to the Hospitality Suite. I’m gonna make that my temporary HQ.” I turn to Drex and Boyd. “I want you two to take care of that.”

  “A head-count!” Drex fumes. “When we’re racing towards enemy space? Are you mad? We should be trying to break into the bridge or disabling the Snag Drive. I don’t care about who you are or where you’re from, you ain’t telling me what to do.”

  Apart from the rifle, Drex carries a buzz-gun on his waist. I step up to him, my face next to his. “Give me your side-arm, Sublieutenant!” He pauses in indecision, which is all the motivation I need.

  I snap the gun from its holster. And, in one quick motion, pistol-whip him to the floor. “I’m not gonna ask you to do things twice… you get me?”

  Drex is stunned, not from the actual blow—I didn’t hit him that hard. I don’t think he’s ever been treated like this, which must come as a shock to the kid. It’s the second time I’ve beat up on him and, I admit, I’m enjoying myself. I point the gun at his head.

  “Don’t you think I want to get off this damn ship just as much as everyone else?” I say. “With the bridge in lock-down, it’d take you days to breakthrough. Days we don’t have. It’s a waste of our time. The fact remains… Ariadne is heading for one big explosion in hyperspace in under two hours if we don’t stop her. The way I look at it, you either help me by doing what you’re told, when you’re told or… you’re just as useless as this corpse and the others on this goddamn ghost ship. Believe me, at this point, I’m quite happy to let you join them.”

  My little performance is just that, a performance. If I’m gonna get these idiots out of this mess, I need to play hard and I need to play rough. There’s no time for anything less. Would I shoot the kid? Maybe? Who knows? But self-preservation sure is one motivating force.

  Drex nods.

  “Say it!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  Boyd pulls Drex to his feet, a look of determination upon his grief-ridden features.

  I take Drex’s belt and holster the buzz-gun to my waist. “Get that roster back to me asap. Dismissed!”

  Drex wipes his nose and he, and Boyd, quickly disappear into the corridors.

  “That was a little rough,” Hewlis says.

  “You wanna make a complaint? Then I suggest you do it to the Company, when you get the chance that is. From this point on, you’ll do what I say when I say it. You get me?”

  Hewlis nods but Velez stands her ground. “What did you mean… we’re heading for an explosion?”

  I tell her about Ariadne’s destination, and Stranng shadowing us in hyperspace.

  Velez ain’t impressed to say the least. “I don’t like Drex or his friend,” she says, the twitch returning to her neck, “but he does have a point. What will questioning the survivors achieve? If the priority is to get this ship out of hyperspace, aren’t you wasting time?”

  “The kid needed slapping down, don’t make me do the same to you,” I bark, wondering why it’s so hard for this goddamn crew to follow orders.

  “I just don’t want to die,” Velez continues. “Like everyone else.”

  “You want that kid back in charge?”

  Velez shakes her head.

  “Good. Cos I’m the only chance you’ve got.”

  VELEZ, HEWLIS and I make our way out of the airlock area and head for the bridge, passing occasional portholes revealing the beautiful swirl of hyperspace beyond. I see the vast, glowing arms again, stretching out from the ship like the crooked legs of a spider. Ariadne’s Snag Drive array—an unusual design for a warship or any Company ship—and no doubt the reason for this ship’s legendary arachnid name. The Snag Drive is usually a more stunted and less efficient affair, squatting underneath a ship like an upturned crown, making it less vulnerable to attack. Ariadne’s array would make her a sitting duck. The thought reminds me that Strategist Stranng is out there somewhere. Knowing that his finger is itching on the damn trigger ain’t comforting, that’s for sure. With me gone, he’s off the hook. Especially after what I threatened him with when I came back from that mess I found in the Zeta-Karst Laboratories. He has one redeeming quality—the man is a fully-fledged Company bastard. He’s not the type to disobey an order. He ain’t got the imagination.

  The Ariadne is a compact ship. The outer corridor follows the hull with a visible curve. I’m impressed. Flowing lines are not normal in Company designs. They prefer hard edges and right-angles. This ship has been built to an aesthetic I’ve not previously seen before. There is attention to detail even in the corridor I’m now walking down. The floor appears to be sprung and is covered in a burgundy coloured carpet. Gone is the clatter and thump of footsteps, instead walking is more like gliding. The walls are still cream in colour but banded with gold and silver with not a bolt or rivet in sight. The lighting is less harsh and comes from the walls themselves rather than from fixed, bright points.

  Ariadne has been designed to calm the senses, rather than to jar them.

  If I didn’t know this was a Company ship, I’d have guessed it was a cruise-liner for those too old and too rich to do anything else with their time and money, other than to swan around the galaxy in the height of luxury until they drew their last pampered breath.

  I turn to Hewlis, waving my wafer in his direction. “Flash me over the ship’s schematics.”

  Hewlis complies, his own wafer making an appearance. A few taps later I receive the file and bring it up in 3D. The Ariadne sure has an interesting look. I flip the image around with my finger. The fuselage is rounded like a giant extended egg sack. The matter engine and hyperspace array looking even more spider-like than from the portholes. I shrug at Hewlis. “Ariadne, huh?”

  “I never did like spiders,” he says.

  I can understand his dislike. Arachnids, and a whole horde of other bugs, found their way onto ships hundreds of years ago, along with humanity’s other ever-present companions, rats. Add all that cosmic radiation in those unprotected areas of the ship where vermin hang out and spaceships developed their own mini-ecosystems. The Company doesn’t care about them. Evolution is a harsh mistress. These creatures have learned to live in a mostly peaceful symbiosis with the ships they inhabit. Infestations have occasionally gotten out of control, but I doubt a new ship like the Ariadne would have such problems.

  I bring up a more detailed view. The superstructure consists of a series of well-defined decks with the bridge, officer decks and habitation at the top and engineering levels at the bottom. The central decks house the matter engine and various other ship systems. A main elevator, an unnecessary luxury as far as I can tell, is located at the ship’s centre, surrounded by a staircase with various other stairs dotted here and there. The Hospitality Suite is located under the bridge, facing forwards, next to the canteen and galley. For such a small ship, this suite is over-sized. Most of the Company vessels don’t have a dedicated area for Hospitality at all. Any dignitaries would usually be hosted in the Officer’s Mess. A cramped room at best.

  The ship sure is ostentatious. What Professor Chandrasekhar has created here is impressive. But it is nothing more than the painted facade of a mausoleum. Finery built to distract us from the evil squatting at the centre of its web, the insane spider, Ariadne.

  The Hospitality Suite and the survivors are on the same level as the cargo dock—the level I’m standing on—and I’m tempted to
visit there first, but I need to look at the bridge for myself.

  Do I doubt what Drex and Hewlis told me?

  Without my empathy in place, my answer must be ‘yes’. I need to make sure that the bridge is as inaccessible as they say it is. I doubt my name is still in the system, but if so, I also might be able to use my rank to undo the lockdown. A small hope but worth a try.

  While we are walking, I flick through the ship’s levels, trying to locate its computer-core. Then I remember, the ship is experimental. Run by organics, by Ariadne—not computers. I shudder at the thought, wiping at the sweat on my face. “Why is it so damn hot in here?” I ask.

  “There’s something wrong with the cooling system,” Hewlis explains, his exaggerated shrug making a reappearance. “I’m not sure what’s happened.”

  We come across occasional bodies also looking like they died where they fell. Whatever killed them was quick, that’s for sure. I examine them and discover nothing new. They all died the same way. Velez and Hewlis find my interest in the dead unpalatable. Bodies have never bothered me. It’s the alive who cause all the problems…mostly. I’ve been responsible for far more than forty-three corpses in my time. Millions more. I don’t have time for guilty reminiscence.

  A stab from my stomach. “I’m hungry,” I announce, turning over yet another body, its blackened face leering up at me. “Is there anything to eat and drink on this goddamn ship?”

  Velez pulls a disgusted face. “What do you think the crew eats? Air?” she replies.

  I ignore her attitude and smile. “Good. Cos I’m starving.” I drop the body back down. “I’ll also need some cigarettes. You smoke?” Both Hewlis and Velez shake their heads. Typical. No one smokes no more. I stand up. “About these survivors. You say there’s seven, yeah?”

  “Eight, if we now count you,” says Hewlis. “That was quite some feat—getting aboard.”