Ariadne Page 5

  “Take me to the Hospitality Suite,” I say to Velez and Hewlis. “And while we’re on our way, tell me more about the other survivors. There’s another three people still alive. Who are they?”

  “How should I fucking know?” Velez barks, visibly agitated.

  I give Hewlis a quick glance. He raises his eyebrows at me. He also seems perplexed by Velez’s over-reaction.

  “I’m just a third chef,” Velez continues. “Remember?”

  “You were up in the Hospitality Suite before you went AWOL,” I say to Velez, not letting up on her. “So you must’ve been with them. Who are they?”

  “Why not ask Hewlis?” she says.

  “I’m asking you.”

  “No one of note,” Velez says after a long pause, her mouth snatching at the air. “Although I’m sure that won’t stop you barking at them.”

  “Who?” I repeat more forcefully.

  Velez pulls a face of disgust. “There’s one of those vile consorts,” she says with a sneer.

  “A consort?” I reply. “I suppose it’s no more than I should’ve expected with Company grandees on board. Do you know its name? Where it’s from? Who it came with?”

  Velez flicks her eyes up and down, as if this line of questioning is not only pointless but irritating to her. “No,” she replies. “I don’t talk to that kind of filth.”

  I’m surprised by Velez’s reaction, but her prejudice doesn’t interest me. I decide to move on. “Any names for the others?”

  The chef shakes her head a little too quickly.

  “There’s a low-level politico,” Hewlis says quietly. “He’s been drinking himself stupid since all this started.”

  “I don’t want a character assassination, I just want a name,” I say, irritated that Hewlis answered. My focus is on Velez.

  “He is called Xev,” Hewlis continues. “Xev Tranth. An aide to one of the grandees… I think.”

  “Xev Tranth?” I whisper. “He’s on the Ariadne?”

  The name crashes into my brain, juddering down neurones and smashing into my sensibilities. A name I’d tried to forget, to get away from. A name I hate.

  Hewlis is surprised by my reaction. “You’ve heard of him?”

  I ignore the large engineer and his over-sized face. I know Xev Tranth from back in the day. My direct superior during the goddamn war. The bastard who lied to me and the other Skilled to get us to do all those… all those atrocities. A hard-wired Company politico, willing to do anything, everything, and anyone to get to the top. What the fuck is he doing here? Is he a part of this?

  “You okay?” Hewlis asks, jolting me back into the now.

  My mind is a whirl, but one word he said about Xev comes to the fore. “You say he’s an aide?”

  “Yeah. Sure of it. He’s been drinking ever since the gassing.”

  This doesn’t sound like the Xev Tranth I know and hate. He was a high-flier, and then some. The presence of Xev on this out-of-control death-ship has rattled me but I’m here to do a job. And to the Skilled, the job is everything. I must remain focused. I can’t let my hatred of my old boss prejudice my investigation.

  “That leaves one more person,” I say, trying to thrust my emotions aside.

  “A waitress,” says Hewlis. “One of the staff serving the party. Young and pretty.”

  “You have a name for her?”

  Hewlis shakes his head. “She’s not stopped sobbing. Someone she was close to died.”

  I try to take in his words, but it’s difficult. Xev Tranth’s name won’t stop bouncing around my head. I try to push it away from me, but with the effort of holding Ariadne’s empathic mind at bay, it’s too difficult.

  “Let’s go meet them,” I say with an irritated shake of my head. “And this time, let’s take the damn elevator.”

  We make our way back to the centre of the ship. Hewlis pushes the elevator call button and the doors open to reveal a thin, nerdy, blonde-haired guy pointing a gun at me.

  I DIVE at the geek, punching him hard in the wrist. His weapon clatters to the elevator floor and he crumples, screaming in pain.

  I grab the gun, and soon realise it’s something else. A scientific instrument is my best guess. “Get up!” I bark.

  The man stumbles to his feet, eyes wide with shock. He’s young—in his twenties—his skin still glossy with youth. His blonde hair is severely-cropped so that the red of his skin shines through. His head is longer than it is wide, as if he’s grown up in low gravity, yet the rest of him is normally proportioned, if not skinny. A beaky nose sits above thin, uneven lips and a weak chin, making his nose look even bigger. He’s odd-looking and geeky, wearing a long lab-coat down to his knees. He rubs at his wrist with an expression like a wounded dog. “Why on earth did you do that?” he says with an annoyed squeak. “You hit me!”

  “What’s your name?”

  He stops rubbing his wrist and sags, his tense limbs suddenly relaxing. He grabs my arm with a thin hand, a look of relief spreading over his face. “Thank space there are more survivors. I thought… that I was the only one.”

  “Tell me your name,” I repeat, shrugging myself free.

  “Eric…” the geek says, “Eric Klund.”

  I bring up Klund’s information on my wafer.

  Eric Klund.

  Age: 28.

  Junior Technician. Neuroteknics.

  The guy has a medical career, specialising in the human nervous system, tek-implants, and cerebral enhancements. Maybe he has some answers. “What in space are you doing wandering around the ship?” I ask him. “Why didn’t you report to the bridge like a good little crew-member?”

  “I have been assessing Ariadne,” Klund replies defensively, his eyes darting to the instrument I took off him. “Some of her systems have been damaged. Besides, everyone else was deceased, or so I believed.” The geek looks over my shoulder at Velez and Hewlis. “I am delighted to find more survivors.”

  Klund talks precisely, with care taken over every syllable.

  “To be perfectly honest,” he continues, “I have been going a little doolally and—”

  “What’s this?” I hold up the device he was carrying.

  “A neuro-bio scanner. Very similar to what you may find in a medibay, although this has a whole different range of calibration.”

  I throw the instrument over to Hewlis.

  The engineer gives the device a once-over and nods.

  “Please be very careful with that,” Klund says. “It is an expensive piece of Company equip—” A look of shocked recognition passes over his face. “You are a… Skilled!”

  “Yeah, the Company sent me to sort out this mess, which means I’m in charge.”

  “The Company sent you? I thought we were in hyperspace… how did you get aboard?”

  “That ain’t important right now. It’s the why, you should be interested in. There was a murder before the crew was locked out of the ship’s systems and everybody was poisoned.” I give Klund a few moments to digest my words. “What do you know about a company Grandee who goes by the name of Mandibald Glaxtinian?” I produce my wafer and show him a 3D of the now deceased VIP.

  “A murder?” The geek shakes his elongated head. “I am sadly unfamiliar with this person. I rarely get to meet anyone except my colleagues. I am just a junior.”

  I look at Hewlis. “Another regular grunt, huh? There’s a lot of you about.”

  “You say she was killed?” Klund asks. “I’m shocked.”

  “Shot by a buzz-gun.” I produce my own gun and point it at him. “Just like the one you’ve got concealed under your lab coat. Give it to me.”

  The geek reels backwards in shock and I hear Velez gasp behind me. I guess Klund thought the gun was well-hidden. But not to me. I can spot a masked piece at twenty feet, even with one eye.

  Klund quickly parts the nano-fibres of his lab coat, seemingly eager to comply to my demand, and reveals the weapon strapped to his waist. He fumbles it free and passes it to me.

/>   The gun is of unfamiliar design—old-fashioned with an ornate five-pointed star engraved on the grip and a filigree of intersecting lines artistically rendered along the barrel snub. To me a gun is a gun. You point it and create mayhem. Fancy artwork doesn’t help it kill any better. “What the hell were you doing with this?” I ask, shoving it into my skinsuit.

  “I found it on a member of the deceased crew.” Klund hastily replies. “I’ve never even touched or fired a weapon in my life before.” He shrugs. “I put it in my belt. I suppose it made me feel safer.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t spot you were packing? I’m a Skilled, remember? Nothing gets past me.”

  “I forgot all about the awful thing,” Klund replies, his voice a high whine. “To be honest, guns make me nervous. I am glad you have it now.”

  I’m not sure I’m convinced. The fact he was carrying a buzz-gun sure raises a few red flags over the technician.

  “It is a great relief to find a Skilled aboard.”

  “Then help me do my job,” I say, stepping up to him. “Tell me about the Ariadne, about what you do here.”

  Klund pulls himself together. “Of course,” he says, his creaky voice becoming more self-assured. “I have been on Ariadne for just over thirteen months. My speciality is in tek-implants. Specifically, connections between organic matter and the ship’s regular tek. I was not involved in any of the design aspects, or anything high-level, although I would have been thrilled to have been asked. Instead, I was brought on board to monitor how the biological and tek components of the ship interacted with one another.”

  “Did you notice any problems?” I ask.

  “On a pioneering project like this one, there are certainly a lot of niggles and set-backs, which was very much to be expected within the parameters of—”

  “I meant, any major problems with Ariadne. Or haven’t you noticed the dead crew? Or the fact the ship is hurtling through hyperspace seemingly with no one at the helm?”

  Klund swallows. “You would need to converse with Professor Chandrasekhar about those things. He oversaw the Ariadne project. I had nothing to do with her mind or programming. I was only responsible for the connections between organic matter and—”

  “Yes, yes. What about tonight and the VIP party?”

  The concept of a party seems to confuse the technician. Klund’s eyebrows crease together, pinching his face, his elongated head twitching in the negative. “The event was organised by the professor. Nothing to do with me. Parties are not my thing at all. I wasn’t even invited. Why would I be?”

  The geek is rapidly becoming another dead end. “How’d you survive?”

  “I was particularly fortunate in that regard.”

  “Answer the damn question!”

  “I am not a fan of the regular ship air,” Klund replies. “Do you have any idea of the number of bugs, particles and contaminants, including faecal matter, we inhale daily?”

  The guy is starting to piss me off, but I let him continue.

  “…It is quite the melting pot of disease, bacteria, and toxins. Even on a new ship like this, the air becomes quickly infested.” Klund wrinkles his nose. “I try not to breathe it whenever possible. Especially when there is no reason to. I installed a simple air filtration system in my quarters. Quite ingenious, actually. It saved me. I did not know what had happened until I left my cabin and found everyone dead.”

  “Any ideas as to why the air was poisoned or by who?”

  “It is not my place to say,” Klund replies, his eyes flicking guiltily at my face—at my one good eye.

  He’s hiding something, but what?

  “You think Professor Chandrasekhar is gonna tell you off?” I say, staring back at him so hard that he cringes. “Because I wouldn’t worry about him, he’s very likely dead with everyone else. Let me fill you in with a few extra details. This ship is heading on a direct line to the closest enemy territory. In under two hours, this vessel will be blown out of hyperspace—courtesy of the Company frigate that’s shadowing us. Your superiors are willing to sacrifice this precious ship to prevent it getting into enemy hands. And that includes anybody left alive aboard. You get me? If you know anything that can help us stop that from happening, you need to tell me now.”

  “What?” The geek takes a few moments to digest my words. “How typical of the Company. Ready and willing to destroy such a magnificent ship and all the professor’s work?” Klund lets out a breath of exasperated air, the logic of the situation registering upon his thin features as a furrow of his eyebrows and the slow tightening of his jaw. “But I suppose the Company has been forced to protect its assets. It makes absolute sense.”

  “Right. Now you understand what we’re up against, I want you tell me what it is you’ve been holding back from me since we started this conversation. And no bullshit.”

  “…It is Ariadne,” Klund says guiltily, his eyes narrowing. “It’s very possible that she has gone insane.”

  “TELL ME something I don’t know,” I say. “Explain to me why you think Ariadne is to blame for what’s gone down on this ship.”

  Klund nods, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down. “I have no idea what went wrong with the professor’s experiment.” He rubs his hands together, as if he’s trying to wring the words out of his long fingers. “Although I have come to the conclusion that it was Ariadne who gassed everyone.”

  “I knew it!” Hewlis says, his voice a thick, angry rasp.

  “Were there any signs of odd behaviour from Ariadne before tonight?” I ask Klund.

  The geek lowers his voice. “Professor Chandrasekhar was going to shut Ariadne down and start again.” The words spill from Klund’s mouth like a confession, his face contorted into a look of apology. “She had become irrational and argumentative.”

  I turn to Hewlis. “Is this true?”

  The engineer performs his tell-tale shrug. “I didn’t mix in the same circles as Klund. I heard nothing about any shutdown.”

  I stare again at the scientist. “Any idea why Professor Chandrasekhar would want to host a party of VIPs to show off Ariadne? Especially if she was malfunctioning?”

  “Company politics are not my strong point,” Klund replies. “I suppose these things are arranged weeks in advance. I have no idea about the professor’s intentions. But he must have believed he had Ariadne under his control, why else would he have let the party go ahead?”

  Klund’s explanation is thin at best, except that I have experience of Ariadne’s madness. I can feel her now, chafing away at me, writhing like a snake at the back of my consciousness. Trying to overwhelm me. It also makes sense that Professor Chandrasekhar would try and bluff his way through tonight’s VIP event to keep the semblance of normality. Pretending that his Cereb-ship was functioning as expected, especially with an Arbiter like Glaxtinian aboard.

  “Answer me this—is Ariadne capable of launching herself into hyperspace?”

  The geek shrugs. “It is possible, I suppose. Her nervous system pervades into every vital system, including navigation, the Snag Drive array, her weapons and defences.” Klund swallows loudly, his tongue licking at dry lips. “She is a prototype. Ariadne was built to test out the professor’s theories. It is unlikely he would give her complete control.”

  “This ship ain’t no goddamn prototype. Just look at her!” I reply to grunts of agreement from Hewlis. “The Company wouldn’t invest in a ship like this unless they were sure everything was tried and tested.”

  Klund shakes his head as if dismissing a child’s feeble arguments. “Ariadne is an empathic entity, very much like yourself. The ship, which Ariadne’s organic matrix is an integral part of, was specifically designed to give the crew pride. Pride is an emotion an empath can pick up on. It was important to the experiment that Ariadne felt a sense of her own worth as she developed. A strong sense of self-esteem about who she was and what she was a part of… and of the crew that she was protecting. That is why the professor’s work was so ground-breaki
ng.”

  “The brain is also a Skilled?” Hewlis blurts. “Space! Just look at what your professor has done here. He’s a monster!”

  Klund shrugs, unfazed. “I did not design the experiment nor was I privy to its ins and outs. However, progress cannot be made without a certain amount of sacrifice.”

  “Well this progress you’re so in favour of, nearly killed you, how does that feel?” Hewlis blurts.

  Klund tries to answer. I speak over him. “How did Chandrasekhar interface with the Cereb, with Ariadne? Did he have a coms interface of some kind? Where is his office?”

  “That I do not know,” the geek replies, raising his hands as if to protect himself from my barrage of questions. “There is the main laboratory, but Professor Chandrasekhar hardly ever visited. His private office is somewhere else aboard. I don’t know where. He was an intensely secretive man… but brilliant.”

  I bring up the ship’s schematic on my mission wafer. There’s no information other than floors and cabins. Chandrasekhar’s private office could be anywhere. Damn!

  “Tell me, is there any way to kill Ariadne. Or to at least cut her off from the rest of the ship, without the professor?”

  Klund shakes his head.

  “But you must know something that can help us, some way to fight back against the ship?”

  Klund glances over to Hewlis and the scanner he holds in his large, rough hands. “I panicked… I only did it to make sure I was safe.”

  “Did what?”

  Hewlis nods knowingly, his thick head of grey curls bouncing around his lived-in face. “You fried the goddamn air-con system, didn’t you?”

  The geek sags. “I had to, I could not risk Ariadne gassing the ship again.”

  “Way to go, Klund!” the engineer says, clapping the skinny technician on the back with one enormous spatula hand. “You’ve just gone up in my estimation.”

  “I cauterised Ariadne’s environmental controls,” Klund squeaks, the words coming fast to his thin lips. “My position aboard this ship gives me access to them. I had to do it… a matter of life and death. That is why the air-con is down. Why the ship’s temperature is all over the place. If we get out of this, you will tell them that, right? The Company? Make them understand?”