Cold Sleep, page 3
“Such typical spacer bullshit. Thought you were savvier than to buy into that nonsense, Zed.”
“Think about it. Whoever this passenger is, you really think they loaded him into his casket frothing at the mouth and ready to tear some woman’s throat out?”
I shake my head, it’s not hard to see where he’s going with this.
Zed’s eyes are wild, roving around the room, “If this was some assassin, even some fucked up naukara machine man or an ITF Ghostface, don’t you think they’d have been a bit more subtle than chowing down on her neck?”
His voice reverberates within the confines of the VIP casket bay. Here where there are only frozen bodies and me, it doesn’t matter. But some sounds travel easily through a vessel’s bulkheads. Even in a cavernous bulk hauler like SCCSV Charon, his words might echo in other parts of the ship.
I step close to him and lay one finger over his lips, stilling them. Lean in and kiss him. The hard, meaningful kiss saved for showing him who’s dominant in whatever bunk we might share. Now, it serves to curb the tide of panic rising in him. He resists at first, shoulders stiff and mouth locked closed, but then his lips part and the kiss becomes real. His arms come up around me and the shaking in them subsides. Slowly, aching, I pull back.
“We’re calm,” I say. “We’ve got to be. Whatever’s going on, we both know what’s real and what’s not.” I bang a fist on the edge of the nearest casket. “Technology, not conspiracy theories or ghost stories. OK?”
“But what if…”
“No. Stop. We don’t have time for endless speculation. Check me over. I don’t have any blood on me, do I?”
“You’re clear.”
“Good.” I look him up and down. “So are you. We’re going to hide our payday, and then we’re going to put out this fire.”
“How?”
“Easy. The idea of trapping him deep in the ship and letting g-forces pancake him is a bust, same with starving him out. If he’s got a QI virus, he’d go ahead and hack another casket.”
“You just said it’d be easy.”
“Yeah, it is. All we have to do is use our brains. So we get on the thermal scanners to locate the escaped passenger and seal him in wherever he is. Then we find a way to set atmosphere cycling to suck the oxygen out of that part of the ship, pump in some CO2 and it’s over.”
“Not sure it’s possible but even if it is, won’t it leave a record?”
“Baby, how could we cover up what’s happened here?” I ask, see him start to answer, and cut him off. “Let’s get real. All we can do is hide our involvement. Treat this as a perfect opportunity and use it to our advantage. Everything our virus has done can be laid at our wakeful passenger’s door.”
Zed sighs. The wildness has gone from his eyes but there’s still the edge of something in his expression. He’s screwing down hard on his fear, but it’s there.
I’ve seen this before. My first trip into the black, I’d been paired with another ensign, fresh out of training. There’d been a problem with our drive which threatened to leave the hauler overshooting its destination by half a light year. Not a disaster but cutting close to it—fusion rocket fuel reserves didn’t allow leeway. She’d started cracking under the pressure, finally ending up sedated and stuffed back in the freezer. Right before she’d gone space-happy, tearing at her hair and screaming, her eyes had held the look that’s in Zed’s right now. Close to the edge, looking over at the drop.
A hollow clang reverberates.
“What the fuck was that?” Zed whispers, looking at the bulkhead.
“He’s not sitting on his hands and waiting for us. Whoever it is, he’s up to something and you can bet it’s not making us a nice breakfast.”
Zed winces and looks over at the corpse of the woman behind us. “Did you have to?”
I huff a laugh and go to open the VIP bay door.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to check whether he’s out there?”
“And how am I supposed to do that, genius? Besides, he can’t be down in the ship clanging stuff around and outside the door, can he?”
“Well, I’d better go first, right?” Zed says, holding the coffee pot high.
“No, don’t want him dying with laughter,” I say, ignoring the frown that earns me. “Come on, it’s not far to the bridge.”
CHAPTER 2
* * *
Zed takes position behind me as we creep along the dim two hundred meters of corridor between the VIP boat and the forward compartment of the Charon. The lights remain in their power saving mode, mere lines of red at the corridor’s edges that shed barely enough illumination to stave off the dark. Halfway to the bulkhead door ahead of us, another metallic clanging echoes from the rear of the ship.
“Think he’s gonna mess with the fusion rockets?” Zed asks. “Or the ion drive?”
“Now there’s something real to worry about. We need to find this fucker and deal with him before he jeopardizes us all. The rockets or the drive… Could he overload them?” I ask.
“No. I mean, don’t see how he could get close enough without the radiation killing him. Er… I think, the amount of gamma rays and x-rays those suckers put out would cook even one of those cyborg soldiers in less time than we’ve been talking about it.”
“Yeah, but what about the fuel lines?”
“Er… maybe… I…”
I scowl. His eyes are wide. He should know all this without hesitation. But his panic’s coming up again. There has to be something to bring him round, and more than that, we have to know what risk having some space-happy bastard rattling around the engine compartment poses.
“You’re the technician, I’m the navigator. You know this. Tell me—fuel or coolant lines, could you get to either of them in-flight?”
“Coolant isn’t an issue. The rockets radiate most their heat directly into the void. Fuel…” Zed rubbed his forehead. “Maybe. Could burn off some of the H2 from the thrusters. Doubt it’d do enough damage unless we were really unlucky. Feeds to the fusion rockets? Buried a bit deeper, hard to get to but possible. No way to do it without killing himself though, that stuff would boil off real fast. Fill whatever compartment with fumes and suffocate him before he could override the bulkhead doors. That sort of leak would trigger a separate containment system—hardwired with no way to hack it via computer.”
“But it’d still kill the rest of us, right?”
“Maybe. Not quickly but we’d end up unable to slow down below the minimum velocity necessary for the ramscoop. Maybe we’d have some chance of changing course…”
“…so we could use gravitational braking or a slingshot return course.” I finish, nodding. “Not bad, warrant officer.”
“Unless he’s got a cutting torch. In which case…” Zed gestures with his hands, opening them and spreading them apart. “Boom.”
I punch in the code to open the command compartment, half expecting to come face to face with the killer’s bloodied visage. The door hisses but wouldn’t open.
“What now?” Zed asks.
“Door won’t release. Must be a pressure variance.”
“Atmo leak?”
“Maybe. Hold on. No, still showing pressure’s nominal in the crew lounge and command module.” I pump away at the manual door release and it opens a crack.
“Electrical systems failure, maybe? Could our schizoid killer be doing it?”
“Worry about that when we get in,” I say. “Don’t just stand there, help me with this. Any other time and I’d be writing you up for failing to maintain the manual backups; this crank is nearly seized up.”
“Hey, you have any idea how big this tub is?” he said. “As if I’ve got time to go around oiling the doors. Wait, what’s happening?”
Behind us the low-level lighting is going off, the line of light being swallowed by an advancing wave of darkness. The dull metallic clang comes again, no longer from elsewhere in the ship but closer. A pause and it sounds once more, echoing out of the darkness stalking towards us.
“Hurry the fuck up!” Zed hisses.
One more crank and the bulkhead door opens enough for me to squeeze through. In I wriggle and start cranking the release on the other side.
Another clang—this time near enough the sound beat upon my ears. The door shifts another couple of inches and Zed tries to push through. The light behind him blinks out with his head and most of his torso through.
“Aargh! Something’s got my arm. For fuck’s sake, help me!” He screams.
I let go of the crank and grab Zed, putting a foot up on the bulkhead and pulling him with all my strength. At first, it makes no difference, then the pressure releases and he falls through the door. I pound the emergency seal button on the door and it springs closed.
“Ten fingers, ten toes?” I ask, falling into spacer’s slang.
“Yeah,” Zed gasps. “Yeah, I think so. Shit, look at my fucking arm.”
There’s a growing dark stain of blood on his wearall’s right arm. The fabric is perforated. Carefully rolling up the sleeve reveals a puncture wound on his forearm, blood welling from it.
“Was that his nails?” I ask, adrenaline conjuring images of some feral looking colonist with claws for hands. Ridiculous.
“I don’t know. His teeth, I think. Fuck, am I going to bleed to death?”
“Steady, man, steady,” I say. “You’re not spraying blood everywhere. OK.”
There’s not much in the way of medical facilities here. Even the main medibay is utilitarian at best, equipped for cold-sleep revival more than triage—who needs better when most of the time the crew and passengers are frozen solid? Our medical officer Hiroki is thorough though. He’d stowed a small quantity of wound sealant, still in date. It’ll close the wound and stave off infection. I spray some into the wound and squeeze the edges together then spray the whole area. Zed sighs as the sealant numbs his skin.
“That’s better,” he said. “You think he’s got some kind of jaw augment? Poison?”
“Relax,” I say, injecting as much calm as I can into my voice. “Maybe he or she has got some modification, I mean it’d explain the strength and biting through your wearall, but poison? You aren’t flopping about on the deck, so I guess you’re not poisoned.”
“But what if…”
“Zed, stow it. We’re clear for now, but our unwanted passenger can still hurt us. We stick to the plan. Hide the chip then see if we can track him.”
Zed doesn’t answer but stands cradling his wounded arm even though the painkillers in the wound sealant must have anaesthetized the injury by now.
I go over to my cold-sleep casket. Crew privilege allows for storage of some personal effects inside—cigarettes mostly. I’ve never picked up the habit but most of the rest of the crew have, captain included. Why care about the health risk when corporate insurance covers anti-cancer shots every time crew medicals come around. When you’re getting a regular dose of cosmic radiation, even reduced by the Charon’s hull and magnetic cowl, what’s the added harm of a bit of tobacco? Not that anyone other than the captain can afford the real stuff—the rest lit up the synthetic shit. Tabac doesn’t smell the same but it all stinks, you know. Zed’s probably still itching for one. There won’t be any harm in it now but I’m not going to put up with the smell. Still, at least it’s only tabac he’s twitching about. Don’t grow up in the slums without some kind of narc habit and it could’ve been a lot worse.
I pop the chip into the small container alongside a holo of my parents, dead seven years, subjective. I’ve lost track of how long ago they passed, objective.
“You know, if Dominguez shakes us all down for contraband, our little gig here will be up in an instant. Couldn’t you find a better place to hide it?” Zed asks.
“Like where?”
“You know… somewhere they can’t look without a medic.”
I give him a disgusted look. “Don’t be so fucking stupid. We get a medical before leaving the ship. Anything inside a crewmember’s body would show up in a flash. Here, this chip might be nothing more than my music collection or family holo archive. Or ten thousand books to read.”
“Who the hell reads books?”
“You know what I’m saying, Zed. This will only be a problem if we give them a reason to look for it. Like we said, the corporate asshole might get a message back before us, but what’s he going to say? “Oh yeah, someone stole my narc recipes, can you arrest them for me.” We stay cool about it. Just like we stay cool about this schizoid murderer.”
“Okay, okay,” Zed says, holding up both hands and walking into the command module. He’s stopped cradling his injured arm—let’s take it for a good sign.
Leaning my head against the cool metal of the casket, I try to pull my fractured thoughts together. There’s something important missing from this picture, and it’s got to be staring me straight in the face. But like hunting for a word you can’t quite seize, the answer slips away from me. Touching the holo of my parents with a gentle caress, I close up the casket and join Zed in the command module. He’s leaning over the internal monitors, dialing through the settings.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing on thermals. Nothing except the normal temperature variance and no atmo variation.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“Take a look for yourself. Our killer has to be some kind of cybered-up tech-assassin or ITF Ghostface. Like I was saying.”
“No, way. As if some corporate or government assassin would bite your arm and not tear it clean off.”
“Er… Yeah, okay. I see what you mean.”
“This bastard’s clever, I’ll give him that. Whatever QI-virus he’s got, he must’ve uploaded it into the security monitors.”
“How the fuck could he do that?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Maybe it’s time we woke the rest of the crew, Kara. We’re in the shit.”
“Stop saying that. And we explain why we’re awake first how, exactly?”
“We do a short sleep like we talked about earlier.”
“The short sleep we’ll never wake up from? Give me a break, Zed.”
He starts pacing up and down. The tendons in his neck show how tight his teeth are gritted. My sometime-lover and partner in crime is about to sail over the edge.
“Set it up so all the caskets purge, okay? Enough screwing around. We’ve got what we woke for; we lie up in our caskets and get up all woozy like everyone else. We don’t offer any explanations, just keep our heads down.”
His idea has some appeal—we’d avoided leaving any real traces of our waking, at least not any that couldn’t be hidden under a general QI-virus raid and so blamed on the killer. My eyes rove over Zed’s face before dropping to his arm.
“And you think both the Captain and M’Benga are going to put your wound down to scratching an itch when you woke from cold-sleep? Please. Try to get a grip on reality, yeah?”
Zed looks down at his arm, realization slowly lighting his face.
“But it fucks us anyway, doesn’t it? Why wait to get killed.”
“Captain’ll space you, no hesitation. And you’d blab, Zed, so she’d space me too. That’s not happening.” No need to add I’ll space him myself first and jettison a lifepod to put the Captain off the scent. She’d buy it—Zed isn’t stupid, but she probably wouldn’t realize that. It’s not a great leap to assume he’d be dumb enough to believe the lifepods are an escape instead of the slow death they really represent. But it gives me an idea.
“Trust me,” I say. “I have it all worked out. Wound sealant will get it sorted out and after a month or two of cold-sleep it’ll look like an old scar. We want to hide what we’ve done, then we have to take the killer down before we go back into our caskets and leave the Captain with a problem that seems to have sown itself up.”
“How?”
“We kill this fucker, dump him in a lifepod and wave goodbye to our troubles. Set the medicomp to wake the Captain at the midpoint and let her puzzle out what happened.”
“One problem.” He holds up a finger like a little boy asking teacher if he can go pee.
I sigh. “What?”
“How’re we going to kill someone we can’t find?”
“CO2.”
“What?” Zed says.
“He’s got to breathe. Doesn’t matter if he can hack the thermal monitors. Doesn’t matter if he can hack the life-support logs. He can’t alter the change in atmospheric composition. So, all we do is track which compartments are using their CO2 scrubbers—that leaves physical traces.”
“But we’d have to check each compartment as we go,” Zed says.
“Wouldn’t take a minute, then we know which one he’s been in or is still in and we focus our search there. Manually seal the doors behind us as we go.”
“And kill him with what?”
Shit—this is the snag. If he can hack the atmo regulation, then we can’t selectively depressurize a compartment. We need a weapon…
“There must be something. Come on, I can’t be the one to come up with all the answers.”
Zed glowers but the panic recedes with his focus returned.
“Would the armory be where passengers’ weapons are stowed?” He asks.
“Passengers aren’t allowed weapons.”
“Kara, you think those Corporate ice-cubes are going to be happy defrosting on a new planet, ready to boss the colonists around only to find they’re outnumbered? They’ve got to have an equalizer.”
“I didn’t see any sign of one.”
“Of course not, but one of those caskets must have a gun in it.”
“What good is that going to be? Ten’ll give one it won’t be a deckgun which means firing it will probably put a hole in the bulkhead.”
“Nah, if they’ve kept a holdout on them, it’d be small. Hand maser? Nah. Probably a ballistic—easier to hide without an energy cell. Doubt even a big caliber pistol could do more than scratch the hull.”
