The Bright Black Sea (53 page)

'Three meters. Make it four,' he snapped.

Kie in his bright yellow space suit was stationed
right aft where the hull angled sharply for the ship's stern and
the ten meter wide bell nozzle that now extended from it. He hauled
the heavy and wavy line as I unwound it and fed it to Min stationed
on the rim of the rocket engine bell. He didn't say much,
preferring not to offer himself as a target of Riv's ill temper.
However, since our owner was working alongside, he had to mumble
his most colorful adjectives mostly to himself.

We'd finished cutting the inner liner four hours ago
and were now, finally, setting up the plasma cutter to cut through
the outer D-Steel casing. The inner lining of D-Rad liner is
impervious to the intense heat the plasma cutter projected and so
had to be cut with a circular saw. With that done, we could use the
plasma cutter to cut through the outer D-Steel casing. We were,
however, making our cut in the center of one of the circling
support ribs, so that the process would still take the better part
of three days to complete – if all went as planned. The bell could
be cut at a thinner section of the casing faster, but by doing it
this way, we'll end up with a flange on both sections that we'll
use to bolt the sections back together when we're ready to re-plate
the bell and restore the engine to its proper form. Riv was setting
up a service bot to follow the groove in the inner lining and
rigging a harness for the fuel line to keep it from dragging the
service bot off course.

After unwinding the required section of piping, I'd
nothing more to do than wait for the next “request” and stare about
me. Of course the sight was a familiar one, seen in many viewpanels
over many years, but there's a certain awesome intimacy when you
view the Nine Star Nebula directly though the clear dome of a space
suit while clinging to the hull of your ship. You really feel it.
The intense solitude. The absolute silence. The illusionary
emptiness of it all. And this time, the fact that it seemed that
something was looking over my shoulder. My unseen companions had
not gone away.

I awoke today to find that the feeling of being
watched was even stronger than it had been yesterday. It seemed
with me all the time now, back there just at the very edge of my
awareness. I tracked down Dyn, who assured me that all our pet
systems were in operational order. I asked him why the cats acted
the way they did, and he gave me a look and a vague answer, that
boiled down to, cats – who knows? And walked away.

It's hard to say if other people were feeling the
same way, since not only is my view colored by what I'm feeling,
but we've all been under a great deal of pressure and work to get
the makeshift repairs of the engine done against the looming
deadline. Still, it seemed to me that everyone was a little more on
edge, and either more unsocial, or more social than normal. And I
didn't want to ask anyone outright and have to explain why since it
had to be in my head anyway, and it'd likely undermine the crew's
confidence in me, which I didn't think was warranted just yet. I
didn't think I was down the dark hole – on the edge, maybe, but not
down it.

I could hear over the suit's radio Riv giving
instructions to Min, but paid little attention to it. Instead I
studied our glowing wake, the whirls and swirls of glowing ionized
gasses, their subtle colors streaming behind us. Beyond, the
glowing nebula and the ragged black fingers of the dust and rocky
drifts that held the glowing nebula's faint light as if it was
shining through a vast, half closed, fist. The wake of our passage
was brighter ahead and astern. Ahead, because the ship's shock wave
of “captured” gas and dust was being pushed through the extremely
thin gas and dust “atmosphere” of the nebula, and it streamed
behind us as a wake of ionized gas and dust. The electromagnetic
shell created by the ionized gas and dust that surrounds the ship
was almost too faint to see. Working out here,one hoped that the
shell was just strong enough to deflect any bit of the nebula that
was big enough to put a hole through this armored suit. At this
speed, it wouldn't have to be too big. The hazards of the
trade.

We spent another half an hour outside once Riv got
the plasma cutter going to watch how it worked to make certain he'd
not have to come out here again an hour later, as was often the
case with the circular saw. I secured the fuel line in the air lock
and we returned to the ship via the starboard boat deck
airlock.

The rest of the day was spent checking all the engine
systems – fuel and coolant lines, control lines, and auxiliary
equipment – to make certain everything had been reconnected, and
reconnected properly. Everyone seemed short and sharp when
speaking, but stayed mostly silent, if only not to be short and
sharp. I, like everyone else, was looking forward to being under
power again, and hopefully reliably so. Failure would not be pretty
on several levels.

I kept busy, just to keep from constantly looking
over my shoulder, and forced myself to make my usual, bottom to
top, tour of the ship before retiring.

The cats must have posted a look out, since I was
hardly in the companionway before they were streaming around my
feel. We were still pals. I checked the locks on the strongroom and
the telltales on the containers, and headed for the bench against
the bulkhead to commiserate with my feline friends. We were talking
back and forth, when someone – not one of the cats – asked 'Who are
you talking to?'

We all jumped, like a little wave hitting the shore
and I looked up to see Min silhouetted in the light of the
companionway.

'Scare us half to death, will you Min,' I exclaimed,
adding, 'I was just talking to my new feline friends.'

'Talking to what?' she asked as she walked rather
hesitantly towards us.

'You do see the cats, don't you?' I asked, suddenly
wary.

'Oh, yes, I see cats.'

'Well, that's good.'

'Is it, Captain?'

'Well, it's better than the alternative. Join us,
won't you? It's liberty hall here, right mates?'

I cleared some cats out of the way to give Min a
place to sit, and with a look I couldn't make out in the gloom, she
settled down beside me. The cats didn't mind. It was, after all,
liberty hall, and they climbed aboard her as well as me.

'What's this all about?'

'Neb knows,' I replied, brushing a cat tail away from
my nose. 'I've been their best friend since yesterday when I
stopped in on my nightly rounds. They jumped down from the
mezzanine and clustered around like they're doing now. Makes you
sort of wonder if something is, well, upsetting them,' I added. I
wasn't certain of what I wanted to say to Min about my own issues,
but it wouldn't hurt to at least dance around it and see where it
lead.

'What would be upsetting the cats?' she asked and
with a glance towards me, added, 'Have they told you?'

'They may have, but I don't understand cat,' I
replied lightly, thinking hard as to what I wanted, or needed, to
say. 'But , this behavior is rather unprecedented, so you have to
wonder what has brought it on...'

'Maybe you just smell different, more attractive. To
cats.'

'I rather doubt its that.' Well, I suppose she needed
to be given a hint. If I was going down the dark hole, she'd need
to act. 'The thing is that I've been feeling that something's
wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems as if
there's, well, something aboard that wasn't before... Which I know
isn't possible, but still... You don't happen to have some sort of
intuitive feeling like that too, do you?'

'I can't say I do. What exactly do you think is
aboard?'

'I don't know. That's the point. It's just a vague
feeling, and the impression that things are moving at the corner of
my eyes, though there's nothing there when I look. And well, it
seems like the whole atmosphere of the ship has changed as well,
everyone seems more on edge and wary. I don't want to read too much
into that – everyone is worn down from getting the engine moved and
all, but still, I'm not certain that's the whole of it...'

'Have you asked anyone about it?'

'No. You're the first person I've mentioned this to.
And only because I think giving you a warning that I might be going
down the dark hole is the responsible thing to do.'

'Are you going down the dark hole? Have you visited
the medic bay? Do I need to be concerned?' she asked.

'Well, given these irrational fears I'm entertaining,
I have to wonder. I'm aware of the impossibility of something being
onboard, and can deal with it, but well, if things get worse,
you'll have to act. I've dropped by the medic bay and it returned
nothing but a slightly elevated level of stress, which is
understandable. So I don't know. As I said, I'm mentioning it now
to you just in case I slipped deeper into whatever it is that's
happening to me.'

She considered that in silence for some time,
absently petting the two cats on her lap.

'But you're still able to function normally now?'

'Oh yes. I'm not that far gone. It's just that if it
continues to grow worse, there may come a day that you'd probably
better put me in a sleeper-pod to be sorted out later.'

'You'll keep me informed?'

'Oh, yes. Of course.'

'Right, . Have you finished communing with your new
friends?'

'Yes, we can go.'

As before, the cats followed us to the access well,
and seemed upset to see us go. Min and I had little to say after
that, and I retired to my cabin.

Hopefully I did the right thing in telling Min.
Hopefully I'm not going down the dark hole. But , why did I just
glance at the shadows in the corner of my cabin?

01

I awoke to find myself in a strange ship. My quarters
had grown, extending into shadows and seemed different in ways I
couldn't quite pin down. Still groggy from sleep, I searched rather
helplessly for something solidly familiar but found everything
vague and different. I tried to get out of my hammock, but I
couldn't seem to manage it. Were we under power? I didn't hear the
engines... Someone or something, moved in the remote shadows of the
room. I struggled to get out of the hammock, my heart pounding,
which woke me up enough to realize I was dreaming, and with an
effort tore myself out of the dream.

My heart was still pounding when I swung out of my
hammock and slipped into my slippers on the deck. The room was dark
and quiet, but familiar. I'd apparently not undressed before
falling asleep, so I decided to look in on the bridge before
cleaning up. I stepped into my office. There was someone at my
desk. He swung around as I entered.

'Ah, Litang. Still captain, but not for long. I meant
to give the
Lost Star
to Seni Shir,' said Hawker Vinden.
'She'd earned it, you know.'

'Yes,' I had to agree. It was true. 'That's what we
all thought. But you died before the
Lost Star
made it to
Calissant, and well, Seni got the
Comet King
when Jann
bought his own ship'

'So I hear, so I hear. Just as well. You might serve
my purposes even better,' he added thoughtfully. 'Yes, Litang, you
might...'

Warning bells were jangling in the back of my mind
telling me this wasn't right. It struck me that Vinden wasn't my
owner any longer. Hawker Vinden was dead. This had to be a dream. I
had to still be dreaming, and with that realization, and an almost
physical wrench, and an audible yell, I hauled myself into the
waking world once again. I lay in the hammock, heart pounding,
breathing hard, a brassy taste in my mouth, and carefully surveyed
my familiar surroundings. Nothing seemed out of place, everything
seemed solid. Real. Right. I cautiously swung out, slipped on my
slippers. I looked into my office. It was empty, and I made my way
to the shower to wash the nightmares away and made a mug of cha to
wash the brassy taste out of my mouth. It was not a good start to
the day.

The day got somewhat better, but the shadows still
moved in the corner of my eyes and I still had that vague feeling
that we were no longer alone in space. Everyone was either very
quiet or on edge, a sharp response never very far off. Even
discounting my feelings, it was clear something was wrong aboard
the ship. I could only hope that once we were under power again, it
would cure itself...

Work on the engine is winding down. We're now mostly
test running sub-sections of the engine/control/pump system while
we waited for the service bot to complete the trimming of nozzle
bell. Judging from the progress the bot has made to date, that job
should be completed in two days, on day 135, four days beyond our
original scheduled deceleration date. After we had stored the
severed section in the hold, we'd still several days to slowly work
the engine up to full power, to make certain every system was
working properly and reliably, which would put us further behind.
Still, assuming we found no great problems, we could, with the
aggressive use of balancing rockets to augment the main rocket,
still make our delivery deadline. But it would be close.

I was tired by the time the 5th watch was drawing to
a close and I was ready to make my final rounds of the ship. Little
details and tasks had filled my day, keeping whatever it is that's
weighing on me more or less at bay, save for the odd moment or two.
I wasn't exactly looking forward to the inspection, but I'd feel a
whole lot worse if I gave it a miss. And well, I wasn't so eager
for sleep either, so I stepped out of my office and headed
down.

The engineering workshop is the deck below bridge
deck and contains the engineers' workshop and parts cage, plus the
storage lockers for perishables and other sundry supplies. It also
houses Dyn's environmental office and control center, the culture
vat and the mechanical section of the moss garden. I looked into
the workshop and Dyn's office. Both were dark and quiet as work was
winding down on the engine. I checked the locks on the storage
lockers and the large service airlock. Everything was in order,
save that the shadows seemed darker and more animated, as soon as I
turned away. I resisted the urge to look back.