“Inside!” Velmeran ordered them into the airlock and shut the door, immediately cycling air into the chamber. “Deliberate decompression of an airlock. You can bet that set off alarms all the way to the bridge.”
“Why did he do it?” Consherra asked, still shaken by it all. “He could have lived.”
“No, he would have been dead within minutes by his own hand anyway,” he explained, pausing to trigger the outer doors and wave them through. “Honor, you know. But there was some honor to be won in at least trying.”
Before they could scramble for cover, a lift door only three meters ahead opened suddenly and a sentry stepped out, no doubt on its way to investigate the disturbance. The automaton did not see the Starwolves until it stepped into the hall and turned to face them. Then it found itself eye-to-eye with Velmeran and paused in midstride.
“You did not see anyone,” he told the machine.
The sentry made no reply, but neither did it open fire. Velmeran gestured the others past and slipped by the sentry when they were clear. They froze along the wall behind it, but the machine took no notice as it trotted awkwardly down the corridor the way they had come.
“What do you make of it?” Maeken Kea inquired.
The security officer shrugged. “I can only guess, but it was no malfunction. A Kalfethki was inside the airlock when they were sealed. Perhaps he tried to open the wrong door. Perhaps he simply wanted to die with his companions. Any survivor would not have been a willing one, knowing that his death was ordered.”
“Just keep watch until the sentries have a chance to tally the dead,” she told him. “I do not want any of those licentious lizards wandering about the ship. There is no telling what strange ideas some survivor might dream up.”
Maeken Kea was not particularly pleased with the situation, nor with Donalt Trace. She had not liked the idea of two thousand Kalfethki on board her ship in the first place. She liked even less to have them decompressed at the first provocation, as much as she had to admit to the necessity. Needless to say, she still had no idea that Trace had ordered a nuclear strike on Tryalna; he had contrived to have her off the bridge at that time. As it was, she got along with him as well as she did because she was under the mistaken impression that he did not interfere with her command of the ship.
“Captain?”
Maeken looked over and saw that the security officer monitoring and directing the sentries had called her. The officer was one of several Faldennye who made up a third of the Challenger’s crew. Maeken was not adept at reading their expressions, but she had the impression that this young lady had just been profoundly surprised.
“What is it?”
“Captain, I… I have just received a communication from a sentry,” she explained hesitantly in her rich, purring voice. “It called in to report that it had just not seen anyone.”
Maeken reacted to that with predictable mystification. “I take it that there is something unusual in this?”
“Captain, sentries relay reports only when called for, or when they have something definite to report. They do not make contact spontaneously to report nothing.”
Maeken nodded in understanding. “I see what you are getting at.”
“There is also a problem in syntax,” the Feldennye continued. “The sentry said that it had just not seen anyone. As if it had seen something important enough to report, and that it was nothing. Something is wrong.”
“A malfunction?”
She nodded in resignation. “That would have to be it, although a remote internal check reveals nothing. I have ordered another sentry to reinforce that one, in the event it is failing.”
“Where did this occur?”
“Here, just as it came off the lift.” She indicated the place on the map projected on her monitor.
Maeken drew back in surprise. “Not fifty meters from an airlock that was decompressed. And it is now standing guard outside that very lock.”
“It is so,” the Feldennye agreed. “Could the two incidents be related?”
“If you can figure out how, then you tell me. The airlock only opened on the other side.” Maeken glanced at the ceiling, rubbing an aching neck as she considered the matter. “Keep your eyes open.”
Maeken saw that Commander Trace had returned and hurried to join him on the central bridge.
“Did you see Lieutenant Skerri?” She asked.
“No, he wasn’t there. He must have returned to his cabin. I didn’t think to ask for him.”
“Captain!”
She turned in time to see the same Feldennye officer pull off her headphones and throw them down on her console. The entire bridge crew stared in open amazement. Feldennye were extraordinarily calm, eventempered people, and it took a great deal to frustrate them to the point of being upset. Maeken hurried to her station, the Sector Commander close behind.
“Captain, I was making a complete scan of the location and activity of all the sentries when I found one unit far from its assigned place,” she explained. “It belongs near the middle of the ship, but found it as far forward as it can get. I asked it to explain itself, and it… it told me to shut up and mind my own business.”
Maeken glanced up at Donalt Trace, but he had missed the previous report and was even more mystified. She turned back to the security officer. “That is no simple malfunction, is it?”
“No, Captain.”
“I would guess that either this entire ship is cracking mentally under the stress of battle, or else someone is tampering with our sentries.”
“That is the only explanation,” the Feldennye agreed.
Maeken turned to the astonished Sector-Commander. “I have to remain here, so it is up to you. I suggest that you find four or five off-duty crew members and put rifles in their hands, take as many sentries as you can squeeze into a lift, and see if you can intercept them.”
“Who?” Trace asked, perplexed.
“You have Starwolves on your ship.”
“Starwolves? Are you sure?” He almost looked faint.
Maeken shrugged helplessly. “Not entirely. It might all be coincidence, but I doubt it. The Kalfethki were fighting when you killed them. Were they fighting among themselves, or were they defending your ship? Only a few minutes later an airlock in a decompressed area opened, and a sentry on the other side of that lock spouts nonsense.”
“But how could they have gotten into the ship undetected?”
“Simple enough. They must have a device that activates the locks without alerting the master control. It failed once, and we got a light. A similar device stuns sentries.” She looked up at Commander Trace. “Your ship is as good as you meant it to be. They couldn’t hurt it from the outside, so they mean to wreck it from the inside.”
Donalt Trace shook his head slowly. “Damned Starwolves. But what can they do?”
“Heaven only knows,” Maeken said. “I will stay on the bridge and call in about fifty sentries to guard the passages in. You organize that hunting party and do your best to intercept them.”
Velmeran stopped so suddenly that Consherra nearly ran into him from behind. Both she and Baress snapped their rifles to ready and prepared to shoot anything that moved.
“They know that we are here,” he said at last. “Donalt Trace is coming to look for us.”