It was no one’s fault but my own that I failed to ask about communications. And so it was no one’s fault but my own when I arrived at the kitchen to find its hatch sealed and silent. I banged on it, waited, banged again, lost patience: “Box, where’s Cook?”
The talking box was silent for a moment. Then: “Cook is in the Gravid Mother’s cell.”
I swore. “What’s he doing there?”
The prehistoric joker who scripted the box’s responses had the last laugh: “Insufficient data. Are you hungry?” I returned the box to my belt, then kicked off for the entrance to Mausoleum Companionway Two.
As soon as I tumbled into the corridor, I knew I wasn’t alone. Some quality of the air currents or the shadows cast by the dim light globes flickering within the bony hands of the alcove occupants: I was unsure what it was, but I knew it wasn’t right. As I entered, I had instinctively kicked off in the direction of the Gravid Mother’s room, so I was unable to turn my head to see at first, but I caught hold of a protruding femur and added some spin to my trajectory. “Hello?” I called.
The stranger looked at me blankly. She hung stationary outside the hatch to Storage Node Fifteen, frozen in the act of opening it. I caught a confused jumble of impressions: a fuzz of short-cut hair, a soft, roundish face, austere one-piece free-fall suit, and something not quite right about the way she watched me that put me on my guard.
“Who are you?” I asked, politely enough, as if meeting a new and hitherto-unaccounted-for person aboard a vehicle in flight was nothing peculiar. “Have you seen Cook?”
The stranger twitched, turning and bracing her ankles against Storage Node Fifteen’s hatch. “What is your name?” she asked me, her voice as flat and affectless as a synthesizer. Like me, she wore a utility belt with items clipped to it. Items that included a knife with a blade as long as my hand from wrist to middle fingertip, toward which her own right hand was moving.
The itch of uncertainty became a conviction: “Got to run! Bye!” I called, kicking off urgently toward the internode with Mausoleum Companionway Three, Storage Node Four, and UpDown Axial Gangway Blue. I made no attempt to control my speed but aimed for the dogged-back hatch and grabbed it with both hands, yanking myself to a halt as the stranger’s dagger buzzed angrily and oriented itself, rotors grinding at the air as it turned my way, preparing to attack. Its owner was gathering herself to leap, blank blue eyes focusing on me with nothing of mercy visible in her expression.
I yanked the emergency toggle as hard as I could. Red lights flashed as the hatch hissed loudly and sprang closed. A second later, a metallic clang and an angry whine told me my fear was entirely justified. I glanced around the back of the hatch, trying to suppress a rising tide of panic. VACUUM OVERRIDE looked promising: I twisted the switch, locking it shut as I tried to work out what was happening. She’d thrown a knife at me! Who was she, a stowaway or an agent for the pirates? There was no way of knowing. But I couldn’t isolate her; long before I could make my way around the ring of passageways, she could be out of Companionway Three and somewhere else entirely. I’d have to find some way to warn the deacon of her presence on board—let him sort her out.
The Gravid Mother’s cell was only a short distance away: two nodes, three tubes. I ran for it (or rather, I bounced and kicked and caromed toward it, somersaulting from all available surfaces). Less than a minute later, I came to her door. It was shut. I grabbed the locking wheel and used it as an anchor while I pounded on the door: “Let me in!”
There was no immediate response. Half-panicking, I grabbed the talking box. “Can you override the Gravid Mother’s door lock?” I asked it. “Urgent maintenance is required, by order of Deacon Dennett.”
“Stand by,” the box vacillated.
“Open the door for me, or I’ll use you as a wrench! There’s a telemetry disconnect—”
That worked. The door unlocked, with a loud clunk from somewhere in its rim. I tugged it open and tumbled through into the Gravid Mother’s room.
“Hey! Get out of—”
“No, get her!”
“Excuse me?” I blushed, hideously embarrassed, even as I swung the door shut behind me. (Avoiding embarrassment is a lower priority than avoiding knife-wielding killers.)
The Gravid Mother glared at me from the hammock-bed, in which she floated entwined and entangled with Cook. This much was unpleasantly clear: They’d removed most of the cushions and quilts from the bed for some reason, not to mention their clothes. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, face reddening. It was not the only part of her anatomy on parade: I tried not to notice.
Cook cranked himself round—when I had entered, his back was turned to me—so that he could look at me sidelong. “Yeah, what are you—”
“There’s an intruder with a knife!” I burst out. “Deacon Dennett sent me for urgent feedstock for the priestess, but there’s an intruder on board! She tried to kill me. And we’re going to be boarded by pirates!”
Cook looked at his partner in concupiscence. “She’s lost her mind,” he grunted. “Let me take care of—”
“You’ve got to help!” I pleaded, “It’s a crisis! Lady Cybelle needs twenty kilos of tubespam and fifty liters of intravenous fluid, and she needs it right now because the deacon is trying to accelerate her integration because we’re going to be boarded by pirates in less than sixteen hours and all you can do is, er—” I spluttered out. It was transparently clear that Cook and the Gravid Mother shared a mutual fascination with anatomical exploration: At any other time, their distasteful distraction would have been none of my business, but right now it was clouding their minds. Indeed, they didn’t even have the decency to undock and clothe themselves. “Disgusting!” I squeaked.
Now Cook separated himself from his partner and turned to face me. I averted my eyes. “Just because you’re not getting any,” he sneered.
The Gravid Mother sighed theatrically. “There’ll be no reasoning with her, Willard,” she told her partner in unspeakableness. “I know her kind. You.” She looked at me. “You aren’t going to breathe a word of this to the deacon, are you? Or to Her Ladyship, when she’s alive again. Or to Father Gould. Are you?”
I shook my head. “Why would I?”
“Because if you do,” Cook butted in menacingly, “I’ll—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I snap. “Weren’t you listening? We’re in serious trouble.” I recounted what had happened to me since Dennett’s summoning. “The intruder’s probably a pirate spy,” I concluded. “And if Dennett doesn’t get the feedstock we need, we’re going to be down one priestess.”