“That’s precisely why you took over the watch tonight, Lieutenant Castle,” Irons replied dryly.
“I get that we need to be careful. But do you really think one of those creatures would turn up here?”
“We don’t even know if they’re animals,” Jeff said, picturing the glowing creature to himself.
“Maybe they’re just animals without any kind of advanced technology. There were animals that glowed in the dark back on Earth, too. Maybe they’re six-feet-tall hybrids—half vampire, half firefly.”
“We have no idea what we’re dealing with,” Irons said. “At the end of the day, it’s all just speculation.”
“Hopefully they don’t bump into any of those things down there,” Castle murmured.
“I hope they do!” Irons reported. “We need to find out what we’re dealing with here.”
“There are four of them. They should be able to take care of themselves,” Jeff added. But he didn’t feel too confident.
“Not if they meet a whole herd.”
“Enough of your conjecturing,” Irons interrupted him sharply.
“But if—” Castle began, but fell silent as a noise came from the handheld.
Jeff hit the talk button. “We didn’t understand you, Joanne. Please repeat.”
It took a moment before they heard her voice again, this time more clearly. “We’re about nine hundred feet from the gate, in a side passage going off from the big tunnel. We’re in a room that looks like it used to be some kind of technical facility. There’s lots of equipment on one side of the room. Looks a bit like a small cinema or a lecture room. We’ve decided to take a closer look.
Jeff glanced at Irons. He nodded.
“OK, do that. Have you noticed anything else?”
“No. Owl thought he heard a scream somewhere down the big corridor, but the rest of us didn’t hear or see anything.”
“All right, but be careful.”
“Of course. Over.”
And so the unbearable waiting continued. Tomorrow it was Jeff’s turn to go to the other side of the gate. His hope of finding some evidence of the alien culture had given way to fear and panic. Fear of the area beyond the gate. And to think that a few days ago, he’d been scared just exploring the empty corridors near their base!
“How many days have we been on this ship?” Castle asked. He could have easily checked on his handheld, but he probably wanted to make conversation.
Jeff was also desperate for any distraction. “Twenty-one days.”
“That means another twenty-six weeks to Sigma-7,” Castle said. He groaned. “I don’t know how I’m going to last.”
“You don’t have much choice, Lieutenant,” Irons joined the conversation.
“In the beginning I found it kind of oppressive—all these dark corridors and everything. But now I’m actually frightened.”
Jeff nodded. He felt the same.
“We’re all going to die here,” Castle whispered suddenly.
Jeff and Irons swung round at the same time to look at him. The usually intrepid WSO was sitting at the table, coffee cup in hand, staring straight through them. His head was swaying slightly, as if he were in a trance.
“What makes you say that?” Irons asked sharply.
Castle’s gaze came back into focus and he looked at Irons and then Jeff. His face was completely devoid of emotion. Finally he shrugged. “Just a feeling,” he answered.
The major took a deep breath. “Lieutenant Castle. I don’t want to hear you say anything like that again, do you understand?”
A few seconds passed, then Castle nodded slowly.
“Pull yourself together,” Irons said. “You’re an officer in the Imperial space fleet. Behave accordingly.”
“Yes, sir,” Castle said quietly, then took a sip of his coffee as if nothing had happened.
Irons shook his head and turned away from Castle. He sighed deeply. Jeff and his superior sat side by side in silence, staring at the handheld.
It took quite a while before Joanne checked in again.
“Rutherford here.” Jeff started out of his gloomy reverie and almost knocked the device off the table in his eagerness to grab it.
“Speak,” he ordered curtly, and wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers before leaning forward again.
“We’ve found something,” she said. Her excitement was clearly audible even through the rustling noise.
Irons was suddenly fully alert. Castle pushed back his chair with a loud scraping sound and rushed over to the command table.
“What have you found?” Jeff asked.
“It really is a projection room. We played around with the switches, and suddenly there was a three-dimensional hologram in the middle of the room!”
Irons grabbed the handheld from Jeff. “Irons here. Nice and slowly, Lieutenant Rutherford. We’re having trouble hearing you. What kind of hologram was it?”
“A map, Sir.”
“What kind of map? Of the ship?”
“No, stars. It’s a star chart. A blue dot in the center probably shows the position of the ship and the surrounding stars. You can change the scale and zoom in and out.”
Jeff and Irons exchanged brief glances. Now maybe they would find out if they were safely en route back home.
“And where are we? Are we where we’re supposed to be?” Irons asked.
“That’s hard to say. I need to take pictures and compare them with the data on my handheld. I can do that once I’m back at HQ.”
Irons nodded. “All right, Lieutenant. Take all the time you need in the map room.”
“Shall we continue exploring after that?”
Irons hesitated a moment. “No. Knowing our position is more important. Once you have everything you need, come straight back to HQ. And don’t play around with the switches too much. I don’t want something to be set in motion that we might regret later. Tomorrow I’ll go look at the room myself.”
“Understood, Sir. Over.”
Irons leaned back in his chair and whistled.
“A map room,” Castle said. “Crazy that the projection still works after such a long time.”
“What do you think, Sir?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know. I would have thought a room like that would be in the center of the ship near the command center,” he replied, scratching his head.
“Maybe the aliens constructed the ship with decentralized controls. I mean, so that you can control the ship from any area. Or it isn’t a map room in the traditional sense, but some kind of scientific facility. An astronomy center. Or some kind of planetarium for the crew.”
Irons nodded. “All just wild guesses. The important thing is, we have a chance to find out where we actually are.”
“Why didn’t the computer tell us any of this?” Jeff wondered out loud. “It said the whole ship was the same and consisted of nothing but corridors. It could have at least mentioned that there were other beings on board, even if it didn’t know exactly what was in the other areas.”
“Maybe it didn’t expect us to go so far from our base and find the gate,” Castle said.
“Shall we ask it about the map room?” Jeff asked.
“It depends on what Rutherford finds out about our position,” Irons answered and stood up. “I’m going to lie down for a while. I’m exhausted. Make sure they head back soon.”
14.
Jeff swung round when he heard a knock at the door. But Mac was quicker and raced to the door, tore it open, and stormed out into the corridor. He looked in every direction, then shrugged and pushed the kitchen cart with their dinner into the room. “I’d love to know how that computer does it,” Mac said, parking the cart next to the big dining table.
Jeff guessed it was robots. Why do they disappear so quickly, as if they had something to hide? Jeff stole a glance at his superior, who was sitting at the table next to him. Irons looked awful. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes glazed. Something must have happened to him in the last few hours.