Caine nodded, watched as the incandescent crimson edge of the planet’s terminator rotated into view. “Yeah, there are a whole lot of explanations that would be pretty welcome right now.”
Trevor glanced at Caine. “You mean, explanations for all the attacks on you?”
“Yeah, and on your dad and Tarasenko. And Elena’s abduction on Mars. Every time I try to make sense of the incidents, the unanswered questions come hammering down like I’m hatless in a hailstorm.”
Trevor smiled ruefully. “Judging from your tone of voice, you’re getting pelted by those questions right now.”
“Not all of them, but there’s one incident that has started to trouble me more than the others,” Caine admitted.
“Which one?”
“Remember those two Russians who broke into my room on Mars and tried to kill me? That attack just doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Trevor’s voice was mildly incredulous. “You mean, it makes less sense than the others?”
Caine nodded. “Yeah. Actually, almost all the others were conducted by faceless assassins, people who—like the guy today—don’t officially exist. But the Russian I killed on Mars not only had an identity, he was part of their consulate’s security force. And Russians, Trevor? Russians? That makes almost as little sense as my living through the attack.”
“You mean because the second guy left you alive when you were out cold?”
“Damned right. What the hell was that about? He had at least three minutes to kill me while I was senseless on the floor, before the police showed up. But all he does is cut my left arm?” Caine stared at the now almost-invisible four-inch scar, and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah, well, at least you’ll be able to get some updates on the investigation, now that we’re heading back to Earth—”
Their habitation module’s main access portal rammed shut with a metallic slap. Blood-red emergency flashers strobed in syncopation with the alarm klaxon.
“—Or maybe not,” Trevor finished. “We’ve gotta move. That’s an automated call to general quarters.”
Caine rose to follow Trevor—and crashed into the right side of doorjamb face-first. The cutter had ceased acceleration, and without the thrust to hold Caine in place, the world had tilted out from under him in mid step. Drifting backward, Riordan struggled to remember his zero-gee training, flailed his arms, caught the left side of the jamb, steadied himself. From beyond the hatchway coaming, Trevor’s voice was sharp. “Goddamnit, Caine: move! We’ve got to get out of this can.”
“Wha—?”
“Just shut up and follow me to the module access tube.”
“And then?”
“Just follow me for now.”
Small drops of his own blood swimming up past his eyes, Caine grabbed a handhold, propelled himself through the combination hatchway and docking ring—and stopped just before crashing into Trevor’s extremely broad back. “What gives?”
Trevor was squinting up the cutter’s spinal access corridor, to which all its modules were attached like ribs to a sternum. He shook his head and started pulling himself hand over hand in the opposite direction. “Follow me. Fast as you can go.”
Caine trailed Trevor inexpertly, but noticed that it became rapidly easier to use the handholds. Sort of like crossing monkey-bars underwater. But the arm-over-arm half-swim, half-climb rhythm was broken when Trevor turned ninety degrees “down,” plunging through a hole in what Caine was still thinking of as the “deck.” Caine followed awkwardly, looked around as he came through the docking-ring coaming and then the hatchway: the Auxiliary Command module. “Why are we here?” Caine asked.
Trevor was already activating various systems, bringing up monitors, screens, relays. “From here we can tap into bridge comms, sensor data and—”
“—and run the ship if something happens to the bridge crew.”
Trevor glanced at Caine, who was watching his actions closely. “I guess you were paying attention in some of those classes.”
“Well, yeah.” Caine dogged the hatch, which doubled as an outer-airlock door when the module was in free space. “But I wasn’t thinking about access to auxiliary’s redundant controls.”
Trevor spun open the inner airlock hatchway. “No? So what were you thinking about?”
“Er… I was thinking that it’s the only module really capable of autonomous operations.”
Trevor stopped in the hatchway. His look of surprise quickly became one of grim affirmation. “You’re right. Auxiliary command is the best lifeboat on this barge. Certainly the only one with any sustained maneuver capabilities.” Trevor moved to the command console, powered it up, moved his hand toward the fusion plant’s initiation switch.
Caine caught Trevor’s hand before he could light it up. “Not a good idea.”
Trevor looked at Caine’s hand restraining his own, then up into his face. “Have a good reason.”
“Survival.”
“What do you mean?”
“Trevor, if we’re at general quarters because some of our interstellar neighbors have decided to come calling with their equivalent of shotguns and machetes, then I think we might not want to be sending out radiant emissions—of any kind—from this module.”
Trevor’s frown subsided slowly. “Christ, you’re probably right. But let’s not guess, let’s find out.” Trevor tapped his collarcom. “Bridge.”
A delay, then a babble of background voices—too many of which were rapid and high-pitched—before they got a direct response: “Clear this channel and stay off—”
“Son, this is Mr. Corcoran. Status?”
A pause. “Oh—Captain. Sorry, sir. I—”
“No need to be sorry. I’m just asking for a courtesy sitrep.”
“Yes, sir. We don’t have all the info, sir. We’re pretty far down the intel food chain from CINCBARCOMCENT. But it looks like something shifted into system. Not running a transponder signal.”
“You mean, not running an Earth transponder signal?”
“No, sir. I mean whatever it is, is dark. Completely dark, except for neutrino emissions.”
“You mean, its shift signature?”
“No sir, I mean its pumping out neutrinos and—well, subparticulate garbage.”
“In a beam?”
Caine got Trevor’s attention, shook his head.
“Stand by.” He turned toward Caine. “What?”
“Trevor, that doesn’t sound like a weapon signature. Sounds more like a field effect of some sort.”
“Yeah, like a shift signature.”
“But since it’s done shifting, and the signature is never more than a brief pulse, it’s got to be something else.”
“Like what?”
“Some kind of engine or power plant. What else would create neutrinos?”
“I don’t know; let’s find out.” Trevor called up the feed from the bridge sensors. Nothing except a red blinking cursor which marked the mystery ship’s real-time location within the star field.
“What’s its range?” Caine asked.
“Tell you in a second.” Trevor reconfigured the screens slightly. “Lying out at one hundred kiloklicks, doing nothing.”
“Yeah, sure. Ten to one it’s running passive sensors and making a list of the active systems we’ve lit up to assess it: what kind of emissions, where from, phased or single arrays.”
Trevor nodded. “Essentially, they’re building a target list. And testing our response, maybe hoping to draw some fire.”