“A voodoo doll,” Dahl said, startling Kerensky back into consciousness. “You think so.”
“Well, no, not literally,” Kerensky said. “Because that’s just stupid, isn’t it. But it feels like it. It feels like whenever the captain and Q’eeng have an away mission they know is going to be all fucked up they say, ‘Hey, Kerensky, this is a perfect away mission for you,’ and then I go off and, like, get my spleen punctured. And half the time it’s some stupid thing I have no idea about, right? I’m an astrogator, man. I am a fucking brilliant astrogator. I wanna just … astrogate. Right?”
“Why don’t you point that out to the captain and Q’eeng?” Dahl asked.
Kerensky sneered, and his lip quivered at the effort. “Because what the hell am I going to say?” he said, and started making Humpty-Dumpty movements. “‘Oh, I can’t go on this mission, Captain, Commander Q’eeng. Let someone else get stabbed through the eyeball for a change.’” He stopped with the movements and was quiet for a second. “Besides, I don’t know. It seems to make sense at the time, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” Dahl said.
“When the captain tells me I’m going to be on an away mission, it’s like some other part of my brain takes over,” Kerensky said. He sounded like he was trying to puzzle through something. “I get all confident and it seems like there’s a perfectly good reason for a goddamn astrogator to take medical samples, or fight killer machines or whatever. Then I get back on the Intrepid and I think to myself, ‘What the fuck was I just doing?’ Because it doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“I don’t know,” Dahl said again.
Kerensky looked lost in thought for a second, and then waved it all away. “Anyway, fuck it, right?” he said, brightening up. “I lived another day, I’m on shore leave, and I’m with people who saved my life.” He lunged at Dahl again, even more sloppily. “I love you, man. I do. Let’s get another drink and then go find some hookers. I want a blowjob. You want a blowjob?”
“I’ve already got two on order,” Dahl said. “I’m good.”
“Oh, okay,” Kerensky said. “That’s good.” And then he began to snore, his head nestled on Dahl’s shoulder.
Dahl looked up and saw his four friends staring down at him.
“You all owe me blowjobs,” he said.
“How about a drink instead,” Finn said.
“Deal,” Dahl said. He glanced down at Kerensky. “What do we do about Sleeping Beauty here?”
“There’s a laundry chute outside,” Hester said, hopefully.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Here are the blueprints to the Intrepid that I downloaded from the ship’s database,” Dahl said to Finn and Duvall at midday mess, showing them a printout. He laid down a second printout. “And here are the blueprints I received from the Academy Archive. Notice anything?”
“Nope,” said Finn, after a minute.
“Nope,” said Duvall, shortly thereafter.
Dahl sighed and pointed. “It’s the cargo tunnels,” he said. “We use them to transport cargo throughout the ship, but there’s no reason a human couldn’t go into them. The ship maintenance crew goes into them all the time to physically access ship systems. They’re designed that way so ship maintenance doesn’t get in the way of the rest of the crew.”
“You think Jenkins is in there,” Duvall said.
“Where else is he going to be?” Dahl said. “He only comes out when it suits him; no one ever sees him otherwise. Think how populated this ship is. The only way you can disappear is if you stay in a place other crew don’t usually go.”
“The flaw in this reasoning is that the cargo tunnels are tunnels,” Finn said. “And even if people aren’t there, they’re still crawling with those autonomous delivery carts. If he stayed in any one place for long he’d be blocking their traffic or he’d get run over.”
Dahl waggled a finger. “See, that’s what you two aren’t seeing. Look…” He pointed to a square inside the maze of cargo tunnels. “When the carts aren’t delivering something, they have to go somewhere. They’re not hanging out in the corridors. Where they go is to one of these distribution hubs. The hubs are more than large enough for a person to hole up in.”
“As long as there’s not a bunch of carts cluttering it up,” Duvall said.
“Exactly,” Dahl said. “And look. In the blueprints of the Intrepid we have on ship, there are six cart distribution areas. But in the ones from the archives, there are seven.” He tapped the seventh distribution hub. “This distribution hub is away from major systems in the ship, which means that maintenance crews have no reason to get near it. It’s as far away as you can be from anyone and still be on the ship. That’s where Jenkins is. The ghost in the machine. That’s where we find him.”
“I don’t see why you don’t ask your boss to make an introduction,” Duvall said. “You said that Jenkins was technically under her anyway.”
“I tried that and got nowhere with it,” Dahl said. “Collins finally told me that Jenkins only appears when he wants to appear and otherwise they leave him alone. He’s helping them keep track of the captain, Q’eeng, and the others. They don’t want to piss him off and leave themselves vulnerable.”
“Speaking of which,” Finn said, and motioned with his head.
Dahl turned around to see Science Officer Q’eeng coming up to him. He started to get up.
Q’eeng waved him back down. “At ease, Ensign.” He noticed the blueprints. “Studying the ship?”
“Just looking for ways to do my job more efficiently,” Dahl said.
“I admire that initiative,” Q’eeng said. “Ensign, we’re about to arrive at the Eskridge system to answer a distress call from a colony there. The reports from the colony are sketchy but I suspect a biological agent may be involved, so I’m assembling a team from your department to accompany me. You’re on it. Meet me in the shuttle bay in half an hour.”
“Yes, sir,” Dahl said. Q’eeng nodded and headed off. He turned back to Duvall and Finn. They were looking at him oddly. “What?” he said.
“An away team with Q’eeng,” Duvall said.
“A sudden, oddly coincidental away team with Q’eeng,” Finn said.
“Let’s try not to be too paranoid,” Dahl said.
“That’s funny, considering,” Finn said.
Dahl pushed the blueprints at Finn. “While I’m away, Finn, find a way for us to sneak up on Jenkins without him being aware of it. I want to talk to him, but aside from that warning I don’t think he wants to talk to us. I don’t want to give him that choice.”
* * *
“This is all your fault, you know,” Cassaway hissed at Dahl. He, Cassaway and Mbeke constituted the away team with Q’eeng and a security team member named Taylor. Q’eeng was piloting the shuttle to the colony; Taylor took the co-pilot seat. The xenobiologists were in the back. The two other xenobiologists had been coldly silent to him during the mission briefing and for most of the shuttle ride down to the planet. These were the first words either of them had spoken to him the entire trip.
“How is this my fault?” Dahl said. “I didn’t tell the captain to take the ship here.”
“It’s your fault for asking about Jenkins!” Cassaway said. “You’re pissing him off with all your questions about him.”
“I can’t ask questions about him now?” Dahl said.
“Not questions that make him retaliate against us,” Mbeke said.
“Shut up, Fiona,” Cassaway said. “It’s your fault too.”
“My fault too?” said Mbeke, incredulous. “I’m not the one asking all these stupid questions!”
Cassaway jabbed a finger in Dahl’s direction. “You’re the one who brought up Jenkins in front of him! Twice!”
“It slipped,” Mbeke said. “I was just making conversation the first time. The second time I didn’t think it would matter. He already knew.”
“Look where we are, Fiona.” Cassaway waved to indicate the shuttle. “Tell me it do
esn’t matter. You never told Sid Black about Jenkins.”
“Sid Black was an asshole,” Mbeke said.
“And this one isn’t?” Cassaway said, pointing at Dahl again.
“I’m right here, you know,” Dahl said.
“Fuck you,” Cassaway said, to Dahl. He looked at Mbeke again. “And fuck you too, Fiona. You should have known better.”
“I was just making conversation,” Mbeke said again, brokenly, her eyes on her hands, which were in her lap.
Dahl looked at the two of them for a moment. “You didn’t know Q’eeng was coming to see you, did you,” he said, finally. “No time for you or Collins and Trin to get coffee or for you to hide out in the storage room. Q’eeng just showed up at the lab and you were all caught flat-footed. And when he told Collins he needed an away team—”
“She volunteered us,” Mbeke said.
“And you,” Cassaway said, spitting out the words. “Q’eeng wanted her or Ben to come too, but she sold you out. Reminded him you had solved the Merovian Plague. Said you were one of the best xenobiologists she’s ever had on staff. It’s a lie, of course. You’re not. But it worked because you’re here and not her or Ben.”
“I see,” Dahl said. “I don’t suppose that’s unexpected, because I’m the new guy. The low man on the totem pole. The guy that’s meant to be replaced every couple of months anyway, right? But you two,” he said, nodding to the both of them. “You thought that you were protected. You survived long enough that you thought Collins wouldn’t push you at Q’eeng if she had to. You thought she might even pick one of you over Ben Trin, didn’t you.”
Cassaway looked away from Dahl; Mbeke started crying quietly.
“It came as a surprise to find out just where you sat on the totem pole, didn’t it?” Dahl said.
“Shut up, Dahl,” Cassaway said, not looking at him.
They were quiet all the rest of the way down to the planet.
* * *
They found no colonists, but they found parts of them. And a lot of blood.
“Pulse guns on full power,” Q’eeng said. “Cassaway, Mbeke, Dahl, I want you to follow the blood trails into the woods. We still might find someone alive, or find a dead one of whatever it is that did this. I’m going to check out the administrative office and see if there’s anything there that can explain this. Taylor, you’re with me.” Q’eeng strode off toward a large, blocky trailer with Taylor following.
“Come on,” Cassaway said, and led Dahl and Mbeke toward the woods.
A couple hundred meters in, the three of them found a ruined corpse.
“Give me the sampler,” Dahl said to Mbeke, who was carrying that piece of equipment. She unslung the device and gave it to Dahl, who knelt and pushed the sampling tool into what remained of the corpse’s abdomen.
“It’ll be a couple of minutes for this thing to give me a result,” Dahl said, not looking up from the corpse. “The sampler’s got to go through the DNA library of the entire colony. Make sure that whatever got this guy doesn’t get me while we’re waiting.”
“I’m on it,” he heard Cassaway say. Dahl returned to his work.
“It’s someone named Fouad Ali,” Dahl said, a couple of minutes later. “Looks like he was the colony doctor.” Dahl looked up and past Ali’s corpse, into the woods. “The blood trail continues off that direction. Do we want to keep looking?”
“What are you doing?” Dahl heard Mbeke ask.
“What?” Dahl said, and turned around to see Cassaway pointing his pulse gun at him, and Mbeke staring at Cassaway, confused.
Cassaway grimaced. “Damn it, Fiona, can’t you ever just shut up?”
“I’m with Fiona,” Dahl said. “What are you doing?” He tried to stand up.
“Don’t move,” Cassaway said. “Don’t move or I’m going to shoot you.”
“It looks like you’re going to shoot me anyway,” Dahl said. “But I don’t know why.”
“Because one of us has to die,” Cassaway said. “That’s how it works on the away teams. If Q’eeng’s leading the away team, someone is going to die. Someone always dies. But if someone dies, then whoever’s left is safe. That’s how it works.”
“The last person who explained this idea to me got chopped up into little pieces even after someone else died,” Dahl said. “I don’t think it works the way you think it does.”
“Shut up,” Cassaway said. “If you die, Fiona and I don’t have to. You’ll be the sacrifice. Once the sacrifice is made, the rest are safe. We’ll be safe.”
“That’s not the way it works,” Dahl said. “When was the last time you were on an away team, Jake? I was on one a couple of weeks ago. It’s not how it works. You’re missing details. Killing me isn’t going to mean you’re safe. Fiona…” Dahl glanced over at Mbeke to try to reason with her. She was in the process of raising her own pulse gun.
“Come on, guys,” Dahl said. “Two pulse gun blasts are going to be hard to miss.”
“Put your gun on low power,” Cassaway said to Mbeke. “Aim for the center mass. When he’s down, we cut him up. That’ll cover us. We can explain the blood by saying we were trying to save—” And that’s as far as he got before the things dropped out of the tree above and onto him and Mbeke.
The two of them fell, screaming as they tried to fight off the things now tearing into their flesh. Dahl gaped for a second then ran in a burst toward the colony, sensing rather than seeing that his sudden movement had only barely saved him from being jumped on himself.
Dahl weaved through the trees, screaming for Q’eeng and Taylor. Some part of his brain wanted to know if he was running in the right direction; another part wanted to know why he wasn’t using his phone to contact Q’eeng. A third part reminded him that he had a pulse gun of his own, which might be effective against whatever was currently eating Cassaway and Mbeke.
A fourth part of his brain was saying, This is the part where you run and scream a lot.
He was listening to the fourth part.
His eye caught a break in the woods, and in that break he could see the distant trailers of the colony and the forms of Q’eeng and Taylor. Dahl screamed at the top of his lungs and ran in a straight line toward them, waving his hands to get their attention. He saw their tiny forms jiggle, as if they heard him.
Then something tripped him and he went down.
The thing was on him instantly, biting and tearing at him. Dahl screamed and pushed and in his panic saw something that looked like it could be an eye and jammed his thumb into it. The thing roared and reared back and Dahl pushed himself back from the thing, and it was on him again and Dahl could feel teeth on his shoulder and a burning sensation that let him know that whatever had just bit him was also venomous. Dahl looked for the eye again, jabbed it a second time and got the thing to reel back again, but this time Dahl was too dizzy and sick to move.
One sacrifice and whoever’s left is safe, my ass, he thought, and the last thing he saw was the thing’s very impressive set of teeth coming down around his head.
* * *
Dahl woke up to see his friends surrounding him.
“Ack,” he said.
“Finn, give him some water,” Duvall said. Finn took a small container with a straw from the holder at the side of the medical bay cot and put it to Dahl’s lips. He sipped gingerly.
“I’m not dead,” he eventually whispered.
“No,” Duvall said. “Not that you didn’t make an effort. What was left of you should have been dead when they brought you back to the ship. Doc Hartnell says it’s only luck that Q’eeng and Taylor got to you when they did, otherwise that thing would have eaten you alive.”
The last phrase jogged something in Dahl’s memory. “Cassaway,” he said. “Mbeke.”
“They’re dead,” Hanson said. “There wasn’t much left of them to get back, either.”
“You’re the only one from the away team still alive,” Hester said. “Besides Q’eeng.”
“Taylor?” Dahl
croaked.
“He got bit,” Duvall said, correctly interpreting the question. “The things have a venom. It doesn’t kill people, it turns them psychotic. He went crazy and started shooting up the ship. He killed three of the crew before they brought him down.”
“That’s what they think happened at the colony,” Finn said. “The doctor’s record shows that a hunting party got bit by these things, went back to the colony and started shooting up the place. Then the creatures came in, took the dead and killed off the survivors.”
“Q’eeng was bit too, but Captain Abernathy had him isolated until they could make an antivenom,” Hanson said.
“From your blood,” Hester said. “You were unconscious so you couldn’t go crazy. That gave your body time to metabolize and neutralize the venom.”
“He was lucky you survived,” Duvall said.
“No,” Dahl said, and lifted his arm to point at himself. “Lucky he needed me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“What are these?” Dahl asked from his bed, taking one of the buttonlike objects that Finn held in his hand.
“Our way to sneak up on Jenkins,” Finn said, passing out the rest. “They’re delivery cart ID transponders. I pried them off disabled carts in the refuse hold. The cargo tunnel doors register each time they’re opened and closed and look for identification. If you’re a crew member, your phone IDs you. If you’re a cart, one of these do.”
“Why not just leave our phones behind and have no ID?” Hanson asked, holding his button up to the light.
“Because then there’s an unexplained door opening,” Finn said. “If this Jenkins is as paranoid and careful as Andy here thinks he is, that’s not going to escape his notice.”
“So we leave our phones behind, take one of these, and go on after him,” Dahl said.
“That’s the plan I came up with,” Finn said. “Unless you have a better one.”
“I just spent two weeks doing nothing but healing,” Dahl said. “This works for me.”
“So when do we go find this guy?” Duvall asked.
“If he’s tracking the captain and the senior officers, then he’s going to be active when they are,” Dahl said. “That means first shift. If we go in right after the start of third shift, we have a chance to catch him while he’s asleep.”