Amish Vampires in Space (18 page)

Greels used a knuckle to tap on the door as he bent closer and called Congi’s name. He waited, listened, and thought he heard a cough. Or something. Enough to convince him that someone was in there. He shook his head again. Grunted.

Thankfully, he had a supervisor passkey. It could get him into any subordinate room. That meant loaders and cleaners. So much for privacy. He brought the key out and laid it against the controlpad. The screen flashed and went green. The door slid open.

The first thing Greels noticed was the smell. It wasn’t the smell of rot, necessarily. More like the scent of wet clothes left in a heap somewhere. The smell of a heavy day of work, in the rain. Yeah, that was it.

Directly ahead was the room’s excretorium, with the door standing wide open. Perhaps that was the problem? Though ship’s restrooms were supposedly scent resistant, Greels knew that wasn’t always the case. Without thinking, he reached out and closed that door. Smell still remained, though.

The door closure didn’t reveal much of the room either. To start with, the lights were very dim. So dim that Greels had to squint. He contemplated putting the lights full up, but something kept him from doing it. An instinct, maybe.

The closet spaces were on the wall to his right, and every door there appeared to be open. The nearest one was just past the excretorium. It blocked out much of the room beyond. Synthetic wrappers spilled out of the closet. They were scattered about the floor too. Some of these were clearly from finds Congi had made. A lack of discretion on his part. Others appeared to be the wrappings from the ship’s quickfood dispensers. Greels stepped forward and glanced into the open closet.

Guild clothing was mounded into a heap on the closet floor, along with more synthetic wrappings. Mostly food wrappings here: everything from fruit purees to Black Magic candy bars. It was an outrageous display. A hideous lack of discipline and hygiene. Especially for someone who cleaned for a living.

Some clothing hung out of the closet like blue intestines. Frowning, Greels gathered these up, threw them into the closet, and closed the door. He closed the upper closet door as well. Then there was a second door, and beyond that, another. The floor was littered with clothing and sealing material and actual food remnants.

The reason for the smell was more obvious now. Greels stepped around as much of the litter as he could, grimacing when his foot found something that squished beneath it. He swore. “Congi,” he said, no longer whispering. No longer polite. “Are you in here?”

The bedroom area was around a corner formed by the excretorium space. A few steps more, a few more doors closed, and Greels could make out the shadow of the bed. The bed was rectangular, of course, but this one looked rounded somehow. Oddly shaped.

It took a few more steps before Greels realized what he was seeing. The oddity of the bed was due to the large collection of refuse around it. Large piles of wrapping material. Most of it from foodstuffs. An enormous amount. Enough to feed five people for days.

There was the shadow of a prone figure in the center of the bed. He was laid out completely straight, arms close to his side. Greels brought his com unit up and held it so the screen illuminated the figure. It was Congi. And he was completely naked.

Greels winced and fished around on the floor until he found a shirt, which he then threw over the cleaner’s midsection. As angry as he was with the cleaner for what he’d done, for his unwanted invasion into Bay 16, Greels now felt really uncomfortable. Like he really shouldn’t be here.

Greels shook the feeling away. He was the supervisor here. Everything he’d done had been legal and on the level. But Congi…Congi had overstepped. He was wrong, wrong. In need of punishment.

Greels played the com unit’s light along Congi’s torso. His chest and abdomen were much tighter than Greels expected. More defined. Especially with Congi lying down. During the times Greels had encountered him, the cleaner had always appeared to be carrying a gut around. But such was clearly not the case. There was the possibility, of course, that Congi had
always
been hiding stuff in his shirt. Hmm…

Greels paused the light over a section of Congi’s chest and right arm. The skin seemed odd there. Slightly discolored. Greyer. Greels grunted and brought the light up to Congi’s neck. It too was discolored. Splotchy and grey. Greels moved up to the cleaner’s face. “Congi,” he said. “You’re missing your shift, bub. And I know what you’ve been up to.”

No reaction.

Despite his discomfort, Greels’s anger percolated. How does a guy sleep like that?

“Congi,” he said, a little louder this time, “you need to get up now. Get up and get some clothes on. We’ve got a big shipment coming in. If we didn’t need all the help, I’d bust you to security.”

Still no response, though the up-down of Congi’s chest appeared to increase in tempo. Dreaming, maybe?

This is ridiculous. Greels had work to do.
Everyone
had work to do. Plus, there was the princess to think of. To check on.

“Congi!”

Congi’s eyes snapped open. They stared, somewhat mindlessly, straight ahead and then slowly rotated Greels’s direction.

“Congi. Sorry to wake you, but we need to talk. I know what you did. Going into Bay 16. Opening the container. It isn’t right. You got to give me the stuff back…and don’t do it again.”

Congi just continued to look his direction. Staring, unspeaking.

Realizing he was still hovering closely over Congi, Greels took a step back. He kept the light on Congi’s face, though. “Congi, bud, are you up?”

More staring. Unblinking. And no motion in the face at all. Not even a twitch.

Fear crept up Greels’s spine. Something here was not right. “What is wrong with you?” He motioned toward the shirt he’d covered Congi with. “Sorry about the shirt. You were…you know…all out there, man.”

Congi made a deliberate intake of breath. Then he started to moan, low and harsh. Almost unearthly.

Greels retreated so fast he almost tripped. The light in his hand dropped. He it and checked Congi’s face again. Still staring. Eyes framed in red. And he was inhaling again.

Greels backed up, shoved debris out of the way, cursed. Backed up some more. “Okay, man, I’ll get you some help. You’re not right. Something—” He stumbled again. “Bad wrong with you.” He pushed past one of the closet doors that had somehow reopened. Checked Congi.

He was still staring. Still unmoving. He moaned again, harsher, hollower.

Greels found the door. Opened it. Stumbled out into the hall.

Closed the door. Almost felt relief when the controlpad flashed red to show the room was locked again.

“That was…” He touched his head, smoothed his hair on one side past his ear. “I’ve got to get that Darly woman. Yeah, that’s it.” He hustled up the hall. “Wow…”

• • •

The transformation was nothing short of spectacular, in a rural-and-backwards sort of way. Seal stood on one of the overhead outlooks just taking it all in.

One end of Bay 17—the foreside, to his left—had been subdivided into livestock pens. In most places, actual wooden or synthetic fences had been erected, and within those pens were already dozens of animals. Their brays and caterwauls echoed throughout the chamber. Their scent was everywhere.

In other places, individual animals were restrained within small-scale field generators. These were used, Seal had been told, primarily for those animals that were particularly difficult to control—rutting bulls and boars, stallions and the like. Things with horns or tusks or hooves. In some rare cases, fields were also used for those that were deemed most loud or odoriferous.

Seal’s preference would’ve been to enclose all the livestock within generator fields. The ship had only so many units available, though. And fields were steady power consumers. Their use had to be limited. Sadly.

Loading the animals had been a bit of a chore, as well. They couldn’t just open the upper bay door and drop them in, after all. The ship hadn’t come outfitted with temperature neutral and oxygen-rich packing cubes. There was no reason it should be. Live shipments were typically accomplished via low monitor cryomatrix, and even then, the responsibility of packing was all on the shipping customer. Not on them. Not on the Guild. Your pet dies in transit because a seal slipped, that’s your problem.

Seal shook his head. The Guild motto claimed we’d take care of the moving. Not the packing. Not the preserving. But with this job, so much of it was about the packing.

Regardless, they had managed. The larger or more dangerous animals had been shuttled directly to the bay floor. As for the more docile animals…crates had been built to carry them down the slideways. An interesting sight, to say the least. Lots of video captures had been done by the crew. Doubtless for later scraddle release to the universal network. “Look what the Shipping Guild is up to now! Boxing roosters and rabbits!” The vid would be used by friends and rivals alike for centuries, no doubt.

Seal caught a whiff of something particularly noxious. Active excretion by some animal. On his ship. With a little searching he was able to locate a large beast—a cow, he thought it was—with its tail hefted high. Dung dropping out vertically. Even the ventilation systems couldn’t keep ahead of that smell. Especially when it was multiplied.

Seal was glad the floors could be rendered frictionless. It would make cleanup so much easier later. Provided they survived this shipment.

Seal shook his head. Though it was a small amount of shipping weight, the job seemed very, very large. Moving an entire settlement? Outrageous. Hadn’t been done in decades.

There were several people on the floor below, as well. Most were on the aft end, opposite the animal pens. Loaders assembling temporary housing for the Amish. These were mostly synthetic cubicles. Easy to clean yet large and private enough for families to live in.

Portable excretoriums had been installed at the end of every row of cubes. Thankfully, the Amish didn’t require much in the way of luxury. And thankfully, the
Raven
had a few portables onboard.

Also on the floor below was Singer. Even now she showed her worth. Supervising, keeping the details in line. As Seal watched, Singer conferred with a pair of loaders over some specific of the floor plan. She held up a portable data device and pointed to it, and then to an area near the exterior wall. The loaders nodded, checked her device, and studied the place where she had pointed.

Seal smiled. He’d made a good decision with that one. She was decisive, informed, and all-around useful. Aside from the initial delay, there had been few hiccups. Singer would have a ship of her own someday.

Somehow, that idea made Seal sad. He brought his hands behind his back. Frowned. Wondered at himself. At his lack of emotional objectivity with that particular crewmember. She was quality. Intelligent and attractive.

Pair bonding was complicated now, though. More ledgers and charts than any shipping operation. Lots of consequences and escape clauses. A matter where the risks often outweighed the potential gains.

Even so, Seal considered riding one of the slides down to be with her. To help her in any way he could. To talk. Smile.

But he decided against it. He would just be in the way down there. There were a hundred more cubicles to erect. Supplies to procure or construct. Would they need toys for the children? Plus, there were medical treatments to schedule. Darly wanted to perform a checkup on everyone. Especially the younger ones. Make sure their inoculations were up to date.

Disease was always a worry with isolated communities. The organisms
they
were accustomed to had decades—centuries even—of parallel development to those the crew was commonly exposed to. Better to be overly cautious in that regard. Better to be safe. Already there had been some resistance to medical exams, of course. Seal frowned. Stepped back onto the slideway.

The Amish were coming.

Now Samuel knew how Jonah must’ve felt.

He and dozens of others from the community were huddled on the floor in the belly of one of the flying carriages. Leather straps gave them some form of security, though the Singer woman had assured them it was just a precaution. Not a necessity. The sensation would be like floating in a pond, she’d said. Like riding a raft. They would be able to stand and not lose their balance, regardless of the motion of the craft. Or sit comfortably, enjoying the ride.

Samuel did not find that to be true. It seemed to him that he noticed every bump and turn the carriage—the shuttle, as the Englishers called it—had made since they’d left the ground. Others in the party seemed not so afflicted, so perhaps it was his age. His aching joints. But so far, the trip had not been pleasant.

“This is Egan, your captain.”

It was a shocking thing, this voice. Samuel knew it to belong to the young man in the head of the shuttle, the one steering, but he was outside of earshot. And the door between the compartments was closed. Doubtless locked. Yet somehow he could still hear his voice.