Ghosts of Ophidian (10 page)

Sixteen

The sound that the AI had heard
in Conner’s room wasn’t a rock chisel after all. It would be hard to continue to deny that someone very real was wandering the ship. The four bullet holes in the wall above his bed and the discarded P90 in the middle of his bedroom floor had seen to that.

“Someone was here, AI,” Dawn said, wielding her scythe in a threatening way as she peered beneath Conner’s bed, “Either you’re lying to us or there is a flaw in your programming.”

“Why would I admit to discovering all the strange occurrences, yet deny any knowledge of who is responsible?” it asked, “I am not lying. I believe that if there were a flaw in my programming causing me to be unable to locate others aboard, I would also not be able to locate Conner Steele or Dawn Crossway.”

“How do you explain the bullet holes in the wall?” Conner blurted, leaning down to retrieve
his weapon.

“You ask me to explain what I cannot. I can hypothesize that whoever sabotaged the ship is still around and they are aware of my capabilities to oversee all the operations,” the AI replied, “
I can only assume that they have located a hidden passage that allows them to move about beyond my sensory range.”

Conner inspected the weapon and verified that only four bullets were fired. This meant, in his opinion, that it definitely wasn’t a human who fired the weapon. He had entertained the possibility, no matter how small, that one of the
Chinese may have stowed away aboard the ship when they placed the sensors on the ventilation grills.

He beli
eved now that the P90 was fired by a curious Ophidian who didn’t know what the object was. Startled by the eruption of gunfire, the alien probably dropped the weapon and ran. Yet, even a retreating Ophidian manages to somehow escape the sensors of the AI.

“Let’s check the status of your bedroom
. I want you to retrieve your weapon and make sure it’s loaded,” Conner said, leading the way out of his room, “I don’t want us going anywhere unarmed.”

Her room didn’t appear to have anything out of place. Her weapon and the extra magazine were st
ill hidden where she had left them. In order for her to now fit the MAC-11 into her pocket, she had to remove the magazine. Conner started to protest, but she demonstrated how quickly she could draw it out and load the magazine. He reluctantly agreed with her decision to carry it unloaded.

“Would you be opposed to showing me the empty cryogenic cells you and Roberts discovered?” Dawn asked, sho
ving the spare magazine into the stomach pocket of her Carhartts, “I’d like to see if I could find any clues as to how long ago those cells were abandoned.”

“I didn’t see anything revealing, but
it could never hurt to get the point of view of a scientist,” he said, “Just please keep your eyes peeled. I don’t get freaked out real easy but I’ve got to say…”

He shook his head, choosing not to finish his thought. She reached her hand around his waist and pulled him into a friendly one-arm embrace.

“I’ll protect you,” she teased, “You’ll be alright if you just stick with me.”

This brought a smile to his face. He drew his arm around her and gave her a gentle squeeze.

“I appreciate that, Doc,” he said, “Now let’s see if this floor will actually take us all the way back to the first floor of the cargo hold.”

. . . .

The passageway leading aft took them in a circular path that weaved around one of the two water storage tanks. The AI continued to teach them the Ophidian names for the different areas of the ship they passed on their way to their destination. It appeared to Conner that the AI was enjoying the chance to take on the role of teacher.

“The een oracna is through the door at the end of the hall,” the AI said, “That is the term to identify the cargo hold. The same word is used for a personal bag also – much like the bags you were carrying with you when you arrived.”

“So, how would you know what I was talking about if I asked to find the een oracna?” Dawn prodded.

“It would be by the way you phrased the question. If you were looking for
‘och een oracna’
, I could understand it as being yours. If you were searching for
‘lo een oracna’,
then I could assume it was regarding something that didn’t belong to you,” the AI replied.

“We’ve got a long way to go before we’ll ever be able to communicate
with these Ophidians,” Conner said.

The door
slid open at the end of the hall; an action from the AI that Conner still couldn’t get accustomed to. Each time a door automatically opened for them, Conner took on a defensive posture.

“While orbiting your planet, I uploaded as much information as I could gather in order to find a
way to communicate with you. Some things still confuse me even though I have this information still available for me to sort through,” the AI replied, “This word
‘Ophidian’
that you use – is it spelled with a ‘ph’?”

“Yes,” Dawn replied, following Conner into the cargo hold.

“Is this because you feel the Ah Fidonay resemble snakes in some fashion?” the AI asked, “Or do you use this word in reference to the mythical creature that would steal the memories of people’s dreams?”

“Uh, well, the words ‘Ah Fidonay’ sound a little like Ophidian and yes, their black, scaly skin looks very snake-like,” Conner said, “And I’ve never heard of any creatures that could steal dreams.”

“It’s from Greek mythology,” Dawn said, “Though I’d forgotten that root of the word. I was using it in reference to their snake-like flesh also.”

Their footsteps were echoing now that they were inside the vast area of the cargo hold. The catwalks reached out above them like hundreds of metal bridges leading to the buildings ahead. At the same time, since the bridges were one-above-the-other on every level, they gave a false impression of
thirty-story metal walls placed at regular intervals throughout the room. It was an illusion created by standing almost directly beneath one of the catwalks as they entered the room.

Conner led the way to the building where he had discovered the open cell doors. He knew which building it should be since he’d left the computer room door open. It was in that moment that he realized that none of the computer room doors were open.

He pushed on the door of the computer room nearest them, certain that this was one of the
two doors he’d kicked in. It didn’t budge. Although he was fairly confident he could kick it in again, he didn’t attempt it. He glanced down the length of the building, searching for open cell doors as he walked toward the next computer room.

He pushed on that door and it opened easily. He could now see the cracked doorjamb and realized that this was one of the doors he’d kicked. He waved Dawn over as he rushed past the computer room to the next one. That door also opened easily, verifying it was another door he’d kicked in.

Dawn was now at his side as he circled past the computer room to show her the open cells. This time, however, there were five of them.

“No,” he gasped, rushing to the open doors with his weapon ready.

“Didn’t you say that there were only three?” she asked, drawing the MAC-11 from her pocket.

“There were definitely only three,” he said, passing the three he’d already known about.

He immediately reached into the fourth chamber and lifted the metal cable on the right side. It had one of the yellow “stop watches” attached to the cable.

“This wasn’t here!” he hollered, “I actually put my face to this cell and verified it. I checked a few of them after finding these objects attached to the brain cables of those three.”

“Well, there aren’t any of those attachments in these three chambers,” she said, peering into the first chamber.

“No, I took one of them. There should be in the other two,” he said.

“I know. There aren’t any attached to the cables in any of the three right here,” she replied.

“What?”

He quickly examined all three cells, verifying that there indeed were no hacking devices attached to the cables. He then rushed over to the fifth cell and found one attached to the cable on the right.

“I took one of them, leaving them with only two. They removed those and woke up two others with those attached,” he stated, “Someone is sincerely sabotaging this mission
and waking up others.”

“There is more damage being done?” the AI asked.

“They woke up two others,” Conner replied.

“That should not be possible,” it replied, “Their links cannot be
manually removed without killing them. If you found empty chambers, their occupants are most certainly dead.”

“Tell that to
the bullet holes in my bedroom wall,” Conner replied sarcastically, “They’re alive and they found a way to remove the cables.”

“What is that cable for, anyway?” Dawn asked.

“If you are talking about the links attached to their heads, it is a service link,” the AI replied.

“And what’s a service link?” Conner asked
, inspecting one of the glass doors.

“A link to service them in whatever way is ne
cessary at the time,” the AI stated, “It serves many functions.”

“But it looks like a data plug,” Dawn said, “How can they be serviced through electronic means? I know from the samples I took that these are biological creatures.”

“I am sorely limited in my information on the biology of the Ah Fidonay, as information of that sort is not important to the completion of my mission. The irony, of course, is that my mission involves searching for a planet suitable to the survival of biological life as we know it,” it replied, “Because of this, I can only make educated guesses regarding their makeup. I can however tell you that when the Ah Fidonay are linked to any system, I can upload or download whatever is required.”

“This makes it sound like their brains are a computer
,” Dawn said.

“
I believe it is, but it’s a computer that is only accessible when attached to a link cable. That is unlike the computers and satellites I accessed on your home world, so I think their system is similar to your own, as I am unable to access the two of you,” the AI stated.

“We aren’t computers,” Conner stated abruptly as he searched one of the cells for clues to what was going on.

The AI didn’t respond to Conner’s statement. Dawn loaded a magazine into her weapon and started back the way they came.

“Hey, where are you going?” he hollered, his voice echoing.

“I heard something,” she replied.

He rose up from his crouched position near the cell and rushed over to her side with his weapon drawn.

“Don’t you ever go running off alone,” he chided, “What’d you hear?”

She continued slowly toward the door
.

“It sounded like somebody
dropped something,” she said, “But I might have just been hearing things.”

“What kind of
‘something’
?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” she said, “Something small.”

Conner held up a hand to stop her progress as they neared the door. He stole a quick glance into the passageway, then verifying it was empty, he motioned for her to join him. He immediately noticed a small silver item on the floor near the doorway.

“Your hearing is amazing if
this is what you heard,” Conner said, reaching down and picking it up.

He looked closer
, finding it to be a metal cylinder no bigger than his fingertip. It had glossy black markings all around it that appeared to serve a purpose beyond that of simply a label.

“What do you make of it?” he handed it to her, watching the corridor for movement of any kind.

“There’s a tiny hole in one end,” she said, “Could it be a battery or something electronic like a transistor?”

“Whoever’s on this ship is definitely interested in us, but not interested enough to kill us,” he said, “It’s like they’re playing a game.”

The door behind them closed, sealing off the cargo hold.

“I wasn’t done in there, AI,” Conner stated, “I was
planning on checking out the upper levels.”

“I didn’t close that door,” the AI replied.

Dawn gasped.

“Open the door,” Conner ordered.

The door opened just as quickly as it had closed a moment ago. Conner kept his weapon trained into the cargo hold as he started to go in. The door slid shut again, smacking into his tip of his weapon and almost knocking it from his hand.

“What are you doing?” Conner shouted.

“Again, I did not close the door,” the AI stated.

Conner examined the tip of his weapon to ensure that it suffered no significant damage.

“How do people typically open or close these doors?” Conner asked.

“They think it,” the AI replied, “If they want it to open, it opens. If they want it closed, it closes.”