Living Hell (7 page)

‘
. . .
three
. . .

’ I caught my breath.

‘
. . .
two
. . .’

I thought: This can’t be happening.

‘
. . .
one
. . .

’

CHAPTER
SIX

The encounter lasted nine seconds.

We sat there, and nothing much happened. No alarms went off. No vibrations shook the hull. The lights didn’t flicker. The temperature remained stable.

Then Firminus, who had been watching his Array, transmitted a general announcement over the Audio Interlink Network: ‘
Event cessation. Mark: eleven hundred
zero-two
.’ He turned in his seat to look at my father.

‘
Are you sure?
’ asked Dad, forgetting that he was still sharing a signal link with me and Mum. For that reason, I heard his exchange with Firminus quite clearly.

‘
CAIP is sure
,’ said Firminus.

‘
Arkwright 05 linkup
,’ said Dad. ‘
Arkwright? What’s
your take?

’ ‘
It’s all negative readings, Tuddor
,’ Arkwright replied.

‘
We’re through.

’
‘Let me see
,’ said Dad, and unstrapped himself.

‘
Tuddor!
’ Mum exclaimed sharply.

‘
It’s all right, Quenby, we’re clear
.’

Dad went over to Arkwright’s Array. Arkwright turned to Lais, and said something that I couldn’t hear, because he was using a different signal link. Lais nodded. Dad suddenly broke his connection with me; perhaps he didn’t want any distractions.

I turned to my mum.

‘Are – are we through?’ I stammered.

‘
I think so.

’ ‘Is it still a red alert?’

‘
Technically. Until all the reports come in.
’ Mum unbuckled her harness. ‘
Speaking of which, I’d better run some
Med-scans.

’ Suddenly, everyone seemed to be moving. I looked around, bewildered. Had we done it, then? Had we made it through? My heart was still hammering away.

Sloan, I noticed, was heading for the door. But he stopped before reaching it. He turned to face his father.

They were conversing into their voice patches. Firminus probably wanted to know where Sloan thought he was going. Sloan probably replied that he was on his way to the BioLab, to check on his ‘little guys’.

Firminus, however, prevented him, and Sloan returned quietly to his seat. He didn’t even look in my direction. Sadira had already crossed to one of the Arrays; I’m not sure whether she had seen her son’s attempted departure or not. Probably not. Landry was making for the toilet again, and I wondered why. Arkwright unsealed his headpiece, pushing back the mask.

‘
Arkwright!
’ said Mum.

‘
Atmospheric readings are through, Quenby
.’ I was picking up Arkwright on my mother’s signal link. I don’t think he knew that I was connected. ‘
They’re absolutely
normal.

’ ‘
So far, maybe. Arkwright, we’re still on red alert
-’

‘
Well, all right.
’ Arkwright swung around to face her, wearing that attentive yet utterly detached expression I knew so well from our training sessions together. ‘
You
tell me. Atmospherics are normal. Temperature’s normal.
Gravity’s normal. We’re not braced for impact. You’re the
Chief Medic – it’s your call. Shall we cancel the seal, or not?

’ Mum hesitated. She glanced at Sadira, who was peering at vital-sign readouts from all over the ship
.
Then Mum began to ask her about pulmonary alerts and oxyhaemo-globin levels and I cut our signal link. I didn’t feel that I could cope with medical jargon. Not right then.

Almost immediately, my voice patch beeped. I recognised the signal code as Merrit’s.

Naturally, I gave her a clear-to-receive.

‘Merrit?’

‘
Cheney?
’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘
Nothing. I mean – what’s happening? Are we through?

’ ‘Yes.’

‘
Really?

’ ‘Really. Is there any damage at your end?’

‘
I don’t know. I don’t think so.
’ A pause. ‘
Wait up. I’ll get
back to you. There’s a lot going on down here.

’ And she signed off. Meanwhile, Mum had given the all-clear. We could unseal our pressure suits. Masks were being dragged off from one end of the Bridge to the other.

As always, I smelled the air when I first broke my seal – just for a few seconds. After that, I got used to it again, and stopped noticing its slightly burnt, electrical odour.

‘TFP’s picking up microscopic energy surges around the hull,’ Lais was saying. ‘Practically on a pico level.’

‘Let me look,’ said Arkwright.

‘They’re not quite sure what it means,’ Lais went on.

Arkwright grunted. Dad approached him, and peered over his shoulder intently. Sadira said, ‘Uh-oh.’ She pointed at her Array. ‘Quenby? Check that out.’

‘Damn it,’ said my mother, and looked around. She seemed startled. ‘Where is he?’

Sadira also scanned the room, her brow puckered. ‘I don’t know . . .’

‘Sloan? Have you seen Landry?’

Sloan blinked.

‘He’s in the toilet,’ I observed.

Sadira sprang to her feet. Mum said, ‘
Damn
it!’ again. They both headed for the toilet cubicle; then Mum stopped and added, ‘I’ll get the Medkit.’

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

But the question didn’t need answering. By that time Sadira had reached the cubicle door, and had opened it. Landry was slumped on the floor inside.

Sloan jumped to his feet, while I fumbled with my harness.

‘Quenby?’ Now Dad had noticed. ‘What the hell -?’

‘It’s okay,’ said Mum. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘What happened?’

‘Look, Quenby, he’s hit his head,’ Sadira announced. She was squatting beside Landry, supporting him. He seemed only half awake.

There was blood on his temple.

‘Shock,’ said my mother, yanking her Medkit from the hatch where she’d stowed it. ‘He must have been feeling faint -’

‘He’s been vomiting,’ Sadira remarked, with a wince.

‘There should have been an alarm.’

‘There probably was. We just missed it, in all the fuss.’ Mum pushed her Medkit across the floor to Sadira. ‘It’s all right, Tuddor, we’ll get him checked out. Sadira will take him to MedLab.’

‘It’s not some kind of radiation sickness, is it?’ Sloan asked quietly, before anyone else could. A good half of the Bridge crew had paused in their work, anxious to find out what had happened. Arkwright and Firminus didn’t appear to have registered the disturbance. They were still squinting at readouts.

Mum shook her head.

‘It’s fluid loss,’ she replied, ‘on top of nervous shock and the effects of – I mean, he’s had a bad reaction. To a drug.’ Her sudden embarrassment made me wonder if the drug in question might have been happy gas. ‘It’s a combination of things, but none of them is cause for general concern.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Dad. He spoke levelly. ‘I want to be sure, Comet.’

‘We’ll check him out,’ my mother promised. ‘We’ll give him a thorough scan, don’t worry. There’s no evidence of cellular breakdown at this point.’

‘So am I cleared to go?’ Sadira was laying some kind of patch over Landry’s wound: one of Mum’s regeneration patches, no doubt. Mum and Dad exchanged glances.

Then Dad gave a nod.

‘All right,’ said Mum. ‘Sadira, you’re cleared to go. I’ll be along soon.’

‘I’ll help,’ Sloan offered, stepping forward. But his mother stopped him with a glare.

‘You stay put,’ she commanded. ‘I don’t need help.’

She didn’t, either. Although she was smaller than Landry, she got him to his feet without any trouble – perhaps because he was becoming more alert. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, and ‘Ouch!’ when he touched the patch on his forehead.

‘Leave that alone.’ Sadira braced herself, propping his weight against her shoulder. ‘Come on.’

‘I’m fine. Really. I just slipped and hit my head -’ ‘Right. And there’s a procedure for head injuries, like everything else.’

‘I was feeling sick.’

‘I know. It’s all right. It’s an adverse reaction.’

Over his feeble protests, Landry was led from the room as, one by one, the Bridge crew returned to their checklists. I caught Sloan’s eye.

‘Happy gas?’ I mouthed, jerking my head at the door. Sloan shrugged. Then he cleared his throat.

‘Arkwright?’ he said loudly. ‘I need an Array. I can take over the Micro-organic reports for you.’ There was no response. ‘Arkwright?’

‘You do that, Sloan.’ My dad had heard him, even if Arkwright hadn’t. ‘Use Landry’s station. Lais -’

‘I’m on it,’ said Lais. Suddenly, everyone was feverishly busy again. Even Mum was back on an Array, frowning at readouts.

I wondered what
I
was supposed to do.

‘Uh – Dad?’

No one heard me. Sloan had dashed across to Landry’s empty chair. The well-checks were rolling in, each more reassuring than the last.
Okay for power . . . full integrity for
port shields . . . we’ve got normal status on all processing
support systems . . .

Lais announced that word had come through from Technical Fault Protection. Those energy surges had stopped, she said.

‘Dad?’ I repeated – and this time he heard. This time he looked around. ‘Can I do something?’

‘Not right now, Cheney.’ He threw me a distracted smile. ‘In a minute.’

So that was that. I wondered how long it would be until the last status report came through. When that happened, no doubt, the red alert would be over. I settled back into my chair with a sigh.

Once again, the expected crisis hadn’t occurred. We were still safe, and living in a completely stable environment. The thought crossed my mind that nothing
really
bad could ever happen on Plexus.

What a fool I was.

Red alert or no red alert, it would be some time before Arkwright remembered me. That much was clear. My gaze travelled from the back of his head to the back of Sloan’s, then across to my mother. I saw fingers fluttering over consoles. I saw glowing digits – layers and layers of them – twinkle and fade and flow through pockets of plasma at various speeds. Voices blended in a complex web of sound, as people exchanged comments or murmured into the Audio Interlink Network.

The Public Address System had been shut off.

I was just wondering whether I should give Merrit a call – and Dygall too, perhaps – when my wandering gaze snagged on something peculiar. I sat forward, squinting. Then I got up and went to study the bulkhead more closely.

Over near the toilet cubicle, a patch of white wall seemed to be slightly smudged. There was a faint discolouration. At first it looked almost like a scorch mark, with a flush of pale pink at its centre instead of pale brown. As I watched, this pink colour deepened. Or was I seeing things? I blinked several times – were the edges of the stain expanding? Yes. No.

Yes.

Discolouration was a stress signal. I knew that. The fabric of Plexus was designed to display visual changes if its integrity was under threat. Polymer layers responded with optical signals to excessive heat, UV light, chemicals and other damaging agents. A blue flush acted as a red flag.

But a pink flush? What did that mean?

‘Dad?’

Once again, no one heard me. After a moment I raised my voice and tried again.

‘
Dad?

’ ‘What the hell is that?’ said Conal. I was standing near him; he had turned at the sound of my voice. ‘What have you got there, Cheney?’

‘I don’t know . . .’

‘Tuddor! Look at this!’

The stain was definitely expanding. It was now the size of a basketball. It also had a funny sheen to it – a kind of wet sheen, quite different from the matt finish of the bulkhead.

‘Cheney?’ said my dad, from somewhere behind me. I pointed.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘What’s that?’

No reply. Glancing around, I saw people converging from everywhere: Dad, Mum, Haido . . . even Sloan was heading my way. All eyes were fixed on the pink flush.

‘Shit,’ said Dad, and bumped into the back of someone’s chair.

‘This can’t be good.’ Conal addressed my mother. ‘It’s a stress signal, isn’t it? Colour change? It’s an integrity warning.’

‘It can’t be,’ Sloan murmured. He was pressing against my shoulder. ‘A warning stain would be blue. This isn’t blue.’

‘
Arkwright!
’ Dad whirled. ‘We’ve got a problem here!’

‘Don’t touch it!’ Mum exclaimed, as Sloan bent closer to the bulkhead. ‘Nobody touch it, stand well away! Cheney – over here!
Now!

’ ‘What is it?’ Dad was talking to Arkwright. He seized my arm, pulling me back into the centre of the Bridge. ‘There’s gotta be input, Arkwright, this looks like an integrity breach. So what is it?’

For the first time ever, I saw Arkwright at a complete loss. He goggled across the room, his fine, lank hair in disarray.

‘There are no alarms,’ he insisted faintly.

‘There have to be.’

‘There are
no alarms
, Tuddor. Look for yourself. All the readouts are normal.’

Dad released me, and strode over to the nearest Interface Array. Meanwhile, Firminus had got up, and had joined his son near the spreading stain.

‘Sibber 24 linkup.’ Arkwright spoke into his collar. ‘Sibber? It’s me. Do you have
any
integrity alerts coming in? Any abnormal readings
at all
?’

I didn’t hear the reply, because Mum was talking from beside the toilet cubicle.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘this looks organic.’

‘It does,’ Sloan agreed.

‘If CAIP hasn’t registered this,’ said Firminus, ‘then there’s something wrong with CAIP. Arkwright?’

‘I heard.’ Arkwright sounded ever so slightly testy. He addressed Lais. ‘We’ll have to run a full diagnostic,’ he ordered. ‘Cyclic redundancy checks, process scans – the lot.’

‘Roger that,’ said Lais, and set to work.

‘We’ll have to isolate the analysis program,’ Arkwright explained to my father. ‘I don’t know if the problem’s in the peripheries, or in the links, or in the CPU itself – I just don’t know yet.’