The Sea is Full of Stars

terrified at the very sight of this man? Perhaps being herself was always best; that way she could place herself in God’s hands.

Kincaid wasn’t too thrilled with her, but he didn’t want to wait much longer. “All right. You two come with me. Everybody else, stay or go as you please. We’ll report as soon as we know anything.”

They walked back over to the restaurant. The maitre d’ was nowhere in sight. Instead they were met by a tall, tough-looking man in a utility jumpsuit. This was crewman mode, and meant that this particular hologram wasn’t from the module computer but from the City of Modar itself.

In addition to curiosity, Angel had volunteered because it looked to be a chance to see the parts of the ship otherwise barred to passengers.

They walked back along utilitarian service corridors that had no mystery in them at all except perhaps where they went, and finally the trio reached a stair that descended from the ceiling as they approached. Without the computer authorizing things, nobody could have gotten up there or even noticed that the stairway existed. This was Officer Country, even though there was only one officer on the whole massive structure.

They went up it, the holographic crewman and Kincaid in the lead, then the Rithian, with Angel bringing up the rear. They came to an airlock with its warning lights flashing red.

“That’s odd,” the crewman commented. “Our sensors indicate that the external corridor is fully pressurized.”

Kincaid looked around. “Any emergency gear here?”

“In the compartment there. Just use the floor ring and lift up.”

Inside were several safety harnesses, two environment suits, and a number of autofit breathing masks.

“There is no suit that would handle my form,” the Rithian noted. “I shall be all right with the breather and safety line.”

“That should be all right for all of us,” Kincaid replied. “If it’s a vacuum, the airlock will either refuse to open or be shut again by the pressure here. I doubt if there are any lines for toxic gases in there. Everybody get on a safety harness and hook to the railing here. Then pull up a breather and hold it. Okay, good. Check your masks.”

Angel had never had one on, but it seemed simple enough to do, and the mask over her nose and mouth fitted itself to the contours of her face and fed oxygen-rich air. The Rithian also hooked up, and the mask contoured even to its snakelike face. Kincaid nodded to the crewman and said, “Open it.”

Warning bells sounded as the airlock was opened while still in a red condition, but the rounded airlock twisted like a spiral lens and opened onto the nearly kilometer-long tunnel that linked the passenger module to the bridge on the main ship.

Water gushed out in an enormous rush and washed over them, knocking all three of them down. The harnesses, clipped to the railings, held them in place for what seemed like eternity but was actually no more than a minute or two. The water itself was salty and mineral-rich, but it wasn’t the main problem, as it was vented and recaptured by the ship’s systems and slowly went down to a trickle.

It was so unexpected that Angel had been completely bowled over, and she knew that it had been sufficient to probably cause some bruises.

“Everybody all right?” Kincaid shouted, picking himself up.

Only the crewman stood there, looking totally confused. “We are shifting the water out through vents to the main tanks,” he assured them. “Restoring normal operation should happen in a matter of minutes. It is, however, very confusing. This is impossible. It cannot happen.”

“Your sensor systems were bypassed,” Kincaid told the crewman. “It was probably done outside, while we were in station-keeping. Was any maintenance done on your overall systems?”

“Just the usual preventive maintenance and refreshing of systems. Nothing major.”

“But somebody or some maintenance robot had access to the computer memory section or comm interfaces?”

“Well, that is not unheard of, but any shutdowns or modifications would be logged.”

“Is there any way to pump this amount of water under pressure into the catwalk from either this module or the main ship’s module?”

“No. It would have to have been done externally.”

Angel managed to stand up, then removed her mask and tried to get her bearings. Her eyes hurt from the mineral salts, and her robe felt like a soaking wet blanket.

She looked around, appalled at the implications. “So where’s the Captain?” she asked them, shaking her head.

“Where indeed?” echoed Kincaid.

On the Freighter City of Modar

“Your sensors were obviously disabled on the catwalk,” Jeremiah Kincaid said to the holographic crewman. “And your view of the bridge is obviously also false, probably a looped recording. Assuming that this is true for the sake of argument, is there any way you can physically determine the actual contents of the bridge void?”

“I have already gone to work on that,” the crewman replied. “A routine air-cleaning robot was dispatched into the ducting and reports the ducts on the deck level are flooded to the emergency lock stop; the ones on the top are clear, but it is likely the void is predominantly the same fluid as was in the catwalk. That is most unfortunate since the salts and minerals in the water are somewhat caustic and can cause damage.”

“Can you pump it out?”

“I could vent it to space, but it would be irrecoverable.”

“The hell with recovery! It’s obvious that it’s not part of the main system anyway. Probably pumped in during the master refueling. It would do as fuel for the engines just as well as the normal gel. That’s probably why you have such a weight imbalance in the gravity enabled sections. The water is shifting with the engine pulses rather than having a steady ooze as with the gel.”

“Most certainly a good hypothesis,” the crewman responded. “It will also mean that we will be short on fuel.”

“I suspect that’s partly the idea. We’ll hold off on going further in that direction until we get the rest of the picture. Vent the water from the bridge and reintroduce the gas atmosphere that should be in there.” He turned to the pair he’d brought with him, who now were simply trying to dry out.

“You two want to go back? I apologize for bringing you along just to get a dunking, but I couldn’t know what we’d find here and I believed I might have needed extra hands or backups or even witnesses. Now I see that the perpetrators are long gone.”

“I could use a fluffy towel and a dry cassock, but I’m game to see this through,” Angel told him. “I think I paid the price to see what’s at the end.”

“I, too, should like to see it through,” the Rithian told him. “I do not like the implications of this, and I would rather have knowledge than allow my imagination to flow as freely as the water.”

Kincaid nodded, seeming pleased. “All right, then. If there was anybody left in there, I suspect they are even now drowning in a nice nitrogen-oxygen mix. I certainly hope so.”

“You may go ahead,” the crewman told them. “I will meet you at the other end. I cannot restore things until you can get inside, since I will need to extend this probe to see what is actually there.”

Kincaid unhooked but did not remove the safety harness. Angel and the Rithian had both already discarded theirs, and neither felt like putting it back on unless they had to. Kincaid seemed to read their thoughts.

“I doubt if the harness will be necessary. It’s up to you.”

“You two go on,” Angel told them. “I will catch up to you in a few minutes.”

Kincaid frowned. “Be careful rushing on the catwalk. You are out of a full gravity field there.”

“I’ll be careful,” she promised him, and first Kincaid and then the Rithian went through the lock.

Angel needed a few moments to slip off the cassock, which was all she had on, and roll it up. Then, by standing on it, kneading it with her feet and twisting with her hands, she squeezed an amazing amount of water