Deathstalker Rebellion

'Of course, Captain,' said Stelmach, and led the way out of his cabin. They headed down the corridor together, three professional officers from the same great family, whose needs always came first.

Back on the bridge. Silence nodded quickly to his Second in Command and sank into his command chair again. Frost and Stelmach took up positions on either side of him, at hand if he needed them. The atmosphere on the bridge was so tense you could have sharpened a knife on it. Everyone was at their station, engrossed in their instruments, but they were too alert, too focused, almost as though they were afraid to look away. The main viewscreen showed the Dauntless's route had brought them right to the edge of the Rim. At a certain point, the stars and the light they cast just stopped abruptly, as though it had run into a wall, and beyond that there was only the utter blackness of the Darkvoid, where no light shone. It was hard to look at, for any length of time, but your eyes kept creeping back to it. Silence glared at his Second in Command.

'Everything seems to be in order, Second. Nothing on the viewscreen, all instruments functioning. So what's the problem?'

The Second in Command shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'It was the Communications Officer, sir, who first brought it to my attention.'

Silence turned to look at Cross, his frown deepening. 'Well?'

'It's… difficult to put into words, Captain.' Cross turned away from his station so he could look at Silence directly. 'I've been… hearing things. Voices in the void, calling out to me. There are people talking out there in empty space, where there can't be any people. I've checked the sensors. There's no one here but us. But… it isn't just me.'

He stopped and looked unhappily at Silence to see how he was taking it. Silence kept his voice carefully neutral. From the difficulty Cross was having in getting his words out, it was clear he took it very seriously. His dark face was drawn and tired, and there were beads of sweat on his high forehead. Without looking around, Silence could sense that other people on the bridge were waiting for his reaction. A while back, he would have thought they were just setting him up, seeing what they could get away with, but he didn't think so now. He could feel how seriously they were all taking it, and though they were trying to hide it, everyone on the bridge was scared. Silence felt a faint prickling on the back of his neck. These were battle-hardened veterans, and they didn't scare easily. He crossed his legs casually, but he could feel a growing tension in his gut. Strange things happened out on the Rim. Everyone knew that. He nodded curtly for Cross to continue.

'It's not just me, Captain. People have been hearing things for days. On all the comm channels, from the main hailing frequencies to private cabin-to-cabin channels. There are voices where there shouldn't be; whispering, muttering, just clear enough to spook people with what they can make out. There's nothing wrong with the comm equipment. I've checked it every way I can, and it all checks out one hundred per cent. Then I thought someone was playing tricks, but if they are I can't catch them at it, and I know all the tricks in the book. So I checked with other people, and that's when I found out this has been going on for days, ever since we started approaching the edge of the Rim.

'And it's not just voices. It's like we're being watched, all the time, and I don't mean the security cameras. We're used to them. It's more like… there's someone else in the room with you, even when there isn't. It's like someone's standing over your bed when you're sleeping, watching and waiting. There's a constant feeling that something's wrong, something we should be doing, something important and vital…'

'Night terrors aren't exactly unknown, out here on the Rim,' Silence said carefully. 'The Darkvoid's still pretty much a mystery. We don't know how much close proximity to it affects the mind, and one way or another we've all spent a lot of time exposed to it recently.'

'That's what I thought, at first,' said Cross. 'It's what we all thought. This phenomenon's been reported before by other ships out on the Rim who've stayed out here too long. Seeing things, hearing things, feeling things. It's usually written off as cabin fever. The doc hands out industrial strength tranquilizers, and that keeps people quiet until they've left the Rim. But I've been running some more detailed checks. When I reran the bridge tapes, according to my instruments at the times I was hearing the voices, there were no signals coming in. No signals at all.'

Silence raised an eyebrow at that. 'Some form of esp communication?'

'Not according to the ship's esper, Captain. If there were any psionic forces on board apart from himself, or even in the vicinity, he'd know. And there's more. It's… difficult to record these voices. They don't always come through clearly enough to make an impression. But during the time you were gone from the bridge, I picked up a whole group of voices, and managed to record them. Listen.'

He turned back to his console and tapped in a command. A loud hissing filled the air, as static seeped from the main address speakers. Silence frowned, straining his ears against the white noise of the static. He could see everyone else on the bridge was listening, too, their faces taut with suspense and barely hidden fear. Silence's gut tightened again. What could be so scary about a few voices? And then a voice rose out of the static, cold and dead, but very determined to be heard.

'It's dark, here. Here, the birds burn.'

There was a pause, and then more voices came, one after the other, different voices, slow and halting but all driven by some desperate need to be heard.

'Help me. Help me. There's something holding my hand, and it won't let go.'

'It's coming. It's coming your way, and you can't stop it.'

'Something's watching you from behind your mirrors.'

'Listen to me! Listen to me! There are dead hands beating on your walls!'

'They're coming. They're coming out of the dark in a dead ship.'

The last voice broke off abruptly, and then there was only the hissing of static on the speakers. Cross turned them off, and looked back at Silence.

'Whatever this is, it's getting worse. These are the clearest recordings so far. I tried computer enhancements on the earlier recordings, but it didn't help. Almost as though the computer couldn't hear them. I hadn't realized how widespread the problem was till I started asking around. I don't think anyone did. They all thought it was just them, going crazy.'

'Is what we just heard typical of what the voices are saying?' said Silence.

'Pretty much. They all make a kind of sense, but what they mean is anyone's guess.'

'What do you think they are?' said Silence.

Cross's features tightened, but his gaze was level, and when he spoke his voice was carefully flat and calm. 'I think they're voices of the dead, Captain. Desperately trying to reach us, to warn us about… something. Some members of the crew I talked to claim to have recognized particular, familiar voices. All of them people they knew to be dead. Friends and relatives, precious ones long gone. I heard my grandfather. He was part of the crew on the starship Champion when it disappeared out on the Rim over a hundred years ago. Now we're here, in the same sector, and it's starting again. Voices of the dead, desperately trying to communicate, to make us understand before it's too late. And before you say anything, Captain, yes I do know how this must sound. But we've all heard these voices. Haven't you heard anything, Captain, felt anything strange in the long hours of the night?'

'No,' said Silence. 'I can't say I have.' He looked at Frost, and she shook her head sharply. He looked to his other side. 'Stelmach?'

'I'm not sure,' Stelmach said slowly. 'I saw my father, but I thought that was just dreams. And once, when I woke up in the early hours of the morning, I thought I felt my sister's presence. Standing over me, protecting me from… something.'

'All right,' said Silence. 'Let's not get carried away here. I have no doubt this phenomenon is real, but whatever it is you're hearing, it's not the dearly departed dropping in for a chat. Much more likely it's some form of psionic communication we haven't encountered before, that your minds are interpreting as voices and feelings. There was a report filed a few years back, which most of you are supposed to have read, about the possibility of new forms of life appearing in the Darkvoid. The report's author believed there could be creatures living in the endless dark, in the gulfs between the frozen planets. A new kind of life, made possible by the unnatural conditions in the Darkvoid. And if that doesn't grab you, try this. How about some subtle form of alien attack? We're expecting the new alien ships to come through the Darkvoid to reach us. This could all be nothing more than some new kind of psionic weapon, designed to scare and confuse us. And doing a pretty good job, from the look of you.'

Silence looked around the bridge and could see the new ideas taking root. People were starting to look at