They all heard it at the same time. The flowers were humming.
“Are they moving—?” began Saskia at the same time Maurice swore.
“Oh, shit!” The flowers were accelerating. Sliding out of the dead zone. Into the region of gravity. Slowly at first, but with a sickening gathering of pace, the three spheres fell to the ground. As gravity was coming from six directions, they chose three different ways to fall. The three people on the platform watched three different spheres as they fell to three different floors, bounced, and then rolled to a halt.
“What have you done?” whispered Saskia hoarsely.
“It was a lure!” said Maurice. He bashed at his console, instructing the viewing platform to descend again. Judy was speaking in low tones, calm tones.
“They wanted to draw us in. Like the Dark Seeds. They were getting our attention!”
“What’s going on?” asked Saskia, eyes wide with fear. The three spheres lay in three directions: one on the ground below, one above, and one to the side of them. They had rolled onto their backs so they could at last see what was contained inside of them. From one sphere, a silver strand of metal pushed its way out into the hold. A silver spider emerged into the light, then quickly scuttled away. Then another. Then another.
Silver spiders went scuttling in every direction.
“Trojans!” croaked Maurice. “Those VNMs have tricked their way on board!”
Each sphere contained three spiders. They split up, skittering from view as quickly as possible. Maurice slapped his forehead. “How stupid would you have to be to take an unknown self-replicator on your ship!” he shouted angrily. “They
Judy stood in front of him and held his gaze. “Maurice,” she said in a calm voice. He glared at her.
“Maurice,” she repeated, “calm youself. Center yourself. Activate the ship’s countermeasures.”
“Countermeasures? What countermeasures? This is a fucking FE ship! What countermeasures, exactly, do you think we have on board? Photon-fucking-torpedoes?”
The VNMs had vanished, Maurice could not see where. He spotted two black tiles pulled out from the pattern covering the six floors. The VNMs had found their way out of the hold. They could be replicating already, using the fabric of the
“Oh, hell,” said Saskia, holding herself, arms wrapped tightly around her body. “What’s going on? What are you going to do?”
Judy closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, and then she found her voice.
“Both of you, relax,” she commanded. Despite themselves, Maurice and Saskia did so. Judy seemed to be growing in stature.
She rounded on Maurice. “Now, Maurice, think. What can we do?”
Maurice gazed into her big black eyes, their warmth heightened by contrast to her porcelain doll face and a sense of calm and control seeped through his body. Yes. Breathe deep. Yes. Stay calm and an answer would present itself. He blinked and allowed his mind to wander free. Yes. Breathe and calm. Breathe and calm. Now, what were they to do…?
“I…I…I don’t know,” he stammered. “I don’t know! I can’t think of anything!” He felt the panic that Judy had just quelled rising once more inside him. “I really don’t know! The AIs usually handle this sort of thing. Transmit friendly protocols or reprogram the VNMs? Release counter VNMs?” His voice was hollow. “We haven’t got an AI on board. We haven’t got
“Oh, hell!” breathed Saskia. “Look!”
The crates stacked on the wall in front of them were starting to move, sliding in four directions.
“The gravity is going! Those VNMs must be eating the generators in the walls.”
There was a creaking noise and a stack of crates began to tilt. Crystals wrapped in foam sheeting began to tumble to the floor below.
“It’s happening above us, too,” said Judy in composed tones. “Look, we’re back down now.” The viewing platform folded itself back into the floor. “Come on, out of here. Steadily. Calmly. Come on.”
Craning their necks upwards, they followed Judy towards the door. Three crates fell to the floor behind them, one by one, in brilliant diamond showers of crystal shards. A hollow thud reverberated throughout the hold—resonating
