“You say the sweetest things, Quincy. But you probably ought to find yourself a real girl. Or boy.”
“I’ve sworn off relationships,” I said. I was using my new identity to log into the refrigeration system control panel.
“Just because you’ve had a couple of bad experiences...”
“A couple? Would you like me to list my top ten relationship disasters?” I said. “You haven’t forgotten how we ended up in this squit hole, have you?”
“She was just one...”
“One of a long line that includes both my first wife and my husband.”
“I just think you need to get back into the saddle. It’s been six months since you...”
“Thank you, I know. But please promise me, no more matchmaking. How’s our friend Zola Brandt doing?”
“She’s carrying on as normal, quite oblivious to the disaster that is about to befall her,” Trixie said.
“Any sign that the ship is suspicious about us?”
“Nope. It has already added a couple of minor repairs to your job sheet for this shift. Apparently there’s a hole in the hull it wants you to have a look at.”
“If she thinks that is a minor repair, this battleship has a gift for understatement. Okay, I’m about to flood the vault with refrigerant. Blur the video so that it’s not obvious that the lovely Zola isn’t panicking about the vapour flooding her work area. And then make it look like she’s triggered the panic alarm.”
“Aye, aye, skipper.”
I now had a toolbox. A proper one, battered metal and lots of compartments, with all the tools a maintenance engineer might need. Plus a few extra bits and pieces that a thief might need. I still had the red fire axe and I’d also picked up a blowtorch from the ship’s stores, in case I needed to set fire to another corpse or anything.
“Any communication out from the Navigator?” I asked.
“Nothing. Oh, that’s odd.”
“Odd? I don’t like odd.”
“It may be nothing. But there’s no data at all coming out from the Navigator. I’m just looking back through the logs. There’s been nothing out of there for some time.”
There was no way of knowing what this meant. Maybe the Navigator had been damaged during the crash or maybe it had recently suffered a flat battery. I wouldn’t know until I got into the vault.
“Incoming message for the on-duty maintenance engineer,” Trixie said. “You’re wanted in sector 3A.”
“Blocked toilet?”
“The next best thing. They need a clean-up in the Navigator aisle.”
“On my way.”
“You’ll be pleased to know that Zola made it out of the vault safely. She’s currently catching her breath in a sub-corridor where the cameras aren’t working. A medic has been summoned to check her out.”
“Unthinking, unquestioning automatic response systems, you’ve got to love them,” I said.
“Technology has sure moved on since then,” Trixie said.
“In some ways.”
“I’m picking up two – no, three signals. It may be the security robots.”
“Where?” I asked.
“There’s something wrong with these readings, unless... they may be outside the ship.”
“Keep them in sight and update me if they move. I’m approaching the vault.”
“I’m sitting on your shoulder, I know exactly where you are,” Trixie said.
“I just feel the need to provide some sort of narration. Maybe it’s just nerves.”
“Maybe you just like the sound of your own voice.”
“Humour me.”
“I always do. Can you see Zola? I hope she’s okay,” Trixie asked.
Above me a camera turned, scanning me and comparing my movements against the patterns stored in the security database. If we’d done our work properly, I would show up as the expected duty engineer and given a snappy salute as I walked in through the open hatch into the vault. I wasn’t sure if they saluted maintenance men in the military, but anyone who appreciated a hot shower and a flushing toilet owed them respect.
“I’m at the hatch.” I slid my security tag into the slot. The little screen hiccoughed and then turned green. The heavy hatch swung slowly open. I tried not to mentally compare it to a prison door.
There was a thick mist inside the vault, lit up by a steady flashing red light. It looked like a low-budget stage set depicting hell.
“You’re not going to suffocate in here, are you?” Trixie asked. I like to think there was concern in her voice.
“Not unless some idiot closes the hatch and seals me in,” I said.
The hatch clanged shut behind me and I could hear the locking mechanism slide into place.
“You were saying?” Trixie said.
“Nothing to worry about. I won’t be breathing this stuff long enough to lose consciousness.”
In my inner eye, I could see Trixie call up my heart rate, blood pressure and blood-oxygen levels. “You do care,” I said.
“My motivation is purely selfish: this is not where I wish to spend the remainder of my existence. Open the coffin, grab the brain, and let’s get out of here. You can get us out of here, can’t you?”
“Um...” I said. In theory, I could hit the panic button and the ship would let me out. But there was no guarantee it would fall for the same trick twice. I was pinning my hopes on the fact that my newly programmed security tag would open the hatch door and get me out. “Of course,” I said. “I planned for just such an eventuality.”
“I’m monitoring your vital signs. I can tell when you’re lying.”
“Stop talking, you’re wasting our oxygen.”
“I don’t breathe.”
“Then you’ll grow old alone here. Are you picking up anything from the Navigator?”
“Nothing. But I think the three security robots are back on the ship. I picked them up just before they entered another of the dead zones.”
Being locked in the vault gave us the advantage of being safe from the robots – for the time being at least.
In my guise of maintenance engineer, I reset the emergency system and turned off the annoying flashing lights. I flipped the switch on the overheads and the vault was revealed in all its silver and white and brown-stained glory. It was like the
