XXX.

Hillman was not particularly impressed by the conference room the navigator led him to. It was not as spacious as he would have liked, particularly since part of the room was being used to store unsightly computer parts on utilitarian shelving units. There was a fairly nice table however, plus a couple of nice chairs. He set the chairs up the way he wanted, then had Marala brought in to him from the CIC. The guard who led her in left the door open when she entered.

“Please, take a seat,” Hillman said. The table separated them. He sat when she did.

The Fed tried to make himself seem as friendly as possible. “So, my dear, how long have you been in the services of Captain Dale?”

“Just a few weeks. I was at Ander—”

Hillman raised a hand and interrupted. “Just a moment,” he said, then raised his voice. “Can you shut the door!”

One of the Feds outside closed the hatch and Hillman turned back to the girl. “A few weeks. Hmm.” He paused. “And how do you find working for Captain Dale?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s a good man.”

Hillman nodded, in what he probably thought was a sagely manner. “A good master, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Hm…” Hillman pursed his lips. “And how often does he ask you to do things that are outside the scope of your contract?”

Marala squinted suspiciously at the man. “That’s never happened.”

The Fed nodded. “And if he asked you to, would you oblige him?”

Marala did not respond. If she did react at all, it was imperceptible.

Hillman sighed, stood up, moved around the table, and leaned on it, his body very close to the girl. “You know, in my line of work, I’ve learned to become aware when people aren’t being entirely truthful. And when it comes to people… in your position… there’s almost always something they’re afraid to say.”

The Fed laid his hand on Marala’s shoulder as he spoke. “So, my dear, if there’s anything here that you’re uncomfortable about—unsafe working conditions, unwanted advances (either from the Captain or any of his friends)—I can help you out. The reason the government exists is to help people like you. There’s nothing we like better. So if there’s anything—anything at all—do not hesitate to say. I can whisk you off this freighter in an instant. You’ll never have to see or hear from anyone on this ship ever again. You could be free, and entitled to a substantial settlement.”

Marala looked up at the Fed but made no attempt to remove his hand from her shoulder. Instead she began to audibly tap the side of her leg. Hillman looked down at the sound and caught sight of the sailor’s knife strapped to her thigh. Awkwardly he removed his hand and shifted away a few inches.

“I have no complaints working for Captain Dale,” the girl told him. “He’s a good man.”

Hillman shrugged and raised his hands, moving back around to the other side of the table. “All right. My people and I will be here for a while, so I’m going to give you the opportunity to think about what I’ve told you. Before we leave, I’d like to talk to you again.” Hillman paused, then continued very slowly, “People like me help people like you out of tough spots all the time.”

“Can I go?” Marala asked.

Hillman took a long breath and eyed the woman up and down, searching for a reason to delay her departure. The  little brown book in her breast pocket jogged a memory, and he asked, “I’ve seen a lot of people like you with that little brown book. What is it, anyway? Some kind of owner’s manual? Slave’s guidebook?”

Marala glanced down at it. She did not feel particularly compelled to humour the man. “I’ve never heard it described that way before.” She paused. “There’s some poetry,” she continued.

“Poetry for slaves?” Hillman asked, incredulously. “Let's hear some of that.”

Pulling out the book, Marala opened it to the bookmark, then flipped around searching for something. Then she recited:

It is He Who has made us

And not we ourselves.

We are His People

And the sheep of his pasture.

Marala paused, wondering if she should continue.

Hillman nodded approvingly. He was pretty sure it was something from William Blake, a 19th Century poet and artist known for his startlingly subversive religious imagery.

“Ah, yes! Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” Hillman quoted. “William Blake, yes? Very nice. Maybe I’ll take a closer look sometime.”

Marala tilted her head but did not correct him. She put the book away. “Can I go?” she repeated.

Hillman scowled at her for just a moment, then caught himself. “Yes, yes, of course. I have other interviews to perform. Lovely to talk to you.”

Stepping out of the conference room, Marala caught sight of a few other of the ship’s women lined up for their interviews. Apparently Hillman wanted to start with the women. Marala made a face at them while gesturing subtly back towards the conference room. A few of the women laughed and even a handful of other Feds standing around who caught the gesture chortled involuntarily.

“Next!” Hillman called, angrily.

Going into the CIC, Marala took a seat. She rested one elbow on top of her workstation and the other on the back of her chair, then looked around. At the moment, the only Fed in the CIC was Rachaels, whom she had passed on her way in.

Franklyn and Feorn were in their work area at the back, as usual. Oliphant was at his station at the front. All three of them appeared to be pretending to work. Rachaels was paying them no mind, however. His attention appeared to be consumed entirely with the cigarette he was smoking.

Eventually, noticing that Marala did not seem to be doing anything, Rachaels came over to her. “So, what do you do on this boat?” he asked.

Marala looked up at him, her elbows still draped over her workstation and the back of her chair. “I’m ship’s tech.”

“Really?” Rachaels seemed surprised but did not pursue the matter. He still seemed to be rather absorbed with his cigarette. After a moment, he asked, “Don’t you have stuff to do? Ship this size?”

“Yes, there’s repairs to be done, but we're on the buddy system and I don't have a buddy.”

“We caught the guy—the killer,” Rachaels informed her, taking a puff. He looked around the room in a bored manner.

Marala shrugged. “Orders are orders. Captain seems to think there’s more going on.”

Rachaels frowned. “Some sort of… macropathogen, I think he said? You guys run into something like that?”

Marala nodded. “Yes, they pulled a dead one out of the vent in someone’s cabin. You’d have to talk to someone else if you want the whole story though—Franklyn maybe.”

“Hm…” Rachaels eyed the navigator at the back of the room but remained where he was.

A few moments later, the next purge cycle began and a loud mechanical shriek began reverberating through the ship. Rachaels jumped, but quickly pulled himself together upon seeing that no one else reacted in the same way.

“What the hay is that?!” he shouted, over the din.

“Purge cycle!” Marala shouted back. “Dampener’s busted! It’ll stop in a few minutes.”

Hillman burst into the CIC and demanded an explanation. Franklyn came over and filled him in.

“Isn’t there anything you can do about it?” Hillman shouted.

Pointing at Marala, Franklyn said, “That one was working on repairs, but you know, we’ve had other problems.”

“How often is this going to happen?” the Fed demanded.

“Every few hours.”

Hillman looked around, trying to decide what to do. He could not continue his business with this cacophony. He turned to Franklyn and pointed at Marala, “Can you get her working on it again?”

Franklyn did not have the authority to tell Marala what to do, so he just shrugged and looked at the girl awkwardly. She remained seated at her workstation and the shrieking continued.

Rachaels leaned towards the girl so she could hear him better. “Can you get back to work on the dampeners?”

Marala nodded. “I guess so, but I’m not going down there by myself.”

Rachaels nodded back, then went over to his superior. “Hillman, I’ll accompany the girl. The crew’s still under orders not to go anywhere alone, apparently. They seem to be taking this macropathogen scare very seriously.”

Hillman waved dismissively. “All right. Go ahead.”

Rachaels beckoned to Marala and she stood. Together they exited the CIC and headed down to the engine room. Marala led the way. Hillman went back to his interviews, though he could not really continue very comfortably while the disruption continued.

“Someone could get away with murder with all this racket going on!” Rachaels commented, a few steps behind Marala.

Half-turning, Marala frowned and gave him a look.

XXXI.

Eventually the purge cycle ended. Over the next few hours, Hillman continued his interviews and his men continued poking around the ship and opening up cargo containers for inspection.

At some point, Dale—accompanied by Alberts—went to the MQ and told Doctor Burnstyle it was all right to lift the quarantine. Stepping into the MQ after Burnstyle opened the door for him, Dale asked if there were any sample bags.

“Sure. Why?” the doctor asked.

“I want to find out who’s hair and viscera is strewn all around the crime scene.”

Burnstyle nodded and got the Captain what he wanted, plus a pair of tweezers.

Lombard, the man who had been afflicted with kidney stones at the time of the tragedy, was sitting up on one of the patient beds. He was wearing a medical gown, and an IV tube was still connected to his arm.

“How you doing, Lombard?” Dale asked.

The crewman weakly flashed him an OK sign.

Dale nodded and turned to leave, but Burnstyle stopped him. “Captain, why haven’t the Feds tried to ask Marlowe and me about Constantini? I would have thought we were the first people they’d want to talk to.”

Dale grimaced. “Hillman’s convinced he’s already caught the killer. Case closed, as far as he’s concerned.”

Taking leave of the Doctor and the Professor, Captain Dale and Alberts stepped out of the MQ, then walked to the scene of the crime. It only took a few moments to collect up a few samples of hair and viscera, then they trooped back to the MQ to deliver the samples for analysis.

“See if these can be gene-matched with anyone,” Dale instructed.

Burnstyle took the sample bags and brought them over to a table where he could prepare them for the gene sequencing device

“You need any help with that, Doctor?” Marlowe asked.

“No, I think I’ve got it, thanks.”

As he started on the first of the samples, Burnstyle looked over the bridge of his nose at the Captain, who had hopped up onto a patient bed to wait. “This is going to take a while, Captain,” Burnstyle informed him.

“I’ll wait,” Dale sighed, lying back. Shortly thereafter, he fell asleep.

XXXII.

Getting bored, Marlowe eventually got up and went over to join Doctor Burnstyle. When he moved to begin helping the doctor prepare samples for analysis, the other man waved him away.

“I don’t need your help with this,” Burnstyle insisted. “This is a one-man job.”

Marlowe nodded, searched around a moment for something to do, then pulled out his data pad to continue his academic reading.

A few hours later, the next purge cycle began. Awoken by the sound, Dale sat up stiffly, then went over to Doctor Burnstyle and asked for an update. There were no results yet, but the gene sequencer should have some output available soon. Dale took to pacing around the room as he waited.

Eventually a ding came from the gene sequencing device, indicating that it had completed its analysis.

“The samples you took match Keir,” Burnstyle informed him, after examining the machine’s readout.

Dale looked from the gene sequencer’s readout to the dead man lying on the examination table not too far away. “What was that you tested? The hair or the other stuff?”

“The other stuff,” Burnstyle informed him. “Also, I identified what it is. It’s thoracic tissue .”

Dale squinted. Earlier, Burnstyle had informed him that Keir still had all his guts, but then how could material from his thoracic cavity be strewn all over the floor of the lunchroom?

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Dale announced.

Burnstyle shrugged.

Dale turned to the professor. “You got any ideas, Marlowe?” It sounded a little accusatory.

Marlowe was seated at a desk in the corner of the room, reading something on his data pad. Hearing the Captain’s query, he raised his eyes for a moment, then shook his head, almost imperceptibly, then went back to whatever he was reading.

Dale let the Professor be for the moment and turned back to the ship’s doctor. “Would you care to speculate as to how Keir’s guts are all over the floor when he’s not missing any?”

Burnstyle grimaced. “I’m not a forensic analyst. I’m obviously missing something.”

Marlowe looked at the Captain and gave him a very slight shrug.

“Help with the tests!” Dale ordered.

Marlowe did not respond verbally but put his data pad down and rose slowly to go join Doctor Burnstyle.

“I’ll double check your work,” he said.

XXXIII.

Rachaels mostly kept out of the way as Marala did her work. Occasionally he tried to engage her in conversation, and for the most part she obliged him by responding to his questions, but she seemed very focused, and topics of conversation only progressed at Rachaels’ prompting.

If he was surprised by the competent manner in which the girl handled the engine, he did not remark on it. Using a cutting torch, she was slowly removing some sort of frame away from around the engine assembly.

“Engine can run without that?” he asked.

Marala nodded but did not look at him. “Needs to be replaced,” she informed him.

Rachaels took to alternating between pacing around, sitting on a crate and reading reports from the rest of his people, and occasionally taking a look at the girl. Her overalls were a bit too large for her, as if there had not been anything small enough for her the last time she had visited an outfitters.

Eventually he felt the need for a cigarette and stepped outside the room. “I’ll be right out here,” he called. He left the door open.

“Don’t go too far, please,” she called back.

Shortly after lighting up, another purge cycle began. The sound was deafening. Marala had  her ear protection around her neck and raised them a moment before the noise started. Rachaels had printed out some ear protection for himself earlier as well, but he had taken his off earlier and they were lying on a crate in the engine room, outside his reach.

Rachaels grunted and swung the door to the engine room closed to stop the sound. Seeing this, Marala shook her head and looked around the room. Some of the corners were very dark.  After a moment of hesitation, during which she contemplated joining Rachaels in the hall until he was ready to come back in, she rubbed her neck and leaned back into the engine.

Out of a dark corner of the engine room crept a large tentacled creature with a single large eye, with which it sized up the woman before it. The creature shifted once or twice as though unsure of the best course of attack, then one of its tentacles formed into a long, bony-looking spike. It crept a little bit closer to the girl and pulled back the spike for a throw.

As if warned by some sixth sense, Marala turned and caught sight of a heaving, repulsive mass on the floor behind her. It shot something long and sharp-looking at her.

Hurling herself to one side, she swatted at the thing with one hand and the spike struck the metal of the engine with a loud clang.

A sound of startlement that was not exactly a scream came from her as the tentacled thing advanced. It sprung at her, sailing through the air. Again Marala hurled herself out of the way, but the creature got a tentacle around her waist. Grabbing it with both hands, she ripped it in two—it crunched strangely as it broke—and she tossed the severed piece away. Now she started shouting or screaming something, but the sound of the engine purge drowned her out.

The creature coiled itself together, seemingly unaffected by the loss of one of its tentacles, and reeled in its spike for another throw. It began chasing Marala around the room, who continued to scramble out of its way, but the thing always managed to keep itself between her and the door. It tried hurling the spike again, but without success. As it moved, it alternated between rolling wetly along or hurling itself through the air.

Marala kept screaming and the thing kept coming for her.

XXXIV.

Sensing something from the engine room, Rachaels stamped out his cigarette and opened the door he had closed a few moments before. He winced at the deafening shriek of the engine purge and covered his ears as he stepped into the room.

Then he stopped. Before him on the floor was some sort of tentacled beast, wobbling rapidly back and forth. It had heaved itself into the air in a sickening pile of its own flesh. It appeared to be facing off against Marala, who was crouched in front of it with her feet spread widely apart near the open engine assembly. She too appeared to be weaving back and forth as if she might leap to the left of right at any moment. She was shouting something at him, but he could not hear.

Sensing him, the thing twisted and contemplated him with a single large staring eye. Its tentacles shot out straight in all directions and vibrated menacingly. If it was making any sound, it could not be heard over the din of the engine purge. The thing looked evil, and full of rage.

Rachaels froze. Never in his life had he seen anything like this. His surprise made him hesitate, but then muscle memory came to his aid at the recognition of a threat, and with a practiced motion he swung his rifle up, switched off the safeties, chambered a round, and opened fire on the animal. Upon being struck, it flew backwards into a dark corner of the room. Rachaels only had crowd control rounds loaded, but for the moment, it was enough.

Rachaels rushed forward and took the girl’s hand. Her eyes grew wide and, looking behind him, she screamed something that might have been, “Another one!”

Turning, Rachaels raised his rifle and saw that another one of the tentacled creatures had appeared in the door frame, cutting them off from escape. The creature pulled itself up into a gelatinous-looking heap and began to quiver. It might have been howling or screaming, but nothing could be heard over the sound of the purge.

The first creature, which Rachaels had blown into the corner, rolled out of the dark and also pulled itself up into a heap. It was a lot closer than the one in the door.

Marala started slapping Rachaels with her open palm, screaming, “Shoot it! Shoot it! Shoot it!” but he could not hear her. He got the message though, and emptied a clip into the first creature, knocking it away again. He popped the ammunition clip and slid in a new one, which he then emptied into the second creature.

Seemingly oblivious to the hail of rubber bullets that were assaulting its flesh, the second creature seemed to anchor itself to the floor somehow and began to shake vigorously. Its flesh began to boil and flow, reshaping itself into something else. Blood and viscera spewed from it like a fountain in all directions and flowed out across the floor.

Suddenly a leg-like appendage burst out of the creature’s roiling flesh, and then another. In just a few moments, a fully formed, very different sort of creature had emerged from the ruin of the original. It had jaws, and powerful hindquarters that could probably propel it faster than tentacles ever could. It had two fleshy wattles or sacks under its neck, which at first appeared to be empty, but then as Rachaels and Marala watched, they began to fill up with some sort of liquid.

The creature stood there looking very naked, like a hairless cat, quivering, its smooth skin dripping fluids onto the floor. As they watched, hair or fur began to appear on the creature, rapidly growing out of its pores. After a few moments, it had entirely lost its appearance of nakedness, looking more like a red-soaked, evil alien dog.

Marala shook her hand free from Rachaels and—perhaps remembering for the first time—she reached down to the sheath at her thigh and yanked out her sailor’s knife. Behind Rachaels, she crouched in a fighter’s pose, waiting for whatever happened next.

Switching to his third and last clip, Rachaels raised his rifle and fired into this new, transformed monstrosity—but then his rifle jammed and the creature pulled back its head as though it was about to spit. Marala, sensing what was about to happen, shoved Rachaels out of the way, shouting, “Watch out!”

A stream of some smoking liquid arced through the air towards them, but missed and splattered against the wall behind where they had been standing. Only a few drops of the stuff fell on the two of them, onto their arms and shoulders.

The alien creature quivered as though in frustration. Its wattles were emptied and would have to be refilled. It gathered itself for a spring. Its back legs extended rapidly like high-powered pistons and it arrowed through the air directly at Marala’s face.

Raising her sailor’s knife, Marala somehow managed to lodge it in the creature’s throat. She flew backwards, however, carried by the creature’s momentum. Together they struck a wall and fell, but then she extracted the knife and managed to stab the thing repeatedly in the neck and head. She screamed as she did it, but still she could not be heard over the sound of the engine purge. The thing went lifeless and limp, but it stuck to her.

Falling to the floor after Marala shoved him, Rachaels righted himself, cleared his rifle and opened fire at the second creature again from a sitting position. He had to hold the rifle awkwardly with one hand and prop himself up with the other. Most of his shots missed, however, and the thing came at him. Looking behind it, Rachaels caught sight of a bony spike being raised like a whip or a scorpion’s tail. He realized as it began to move that there was no way he could avoid it. Without him the girl might not be entirely defenseless, but she was tangled up with the body of the creature she had just dispatched, and the living creature was still between her and the door.

XXXV.

A short while later, Rachaels and Marala came out of the engine room and began to make their way up toward the front of the ship—but they were walking funny, kind of shuffling, as though dragging something. They came across a few people, both crewman and Feds, all of whom made exclamations of surprise at the sight of them and got out of their way, pulling out their data pads to start sending messages, telling everyone else to come see what was going on.

Just as they reached the front of the ship, the shriek of the purge cycle ended and they dropped the thing they had been carrying, right in front of the conference room where Hillman was conducting his interviews.

A crowd had formed in their wake, inasmuch as a crowd can form in a hallway.

Poking his head out of the CIC, Franklyn locked eyes for a moment with Rachaels and Marala, then looked down at their feet. He shouted in startlement. “Whoa! Where the ___ did that come from?!”

Hillman yanked open the door to the conference room, noticed the crowd, noticed the red stains on Rachaels and the diminutive crew woman, then saw the dead and bloody creature on the ground at his feet. He jumped backwards with an undignified shriek. “What in the world is that!” he shouted.

Rachaels stepped over the creature into the conference room. “Sir, I think we have a serious problem.”

Onobwe, his interview interrupted, leaned back a few inches in his chair to peer around Rachaels and get a better look at the dead creature in the hall. Concluding that his interview was over, he quietly got up and stepped out of the conference room. Neither Hillman nor Rachaels paid any attention to him.