Talking Man

CHAPTER EIGHT - FLETCHER

Captain Fletcher opened the door to the aft section exactly five hours after Akachi had left to accompany Traver to see the remains. She had thought nothing of his initial failure to return. The too amiable subordinate officer had likely found himself sharing stories with the passengers in a well-intentioned effort to comfort them. She rather hoped that he was busy on the outside of the ship, working to repair the air leak, but her monitors showed no signs of any human presence on the outer hull. When several hours passed, she made an attempt to contact him through his suit's intercom and received no reply.

Her suspicion instantly fell on Traver, the hapless and loud-mouthed fool who had until recently maintained a maddening state of composure. How he could have gotten the best of Akachi was beyond her ability to guess, but not beyond her capacity to believe. Her co-pilot was too soft and trusting by far.

Very rarely did both pilots leave the cockpit unattended. It was only to be done as a last resort per the Code, but now she had no choice. She locked all the controls before donning her full suit – the protective one meant for space walks – and strapping on her own sidearm. She'd seen cabin fever and space sickness take hold of passengers before, and was aware of the dangers such ailing individuals could pose to a working crew. If she had to put Traver down, she would do it.

It was not without caution that she exited the cockpit. Her readings of the ship's internal cameras had told her that neither Traver nor Akachi were anywhere to be seen in the powered sections of the corridor, but she knew there was no such thing as being too careful.

When she opened the door to the aft corridor, she found it empty and silent. "Officer Akachi. Mister Graff. Are you still back here?" She broadcast her voice from the suit at a volume they'd be sure to hear, but she received no response.

She checked behind her, ensuring that the door shut all the way before proceeding into the darkness. Nobody would slip out behind her, at least.

She searched the rooms: the antechamber, the scientists' cabin, the medical bay. All were as she expected them to be, but there were no signs of the men she was after.

Lastly, she checked the lab. This had been their destination so she harbored a strong expectation of finding them in here.

The room was undisturbed. Fletcher did not know the names or purposes of most of the devices in here, but she did have a photographic memory that retained the image of the lab from her final pre-trip walkthrough. Nothing had been moved or altered.

But the pod bay compartment was where her premonitions lay strongest. Even though she found it empty, there was something not right. She checked the access port to see whether Akachi had used it to exit to the outer hull; the casket-like jettison tube lay in its place against the port, blocking access to the exterior. Akachi's being outside the ship was ruled out.

The circular gate to each pod was latched shut, but that did not mean all the pods were still at their docks. The inside and outside of each pod were equipped with camera monitors that could be viewed from the cockpit and the aft's control panel; however without power the feeds were inactive, so there was no way to know whether any were missing.

So she unlatched the first port. It opened into the research pod interior, as it should.

She opened the second. Another research pod. Enough room for a man to sit inside, albeit uncomfortably, surrounded by measuring instruments and specimen containers. Undisturbed.

She opened the third. This one had not been refitted as a lab tool. It was larger inside; an evacuation pod able to carry up to five people, tightly crammed. Nothing suspicious here.

By this time Fletcher's mind was already exploring the rest of the ship, trying to determine where else her quarry might have gone since the pods were proving a dead end.