The Birth of The Unity (sequel to Chronicle of Nautilus)

Chapter 7: Searching In The Dark

The first suicide aboard the ship was kept secret. Only three people and Jane knew what had happened. Adam and Chuck shared the information with Jason partly because neither of them knew how to drag the body to the recycling tanks unnoticed. That was the place where bodies were brought after death and were vaporized into nutrients that later were injected into new copies or used to sustain the life of other inhabitants. Leaving the body to rot in a random place was not an option as it was only a matter of days or centuries before it would be discovered. They told Jason everything what happened and he agreed to help.

Jason being a large and bulky man had no problem of carrying the body on his shoulder all the way to the tanks that were located on the second floor. The one time when Jason was asked by a curious bypasser what was wrong with his friend, he replied that the old guy felt sick and needed to get to the doctor as soon as possible. Jane provided Jason with a green light through the corridors and disabled all the locks in his way. When he went got to the tanks, he put the body inside one of them, entered the words 'Died of heart failure'into the computer and pushed a button. The body melted in front of his eyes, and the computer screen blinked that a new copy has been ordered for awakening.

Jason knew perfectly well what his specialty was and did not object whenever he received a dirtier job to do. He had threatened a man twice, beaten out information of one person, and now he had disposed of a body. In time, his job got dirtier and dirtier.

There was an awkward silence between Adam and Chuck as they cleaned up the bloody mess. After finishing the job, they returned to their rooms. Adam wrote into ship log that the cause of Haas' death was the liver failure. They knew that doctor Grover might have complicated questions about the incident, he would ask why he was not invited for the autopsy. Since Adam and doc were friends, he would explain that there was an accident of sorts and that should satisfy dog's curiosity.

Upon getting to his room and falling on the bed, Adam thought about what he had just perceived. What was that child Haas had told about, the one who lead him to do things he did not want to? Adam had never heard of people capable of invading dreams. Could it all have been only hallucinations caused by a drug? A drug that perhaps was wrongly prescribed by the pharmacist. Everyone who gets old needs to use medicine or take a pill every now and then. Each new copy was a little different than the previous, perhaps this factor was not evaluated and the latest copy reacted to some drug in the strangest way. What else could it be? An illness or a psychological dysfunction, a dream-invading body snatcher? They were traveling in a spaceship through the stars, which was considered a science fiction entries ago. Perhaps, a body snatcher could be not so far-fetched after all.

Now Adam found it odd that the journey had been so crisp and fluid so far. The probability that unexpected emergency arose or vital ship systems would fail were relatively high because this was only the second human ship built for interstellar travel. Many unknown factors were not accounted for and during the launch, the chance for mission success was considered only forty-five percent. There must have been something that has slipped out his sight for the entire journey. An unknown passenger perhaps. A member of a crew who feel the need to sabotage our mission. Perhaps, over the years, someone managed to build a device capable of strange feats. With these suspicions, he closed tired eyes and fell asleep.

The next day, half an hour before the clock struck 00:00, Jason was knocking on Adam's door.

Adam said, "Enter." And the door opened up.

He was shaving in the bathroom, missing only the jacket to be in full uniform. Jason entered the room. His body posture was that of a soldier, hands by his sides, clothes clean as always, but his face.The face seemed overly worried. Black eyes above that wide jaw and shut tight thick lips stared at Adam's.