Traveler in the Dark

20

"She was in arrest, Captain," said Leroux. "Resuscitation methods weren't working. The machine didn't kill her, Dorothy was already losing brain function."

"It ripped open the isolation chamber and stabbed her in the forehead. Are you seriously trying to convince me that thing isn't hostile?" Stratton twisted off his helmet and rounded on Leroux.

"I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Just reporting the medical data."

"Spixworth, I want eyes on that thing." He unzipped the suit and shucked it off as he spoke. "Al Jahi, Liu, get preflight checks done. We're leaving. Everyone else, secure the labs aboard the Wolfinger."

"What about the field labs?" asked Blick, "You just want us to abandon all that work?"

"We have a conclusive answer about the habitability of this planet, do we not?"

"No," said Rebecca, "we don't. We've run a handful of initial surveys and encountered a dozen lifeforms. One possibly intelligent. We have no idea whether this planet is hospitable or not."

"I'd say the past ten minutes have been pretty damn hostile, Emery," Stratton snapped.

"We aren't even certain about that. Do you really want to condemn the sixteen thousand people aboard the Keseburg to another century of wandering because we were too scared to make a thorough investigation?"

"This isn't about fear, Emery. And you aren't going to shame me into changing my mind. This is protocol—"

"Flaming core, is that what you're hiding behind Gabriel?" asked Liu. "I've been flying with you a long time. You've never been a stickler for rules. But I've heard you quote regs more often in the past three days than in all the years we've been friends. Nothing about this mission was protocol. That's why they picked you to lead it. Bringing Emery wasn't standard procedure, but I'm sure glad we did. Letting Hackford slide through psych tests wasn't by the book either. Or Blick dodge the physicals. They didn't assign you because you're good at sticking to the rules. The Admiral gave you this mission because you're good at thinking on your feet. So— maybe we should see what the big bug does. At least we know it's trying to communicate. We can try to find out if there's more like it and where it came from. Don't we owe our families that much?"

Stratton swore under his breath.

"Uh— Captain? You're going to want to see this," called Spixworth.

"Shut it off!" yelled Titov.

"I can't, I don't know how!" Spixworth mashed buttons as Liu and Al Jahi shouted for him to stop and ran toward him. Liu shoved him aside and Al Jahi's fingers flew over the console

"What is it now?" asked the Captain.

"The bug-thing. It's got Dorothy's filament. It's figured out how to tap into the feed," said Titov.

"I can't get it out— it's already bypassed the clearances." Al Jahi shook her head, typing as she spoke.

Liu swung around to his own station. "Every system, every file, even the flight map back. Everything. It knows everything. How did it do this so quickly?"

"It's a complex computer. A string of math. Assuming it could process our programming, it would be almost instantaneous," said Al Jahi.

"Especially if Dorothy is helping it," said Rebecca.

"Dorothy is dead, Emery," said Stratton, "she can't help anyone."

"That's— not necessarily true," Martham broke in. "That thing pulled something from her. Cells, electrical impulses, biochemicals— it took something. Look how quickly it learned to speak— even words we hadn't used in front of it yet. It wouldn't be the first organism to absorb knowledge from another's corpse. Just— more completely in this case."