Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man (24 page)

So the eleven Captains, and their eleven ships, had gone their own way and the civilian authority of Seven Widdershins had been left to pick up the pieces. There were
some
AstroCorps guys left, but they were essentially worthless, and unwilling to ship out on the
Tramp
even if the
Tramp
had been willing to take them. It was like The Warm all over again. If they’d been worthwhile replacement crew, they would have shipped out with the eleven. The
rest
of the AstroCorps crew and officers, who hadn’t been signed onto the crews of the three warships and eight modulars, had been organising things on board the
new
ships, and had been killed in the Karlist attack.

So soon after being promoted, too, Bruce mused. It was cosmically unfair. At least the handful left at Seven Widdershins were still alive, and Bruce could hardly blame them for wanting to stay that way.

The Karlists were all dead too, as far as anyone knew – killed in the same series of Godfire detonations that had destroyed the modulars and equipment and a couple of thousand good AstroCorps men and women.

Karlists
. Bruce couldn’t seem to get past that. Karlists, of all things. Was that something that had caused the Seven Widdershins Captains to adjust their actions?

In the end, there seemed little could be done. The crew enjoyed another couple of days of shore leave while the
Tramp
received as much repair as the settlement was capable of providing. This was mostly limited to large-scale hull plate replacements and other ‘garage-class’ repairs, nothing to do with the fabricators or the computer.

Again.

- - - Seven Widdershins to Prufrock + 2 days shore leave + 2 weeks shipboard + total duration from The Warm 17 weeks shipboard + incident report - - -

- - - Human crewmembers each confirmed and reported usual dream activity + distraction during waking shifts + varying degrees of disproportionate response to stimuli in working situations, leading to minor lapses in judgement and personal altercations - - -

- - - Eejit crewmembers reported similar ongoing effects + Blaran crewmember reported analogous Molranoid impact on mental processes + Bonshoon passengers unaffected + medical and psychological analyses sought - - -

- - - Enhanced intensity of dreams and enhanced behavioural sensitivity declared to be within AstroCorps parameters for the transportation of / collaboration with aki’Drednanth crew + low-level telepathic interference with subconscious and group-psyche dynamic + as familiarity grows between aki’Drednanth and new associates, interference expected to increase then sharply decrease as aki’Drednanth exerts control over new-formed interconnections - - -

- - - Result + Low levels of sleep-encouraging medication prescribed for human crewmembers on request + gonazine recommended for crewmember G-M-D-(A) [Decay] + gonazine use was refused, deemed non-essential - - -

- - - Report ends - - -

Bruce was still a little hazy on the differences between the ables they’d picked up at The Warm and the eejits they’d had on board all along, at least in terms of comparative sentience levels and capabilities, but they were neatly partitioned and labelled and so it was able to distinguish them for the rare occasions it was called for by official procedures. Janya was interested in the differences between the
ables
’ dream-reporting and the
eejits
’ dream-reporting, but as far as Bruce could see the biggest difference seemed to be that the eejits were generally semi-literate at best and therefore their reports smacked hilariously of ‘four-year-old describing nightmare to parents’.

It
was
entirely normal for a crew integrating with an aki’Drednanth to experience some low levels of psychic interference as she got used to the new minds around her. Even though the overwhelming majority of non-aki’Drednanth minds were not compatible and unable to touch the aki’Drednanth Dreamscape, they
did
brush one another in basic electromagnetic ways – and with a system as sensitive as an organic mind, the results could be vivid.

As Cratch and the Bonshooni predicted, these incidents peaked harmlessly and then faded back to relative zero as the days and weeks passed and Thord settled in. Their big, frosty new friend did change a little after Gethsemane, and still more after Seven Widdershins, but this was no doubt part of the same settling process. Her quiet joviality became more subdued, the ‘light-laugh’ of her interactive mood display a less common sight, but all in all she was still good company. Not only that, but she was settling into her new domain for a reasonably long-haul flight, and everyone knew aki’Drednanth first settled into a space and then got slightly territorial about it. And when you were as big as an aki’Drednanth, a little bit of ‘territorial’ went a long way.

- - - Seven Widdershins to Prufrock + 2 days shore leave + 2 weeks shipboard + total duration from The Warm 17 weeks shipboard + incident report - - -

- - - Crewmember JW001 [Janus] involved in minor altercation with civilian passenger designated Thord + crewmember JW001 made uninvited entry to oxygen farm habitat assigned as quarters for civilian passenger designated Thord + altercation was non-physical and no damage of a bodily or psychic nature was incurred + mild nervous reaction observed - - -

- - - Result + formal apologies issued both by crewmember JW001 and civilian passenger designated Thord for misunderstanding and overreaction + civilian passenger designated Maladin and civilian passenger designated Dunnkirk formally undertake to act as visitation schedule keepers / announcers in case of future intrusions - - -

- - - Report ends - - -

Still, it wasn’t all disasters and incidents and altercations. As they closed in on the planet Prufrock, for example, Zeegon made a joke about taking the opportunity to stock up on coffee spoons. Z-Lin ordered a full sentient-crew and passenger assembly following this remark, and announced for the official shipboard record that this was the one millionth time a crewmember on board an AstroCorps starship had made the ‘coffee spoons joke’.

Bruce personally doubted the precision of this declaration, unfounded as it was by any statistics, logs or census information, but the crew certainly appreciated it. An impromptu ‘coffee spoon party’ was held – again in accordance with AstroCorps regulations that Bruce quietly suspected Clue of making up on the spot – during which each organic sentient was permitted to ceremoniously bonk Zeegon on the head with a coffee spoon and then stand in a circle around him and deliver a hearty round of applause.

Zeegon stood up after this and made a short speech, conceding ‘most elaborately sarcastic response’ acknowledgement to the Commander until such time as he could recover and plan a devastating return salvo. Moods were immediately lightened for an enduring period of time, and Bruce found itself regretting that it had been unable to use an Automated Janitorial Drone to deliver its own coffee-spoon-head-bonk in the spirit of the occasion.

Prufrock was another small planetary settlement. It had no beacon, which caused everyone a little concern on approach, but it turned out to be undergoing routine maintenance and before they reached orbit it was up and nodding again. The settlement was intact, the population unharmed – and although Prufrock was again too backwater to afford them any useful repair or restock, they took another couple of days of shore leave before heading back out once more.

- - - Prufrock to Þursheim + 2 days shore leave + 3 weeks shipboard + total duration from The Warm 20 weeks shipboard + all-hands alarm report - - -

Then they got to Þursheim.

Or rather, they didn’t.

JANUS

The passengers and crew, or at least everyone on board who wasn’t a mass-murderer or born out of a fabricator, met in the conference room just off the primary bridge. It was a long, slightly-curved chamber with a table and enough multi-species furniture to seat the entire senior crew and the senior crew of a visiting ship of even greater size, so the
Tramp
sters barely filled up one end even with Thord, Dunnkirk and Maladin joining them.

Aside from the ables, the eejits and the Rip, only Z-Lin and the Captain were missing from the gathering. The Commander, apparently, was delivering notifications to the Captain’s door, and possibly receiving orders as well. Nobody really bothered to ask anymore, and at the moment the mood was too agitated anyway. Janus hadn’t actually heard much, just that the
Tramp
was settling once again to all-stop and that Þursheim, apparently, was gone.

“Alright,” Zeegon quickly put this concern to rest, “Þursheim is not
gone
. I guess I was a bit hasty when I made that announcement. We dropped out of soft-space and there was no star system out there – or there’s a star system, but no habitable planets, and definitely no Þursheim, so naturally I assumed the worst. Then I realised,” he coughed a little embarrassedly, “that we were just massively off-course and nowhere near the Þursheim system.”

“Didn’t you check the flight plan?” Waffa asked.

“Hey,” Zeegon protested, “I keep telling you. When we took off from Prufrock I got the plan as usual, all I saw was a whole lot of numbers and I keyed in the commands like I was shown,” he spread his hands helplessly. “It
looked
right. I don’t know what half that garbage is, in the flight plan coordinates, but if I’m told ‘those numbers and that gibberish, that means
Þursheim
’, then that’s what I enter. You know it’s hit and miss if I’m even allowed to look at the destination data. I mostly don't bother. Come on, you think I know every coordinate of every–”

“Alright, it wasn’t your fault,” Z-Lin said, striding into the room. “You did everything right. It was a command override,” she sat down in a seat at the head of the table reserved for her. “We’ve taken a detour.”

Zeegon lowered his face into his hands. “Oh God, not again.”

“What sort of a detour?” Janus asked, doing his best to maintain at least a shred of positivity. “Shortcut, new mission, emergency … ?”

“Witch hunt, wild goose chase…” Waffa put in.

“Let’s say the Captain’s derelicty sense was tingling,” Z-Lin said, directing a stern look at the Chief of Security and Operations, “and it’s worth listening when that happens. He enacted executive protocol and changed our course –
moderately
, not
massively
– while we were at relative speed.”

“That would require synthetic intelligence behind the wheel,” Sally said.

“The synth’s only needed to set the protocols in place and provide a framework for the recalculation,” Z-Lin replied. “Once that was done, they could be initiated and programmed even when the computer’s on standby.”

“So, hang on, you set it up the last time Bruce was on board?” Waffa frowned. “We were all a bit busy then, weren’t we?”

“Captain wasn’t,” Zeegon pointed out.

“Did you say ‘derelicty sense’?” Maladin asked hesitantly.

“The
Captain
has a penchant for deep space salvage,” Zeegon explained.

“We think it’s something to do with his previous job in waste management,” Sally added. “Or was that his
next
career step?”

“Yeah, alright,” Clue laid a hand on the table, not quite slapping but nevertheless
placing
, quite firmly. “That’s enough comedy. For the moment, the main issue is Þursheim, why we’re not there, and how much we all wanted
to
be there. Right? I understand this.”

“Do you?” Sally asked, and Janus cringed a little at her tone. It was fairly soft, but it told him that Sally wanted a fight. And Sally usually got a fight when she wanted one. It was one of her most conspicuous skills. “Do you understand how Contro feels, being this close to his home for the first time in six years?” they’d actually celebrated this little milestone on Prufrock just before shipping out. “And then to have it snatched away right when he thought we’d be arriving?”

Does
anyone
understand how Contro feels?
Janus thought.
About anything? Ever?

To be honest, most of the other crewmembers had been away from home – if ‘home’ even had any meaning to them – for longer than Contro. And Contro hadn’t seemed any more excited or happy than usual as they departed Prufrock and turned their metaphorical prow towards Þursheim, although that wasn’t really saying much when talking about a man whose emotional range seemed to be somewhere between a solid 9½ and 10 on the cheerful enthusiasm scale. Part of the reason they’d celebrated his ‘sixth
Tramp
iversary’ had been because he was so cheerful about it and had invented the word ‘
Tramp
iversary’.

“No, I don’t,” Clue replied, managing to make this sound an awful lot like
does
anyone
understand how Contro feels, about anything, ever
without actually saying the words. She looked across at Contro, who was – unsurprisingly – sitting and smiling. “I don’t imagine it’s much fun, but I’m not going to pretend I know how it feels. I am sorry, though. I would personally have preferred to go to Þursheim and get our ship fixed and our crew filled back out a little, even if it meant Contro – or anyone else – disembarking.”

“You’d’ve preferred that to parking out here in the middle of nowhere to check out a possible derelict?” Sally said with exaggerated surprise. “Really?”

Clue didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes. Okay, cards on the table – yes, we really do need Contro on board and it’s that much easier to manage if we don’t actually stop at his front door,” she sighed and tapped her organiser, then looked up at Contro, then back to Sally. “While he is a civilian and can disembark any time, the Captain was of the opinion that he would be less likely to do so if he still needed a relative-capable craft to get him to Þursheim.”