There was a faint crackle from the ship’s speakers and Knock Knock made a throat-clearing sound. ‘Excuse me folks, would someone mind saying something please?’
‘What shall we say?’
‘Oh, that’s better. Sorry, I’ve been having a few problems with my sound sensors. If you were trying to contact me in the last couple of minutes ...?
‘Well, sorry about the interruption. I’m not sure what’s causing these hiccups. I’d better run a system check before we dock.’
Something in the quality of the silence told them the ship had gone. Coral looked at the others and made a what now? gesture.
Words appeared on the forward screen.
I have an idea.
‘Who’s that?’ Tim said.
The letters faded to be replaced by:
Ssshh! It’s me, Albert.
‘Huh?’
Please talk amongst yourselves
to cover Tim’s lapse.
The five of them exchanged looks. For a moment, no one could think of anything to say. Then Norman said, ‘Who’s that who said “Who’s that?”?’
Coral caught on at once. ‘Who’s that who said “Who’s that who said ‘Who’s that?’?”’ She nodded to Alkemy.
‘Who’s that who say, “Who’s that who say ...” Ah, I am lost already!’
They laughed as fresh words appeared on the screen:
Perfect! Thank you. Let me explain. The ship
doesn’t actually listen to conversations,
but they are recorded for future reference in case an
order is misinterpreted or an instruction overlooked.
No part of what follows must be on that record.
Now, make yourselves comfortable and sit
absolutely still for thirty seconds.
They did so, watching the screen as a timer in the bottom corner counted down to zero.
Excellent. Now I have a video loop that I can
feed into the ship’s sensors while I start a fire.
‘What?’ Coral couldn’t help herself.
Norman said quickly, ‘What what?’
Tim said, ‘What, what what?’
‘What, what what? What?’ Norman replied.
‘Ah, stop! No more please!’ Alkemy cried.
The screen redrew:
I can't do much right now. The ship’s guard circuits
are on high alert, but I have managed to short
some of the fuses in the workshop. Any moment now,
a large but harmless fire will start and the ship
will be distracted. I need a volunteer for some
tricky nanomachine work. Someone Tim’s
size would be perfect.
‘How about a game of tag?’ Coral reached out and tapped her brother’s shoulder. ‘Tim’s it.’
* * *
Unbuckling his seatbelt, Tim left the bridge, his head spinning with all the instructions Albert had given him. The video loop had started so as far as the ship was concerned he was still sitting in his seat.
He kept low and slid around the curved wall to the medical bay. The interior lighting showed he hadn't been detected. Standard illumination came from widely spaced bulkhead lights that glowed dimly until a sensor was triggered. Then, the full overhead lighting in that sector would come on. Albert explained that the sensors crisscrossed the wall at hip height. By staying below them, he could remain undetected.
Getting past the medical bay door was trickier. He had to lie flat on the floor and crawl to the opposite wall to avoid tripping the automatic opener. It would have been difficult in one-quarter normal gravity if he hadn’t thought to borrow Norman’s slippers and strap them on his hands, though it felt a bit like being a human fly.
He reached the galley and slid over to the drink dispenser. Opening the cupboard below it, he pushed his way inside and slithered to the corner. There he turned sideways, pressed his back flat against the wall behind, raised both elbows and slammed them backwards. The thin panel gave a faint crack and broke in two. He turned and pushed the pieces to one side.
A square duct ran behind the panel, a passage barely half a metre wide. He took off the gravity slippers and felt his way along. A few metres in, it joined a wider, vertical shaft. He eased himself into it and stood up. Cables, feed tubes, water and waste pipes snaked every which way. He turned around slowly, looking for the promised opening.
There, five metres up. A circular gap the size of a ship’s porthole, just as Albert had said.
It looked a long way. Normally, he couldn’t possibly jump that high, but Albert reckoned that in one-quarter gravity he should be able to jump ten times higher than than back on Earth.
Only one way to find out.
He crouched, feeling his body mass sink and centre with him, giving the reluctant gravity time to hold him down. Then he sprang, snapping his legs straight, hard and fast, feeling himself soar into the air
‘Whoa!’ he cried, mirroring the pose of a superhero, one arm raised above him as he went. Fortunately, there were no sound sensors in the ship’s maintenance ducts.
Albert was right. His momentum carried him past the porthole and he had to wait till gravity gently reclaimed him and drew him back before throwing out both hands and hooking on to the little opening as he descended. His outstretched arms took his weight and he bumped against the side of the duct before drawing himself up to peer inside.
Wedging his left elbow in the opening, he found a place to hook his toes, then felt about with his right hand for the calculator in his back pocket.
Understanding Eltherian should have made it easier. Before the linguaseed implant, the strange symbols and characters on the calculator’s tiny screen were as meaningful as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Now he could understand them, but they were just as puzzling.
Technical terms, jargon and unpronounceable chemical names flashed across the screen as he set the switches the way that Albert had instructed. He took out a sketch he’d made on a piece of paper, held it up and double-checked the settings.
All good.
Then the world turned sideways.
Knock Knock Who’s There? made a course correction, banking smoothly starboard. Tim’s legs drifted from their footrest and his whole body swung parallel to the opening, leaving him hanging in mid-air for five long seconds. Albert had warned him of the possibility – it was after all why they were supposed to be buckled in – and he knew he should brace for the opposite manoeuvre.
Hooking his free arm through a loop of cable, he grabbed a waste pipe just as the ship swung sharply back. His lower body slammed against the duct wall and he let out a gasp of pain. Then the ship bucked as if it was trying shrug him off. He banged his head, cursed out loud and almost dropped the calculator.
He did drop the slip of paper. It drifted off just out of reach. He made a grab for it and missed, bumping the switches on the calculator as he did so. Each could be set in one of eight positions or left unset, making a ninth, and he knew that every setting changed something, subtly or massively. A mistake might cause Albert’s plan to fail, or even wreck the ship – along with everyone in it.
The slip of paper drifted further out of reach.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to remember the sketch he’d made and the movements of his hand as he made it.
He checked the calculator. The bottom right-hand side looked wrong. The ball of his thumb must have bumped the last three switches. They were all set west when they should have been east, south-east and neutral.
He reset them.
Is that right?
He closed his eyes again, trying to ignore the passage of time and the idea that it was running out.
He checked. Yes, he was sure now. He drew himself closer to the opening.
There was a junction box just inside the lower edge of the porthole. He slipped a fingernail under its plastic lid and flicked it up. Beneath it lay dozens of connection points for the ship’s external sensors.
Turning the calculator sideways, he positioned its dispensing hatch and pressed the release button. A blob of grey-green goo dropped in slow motion, splashed over the connections and began to bubble and fizz.
Tim watched for a moment then closed the lid, slipped the calculator back into his pocket, wriggled his upper body out of the porthole and pushed himself away from the side wall. As he drifted down, he checked his watch. Three minutes till docking. He’d better hurry because precisely one minute before they did so, all hell would break loose.