PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
PALLAS STATION
478.2.6.03
A cold knot formed in my stomach as I reread the screen. How long was temporary access? Whenever that time ended, the drone would be out of my control, and I had no way of discerning what that meant, either.
“Are you all right?” Kyleigh asked over the communications link.
“I am.” Surely they understood that I could not say more. When the drone and I emerged, at least, they would see liberty was no longer mine.
>>Power low.
“I know,” I told it aloud. Once the green datapad was safe in my thigh pocket, I added for the benefit of my people in the hall, “The drone has informed me it needs charging.”
“How is she talking to it without a chip in her head?” the medic said, and someone shushed her.
“You managed it?” Jordan asked.
“Indeed.”
“Charging units are on the back shelf.” Quincy’s words were abrupt and crisp.
“Release me so I can locate a power source,” I said to the drone, and it did.
Ignoring my friends’ protests over the communications link, I located the units and used spare cabling from a small box in the top corner to hook one to the drone. Its screen pulsed, and its orange border brightened as its depleted batteries filled. I searched the shelves again until I found a box of ropes and secured the charging unit to the drone itself. Not knowing how much power the unit would impart, I took two more, tying them together as well and creating a harness which I slung over my shoulders.
“Come,” I told the drone.
>>Not fully charged.
“I have reserves.”
A tendril lifted lethargically and drifted over the unit secured on its superior surface, then trailed over the two units strapped to my shoulders.
>>Verified.
Its large silver shape climbed through the air to hover by my shoulder. A single tendril wrapped about my arm again. I fought down panic. The drone’s need for a physical connection was understandable when it did not have access to a neural chip. It had done so when the Elder, Lorik, had lost access upon entering the jamming field. I glanced at the screen.
>>Proceed.
Not wishing to display my ability to open locks in front of the drone, I said, “Jordan, I am ready. Please unlock the door.”
Before Jordan responded, however, the drone shot another tendril to the access panel, deactivated the lock, and opened the door.
Everyone sprang back, weapons instantly trained on the jellyfish-like shape at my side, and their action did not go undetected. The drone rose above my head. Its remaining tendrils snaked around my shoulders, but when I held up both arms, it loosened its grip.
“It is well,” I said firmly.
Slowly, my friends lowered their weapons. The drone settled back by my shoulder, as it was programmed to do.
My pocket—no, the datapad—buzzed. I pulled it out and read the message.
>>Aggression.
“None intended. They anticipated a threat.”
>>No threat.
For a fraction of a second, memories of reprimands and the dead man on Agamemnon flashed through my mind. “I know.”
>>Untruth.
“Yes,” I told it, though whether it referred to its own motivation or responded to the lie inherent in my previous answer, I could not say.
“Stars,” the medic whispered. “You are a Recorder.”
I raised my eyes from the messages on the datapad to meet hers, which had gone wide as they shifted from my drone—Lorik’s drone—to me.
“Indeed.” Afraid that my connection to my friends would be obvious, my glance skimmed past Nate and settled on the bearded marine. “If there is naught else to do, we should proceed to retrieve Dr. SahnVeer’s equipment.”
He nodded. If his jaw was as tight as his eyes, I could not tell, for his grizzled beard hid it.
“Alec, you know the way,” Jordan said. “Zhen, Quincy, with him. Tim and I will take the rear. The rest of you, stay with . . . the Recorder and drone.”
Somehow, my old title from Jordan’s mouth felt like a blow. It was who I had always been, who I had chosen to be when I had reactivated the drone. I swallowed. The title was immaterial.
Without another word, we set out.
When we approached the marines guarding this sector, they deactivated the lasers protecting the secured area from roaches and enemies alike. The two men in blue moved to allow us to pass. Eleven steps down the hall, I glanced back. They had resumed their positions, and the station’s ever-present dust ignited when it drifted into the web of light.
We turned left, heading down an unfamiliar hall. The sprawling base had been formed inside Pallas’s extinct lava tubes, and though some halls had been drilled to connect with others, this one meandered. Pallid light fell over us from above, where metal fittings encased fluorescent lights. Ductwork, cables, and pipes ran down the raw ceiling’s center, but the floor was level and smooth. Only the faintest trace of dust rose at our footsteps, and nothing obscured the blue emergency lights along the bases of the walls.
There was no sign of roaches.
Even so, I entered a command on the datapad.
A response appeared on the drone’s screen. >>Elder’s scan active.
“Insufficient,” I said, then typed, >>Use adjusted parameters.
The screen pulsed, then read, >>Activated. Scanning.
I sent my thanks, and the drone did not respond. Of course it did not. A drone was not human, so courtesy did not matter.
Three more junctions—left, right, right—and we stopped before a paneled door without hinges. A pale-blue screen gleamed from the back of a small, recessed panel a little lower than my shoulder height. The hall turned right into darkness. A dull metallic echo sounded from the ductwork above. I glanced up uneasily but saw nothing unusual, then checked the datapad.
>>Roach activity? I typed.
>>None detected.
The statement was not as reassuring as it should have been.
Alec broke the silence. “This is where we need your eyes, Kye.”
She shot me a tight smile. “Don’t worry. This is probably the easiest thing to do on the whole station. The trick is to keep your eyes open until the red light comes on. Well, and to be close enough with all this.” She rapped her knuckles on the helmet. “Like I said, not hard. It isn’t like wrestling roaches or facing down terrorists.”
“I am not concerned, Kyleigh,” I said, though perhaps I should not have called her by name.
She stood on her toes to set her chin in the small alcove. The panel changed from blue to red, and after light traced the outline of her helmet, the door slid into its pocket with a dull grinding noise. Alec motioned Kyleigh back and stepped into the corridor beyond. Dust lay in two-decimeter-deep drifts and wafted through the air like smoke. The skin on the inside of my arms prickled, and the pitch of the drone’s whir rose. Zhen and Quincy followed Alec.
Jordan spoke, followed by Jackson’s gruff acknowledgement, but the sound blurred.
How many insects would have lived and died in this hall in order to leave this level of debris? Calculations cluttered my mind. The only answer that came was too many. My pulse thudded unevenly at the thought, and dizziness threatened to buckle my knees.
The drone wreathed a tendril around my neck, near where the medic had inserted her microdatacard. Without warning, a painful jolt of electricity shot through my suit.
I gasped and dropped the datapad, sending clouds of particulates into the air. Nate caught my left arm before I crumpled, and Jordan grabbed my right. My headache came rushing back, and I closed my eyes to block the way the hallway tipped.
The medic exclaimed, “Stars! What the void was that? Clear back, Jordan.”
Hands grabbed my shoulders.
“Recorder,” the medic demanded. “Hey, let’s see your eyes.”
It was difficult to pry them open, though the reprimand was a small one. Infrequent discipline—or was it punishment?—and illness had chipped away at my body’s ability to process what had once been an expected, even daily, occurrence.
“I will be well. I allowed emotion to color my perceptions and will do my utmost to prevent future episodes.”
“That thing shocked you?” The marine medic’s eyes moved back and forth as if she were reading something on the interior of her faceplate. “From watching Parker and her drone, I thought . . . But someone else’s drone can punish you, too?”
I stepped away from the medic, and Nate steadied me when I wobbled.
“Yes.” Nate’s harsh tone contrasted with his comforting presence. “All drones can.”
“Thank you—” I caught my error before I used his given name and condemned us both. “Timmons.” I edged away from my Nathaniel. He had been punished before, and now there was no Elder to cancel any discipline. With the drone active and recording, I could not afford weakness, for doing so would endanger all of them.
The bearded marine scowled in my direction. “If she’s good, we need to get moving.”
“Unless we want to wait for backup,” the medic said.
Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “Jackson knows what we’re doing, where we are.”
“Right, then,” Alec said. “Exec decision to go on.”
“I don’t like it.” The medic turned her back on me. “Soon as that door opens, we need to get the civilians out of here. Tristram has done her share. Escorting her to safety is—”
“Unwise,” Kyleigh interrupted, her focus on the silt hiding the safety lights along the hallway’s floor. “Sorry, but the doors lock as soon as they close. You need me to get out, and besides, no one knows what equipment we’ll require better than I do.”
“Kyleigh is correct,” I said. “And the drone will improve our chances of success.”
“Of course it will,” Zhen snapped while she checked her weapon. “That’s the only reason you’re here.”
Without answering her reminder that my questionable health made me a liability, I added, “I will take a moment to communicate with the drone, to be certain that it can scan the area for insects.”
“Last time, the drone couldn’t pinpoint the bugs,” Zhen stated flatly. “What can it do this time that it couldn’t last quarter?”
Chagrin took hold of me. “Again, it appears I erred.”
“You had a concussion.” Alec spoke softly, “Your body was tearing itself apart.”
“Neither the Consortium nor I should overlook such mistakes.” I stooped to pick up the fallen datapad, brushing away powder and checking for damage. No cracks marred its smooth green surface.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Jordan said. I glanced up when the weight of her hand on my shoulder registered in my mind. The drone sent an additional tendril around my neck, and Jordan’s gaze flickered to it. Her delicate brows drew together, but she did not move away. “You wouldn’t judge us that harshly. Don’t forget you’re human, too.”
“With all that entails.” For a moment, I rested in that fact. “I adapted scans to detect movement through visual and—”
“When?” the medic demanded.
“Shortly after entering the halls. When the drone is fully charged, I shall program it to detect pheromone levels.”
The medic hummed. “Using sensors to find breeding areas could be handy if we are stuck in this rock. Maybe we could eradicate the spacing bugs.”
“If you can use that thing to see farther than we can, do it,” Jordan said.
No one spoke while the drone’s external cameras activated. Its power levels plummeted.
“The scans draw too much energy,” I announced.
“Then turn them off,” Jordan said. “Our eyes will suffice for now. We don’t know exactly what we’ll need when we reach those additional security measures that—” She pinched her mouth shut, and her nostrils flared. “The ones Dan Parker discovered.”
We filed into the hall, and the door slid shut behind us. The situation’s familiarity struck me. Once again, a drone was at my side, and I walked through drifts of silt and cracked carapaces, surrounded by Jordan, Nate, Alec, and Zhen.
The memories were not entirely comforting.
Kyleigh trudged beside me, clouds rising with each step. “The hall comes to a sort of twisty T. We’ll need to take the right-hand turn. There’s a lab at the end of that branch, and that’s where the equipment will be.”
When we reached the junction, motion-activated lights already illuminated the curving halls. Dark, ovoid shapes lay in and on the mounded silt.
“Not good,” Alec muttered.
The medic hefted her weapon. “Where does the other hall go?”
Kyleigh sidled closer. “Phycology.”
“We’re on the other end of the station from the medbay,” Jordan said. “The algae feedlines wouldn’t run the whole way, would they?”
“Not the central algae tanks.” Kyleigh’s stare fastened on the drifts and the droppings. “The experimental ones.”
Nate offered me and Kyleigh a half smile. “Not much to do but go on or go back. We can’t get out without Kyleigh’s eyeballs, so we might as well stick together. I vote we get this over with. Get the equipment and these two back to safety and sleep.”
Jordan grimaced. “Onward.”
We turned right, but the knowledge that a long, hopefully empty hall stretched behind us weighed on me. When we reached the laboratory, however, neither the drone nor I were needed after all.
The door stood open, and darkness gaped beyond it.