Sam was waiting in the medical center when they arrived, paging through one of the displays. He looked up as the door opened, his expression settling into something wooden. “Nicole,” he greeted her, his voice neutral.
“Hello to you, too, Sam,” Nicole said, matching his tone. “Kahkitah said you wanted to see me.”
“Yes.” His eyes flicked to Kahkitah. “Just leave him outside.”
“But I want to help,” Kahkitah protested before Nicole could answer. “You said I could help.”
“You already did,” Sam said. “You found Nicole and brought her here. That was what I needed, and you did it very well. Thank you. You can go away now.”
“But—” Kahkitah broke off, looking helplessly at Nicole.
“It’s all right, Kahkitah,” Nicole soothed. “Don’t worry, I’ll go eat with you like I promised just as soon as Sam and I are done. Wait outside—I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Well … okay. I guess.” Hunching his shoulders in clear protest, Kahkitah shambled back out into the hall.
The door closed behind him. “A little paranoid, are we?” Sam asked, a bit acidly. “So one scream from you and he’s supposed to come charging to the rescue?”
“You blame me?” Nicole countered.
Sam’s lip twitched. “No, I suppose not,” he conceded.
“Yeah,” Nicole said. “Okay, I’m here. What do you want?”
“Tomas was in here a while ago,” Sam said, his voice a little too casual. “Strained muscles and some odd abrasions. He had this crazy story about you and those little Ponng things charging into Q1, mixing it up with those big round-helmet guys, and then falling down an air vent. Any of that true?”
Nicole shrugged. “He caught the highlights.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam fixed her with a hard stare. “So what’s the deal? You got an actual plan, or just seeing how pissed off you can make everyone?”
“Why does that matter to you?”
“Because I work here, too,” Sam shot back. “That means I’m going to be one of the ones they dump out the airlock if you push them too far.”
“Oh, relax,” Nicole scoffed. “No one’s coming after you. If they dump anyone, it’ll be me.”
“And Jeff?” Sam countered. “And Levi, and Tomas, and whoever else you’re able to talk into this?”
“Maybe,” Nicole said, feeling her stomach tighten. “Still not you.”
“I’m a doctor,” Sam said stiffly. “I’m supposed to care about all my patients. So again: Is there an actual plan?”
Nicole hesitated, studying his face. Whenever she’d talked to him before, she’d never seen anything except smoldering anger and resentment at the Wisps and Shipmasters—and Nicole—for dragging him away from Earth. But now, almost buried in the glower, she could see a new earnestness. An interest, maybe, in what was happening outside the strict boundaries he’d built around his life here.
Interest, awareness … and maybe, just maybe, a whisper of hope.
“Yes, there’s a plan,” she told him.
“Good,” Sam said with a curt nod. “I want in.”
Nicole blinked. “Excuse me?”
“What, was that too complicated?” Sam growled.
“No, just too far out of left field,” Nicole said. “Since when have you cared about anything on the Fyrantha except yourself?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Protector,” Sam said sourly. “I don’t care a rat’s sphincter about the ship or your charity cases.”
“Yeah, that really makes me want to open up to you.”
Sam clenched his teeth and hissed out a breath. “Okay. Look. When we all got hauled off to the Q1 arena Fievj told the green team that if they won the fight they would be sent home.”
“And they lied.”
“Did they?” Sam countered. “Yeah, I know no one went back. My question is, could they have sent the greens back if they’d wanted to?”
Nicole hesitated. What should she say? “Fievj says they send the aliens from the arenas back to their home planets when they’re done with them.”
“Do we know that for a fact?”
“Not really,” Nicole admitted. “But if it is true, then yes, they can probably send us back to Earth if they want to.”
“But they probably don’t?”
“Oh, absolutely they don’t,” Nicole said grimly. “We’re the only people who can finish fixing the ship, and they’re desperate to get that done.”
“But they can always bring in new people, can’t they?”
Briefly, Nicole thought about what Miron had said about their Sibyls being taken away. Was that what the Shipmasters were doing? Preparing to bring in fresh blood who hadn’t interacted with the Fyrantha’s Protector? “Sure they can,” she said. “But anyone new would have to be trained before they’d be useful. They’d have—what’s that thing called?”
“You mean a learning curve?”
“Right—a learning curve,” Nicole said. “But we’re already trained, so right off the curb we’re better workers for them. That means they’re not going to kill off anyone they don’t absolutely have to.”
“But they’re also not going to let anyone go.”
“No.”
“Okay,” Sam said, his eyes narrowing a little. “So here’s the question. If your plan succeeds, can you get us home? Maybe a better question: Will you get us home?”
“If it succeeds, I’ll certainly try.”
“All right.” Sam seemed to brace himself. “All right. Like I said, I’m in.”
“Great,” Nicole said carefully.
But only great if he was sincere about wanting to join up. If this was another game he or Bungie or the Shipmasters had come up with, his grand gesture was useless.
The only slightly smaller question was even if he was sincere whether there was anything he could do that would be useful.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Sam said. “So what do you want me to do? I mean, besides being there to patch up your army after the dust settles.”
“Right,” Nicole said, thinking fast. She needed something that would keep him out of the way but still make him feel useful. “Okay. You saw the Koffren. Big and nasty, and they’ve got swords and spider guns. We’re not going to win against them without some advantage of our own. Is there some kind of drug you can whip up that would give us more strength or speed?”
“You mean amphetamines?” Sam asked, frowning. “I don’t know. Those can be dangerous.”
“So is facing off against someone who’s three hundred pounds of muscle.”
“Actually, I doubt they weigh more than two hun—”
“Whatever,” Nicole cut him off. “Can you make us up something, or should I go ask Allyce instead?”
“No, I can do it,” Sam said with strained patience. “Lucky for you, because Allyce isn’t here.”
Nicole frowned. “What do you mean, not here? Where did she go?”
“No idea,” he said. “She came in after we got back from the fight, collected a bunch of stuff, and left.”
“That seems odd.”
“Yeah, nice of you to notice,” Sam said sarcastically. “Sometimes you seem to pay attention to everything on this ship except us.”
“Trust me,” Nicole said. “Everything is part of my job.”
“I had a supervisor once who thought that way,” Sam said. “Took charge of everything, and screwed all of it up. So. Amphetamines or something like it. You want me to let you know when I’ve got it together?”
Nicole shook her head. “Easier for me to touch base with you when I get the chance. I’ll be moving around a lot and probably be hard for you to find.”
“Fine,” Sam said. “Just don’t forget about us.”
“I won’t,” Nicole promised. “I’ll see you later.”
Kahkitah was waiting just outside when she opened the door, in a posture that suggested he’d had his ear pressed against the panel a few seconds earlier. “Are you all right?” he asked as the door slid shut behind her.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Did you know that Allyce has left?”
“Permanently?”
“I don’t know. Did you know anything about that?”
“There was a report that she was out of her usual area,” Kahkitah said thoughtfully. “Ten or eleven levels above us, in the red work crew area. But not every team has a full-time doctor—blue team was very unusual in having two—and we assumed she was simply answering a medical call. Was she not?”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Nicole said. “At least, if she was, she didn’t tell Sam.”
“Unless Sam is lying.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Nicole admitted. “Let’s try something.” She turned toward the front of the ship and picked up her pace.
“Where are we going?” Kahkitah asked.
“For starters, away from here,” Nicole said. “I want to talk to a Wisp, and don’t want anyone else watching me do it.”
They went another four cross-corridors before she decided they were far enough away from the hive that they wouldn’t stumble across any of their work team. “Wisp?” she called. “Wisp? Come here. Please.”
“I didn’t think you needed to say please to the Q4 Wisps,” Kahkitah said.
Nicole shrugged uncomfortably. “One of the things my grandmother tried to make me do that I didn’t want to,” she admitted. “Politeness.”
“It does aid in interpersonal relationships.”
“Yeah, some of them,” Nicole said, thinking back to Trake’s gang. There, politeness got you nothing but ridicule. “Most of them, probably.” She waved a hand. “I suppose better late than never, like she also used to say.”
“Indeed.” Kahkitah pointed down the corridor to their right. “There.”
Nicole turned to see a Wisp gliding toward them. “Come on,” she said, and headed toward it.
They met the creature halfway. The Wisp stopped, and Nicole reached out and closed her hand around its arm.
Welcome, Protector, the voice came in her mind. How may I serve?
I want to locate Allyce from the blue work team, Nicole thought back at it. Can you tell me where she is?
She is on level 10 in bahri-four-four-six.
Nicole frowned. Bahri was the farthest forward section of Q3 and Q4, right behind the crosswise heat-transfer duct that separated the front half of the Fyrantha from the rear half. Level 10 put her only nine levels below the top of the ship.
What in the world was she doing up there? What’s in that room?
It is a supply room for animal treatment.
Do you know why she’s there?
No.
Is there anything up there that we don’t have in the medical center?
Many things. Do you wish a list?
Nicole hesitated. Would she even know what she was looking for?
Probably not. But Sam was a doctor, too. He might be able to spot something Nicole wouldn’t. Not right now, she told the Wisp. If I want one later I’ll ask for it.
Very well. Do you need anything else?
Not right now, Nicole said again. I’ll need a ride across into Q3, but I can call another Wisp once I’m closer to the heat duct. Thank you.
She released her grip on the Wisp’s arm, and the creature glided away.
“Did it know where she was?” Kahkitah asked.
“Level 10, bahri section, in one of the supply rooms,” Nicole told him. “It didn’t have any idea why she was there. Neither do I.”
“The specific room may not be significant,” Kahkitah said. “If she’s looking for a particular item, or for that matter merely studying the ship and its contents, she may simply be passing through.”
“I know,” Nicole said. “And I don’t have time to go find her now. I need to get over to Q3 and see if Nise or Iyulik is back from their recon yet.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Nicole said. “The Thii know where to meet me on level 36, and I won’t be traveling far in Q3 before I’m out of sight. Anyway, you and the other Ghorfs should probably start figuring out some strategies of your own in case Jeff and I can’t come up with something else.” She winced. “Or if we do and it blows up in our faces.”
“I’ll do all I can to ensure that doesn’t happen,” Kahkitah said quietly. “But you’re right. We do need to think and plan for the future.”
“Good,” Nicole said. “Better get to it, then.”
“We will,” Kahkitah said. “But first I’ll walk you to the heat-exchange duct.”
“I’ll be all right,” Nicole insisted, feeling some irritation. She didn’t need to be babied here. “The Shipmasters are smart enough not to come to Q4, where I control the Wisps.”
“The Shipmasters may be,” Kahkitah agreed. “Bungie may not.”
He had a point. “Fine,” she said with a sigh.
They found a stairway and climbed the four flights down to level 36. From there Nicole led the way to the centerline and called a Wisp. A few minutes later, as Kahkitah watched silently, she was carried across to Q3.
What do you see? Nicole asked as the panel closed behind them and the Wisp folded its wings. Do you see the Q3 part of the ship?
I see a corridor, the Wisp replied. There is no more.
Nicole sighed. Still unable to see anything beyond their own sectors.
On the other hand, that blindness might prove to be a useful marker. If and when the Fyrantha got the Caretaker connected again to the part of the computer that talked to the Wisps, the creatures should suddenly be able to see everything.
Of course, that might also happen if the Shipmasters got control of all the Wisps, too, either through the Caretaker or Oracle or some other way.
What Nicole could do about that if it happened she had no idea. But at least it might give her some advance warning that something had changed. Best to keep asking the Wisps that question.
The barracks room where she’d had Wesowee tell the Thii to meet her was deserted. Hopefully, that just meant that the Thii hadn’t yet returned, not that they’d gotten back and given up waiting for her.
Even more hopefully, it didn’t mean they’d come back and been captured.
That was an unpleasant thought. Still, it was unlikely the Thii had been taken without putting up a fight, and she couldn’t see any evidence of a struggle. She would just have to trust in their abilities, and hope for the best.
She should also get some rest. That was what she needed most right now. Not sleep, of course—she didn’t have time for sleep. But some rest, and some time to think.
She got a drink of water from the room’s dispenser, then chose a cot against the wall with the door but nearly to the corner. From there, she would be able to instantly see anyone who came in, while they would have to turn their heads to spot her. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it was all she had.
She lay down on her chosen cot, grabbed two extra pillows and wedged them beneath her head so that the door was directly in her line of sight, and settled down to rest and think.
Two minutes later, she was asleep.