Zero went back through the airlock, took off the space suit, and stashed it in a nearby cargo bay, hidden inside the opened crate of self-sealing bolts. There were no other sounds in the area, and he guessed that the pirates were all still up in the control center, probably eating all of his cheeseburgers in the rec room. He looked longingly at the central column, then pushed away from the wall and floated back down the hall, into the narrow aisles of stasis pods and the even narrower maintenance tubes that ran the length of the ship. He had to go through 250 Rings to get to the control center, and in the cramped tube, he couldn’t just kick off once and travel fifty Rings in one jump. He would have to cover almost the entire distance in a crawl, handhold to handhold. He groaned and started crawling.
He had to stop and rest a few times, rubbing his sore arms. This was why they had the central column, he realized—walking was effectively impossible without gravity, so without the ability to jump around your arms wore out fast.
He slowed down as he got closer to the fore, pausing to listen at Ring 290, and again at 295. On Ring 297 he finally heard some low murmuring. The pirates were here, but they were behind a wall somewhere. Probably the rec room? Or possibly the pilot’s office. Maybe both, since neither was really designed for a group of five people. Zero crawled up to 298, and then to 299, and kept back behind the corners, trying to stay out of sight. He saw a door in one of the bulkheads, leading up into the back rooms of Ring 300, but he’d have to cross a hall to reach it. He held his breath, listening, and thought he could discern some of the words of their conversation:
“… seven degrees left …”
“… every other time …”
“… how much molybdenum …”
Zero tried to remember where he’d heard the word molybdenum before. Was it a metal? Did Tacita have a mine? He had to get closer so he could hear them better. He dared a quick peek around the corner, saw nothing, and risked a quick jump across the hall. He reached another corner to hide behind, and moved quickly to the door in the bulkhead. It was square, maybe half a meter wide, and opened easily when he pushed on it. He floated up and into the dark room, and replaced the door behind him. As his eyes adjusted, he found that he was in a maze of computer banks, dimly light by soft green and red and yellow lights on some of the hard drives. Cables snaked beneath raised grates in the floor, and all around him computer equipment blinked or hummed or simply sat and computed. It looked like nothing was happening, but Zero knew that this was the Pathfinder’s brain; this is where it monitored the stasis pods, and analyzed the sensor data, and kept the ship running and pointing in the right direction. This is where everything happened.
And the pirates were trying to break it.
Some of the murmuring was clearer now, and Zero hung in the air, quietly listening.
“I can’t plot a full course,” said Spider. “That’s not how it works. A direct route from here to Tacita would take us diagonally through the Kuiper Belt, and who knows how many more asteroids we’d bump into on the way.”
“Hey, just do it,” said Jim. “We can deflect the asteroids—that’s literally my job on this ship, remember?”
“You can only deflect them at cruising speed, which could take months,” said Spider. “If we stay straight, and clear the Kuiper Cliff, we’ll be able to raise our speed by a good twenty percent, which will more than make up for the time we spend taking the long way around.”
“Mama’s not going to like it,” said Jim.
“It’s safer and faster,” said Spider. “Mama’s going to love it.”
Zero nodded. This was good: the pirates were going to stay on the Pathfinder’s original course until they left the asteroids. That gave him a whole day to try to figure something out. If he could find a way to get them off the ship, he could turn Sancho back on and Boost to Murasaki right on schedule. If he decided to Boost to Murasaki. Maybe Tacita really was a better place to go. He couldn’t just ask them, though, so he stayed where he was, and he listened.
“So what are you doing, then?” asked Jim. “If you’re not going to set a course, I’ve got plenty of other jobs I can give you.” It sounded like they were just a few meters away; there was probably an access hatch in the pilot’s office, leading down into the computer banks, and they were having their conversation right next to it.
“Obviously I’m plotting a course,” said Spider. Her voice sounded insulted. “I’m just plotting one from where we will be, not from where we are. Once we fly out of the Kuiper, we hit the button and go.”
“What if it Boosts the Medina drive before we hit the button? We’d end up in Murasaki.”
“First of all, we’d end up dead,” said Spider. “That kind of acceleration would kill anyone not in a stasis pod. But secondly, and more importantly, the ship can’t Boost without its navigational AI, which I turned off, because I am good at my job. So stop bothering me and let me work.”
“Fine,” said Jim. “I’ve got my own work to do.”
The conversation stopped, and Zero frowned. He needed them to keep talking, or he wasn’t going to learn anything about Tacita. He looked around, trying to figure out where the rec room was from here; he couldn’t figure it out exactly, but pulled lightly on the nearest computer bank and drifted in the right general direction. He moved as silently as a ghost, which was a benefit of zero gravity he hadn’t considered before: without footsteps, he could be incredibly quiet. He heard more voices and floated toward them, and found himself by a wall, listening at a small vent to the other pirates in the rec room.
“We should have brought more people,” said Kratt. “These colonists could wake up at any minute, and we’re not equipped for that kind of a fight. Especially since you made me leave my gun on Tacita, like an idiot.”
“No one’s going to wake up,” said Mama.
“And even if they do, they might not fight us,” said Nyx. “Not everyone’s a psycho like you.”
Kratt laughed, though it sounded just as cruel as everything else he said. “You think they’re going to just take this peacefully? You think they’re gonna be super thrilled about working in a mine for the rest of their lives?”
Zero frowned. He’d been right—Tacita did have a mine. But he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in one. Was that really what they were planning?
“They won’t have to,” said Nyx. “With the materials Big Mama and I saw in the lower Rings, we could build a real colony, with real food and real power. We wouldn’t have to scrounge through the tunnels anymore.”
“You’re a dear,” said Mama, “and that kind heart of yours is one of the things I love about you. Never change it.”
“Why are you always spoiling her?” asked Kratt, but Mama yelled at him in a fury:
“You shut your mouth, boy!” Zero shifted a little, looking through the gaps in the vent, and got a glimpse of them as they talked. Mama was pointing at Kratt, her face twisted in rage, but then she paused and composed herself. “Like I was saying, Nyx, you’re a dear, but you’re not looking at this ship like the opportunity that it is. The supplies are wonderful, yes, and they’ll help the whole outpost, but the real value is the people. Twenty thousand more workers in that mine will turn Tacita into a powerhouse.”
“That’s right,” said Jim. Zero hadn’t heard him come in, but he glanced over to the side and saw him now, floating in the doorway. “We’ll have iron and molybdenum, so we’ll have steel. We’ll have tungsten and silicon for microchips and circuits; we’ll have the raw materials and the manpower to build a space dock to rival the ones on Earth and Mars. We can turn Tacita into a real power in the solar system.”
“The real power in the solar system,” added Mama.
“With slaves?” asked Nyx.
“Their great-grandchildren will thank us,” said Mama.
Well that decides it, thought Zero, peering through the vent. They’re definitely bad, and I definitely need to stop them. And I’ll need to send a message back to Earth, warning them about—
“Eyeball,” said Nyx. Zero looked at her, and saw that she was looking directly at him through the gaps in the grate. He jerked back in shock, and bumped into the computer bank behind him.
“What?” asked Mama. “Wait—I just heard something.”
“There was an eye in the vent,” said Nyx. “Something was watching us.”
“It’s an alien!” shouted Jim.
“Shut up!” shouted Kratt. The wall shook, and the light coming through the vent was suddenly blocked out. “Someone’s in there—help me get this vent off so I can kill him!”