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“SO, WHERE’S THIS MAGIC door you came through?” Yoss asked.
Tyce had been running his hands over the walls as he tried to find the opening, but he paused long enough to give Yoss a weary look. “If I knew, do you think I’d be doing this?”
“Don’t know.” Yoss shrugged.
Tyce snorted. He was fairly sure that most of Yoss’s pissiness was an act designed to get under Tyce’s skin. It usually worked. “We can search for the opening later. Let’s work on getting some of the other doors open from this side.” Since all the doors were locked if someone was coming up from down-ship, they needed to unlock them from up-ship. Tyce foresaw many hours of backtracking to open secure passages. But with potential enemy incoming, they had to clear escape routes the Dragon crew could use.
“We should find the routes with elevators. Kids are going to have trouble with those tall stairs,” Yoss said, any hint of malicious humor gone. He took the safety of the kids to heart. Tyce never doubted that he would lay his life down to save even one child. While Yoss never discussed a child on those rare occasions when he mentioned his late wife, Tyce wondered if there hadn’t been one. Or maybe, since she had been pregnant, children reminded him of what he had lost. However, Ribelian manners precluded asking a question that personal. Hell, even if they were both on Earth, Tyce would have hesitated to bring up the subject.
“We can map the locations. I wouldn’t want parents to limit their options too much. If we need to, we can pack the kids like we would supplies,” Tyce said. Yoss nodded, and a flash of cold anger or fear darted across his face. If John’s crew touched even one child, not even Ama would be able to hold Yoss back.
Yoss strode back the way they came. “If the Anla are listening, they’ll target the kids.”
“Doubt it.”
Yoss frowned. “They like to repeat patterns. Isn’t that what Command says about them?”
“They like to repeat patterns of success, and only the rare leader can make new choices. They’re like hive minds. However, after humans tried to kill all the Anla they could get their hands on, the surviving Anla might decide to take any path other than touching the children. Hell, at this point, the sight of a human child might drive them to sheer terror.”
“Doubt it.” Yoss paused at the top of a stair that led back down. “Sentient creatures are all some variety of the same. They want things; they take them. Anla know we care about kids, and they’re going to use that.”
“How Ribelian of you.” Sometimes Tyce got tired of their pessimistic theories about souls and flaws.
“Thank you,” Yoss said with a smile.
Tyce was going to say something cutting about Ribelians and weird religions, but then a shiver ran down his spine. He stopped and looked around. In a heartbeat, Yoss had his weapon up and his back against the wall. “Where?” he asked, skipping the more obvious what and who, not that Tyce had any answers.
Tyce stepped forward, and Yoss grabbed his arm in a bruising grip. “What are you doing?” His voice was low and dangerous, and he used his free hand to keep his weapon trained on the end of the corridor as it curved out of sight.
“I have no idea,” Tyce admitted.
Yoss gave him an incredulous expression.
“Seriously. I don’t know. But I am curious to find out what’s down there.” Tyce didn’t believe in gut feelings; he believed in facts and sometimes subconscious processing of information. Right now his subconscious knew something he didn’t about the passage they had been about to skip in their quest to head down a set of stairs to unlock doors.
“We’re not going down there alone,” Yoss said with a quiet intensity. If Tyce were the captain, he’d order Yoss to follow him. He regretted giving up that power.
“You can head back. I don’t want to use radios this close to Command territory, but Ama should know I want to investigate down this corridor.”
“Over my dead body.” Yoss planted himself in the hallway.
Tyce narrowed his eyes. “Just because I gave up the captain’s chair doesn’t mean I have no authority.”
“It means exactly that. I have seniority over you by a good year, and you’re not even Ribelian.”
Pointing to his chest where a shirt covered his tattoo, he said fiercely, “This makes me more Ribelian than you with your chimera genes.”
“Right, like Command has never tried to counterfeit a mark.” His disgust spilled out with every word.
“Command still thinks this means suicide bomber. No Command personnel could fake this. So don’t you throw my birth planet in my face. I have the combat experience and tactical experience you lack. If I bring Ama into this little fight we’re having, you know who will win.”
Yoss raised his chin, his gaze pugnacious even though Tyce was right. Ama might’ve been Ribelian through to the core, but she was also a practical woman. Being a gunner gave her an ability to make quick decisions, and a lack of patience for bullshit.
They stared at each other for a good two or three minutes before Yoss said, “Give me one good reason for going down there, something related to combat or tactical experience.”
Tyce’s brain shorted out. He wanted to go down that hall because he wanted to. He couldn’t articulate anything more intelligent than that for several seconds. “We need our escape routes spread out, so taking a parallel corridor for a significant distance before doubling back would give us that.” The answer was plausible—reasonable even. It just wasn’t Tyce’s real reason for wanting to explore.
“Or,” Yoss said, “We go too far and end up in a different section of the ship.
“Then we’ll know what path to avoid.” With that, Tyce pushed past Yoss and walked down the curving hall. His anxiety rose, but he couldn’t tell if he was excited about achieving his goal or nervous about where he might be going.
Yoss followed a good twelve feet behind. “This is stupid,” he muttered at regular intervals. They passed several doors which opened with a mere touch. Tyce passed four stairs down into the lower levels and two more that led up before he stopped in front of a door. Unlike most of the doors, this was another sphincter opening, the wrinkles of skin almost invisible against the pattern of the wall. Tyce would have walked past it except a long slit had already opened.
Did the aliens have a reason for the two different door styles? An anthropologist could’ve probably come up with any number of theories, but Tyce’s brain kept circling the idea of internal security. The doors that locked only from one side had primed him to look for signs of paranoia. If this had been a prison ship that might explain why the lower levels had smaller rooms with crowded and uncomfortable bunks. But it didn’t explain why resources were more abundant on the lower levels.
When Tyce ran his hand over the slit, and the skin withdrew, leaving an oval opening with a pinched top and bottom. Inside, a console took up most of the floor. It resembled the one that John’s people had dragged Tyce to, but there was no alcove waiting to shove probes into a victim’s head. Instead there was the curved line of the console as it rose four feet high before curving back to the floor. It was like a gentle mountain slope. It even had several soft peaks and valleys in the main part of the console.
Yoss stood at the door, his weapon pointed at Tyce’s stomach. “Explain how you found this.” His voice had a cold and brittle quality Tyce hadn’t heard in a long time. No matter how suspicious he might get, he would never shoot Tyce in the back, so Tyce ignored him for the time being. Instead, he walked over to the console. Some areas had controls that resembled buttons or dials, although Tyce wasn’t sure they would function the same.
But what he found more interesting were the streaks of color along one of the angled edges.
“Robinson?” Yoss practically growled.
Tyce turned. “I think the ship guided me here.”
Yoss stared at him as if waiting for the second half of the joke. However, that was the only remotely logical explanation. Yoss finally said, “Guided?” in a tone that demanded more information. He even raised his weapon a fraction of an inch.
That amused Tyce. Amali always talked about the patterns in life, and here they were years after they’d been prisoner and guard, and they’d returned to that relationship. Ironically, falling into his old friendship with John hadn’t been nearly as easy. Maybe Ama was also right about the fundamental nature of humanity being corrupt.
“When I was a prisoner up in Command territory, a few of John’s soldiers went rogue and tried shoving me head-first into an alcove. The ship is missing some organic wiring, and apparently they think a person can fill the hole.”
“Okay,” Yoss said slowly, like he was trying to sound out the word. “If that’s true, I’ll happily kill them all for you—”
“You’ll happily kill any Command soldier you can target.” During the war, every day they’d taken off from a port or planet with Yoss still onboard had shocked Tyce. He constantly expected him to leave in order to join a rebel combat unit. He might have except he had an obligation to Ama.
Yoss shrugged. “True, but I’ll kill them slower for trying that shit. But that doesn’t explain how you found this place.”
“A few of the probes got in my brain,” Tyce admitted. He waited, half-expecting Yoss to open fire.
Yoss took a deep breath. “What?”
Tyce pointed to his skull. “Probes in the brain. Their doctor said I was having tactile hallucinations because one is too close to the sensory cortex, but I think I’m getting data from the ship.”
“If it takes you over, I’ll kill you.”
“Whoa!” Tyce held his hands up. “Can we avoid discussion of murder, please?”
“Wouldn’t be murder. Would be a mercy to send you to the next life if the ship takes this one.”
“Then don’t feel any need to show me mercy,” Tyce said since he couldn’t argue with Ribelian crazy. “You don’t even like me, so you don’t need to do me favors.”
“I don’t like what you did, but you’re not that bad as a person. I like you well enough to save you from being taken over.”
Sadly, from Yoss that was a rousing endorsement. “The ship isn’t taking over, but it is sending me flashes of information.” Tyce turned back to the controls. He raised his hand over the streaks and inched forward. That felt wrong. It was as if he had ants under his skin. He reversed the direction, and the itching eased.
“What are you doing?” Yoss came and stood next to him.
“No idea,” Tyce admitted. He touched the streaks and repeated the hand gesture. A valley lit up and foggy light streamed upward.
Yoss jumped back and brought his weapon up. “Stop,” he said firmly.
Tyce ignored him and followed an instinct to run his thumb along the yellowest of the orange streaks. The light flickered and molecules rearranged themselves into a watery version of an alien corridor.
“Fuck,” Yoss said softly.
Two figures moved into view, their hands on their weapons. Ralie and Ter walked to the nearest junction, checked both directions and retreated back to their guard post.
“Real time?” Yoss asked.
“Are Ralie and Ter on patrol today?”
“Yep.”
“Then I assume so.”
Yoss moved back to the door and checked the corridor. “Those alien probes might be useful after all. We need to go back and talk to Ama.”
Tyce shook his head. “I’ll stay here. You go.” Tyce’s gut screamed at him that he needed to stay here.
Yoss slung his weapon over his shoulder. “We’re both leaving right now.”
Again, Tyce shook his head. Something was happening, and even if Tyce didn’t know what, he knew he needed to be here. He twitched his fingers, and the camera view skittered to the side and went through a wall, showing a detailed view of all the fluid lines within the wall.
When Yoss grabbed his right hand, Tyce whirled around. Yoss used that momentum to shove Tyce face-first into the wall before pinning Tyce’s hand to the small of his back. “You have an alien ship fucking with your head. I can’t trust you to do what Tyce would want done with his body, not until we know how much of you is Tyce and how much is the ship.”
“I’m still me!” Tyce protested.
Yoss plucked the weapon out of Tyce’s holster. “Not even Ama is going to believe that, although she might still trust this new ship-Tyce. I don’t know. And I don’t have to know. I have to get you back to her in one piece so she can decide.” Yoss took Tyce’s knife before backing away.
Tyce turned, rubbing his shoulder to relieve the ache. Yoss was not a gentle man. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
Yoss grinned. “Yep. Now let’s go find Ama. If the ship wants you in here, I figure there’s a reason, and that reason might require her to be up here. But I’m not going to trust you in here alone when I don’t know how much of you is Tyce and how much is ship.”
“We should also get our people into hiding,” Tyce said.
“Hiding? What’s coming?” Yoss demanded.
“I wish I knew.” Tyce hated the feeling of being led around by his gut, and his brain suggested Yoss was showing more common sense than he was. However, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he had to be in this room. “If we have to leave, let’s hurry so we can get back here.” Tyce took off for the door, stumbling as the sense of wrong-wrong-wrong exploded under his skin. Yoss caught him, preventing him from going face-down on the floor. As soon as Tyce got his balance back, he focused on moving one foot in front of the other, faster and faster. The sooner he found Ama, the sooner he could come back.