Two people are missing. Mauree Baktihar and Shaka Mantu. Third Will Tikal has been out searching with his team. Shaka told one of the women that he was going for a walk last night. Tikal said he tried to track him. That there wasn’t even a scuff in the dirt.
Mauree Baktihar, mother of two, was last seen on the south end of the garden. The young men working in the field with her said that one minute she was there, the next she was gone. They wondered if maybe she’d stepped into the bushes to relieve herself.
Again, not a sign can be found.
As if my people would know what to look for.
I don’t know what to do. Call everyone into the admin dome? Bar the doors? Tell my people that we’re going to have to live like we did on Deck Three? Locked away? And that if we travel outside, we must do so in large parties for mutual protection?
Around me, the cafeteria is silent but for a humming from the air system and the rattling of the refrigeration back in the kitchen. On their tables, the Prophets are still for the most part. Occasionally one of them will twitch, jerk a leg, or utter a rasping snore. I envy them their peace as they fall ever deeper into the universe.
As for me, I cannot sleep, cannot rest.
I think I have been played by Kalico Aguila. Led here to a sort of trap. Vartan, however, has found something in his search of the sheds. Something that, if we play it right, will give me Kalico Aguila. Assuming I can allay her suspicion and lure her back here, I look forward to adding her to my collection. I want to feel her soul as it winds its way toward immortality.
That might turn out to be my lone victory.
Vartan—who knows these things—also tells me that Tyson Station might not have walls, fences, or cell blocks, but that we’re as incarcerated here as we were on Deck Three. He told me that privately, just before retiring for bed. I suspect he’s with Svetlana tonight. They seem to favor each other.
I find myself somewhat jealous.
Instead of wrapping myself in a woman’s arms and celebrating the act of procreation, I sit here, alone, and in fear.
What can the universe’s purpose be? What are we supposed to learn here? Am I too stupid to figure it out? Am I so blind with my three eyes that I cannot see?
The universe might not make mistakes.
But humans do.