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I woke up in the holding cell. I was on the narrow cot clutching a canister of pure O2. Pika the Stowaway was curled up in the shadows in the corner of the cell. She still wore the gray flex crew uniform I’d given her, but the grime was gone from her face.
“How did I get here?” I asked warily. This was the second time the pink Gremlon had shown up in a place she shouldn’t have been and that alone was suspicious. I wasn’t ready to trust her yet.
“You’re awake! You’re awake! You’re awake!” Pika said. She jumped up and bounced back and forth from one foot to the other. “Shhhhhhh,” she said. “We have to be quiet.”
I shifted my weight and sat up. Someone had removed my boots, and they sat along the wall at the back of the cell. My feet were cold against the painted black floor. “What happened?”
Pika dropped down to a squat and looked at me. “I went looking for you. You were in the engineering room. The giant picked you up and carried you here.”
“Did he see you?”
“No. I’m good at hiding.” She smiled sheepishly. “I followed him so I could see where he took you before.”
I wasn’t ready to trust her, but, at the moment, she knew more than I did about my circumstances. I leaned forward and looked out of the cell. The beams hadn’t been activated, and Neptune wasn’t at his security station. “Where did the giant go?”
Pika shrugged. “I don’t know. He carried you in here and put you on the bed and then left. Uh-oh!” Pika dropped down to the floor and rolled under the bed. Seconds later, Doc Edison came around the corner with Yeoman D’Nar and Neptune.
“Lt. Stryker,” Doc said. “I’ve been expecting you in the medical ward. When you didn’t show, I went to your supervisor.”
Yeoman D’Nar stood next to him, unsmiling. I wasn’t particularly in a smiley mood either. The ship had departed less than twenty-four hours ago, and already I’d determined my three least favorite people on the ship. Worse, they were all in front of me. I looked back and forth between the doc and my boss, and then at Neptune, who stood slightly behind them. His surprise-you’re-going-to-lockup visit had been the main reason I’d never made it to the medical ward, but my boss and the doc didn’t seem to know about that. Why not?
Neptune moved forward and held out my helmet. “I found this in the uniform ward. I trust it’s yours.”
“Thank you.” I took the clear plastic bubble and wrapped my arms around it. Until I had a chance to check that it wasn’t cracked and reattach the oxygen hose, it wasn’t going to do me any good. And as long as I had an audience of people who could potentially have me booted from the ship, I was going to pretend I wore the helmet for cosmetic reasons. Hey, it could happen. I’d seen stranger accessories in a catalog of Venusian fashions.
I felt weird sitting on my cot while the three senior officers stood in front of me, but I also knew Pika was underneath my cot, and there was a better chance of her staying hidden if I didn’t stand up. Pika was the only one of the four of them who hadn’t yelled at me or accused me of something. That put her on my side.
I got the feeling Doc Edison and Yeoman D’Nar expected me to say or do something, but since I wasn’t sure of what (the BOP didn’t have a protocol for post-passing out after discovering sabotage aboard the ship), I didn’t say or do anything. Seconds passed. My hands grew sweaty on the plastic bubble of my helmet and slipped down the convex surface. I wiped my lavender palm on the side of my aqua dress and then wrapped my arms around the helmet again.
Yeoman D’Nar spoke first. “Security section has advised me of your assistance in the engineering room. Dr. Edison will check your vital signs.”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Nothing a good night’s sleep in my quarters won’t fix. I’ll be good as new tomorrow.”
“You won’t be spending the night in your quarters,” Neptune said. Three lines appeared between his eyebrows, and he tipped his chin down. His forehead took over the top half of his face.
“Until security section can debrief you on what happened in the engineering room, you’ll remain in Neptune’s custody,” D’Nar added.
“What? No! I want to go to my room.”
Neptune crossed his arms and stood with his feet shoulder-width apart. He looked at me and then at Doc. “Lt. Stryker seems to be doing better. I need to take her report while things are fresh in her mind. Can this physical wait until tomorrow?”
Doc glared at him. “It’s not a good idea to put off the health of the crew while we’re in flight,” he muttered. He reached into his bag and pulled out a second canister marked O2. “After the ape is done with you, breathe this. It’s pure oxygen and will equalize your lungs and drive out whatever you inhaled down there in the engineering room. Come see me tomorrow for a complete workup.” He smiled warmly. “Thank you, Lt. Stryker. What you did may have saved the lives of two men on the crew.”
I set my helmet on the ground and took the canister. Doc closed his bag and turned to leave. “Yeoman, are you coming?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Who’s going to manage the uniform ward? I can’t. I have other responsibilities on this ship.”
Neptune spoke. “Uniform Ward will remain closed until I say so.”
“But the crew—” she started.
“Fine. I’ll take over the uniform ward. It’s my call.”
Yeoman D’Nar didn’t look happy with Neptune’s answer, but she also didn’t look like she thought she’d win in a battle against him.
Doc Edison and Yeoman D’Nar left. I sat on the cot and waited—for what, I didn’t know. The doors at the end of the hall swished open and shut. Neptune remained in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Get out,” he said.
“Get out from where? You just told them I was spending the night here!”
“Not you. The Gremlon. Get out from under the cot.”
My helmet bumped forward on the floor and Pika rolled out. She stood up, a little disheveled, but still relatively pleasant. “I’m sorry, Mr. Giant.”
“Get lost,” Neptune said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the hallway. “I don’t want to see you in here again.”
Pika took off without being asked twice. As soon as she was around the corner, Neptune hit the button on the wall, and the blue beams of light appeared. I stepped backward to avoid the heat.
“Why didn’t you lock her up?” I asked.
“She’s no threat.”
“She’s a stowaway.”
Neptune glared at me. “I’ll be back,” he said. He turned around and left the direction Pika had gone.
As soon as I was alone, I pulled the pin on the O2 canister and inhaled. Pure oxygen flooded my lungs. It felt like an itch I couldn’t scratch from somewhere deep within me had been doused in a calming agent. I closed my eyes and held the air in my lungs for a few seconds before exhaling. The irritation subsided, and I relaxed. I didn’t want to overdo it. The sooner I became acclimated to the air on the ship, the easier it would be for me to do my job without raising questions. More questions. Neptune already knew too much about me, but to the rest of the ship, I was just another employee. I wanted it to stay like that.
See, that didn’t make sense. If Neptune knew I’d hacked my way into the position on the ship, why hadn’t he told Yeoman D’Nar or Doc Edison? The physical would have outed me even before breathing the toxic air in the engineering room. Neptune must have had some other reason to keep my secret for now. He threatened me with prison time on Colony 13, but hadn’t mentioned that to my boss or the doc. Why not? It was starting to feel like Neptune was keeping an eye on me for reasons other than protocol.
As the oxygen erased the effects of the gas, my thoughts became clearer. I’d been on the ship for less than a day, and already there were questions I hadn’t expected to have to answer. It was the job of the security officer to make sure the ship was safe, and twice now, security had failed.
As the convulsions in my lungs subsided, I stood up and wandered back and forth across the ten-foot by ten-foot cell. Without the minor annoyance of the magnetic floor and the gravity boots, I felt light, which gave weight to my thoughts in contrast. Go back, Sylvia. Go back to your first minutes on the ship. What had I figured out? The second navigation officer had no reason to be on the ship when he was, and earlier I’d concluded that he was there to sabotage it. Pika had been in the very same quarters. Lt. Dakkar could have been the one to set up the gas leak in the engineering quarters, and Pika could have been there to help him. But Pika was given the run of the ship while Neptune treated me like a criminal. That made no sense. Unless Neptune knew more about the murder of the second navigation officer than he claimed.
Neptune had shown up in the uniform ward despite D’Nar dismissing my report to the bridge. Almost like he’d already known what he’d find when he arrived.
There was only one department on this entire ship that could terminate a crew member if assessed to be a threat and not be challenged on their action. Security. And who was security? Neptune.
Neptune didn’t care about the murder in the uniform ward. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe he was the one with something to hide.