Symphony of Destruction (The Spindown Saga, #1) Page 11

  “This look like about the right spot, Doc?”

  “Yes, that should work.”

  Colin used a generous amount of duct tape to hold the cans in position against the wall, in the middle of a pool of oil and paint. He peered through the viewpane pointlessly - of course, it was still pitch black - then yelled, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

  Brother Anderson backed down the corridor quickly as Colin sparked the torch. He poised to run, then held the torch down to the oil track. It lit up beautifully, and the fire spread quickly like a wick, exactly as he had hoped. He took off down the corridor, throwing the still lit torch over his shoulder in the rough direction of the cans.

  - BOOOM! -

  The explosion rang through the corridor like an earthquake, knocking Colin to the floor. A pressure wave of heat rolled over him.

  “Whooooaaah!” he exclaimed, then laughed uproariously even as he struggled to scramble to his feet. His ears rang with a high-pitched reverberation that drowned out his own voice; the aural equivalent to staring at the sun.

  Brother Anderson was already halfway to the newly formed flaming hole in the wall, but Colin leapt passed him, boosting himself around using the robot’s arm and shoulder for leverage, grabbing one of the oxygen masks from the robot’s hand on his way by. Flames licked the edges of the hole, burning plastics dripping. Not bothering to try to time his move in between drips of molten wall, Colin dove into the breach, landing prone and sliding into an awkward barrel roll.

  “Come on. We’re running out of air!” he coaxed Hannah excitedly. She was already stepping toward him, although somewhat tenuously. He took her hand gently but firmly and led her toward the opening. Smoke was now billowing from its edges as foam dripped down the wall, the result of Brother Anderson’s quick handiwork with the fire extinguisher.

  “Careful,” said Colin, gently applying an oxygen mask to Hannah’s face, “don’t breathe that smoke. It’s very toxic.” Hannah appreciatively put her own hand to the mask, overtop of Colin’s.

  For a split second, their eyes met, kindling a small spark of trust. A quiet and all-too-unfamiliar voice somewhere deep within Hannah told her “it’s going to be OK.”

  Chapter 38

  Hannah reclined on a bed in med bay, at Brother Anderson’s insistence. For once she had not argued with her doctor, but allowed him to run his diagnostics. She leaned on one elbow, as the robot moved to the other bed where Colin was seated, wincing slightly as the doctor dabbed ointment onto his burns. They were small, and there were only a few. He would rather have simply ignored them, but Brother Anderson insisted on applying a disinfectant cream.

  “...well, you will just have to wait a minute,” the robot was telling the man. “It’s too late to go in without a pressure suit now anyway, so it makes no difference.”

  Colin started to protest, but the robot cut him off.

  “Besides, this way we can all work together to come up with a plan, instead of just running off half-cocked.”

  ‘Work together’ - Colin noted the reference to their previous conversation. The robot was using his own argument against him. The realization gave him pause. He decided to shut up and go along with it. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to include Hannah in a planning discussion.

  Brother Anderson continued, “Decks A through D are now inoperable and beyond repair. They must now be considered inhospitable even for simple traversing. We should be safe here in deck E, but we are going to need to gather supplies from the other decks”

  “What kind of stuff do we need?” Colin asked, hoping to give Hannah a chance to jump in with ideas.

  Brother Anderson was quite aware of Colin’s ploy, of course, so he avoided any obvious answers, instead mentioning a true but somewhat impertinent fact; “There are some medical supplies on deck B, I think.”

  “What about food?” Hannah offered.

  “Yeah, definitely!” encouraged Colin. “The only thing down here is a handful of protein bars, and we’re almost out!” He continued, “Hannah, how much food do you think is left in the mess hall?

  “Oh, tons! - I barely made a dent in the supplies.”

  “Oh that’s excellent!” Colin answered her. It was excellent. It was excellent that there was lots of food left, although that was no surprise since half the crew had died halfway through the trip. But it was excellent also for the fact that Hannah was engaging in their conversation, and that they were taking the food supply as a shared problem for which they had a quick resolution - an easy win. This was great progress. Colin didn’t bother to hide his pleasure as he gave a generous smile to both Hannah and the doctor.

  “Perhaps the two of you could use the pressure suits, and make a supply run?” Brother Anderson suggested. It was too much too soon though, and Hannah became noticeably uncomfortable at the idea of being alone with Colin. “Or, we could all go.” the doctor corrected himself.

  Now it was Hannah’s turn to shoot the doctor a knowing look. She did it subconsciously, not noticing the implications of using such human subtlety toward a robot. “I think I need to rest for a while, actually.”

  “Yes, of course. Actually you both should rest a while”

  “It’s OK,” Colin argued, “I’ll go.” He donned the pressure suit while awkwardly avoiding looking Hannah’s direction. Then, grabbing a small cart from the corner of med bay, headed for the hatch, throwing a sideways glance toward the doctor on his way past. That could have gone better, but it was a small step in the right direction. He tried not to feel disappointed. On his way through the hatch, he had a thought, and turned back.

  “You like peanut butter?” he asked Hannah. It was a calculated risk.

  “Um, yeah. You got some?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He knew for a fact that there had to be some on board somewhere. Tommy never stopped snacking on the stuff. He headed off to find the promised confection.

  “He’s not such a bad guy.” Brother Anderson remarked.

  “God! Don’t be so obvious!” Hannah retorted. Ordinarily, such a comment would have supremely pissed her off, but she was in an exceptionally fair mood, what with just having been ‘rescued’ and all. It was a brave thing Colin had done, blowing up a wall and leaping through fire for her. It didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Look, Hannah, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say.”

  Hannah looked Brother Anderson square in the eyes. “Go on.”

  “Well, I need to apologize - that is, I want to ask you, well, It has come to my attention that I have not acted toward you in an entirely professional or even reasonable manner, and I have failed in my duties, and have lied to you.”

  She held her gaze.

  “Can you please forgive me?” It sounded all the more strange coming from a robot.

  “I’ll think about it.” This was not something she could process immediately. Could it even be real? Can a robot have this type of realization? She would offer a small reciprocation though, she decided. “I guess I haven’t always been the nicest person to be around either.”

  “Well, I forgive you,” said the doctor.

  “OK.”

  Brother Anderson nodded, then turned back to his work, examining some data on a color coded console. Hannah watched for about two seconds before becoming bored. She picked up a small handheld console from the bedside table. She wasn’t one to spend a lot of time logged in. She didn’t enjoy games, and did not care for so called ‘news’, but when she was bored she would occasionally think of something. Usually a really random question. Rarely, if she was still bored and happened to be near a terminal, and not too lazy to actually bother to do it, she would actually look up that question. It just so happened that waiting in a med bay for a robot to finish scanning whatever stupid tests he was performing on you, met all three of those criteria.

  Her fingerprint gained her access and opened her recent search results. Yes, they were very random indeed. A couple of definitions of words she had heard used around the ship. A
couple of cocktail recipes. Some entries about various musicians; their histories, lists of recordings. She clicked on a link that caught her eye, momentarily forgetting why she was here. It failed to load. ‘Right - we’re in the shadow’. She then corrected herself by opening a new local network query - ‘Ventas-341 crew’, which brought up a report entitled ‘Current Personnel Listing.’ Not so current anymore though is it?

  She scrolled through the list of names, recognizing a few. It was weird that they were all gone. The ship was full of ghosts, and those ghosts lived on in the ship’s records. Or did they? She saw the record she was looking for, and clicked through. It failed to load. She tried another. Another fail.

  “Say... Brother. Can I call you Brother?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, Brother,” she giggled to herself slightly. It was a funny name for a robot. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “I was just trying to access the ship’s crew list. It’s not working.”

  Brother Anderson smiled to himself. It wasn’t a question. He wished he could say so; it was rare that he saw an opportunity to crack a joke. He couldn’t risk it with Hannah though. Not yet.

  “Personnel records are part of the administrative systems suite which are no longer functioning.”

  “Oh.”

  “Was there something I can help you with?”

  “No, not really. I was just... curious I guess.”

  “About Colin?”

  “What? Why would you think that?” she said, sarcastically feigning denial.

  Brother Anderson just stared at her.

  “Well, so... Who is this Colin, in your professional opinion? What’s he like?”

  “In my professional opinion? As his doctor? I can’t disclose personal information.”

  “Oh yeah, no! Of course! I didn’t mean... that. But like. I don’t know. What can you tell me?”

  “It is a matter of public record that Colin has worked in our engineering department for three years. After waking from a coma recently, Colin was automatically promoted to the rank of Chief Engineer.”

  “Chief? Ooh, la dee da!” she joked.

  “It is a formality. The engineering department was left without a representative head, and he was available.”

  “Well that’s one way of putting it I suppose.”

  Again the robot stared at her.

  “So if he’s the head of the engineering department now, who’s the head of all the other departments?”

  Brother Anderson became somewhat uncomfortable, but his expressionless face did not betray it. He wasn’t sure he liked where the conversation was heading, and regretted mentioning Colin’s promotion.

  “Who is the captain? Why isn’t Colin the captain?” Hannah didn’t know anything about chain of command, but it seemed to her like a ship needed a captain, and if there was only one crewmember left, the honour should fall to him.

  She was interrupted by a beeping from the medical console Brother Anderson had been working at.

  “Ah! Your test results are ready.” the doctor announced. He quickly began spouting off a series of results laced with medical jargon. Hannah began tuning him out. She already knew she was fine. Finally, the doctor concurred with her own assessment, then made to leave.

  “You are fine, and free to go.”

  It seemed as though he wanted to get rid of her. Whatever. Hannah didn’t really care. Except that there was still another matter on her mind.

  “Um... One other thing, Brother.” this time the word was laced with some sarcasm. He was acting weird. The word ‘brother’ took on a twist of duality. It seemed to indicate both friend and foe, suggesting both trust and wariness.

  Do you think... um, maybe when Colin gets back, you could ask him to try to find some clean clothes for me?” She hated the thought of asking for help. She hated having to rely on Colin even more. But maybe it was the only option. She really didn’t know her way around the ship very well and in the state that it was in now it would be super freaky wandering around by herself. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to trust Colin for a mundane task such as this.

  Chapter 39

  Colin pushed the cart slowly, navigating across the mess hall between the bulbous epoxy shells. The pressure suit made his actions clumsy, and he had twice already rammed into a carapace. They were tough, and not likely to puncture by such an impact, but he took no chances. If one were to rupture... He shuddered to think of it.

  His helmet light glinted off something blue and shiny, He recognized it instinctively as a large pile of foil wrappers emblazoned with a familiar logo - Omega Bars. Apparently Hannah shared his appreciation for this quick and ready nutrition source. That was great news in several ways: not only were they truly a very convenient food source which he could readily transport back to med bay, but it also gave him and Hannah something in common, which could be another small step in gaining her trust.

  He finally reached the mess hall store-room. It contained a wide variety of foodstuffs, but a lot of it was suitable only for large scale food preparation. Institutional sized packages of frozen meat and vegetables, sacks of flour, sugar, rice, and other staples, five liter canisters of various sauces. One section held cases of dispenser goods - candy bars, drinks, and - yes, here we go! - Omega Bars. He loaded several cases onto the cart. It took a few more minutes of searching to track down the peanut butter, and some biscuits suitable for spreading it onto. The cart was too small to hold much else. He might have to come back for more supplies later, but there was room for one more box. Scanning the shelves for what to choose, he had a random thought. He emptied a large box of canned goods, placing the cans directly back on the rack, then, placed the empty box onto his cart and headed back out of the mess hall, being even more careful guiding the now full cart.

  Getting the loaded cart through the hole in the wall proved impossible. It had been difficult enough to get it through even unloaded. The blast hole in the wall extended nearly to the floor, but was jagged and rough, so he had been forced to unload it, drag it through, then load it back up again. Now he made his way down corridor E-1, opening up cabin hatches as he proceeded, and peering into each berth. He couldn’t remember exactly which cabin had belonged to which crew member, but a quick glance jogged his memory or at least provided enough visual clues for a precursory decision. The first three he did not bother entering. The fourth bore further investigation. The room was tidy, by any standard; some may have called it immaculate. The bunk was made tightly and beside the regulation issue pillow, was a second pillow with a floral pillowcase, and a small brown teddy bear. Atop the dresser were several books and a picture of a young woman standing between an older couple. He did not recognize her, though she did look vaguely familiar. Opening the dresser drawer, he found panties and sock in the top, then t-shirts, and sweatpants in the next, and finally, two pairs of regulation coveralls in the bottom drawer. He held up a pair of coveralls, shaking out the wrinkles and letting them hang full-length. He then walked back out of the room, coveralls in hand, and checked the number of the hatch. Using the ‘Jiffy Marker’ from his tool belt, he wrote that number on the tag of the coveralls, then placed them in the empty box. He repeated roughly the same process on four other berths, before proceeding down the corridor, back toward med bay.

  Chapter 40

  Colin returned to med bay with his cart loaded with boxes. “Omega Bars for everyone!” he exclaimed, and began piling the cases of protein bars in a corner, then added triumphantly, “aaand Peanut Butter!” He held up his arms high in the air, a jar of peanut butter in one hand and a box of biscuits in the other. These he handed to Hannah, who accepted them with a grin. He then turned back to the cart, shifting the final box to the center of the now nearly empty cart. He twisted it a few times, unthinkingly squaring the sides into alignment with the cart edges.

  “There’s something else,” he hesitated, “for you Hannah. Now this is just a first try, a few samples. I
’ll go back and get the rest when we see what fits best.” He held up a pair of coveralls, but feeling slightly foolish, began awkwardly explaining himself.

  “There’s way better stuff. Comfortable clothes, I mean. But I didn’t know - that is - I thought coveralls would be best for just, you know, fitting, or trying on, you know. And I didn’t grab any panties or anything.”

  SHIT, he thought to himself. What am I saying? I’m such an idiot!

  Hannah did not notice or care about his awkward explanation or his perceived faux pas. As soon as she saw the fabric, even before it unfolded into coverall shape, she was already beaming with joy, and involuntarily ran to Colin to accept his gift.

  “I can’t believe it!” she enthused, “You read my mind! I was literally just asking Brother Anderson about getting some clean clothes!”

  Hannah looked truly happy as she held up the coveralls in front of herself. A moment later though, a shadow passed across her countenance. She cast an accusatory glance at both robot and man.

  “Wait a minute... Are you spying on me? Did he tell you?”

  “Hannah...” Brother Anderson started.

  “No, no! It’s not like that!” Colin defended himself. “I swear! I just thought... I wanted to do something nice. And I would have got something better, and more of it too, but I don’t know, you know, the sizes and stuff...”

  “Well whaddayaknow” Hannah spoke softly, more to herself than to anyone else. Taking the stack of coveralls from Colin, she smiled at him, then proceeded to an adjoining room to try them on.

  The hatch clicked closed, and Colin looked expectantly at the Brother Anderson.