Symphony of Destruction (The Spindown Saga, #1) Page 17

  “Yeah?” She wasn’t convinced, but maybe there was something to this. He had changed a bit, she supposed. Was it possible for a robot to learn to feel? She doubted it. But it did actually seem like he was trying. Had he been a bit less of an asshole lately than he used to be? Still, why is he here? Hannah asked herself. Surely he did not bring her a drink just to sit and chew the fat. He wants something. He wants me to stop being mad. He wants to assuage my anger. He wants to control me. He can’t just let me be.

  “I know why you are here, Brother. You think you can make me stop hating Colin, and play nice so we can all just get along.”

  “I actually don’t know that I can do that, Hannah.”

  “But you’d like to.”

  “Of course I would like that. The fact is we are in trouble - all of us. We cannot afford to be divided when the ship is literally falling apart around us. Especially now. We have tasks we must perform and decisions we must make, and time is of the essence.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hannah, you are aware of the communications shadow caused by the asteroid belt, correct?”

  “Yes. Colin and I talked about that. We’ll be out of the shadow soon, right?”

  “We are out already. I’m sorry, I didn’t mention it sooner. You and Colin were both asleep when we regained our connection, and then it was such an eventful day, I didn’t get a chance to say anything.”

  “But you told Colin.” She meant the statement as an accusation, to expose the lie in his previous comment.

  “No, not yet. I have not spoken to him since it happened.”

  Really? Hannah was pretty sure that couldn’t be true. But it was not like Brother Anderson to lie so directly and explicitly. Was it possible for a robot to blatantly make a false statement? She didn’t know whether to believe him. Could it be true that he actually would want to talk to her about it first. Did he trust her that much? Or care about her? Or whatever? It was weird. It was almost like Hannah was his friend that he wanted to talk to. It didn’t make sense. “No shit?”

  “No shit, Hannah. You are the first to know.”

  Huh. “So now what?”

  “Well, we are supposed to report our position and condition to Central Operations Fleet Command Center.” He paused briefly before continuing.

  “But?” Hannah read between the lines of his statement.

  “But, I am not sure that would be an advisable course of action, and I would like to discuss it further with yourself and Colin, and come to an agreement on how to proceed.”

  “Except that I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I’m not going to! And you can’t make me. And besides that shithead’s opinions don’t really matter to me right now!”

  “I realize that.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’d like to hear from you exactly why you are so upset with him.”

  “Fuck you! I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone else. I’m mad at him cuz I am, OK?! Cuz he’s a fucking pervert, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him, and here I am stuck on a fucking piece of shit spaceship all alone with him, and this fucking sucks, OK?!” She took a long draught of the vodkatini.

  “Right. You have every right to feel that way.”

  “Good!”

  “Because he’s a pervert, apparently.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Except...”

  “What?”

  “What if he isn’t?”

  “Well, we both know he is! You were there afterwards when he did that to Suzzanne.”

  “Yes. I was. She came to see me. You were with her.”

  “Yes - she called me to come meet her and go with her to see you.”

  “And she told you...”

  “That Colin molested her.”

  “Specifically, that Colin touched her breast, correct?”

  “Um, no. That he groped her on the dancefloor.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “But that is not what she told me.”

  “What?! Yes - it totally is!”

  “Not exactly. I have archived audio files of her conversation with me. I can play back her exact words.”

  “Great! Play it!”

  “Alright.”

  A young woman’s voice was clearly audible and easily recognizable as that of Suzzanne. A wave of sadness washed over Hannah as she heard it. She nearly burst into tears. She would have, had she not been concentrating on winning this argument. What was Brother Anderson getting at anyway?

  Suzzanne’s voice continued:

  “I was dancing with a few girls from navs, right? A couple of engineering guys bought us a drink, and they were dancing near us, but not really with us. Then this one dude, you know that guy Colin, with the wavy hair? Well, he is suddenly right in my face, and he’s putting his hand on my boob, and his buddy is right beside him laughing at me. So of course, I slap him and push them both away, but right after that I start to feel super dizzy like I know I’m about to pass out. Those assholes slipped me a roofie!”

  “See!? He put his hand on her boob. She just said so! Besides, I was there when you recorded that. I already know this, so what?”

  “So was Suzzanne passed out when you met her?”

  “No.”

  “And she was able to walk all the way down to med bay to come talk to me.”

  “I mean - she was staggering a bit, I helped her, but, yes.”

  “I wasn’t really sure what she wanted me to do, but she made an accusation about being drugged. So I had to check her blood toxins.”

  “You took a blood sample?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, I did, and aside from significant blood alcohol levels, there was no evidence of any other drugs in her system.”

  “So she wasn’t roofied?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “But Colin did grab her. He must have. Suzzanne wouldn’t just make that up.”

  “But could it have been an accident?”

  “How do you accidentally grab someone’s boob?!”

  “Well, I did talk to Colin about this. He said that his friend Tommy pushed him, and that he dropped his beer, spilling it on Suzzanne and accidentally touching her breast. He also accidentally elbowed Stef in the face.”

  “Oh. Well did Stef come to see you?”

  “No, she did not.”

  “Well, that Tommy is a fucking idiot, so that part makes sense. And Suzzanne did reek of beer. I remember that was weird because she always drank Roth’s. But Suzzanne’s not a liar.”

  “I’m not saying Suzzanne lied, but what I want to ask you is this. Is it possible that perhaps Colin isn’t lying either? Is it possible that the incident was actually an accident, as Colin claims?”

  Hannah thought about it for a moment. Some of the facts seemed to fit into both stories. Both scenarios were totally plausible. A girl gets roofied and groped on a dancefloor. A guy has stupid dickhead friends that push him into a girl. But why were no drugs found in Suzzanne’s blood test? And why is Colin acting like he did it? He said he was scared, right? That’s a stupid excuse, but it’s not a denial. What did he mean anyway? How does being scared make you grope somebody? That really doesn’t make any sense.

  Chapter 58

  Colin woke. His face was flat on the workbench. A small screw was stuck in his face. It hurt. As he lifted his head, his hair pulled painfully. It was stuck to the tabletop in a smudge of dried blood. The screw stayed stuck on his forehead for about three seconds, then dropped, bounced off the bench, and disappeared into the ethereal shadow world where only tiny screws go, especially ones with no easily obtainable replacements.

  His forehead hurt. His hair hurt. His brain hurt. His neck was so stiff he felt like he could barely move. Slowly, he began stretching it out, groaning loudly. “Oh god”. He felt like shit. His mouth tasted and felt like an o
ld sock. His head pounded. Was he hungover? He didn’t remember drinking last night. He looked around. There was no sign of it. No alcohol bottles. He shuffled across the room, dragging his feet. Finding a case of water bottles, he downed one greedily, then opened another.

  He left engineering deck, turning toward sector F. He wandered aimlessly, allowing his feet to propel him along familiar paths, between storage rooms and access panels that all seemed so irrelevant. The ship sighed and groaned as it heaved along through its predestined course, as if it shared his aches and pains, as if it too suffered a phantom hangover. He finished the second bottle of water, then not realizing it was empty, tried to take another drink, getting only a drop. He tossed the bottle over his shoulder carelessly. It had helped a bit though, he had to admit. He did feel a bit better. “Too bad there’s no such easy fix for you though, old girl.” he told the ship.

  He listened more intently now, as if she would speak back to him. In a way she did. Each shudder, each growl originated from a specific resonance pattern that was occurring at a specific spot of the ship’s substructure. Although this was not Colin’s area of expertise, one could use the frequencies of the sounds to track down the location of structural weaknesses. He had heard Bryce talk about it often, how back in the day he had used this trick to patch up an aging cruiser. There would be no patching this time though. Bryce’s old cruiser had been a commuter vessel, stopping at port after port. They had quick access to spare steel. Not like out here. No extra parts here. We’re on our own. We’re each on our own. A crew of misfits. Puzzle pieces that just wouldn’t go together.

  He walked a bit further, coming to a stop in front of a hatch marked “EMERGENCY ESCAPE POD.” A thought crossed his mind. Escape would be so easy. He could disappear into the dead of space, and with a little luck maybe land in some godforsaken frontier outpost on some dusty old rock. Take on a new identity with some under the table labour job. Never have to face the consequences: of abandoning ship and cargo, of somehow being the only survivor when all of his co-crew ended up dead, of his stupid inability to talk to a pretty girl, of his incurring Hannah’s wrath.

  But no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t leave Hannah. He couldn’t give up hope that somehow there might be some small sliver of a chance that Hannah might forgive him, learn to like him, maybe even someday grow to love him. He prayed it were so.

  “Dammit,” he realized, “I think I’m in love with her.”

  Another thought entered his mind. Escape, yes, but together. Take Hannah with him to that godforsaken little frontier outpost, and disappear forever. With her.

  Chapter 59

  Brother Anderson watched Hannah as her expression changed into a mix of confusion and clarity. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it again, frowning.

  “Hasn’t Colin always treated you with respect?”

  She thought about their interactions. Now that the doctor mentioned it, Colin had treated her kindly, despite her sometimes open hostility. He had always been willing to do things for her. Sometimes crazy things, actually. He had managed to get her oboe. In the process, the airlock had apparently ruptured and exploded. That sounded dangerous, right? And she had been too selfish to bother asking about that. What exactly had happened? Was he hurt? She didn’t even know. She hadn’t asked.

  He had helped her learn to use a spacesuit. And she wasn’t even really sure why. Why would he bother? Why did he let her go with him to the airlock? When she had asked, she had had no idea what was involved. He could easily have told her it was a crazy idea.

  He had gotten her food, and supplies. He had remembered her favorite drink. He had gone the extra mile to get her nice clothes that fit well. What was it he had said about the bunny t-shirt? “you look great”. He wanted to say sexy, she knew that. She did look sexy. She knew it. He definitely noticed. But he had tried to be respectful. And always as they talked, he spoke to her as an equal. As a person. Never like a sex object. Even though he obviously was attracted to her. He never pursued a physical relationship. She would have handed his ass to him on a platter if he had. He probably knew that too. She had assumed that was why he was acting nice. But maybe it wasn’t just an act. She had never caught him staring at her the way a lot of guys did. She was very good at catching them. Which meant either he was even better at hiding it, or perhaps, there was nothing to hide. She doubted he could be that good. She hated to admit it, but the robot might be right.

  Chapter 60

  “Which way now, Brother?” Hannah stood at another one of a seemingly infinite number of oddly acute angled corridor junctions of sector F. She had been in this area only once before; the day Colin had taught her how to use a spacesuit. He had been patient with her, as she clumsily struggled to move in the suit. She had reminded herself of a toddler just learning to walk and hesitating at each unsure wobbling step. Thinking of it now reminded her of another thought. She was just about to ask the robot, when he interrupted her thoughts.

  “Right.”

  This confused Hannah. Had he just answered the question she was about to ask? How could that be? Could he read her mind? It would not be a complete shock - she knew he was monitoring her sleeping patterns and medical conditions - blood pressure and that type of thing she supposed. But, reading minds?

  “What?” she stammered. “How? - I didn’t even...”

  “Go to the right.” Brother Anderson clarified.

  Hannah burst out laughing. “Oh my god, you freaked me out! For a second there I thought you were reading my mind. I was just going to ask you something like ‘Am I right to assume that Colin shouldn’t have let me use that space suit without proper training, and that technically, he could get in trouble for that?’, and then you said ‘right’ like ‘yes, you’re right’!” She laughed again.

  “Oh. Yes, that is quite humorous. And yes, you are right to assume that.”

  It confirmed a suspicion she had tried to delay thinking about. Colin had taken unnecessary risks for her. He had done stupid things, in fact; made bad decisions for her sake.

  “Brother”, she turned to face the robot, “When Colin went out there and got my oboe - I know he said that there had been some sort of explosion - was he... hurt? or like, in danger?”

  “Colin did not sustain any injuries on his extravehicular excursion. However, based on his physiological data logged during the period, I would conclude that Colin had been in mortal danger on no less than three distinct events, before returning to the ship.”

  “You’re saying he almost died?”

  “Yes.”

  “Three times?

  “At least.”

  Hannah had no response. It was unfathomable.

  “Plus the time he blew up the wall to get you out of the mess hall.”

  Hannah looked at Brother Anderson quizzically.

  “He didn’t even wait for the flames to stop before leaping through to save you.”

  She hadn’t thought of that one. So four times Colin had risked his life for her. Clearly, he was not such a bad guy after all. She found it hard now to reconcile the idea of the Colin she knew, with the one presented to her by Suzzanne’s story. And she knew her own experience to be true. She trusted her own experience, and, surprisingly, she even trusted the facts laid out by Brother Anderson. The facts had made it clear. Colin is not a creep. He is actually a really nice guy. And he almost certainly has a crush on her.

  She had come down to sector F looking for Colin, to grill him. To get to the bottom of it. To ask him what was going on. Now though, she started to feel that she already knew the answer. But still a few things didn’t add up. Why had he acted so strange about the Suzzanne thing? What was it he said? He was scared. Scared of what? Maybe he had had a crush on Suzzanne. In which case Hannah felt a little less good about his current crush on her. Yes, there were still questions that needed answering. She spun around and took the right hand corridor, with Brother Anderson following.

  After a few dozen meters and a few more twis
ts and turns of sector F’s jumble of passageways, Brother Anderson spoke.

  “We appear to be getting close.”

  “Ok. thanks,” Hannah replied, then called out loudly, “Colin! Are you here?”

  “Hannah?” came the muffled reply. “I’m over here by the escape pods.”

  Thirty seconds later, and after two more prompts from Brother Anderson about which way to turn, Hannah faced Colin in a narrow corridor between what appeared to be a storage locker, and an escape pod hatch. The hatch was open, revealing the interior of the pod.

  “Going somewhere?” Hannah asked with only slightly detectable sarcasm, which Colin failed to detect.

  “What? No! I was just looking!”

  “Relax, I was teasing!”

  Colin released an audible sigh of relief, but he was on edge, wary of any possible reproach from Hannah. He shifted his weight nervously.

  “But I do have some real questions for you.”

  “Yeah, OK”, he tried to force himself to face the fact that part of him did want to have this discussion, to clear things up between them, although he didn’t relish the thought of how it could turn out, or the process itself.

  “We should sit down though.” Hannah suggested, peering into the pod. “Maybe in there? Is it safe?”

  “Oh! Yeah, it's safe enough. Might be the safest place around now that you mention it.” The ship moaned and shimmied as if to agree with his assessment.

  The pod was pretty typical, as far as emergency pods go. Not that Hannah knew any better. She had never seen an escape pod - not in real life anyway; maybe pictures, she couldn’t say for sure. It wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination. It had a bank of four slightly cramped looking seats on each side, with prominent orange safety straps and large clips you could operate with gloves on. On the far end was a control panel of some sort. Beside the screen and oversized button panel were a series of bulky levers.