A deduced scene sprang to life, built up from the
Eva Rye
’s sense range. It showed the ship sliding slowly forward, the door to the little hold sliding smoothly open, halfway along the curve of the ship’s teardrop hull. Saskia zoomed in and they saw three space flowers being eaten up by the ship, like little orange mints. The inside of the hold had folded up on itself, walls and floors sliding around each other in complicated origami patterns. Black night could be seen through the main hatchway.
“I’ll catch them in the dead zone at the middle of the hold,” said Maurice thoughtfully. “They might not be able to take full gravity.”
They watched as the little hold’s external door closed, and then smiled at the elegant way in which the internal floors and walls rearranged themselves into a cube. The floor slid into place last, and they felt a click deep within the ship.
“Okay,” said Maurice, “it’s safe to enter.”
There was a small pop as the door slid open, and they paused a moment. There was a slight chill to the air beyond, meaning some heat had leaked into space across the pressure curtain. They could smell apples.
“Okay,” said Saskia, “follow me.”
Judy had already set off, and Saskia hurried to get ahead of her. Maurice followed as they half walked, half raced across the black-and-white floor of the little hold towards the center of the room. They looked up to see the three orange space flowers hanging in the air above, backs still turned determinedly away from them.
Saskia tapped at her console and a viewing platform began to unfold itself from the floor. Maurice staggered, momentarily off balance, as it lifted the three of them into the air.
“Give us some warning next time,” he complained, but Saskia made no reply, lost in contemplation of the flowers. Maurice felt his anger quickly disappear. He wanted to reach out to touch the spheres as they glided towards them. They really were beautiful: sunshine yellow wove glorious patterns through iridescent orange flames and the deep crimson heart of the pattern shone like blood from a broken heart.
The platform rose higher and he felt a familiar wave of nausea as his head and then his shoulders entered the dead zone.
“That pattern,” said Maurice. “You could almost think it’s alive.” He reached out to touch a sphere, half hypnotized. “Do you think—Hey, what’s that?”
They all heard it at the same time. The flowers were humming.
“Are they moving—?” began Saskia at the same time Maurice swore.
“Oh, shit!” The flowers were accelerating. Sliding out of the dead zone. Into the region of gravity. Slowly at first, but with a sickening gathering of pace, the three spheres fell to the ground. As gravity was coming from six directions, they chose three different ways to fall. The three people on the platform watched three different spheres as they fell to three different floors, bounced, and then rolled to a halt.
“What have you done?” whispered Saskia hoarsely.
“It was a lure!” said Maurice. He bashed at his console, instructing the viewing platform to descend again. Judy was speaking in low tones, calm tones.
“They wanted to draw us in. Like the Dark Seeds. They were getting our attention!”
“What’s going on?” asked Saskia, eyes wide with fear. The three spheres lay in three directions: one on the ground below, one above, and one to the side of them. They had rolled onto their backs so they could at last see what was contained inside of them. From one sphere, a silver strand of metal pushed its way out into the hold. A silver spider emerged into the light, then quickly scuttled away. Then another. Then another.
Silver spiders went scuttling in every direction.
“Trojans!” croaked Maurice. “Those VNMs have tricked their way on board!”
Each sphere contained three spiders. They split up, skittering from view as quickly as possible.
Maurice slapped his forehead. “How stupid would you have to be to take an unknown self-replicator on your ship!” he shouted angrily. “They
tricked
us.”
Judy stood in front of him and held his gaze. “Maurice,” she said in a calm voice. He glared at her. “Maurice,” she repeated, “calm youself. Center yourself. Activate the ship’s countermeasures.”
“Countermeasures? What countermeasures? This is a fucking FE ship! What countermeasures, exactly, do you think we have on board? Photon-fucking-torpedoes?”
The VNMs had vanished, Maurice could not see where. He spotted two black tiles pulled out from the pattern covering the six floors. The VNMs had found their way out of the hold. They could be replicating already, using the fabric of the
Eva Rye
to make copies of themselves.
“Oh, hell,” said Saskia, holding herself, arms wrapped tightly around her body. “What’s going on? What are you going to do?”
Judy closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, and then she found her voice.
“Both of you, relax,” she commanded. Despite themselves, Maurice and Saskia did so. Judy seemed to be growing in stature.
She rounded on Maurice. “Now, Maurice, think. What can we do?”
Maurice gazed into her big black eyes, their warmth heightened by contrast to her porcelain doll face and a sense of calm and control seeped through his body. Yes. Breathe deep. Yes. Stay calm and an answer would present itself. He blinked and allowed his mind to wander free. Yes. Breathe and calm. Breathe and calm. Now, what were they to do…?
“I…I…I don’t know,” he stammered. “I don’t know! I can’t think of anything!” He felt the panic that Judy had just quelled rising once more inside him. “I really don’t know! The AIs usually handle this sort of thing. Transmit friendly protocols or reprogram the VNMs? Release counter VNMs?” His voice was hollow. “We haven’t got an AI on board. We haven’t got
anything
like that on board!”
“Oh, hell!” breathed Saskia. “Look!”
The crates stacked on the wall in front of them were starting to move, sliding in four directions.
“The gravity is going! Those VNMs must be eating the generators in the walls.”
There was a creaking noise and a stack of crates began to tilt. Crystals wrapped in foam sheeting began to tumble to the floor below.
“It’s happening above us, too,” said Judy in composed tones. “Look, we’re back down now.” The viewing platform folded itself back into the floor. “Come on, out of here. Steadily. Calmly. Come on.”
Craning their necks upwards, they followed Judy towards the door. Three crates fell to the floor behind them, one by one, in brilliant diamond showers of crystal shards. A hollow thud reverberated throughout the hold—resonating deep inside their stomachs.
“Run,” said Saskia, pushing Maurice ahead. A rain of colored pebbles was falling with a lovely clattering noise.
“Stay calm…” soothed Judy. There was another crash and a sound of tearing paper. Quickly they walked to the exit. Maurice unclenched his fists as they stepped out of the hold. A wave of green apples rolled past their feet as the door slid shut behind them.
“Aleph!” Judy’s voice suddenly sounded muffled in the calm of the carpeted corridor. “Can you hear us?”
“Yes, Aleph,” Saskia said. “Why didn’t I think of him? Aleph, do something to stop this!”
Aleph’s voice spoke from Maurice’s console.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think there is anything I can do. I’m a systems repair robot, not a counterincursion specialist. I suggest you get yourself into those active suits you had delivered as quickly as possible.”
“Of course,” said Maurice, “the active suits!”
Saskia’s eyes were wide. “The suits? Do you think that FE knew we would need them?”
Aleph was still speaking. “…the outer hull of your ship is already disappearing. Do you want to see?”
A viewing field sprang to life right in the middle of the corridor. The black-and-white checked teardrop of the
Eva Rye
appeared, an expanding cloud of silver VNMs clinging to its side.
“Oh, hell,” whispered Saskia. “Maurice, what have you done? They’re eating up the hull. Look. You can almost see straight into the little hold!”
As she spoke, the door to the little hold seemed to creak slightly and a pattern of black-and-white stripes came to life upon it, coming up into existence from nothing. Letters formed in the center. HULL INTEGRITY BREACHED. DO NOT ENTER.
“Maurice, think!” said Judy. “There must be something we can do?”
Maurice gave a shrug. He felt strangely calm, now that all of his decisions had been taken away.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I told you, I have no idea. I think we should get away from this corridor, however. Those VNMs could be through the door in no time.”
“The active suits,” said Saskia. “Edward got them to stow themselves in the locker near the living area. Oh, hell. Edward.”
“Yes, what about Edward and Miss Rose?” Judy asked quietly. Maurice and Saskia exchanged looks; they hadn’t been thinking about the other two.
Maurice spoke up. “We should get the suits first, they’re closest. Then I’ll go to Edward’s room. You fetch Miss Rose, Judy.”
They ran. On past the conference room, into the living area. Edward was there already, wringing his big hands together. A glass lay on its side by his feet, apple juice soaking into the dark carpet.
“What’s happening, Judy?” he called out.
“Don’t worry,” replied Judy. “We’re all going to put on active suits. Saskia, you come with me. Maurice, you stay here with Edward and help him.”
“Active suits? But I thought they were dangerous!” Edward was now dancing back and forth. Judy had already opened the locker and taken out three suits. She passed one to Saskia.
“You carry this. I might need help to dress Miss Rose.”
Maurice pulled two more suits from the locker, their thin material sticky beneath his fingers.
“You have to be completely naked under the suit,” explained Maurice. “It needs to interface with you totally. Don’t force it on: stroke it gently; let it get used to you.”
Quickly he undressed. Edward did the same.
Maurice’s suit was green. He fiddled with the neck, trying to get it to expand. It did so, but oh, so slowly. Edward watched him, and then did the same with his own yellow suit. There was a loud bang.
“What’s that?” called Edward, dropping the suit and clapping his hands to his head. “My ears hurt!”
“Pressure doors,” said Maurice, feeling as if he had just drunk a liter of icy-cold water. What was going on? Only five minutes ago they had been watching the pretty orange flowers. Now the
Eva Rye
was disintegrating around them. It was too much to take in, in such a short time. Edward was standing fully naked, his hands still to his ears, his active suit lying in a sticky heap on the floor before him.
“Get into your suit, Edward!” yelled Maurice.
The neck on his own suit was expanding ever larger as he stroked it. Impatiently, he stabbed at his console and brought up another view of the ship.
“Oh, shit!” he moaned. The entire rear of the
Eva Rye
had gone. The teardrop’s read end had ablated in a cloud of silver spiders that rained back down on the swollen front end of the ship, devouring the rest of the hull. He looked away from the console to see Edward still standing there, hands clasped to his ears. Maurice shouted at him, his voice cracking with fear. “Your
suit,
Edward!”
Finally the big man began moving. He bent down and began to stroke the suit, opening its neck. Maurice turned back to his own active suit and saw that at last, it was big enough to step into. He pushed in one naked leg and then the other, the sticky, rubbery material fighting against him as he tried to pull it on. He forgot everything he had been told and began to jerk at the suit.
“Stay calm, Maurice.” That was Edward speaking. He was looking earnestly across at Maurice as he slowly, methodically, pulled on his own suit. “You’re rushing it and it’s fighting back. Do it slowly, like you told me.”
Maurice paused and took three slow breaths. He tried meanwhile not to look at the view of the
Eva Rye
floating over the dining table, the black-and-white pattern of its hull almost stripped clean by the devouring cloud. Many of the VNMs were now black-and-white themselves, dancing poisonously amongst the rest of the jostling silver crowd.
That’s our ship turned traitor against itself. Don’t think about it!
Another three breaths and he eased his left leg slowly forward, then, all of a sudden, the resistance was gone: the active suit was a part of his body, his foot and calf alive and tingling with a new awareness.
“Thank you, Edward,” said Maurice. “Thank you. We can do this together, can’t we?” Edward gave him a big beam of delight.
And then there was another bang, and black-and-white wasp-striped doors slammed over the entrances to the living area.
Now Edward was panicking.
“No!” called Maurice. “Remember what you said, Edward. Take it slowly. Keep it calm.”
Edward paused, stopped thrashing. “Maurice?”
“Yes, Edward.”
“Let’s both take three breaths, and then we can pull on the suit bodies.”
It was terrifying. At any moment, Maurice was expecting the walls to dissolve in a tangle of silver legs and for the atmosphere to boil away into space. Still, breathing slowly, they gently pulled the sticky material up their bodies and felt the sudden loss of resistance, the tingle and awakening that said the suits were correctly in place.
“Now the arms,” said Maurice and Edward together. “Just a wriggle of the fingers. No need to panic.”
There was a shout and a scream.
“Miss Rose!” exclaimed Edward. He began to whimper. “Somebody has hurt her!”
Another bang. Maurice turned off his console’s sound channel.
“Easy. Pull the suit on slowly, Edward, then we can go looking for her.”
Sobbing, Edward did as he was told.
“Maurice, this is Aleph. I’m overriding your console to tell you that something has just appeared out here….”
Miss Rose screamed again, her voice finding its way over the opened channel. Edward gave a shrill cry in return. Maurice slammed the lockout button on his console. He was shaking as well. What was wrong with Miss Rose? He had never heard anybody sound in such pain.