Fever Pitch
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Rosie’s speculation as to where her friend might be had proven correct;
the young Andromedan was indeed still in the classroom, on the pretense that
he needed a quiet place to redo his assignment and that this seemed the least
likely place for him to be bothered. But he was having a difficult time keeping
his mind focused on the task at hand . . . about midway through the class
period, he had begun to wonder if the two strange events which he had been
witness to so far that morning might somehow be related. Our clothes being
put back in the wrong place, our homework assignments missing . . . is the
ship just getting absentminded? Or . . . or is there something else causing
these things?
After his revelation, Radu had spent the rest of the class period deep in
thought, trying to convince himself that the incidents in question weren’t
anything to be concerned about, but he couldn’t seem to get his strange
theory out of his mind.
He was reluctant to confess his suspicions to the others - particularly Harlan
- because he knew they would think he was overreacting. He could already
hear the human’s response: “You really are turning panicky,
aren’t you? It’s just a few power glitches, pal. Nothing that
hasn’t happened before - I don’t see why you’re so worried
about it.”
Suddenly, a loud crash brought Radu abruptly back to reality. A few seconds
of listening to his crewmates’ voices revealed the cause of the crash;
Rosie had been on her way out of the lounge, and the lower part of the
room’s door had stuck. She had failed to notice it, and had simply tripped
over it and fallen.
There’s another one, a voice in the back of his mind said quietly.
He tried to ignore it - he’d spent most of the morning trying to force
himself to blow off his suspicions, but he couldn’t do it so easily.
Nothing out of the ordinary is going on, he’d told himself firmly.
You know perfectly well that power glitches and crossed wires aren’t
exactly strange events on this ship. You’re just being paranoid! But
when one took a look at all the things which had been going wrong since the
crew woke up that morning, they began to sound more peculiar . . .
First, there had been the fairly easy to explain occurrence of Bova’s
clothes ending up in the wrong drawer. Soon afterwards, everyone’s homework
had mysteriously disappeared from the storage section of the ship’s
computer - something which had never happened before. And now, the lounge
door had stuck and Rosie had fallen over it.
These things weren’t extraordinary . . . they could all have been produced
by perfectly natural causes. But three of them in one morning? Despite his
best attempts to convince himself that he was reading too much into this,
Radu couldn’t quite rid himself of the feeling that these simple, merely
irritating events might be symptoms of something more dangerous.
At least Rosie’s all right, he thought. He could hear that his
friend had hurriedly picked herself up off the floor and was now walking
towards him, probably planning to use the corridor’s jumptubes to head
off to wherever she was planning to go.
Wait a minute, he realized. The lounge is four decks away! Why
would she come all the way up here to use the tubes? As he considered
the point further, he realized that the others’ voices sounded far too
clear to be coming from four decks away . . . and when he glanced at the
room around him, he felt a chill go down his spine as he realized he wasn’t
in the classroom anymore.
After a few micro-seconds of wondering where in the universe he could have
been transported, the young Andromedan quickly grew calmer as he realized
he was undeniably still on his own ship. He’d heard Harlan and Rosie
talking right outside, after all, and as he listened, other familiar sounds
began to come into his mind - the hum of the engines, Bova down in the bunkroom
working on some bizarre scientific experiment, Commander Goddard talking
to Miss Davenport in the command post . . . No question about it, he was
still on the Christa. But where?
The room where Radu found himself was unfamiliar, but not really strange
- it seemed to be some kind of supplementary control room, similar in design
and feel to the way the engine room had looked when he and Catalina had first
discovered it, back when the crew had just boarded the ship for the first
time. The unknown room’s lighting was dim, giving it even more of an
alien sense. There was an eerie hum which seemed to be coming from the walls
themselves. The engine room had held countless control panels and consoles,
though; this room had only one control panel in it.
As a matter of course, Radu walked hesitantly over to the panel’s readout
screen . . . but unlike the other systems on the ship, this one had never
been translated into the universal language. The screen was covered in the
same alien symbols that the crew had first seen in the engine room, before
Thelma had changed them into something that they could interpret. Radu could
make no sense of it. Don’t worry about it, the logical part of
his mind said reassuringly. If this console gave information about anything
important, why would it be hidden off in some tiny little room? Why
wouldn’t you have found it by now? It’s probably just some redundant
control panel.
The young Andromedan knew that his worries were probably needless . . . and
yet, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was missing something.
That he should be more concerned about translating this console - that it
held something of vital importance.
Deciding to go with his intuition, Radu was on the verge of calling Thelma
to come and translate the reading for him when suddenly, without warning,
all his attention was captured by a scream . . .
As Rosie was preparing to head up to the girls’ bunkroom, she’d
paused for a moment at the mouth of the jumptubes. A strange feeling had
just swept over her . . . almost as though someone had been calling her name
from a long way off, trying frantically to get her attention with a message
of vital importance. She’d actually turned to look behind her, almost
expecting to see someone standing there. But the strange voice’s call
had lasted only a few seconds, and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
It was probably just my imagination, she told herself firmly, mentally
stifling a giggle at her own naiveté as she climbed into the mouth
of the jumptube and punched in the code which would take her to the
bunkroom.
Somewhere within the “mind” of the Christa itself, a spark of
sentient awareness was growing frantic. Although the ship might not be capable
of forming words or sentences to communicate with its crew, it was always
aware of them. Normally, it didn’t communicate with them directly -
any message it might have was more clearly and easily transferred through
Thelma. But the android hadn’t responded to the ship’s call this
time, and time was running out. The Christa had been forced to try a direct
communication . . . but the message had been fleeting and vague, and Rosie
had simply ignored it.
The ship had sensed the problem in the tubes as soon as it began to form.
First, it had attempted to shut down the jumptube network, an action whose
worst consequence would have been a few minutes wasted on Rosie’s part
as she was forced to climb through the tubes to her destination. But when
the Christa’s mind had given this command to its central control system,
the sensation was one of grasping at the air, trying to manipulate something
which no longer existed.
There was only one alternative left - the necessary action was risky, true,
but the danger facing Rosie was imminent. No time to come up with another
solution. The course of action was simple, really . . . the crew members
were propelled through the tubes by suction, which pulled them down into
the main jumptube intersection and, from there, into the tube which led to
their destination. So to pull Rosie back up the tube, all that was necessary
was to create a greater suction at its mouth, and . . .
In the jumptube, Rosie was astonished - and frightened - to find herself
flying back up the jumptube at a speed far quicker than she’d ever gone
down it. Within a few seconds, she had reached the mouth of the tube, willing
herself to go limp in order to minimize the impact with the corridor wall
as she continued to fly backward - but only a few moments before the impending
collision, she found herself caught by a pair of strong arms.
“Are you all right?” Radu asked, setting her back on the ground.
“Y-yeah,” Rosie said shakily. “I’m fine.”
“Hey, is everyone okay out here?” Harlan asked, stepping out of
the lounge to join the others in the corridor. “I heard somebody
scream.”
“I’m fine,” Rosie repeated. “I don’t know what happened
. . . one minute I was just on my way to the bunkroom, and the next minute,
I’m flying the wrong way, up the tubes, back into the corridor!”
She turned to look at Radu. “I guess I’m just lucky you were here
to catch me.”
At his friend’s comment, the young Andromedan felt a chill go down his
spine. If I hadn’t been here, he realized, she would
have gone flying into the wall. And I just happened to be right on the other
side of the corridor . . . in a room that I never even noticed before. Looking
at that console that, for some strange reason, was never translated into
the universal language.
Radu had every intention of mentioning the auxiliary control room to his
friends and suggesting that they take a look at it. But it appeared that
Harlan had different plans. “There is definitely something strange going
on around here,” the human was saying as Radu tuned back in to the
conversation. “The tubes aren’t supposed to throw people into the
walls. ” He began walking down one of the side corridors. “I’m
heading up to the engine room to see if I can figure out what went
wrong.”
“Wait!”
At the note of urgency in his friend’s voice, Harlan turned back to
the little group still standing by the jumptubes. “What?”
Now that all eyes were on him, Radu looked as though he’d suddenly become
unsure of what he wanted to say. “Uhh . . . well . . . are you sure
we should just rush off to the engine room like that? M-maybe we should check
around and see if we can find an explanation for the problem down here before
we go anywhere.”
Harlan gave him a strange look. “Uhh . . . okay . . . ” Taking
a glance around them, he indicated the solid walls. “And where do you
suggest we start?”
What? a voice in the back of Radu’s mind said in surprise. The
door was right there! I just came through it a few minutes ago! He took
another look at the walls, trying to spot some kind of indentation that might
mark a doorway. I suppose it could be another phase-through program .
. . But if it is, how did I get into the room in the first place?
Not noticing Radu’s inner turmoil, Harlan turned to Rosie. “Well,
I guess it’s just you and me that are going to check out the engine
room. Come on - let’s go.” Once again, the human began walking.
But this time, he turned back of his own accord when a familiar sound caught
his attention - the familiar whoosh of the tubes. Radu noticed it, too, seeming
to abruptly snap out of the contemplative state that he’d entered once
again. The three crew members all stepped a bit closer to the tubes, trying
to determine whether the person inside would make it through without any
mishaps.
Bova made it through the tubes safely, all right, but it took the others
a moment to realize that fact. He was perfectly fine . . . with a single
exception. At a casual glance, one’s first thought was that the hand
of some gargantuan toddler had scooped the young Uranusian neatly from the
ship and dunked him in silver glitter, perhaps in preparation for being placed
on some colossal refrigerator.
From head to foot, Bova was covered in microscopic silver flakes. A second
glance revealed that they were stuck to him by some sort of static energy
field; his hair and antennae were crackling with enough electricity to knock
any of the others against the far wall unconscious if they so much as touched
him with a fingertip. He was quite a dazzling picture - and quite unlike
the Bova that the others had grown accustomed to.
Harlan was the first to speak. “Whoa! What happened to you!”
“We need to close off the jumptube network,” Bova began. “The
metal on the inside of the tubes is flaking off. That’s what this stuff
is.” He paused for a moment, indicating the minute metallic sparkles
which covered him. “The electrical currents that run parallel to the
network are exposed, so there’s power flowing freely through most of
the tubes.”
At those words, the others shared a look of dismay. It was clear that the
same thought had occurred to each of them; what would have happened if Rosie
hadn’t been forced back up the tubes?
As per usual, Harlan was the first to realize the action which needed to
be taken. “Bova,” he said authoritatively, “get on the intercom
and send out a general-attention broadcast warning the others not to use
the jumptubes until further notice.” He turned to Radu and Rosie. “You
guys, come with me. We’re going to check out the engine room.”
This time, the young Andromedan was in complete agreement with his friend
- as he moved to follow the human towards the engine room, he forced his
concerns about the mysterious room to the back of his mind. There were real
things to worry about now.
“Uh, guys?” Rosie said hesitantly, struggling to keep pace with
her taller crewmates as they hurried down the corridor. “Don’t
you think we should tell the commander about this?” She got no
acknowledgment from either of the others, but continued talking just the
same. “I mean, none of us really knows much about engineering. I don’t
think we should try to fix anything . . . we could get in a lot of trouble
if something went wrong.”
The motion sensor on the engine room door had shut down, so Radu had to force
the door open manually. And once he’d done so, the sight which the three
crewmates saw unfolding in the heart of their ship instantly wiped Rosie’s
concerns from her mind.
It was dark in the room - the overhead lighting had grown dim, flickering,
threatening to go out at any moment. Pulsating red lights were flashing on
the walls, each signifying a system which had been taken off-line. Normally,
these would have been accompanied by alarms sounding throughout the ship
- but it appeared that the alarm system itself had been one of the ones to
go. The frightening nature of these sights, though, quickly became minimized
if one happened to take a look up.
At first glance, it looked like water; a clear liquid that was making a wet,
soggy mess of the engine room’s ceiling and upper walls. But when one
took a closer look, it was obvious that this was caused by something far
more serious than someone leaving the water running. This was a thick, viscous
substance - some sort of slime, or mucus, oozing its way down the walls.
Its progress was almost visible to the naked eye, and it was clear that much
of the room would be enveloped completely in only a few hours.
“What the heck is that?” Harlan asked in a whisper.
“I don’t - I don’t know . . . ” Radu said, stepping
cautiously toward the nearest wall in order to get a better look. As he let
his eyes follow the slimy trail across the ceiling to its point of origin,
he felt a rock drop into his stomach - and all thoughts of the mysterious
room near the lounge instantly left his mind as Bova’s words from the
night before came back to him once again . . . “Suzee’s been
down in the engine room most of the afternoon, spreading her germs all over
the main circuit that leads to the computer system. Why couldn’t the
ship catch the virus the same way one of us could?” The mucus trail
started at the main link to the computer system.
“That is really nasty,” Harlan was saying now. “I mean
. . . ew!” His sentence was interrupted as he was forced to jump to
the left in order to dodge a blob of slimy goo as it fell to the floor with
an audible PLOP! “You know what I feel like right now?” he said,
looking up at the ceiling with a disgusted expression. “I feel like
I’m standing inside a giant nose. I mean, what is all this . . . this
. . . stuff? Did the ship catch a cold?”
He had meant it only as a joke - something to lighten the tense atmosphere
in the room. But as he saw identical expressions of horror forming on his
crewmates’ faces, he began to realize that his innocent comment might
have turned out not to be so innocent after all . . .
Rosie had never considered such a possibility seriously. Up until Harlan
had spoken, she had simply been examining the strange substance on the walls,
trying to get past the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she had
seen this slimy substance somewhere before. It wasn’t until her crewmate
commented on “the ship catching a cold” that the pieces of the
puzzle suddenly snapped together in her mind and she realized exactly where
she’d seen it before . . . on Suzee’s gill flaps.
Ever since the idea had first come to him in the middle of class earlier
that morning, Radu had been trying to convince himself that he was just being
paranoid, that the clues he was being provided with didn’t point to
the cause which he had suspected. But the substance which covered the engine
room’s walls was hard evidence - proof that he hadn’t been imagining
things. It was the first proof that he’d had, and it cemented the truth
in his mind. The young Uranusian’s dark prophecy had indeed come true
. . . and Radu’s own suspicions had been right. The ship had caught
Suzee’s virus.
Once his mind had accepted that as fact, the young Andromedan wasted no time
in acting. Before we do anything drastic, we need to be absolutely sure
that we’re right about this, he realized. “Rosie,” he
said quickly, “see if you can get a sample of this - this - stuff. Take
it down to the medlab and see if it’s the same substance that Suzee’s
had on her gills.”
“What?” Harlan said, his face a mixture of disbelief and
fear as he realized what his friend was talking about. “Y-you’re
not serious, are you?”
It was Rosie that answered. “We won’t know for sure until we run
some tests.”
“Okay,” the human said, trying to keep himself calm as he accepted
this extraordinary news.
Within a few seconds, he seemed to have recovered; turning to Radu, he said,
“Let’s go up to the command post and see what else this thing messed
up.”
“I’ll call Commander Goddard and we’ll meet you there.”
Click here for Part 3 of Fever Pitch