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“What are you doing here? Where’s Theo—I mean, Captain Knox?” she asked.
Paxter shrugged. “No idea. No one was here when I came on duty. No big deal, the course is unchanging.” He lit a feelgood stick while Jayna struggled to take the news in. Blowing a series of lazy smoke rings, the pilot added, “Although I was tempted to lay in a course for Tahumaroa Two. Ever been there? Paradise on a planet, all a person could ask for.”
“I’ve been there. You didn’t alter the heading, did you?”
“Naw. Not yet anyway. If this trip keeps boring me I’ll be increasingly tempted.” He winked at her.
Adding this to her mental list of disasters and problems, Jayna checked the bridge chrono and recoiled. “Is that the correct time? You didn’t mess with the clock, did you?”
Paxter didn’t even look. He was focused on his trideo, where a tense chase scene was taking place. “Yeah, the chrono is correct. Knox had me reset it to standard time when we boarded. I came on duty for my shift right on time.”
According to the chrono, Jayna had lost about twelve hours of her life while investigating the anomalies in the cargo hold. “The damn thing must affect time and space,” she said.
“Sorry?” Paxter tilted his head. “Did you say something?”
“Did you even try to com the captain when you got here and found the helm unattended?” she asked.
He shrugged and paused the trideo. “No, not then. We did get a partial message from the Nebula Zephyr a couple of hours ago and I called Knox on the subaural and the ship’s com. Even tried you. No answers. Guess the message can wait.”
“The seven hells it can.” She held out her hand. “Give me the printout.”
Slowly the pilot stretched and got out of his chair as if he had all the time in the world while Jayna grew increasingly frustrated. “Now, mister, not tomorrow.”
“I think you could use a vacation,” Paxter said, going to the comtech’s console and retrieving a flimsy, which he brought to her.
Jayna grabbed it out of his hands, read the brief message in one horrified glance and headed to the door. “Turn off the damn trideo, focus on your job, don’t change course and try to get the Nebula Zephyr on the com.”
He flicked the trideo out of existence with a pout. “Going to be all by the book today, are we? I can’t get you the home ship—we can receive but we can’t transmit in hyperspace, remember? Maeve has a helluva lot better tech than this old bucket.”
She paused on the threshold, the doors open and considered her options because the pilot was right. “If the ship calls us again, I want you to find either the captain or myself.”
“Leave the bridge unattended?” he said in a mocking tone, eyes wide and manner exaggerated. He made a tsking noise with his tongue and wagged one finger. “Against regulations, you know.”
“Damnit, Paxter, none of this is a joke. Follow my orders or I’ll be writing you up for insubordination and a stint in the brig when we get back to the Zephyr. And put out the feelgood.” She spun on her heel and exited but as the doors closed behind her she heard the trideo soundtrack start up again.
Jayna broke into a run, heading for Theo’s cabin. Paxter was normally a squared away member of the crew as far as she knew so his current unconcern and aberrant behavior must be another evidence of the frightening influence of whatever was on this damn ship. Turner saw things outside the hull, Abrall thought the ship needed punishing, she was having flashbacks and seeing impossible visions, Theo was obsessed with finding out more about the original captain…and Soames was indisputably gone. Even if her experience in the hold was a hallucination, the man was nowhere on this ship. She had the feeling time was ticking down for the rest of them unless they either figured out what was wrong on the Mebsuta C or got off.
Theo wasn’t in his own cabin. Jayna used the Special Forces override code to gain entry and verified the bunk hadn’t been slept in. She took a deep breath, retreated into the corridor and reluctantly headed up a level to the original captain’s suite. If Theo wasn’t there, then she had no idea where on this cursed bucket he might be. She heard Angelee’s voice in the distance as she ascended to the next level but wasn’t tempted to try and find the ghost. The sooner they could get off this hulk, the better, no time to waste.
The door to Captain Herron’s suite slid open easily in response to Jayna’s request for entry and immediate relief at seeing Theo seated in the big easy chair warred in her mind with fury at the situation they were in, through no fault of their own.
“Glad you’re here,” Theo said with his big smile. He held up the notebook in one hand and waved it at her. “You won’t believe what I found out.”
She assessed him critically. He had big shadows under his eyes and seemed as if he’d lost weight since the last time they were together. Fumbling with the flap on her pants pocket, extricating the flimsy, she said, “You need to know what Maeve found out. I think we’re in real trouble here.”
“Herron got a distress call,” Theo said, talking right over her. “So they changed course to provide aid and found a crippled ship of unknown origin, drifting in space. The only person aboard the derelict was an alien archaeologist who said the crew had abandoned her and her cargo when the ship experienced trouble?—”
“Theo, listen to me, none of that matters right now. We have to save our own crew, now, today. We can’t help the people who are already gone.”
Again he ignored her, leafing excitedly through the notebook. “But now I know what’s in the hold. I know what Herron was so excited about and planning to sell on the black market. Our fortunes are made! The archaeologist had crates of Ancient Observer artifacts, some in working order. Fifteen crates of stuff so rare we can name our own price and come out of this richer than generational billionaires.”
He sounded delirious and she didn’t like the fever bright glint in his eyes. How long had he been poring over the scribbled notes in the damn book anyway? She tried to inject hard reality into the conversation. “Sectors authorities will confiscate anything AO and you know it. We wouldn’t get a credit. If relics and treasures from long gone civilizations are even what’s in the hold.”
“Oh we’ll get what we’re due, don’t worry. I’m going to get Paxter to lay in a new course and we’ll see about making contact with the right people?—”
Unable to believe what she was hearing, Jayna said, “Who are you and where’s Theo Knox? This isn’t you talking. What about your career, my career? Are you seriously proposing we break a fuck ton of laws and steal this stuff you think is in the hold?”
“Oh it’s there all right. Herron has a list of what he transshipped onto the Mebsuta along with the archaeologist.” He flipped to a well-worn section of the notebook, which had obviously been read and reread and pointed with a shaky finger.
