Page 32 of Vicious
“Then what do we do?” Poh asked, her expression hard as chromium. “He’s jamming our communications. He’s pushing us into this magnestar. Do we roll over and play dead before the seventh lifeform on this ship slits our throats while wesleep?”
“Absolutely not,” Captain Glenn snapped. “But I’m open tosuggestions.”
“We go back,” I offered. “The Ringers will let us through once we have solid proof they slaughtered half an alien race to power theirrings.”
Captain Glenn gazed at me sharply. “Whatproof?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still working onthat.”
“Your ghosts.” Randolph downed the rest of his mimosa, pinky up. “The ones you passed through you to the other side. Askthem.”
“I don’t really know…how to do that…” But they had imprinted some of their memories as they’d passed through me. Maybe if I scrutinized those as I played and rewound them through my mind, I might find something I’d missed. “I’ll see what I can do. Thanks,Randolph.”
His ruddy cheeks glowed, and a brilliant smile stretched his mouth. “I save my best ideas foryou.”
For the second time that morning, his words clamped around my heart and squeezed. I smiled back athim.
“Just keep those ideas of yours rated PG,” Masemuttered.
I reached under the table to pat his leg. “Captain, did you have another idea that didn’t involve trying to get through therings?”
“No. That was it.” He wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood, avoiding my gaze. “Mase and I will block off some of the vents today to try to keep our seventh passenger contained, so wear your coats. We’ll also scour the ship to look for it. Ellison, you stay with Poh and help her look for that Mind-I. Randolph, you stay with Absidy. If one of you has to piss, you both piss. We’re about to get to know each other reallywell.”
The crew stood and parted ways to carry out their duties in pairs, seemingly grateful to get their blood pumping withmovement.
Mase grabbed me for a quick kiss and a stern, “Be careful.” Then he pulled me closer to nuzzle my ear. “I fastened a gun underneath the table at my spot while we were eating. Use it if you needto.”
I blinked after him as he strode out the door, hoping against hope he hadn’t given up his onlyweapon.
I took Ellison’s hand before she left and squeezed. “Aren’t you glad I found you on The Black and brought you onto thisship?”
Her complexion appeared grayer this morning, and her usually silky dark hair fuzzed up around her ears and down the length of her braid. She squeezed back, her hand like ice. “Yes.”
“This isn’t a ghost, so there’s no haunting hour. Watch your backs and scream loudly if you need to,” Captain Glenn said as a final, motivationalwarning.
Forgoing the breakfast dishes for now, I tucked Randolph away into his quarters. Before I left him alone, we plugged the air vent up with a broken chair and some leftoverbedding.
“Use the telecom if you need me,” I instructed. “The one inside this ship stillworks.”
He nodded. “Just come back unharmed foronce.”
That would benice.
Once he shut the door and bolted it behind him, I wedged a chair under the lever just in case and looked down the hallway toward the hanging light. Silence closed in, as did the keen awareness that with a seventh lifeform slinking around the ship, I may not have been truly alone for quite some time. Who knew how long it had been on this ship? Especially since the Ringers only seemed to care about who passed in through their rings rather than who passed out to deep space. Plus, before I’d cleared the ship of ghosts, we’d been a tad preoccupied. Maybe the seventh lifeform had been here allalong.
I wanted to draw our unknown passenger out, see what they wanted, hear if they really sounded like Ellison, and learn if they were responsible for flipping the weird switch on some of the crew. But my focus right now lay behind the door Captain Glenn had locked behind him several days ago, the cargo room where the teralinguas had once been stored. I’d relieved our new dining room table of some of its nails, and luckily they were long and skinny enough to jimmy a lock, unlike my ice picks that were slightly ridged andbumpy.
I headed down the hallway. As soon as I touched my foot in the light’s glow, the cords overhead swung the fixture in an invisible wind. My breath fogged out in front of me and I stopped, glancing at the Vicious room door. Closed, but notcompletely.
I turned left at the intersection, the moving light behind me turning shadows into beckoning demons. As soon as I fished my phone from my pocket, a shifting noise at the other end of the hallway urged my fingers to search faster. I switched the phone on, listening with breath held, then followed itsglow.
Once past the infirmary, the noise came again, as if the wall to my left had come alive with coiling snakes. But nothing was there, at least on the outside. Maybe it was Mase and the captain plugging the airvents.
I took a left into the next hallway. A sniffle and a heaved breath sounded from the darknessahead.
“Hello?” Icalled.
There it was again, louder, heartbreaking. Not a female cry but deeper, like a man. Maybe it was Mase trying to fight off his She addiction. Maybe Captain Glenn missed his wife and daughter, and it was extra painful today. Either way, it hurt to hearit.
