Things Fall Apart: Chapter 36

Aboard Polaris

Grim was certainly one valid word for it.

Stepping aboard Polaris with zir small team, Alexander could see the immediate effects of the events the late Lieutenant Commander Wheeler had described. The airlock had already been open on both sides. Anyone who had been anywhere near it in the corridors was presumably blown outward with the atmosphere.

Polaris was a small ship, only three decks and a nominal crew of twenty-five. Where Bellerophon and Zephyr had both been designed for long trips away from base, relying on their own resources, Polaris was basically a maintenance skiff jumped up with a time-compression drive. Her main task had been to do what she'd died doing—moving from relay to relay, and other similar unstaffed emplacements, making necessary repairs and upgrades. Alexander wasn't certain, but ze would not have been surprised to learn that the job Zephyr was currently undertaking of seeding new relays would have ordinarily been done by a ship like Polaris.

Searching the ship, therefore, took very little time, especially since most of the hatches were open.

They'd come in on the mid-deck, which, like most TCTF ships, was the widest. The airlock they came in opened onto a port-starboard corridor that led to the other airlock, also open. Amidships was the boulevard, and Alexander's schematic showed it was all crew quarters. The bodies of those crew in their cabins were all at odd angles. Gravity generation was absent, so they had clearly bounced around, some after the air was done trying to pull them out through the hatches of their quarters. They were frozen, of course, and without air, there would have been little decay, anyway, so it was impossible to tell simply by looking how long ago this had all happened for them.

Alexander and Saito kept up a running spoken commentary for the benefit of Zephyr and the record, but ze was on autopilot as soon as ze saw the first frozen, contorted face. Other than zir and Saito's commentary, nobody spoke. There was not much to say. The ship was actually surprisingly intact. But everyone was long frozen dead.

When they finished with the mid-deck, PO Luchny asked, "Commander, should we begin sorting out the bodies?"

Alexander found zirself tongue tied. To ensure Luchny knew she'd been heard, ze motioned for her to wait. Recognizing it for drama, ze deliberately allowed something of zir distress to show on zir face through the faceplate. Somewhere in the back of zir otherwise vaporlocked mind, ze remembered a day at the Academy, training for working with others in suits. It's like live theatre; you have to exaggerate things sometimes. Subtlety will not be seen.

At any rate, Luchny and the others got the point, and waited. Finally, it was Saito who stepped in. "Commander, since the ship is small, I suggest we complete the survey first; then Luchny and Mxenge—it is Mxenge, yes?—Mxenge and I can go through and start IDing and bagging them for transport."

Alexander took three more deep breaths, then nodded, zir tongue finally unsticking. "That makes sense, Doctor. Thank you. Let's go down and clear the hold next. My guess is there won't be anyone down there, but we should be thorough. Then, we can go up to the command deck. It was definitely my impression that's where Wheeler and her survivors holed up."

"Mine, as well, Commander. Let's do it that way."

So they swam down ladder-well to the hold. As predicted, there were no bodies there. Just magnetized and strapped down crates. Cadotte moved to a console on the aft wall and plugged in a power bank they'd brought with them. The console lit in basic mode, and Cadotte announced its contents, again for the benefit of the record—they could all see the screen. "As I feared, not only the reaction mass, but replication mass was also vented. The reaction mass we know was an intentional fail-safe. I would bet the replication mass was part of the AIs' rampage."

It was Mxenge who voiced the next obvious thought. "My gods...the survivors starved to death."

Alexander made a hand gesture equivalent to shaking zir head, then said, "No, but they would have. Wheeler said they'd made...other arrangements."

Luchny sounded puzzled as she said, "Wouldn't they have had e-rats? One of these crates down here at least ought to be ration bars."

Saito said, calmly, "Only if they had suits."

A beat, and then Luchny replied, quietly, "Oh." She sounded sick.

Alexander once again took a deep breath to unfreeze zir tongue, and said, "All right. Let's go face the worst of it."

They swam up the ladder-well, this time going straight up to the command deck. Here, the hatch to the bridge was actually dogged. As the last of them made it up to the deck, Luchny reached down and sealed the hatch between decks, making the ladder-well into a small airlock, albeit one still in vacuum. "Good thinking, PO," Alexander said, somewhat automatically.

Cadotte once again moved forward and plugged their power bank into the panel by the door, reporting, "The other side has pressure, but the air is...it's carbon monoxide. I think this must have been their 'alternative'. They'd have simply fallen asleep. It's also cold, which is no surprise. The supercaps would have bled dry ages ago."

Instead, Alexander said, "Can we equalize the pressure at least?"

Cadotte nodded with their hand, then tapped in a series of commands. They all felt in their suits, and saw on their heads-up displays, the pressure change. After a minute, Cadotte looked at Alexander for a cue.

Waiting won't make this any more pleasant, Alexander admonished zirself, and said, "Open it."

It was actually not as bad as Alexander feared. It wasn't good, but it was not a scene of horror. Instead, the bridge looked remarkably orderly for a place where six humans had been trapped with an insane AI.

Those six humans all sat on the floor to one side of the room. As predicted earlier, none of them had suits, an oversight Alexander could not bring zirself to criticize them for. Suits might have allowed them to fetch e-rats, but it would not really have saved them. They'd been lost for megaseconds. This ship was not designed to survive alone for megaseconds.

They simply sat, with surprising dignity, hand in hand. As Cadotte had said, they had fallen asleep like that, some with heads on the others shoulders, some nodding off.

Alexander guessed which one was Wheeler by the rank markings. Directly opposite her was the hot-seat, and on the console in front of that seat, there was a box. It had a single small lamp glowing blue, indicating power. The casing also contained a set of block letters in what appeared to be blood: "LUCAS".

Luchny and Mxenge went through the motions of prowling the compartment for anything else of interest, but there was nothing. This done, they looked to Alexander for instructions.

After a moment, ze said, "Doctor, you and the POs please begin the task of positively identifying and accounting for the bodies still aboard, then start...bagging them for transport. Cadotte?"

"Commander?"

"Find the storage core and the backup, if you can, and get it over to the pinnace. Meanwhile," ze said, picking up the blood-inscribed box, "I think I'm going to see what I can learn about Lucas' cage before we have a long talk with whatever's left of him. I want to be sure it's going to be safe to activate even in a secured environment."

Everyone acknowledged and went off to do as they were asked. Alexander picked up the box, noting the power cell strapped to it and making sure that was secure.

If anyone had asked zir to do so later, ze could not have accounted for zir trip from the bridge to the pinnace with the box. Ze did remember putting the box down on a work table. Ze did not unsuit, in case ze were called back aboard Polaris, but ze did take off zir helmet and gloves.

Then, ze went to the head, closed the door very carefully, and allowed zirself to have a meltdown, as ze had not done since ze was about ten years old.