Chapter XI

No one had seen Niilan for ten days, which meant he was either heavily disguised, dead, or hiding somewhere deep within the ship, far down in the lifeless corridors beneath the man chamber, where all Ordin's searching could not locate him. The crew was becoming increasingly worried about the possibility that Niilan had somehow managed to correctly interpret the schematics and build the transmitter.

For some time, they had all been fairly certain that the madman was dead, simply because someone had been guarding all the food faucets for more than a week, and still no one had seen him. Unless he had somehow been able to hoard food, there was little hope for him.

No one wanted to look for the body, so the man was almost forgotten for a day.

One morning, however, they realized the worst. One of the food faucets had stopped working, along with the adjacent water pump. This was technically improbable, since they came from different systems. Quickly, Ordin made the inference, that the Nabaal pilot was still roaming the corridors beneath his feet, and was now tapping into the pipes to keep himself alive.

"If we can find the source of these pipes, we might be able to find him more easily." Ziir said, removing a plate from the wall. Behind the panel, two ancient, badly rusted tubes descended into the darkness. A low sound emanated from beyond... The rhythmic pounding of the processing systems, the gas exchangers, the other miscellaneous environmental regulators.

Ordin sighed and hesitated before speaking, not liking the idea of descent into those passages. "We'll have to go down and get him. For his own sake, if not ours."

And so he ordered A'Kuul and the engineer to stay behind and guard the exits, and made preparations for Ziir, Creta and himself to begin another search. When they had gathered three plasma torches and a few other supplies, they went to the descending ramps on the far side of the cavernous chamber. Only a small hatch allowed entry to the depths... Before the Niilan's hand, the lock here hadn't seen any activity in a hundred years.

Ordin pulled on the bar, but the door held. He tried again, leaning hard away from it. But it held shut. "It's jammed."

When nothing else seemed to work, Ziir took a huge metal bar and slammed it against the door until the lock had broken. When it opened, they saw the reason for the difficulty: a number of support beams had been removed from the walls and jammed into place to hold the hatch shut. One of the beams was still there, blocking most of the opening and leaving only a small crawlspace for anyone to fit through.

Ordin shrugged and bent down, forcing himself through the tiny opening. It took a great deal of effort, but he made it through. Ziir and Creta followed, and when all of them had dusted themselves off, Ordin activated his plasma torch.

The place was all too much like a catacomb or a tomb. All the machinery for the ship grew right out of the walls, and most of it had decayed beyond recognition. Some of the cables had melted under the heat of their own activity... Some of the boxes and conduits looked like parts to a conventional freezer system. Obviously, none of this equipment had ever been designed to maintain a breathable, heated, humid atmosphere for a hundred years. Some parts hadn't even been welded in, during construction.

"Dear Sajuuk... This whole place is just thrown together."

Ordin nodded, sourly. He noticed that the structure of the place was based on a simple grid-work of low, narrow corridors about ten meters long. There were a thousand places to hide in this place... It would be no small feat to locate and capture the madman.

"There's a problem, commander..." Ziir inspected his plasma torch. "Look."

Ordin swore under his breath. "You're right. We can't use these. They light up the whole place. He'll see us coming."

Each of them switched their torches off. They could still see, but barely... There was a dim ambient light in this place, from old flood lights in the walls.

Ordin made a subtle, barely audible hiss and motioned for Ziir to follow him down the corridor. When they reached the intersection, they could see for what seemed like kilometers into the space. Possibly, this grid ran a good part of the ship's spine.

Ziir identified a conduit and traced it to part of the processing station. They found their faucet pipes and followed them a few "blocks" until Ziir abruptly froze. "You hear that?" He whispered. There was an odd sound, like a bizarre slurping noise. Instantly, he identified it as the sound of Niilan eating his food goo. It was coming from around the intersection.

"Get ready... Let's go in quietly." Ordin picked up a stray pipe, preparing to defend himself from his madman's attacks. They crawled slowly forward and stopped at the corner. Ordin took a deep breath, and jumped forward.

But there was no one there. They had indeed found the pipe, though. Two tubes running up the wall of the corridor were cracked open. The water pipe unleashed only a small trickle, but the other pipe was split wide open, releasing an endless torrent of food gel that had piled up almost halfway to the ceiling.

Ziir grimaced and turned a knob to stop the flow. Niilan was long gone from the scene... His oily footprints were visible, trailing off into the labyrinth.

Ordin scratched his head. "We'll never find him like this. Split up." He directed Creta to go to what they decided would be called "South". Ordin would go "North" and Ziir would go "East". To avoid getting lost, they were instructed to deviate from assigned direction only to pursue Niilan. If they did see him, they would yell out a high pitched noise to attract the others. It was like some kind of twisted child's game. And it would take a long time to win.

Ziir gradually lost sight of the others as he moved deeper into the maze. He would crawl as carefully and silently forward as possible, and look in both directions at each intersection, looking behind occasionally. The method seemed sound, but Ziir had traveled most of the distance to the far wall and was yet to see or hear anything at all. He moved on, still, awaiting the moving image of a man's shadow, or a trace of stray food gel, or, more likely, the sound of someone else calling him to join the hunt. Yes, he thought, amazed--it was a hunt.

There was one point, he thought he heard something. A low, distant squeal. It could have been, he thought in horror, Creta's shouting from the other side of the maze. He turned his head from side to side, hoping to identify the source of the noise.

Everything fell into eerie silence. His pulse raced... He felt like the prey, now. How hard, he wondered, would it be for the madman to hunt them down and systematically eliminate them? Too easy.

The sound came up again, and this time it seemed that it was coming from directly in front of him. He stared forward, expecting something to happen, but nothing moved. The sound vanished again. He hesitated, looked over his shoulder, and crawled slowly forward to the next intersection.

A thick copper pipe fell out of the darkness and hit him hard on the back of his neck. The pain burned his nerves, but nothing felt broken. He fell onto his stomach with a painful thud and managed to turn himself over. He saw the edge of the copper pipe staring down at him like some colossal eye, and a dirty hand holding it.

The madman's face was still in the darkness, but the sound of his breathing was easy to recognize. So was his voice as he whispered, "Come to kill me?"

Ziir winced from the pain and made sure to keep silent.

The madman's face radiated an evil grin. "It's okay. You're too late."

"What does that mean?" Ziir croaked.

The man didn't move or speak for a while. His eyes traced the area around him, his nostrils seemed to expand and contract. "Get up." The copper pipe shook slightly, stressing its existence. "Follow me. Make any wrong move, and you get my pipe with real force this time!"

Ziir did as commanded, being as calm about the situation as possible. He was led a long ways in a meandering course through the maze, arriving in an expanded room in the corridors, with only two exits. It was an ideal place for a lair.

When Ziir had been sufficiently thrown into the corner, the madman sat back momentarily on the opposite side of the room. He took a slow sip from a bowl of water.

Just then, a small blinking light caught Ziir's eye. He turned and saw the familiar pill-shaped beacon sitting innocently at the other side of the room, but with several sections of the casing removed. Several added components were crudely fixed to its structure... Two large metal cylinders extended from the sides of the device. The control pad was just as before, its green and blue switches were blinking in succession, indicating that it was ready to begin transmitting.

"By Sajuuk, he did it..." Ziir said aloud, too stunned to hold back his words. Sure enough, A'Kuul's schematics were neatly rolled up in the corner, with a number of fine tools next to it. The transmitter had been completed... It was awaiting activation. He became aware of how very vulnerable he was. With a push of that glowing green button, this entire reality would disappear.

"That's right, I did." He walked over, pipe in hand, and picked up the beacon. He held it like a child in his arms, for a moment.

"Don't do it, Niilan. Please, don't do it." Ziir would have tried his luck in a strong lunge, but the copper pole was pointing straight at him. All he could do was sit and pray for some kind of divine intervention.

"Why are you worried? You can go home, now. It will be as if you never got stuck here." Niilan's voice was suddenly calmed. If it weren't for short-term memory, Ziir wouldn't even have known that the man was dangerous.

"I won't go home." Ziir knew, sadly. Having never come aboard the prison ship, he never would have gone into the trance, never would have had that moment of vibrant realization that he wanted to return to Hiigara. He gulped, suddenly hit by an image of himself, working again on a space scaffold somewhere, knowing that there was something missing from his life but never being able to know exactly what. That was his alternate present, unless he did something to stop it.

The madman disregarded the words. "Cheers!" he said, happily. His finger came down on the switch, and the transmitter hummed to life.

There was a flash of strange light, filling the room.

 

* * *

Reluctantly, the commander took his seat and focused himself. "What is it? What's happening?"

Ziir answered. "Our sensors have found something nearby us... Something very large. A ship, almost mothership class."

Everyone had frozen in place. Disturbed, Ordin stood up. "Out here?"

"It's just a faint echo... The ship, if it's here, must be within six thousand kilometers of us. I'm not reading any power signatures... It took our advanced sensors just to know it's here. It could be a derelict..."

"We should approach with caution." A'Kuul spoke up. "I have read of derelict ships... One such vessel was found during the original homeworld war. It was quite dangerous to nearby spacecraft. However, even if it is dangerous, the vessel should be investigated... It might provide an invaluable technological insight."

Ordin nodded. "Can we learn more about it from here?"

Ziir stopped mid-sentence. "Wait... I'm reading a power spike." He winced and re-read the data on his console three times. "Commander, I'm getting some kind of beacon signal coming in. A transmission..."

"Where's it coming from?"

Ziir shook his head. "I don't know! It's not like any signal I've seen... It doesn't seem to have any identifiable source. I just can't localize it."

Ordin rubbed his eyes. "Can you tell what it says?"

The engineer looked over the information. "Yes... It's just a message, it seems, coded in standard Hiigaran binary. It's still coming in, but I can read it... It says: "Warning, do not d---"

"What? Do not d-what?"

"I... I don't know. It just stops." Ziir shrugged.

Ordin was distraught by this. Certainly, in approaching any unknown and potentially dangerous vessel, any warning he got would be appreciated.

"That's all. It just stopped."

The commander felt something in his stomach. He didn't like this, but there was nothing to be done. "It must have been... Some lost, misdirected transmission. Disregard it. Let's point the scopes at that derelict you found."

 

* * *

Ordin's boot hit the beacon hard. It flew across the room, breaking into pieces against the far wall. The man had appeared, just at the moment of activation.

Niilan had foolishly dropped his pole. It took half a moment for Ziir and the commander to grab his arms and pull him to the ground. He put up little fight... He was, in reality, very weak from his time down in the catacombs.

"Thank Sajuuk! I thought the beacon had sent the transmission!"

Ordin shrugged. "We're still here, I guess it didn't work."

Ziir smiled. Now that the madman was subdued, the intercom was safe. "Creta, do you copy?"

"Y-yes... I'm up in the main chamber. Sorry, but I just couldn't see in there. Too dark."

"It's okay. We've got him. We're coming back up now, try and find a good place for a temporary jail."

"Uh... I don't think that will be necessary. You might want to hurry..."

"What? What do you--"

"Ir Miilas just appeared at the airlock."