Odyssey

A footstep.

In the passageway.

Mac and Eric were both asleep.

“Meredith?” She whispered the name, got no response. Not loud enough. She thought about waking one of the men, but it would turn out to be nothing, and in the end she’d feel foolish.

And there it was again.

She got up, pulled on her robe, and padded across the floor. The passageway was dark, but there was just enough light to see it was empty. “Meredith?” she said, louder this time.

The avatar appeared a few steps down the corridor. “Yes, Amy? Did you need anything?”

“Are we alone in here? Is anybody else in the place?”

“No,” she said. “There are just the three of you.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

Meredith winked off. The corridor was clear. She could see all the way back to the airlock and, beyond it, almost to the bridge. In the other direction lay the doors that opened into the main exhibit areas. Beyond that, where the VR chambers were, and some of the specialized displays, the corridor passed into darkness, save for two patches of starlight cast by viewports.

It was scary, but she was too old to be frightened by shadows and odd noises. She could remember hiding under the blankets at night sometimes when her father was gone on those inevitable junkets, and she was alone at home with the AI. He never knew how she’d felt, and would never have understood.

She took a few steps toward the exhibit doors. The AI obligingly turned lights on for her. She looked into the display rooms, and more lights came on. They were silent. She looked out one of the viewports at the stars. Arcturus was not directly visible, but its light illuminated part of a wing and a pair of thrusters. She passed by, checked the crew’s quarters, looking into each room. (They were sealed so you could look at them but could not enter.) She peeked into the VR chambers and the engineering spaces. And finally she retraced her steps, passed the welcome center and the airlock, and went up onto the bridge.

Nothing was amiss.

She felt proud of herself. All secure, Captain. She liked to think she would have acted as Emil Hightower did. She imagined herself moving through the crippled ship, seeing that passengers and crew got out, then coming back here, not taking time to put on one of the ungainly pressure suits they had then, no time for that, have to get to the radio.

Chan Ho Park, this is Taylor aboard the Surveyor. Blast in main engines. Code two. Code two.

She eased herself into the captain’s chair and repeated the message, Code two, come at once, position as follows, until the gathering dark began to take her, and she slumped back.

She had never before seen a bridge without viewports. The captain had been dependent on displays. There was probably nothing wrong with that, but it would have made her uncomfortable if she’d been sitting in the command chair.

Something moved behind her, and she jumped a foot, but it was only Eric. “Problems sleeping?” he asked.

“Not really. I thought I heard something.”

He glanced around. “Probably mice.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Maybe.” He gazed down at the controls. “I noticed you were missing. I just wanted to be sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. I’m going back to sleep.” He gri

“I thought maybe Quraqua,” she said.

He laughed. “Let’s let it go until morning.” And he got serious. “Don’t stay out here too long, Amy. It’s chilly.”

He trundled off through the hatch into the dim passageway. She wondered what it felt like to take a ship into a planetary system and put it in orbit around a living world.

When she had her own command, she would never quit the way Hutch had. Would never take an office job. Not as long as she could breathe.

SHE MUST HAVE fallen asleep. The lights had dimmed and momentarily she didn’t know where she was. But the controls were spread out in front of her, and she felt the stiff fabric of the captain’s chair against the back of her head.

And she heard something behind her.

Eric again.

She swung the chair around. Someone was out in the passageway. The luminous panels were still on, but the figure was nevertheless cloaked in darkness. And gradually she saw that it was a woman.

“Hello,” Amy said, her voice just above a whisper. “Who’s there? Meredith? Is that you?”

The museum’s projection system had obviously broken down.

The woman was approaching, moving smoothly, almost floating. She reached the hatch, and stopped. Amy still couldn’t see who it was. It was a projection, a problem with the software. Had to be.

“Amy.”

A familiar voice. And she realized what had happened. The Salvator had come back. But the voice wasn’t Valya’s. Whose was it?

“Amy, listen to me.”

The darkness shrouding the figure faded. The woman was tall. Graceful.

It was Hutch.

Amy stared at the apparition. It couldn’t be. Hutch was light-years away. And the figure was too tall. “Hutch, is that you?”

“There’s something you must do.” The woman came through the hatch, although she seemed not to walk. She did look exactly like Priscilla Hutchins. But she must have been a foot taller. Maybe it was because Amy was sitting.

The woman wore the same white blouse and dark blue slacks that Hutch had been wearing when they’d said good-bye at Union. “Who are you —?” Her voice squeaked.

“You need not be afraid, Child,” she said. “You have a mission to perform.”

Amy wanted to get to her feet, but her legs felt wobbly. “You look like Hutch.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not her, are you?”

“No.”

She wanted to run. To call for help. To get away from this creature, whatever it was. “You’re a projection. Something’s wrong with the AI.”

“Stay calm. I will not harm you.”

“What do you want?”

“Blueprint. The Origins Project.”

She looked exactly like Hutch. Except for the size. And the eyes. They were the same color. But they were different in a way that u

“We are going to destroy it.”

Amy’s voice shook. “Who are you?”

“We will allow you time to evacuate everyone who is there. But do it promptly.”

“Wait.” Amy wondered whether the apparition was crazy. “They won’t listen to me. They’ll laugh at me.”

“Do it promptly, Amy. Don’t test our patience.” It was Hutch’s voice.

“Who are you? Did you attack the hotel?”

The woman was becoming harder to see. The darkness seemed to be gathering about her again. “We’ve attacked no one. See to Origins.”

Amy was pushing back in her seat, the way you do when you’re accelerating. She watched Hutch fade out. Like a hologram.

IT WAS PROBABLY twenty minutes before she found the strength, the nerve, to go into the passageway and return to the welcome center. Mac and Eric were both sprawled comfortably in their sheets.

She knelt trembling beside Mac and pulled on his arm. “Mac,” she said, “they’ve been on board. I talked with one of them. They said we had to warn — ”

“What?” he growled. “Amy? Who was on board?”

“The moonriders. I think. One of them. She looked like Hutch.”

He smiled in his closest approach to a fatherly ma

“No.” She knew that wasn’t true.

Then they were both talking at once, she trying to explain what the apparition had said about the Origins Project, he trying to tell her to wait a minute, slow down, take it back to the begi

“Except bigger. Taller. And she said we — ”

“Hold it. Wait. Stop a second. Think about it a minute. What does it sound like to you?”

Eric was awake now, staring at them.

“I’m not making it up, Mac. I was on the bridge, and I was wide-awake.”

“All right. And what did it say again?”

“She even had Hutch’s voice.”

Mac reached for her. Tried to embrace her, but she kept her distance. “Amy,” he said, “you need to calm down.”

“I’m calm.”

“Okay.” He sat up and pulled his blankets around him. “Tell me again what she said.”

“She said they were going to destroy the Origins Project. Something about a blueprint.”

“A what?”

“A blueprint. I don’t know what that was about.”

“Okay.”

“What’s a blueprint? Do you know, Mac?”

“It’s an archaic term. They used to use blueprints to create architectural designs.”

“Okay. Maybe I didn’t hear it right. But she told me to get everybody off. Before they do it. How am I supposed to do that?”

“Wave a wand, kid,” said Eric. “Did she say why they were going to destroy it?”

“No. Just that they were going to do it.”

“When? When are they going to do this?”

“I don’t know.” She was close to hysteria. “She didn’t say. What she said was I shouldn’t test her patience.”

Mac was getting frustrated. “Did she explain why they were throwing rocks at things in the first place?”

“No. In fact she said…” Amy had to stop and think. “I asked if they’d attacked the hotel. She said they hadn’t.”

“There you are,” said Mac. “It has to be a dream.”

“It’s probably an AI malfunction,” said Eric. “It happens sometimes.”

“I asked her about that. She said no.”

“That’s part of the malfunction, Amy.”

“Well, it’s simple enough to check,” said Mac. “Meredith?”

“Yes, Mr. MacAllister?” Just a voice this time.

“You have a security system, I assume?”

“Yes. We have the Hornet 26. It is top-of-the-line.”

“Do you have a record of the time Amy spent on the bridge this evening?”

“No, I do not.”

“How come?”

“I only record events of a specific nature. Theft, vandalism. If a fight were to break out, I would record that.”

“So nothing unusual happened on the bridge?”

“Nothing that fit within the security parameters.”

“That helps,” said Eric.

Mac looked unhappy. “I don’t know what to tell you, Amy.”

“We have a transmission,” said Meredith. “From the Salvator.”

“Patch it through, please.”

Valya appeared in the middle of the room. “Mac, the Arcturus monitor has reported moonriders in your area. Probably not a problem, but be aware.”

I’ve seen it before. People in trying circumstances, under pressure, scared. You wind up with hysteria. I guess adolescents are especially susceptible. We need another woman on the premises. I don’t know how to deal with it. Amy’s angry with both of us.