Starship Summer (Starship Seasons, #1)(11)

Maddie turned and stared at us bleakly. “You really think so?”

“Sure,” Hawk said, far from convincingly.

Maddie returned to the table and took up her mug. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him this low. You heard what he said about going on living.”

“He was exaggerating for effect. He was drunk, for chrissake.”

She looked at Hawk. “But you don’t know him as well as I do.You don’t know what happened before he came to Chalcedony.” She stopped there, as if she had said too much.

Hawk said, “What was that, Maddie?”

She shook her head, but ignored the question. She took a long swallow of gin. “Christ, I’m drunk. What a mess, what a bloody awful mess it all is! I’m going home!” And she stood unsteadily and weaved her way between the tables.

We hurried after her, down the stairs and out into the clement, scented night.

We walked along the sea-front, around the bay.

“I’ll give you a lift, Maddie,” Hawk said.

She murmured a thank you.

I said, “I’m having a house-warming in a few days. Or should that be a ship-warming? Why don’t you both come along for dinner?”

Maddie looked at me. “Would you invite Matt, too?”

“Of course, if you think he’d accept.”

“I’m sure he would.”

I watched Maddie climb into Hawk’s battered roadster: she made sure that no part of her flesh touched the seat.

The car lifted and wafted off into the night, and I hurried around the bay towards the waiting Mantis.

I was a little drunk, but not sufficiently to ward off the nightmares. When I reached home I sat in the lounge with a bottle of imported scotch and stared out across the silvered waters of the bay, admiring the view and going over the events of the evening.





FIVE



I was spared the nightmares, but the following night I was visited by even stranger visions.

I’d spent the day making small repairs around the ship and setting out my few belongings, the books I’d brought from Earth, the few pictures I’d not discarded in the general clear out and minimisation of my life when I decided to emigrate.

I cooked myself a Thai curry—practising what I would give to my new friends when they came later in the week—and finished off with a few double scotches while watching the sun set and the water of the bay turn silver in the light of the Ring.

It was midnight by the time I staggered to bed, fearing as always the return of the nightmare. Thanks to the alcohol I was asleep instantly.

I came awake in the early hours. I sat up, surprised that it was not the visions that had forced me from sleep, and then curious as to what had awoken me. Not a noise—the ship was silent around me—but a glow emanating from beyond the open door of my room.

I pulled on my trousers and cautiously, aware of my heartbeat, slipped from the room and trod along the corridor towards the lounge.

I stopped on the threshold, staring.

An insubstantial figure stood with its back to me, before the pedestal which, when the ship had been in working order, had housed the control matrix. The figure glowed green, giving off the only light in the room, and through it I could make out the lines of the far side of the chamber, as if it were a ghost or a projected image.

Even stranger than the fact of its presence was what the figure was doing. Lines of some bizarre script hung in the air before it, scrolling columns I was unable to make out. As I watched, the figure reached up and swiftly, with quick taps of its long index finger, touched certain characters and thus effected their disappearance.

I say ‘it’ for the figure was not human.

With its back to me, I was unable to determine just what race the alien belonged to: it was tall, attenuated, appearing more amphibian than mammal, scaled and fluked, with a very thin skull. I fancied that, should it turn towards me, I would have seen the narrow, puckered face of a fish. I recalled the fleeting vision I had had on my first night aboard the ship: it had been one and the same.

I was in no way alarmed. I knew I was not being visited by intruders, or haunted by spectres. There was a rational explanation behind the figure’s appearance. It was a projection, I thought, an alien light show.

I took a step forward, about to say something—some inane greeting or question—when instantly the vision vanished, and along with it the scrolling script.

I looked around the lounge, trying to find the source of the projection. I wondered how much of the ship’s original circuitry and software Hawk had left intact when he salvaged the vessel from the jungle. No doubt some malfunctioning holographic sub-routine was responsible for the alien apparition.

I returned to bed, slept soundly for the rest of the night, and awoke just after dawn. A gaggle of spearbills, which had taken to perching on the back of the starship, set up a melodic morning chorus. I recalled the exhibition of the previous evening, and then, belatedly, remembered my silent alien visitor.

I spent the rest of the morning crawling through the ship’s inspection vents, checking circuitry and relays. I learned a lot about how the thing was put together—and was surprised at how much of it was still intact—but was none the wiser as to how the spectral extraterrestrial might have manifested itself.

In the afternoon I sat before my com-terminal and accessed Chalcedony’s information nexus. I called up facts about all the space-faring alien races known to humankind, their history and space-going exploits.