Brightly Burning(92)

“Be careful,” Jon repeated his warning from behind as I made my way forward. “We know the front took damage. Who knows how bad it is back here?”

I grunted a response and made my way gingerly across the floor, my eyesight thankfully adjusting with every passing moment. There were spare parts strewn everywhere, but nothing that posed real risk. We arrived at the beacon, which turned out to be the backlit lock panel. It still recognized my bio scan.

“Fancy tech,” Jon said under his breath as we moved into the outer bay, then past the next door into the ship herself.

“Wait until you meet Rori,” I said, thankful to find the ship was running her night-cycle lighting, so we could find our way.

“Hello, Stella. It is nice to see you again,” Rori, always listening, piped up. Jon nearly jumped to the ceiling.

“Rori!” I sighed with relief. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“I’m glad you found me,” she said. “I was surprised to meet Lori; she was rather rude, but I approved of her mission and allowed her to interface with me.”

I nearly laughed at the idea of the two AIs having a conflict of personality. “Why are the emergency lights on, Rori? Do you not have full power?”

“My solar panels are drawing adequate power. Thank you for asking. The bulk of our power reserves is being directed to the medical bay and library. My protocol tells me their survival is paramount.”

It made sense—?you wouldn’t want to lose the Library of Congress, and the medical bay held essential medicines and vaccines. I began to call out Hugo’s name as we neared his quarters.

“Hugo is not here, Stella,” Rori said once I’d ceased shouting.

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

“They took him.”

They. The pronoun rolled around my brain. It meant there were other people here. But who? Survivors from another downed ship?

“Who are ‘they,’ Rori? Where did they take him?”

“I do not know that, Stella. I am sorry.”

Jon leaned down, whispering in my ear. “The ship’s system just apologized to you, Stella. This is so weird.”

“Rori has all sorts of feelings,” I said, forging on toward the bridge. It’s where Hugo would have been for landing, and the part of the ship that appeared to have taken the most damage. I had to see.

The picture came into sharp focus as we reached the space where a staircase used to be. What was left of the connection between the rest of Deck Two and the bridge, of the stairs down to Jessa’s quarters and the kitchens, was a gaping hole, jagged metal pieces, and debris visible if you gazed down into it. Someone had laid a wooden plank across it, establishing a walkway.

Jon went first, annoying in his chivalry, but I didn’t complain. The drop made me nervous, and balance had never been my strong suit. Taking tiny, slow steps and accepting a hand from Jon at the end, I made it across, and found my favorite spot on board in ruins. All the tab screens had been shattered or cracked; some exhibited signs of superheating. So did the metal fittings at the windows; they’d melted and been reborn as gnarled appendages twisting in unnatural directions. There’d been a fire here. The heat shields must have failed.

“Rori, was Hugo injured?” I asked, voice rising with panic as I took in the state of things.

“Yes, he was. He would not rouse, so when the strangers came on board, I let them come up to the bridge, and they took him away.”

“Did they say anything? Do you have any clue who they were?”

“They did not speak to me; thus I had no reason to converse with them.”

“Come on, Stella.” Jon tugged my arm back toward the plank. “He’s not here. We should go.”

We went back the way we’d come as the questions ran over and over in my head: Who had taken Hugo? How badly injured might he have been? What if he was dead? All this time, I’d interpreted the fact that the Rochester was on, that Rori was sending out a ping, as the promise that Hugo was alive. The thought that I could have come all this way only to lay flowers on his grave . . . My legs nearly buckled out from under me, but Jon was there before I could fall.

“We’ll find him,” he said, intuiting my fears. His reassurance gave me a tiniest flicker of hope, but I was bracing myself for the worst-case scenario nonetheless.

“You didn’t find him,” Xiao said as we exited; no need for a question.

“Rori said he was injured in the landing, but someone came and got him. We found a plank they used to get to the bridge. But there’s good news. The med bay is completely intact, and Rori’s been diverting power to keep everything up and running.”

“Good.” Xiao nodded. “If Hugo’s injured, that will come in handy. We should look for tracks, signs of life. There must be a settlement nearby.”

“Maybe it’s the survivors from the Crusader,” Jon suggested. “They came down, what, a year ago? If Fairfax’s bizarrely sentient computer system chose this as an optimal landing spot, their ship’s computer might have as well.”

Jon sprang into action, circling the ship, looking for tracks, while Xiao and I went in the opposite direction.

“There’s sign of disturbance in the underbrush, heading into the forest,” Jon said as we met back at the front of the ship. “But I don’t know if now’s the most opportune time to proceed.” He turned to look behind us; I followed his gaze and clapped eyes on a sight that competed with the mountains for beauty.