The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(10)

Heather shook her head. “Jen, I want one good look inside before we give it up.”

Jennifer’s frown deepened, but she nodded reluctantly. “I guess a look won’t hurt anything.”

As Mark’s exultant whoop echoed through the cavern, Heather’s gaze drifted up to the hole five feet above her head. As badly as she wanted to peek inside, a small spider of worry skittered across her mind. Breathing a prayer that her worry was nothing, Heather linked hands with Jennifer, boosting Mark up so that he could grasp the edge of the hole. With a powerful heave, he pulled himself inside.





Chapter 6





After several seconds, Mark’s head reappeared in the hole, looking down at them. “Heather, jump up and grab my hand so I can pull you up.”

“What about me?” Jennifer asked.

“Don’t worry,” said Mark. “Once she’s up here, Heather can hold my legs and I’ll lean down to grab your hands.”

With her rock climbing experience, Heather swung up into the opening with ease, and together they soon hauled Jennifer up as well.

They found themselves in a curved room, what must have been the entire lower deck of the ship. An odd assortment of translucent tanks and long tubes, filled with glowing, iridescent gasses, lined the walls.

The interior walls, floors, and ceilings of the craft were of a different material than the outer hull, something that felt more closely akin to plastic than metal. Here also the magenta ambient lighting left no shadows. The room was spacious in all dimensions except height, not quite two meters of space separating floor from ceiling so that Mark was forced to stoop slightly to keep from banging the top of his head.

Heather moved to the center of the room, where a circular shaft a dozen feet in diameter rose to the ceiling. An open doorway led inside. Mark moved up beside her as she peered in.

“An elevator?” Heather asked.

“Or a garbage disposal,” said Jennifer, joining them.

Mark grinned. “Doc, you’re a breath of fresh air.”

“Just pointing out that we don’t know a damn thing about this ship,” she said, arching her left eyebrow.

Mark turned back toward the opening. “Who, besides me, wants to be first to find out?”

Heather’s heart had not slowed since she had first seen the starship. Even free climbing the massive rock spire called The Needle had not pumped so much adrenaline into her bloodstream.

“It’s a little late for caution. I’m game.”

Jennifer shook her head. “I’ll wait out here, thank you. If you guys get vaporized, then at least I can tell our folks how you met your fate.”

Stepping into the shaft, Heather scanned the walls for a control panel. The walls were uniformly smooth and plain, the same material as the rest of the lower deck. Heather pressed her palm against the wall, then both palms, while Mark tapped and banged beside her. Nothing.

After several minutes of fruitlessly trying to make something happen, they stepped back out of the small cylindrical room.

“Well that was exciting,” Mark muttered.

“It looks like we’re going to have to keep hoisting ourselves up to the other decks through the same hole that got us into the ship,” Heather said.

Mark led the way upward. This time the access was much easier. All they had to do was reach up and pull themselves through the hole, although Jennifer still required a helping hand to make it.

Whereas the deck below had covered the entire lower portion of the ship, the next level found them confined to a single small room with a closed door barring exit to the remainder of the deck. The room was a dozen feet across with a curving desktop extending out from the arc of the outer wall. Positioned at equal intervals along this desk were four stools mounted in a track, apparently intended to allow the occupants to slide back and forth along its length.

On the desk in front of each stool lay a partial loop of metal with marble-sized beads on each end. Mark plopped onto one of the stools and picked up one of the loops, twisting it slowly in his hands. Heather followed suit, finding the loop very light and flexible, more of the translucent substance like what they had seen forming the tubes on the deck below.

“Hmm. Could be a headset,” Mark mumbled. “Here, let’s try them on and see.”

“Wait just a minute!” Jennifer said, her hand catching Mark’s before he could proceed. “Looking doesn’t mean punching every button or pulling every lever on this ship. Even if we keep this secret, we have to investigate in a way that doesn’t destroy the ship, or worse, us.”

Mark ignored her, sliding the band smoothly over his temples.

Stretching her own band gently, Heather slid it up over her head, exactly as she would her headphones. It settled naturally into place, elongating slightly so that the small balls on the end slid into position directly over her temples. The slight pressure actually felt nice.

Heather smiled. “These actually feel pretty good—like a temple massage. Come on, Jen. Try on a set. They don’t seem to do much else.”

“Yeah, Doc. They haven’t exactly killed us yet.” Mark grinned.

Jennifer reluctantly slid onto the stool next to Heather, then, after close examination, slid the band into place. Within a few seconds the tense look disappeared.

Jennifer smiled. “You’re right. They do feel good. I could almost take a nap if I wouldn’t fall off the stool doing it.”