Robot Blues (41 page)

“I assure you, Ms.
Rowan,” said the male steward, arriving at her room, “that everything is going
to be fine.”

“Are you subject
to premonitions?” the female steward asked.

“It’s not a
premonition,” Darlene said, sighing.

Thousands of
ships. Hundreds of Lanes. The robot might take out any one of them. Yet our
Lane is near Pandor. Our Lane is close to the Lane the robot has already
removed. Darlene was starting to feel more certain by the minute. Our Lane is
next. The Lane we’re going to jump into is next.

“How about a
sedative, Ms. Rowan? It will make you feel better.”

“No, thank you.”

“Do you need any
help strapping yourself in?”

“No.” Darlene only
wanted now to get back into her room, back to her computer. “I’ll be fine. I
promise. You can leave now. Thank you for all your help.”

“We’ll be back to
check on you,” said the steward. He remained standing in the corridor. It was
obvious he intended to stand there until Darlene was safely incarcerated.

She started to
unlock the door, glanced down and saw the fingernail file moved. It was in
front of the door instead of under it.

Someone had been
inside her room.

Darlene hesitated,
stood outside the closed door.

“What’s the matter
now, Ms. Rowan?” The steward was struggling hard to remain patient. He must be
convinced by now that she was delusional, paranoid.

“Nothing. Thank
you, just dropped my file,” Darlene said meekly. “I’ll be fine now. I’m just a
bit nervous. You’ve been very kind. I know you must have other duties to attend
to. Let me give you something for your trouble.”

The stewards
presented their service pads. Darlene punched in a generous tip for each of
them.

“Thank you, Ms.
Rowan,” said the male steward. “You go along inside. We’ll wait out here for a
few moments, just in case you need anything.”

You mean you’ll
wait to make sure I don’t leave again.

Darlene unlocked,
opened the door. She kept to one side, did not immediately enter. Not because
she was afraid of being attacked from behind. Hung assassins weren’t the type
to lurk about behind the door, waiting to knock her over the head with a lead
pipe. They were far more sophisticated.

Darlene stared
hard at the deck, saw no tiny beam of laser light that she might break as she
entered—the hightech version of a trip wire.

The stewards
watched her. Glancing back, she caught the male grinning. He swiftly wiped the
smile from his face.

Cautiously,
Darlene entered her room.

She cast a quick
glance around, saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing had been disturbed. She
shut the door, shut out the stewards and their amusement. She turned to look
everything over once more.

A flicker of light
came from somewhere near the window. Darlene tensed, but further investigation
revealed nothing. No gun barrel protruding from behind the bedpost.

“You’re seeing
things,” she told herself wearily.

She was suddenly
tired of this, tried of jumping at shadows, tired of making what were most
likely harmless little molehills into mountains of fear.

Probably the maid
had entered the room for some reason. Leaving chocolates on the pillow, turning
down the bed. No one was hiding here with the intention of stabbing Darlene in
the shower. No one had put black widow spiders in her nightgown.

Just to make sure,
she turned down the bed sheets, searched under the bed and inside the bathroom.
Nothing. No one.

“My God, I
am
getting paranoid,” she said, and returned to the computer.

At least it had
been doing something constructive in her absence. It announced that its initial
calculations concerning the Lanes the robot might next remove were complete.
The computer offered a list of three Lanes and included the probabilities of
likelihood of deletion, based on location of the Lanes in relation to the robot
at its present location, taking into account certain variables.

Darlene looked
over the data. Something clicked in her head, but, at the same time, something
clicked in the room. She leaped from her chair, scooted out of the way.

Out of the way of
what? Her imagination was offering such bizarre theories now as crossbows in
the vidset or termination beams from the smoke detector. Logic told her
imagination where to get off. Breathing hard, more from irritation at being
interrupted than from fear, Darlene searched the room again, hunting for the
source of the
snick.

The sound had come
from in front of her, she recalled, on thinking it over.

In front of her
was the computer, the side table on which it sat. The table was bolted to the
wall, presumably so that it wouldn’t roam around during the Jump.

Well, maybe her
computer had gone
snick.
Maybe the drive was going out. Wonderful. Just
wonderful. She would never be able to find parts aboard this blasted Adonian
ship. Not unless she wanted to try to repair it with swizzle sticks.

Now, what the hell
had she been thinking? Something ... something about the computer’s calculations
...

Mulling over the
numbers in her head, Darlene logged on to RFComSec, transmitted the computer’s
data. She considered requesting a patch-through to Xris. But what would she
tell him? That a fingernail file in her door had moved? That something in her
room had gone
snick’!

She logged off.

“Fifteen minutes
to Jump. All passengers should be in the prone position, their webbing securely
fastened ...”

Darlene tuned the
voice out. She ordered the computer to continue working, sat back down in her
chair, mulled over the computer’s findings in her head. Her abstracted gaze
went once more to the window, to the black backdrop of space, the stars slowly
meandering past.

That was it! She
knew the Lane the robot would take out. She knew why.

Her gaze suddenly
fixed, focused, on the window.

A crack.

Darlene jumped up.
knocking over the chair, and made a dive for the window. The crack was small,
about the length of the tip of her index finger, and located in the bottom
right-hand corner of the steelglass.

But it wouldn’t
stay small. Not in deep space. Not with the pressurized cabin.

As she watched,
Darlene saw the crack extend another centimeter.

In that instant,
she put everything together. Her first emotion was relief. She wasn’t paranoid,
delusional, or overdosing on estrogen! Her instincts had been right!

She had time. Not
much, but some. She needed evidence.

Thinking back to
the moment she’d entered the room, she saw the flash of reflected light. Near
the window.

Light reflecting
off metal. Not a gun barrel....

The crack had
grown to about ten centimeters now; the pressure inside the room causing it to
expand rapidly. In the back of her mind was the horrific vision of what would
have happened to her if she hadn’t noticed that minuscule crack. Of the window
blowing from the pressure. Being sucked out into the frigid, deadly darkness.

The crack was
about half a meter long now and extending rapidly, insidiously.

Dropping down to
her hands and knees, Darlene searched the carpet beneath the window.

She couldn’t find
it.

It had to be here!
She slid her hand over the carpeting on the deck, felt something hard jab into
the heel of her palm.

Breathing a sigh,
she snatched up the tiny metal object, clutched it tightly. She ran across the
room, hit the button.

The door slid open.
The two stewards were at their posts, near the door. One was reporting in on
the comm.

“Number
one-seven-six is still giving us trouble. According to the sensors, she’s not
in her bed.”

Darlene grabbed
hold of the nearest arm, shook it.

“There’s a crack
in my window!” she cried. “You’ve got to evacuate this part of the ship!”

“Now, look, Ms.
Rowan ...” began the male steward, exasperated.

“We’ve had just
about enough, Ms. Rowan,” said the female steward.

“Goddammit! There’s
a crack in my window and it’s spreading! It’s going to blow! See for yourself!”

Darlene dragged
the man inside the room. Marching him over to the window, she pointed.

The steward peered
at the steelglass.

“Ms. Rowan, I don’t
see—” He suddenly went very white. “A crack ...”

He stared at it a
disbelieving instant, then he was back on the comm, his voice shaking.

“Emergency! This
is Steward Boseman. I’m reporting a crack in the window of one-seven-six. It’s
spreading fast.”

“Exit the room
immediately,” came the operator’s cool, well-trained response. “I repeat, exit
immediately. Leave all personal belongings.”

Alarms began their
pulse-stopping blare. A rumble shook the ship. Blast doors started closing.
Metal panels began to slide across the window, coming down from the top—the
Jump shields being lowered in an effort to keep the window from exploding. But
the shields were moving slowly. The crack wasn’t.

And there, on the
desk, Darlene’s computer. It had arrived at the calculations a split second
before Darlene. Taking into account all the variables, it had selected the Lane
the robot was most likely to take out next.

“This is
not
a drill. Repeat,” came the announcement over the comm. “This is
not
a
drill. Put on your pressurized suits and helmets and proceed to the nearest
emergency station. Parents, put your own suits on first and then help your
children.”

Darlene dodged
around the steward, who was yelling at her to get out, and picked up the
computer. She made a grab for the case, but the steward, catching hold of her
around the waist, hauled her out of the room. Outside in the corridor,
passengers wearing pressure suits and helmets were being herded toward the
blast doors at the end of the hall.

“The white lights
on the floor lead to the emergency stations. Keep calm. The white lights on the
floor lead to the emergency station. Keep calm. The white lights ...”

Darlene and the
two stewards ran headlong into the arms of the ship’s emergency squad. Suited
out in pressure suits with helmets and oxygen masks, three members of the
emergency team, armed with repair kits and canisters of sealant, dashed into
the room.

They dashed out
again almost immediately.

“Too late! Get
going!”

Two men grabbed
Darlene by her elbows and hustled her down the corridor. At the end, they
literally threw her through one of the rapidly closing blast doors. The
stewards stumbled in behind her. The emergency crew ran in last.

“Is everyone out?”
someone asked.

“They better be,”
said one of the crew grimly.

The blast doors
shut.

Out of breath and
shaking, Darlene stared at the rest of the passengers. They crouched in the
corridor, wearing their protective gear, staring back at her through the
bubbles of their helmets. Someone jammed a helmet on her head, hooked her up to
oxygen tanks. Someone else told her to sit down. She sat, holding on tightly to
her computer.

A muffled
explosion sounded from behind the blast doors. The ship rocked as if it had
been hit by a missile. The lights went out. For an instant, the ship was
horribly, terrifyingly dark. Someone screamed—an odd sound, muffled by the
helmet. Then the emergency lights switched on. That was almost worse than the
darkness. Harsh white light illuminated frightened faces, casting strange
shadows, making the familiar suddenly alien.

The ship listed.
Darlene’s helmeted head struck the bulkheads. She was flattened against the
deck. Someone opposite her was sliding toward her. A hot-water line broke;
water spewed from a pipe overhead, pattering down on their helmets, sounding
like a rainstorm. Steam filled the corridor, adding to the nightmare quality.

And then the ship
slowly righted itself. The captain came over the emergency comm, announced that
the situation was under control; all passengers were to remain where they were
and follow the directions given to them by the crew.

They would not, he
added, be making the Jump to hyperspace.

Darlene edged her
way out of the beam of bright light, kept to the shadows. Somewhere in that
corridor, perhaps, was the Hung assassin. He would be wondering if he’d
succeeded or failed. He couldn’t know, wouldn’t be able to see her in her
helmet in the darkness.

Darlene sat in the
shadows, her computer hugged in her arms, and grinned.

The cruise ship
limped, wounded, through space. The blast had destroyed Darlene’s stateroom and
taken out most of the adjoining cabins. The damage extended far into the bowels
of the ship, severing the main electronics trunk line, the main power grid, and
the water mains. All communications were down, both internal and external. The
damage teams acted quickly. The water was shut off. Internal comms were
reestablished.

Passengers were
permitted to return to their cabins. All but one passenger, who was arrested.

The captain went
back on the comm, explained to the passengers what had happened, assured them
that the ship was in no danger, stated that the emergency mayday signal had
been activated and that they could expect help to arrive within the hour. In
the meantime, passengers could remove their pressurized suits and helmets. They
were requested to remain in their cabins. The stewards would be around to serve
everyone free drinks, compliments of the captain.

Darlene, held
under guard in a room off the bridge, was not offered a free drink. His
announcement completed, the captain entered the small room. He stood glaring at
her.

“I don’t know what
kind of sicko you are, lady,” the captain stated, barely able to talk, anger
squeezing his voice tight, “and I don’t know how the hell you managed to crack
the steelglass in that window, but—by God— I’m going to see that you’re charged
with sabotage, attempted murder, and anything else I can think of!”