The Disciple and Other Stories of the Paranormal (8 page)

Space is nothing but a lot of blackness. Ric
had said that frequently. He’d been right. And the derelict was
truly a ship of space.

Helene had never been inside a ship that
was, for all intents and purposes, completely black and dead. The
ones planet-side weren’t dead, merely dormant. And they were always
lit.

The ones in space that were derelict were
normally not in one piece. No one left an intact spaceship floating
aimlessly. They were worth too much. The ones that were whole, or
mostly so, weren’t like this ship. Nothing she’d seen was like this
ship.

She’d had to turn on the light in her helmet
she normally used only when she was outside the
Searcher
,
and Bin’s eyes were working like headlamps. The three streams of
light seemed weak in here, though, as if the darkness was
swallowing them up.

Bin had been correct – there was no gravity
system, at least not one that was on. They floated through the
ghost ship as if they were floating through space itself.

“
Any sign of life or a way
to turn on light?” she asked Bin quietly.

“
Neither so
far.”

They went on, hand over hand in the dark,
pulling themselves along. There were handholds welded onto the
walls of the corridor they were in. Either there was no gravitation
system on the ship, or it had been expected to fail regularly.
Helene moved her head so her helmet light shone above her. There
were handholds along the roof, too.

She could have turned on her boots and had
them magnetize to the floor. But this ship was ancient and she
didn’t want to risk harming it. For all she knew, the magnetic pull
of her boots or Bin’s feet would rip the flooring up.

The darkness meant they needed to move
slowly, lest they hit into something and injure either the ship or
themselves. So it took some time to reach the bridge. The effort
hardly seemed worth the work to get there.

Two chairs sat in front of an archaic
control panel and a windshield that didn’t look nearly thick enough
for safety. It certainly wasn’t enhanced with telescopic sight,
gelatinous reinforcement, or anything else remotely helpful. It was
just thick glass. Helene suppressed a shudder.

There were controls – buttons, levers,
switches – along the ceiling and the sides of this cockpit. She
could see how current spacecraft had evolved from this one, but
this one was much more complex, every action spelled out in the
controls.

“
They managed to fly with
this level of tech?” Helene asked as Bin ran his metal hands over
the controls. “It makes me feel much better about the
Searcher
than ever before.”

“
Yes. The human spirit is
impressive. And, for the time, this was quite advanced. Autopilot
systems share that external damages appear slight. Internal
structure seems sound – this glass is not cracked, I detect no
signs of hull breach, no matter how slight.”

“
Can you hook into this
ship’s computer? I don’t want to drain our ship’s power, but light
would be helpful.”

Bin was quiet for a few long minutes. “I’ve
analyzed this system, and the answer is no. Spacecraft such as this
ran on fuel, not self-generating power packs. The technology is so
far behind ours that we would cause our own ship harm even trying
to connect. And since we’ll have to tow this back, we can’t afford
the energy waste.”

Helene sighed. “I didn’t expect a better
answer. I would have liked one, mind you. Any chance we can access
the ship’s log?”

“
No, not without turning
it back on. But…”

“
But?”

“
I can’t find the distress
beacon. There is one here, but it’s not activated.”

“
Well then, let’s do a
fast search for the beacon’s source as well as cataloging
everything that’s on this derelict, attach towing cables, and head
for Earth.”

They floated from room to room, the only
sounds the ones they made. Bin might not have been the newest
robot, but he was very good with cataloging quickly and accurately.
Not that there was much to catalog.

“
Who goes into space with
nothing?” Helene asked, as they finished inventory on the last of
the eight berths.

“
Robots such as myself
could.”

“
But wouldn’t they be
here, waiting?”

“
Presumably. I am confused
just as you are. No reading matter seems…odd.”

“
No clothing seems
odder.”

They entered the galley. It was the first
place where actual signs of life existed, albeit faint signs. The
cutlery, cups and plates were all put away, service for eight. The
table had eight chairs, four on each side, all shoved in and neat.
Everything was very neat.

“
I’m leaning towards
robots,” Helene said. “This room is very…precise.”

“
Everything has been
precise,” Bin agreed. “However, robots don’t need to eat.” He held
the pantry door open – there were a variety of canisters. Flour,
sugar, yeast, and other staples, along with a wide array of
hydrogenated foods.

“
So where are the crew?
Could they have turned to dust after all this time?”

“
Unlikely. In ancient
times, skeletons were found after thousands of years. If they were
on board, we should find signs of them. Perhaps in the engine or
the hold.”

“
Lead on.” Helene opened
the last drawer near her. Empty. No, not quite. There was something
shoved way in the back “Wait.” She pulled out a small book. “I’ve
found the ship’s log.”

“
What does it
say?”

She opened it and sighed. “I can’t read it.
I don’t know what language it’s in.”

Bin came and took the book. “Hmmm. It’s not
Old English, nor Old Chinese, nor any of the other main languages
from pre-expansion times. I’ll run a recognition protocol while we
check the engine room.”

“
Good. Be careful of the
log, though. It could be worth as much as the ship.”

Helene led so that Bin could focus on
inputting the ship’s log. Why it had been shoved into a drawer made
no sense. Then again, so far, nothing about this derelict made
sense.

They crawled down the shaft that led from
the galley to the lower level and exited the shaft in the engine
room. What Helene understood about rocket engines wouldn’t have
filled the first page of their ancient notebook, but it was clear
this engine was turned off. She looked for signs of breakage. “Bin,
am I wrong in thinking there’s nothing broken here?”

“
Not so far as I can tell.
It seems as though this vessel merely ran out of power and has been
floating through space since then.”

“
Was it leaving Earth or
coming back?”

“
Based on its position
when found, and presuming it hasn’t been knocked off course by
asteroids or similar, leaving.”

“
Heading for what? There’s
nothing out here but the blackness of deep space. And there’s no
way anyone back then was foolish enough to send a vessel like this
into the deep, was there?”

“
Unlikely. Manned
pre-expansion vessels were used to explore Earth’s solar system,
not go beyond. I’m done with the engine. If we had sufficient and
correct power sources, I believe it would be
space-worthy.”

“
On to the hold, then. And
then we can get off this undead thing.”

“
Undead?”

“
There’s no life on board,
but the ship doesn’t feel dead to me. It’s not a normal derelict,
and it’s abnormally quiet and tidy.”

“
Is the stillness
bothering you?”

“
In a way. I feel
like…this ship has been here waiting. But for what?”

“
Perhaps for us. To bring
it home and therefore back to life.”

“
Bin, you’re a
romantic.”

“
In my own robotic way, I
suppose I am.” Bin looked around. “I see no escape
pods.”

“
Could they have been
used?”

“
Perhaps, but so far, I
see no sign of where they could have been, or a door that would
lead to an external pod.”

They reached the hold. It was empty other
than for eight crates, sitting neatly side by side in the exact
center. “Could these crates hold the belongings of each of the
crew?”

“
We may not be able to
tell. There are no handholds that will allow us to reach the
crates. We either need to try to float to them, or use the
magnetization in our feet. And, before you protest, I know you’re
concerned about said magnetization harming the vessel. I
agree.”

“
So, we float? Or we mark
the boxes and go home?”

“
I suppose one pass won’t
hurt. The hold is not so large that we won’t bump into a convenient
wall within a few moments.”

Helene shoved off, pointing herself towards
the nearest crate. She’d aimed well and caught the side. “That was
easy.”

Bin joined her. “Yes. Unsurprisingly, these
crates are marked in the same language as the log.”

“
Can you read it
yet?”

“
No, still trying to find
a linguistic match.”

“
No symbols. Meaning no
way for us to guess if the contents are dangerous or benign.”
Helene ran her gloved hand over the boxes. “These are made from
wood, aren’t they?”

“
Yes, they appear to be
pine.”

“
That means this is from
Earth, then, doesn’t it?”

“
Presumably.”

Helene moved carefully along the boxes,
holding onto the sides. “They’re all the same size, about seven
feet in length, four feet high, and about three feet wide.” She
wanted to open one, but resisted the impulse. Just because she
expected to find these crates empty didn’t mean they weren’t rigged
with something.

“
Three inches in between
each box,” Bin added.

The perfection of everything inside the ship
moved from a minor worry to a full-fledged concern. “Bin,
everything’s too perfectly placed. There’s nothing holding these
boxes in these positions. They’d shift in travel, especially in a
hold this empty.”

Bin was quiet for a long moment. “True. I’ve
never seen humans achieve this level of perfection.”

“
We can do it whenever an
inspection’s looming, or company is coming.”

“
While we could be
considered company, there is no one on board to prep for our
unexpected arrival. Oh, I have determined that the distress beacon
is coming from one of the crates.”