Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [14]
Are you in distress?
‘Insignia?’
I do not know that one.
‘Who are you?’
I am Sal. The strength of your brain patterns roused me. I have not communed in a long while.
Mira’s breath caught in her throat. ‘A-a biozoon. Are you a hybrid?’
My current sentient companion is not an Intuit so enmeshment is not viable. I travel adequately as an AI, although he has shut down my feeders. My previous companion was not an Intuit either but he still allowed me to feed. I miss him.
‘But your feeders keep you . . .’
Sane? Is that what you think? ‘No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness…What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and reason correctly from them…Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music… Sanity calms but—’
‘Sal?’
Who are you? I ordered no live feed for dinner.
‘But I thought you…’
I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
Mira clasped her head to stop the nonsensical prattle. ‘I am in difficulty. May I come in?’
Her mind suddenly fell silent as if the voice had never existed. Only the pop of the pressure seal on the shiplock persuaded her that it had been real.
Lifting the hem of her fellala she stepped inside. A motion-sensor alarm immediately began to pulse. She hesitated—perhaps she should leave? But the hatch swung closed, sucking in stale station air with it.
Haaahaa . . . I have you now . . .
‘Sal?’ Did the ship mean her harm? Mira tried to remember what the tube’s status light had shown—holding, she thought.
She felt her way deeper inside, following the gradient downwards to what she supposed was the cargo hold. Her eyes adjusted slowly in the dim interior light and dizziness forced her to cling to the cooling metal railing. Blasts of air poured from the enormous air-conditioning vents above her.
She descended a narrow set of stairs. When she reached the bottom she stood among shadowy crates, wondering what to do next.
Sal?
The biozoon remained silent but she could feel its presence as if it were . . . sulking.
A whine of hydraulics started up and a lift cage clunked free from the ceiling. Mira ducked between the crates. Should she just declare her presence? Or would the ship’s captain hand her straight over to the Carabinere?
The lift cage dropped into its floor gig and a Balol with an erect skin frill slid open the cage door and stepped out. She arced torchlight around the hold.
‘Anything?’ The voice came from above, from the railings.
Mira glanced up and saw the outline of a humanesque male: Latino height, but slim.
The Balol made an irritated hissing sound. ‘Maybe . . . if you would turn on the floodlights, Jancz.’
Mira crept backwards on her hands and knees until she found the wall. Feeling her way along she eventually encountered a handle. She eased it up and pushed. The door sucked a little air as it opened.
The Balol swivelled the torch in her direction. ‘Did you hear something?’
Mira didn’t wait for the man’s reply. She slipped through the door and pressed it gently shut. She stood with her eyes closed for a moment and waited.
When she opened them she saw that this section was lit by the same lo-fluorescent nightlights as the rest of the hold. But rather than containing crates it was stacked high with odd round objects, each one at least half her size and crusted with a sticky yellow substance. The smell coming from them was a sweet, pungent odour of decay that made her eyes water. The objects seemed to be exuding heat, and through her tear-stung eyes she thought she could see that they moved a little. There was something about them ... a vague recognition