The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [103]
I resisted the temptation to sit where I wasn’t supposed to, or to request a formal agenda, or even to question Lowenthal’s assumption that he could play chairman. I tried, instead, to measure Niamh Horne’s reaction to Lowenthal’s presumption. Because her face was a mask and her eyes were machines, though, there was no expression to be read therein.
“So far,” Lowenthal said, “we’ve been wasting our time in accusations and recriminations. I think we have to accept that none of us knows why we have been taken prisoner, or by whom. Perhaps we’ll be told, in due course, but we can’t rely on it. In the meantime, we’re all in the same boat and we ought to try to work together, as constructively as possible.”
“Assuming that there’s anything constructive to do,” Niamh Horne added, but not in a challenging way.
“I’m not suggesting that we form an escape committee,” Lowenthal went on, keeping his own voice light. “I’m merely suggesting that we collaborate in assessing our situation and trying to figure out how we ought to react to it. I think we can take it for granted that we’re on some kind of spaceship, albeit a very old one — or one constructed according to a very old blueprint. It seems likely that the apparent gravity is simulated by acceleration, but I can’t believe we’re heading out of the system. Do you have anything useful to add to those conclusions, Mr. Tamlin?”
I was slightly surprised to find myself in the hot seat so soon, but I had already had time to think about what I ought and ought not to share with my companions — and what I wanted them to share with me.
“All I know for certain,” I said, modestly, “is that the person I saw looked human, and that the medical apparatus immediately available to her is primitive even by the standards of my time. She seemed to me to be telling the truth when she said that she’d like to explain but that she and her companion were engaged in difficult negotiations with other parties who want us kept in the dark.”
“Companion?” Horne echoed. “In the singular?”
“That’s what she said,” I confirmed. Hopeful of setting up a fair trade of information, I was quick to add: “Does anyone have a means of determining exactly how long we were asleep? That might offer a clue as to how long we’ve been traveling, where we might have been delivered to, and where we might be going.”
Lowenthal exchanged glances with Niamh Horne and Davida Berenike Columella. “I don’t have any way to estimate the interval,” he said.
“Nor I,” said Niamh Horne. If anyone was lying, it was most likely to be her, and she was sufficiently conscious of the fact to make a conciliatory gesture. “If it will help,” she said, “I’m prepared to concede that whoever subverted Child of Fortune’s systems must have had inside assistance. My first thought, having accepted that, is that the ship itself must have been the real target, and that the journey to Excelsior merely provided the opportunity. Seizing control of an AI as sophisticated as the ship’s controller must have required a subversive program of awesome ingenuity, but that’s not unimaginable. What puzzles me, however, is what can have happened afterwards. It’s possible that we have simply been marooned in a convenient location while Child of Fortune has been taken elsewhere. Excelsior should have been able to keep track of the ship as it moved away, and its inhabitants must have raised the alarm immediately. If that’s the case, rescuers must already be on their way. If not…” She was content to leave the extrapolation of that possibility to us.
It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder whether the ship might have been the real target of the snatch, and that we tourists might have been mere inconveniences to be casually shoved out of the way. If that were so, it might help to explain our present surroundings — but it raised other questions.
“So who might want to hijack a Titanian spaceship?” I asked.
Niamh Horne didn’t answer that, but several other pairs of eyes flickered in Lowenthal’s direction.
“I’m flattered that you think me capable