The explosion Derec expected never came. Avery merely said, “That’s fine. Everybody should hate something. But from now on you are to consider my every whim to be a direct order for you to perform. You will be alert for these whims of mine. You will neither intrude excessively nor hesitate in carrying them out, but will instead be as efficient and unobtrusive as possible. Do I make myself clear?”
“You do. I wish to-”
“Your wishes don’t concern me. My wishes do. And I preferred your former shape.”
Lucius became a blur of transformation, the gears and pulleys blending once again into a smooth humanoid form.
“There, you see?” Avery said to Derec. “You just have to know how to talk to them.” He picked up his fork and stabbed a bite of egg, put it in his mouth, and said around the mouthful, “I’ve had lots of practice. You were a lot like that as a child, you know. Rebellious and resentful. A parent has to learn how to handle that early on.”
“May I speak?” Lucius asked.
“Not for a while. Use this time to think instead. And get me a cup of coffee.”
Lucius moved at once to obey. Avery looked over to Adam and Eve, still sitting silently at the table. Their eyes had been upon Avery all along, though, and it was obvious they were waiting for him to lower the boom on them as well.
He held their gaze for what seemed an eternity even to Derec, who felt that he could cut the tension between them with a knife.
At last Avery broke the spell. “Boo,” he said and turned his attention back to his breakfast.
It was a quiet day on board the Wild Goose Chase. The ship had made its first jump on schedule in the night, and was now coasting at high speed through the waypoint star system toward the next jump point, which it would reach early the next morning. There was little to do in the meantime save look out at the stars, read, or play games. The robots were making themselves scarce, save for Lucius, who followed Avery like a shadow wherever he went. Even Mandelbrot was more taciturn than usual, no doubt trying to decide for himself where he fit into the general scheme of things as they now stood.
Derec decided to show Wolruf how to play chess, but gave it up when the alien insisted that the pieces should move in packs. He spent the rest of the day with a book, and went to bed early. Wolruf also went to bed, expressing her faith in the automatic controls to make the jump on schedule without her.
Derec surprised himself by actually being able to sleep with no one at the helm. Evidently boredom was a stronger force than worry. He managed to escape both in dreams, but his dreams ended suddenly in the middle of the night when he awoke with a start to the shrill howl of an alarm. He sat up and called on the light, trying to shake the sleep from his head enough to decide what to do next.
“What’s the matter?” Ariel asked sleepily. She sat up beside him, gathering the sheet around her as if for protection.
“I don’t know. I’ll go see.” Derec made to get out of bed.
“Why don’t you just ask?” Ariel was always quicker to wake up than he was.
“Oh. Yeah.” What ’ s going on? he sent out over the comlink.
General alert,a featureless voice replied. The autopilot, no doubt. Life support system failure.
Life support! Derec suddenly felt his breath catch. What happened to it?
The oxygen regeneration system has failed.
He let his breath out again in a sigh of relief. Oxygen regeneration was serious, but not as serious as, say, a breach in the hull. They weren’t actually losing air, at least.
“There’s a problem with the oxygen regenerator,” he said to Ariel. “Come on, let’s see how bad it is.”
As they pulled on their robes and stepped out into the hallway, Derec realized that the best thing to do in a case like this was to go back to sleep and reduce their oxygen consumption while the robots fixed the problem, but the time to think of that would have been before the alarm woke everyone up, not after. He couldn’t have slept now unless he were drugged, and he had no intention of drugging himself in the middle of an emergency.
Shut off the alarm,he sent, and relative quiet descended upon the ship. There was still the clatter of feet and voices coming from the other bedrooms. Derec heard Avery demanding loudly that Lucius find his pants, and across the hall Wolruf howled something in her own tongue.
Ariel was already headed for the common room. Derec followed her down the hallway, through the now-unfurnished room, and through the open door beside the automat into the back part of the ship where the engines and other machinery stood.
The smell alerted him even before he saw the flickering glow or heard the crackle of flame. Something furry was burning. He looked over Ariel’s head and saw flame silhouetting three robots, Adam and Eve and Mandelbrot, who were all emptying fire extinguishers into the blaze. A lot more than just something furry was burning.
“Look out!” Ariel shouted, backing up and bumping into Derec as a tongue of flame shot out, engulfing one of the robots.
Derec reacted with almost instinctive speed. Wrapping an arm around Ariel, he pulled her back into the common room, shouted, “Door close!” and even as it began to slide shut added, “Make this door airtight and vent the engine room to space!”
The door shut with a soft thump, seemed to melt until it was just a ripple in the wall, then hardened. From beyond came a loud whoosh, diminishing quickly to silence.
Mandlebrot!Derec sent. Can you hear me?
I am receiving your transmission,Mandelbrot replied, always the stickler for accuracy.
Are you okay?
I am functional; however, I am drifting away from the ship.
“Frost!” Derec said aloud. “I blew Mandelbrot out into space along with the fire! “ He turned and ran for the control room, sending, Hang on, old buddy. We ’ re coming after you. How about Adam and Eve? Are you guys still there?
We are,another voice sent, and the fire is extinguished. We will assess the damage while you retrieve Mandelbrot.
No!Mandelbrot sent. You must not. The engines could have been damaged in the fire.
I ’ lljust use the attitude controls, then.
Whatever Mandelbrot said to that, Derec never heard it. He collided headfirst with Avery as Avery came out of his bedroom, sending both of them sprawling on the floor.
“Why don’t you look where you’re going for a change?” Avery growled. “What’s going on around here, anyway?”
“Fire in the engine room,” Derec answered, getting to his feet and offering Avery a hand up. Lucius, still under Avery’s orders, beat him to it. Derec shrugged and dropped his hand. “We’ve got it out, but Mandelbrot got blown into space. I’m going after him.”
“What burned?”
Avery’s question reminded Derec that they had other problems than just a robot overboard. Some part of him hadn’t wanted to face that just yet, still didn’t, but Ariel was standing just behind him and she said, “Life support. The whole recycling system was on fire.”
“What?”
Derec felt tempted to say, “You should have your hearing checked,” but he suppressed the urge. Instead he said, “See for yourself, but be careful. The engine room is still in vacuum.” He moved around Avery and on toward the control room, Ariel in tow.