Hawk said, “What was that, Maddie?”
She shook her head, but ignored the question. She took a long swallow of gin. “Christ, I’m drunk. What a mess, what a bloody awful mess it all is! I’m going home!” And she stood unsteadily and weaved her way between the tables.
We hurried after her, down the stairs and out into the clement, scented night.
We walked along the sea-front, around the bay.
“I’ll give you a lift, Maddie,” Hawk said.
She murmured a thank you.
I said, “I’m having a house-warming in a few days. Or should that be a ship-warming? Why don’t you both come along for dinner?”
Maddie looked at me. “Would you invite Matt, too?”
“Of course, if you think he’d accept.”
“I’m sure he would.”
I watched Maddie climb into Hawk’s battered roadster: she made sure that no part of her flesh touched the seat.
The car lifted and wafted off into the night, and I hurried around the bay towards the waiting Mantis.
I was a little drunk, but not sufficiently to ward off the nightmares. When I reached home I sat in the lounge with a bottle of imported scotch and stared out across the silvered waters of the bay, admiring the view and going over the events of the evening.
FIVE
I was spared the nightmares, but the following night I was visited by even stranger visions.
I’d spent the day making small repairs around the ship and setting out my few belongings, the books I’d brought from Earth, the few pictures I’d not discarded in the general clear out and minimisation of my life when I decided to emigrate.
I cooked myself a Thai curry—practising what I would give to my new friends when they came later in the week—and finished off with a few double scotches while watching the sun set and the water of the bay turn silver in the light of the Ring.
It was midnight by the time I staggered to bed, fearing as always the return of the nightmare. Thanks to the alcohol I was asleep instantly.
I came awake in the early hours. I sat up, surprised that it was not the visions that had forced me from sleep, and then curious as to what had awoken me. Not a noise—the ship was silent around me—but a glow emanating from beyond the open door of my room.
I pulled on my trousers and cautiously, aware of my heartbeat, slipped from the room and trod along the corridor towards the lounge.
I stopped on the threshold, staring.
An insubstantial figure stood with its back to me, before the pedestal which, when the ship had been in working order, had housed the control matrix. The figure glowed green, giving off the only light in the room, and through it I could make out the lines of the far side of the chamber, as if it were a ghost or a projected image.
Even stranger than the fact of its presence was what the figure was doing. Lines of some bizarre script hung in the air before it, scrolling columns I was unable to make out. As I watched, the figure reached up and swiftly, with quick taps of its long index finger, touched certain characters and thus effected their disappearance.
I say ‘it’ for the figure was not human.
With its back to me, I was unable to determine just what race the alien belonged to: it was tall, attenuated, appearing more amphibian than mammal, scaled and fluked, with a very thin skull. I fancied that, should it turn towards me, I would have seen the narrow, puckered face of a fish. I recalled the fleeting vision I had had on my first night aboard the ship: it had been one and the same.
I was in no way alarmed. I knew I was not being visited by intruders, or haunted by spectres. There was a rational explanation behind the figure’s appearance. It was a projection, I thought, an alien light show.
I took a step forward, about to say something—some inane greeting or question—when instantly the vision vanished, and along with it the scrolling script.
I looked around the lounge, trying to find the source of the projection. I wondered how much of the ship’s original circuitry and software Hawk had left intact when he salvaged the vessel from the jungle. No doubt some malfunctioning holographic sub-routine was responsible for the alien apparition.
I returned to bed, slept soundly for the rest of the night, and awoke just after dawn. A gaggle of spearbills, which had taken to perching on the back of the starship, set up a melodic morning chorus. I recalled the exhibition of the previous evening, and then, belatedly, remembered my silent alien visitor.
I spent the rest of the morning crawling through the ship’s inspection vents, checking circuitry and relays. I learned a lot about how the thing was put together—and was surprised at how much of it was still intact—but was none the wiser as to how the spectral extraterrestrial might have manifested itself.
In the afternoon I sat before my com-terminal and accessed Chalcedony’s information nexus. I called up facts about all the space-faring alien races known to humankind, their history and space-going exploits.
There were three races whose level of technological progress had reached that of humankind—or almost: humanity was the first race to discover and develop the teleportation process, rendering spaceflight obsolete. Two alien races, the Zexu and the Qlax, had abandoned their space industry and paid humanity to use the Telemass relay stations. The third, the Mathan, were isolationist and maintained their space-fleet for use within their own three planet home system, and rarely ventured beyond.
I called up visuals of the races, though I vaguely recalled their appearances from holo-docs and magazines on Earth: the Zexu were humanoid, not dissimilar to Homo sapiens, if you discounted their fur and the fact that they were twice as tall as the tallest human; the Qlax were octopoid, and the Mathan tiny—creatures a metre tall which resembled bush babies.
I then called up the visuals of every non-space-faring alien race discovered, thinking that whoever had maintained the ship might have employed crew of lower technological status than themselves. But of the two dozen alien races extant, not one matched the apparition I had seen the night before.
I wondered if the answer was that the figure had never been the true representation of an extraterrestrial type, but merely a holographic image conjured by the ship’s owners—the alien equivalent of a cartoon character.
I took a break at lunch and, instead of repairing to the Fighting Jackeral for my customary beer and salad, had a quick sandwich and got back to work.
Something about the dimensions of the ship, which I had noticed while pulling myself through its innards, had made me wonder.
I made a series of measurements: the height of consoles, acceleration slings, and control pedestals; the width of inspection crawl-spaces, corridors and access tubes, and tried to work out from these which race might have manufactured and flown the ship.
I estimated that they must have been taller than humans, the Qlax and the Mathan, but not as tall as the Zexu… Which begged the question: had the ship belonged to none of the known races, but to one so far undiscovered? The thought filled me with a quickening excitement. I had visions of fame at being the first person to discover an unknown alien race; but I came back to earth when I considered the improbability of this scenario. The obvious answer was that my calculations were way out.
Tomorrow I’d go and see Hawk at his scrapyard, tell him about the haunted ship he’d sold me and go through the figures with him. I was sure his practical mind would come up with a more prosaic answer.
I was about to take a shower, then slip out for a beer at the Jackeral, when I heard a familiar and welcome voice call out from the foot of the ramp.
“David, are you in there?”
I hurried out, wiping my greasy hands on a rag.