“I think we can arrange that,” Katrina said.
Because of their budding business relationship, Katrina killed Mignon swiftly and painlessly, using a clear and tasteless poison in her sparkling rum and cola. Mignon even made sure to drink it next to the fountain so she would crumple and fall into the water, making a terrific scene.
Job done, Katrina decided to enjoy the party and see what information she could gather about this starship project. It was difficult, as some people shut up when a corporate assassin dropped into a conversation, but it turned out people felt very strongly about the project and several arguments peppered the party.
Most of the humans and clones she encountered were in favor of the trip, but had some hesitations. It was a good thing for someone else to do. A few were determined to stay here and enjoy the extra breathing room.
“I heard they’re going to employ criminals to drive the ship,” one clone executive, Pablo Hernandez, said in a hushed conversation. “I’m not putting my faith in that.”
“You wear diamonds mined by slaves and hire assassins to work in marketing. Why are you suddenly too good to ride on a spaceship driven by criminals?” huffed one of the women in the group, and they fell into peals of laughter.
“First on a planet, having to build civilization from the ground up?” Pablo scoffed. “Latrine trenches? No, thank you.”
The woman who had spoken tossed her black hair and said, “Oh, please. They’ll bring a whole server’s worth of servants to build it. They won’t wake up the people till something is already built. Some years, and lives, are expendable.”
A few hours later, Pablo was killed in a corporate assassination. Second of the night: that made it a very good party indeed. The party changed tune after that, as more alcohol flowed and no one else was around to disapprove of the possible crew in charge of the Dormire.
Katrina never found out who killed Pablo. She supposed it was a moot point anyway.
The next day, she called Sallie, who had just woken up in her new cloned body.
“I’m in,” she said.
Bebe
Day 2
July 26, 2493
Maria hadn’t gone back to the kitchen the previous night. After her rest, she had pinged Hiro via tablet and he had answered, swearing loudly, and told her they would do it in the morning.
Normally, after such abuse, Maria wouldn’t have waited for him. She decided to write off Hiro and his messed-up mood swings and deal with the printer herself. Unfortunately, she found out the manual to set the machine up was on a drive inside the box, and only in Japanese.
“We have traveled to the dark ages,” she muttered, flipping through for Spanish or English directions.
She tried pinging Hiro again and got a sleepy “Go the fuck away” on his answer.
“I need you for translation, the manual is only in Japanese,” she said.
“Then that’s your fucking fault for not buying the right version. I will help you in the morning, leave me the fuck alone.” He severed the connection.
There is no backup, she reminded herself, and shivered. If someone attacked her now, it would be the end. She hurried down the silent halls of the ship and entered her rooms, checked the lock on her door, and collapsed on the bed. She slept for the next seven hours.
The next morning, Wolfgang and Joanna were in the kitchen before Maria got there, messing with her food printer, which put Maria in a worse mood than she already was in.
She hadn’t slept well, wondering about the circumstances of the day and the crew, running through her conversation with Hiro in her mind. And she had yet to eat, which was very bad for a clone. New clones were like newborn babies, needing considerable sustenance to start their new lives.
The new food printer lurked in the box that they’d brought from the storage room the night before.
“Where have you been?” Wolfgang demanded. “You were supposed to work through the night.”
“Ask my translator,” Maria said. “Hiro wouldn’t talk to me once he got back to his rooms. And I needed him because for some reason we’re in the world before translated manuals. This”—she slammed her hand on the food printer box—“only comes with Japanese instructions. Did you two sleep at all?”
“A bit,” Joanna said. “But we figured if we were going to eat anything, we needed to test and clear the printer.” They were handling the old food printer with plastic gloves, taking samples from both the intake valves and the delivery nozzles. Maria no longer thought of it as the food printer, but as a great monster that vomited forth poison. With its one baleful round light that turned from red to green when the deadly meal was done, it clearly was the Cyclops.
The Cyclops sat atop the silver counter like a tall oven. It looked out of place, sitting beside a larger cavity as if the kitchen had been built for a larger appliance.
Watching them take samples from the printer, Maria felt a sudden sense of violation, even though she knew it was a good idea to clear the kitchen as soon as possible. “Just take the whole thing. I can’t put this one together with you two in the way, and if that one is making hemlock, then we need to trash it regardless. I’m going to go ahead and get the new printer going.”
“I thought you had to wait for Hiro?” Wolfgang said.
“I can get it out of the box without instructions,” Maria snapped. She filled the kettle and put it on the heating element.
While the water heated, she went to a storage closet in the far corner of the kitchen, beside the pantry. Inside were several replacement parts, spare kitchen tools, and a toolbox. The entire thing was in disarray due to the grav drive mishap, but at least the toolbox had remained shut where it had fallen among spare smaller appliances. She put “sort all kitchen items” on her mental list, but at a very low priority.
“Any word on the cloning bay fixes?” she asked, coming out of the storage room.
“Not yet,” Joanna said from her position in front of the sink. “But I won’t relax until I know we have new bodies growing.”
“If whoever did this was dedicated, right now is the perfect time to start killing again,” Maria said.
Wolfgang grunted. “We should have guards at the cloning bay to prevent further sabotage.”
Joanna sighed. “Guard the cloning bay. Fix the nav system. Investigate the murder. Wake up the captain’s clone. And do our everyday jobs to keep the ship moving. There are only six of us, Wolfgang. How do you figure this working out?”
“Don’t forget fix IAN,” Maria said.
“I’m functioning, Ms. Arena,” said a voice from the speakers. “Admittedly at about forty percent, but improving all the while.”
Wolfgang swore as Maria laughed aloud in relief. “IAN, welcome back. When did you come online?”
“And why didn’t anyone tell us?” Wolfgang demanded.