“Mr. Seurat and Captain de la Cruz woke me up last night. I’ve been working on repairing my own functions and recovering any data I can in the meantime.”
“What have you recovered?” Joanna asked eagerly. “Any recordings of the cloning bay? Any medical logs?”
“Nothing yet,” IAN said, still sounding optimistic and friendly. “But I’m still working.”
“Can you do anything for us in the kitchen this morning? Clear the printer of hemlock? Recover the food logs?” Maria said.
“No, I can’t,” IAN said. “But I can tell you that your metabolisms are running low and you need food very soon.”
“For this we need the most sophisticated AI in the world,” Hiro said, walking into the kitchen. He nodded hello to them all.
“Hiro, IAN is awake—” Wolfgang said, but Hiro cut him off.
“I know,” he said, waving his hand. “He woke me at four this morning and had me working on the navigation system. Turns out that when he got back online we started going back off course. I can’t figure it out, but I figured I’d help out with the food problem, ’cause I’m about to faint or eat Wolfgang, I can’t decide which.” He stopped when he saw Maria staring at him. “What?”
“So you’re going to let what you said to me last night just go unmentioned?” she asked.
Hiro rubbed the back of his head. “Ah, what did I say?”
“You refused to follow orders, that’s what you did,” said Wolfgang. “And we’re hungrier now because of it.”
“You aggressively refused to follow orders,” Maria said. “You were a dick. And frankly kind of scary.”
Wolfgang crossed his arms. “Did he threaten you?”
“He didn’t go that far,” Maria said. “But he definitely scared me.”
“I’m sorry. I am useless when I’m exhausted, and I can get a little testy,” Hiro said, not meeting her eyes.
“So saying, ‘Go eat vacuum, you worthless piece of space janitor shit’—and then something in Japanese I can only assume was unflattering—is ‘a little testy’?”
He looked genuinely horrified. “Oh no, Maria, I’m so sorry. I don’t really think that. Like I said, I just lost my head for a moment.”
Maria looked to Wolfgang. “Being a dick doesn’t make him a murderer.”
“Being aggressive and verbally assaulting a crewmember does put him under suspicion,” he said.
“I’m right here, you can talk to me, you know!” Hiro said. “And we’re all under suspicion! Even—” He closed his mouth abruptly, looking at Wolfgang.
Wolfgang crossed his arms, looking like he was anticipating something. Hiro didn’t say anything else.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” IAN said. “All of his body language is sincere. He really doesn’t remember saying those things.”
“That’s not entirely comforting,” Maria said. “But we have a food printer to put together.” She looked at Hiro and pointed to her tablet on the kitchen counter. “The instructions are there. And don’t speak to me that way again.”
He practically sprinted to get the tablet. The tension in the room broke and the kettle began to sing.
Maria made the tea, getting mugs for everyone while it steeped. “I thought you two were working on autopsies? Did you find any proof of anything?”
“No proof, not yet,” Joanna said. “You were poisoned first, but the others had trace amounts of poison in their system. If they’d stayed alive longer, they would have gotten sick and possibly died. You got the largest amount.”
“Weird,” Maria said.
“Don’t worry about the murder investigation,” Wolfgang said. “Your main concern should be making sure we have a food supply.”
“I’m not sure the captain will agree that testing the food printer when we already know it spits out hemlock is the best use of your time,” she said. “Isn’t this mutiny or something?”
“Mutiny in the kitchens,” Joanna said. “I thought mutiny was a stronger rebellion than testing a food printer.”
“Mutiny would be a direct threat to the captain’s authority,” IAN said. “This doesn’t qualify.”
“I seem to remember hearing that the AI would be better at understanding humor,” Maria said. “Why is he so literal?”
“Forty percent, remember?” Joanna said. “I expect he’ll be better as the day goes on.”
“We are disobeying orders by taking a moment to check on the food printer, but that’s about it,” Wolfgang said, addressing the earlier question and grunting slightly as he helped Maria get the new food printer out of its box. Even in the lower gravity the thing was a monster, but together they managed to get it free of all packing material. Wolfgang returned to the Cyclops and inspected it to see if he had missed unpinning any of the connections.
“But you would have to remove the faulty printer to bring to the medbay for testing anyway,” Joanna said, putting the swabs into a plastic box on her lap. “So we’re cutting out the middleman and letting you do your real job.”
“Okay, you both outrank me, so I’m not going to argue. Besides, I could eat one of you at this point. But I’d probably start with Hiro. He deserves it.”
She ignored his indignant look as she surveyed the printer. She’d never hooked up a printer before.
It was a newer, larger model than the Cyclops. Maybe the upgrade was supposed to be a reward for lasting two hundred years in space or something. It looked large enough to print a farm animal.
“This is gargantuan,” she said, shaking her head. “When would we ever need to print a whole pig?”
“I think we should test it with a pig,” Hiro said. “Put that baby through its paces.”
Together Wolfgang and Maria strained and pushed to edge the printer to the space in the countertop beside where the previous printer had sat. It filled the cavity perfectly, as if they designed the kitchen for the better printer, but then decided at the last minute to give them the smaller Cyclops instead.
“Maria, once you get the printer working, you need to clean out the cloning bay,” Joanna said. “It’s gone from murder scene to biohazard.”
Maria grimaced but didn’t object. It was her job, after all.
Wolfgang tested the old food printer to see if he could carry it himself. He strained and staggered, but then hefted it and trudged out of the kitchen.
“How many more years do we have to travel with that guy?” Maria asked. “I swear I can see myself wanting to start over with zero memories of this trip if he’s like that.”
“He failed, Maria,” Joanna said gently. “He’s taking all of this personally. What happened yesterday was a clear failure of security on levels that we may never fathom. Try to at least see what he’s like when he’s not dealing with one assault, five deaths—six if you count IAN—one multiplication, and hacking by throwing old backups into us.” She paused, counting off the crimes on her fingers. “What else?”
Maria sighed, realizing she was right. “Possible suicide?” She frowned at the food printer. “And making me hook up this printer is a crime in itself. I’ll hurry as much as possible but it could take all day. Hope everyone has protein bars.”
“I found a few in my room, but I wouldn’t eat them unless I had to,” Hiro said.
“You may have to,” Joanna said.