Chapter 15 #2
These parts of the ship, like many others before it, were flooded in perpetual dusk.
Vines and other vegetation had grown awry here, twisting wildly around the light panels, and winding themselves through the holes and cracks in the corridor walls.
A low, sweet smell of rot wafted around them, and the air once again grew humid and sticky.
If Iris had been at the head of their procession, he would have pointed out to Yan that it was strange that the brain of the ship would reside in such warm and humid conditions.
In his experience, ship computers were often kept at unbearably cold temperatures, and this one couldn’t have been different.
But if Jesi was right, and Yan was indeed clever, he was certainly having the same concerns.
As if overhearing his internal musings, Yan traded his position at the helm with Ishtan and joined Iris at the back of the line.
“Ishtan at the front of the line, gun drawn, is not the best idea, in my humble and uneducated opinion,” Iris said, keeping his voice deliberately low.
Yan handed him his thermos; the golden logo of the Sychi Institute flashed in the dim light. “He can handle it. Anyway, not like we have much of a choice now and it’s been quiet so far, and Eli’s watching his back, and we’re watching Eli’s.”
Iris wanted to confess how Tev had really died, but instead, he unscrewed the thermos lid and took three large sips of warm water. Surprised by the sudden flavour, Iris looked to Yan.
“I found an old tea-tablet in my pack,” Yan explained. “Thought it’d be fine, wouldn’t break your fast. Tea doesn’t have calories, I think.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.” Iris lowered his head in a small bow. Jesi’s words from the night before pounded on the door of his mental safe, eager to escape. Iris did his best to hold them at bay.
“It’s jasmine.” Yan wrinkled his nose. “I think.”
It was linden, but Iris didn’t need to make a point of it. He sipped at the tea and walked alongside Yan, their footsteps falling in rhythm.
“It’s awfully humid here,” Yan said.
He was having the same reservations then. Iris continued to look ahead, watching over the bobbing heads of their companions. “And you are certain this is the way to the brain you have identified?”
Yan hummed an affirmative.
“And just like every other ship computer I have ever seen, this one would need to be kept cold for optimal functioning?”
Another affirmative hum.
It was awfully humid. The closer they ventured towards the spot where Yan had pinpointed as location of the brain of the Nicaea, the damper it got.
Soon, water was trickling down the walls of the corridor and disappearing beneath the layers of moss, lapped up by the organic sponge.
It also trickled down the back of Iris’s neck and ran under the collar of his undershirt.
He hoped that the patch on his left shoulder would prevent any infection, but he also couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Could the humidity be causing it to malfunction?” Iris asked after an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of silence.
“Could it be the cause for the fractured speech?” He wasn’t ready to abandon his theory about the Nicaea, but he wasn’t going to push it on Yan, not yet.
As Jesi had said, the engineer had grown rigid in his thinking and required a gentle hand.
Yan thought on it for a moment and shook his head. “It would probably just shut down. It didn’t get humid here overnight—it would all rust to hell in a month or so—and it’s been like this for who knows how long. No, something else is wrong. I don’t know what, and I fucking hate not knowing things.”
That much was plainly obvious.
After another three hours of silent walking, they could, at last, see the end of the corridor ahead where the walls parted and spread out into a boundless space.
Here, a steady pulse radiated through the floors, growing in intensity as they neared their destination.
Whatever Yan had tracked down, brain or not, was fast approaching.
Having let VIFAI rest all this time, Iris gently nudged it awake.
Are you well rested? he whispered, for no other reason than to appear considerate.
Oh, this isn’t good at all, VIFAI said, awake and alert in a fraction of a second. Why did you come here? This is where the pings came from.
Iris nudged Yan, still walking by his side. “This is where the pings came from, my AI says.”
“Yes!” Yan pumped his fist in the air. “I was right.”
They seemed to have very different ideas about what sort of an encounter they were about to face.
Yan appeared to be expecting to meet a tired hired gun, tasked with securing the ship for a station or for a rival institute.
Iris had no idea what he expected. With every step, the pulse beneath his feet grew stronger.
Breaking away from Yan’s side, Iris hurried to where Jesi walked.
If Yan wouldn’t believe him, he would rely on the next best engineer among them.
Jesi had been right; they should have asked the ship what it wanted.
“Do you still think we can still ask the Nicaea what she wants?” Iris panted as he came to a stop by Jesi’s side.
The girl stared at him with mild surprise and gave him a small nod. “I’ll need Yan’s help, I think. Why now, Vessel?”
“Because we’re getting closer to the epicentre of whatever happened here.” This was only the second time Ishtan had spoken in Iris’s company since he and Yan had rejoined the group. The archaeologist muttered something in a foreign language that resembled a prayer as he pointed ahead.
Ahead lay a twenty-foot hangar door. Long cracks ran along the length of it where steel began losing out to nature.
Its metal surface glistened with moisture.
Water ran from some unseen force in a timid waterfall, originating somewhere right below the ceiling.
Gnarled roots fought through any opening where the metal wasn’t flush against the floor.
A patchwork of moss, and lichen, and mold reached across the walls.
But it was a little to the left that Iris’s eyes were drawn to.
Along a segment of tall walls stripped of vines and moss stretched a mural.
It ran from floor to ceiling in vibrant red, black, and orange.
Broad strokes, preserved through time, spread colour and motion across the barren metal.
Its shimmer, which appeared nearly fresh, played in the dim light and beckoned them closer.
Eli approached it cautiously and scraped a nail against the red. He stuck his finger in his mouth.
“What is wrong with you?” Jesi hissed.
“Well, it’s not paint.” Eli shrugged. “It’s kind of sweet, actually. Not bad.”
Ishtan walked along the wall, squinting in the dim light. Iris watched as his mouth moved silently along reverent words, no longer in any pattern Iris could recognise. The mural depicted a similar scene from the ones Iris had beheld before. Battle. Death. He was growing quite tired of those themes.
Somehow, the death and battle so prominent in the murals had left little trace around the ship.
There were no bones anywhere on the ship but the cargo bay and the one skeleton he had found in an individual room.
So much death with so little evidence. It was a thought Iris returned to over and over again, every time he drifted to sleep.
Surely there had to be evidence of the slaughter.
It had to be somewhere. Keep an ear out for any new pings, Iris asked VIFAI.
Don’t respond to anything. Stay as quiet as you can. Just listen. The AI confirmed.
Below Iris’s feet, the rhythmic pulsing carried on at an even pace. It merely hummed now, reminding him of its presence, still watching his every move. Iris searched the mural for any additional clues, anything at all to give him another piece of the already deadly puzzle.
“Iris, would you come here?” Ishtan called out from down the corridor.
The archaeologist stood in front of a red-dominated stretch of the mural, his neck craned upwards.
“What do you make of this?” he asked when Iris stopped to his right.
The archaeologist spoke softly, out of earshot of everyone else.
Without even looking up, Iris suspected the image he was about to see was not for everyone’s eyes.
A wide trunk of an ancient tree ran up towards the ceiling.
Its knotted branches spread for tens of metres in each direction.
The roots too were depicted as running out in all directions, coming up from the ground as shrubbery and small plants, only to duck beneath the surface again.
“This is different,” Iris whispered. “Not good different.” He had the sense to crane his neck upwards, same as Ishtan, and follow the trunk towards the ceiling.
There, within the hastily painted canopy, Iris noticed it: the same red, watchful eye.
The very same eye that bore witness to all the other slaughter.
This time it was buried in the lush greenery, barely visible to anyone who didn’t know what to look for—but Iris did.
“Violence on generation ships is not uncommon,” Ishtan said, head still tilted towards the ceiling, “but this appears as more than that. This all feels systemic.”
“This mural is remarkably well preserved,” Iris said, unsure of what it had to do with everything, but unable to discard the idea. The vibrancy of it was staggering.