Gift From The Stars by Gunn James

Author:Gunn, James [Gunn, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reputation Books
Published: 2013-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

By the time Frances and Jessica reached the control room, plodding along in the traditional step-by-step that pleased Frances and annoyed Jessica, the ship had been accelerating for five minutes at a steady one gravity. The control room wasn’t at all like those on the television shows Jessica had grown up with: it was sparse and utilitarian, with a semicircle of pivoting armchairs mounted on pedestals and equipped with velcro belts. The chairs faced a curved, plastic counter top inset with dials and keyboards. Above that a series of vision screens showed the various working areas of the ship and exterior views in all directions.

No windows. Jessica recalled Adrian chuckling when Peter asked about the plans. “Windows!”

Jessica shook herself before she fell into one of Frances’s genre pits. Identifying the genre wouldn’t help this time.

Adrian swiveled around to face them, pleased with himself and his world. Jessica hated to spoil his mood. She looked at Frances.

“I found this in Peter’s locker,” Frances said, holding out the mask.

Adrian took in its meaning at a glance. “So,” he said, suddenly sober, “Peter is the bearded man. I wonder what he hoped to gain by that. What does he have to say?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” Jessica said.

“He isn’t around to ask,” Frances added.

“That’s a pretty fast search,” Adrian said.

Frances shrugged. “He was among those who left.” She seemed much more in control now that her trial by weightlessness was over. “You know the way things work. You propose and I dispose.”

Adrian accepted Frances’s breach of his word without comment. Jessica didn’t know whether it was because he expected it or because they had more serious concerns. She hoped it was the latter. She didn’t want to reevaluate the relationship between Adrian and Frances while she was still struggling with the implications of Frances’ last sentence and Adrian’s failure to react to it.

“That means we may be sitting on a time bomb,” Adrian said.

“Clearly,” Frances said.

“I feel sorry for Peter,” Adrian said.

“I know.”

Jessica looked from one to the other impatiently. “Why are you talking about poor Peter when there’s so much to done?”

“The question is,” Adrian said, “what’s to be done?”

“The ship is working like a dream,” Frances said, “but there’s no way of knowing when it will turn into a nightmare.”

Jessica looked from Adrian to Frances and back again. “What are you saying? You don’t even know what’s wrong. You don’t even know if anything is wrong.” She moved impatiently to the pilot’s chair and began looking at the readouts.

“If there’s anything wrong,” Adrian said, “—and there almost certainly is something wrong—it will be in the computer. The glitch in the computer program two days ago was a test.”

“And a warning we should have paid more attention to,” Frances added.

Jessica hated the way Adrian and Frances completed each other’s thoughts, like an old married couple. She typed in the command for the computer to switch to manual, but the ship continued its acceleration unaltered.

“We all knew how much this project meant to Peter,” Adrian said.

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