Nightflyers by George R. R. Martin

Author:George R. R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

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Alarms were hooting everywhere.The passengers began to stir. Melantha Jhirl tumbled from her sleepweb and darted into the corridor, nude, frantic, alert. Karoly d’Branin sat up drowsily. The psipsych muttered fitfully in drug-induced sleep. Rojan Christopheris cried out in alarm.

Far away, metal crunched and tore, and a violent shudder ran through the ship, throwing the linguists out of their sleepwebs, knocking Melantha from her feet.

In the command quarters of the Nightflyer was a spherical room with featureless white walls, a lesser sphere—a suspended control console—floating in its center. The walls were always blank when the ship was in drive; the warped and glaring underside of spacetime was painful to behold.

But now darkness woke in the room, a holoscope coming to life, cold black and stars everywhere, points of icy unwinking brilliance, no up and no down and no direction, the floating control sphere the only feature in the simulated sea of night.

The Nightflyer had shifted out of drive.

Melantha Jhirl found her feet again and thumbed on a communicator. The alarms were still hooting, and it was hard to hear. “Captain,” she shouted, “what’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Royd’s voice replied. “I’m trying to find out. Wait.”

Melantha waited. Karoly d’Branin came staggering out into the corridor, blinking and rubbing his eyes. Rojan Christopheris was not long behind him. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded, but Melantha just shook her head. Lindran and Dannel soon appeared as well. There was no sign of Marij-Black, Alys Northwind, or Lommie Thorne. The academicians looked uneasily at the seal that blocked cargo hold three.

Finally Melantha told Christopheris to go look. He returned a few minutes later. “Agatha is still unconscious,” he said, talking at the top of his voice to be heard over the alarms. “The drugs still have her. She’s moving around, though. Crying out.”

“Alys and Lommie?”

Christopheris shrugged. “I can’t find them. Ask your friend Royd.”

The communicator came back to life as the alarms died. “We have returned to normal space,” Royd’s voice said, “but the ship is damaged. Hold three, your computer room, was breached while we were under drive. It was ripped apart by the flux. The computer dropped us out of drive automatically, fortunately for us, or the drive forces might have torn my entire ship apart.”

“Royd,” said Melantha, “Northwind and Thorne are missing.”

“It appears your computer was in use when the hold was breached,” Royd said carefully. “I would presume them dead, although I cannot say that with certainty. At Melantha’s request I have deactivated most of my monitors, retaining only the lounge input. I do not know what transpired. But this is a small ship, and if they are not with you, we must assume the worst.” He paused briefly. “If it is any consolation, they died swiftly and painlessly.”

“You killed them,” Christopheris said, his face red and angry. He started to say more, but Melantha slipped her hand firmly over his mouth. The two linguists exchanged a long, meaningful look.

“Do we know how it happened, captain?” Melantha asked.

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