Jack McDevitt - Infinity Beach

“ Yes, Solly. I am endeavoring to do that. ”

His fingers touched a pumpkin-colored handle and moved it forward. A row of orange lamps came on. “The pilot finally gets to earn his pay,” he told Kim.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked.

“We relax.” He gestured toward the navigation console, which was built into a desk. “If you see any red lights and I’m not here, call me.”

“If something happened, wouldn’t the Klaxons sound?”

“Maybe. If we’ve got a virus in the system, everything becomes unreliable.” He must have seen the doubt in her face. “But don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. The ship is pretty much still automated. It’ll still produce hot water, prepare the food, recharge the power cells. The only difference now is that we’re going to have to punch some buttons to make things happen.” He paused, considering their situation. “If there’s a variance between actual conditions and prescribed conditions, the ship may not notice. Which means we might have to turn up the thermostat once in a while. Piece of cake, other than the inconvenience.”

Kim took a long time to ask the question that really bothered her. “Solly,” she said, “do you think it’s possible—?” She hesitated.

“—That—?”

“—The virus came from the device !”

“No,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly. “It’s a glitch in the programming, Kim.” He hesitated. “It happens.”

Kim studiously avoided bringing the subject up again. That evening they wandered down to the rec room and watched, but did not participate in, Party of Five , a light comedy in which the lead characters discover they are living next door to a group marriage with two husbands and three wives.

Party of Five did not get many laughs, and Kim spent most of her time thinking how cavernous the ship felt. Solly tried to look relaxed, but he kept laughing at the wrong parts.

Before they went to bed, he reactivated the AI, but did not return control of the systems to it. “Ham, have you been making progress with the virus?”

The windows opened out onto an ocean. In the distance, Kim could see a whale spouting.

“Ham?” said Solly. “Answer up.”

He glanced sidewise at her and tried again. The AI had always responded within seconds.

Kim got up, put her hands in her pockets, and turned away from the seascape. “It sounds as if it’s down altogether,” she said.

“Apparently.”

“Ever know it to happen before?”

“Never. But this is also the first time I’ve had to shut down an AI. Maybe it has that kind of effect.”

“Ham,” she said. “Are you there?”

They went up to the pilot’s room and Solly sat down at the console and initiated a diagnostic. “This’ll take a few minutes,” he said.

The windows opened onto the same seascape, although the whale was gone.

“When we get back,” she said suddenly, “you aren’t going to walk away from me, are you?”

“No.” Solly put an arm around her. “I love you, Kim.”

He gathered her in and they kissed.

“Kim—” he said.

“Yes—?”

“Will you marry me?”

It came without warning. “Yeah,” she said, carefully keeping her voice level. “I think I’d like to do that.”

The diagnostic chimed. It showed no problem. Everything was fine.

“That can’t be,” said Solly. “I mean, we can’t even raise the AI.”

Solly broke out the captain’s best stock that evening to celebrate their engagement. They made love to candlelight and soft music, starting in the briefing room, where the windows were full-length and provided a glorious view from the top of Mount Morghani, pausing once on the third-floor landing, and continuing with unabated zeal into the bedroom.

Even though they were alone on the ship, Kim always took care to close the bedroom door. On this occasion, however, Solly carried her in and tumbled her among the sheets, and so the door remained open.

The night went on and on, with occasional downtime for him during which they talked of the future. And then Solly came for her again, and she delightedly gave herself to him.

He was inexhaustible that night. Even with a body that was effectively twenty years old, he seemed to be performing above and beyond the call. But she stayed with him and there came a moment when he was lying with his head toward the foot of the bed and he brought her down atop him, turning her on her back, spread-eagling her.

She luxuriated in the sensation of his body beneath hers, his lips against the nape of her neck, his hands exploring her. The illumination in the ship had dimmed to nighttime levels, which meant the passageway behind her was dark save for the soft glow of the security lights.

Her head was thrown back in ecstasy and she was groaning and sighing, partly because she was inclined to do so, partly because she knew it inflamed him. Her line of vision went through the open door into the corridor.

And she saw something move.

It was a glimmer, a shadow, something at the far edge of awareness. Yet it was there.

She was immediately trying to get Solly to stop. But he was at full throttle.

Something was taking shape back there.

A pair of eyes. From the darkness near the top of the doorway, just outside in the corridor.

Suddenly she was back in Kane’s villa, terrified in the cool emotionless gaze of the thing in that other passageway. Solly’s hands were still holding her, playing with her. She pulled them away and rolled off onto the floor and, without taking her eyes from the apparition, got Solly to understand something was wrong and began feeling around for a weapon. The best she could find was a shoe.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, startled.

The eyes were the same emerald color, but flecked with gold. Vertical irises. Cat’s eyes. Cool, dispassionate, surgical. Very much like the thing in Kane’s villa. But she saw no madness here. Only malevolence.

The eyes were disembodied.

They floated a few centimeters from the ceiling.

Solly was staring down at her but she held a hand against his back, trying to get him to stay still. She found the remote, which was on a side table, and touched it. The lights came on.

Solly looked at her. Looked out into the passageway.

It was empty.

“Kim?” Solly looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

She was weak, unable to move. “It was outside the room.”

“Outside? What was outside?” He padded into the corridor and looked both ways. “Nothing here,” he said. “What did you think you saw?”

She tried to describe it but it just came out sounding hallucinatory.

“All right,” he said, when she’d compared it to the thing in the lake. “Let’s find out.”

She got into her clothes and Solly pulled on a pair of shorts and detached a lampstand to use as a weapon. Then they examined each room on the third floor, Solly doing the actual search while Kim stayed in the corridor to ensure that nothing got behind them.

He looked in closets and cabinets and behind beds. They moved with deliberation, and Kim was pleased to see that, despite the absurdity of her claim, he took her seriously rather than simply trying to argue what he must have thought: that she’d been seeing things.

They went down to the second floor and repeated the process, and then finally they searched the bottom of the ship. Long windows allowed them to see into all of the storage areas and the launch bay. He even climbed down into the lander through the open cockpit. The lander itself was attached to the Hammersmith’s underside. They inspected the areas given over to the recycling systems, water tanks, and cargo. They looked in the engine room. When they were finished he turned to her. “Kim, there’s no place left to hide.”