Dreamspinner Read online

  By the time Tearan decided he was tired and wanted to stop for the day, all of the medical cargo was successfully stored in the medical bay, isolation ward, medical research lab, and morgue. He found no trace of Doctor Arma, but the crazy scribblings still decorating the walls gave him shivers as he read about ghosts and dismembered bodies. Reading the crazy ramblings made him wonder if it was safe down here after all. Whoever wrote it was, or had been at some point, seriously disturbed. He decided that once he had some time, he would come down and clean it all off. All this stuff about ghosts and bodies cut up creeped him out.

  “I wonder if Mykus has seen this?” he muttered as he left.

  After returning the hover loader to the cargo hangar, Tearan climbed back up to deck four and walked along to the engineering briefing room to leave a message for Mykus. He was surprised to find two messages already waiting for him, the first of which was from Mykus.

  “Tearan. I can assure you the vidicom has been fixed by someone. That means both you and I are both nuts, or there is someone else aboard with us. I feel sure it isn’t Doctor Arma though, and I have a bad feeling about him. I am willing to bet you a hundred that something horrible has happened to him. Call me crazy if you want, but I know what I’m feeling. Anyway, I found a section of wire had been cut and removed. Cut, not broken by the way. Deliberately cut out. Four inches of it including an overload connection socket, cut out cleanly. Another thing too, the engineering crawlspace has been blocked off above deck seven. Access down there is impossible, I checked for access panels but there are none. This is very odd and against all the regulations in existence. I also agree about the size of the rooms on decks seven and eight. I paced it out and you’re right, there’s a large area of space sectioned off down there. Now for the bad news. Despite fixing the wire, the shuttle bay emergency back up control still will not work and I cannot get those bay doors shut. Sorry. I’m going to continue my inspection of the ship’s systems. Come by when you have time and talk about it.”

  “I knew it,” Tearan shrieked, thumping a fist down onto the table. “Why block off such a large portion of the ship and try to hide its existence? I have to find out what’s going on down there.” Mykus’ news served only to further his conviction that gaining access to the blocked off space was important. Even if it turned out to be empty and silent, he had to know. The whole idea of blocking off such a large section of two decks and trying to make it invisible, unnoticeable, was too incongruous to ignore. Mykus’ apparent conviction that someone had been fiddling with the vidicom brought deep furrows to Tearan’s brow. Knowing the two of them had not touched it meant that they must assume Doctor Arma had done so, or that there was indeed someone else aboard. A flush of fear coursed through him and he acknowledged the feeling of invisible eyes watching him before shaking it off and listening to the next message.

  “Hi there, guys. My name is Tovis Kerral and I’m a survivor like yourselves. I managed to get the comms working today. There was some sort of inhibitor attached inside that prevented it from working. It’s really weird, I’ve not come across anything like it before. I’ve left it on the table here for Mykus to take a look at. Your engineering brain might recognise it. You might even find them in other parts of the ship. I listened to your messages by the way and I was wondering if any of you are getting your memories back yet? The reason I ask is because I have no amnesia at all, which is a little weird don’t you think. Why should I not have it when all of you three do? I am having weird dreams though. Anyway, maybe we should get together, we’d surely be stronger as a unit. I’m in room ten on deck two. I’ll keep checking out the security room and engineering and see if I can’t catch you guys there. By the way, I’ve set a distress call going on an automatic loop so we don’t have to continuously man the comms.”

  Tearan’s eyes widened in surprise when he heard this new person introduce himself and as with Mykus and Doctor Arma, there was something about him that seemed familiar. Try as he might, he was unable to pinpoint what it was and he shook his head in frustration. He seemed friendly enough though and keen to pitch in and help. Having working comms helped their situation and it might not be long before someone hears the call and comes to rescue them. He glanced over at the table but found no components, so guessed Mykus beat him to the message. This was the best news he had since waking up on board and he was smiling as he felt his earlier paranoia disperse. Relieved to have another person with usable skills, Tearan recorded a response.

  “Hi there, Tovis, Tearan Lindo here. Welcome to umm, well wherever we are. I can’t see any component on the table here, so I guess Mykus is already checking it out. I hope he finds and removes one from the shuttle bay emergency controls so we can get those bay doors closed and have access to those shuttles. I’ve noticed something odd about the size of the rooms down on decks seven and eight. The rooms as they appear on the maps are much bigger than they actually are and I estimate there’s a substantial amount of space hidden away down there. Take a look at the maps and pace out the cargo hangar and shuttle bay. Then go and pace out the hazardous waste store, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I’m shifting some stuff in the cargo hangar so I can gain access to the far wall that should be the boundary wall of the spare space and if it comes to it, I’ll crash through it with a hover loader. I won’t rest until I’ve found out the reason for the discrepancy in the sizes of those rooms. Have either of you come across Doctor Arma yet? And have either of you seen that crazy shit down in the medical bay? Go take a look if you want to be creeped out. It makes me wonder if it’s safe down there. He could be a crazy hatchet murderer for all we know, waiting to leap out on us and hack our heads off. Be careful down there until we know for sure where he is and what condition he’s in. Oh, by the way. I got the rest of my memories back over the past couple of days, all except some of the more recent stuff. I’ve started having some nightmares too, so I guess this is all part of the process. Come by the cargo hangar and find me, I’d like to meet you both.”

  With renewed hope, Tearan went up to deck three and the security room to shower. His mind was fully engaged upon buttoning up his shirt when a sound made him snap his head up and spin around, eyes wide with shock.

  “Tearan Lindo? Hello, anyone home? I came to introduce myself to a fellow survivor. Hello.”

  “Hello?” Tearan called in reply, walking towards the main entrance area to greet the visitor. “Come on in. Is that you Mykus? Tovis? Doctor Arma?” After doing a tour of the whole security area and not finding anyone, Tearan stood and frowned. “Jeez, he didn’t wait long did he? I could’ve been taking a shit or something. A little patience huh?” He ran into the corridor and looked both ways. “Hello?” he yelled. “I’m here.” No boot steps echoed other than his own as he returned to the security room.

  His reflection gazed back impassively as he combed his hair and contemplated the situation.

  “I guess whoever it was that came to visit was in a hurry. I told them I’m working in the cargo hangar at the moment, so maybe they didn’t expect me to be here anyway. It won’t be too...what the fuck?” Tearan’s musings were abruptly halted by a loud crash that shook the items on the bathroom shelf in front of him. His dental cleanser fell into the basin as the mirror shook against the wall. Not wanting to be covered in broken glass, Tearan steadied it with both hands until the shaking subsided. When all was still, he ran from the bathroom into the main area of the security room, expecting to find himself in the midst of devastation. Everything was as it should be and he frowned. That crash had sounded like it was right inside the room, like an impact or something smashing through a wall or door. He sniffed as an acrid smell wafted past his nose and recognised the smell of an engine.

  “That smells like a hover vehicle engine.” He walked around, allowing his nose to guide him towards any possible source of the smell, but found nothing except the familiar security room he now called home. There was no doubt in his mind what caused the smell, he owned many hover bikes over t
he years and knew how to tune their engines and keep them running smoothly. All of those memories, along with many others, came back to him the previous day. The acrid fumes caught his throat and he put a hand over his mouth, knowing that such fresh fumes meant that a hover engine was nearby. “That’s the smell of a hover engine in trouble, big trouble.” There was no vehicle to be seen and Tearan knew the only hover engines aboard were on the cargo bay loaders. He had been using one for the past two days and knew they were the only possible sources of that smell. He had no idea what the ship’s engine would smell like if it blew apart, but he was smart enough to realise that if he did smell it, it would mean the ship was falling apart and he would likely be dead already.

  He then remembered one of the loaders had been missing on his first day working in the cargo hangar. He assumed Mykus was using it and when it reappeared the following day, he thought nothing more about it. “But why should there be such a strong smell of a hover engine in here now? If someone came in here on a hover loader I would have heard the engine ticking over.” Shaking his head in confusion, he ran a hand through his hair and examined the floor. Any hover vehicle in enough trouble to cause such an acrid smell would leave oily marks on the ground. It was pristine and his frown deepened. Crouching down, he reached out a hand, letting his sensitive fingertips caress the metallic tiles. As he was about to bring his hand away, his fingers registered an irregularity and his mind snapped into full focus. Sweeping his hands back and forth across the area, he let his fingers tell his mind what it was.

  “Scratches,” he muttered under his breath. Lying flat on his stomach, he turned his head and put his cheek to the floor. The angle of light playing on the tiles showed up the two sets of scratches clearly. From the doorway, all the way into the room for around twelve feet or so, where they ended in a large irregular worn area. There was also a slight dent approximately a foot in diameter, which looked like something having come to rest after skidding across the floor. Tearan got up and frowned. What did this mean? There was no evidence of anything untoward having happened within the past couple of minutes and he had to admit that he had not noticed the damage to the floor before. He had not been looking for it though and it was sheer luck that he found them at all.

  “I’m going crazy and paranoid,” he announced as he stood and shook his head. “I did hear a crash though, it shook the whole room. I didn’t imagine that.” One hour later, he stood in the kitchen and wondered what to make himself to eat. After a quick tour of every room on board, there was nothing to account for the crash he heard and no obvious damage to the ship to worry about. “I wonder if the other guys heard it,” he muttered as he took off his jacket and washed his hands. Whilst waiting for his meal to cook, he thought about his plan for the next day of labour in the cargo hangar. Now that all the food and medical supplies were out of the way, he could shift more of the crates. This would free up more of the long wall of shelving.

  Despite wanting to get to the task of examining that long wall, Tearan knew how important it was to know where everything in the cargo hangar was. This was especially true of anything connected with engineering or the working of the ship itself. If the ship should suffer an engineering emergency, a hull breech from a small particle of space debris, a problem with the engine or some electrical fault, Mykus would need to know exactly where to find every component, connector, clip, valve, and length of wire. Wasting valuable time searching for something only hastens a nasty death. Safety was paramount, so he decided to spend the next day rearranging all the crates and storage bins so that everything connected with engineering or the running and repair of the ship was together. Although desperate to get away from this isolation, he had to admit he was getting used to it. It was becoming familiar and easier to cope with so one more day delay would not hurt.

  Tearan spent the night running from unseen pursuers, begging the angry voices for mercy, and walking the perimeter of the circular pit. The woman’s face floated beside him as he circled and he grew frightened. Her accusing glare bore into him no matter how hard he tried to ignore her presence and he awoke screaming at her to go away and leave him alone. Sweat beaded on his brow and glued the sheet to his body. He ripped the sheet aside and sat up, breathing hard as he watched the remains of his dreams fade. His conviction that the woman was someone known to him would not go away and he frowned.

  “Who the fuck is she? I’m certain I know her somehow. Dammit, why won’t the memory come back?” he spat, jabbing the flat of a palm to his forehead. With the burden of frustration weighing heavily, he got up and went to work out before having a hot shower and going down to the kitchen for breakfast. He walked the corridor, heading for the stairs but something made him climb instead of descend. Without warning, his mind cried out for company and he knew it was time to address the need to find one of the others, to finally make a connection with at least one of them. Too many weird things were happening and he did not wish to be alone for much longer. The dreams, the sounds of gunfire, footsteps, and the crash in his room the day before; there was no explanation for them and that worried him. With no exception, the last thing he wanted was to lose his mind so soon after getting it back. Tovis said he was staying in room ten on deck two, he remembered.

  “Tovis?” Tearan called as he knocked on the door to Senior Officers’ Quarters Room Ten. “Tovis Kerral? It’s Tearan Lindo here. I came by to say hello. Are you awake? Hello.” There was no answer and Tearan swore. “Fuck.” Giving himself no time to change his mind and walk away, he fumbled in his pocket and drew out his own key card. Fully expecting it to be rejected, he slammed it into the slot and waited for the mechanism to spit it back out at him with an angry beep. The door swished open and his eyebrows shot up to the top of his forehead. Remembering that his key card came from the locker in the security room, he assumed it was a master key. The security personnel would need to have access to everywhere on board, so it stands to reason they would have master keys. With a shrug, he entered, still calling out but getting no reply.

  “Hello, Tovis. Are you here? It’s Tearan Lindo.” He called as he entered the room to find it empty. The room was a cut above those on deck five where Mykus said he was sleeping and afforded much more classy living standards than his own arrangements in the security room. The bathroom was empty, so he allowed his curiosity to get the better of him and decided to investigate. Tovis was a tidy person; that much was obvious right away. The bed was pulled back neatly, the sheet folded down and over the end of the bed to allow the mattress to air. An extra blanket lay neatly folded on a chair to one side. The closet revealed ten shirts, all the same grey and green camouflage pattern that Tearan realised instantly would be perfect for someone on a stealth mission. Three pairs of pants hung below them, all uniformly dark grey and very hard wearing. Drawers revealed underwear that was comfortable rather than stylish and sturdy boots that matched his own stood to attention by the door. In the spacious and luxurious bathroom, the washing necessities were arranged with precision and everything was spotlessly clean. One drawer contained laser pistol power cells, placed in rows of five, each with the identification label facing to the left and each with the security tab torn off.

  Tearan’s eyebrows lifted once again at the sight of those power cells and he realised what Tovis Kerral was. Placing the cells with the identification labels facing left ensured extremely quick reloading. The only people who needed to be able to reload so quickly were military, security, or criminals. The security tab on a laser pistol power cell makes sure that it cannot discharge without first being fully engaged within the pistol. The action of engaging the cell into the pistol automatically tears the tab off, which folds back against the body of the cell housing as it sits within the cell chamber. It is an offence in the military and all law abiding security forces to remove the security tabs before loading and is a clear indication that the bearer is a gun for hire.

  Living and working in the shadowy world between legality and illegality, these men and w
omen have a reputation for being without morals. They do not choose a side as most people do. Their side is the one that pays the most and you may find them fighting alongside you one day, then hunting you the next. The vast majority of high profile murders are committed by such people and very few are ever brought to justice. They are masters of invisibility and one of Tearan’s newly returned memories was being eight years old and telling his father that he wanted to be one when he grew up. His father laughed and asked him how he knew of such men. Tearan told him that his friend from the next street told him about an uncle of his that was one. His father told him there were plenty of other fine things to devote his life to and plenty of time to do them. The next day, his father went out for an hour, telling Tearan to remain at home and clean the house with his mother. When he went to play the following day, the boy and his family had moved away and Tearan never saw them again.

  Now he was an adult himself, Tearan sat down on the bed and thought about that memory. It had never occurred to him at the time to connect his father going out with the family leaving town, but now he did and it seemed odd. Maybe the boy’s family were cross that he had told about his uncle and had to move away to keep their secret. Now he thought about it, he realised that his own father’s behaviour was strange. Why would he go and visit the family whose boy joked with his son about being a gun for hire when they grew up? Surely it was normal small boy stuff and not something to get worked up about? He wondered whether the reason his dad had gone around to his friend’s house was not to complain, but to warn them their secret was out. Tearan shook his head slowly and grinned.

  “Dad, was there something you weren’t telling me, old man?” He laughed aloud and got up from the bed. If Tovis was indeed a gun for hire, which Tearan was convinced was true, his priority would be his own safety first and foremost. If anyone got into difficulty in the meantime, he could not be relied upon to help. Yes, he had skills that Tearan intended to make full use of for as long as possible, but he would try not to put himself in a position where he would need to rely on Tovis for help. He also knew it would be a very bad idea to ever bring up the subject of his career.