"Why can't the computer find the rest of them?" Manstein asked.
Melink bit the rubbery membrane that had once been Pyriba's skin, then nodded to herself. "Pyriba's body contained no nutritional value to carbon based life."
Manstein almost swallowed his wood pulp. "What?"
"Pure conjecture," Melink said. "Captain Welk always said I thought too much like a predator. It's possible they could have been disintegrated. The transporter's search and return policy is very precise, but it may be possible to mutilate a person sufficiently that the corpse is not recognized. I say 'corpse' because I doubt anyone could survive the violence required."
They stood in silence a long time. Then Manstein spat his wood pulp on the ground and stormed out.
Manstein forced his way into the Captain's chambers before anyone else in the crew. It was a trick that involved hotwiring the doors motor commands, but what else was an Engineer for? They'd be coming in here soon enough, looking for orders left for just this circumstance. No doubt Cynti Wylylyl would pull rank and end up Captain regardless of any posthumous documentation. There was a non-zero chance she would escalate any violence that had already occurred. That wasn't why Manstein was here.
Manstein tore off a hunk of the elaborate wooden desk and started chewing on it. The wood was alien and strange to him, but had a taste not dissimilar to mahogany and cellulose had the normal mild narcotic effect. He started shuffling through papers and dataslates, flipping through archived data, guessing passwords where he could and forcing them where he couldn't.
He found them. Pictures of Welk's cousins. The translator had not been adequately able to describe the actual word, but they sounded like cousins to Manstein. Picture after picture of tall blotchy creatures with eyes wide enough to show the red ridges at their bases, which Manstein understood to be something like a smile, and eggs held high for the camera to make out. Manstein's own antennae were going wild with signals of grief.
Manstein found the last log and hit play just before Wylylyl entered to reprimand him.
"Captain's log," Welk's voice came out calm and clear, "Astro Date 1078, 036.1. We have arrived in orbit around Culematter. Here, I hope, we will find the answers that will return us home once more. Home to our universe.
"I will not lie. This is why I joined the AstroNavy. To see other worlds, and beyond them. To enter into exploration unlike anything seen before. Now that it's finally here, so late in my career, I find myself... guilty. Guilty. Engine difficulties or no, it was my responsibility to keep a disaster like this from happening. A disaster like...
"I'm not really sure I am in another Universe. At least, not one a black hole took me to. Black holes turn space into a mass of ludicrously long worms. The gravity would kill us all so long before we entered...
"Maybe it did kill us. I have this horrible feeling that we're dead. We're dead and in the lands of strife and deceit that my grandparents' grandparents used to believe so literally. And it's all my fault."
There was a long silence. Manstein was sniffling in that way he learnt to mimic as a child. Wylylyl was just stunned. "It's not their fault," Manstein said, "I was the one who failed to check the engines. I should have..."
Wylylyl stepped forward, arms wide for either a tackle or a hug. She was like an infant approaching some great wild beast. "Malcolm..." she started. Maybe she thought the words would come to her, but they didn't.
The recording was not, however, finished. "Whoever is listening to this, I am sorry about the gap. It is stressful here. Nevertheless, I shall do my duty to the end. I will see my crew safely out of here. Even if it is the lands of strife and deceit, I will find our way back to the worlds of the living. I will return, or I will die trying." Welk actually laughed there in the recording, "Cliche, I know. But there it is."
Then the recording ended. Wylylyl decided to make the arms into a hug.
* * *
Well, what is there to say?
I really thought there was going to be one last chance to try and grab for a helmet or otherwise escape, but I guess I either needed Melink or to have called first to do that. Seems a bit arbitrary, the call part, but oh well.
I think it's a real shame to die where I did, because there's so much potential for this adventure, and this little crew in my head.
I mean, I didn't even get to do ship combat or fire phasers!
Genuinely, this is the first of these books I think I'll actually play through properly outside of this review, either before or after it's done. Slow posting or not (I'm trying to keep up with this double post, basically), I've thoroughly enjoyed this romp and think it'll be a shame to go back to Titan. Not that I think the fantasy books don't have their own charm, but... well, I've got 59 books to tackle, and this is the only one that has this shipboard Star Trek vibe. It seems so strange it was never revisited. There's just so much potential.
I'm half tempted to go along with a backup Captain, drawn the same way as other back up Officers, but I made a committment not to cheat when I started this, so I guess it's time to go.
Go where? Why, to the City of Thieves, of course!
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