UNIVERSAL TURBULENT

XLVII - SOMEWHERE ON THE GALAXY

Jyro peered around the corner, confirmed that the passageway was clear, and consulted his data pad, or more accurately Pardo's data pad, since the eighty year old device still worked and the skeleton had no use for it.

Once the prospector had established a reasonable secure home, and moved Pardo's supplies to the new location, he redirected his attention.

The vessel was big, but how big? Who constructed the ship, and why? Where was it headed? This was the sort of knowledge that would enable him escape.

The first step was to create a map, and that's where the data pad came in. By taking copious notes, and marking each intersection with a self-invented system of coordinations, the human had established a fairly good idea of the ship's layout. He entered the latest findings and used blue spray paint to write "D-44" on the steel bulkhead.

The Shem mother ship, if that's what the vessel could properly be called, was shaped like a Flava fruit, except that it had an enormous landing bar where the pit should have been, plus thousands of compartments instead of pulp. Jyro had counted forty-three circular corridors so far, all connected by radial passageways B through X.

Of course thousands of compartments remained locked, he'd been unable to establish communications with the robots, and he was no closer to getting off the ship than the day he had arrived. But God helps those who help themselves, so the effort would continue.

The human felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, drew the flechette thrower, and turned one hundred eighty degrees. The prospector felt as if someone or something had been watching him for days now. But there was no sign of anything, nor any place to hide. What does it mean? That the loneliness and isolation had affected his mind? Or, and this was worse, that something really had been monitoring his activities, and could hide in plain sight?

Jyro closed the data pad using one hand. The feeling faded as he backed away. Because he was crazy? It seemed all too ppossible.

Horth watched his prey back away. There had been previous escapes, far too many of them, but such was the nature of the hunt. To press the attack was to risk the wrath of the shiny thing, which, if it was anything like the master's, could inflict a great deal of pain. Satisfying his hunger would have to wait.

Jyro turned and walked down the corridor. Hundreds of tiny epithelial cells sloughed off his skin, floated through the air, and sank to the deck. Horth was quick to follow.

* * *

The Thraki robot was different from the rest of the machines on the ship. It was unique, for one thing, having been constructed for the amusement for the amusement of a single sentient, and imbued with what could be described as "needs". Such as the need to associate itself with a biological entity.

There had been two pairings so far, one with a quadrupled that starved to death, and a second with an amoeba-like thermovore that refused to leave the comfort of the ship's heat stacks. There was a new prospect, however, a rather promising specimen that the robot planned to find.

Though relatively small when folded into a featureless two-foot cube, the Thraki machine could assume any of 109 mostly useless configurations, and perform a variety of tasks.

That being the case, the robot transformed itself into acrobat mode, swung out of the cross-ship cable run, changed to magnetic wall walking mode, and lowered itself to the deck.

The object is this exercise was a bulkhead mounted data port, which, though not intended for use by Thraki machines, could be utilized by any being clever enough, or malleable enough, to create the necessary three pronged fitting.

The Thraki machine possessed all the necessary capabilities and wasted no time plugging itself into the digital flood. Billions upon billions of bits of information flowed through the ship's electronic nervous system every second.

Though safe within an eddy, the robot knew the current could carry it away, and into a filter. Or, and this would almost certainly be worse, the Hoon itself. The trick was to stay at the periphery of the flow and sift for clues. Given that the Hoon and its servants had no interest in the kind of being the robot was looking for, they rarely mentored them. Not unless they caused some sort of trouble.

Take the little two legged hooper, for example. The Thraki machine happened to be online when the creature bounced around a corner and was crushed by a large maintenance android. Rather than make mention of the fact that an unauthorized and presumably alien life form was hopping about the ship, the android reported a sudden and unexpected "mess", and recommended that an appropriate unit be sent to mop it up.

So, by monitoring such communications, and scanning for patterns, the unit was able to "guess" where its quarry might be. It wasn't long before the robot intercepted reports regarding nonstandard bulkhead graphics and knew some sort of sentient was responsible for them. Was this the companion it was supposed to befriend? There was only one way to find out.

* * *

The memory module swirled with mostly meaningless activity. They were a divers bunch, these various beings, all burdened by the beliefs, vices, and limitations of their creators. Creators who ironically enough didn't meet the Hoon's criteria for intelligent life, since as they were soft rather than hard, and impossible to electronically assimilate.

The landscape, which the navcomp "saw" as a sort of green desert, was flat for the most part, and bulged where the rusty red Hoon mountains pushed their way up from below. The gridwork sky was given to spectacular displays of blue white lightening, often followed by prolonged data storms.