Surviving The Theseus by Randy Noble

came through the door just then, Brett
right behind. “No need to look it up,” Travis said. “I don’t know
what the zero zero five means, but I know the S-L-F means Scan Link
Failure. And that little bit of cryptic-ness is telling us that
Pyramid’s operational computer systems are down.”
    George shook his head. “Who said that? It
couldn’t have been my partner. How did you -- no, on second
thought, I don’t want to know how you knew that.”
    “It’s not as sordid as you might think.”
Travis smiled. Cindy smiled back at that infectious smile of
Travis’s. Sometimes he disgusted her, but other times he amazed
her. He was a hard guy to hate, even when he crossed the line,
stomped all over it, and then pissed on it to erase the line’s
existence.
    “Well,” George said, “we had to go in anyway.
I guess we’ll find out the hard way.”
     
    *****
     
    John and Paula set up in the holding area, in
the two front seats. The control for The Tourist sat on John’s lap.
He held the control’s black flight stick, which he was sure Travis
would have something to say about. The flight stick was attached to
a panel with a keyboard and a large, thin glass screen, thirty-two
inches wide. Paula leaned over to watch.
    Underneath the SPARS ship, a small panel slid
open and a small, black object, which looked like a bullet, flew
out of the opening towards Pyramid. Small enough to carry, but its
weight would bear you down. John tried lifting it once on a dare
and nearly dropped it on his foot. It was a space probe only. If it
ever got into a gravity situation, it would drop like a stone
because its power source would be insufficient to keep it
afloat.
    On John’s screen, he could see what The
Tourist could see -- Pyramid One getting bigger and bigger on the
screen.
    George’s voice spoke to John through the
speakers in his glasses. “Take it through the main doors and take a
quick peek and see if anything is out of the ordinary, other than
the shuttle bay power.”
    “Yes, sir,” John said.
    John hit the L on the keyboard and eight
bright lights that circled the front of The Tourist lit the way. As
John steered it into the main hanger bay door, nothing unusual
revealed itself. Moving further inside the hanger bay, The
Tourist’s light found nothing unusual, just a large, empty bay with
most of its shuttles in place, and no bodies floating around like
John thought there might be.
    He pressed S on the keyboard next. When he
did, the screen lit up and cycled through various colors, revealing
different shapes and waves when it did. “Comm Set,” John said.
“Nothing in the scan, sir. No heat signatures or anything.”
    “Restore power,” George said.
    “On my way, sir,” John said. He was glad no
bodies were visible. But maybe there were corpses and they got
sucked out into space. Thoughts of torture and pain flew through
his mind, but he let it go no further. No proof of foul play. Maybe
just a series of unfortunate accidents. Regardless, they would know
soon enough.
    John steered The Tourist to a door on the
other side of the bay, where he knew the shuttle bay control room
was located from his studies of the ship’s layout. “Paula, grab the
gloves.”
    “What? Me?” she said.
    John smiled and nodded. He did another quick
scan to see if anything could be seen on the other side of the
door, but there was nothing. It was odd. Very odd. Someone had
turned the shuttle bay power off, and then, what? Walked out the
door and got sucked into space? It didn’t make any sense.
    Paula grabbed a pair of gloves, like the ones
Cindy and Michael used in the cockpit.
    When The Tourist got to the door, John
pressed the letter A on the keyboard. Two panels opened up on
either side of The Tourist, and two metal skeleton arms unfolded
themselves from their resting place.
    Now wearing the gloves, Paula stretched out
her fingers, and The Tourist’s metal fingers mimicked her motion.
With precision, John steered towards the