Lightless Read Online Free Page B

and reddened photons following the swoops and curves of magnetic field lines and fighting the impossible pull of the mass cradled in the center of the ten-story-radius hollow sphere that was the rib cage of the ship.
    If Gale had fallen in or jumped, he would still be visible, his body shredded and stretched and dead, frozen in time just above an event horizon so small that Althea wouldn’t be able to see it from this distance even if it could be seen—because the heart of the
Ananke
was a black hole.
    If Gale had thought to hide in this enclosure, clinging to the highest part of it, he would not have been able to resist the pull of the
Ananke
’s heart, and Althea now would see him dead down there as well. There would be nothing to hold on to, anyway; the only protrusion inside the hatch was the dead man’s switch inside its clear plastic cage, which would shut down the computer if it was flipped and leave the computer solely under manual control.
    But there was no one there. Gale had not gone into the
Ananke
’s core.
    Domitian closed the door and sat back on his heels.
    “What else?” he asked again, and Althea knelt once more before the computer screen.
    “I don’t know,” she said, and urged the computer to open whatever had been closed last. She would see what Gale had done.
    “He didn’t vanish, Althea,” Domitian said.
    A window opened on the screen. It took Althea only a moment to recognize it.
    “The maintenance shafts,” she said.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know how he even knew…” She had no idea how he’d known about them; they were vestiges of the ship’s construction, made, sealed, and forgotten except for emergencies Althea never expected to happen. They had not even occurred to her as a method for Gale’s escape, and she couldn’t imagine how he’d persuaded the program to run. The shafts were airless and frigid, uninhabitable unless the program was running; the program itself was well concealed and responsive only to Althea’s clearance level. He must have hacked into the program quickly: the maintenance shaft doors could not be opened unless a certain bare minimum of habitability had been achieved, and although the process was very swift, it still took a certain amount of time, time that would have been valuable when he had Domitian and Gagnon running down the hall toward him—
    “Althea!” Domitian barked.
    Althea collected herself and tried, for Domitian, to speak quickly.
    “There are maintenance shafts throughout the ship,” she said. “They were shut down after the ship was constructed, but they still exist in case I need to use them for a big repair. He shouldn’t have known about them, but somehow he did. He ran the program to make them habitable again.”
    “He’s in the maintenance shafts?”
    “Yes.” Althea left the computer to run to the back of the ship, to the metal-paneled wall. “There should be an opening—”
    It fell open at her touch.
    “—here,” she finished, and turned to see Domitian checking his gun once, efficiently, then heading for her with a grim expression.
    “Where do those shafts go?” he asked, kneeling down beside her to look up into the narrow space.
    Althea took a breath. “Everywhere,” she admitted.
    “I’m following him in,” said Domitian, and leaned forward to crawl into the tunnel just as the
Ananke
’s alarm began to wail.
    Domitian was on his feet and going for the intercom before Althea could even process the sound. “Gagnon!” he barked.
    “An escape pod has been launched,” Gagnon said, sounding tense. “Gale?”
    “Do the maintenance shafts go to the escape pod bay?” Domitian asked Althea.
    The maintenance shafts went everywhere. They were lucky, Althea thought, that Gale had gone for the escape pods and not for some sensitive part of the ship. “Yes,” she said.
    “Scan the pod,” Domitian said into the intercom. “Confirm Gale’s inside.”
    “The ship’s been affected; the sensor readings might