Contentment and suspicion

"Oy there!" I greet Martin from across the central yard, rushing into his embrace. We hug for a moment before moving together towards the line for the food station. The sunstrand is fully waxed, and my task for the day is complete.

Thirty days have passed since Martin and I joined the redward polly. We continue to share the same bed for sleeping and spend a great deal of our free time with each other as well. We may not be officially mates, but the other residents of the polly practically treat us as such.

Martin is adjusting well to his new life. Of course, I attribute this to the patient tutoring I provided during those first few days. Everyone in the polly loves him, even if he commits the occasional social miscue or fails to pick up on certain hints. Regardless, his cock has proven most popular among the women. His cunt eating has gotten immeasurably better, too.

He spends most of his days consulting with Valerie and Auto about the engines when he isn't crawling through the depths of the enormous installation behind the redward hills. Meanwhile, I help out as I can, taking on whatever daily task Auto assigns to me. Sometimes, I simply stay within the polly, handling food preparation or watching the stores. More often, I am sent into the installation alongside the others to perform some maintenance on one of the engines, helping to bring forth the grand plan that Martin and Valerie are envisioning. I've become very handy with the screwdriver and wrench.

Martin sighs beside me as the line moves forward slowly. "Valerie told me the provisioner did not show up yesterday, so we will have to make do with no synth-meat and half the garum. That's the third time that's happened since you and I arrived here."

"It is odd," I agree. "I do not recall such a thing happening at my old polly."

"Hmm, and there's also the bedsheets. No one cleaned them this morning. Valerie believes someone is just slacking off, but I still think it's strange, with everything else..."

Despite his complaining, I know Martin well enough to see the shimmering behind his eyes. Something has him extremely excited, and he's dying to share it with me. "Well?" I say, putting my hands on my hips. "There's something else. Something that has you quivering."

"Okay, okay, Marissa, sheesh!" he says, but his eyes are still smiling. "Well, it's no great secret." He spreads his arms to either side. "We're done! And ahead of schedule, too. Tomorrow, we perform the maneuvers to send us towards the new planet."

"That's great news!" I exclaim. "Though I'm still unclear what these maneuvers will involve."

"Oh, did I never tell you?" He takes the flashlight from my hand. "Imagine this is the ship." He holds his free fist away from his body. "And this is the planet. We are currently heading towards it, but off by a few degrees. We would miss if we did nothing." He demonstrates. "So we will do three things. First, fire the side thrusters to turn the attitude of the ship slightly, so that it's facing a little past the planet on the other side. But we will still be traveling on our original course. Second, fire the main engines so that our course curves until it's pointed at the planet. Finally, another longer burn of the side thrusters to turn the ship around completely so the back end faces the planet. Then we wait--around seventy hundreds--before performing another burn of the main engines to slow us down."

"I think I see. Will we feel anything, when the engines are firing?"

"Hopefully not. Maybe the occasional tug, but nothing more."

"In any case, I am glad to hear all of this," I say, taking my flashlight back. "I relish the thought that I will no longer have to spend all that time in the dark."

"Yeah..." says Martin. Suddenly his eyes snap up, as if he were seeing me for the first time. He stares at my head covering, then down at the flashlight he had just been holding. "Uh...Is that where you were just now? In the installation?"

"Of course," I say, slightly alarmed at the look on his face. "I was following my assignment for today."

Martin walks away from the line, gesturing me to follow. "But...food..." I protest weakly, but I obey. "What is going on?"

"Everything was finished yesterday," he says quietly. "There should not have been a reason for anyone to touch the engines today." We are headed redward towards the main entrance.

"I was not alone," I say. "I saw Cedric down there, and Tina and Ash. I believe we all had the same task. Working with the side thrusters."

Martin leads me to the end corridor and turns spinward until we reach the first thruster. "Is this one of the ones you touched?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Show me exactly what you did."

I shine my flashlight over the tangle of pipes hanging down from the crevice above. "This one." I indicate a large blue pipe. "I hooked it into the engine here."

"Fuck," Martin swears. "Fucking hell!" He runs back the way we came. I chase him.

"Martin? Martin, you are scaring me!"

He doesn't respond. We exit the installation and re-enter the polly. Martin rushes up to Valerie, who is standing just outside her room. As I reach them, I hear him exclaim, "We can't fire the engines!"

"What?" she says, shocked. "Why is that?"

"The thrusters--they've been sabotaged! Hooked into the emission lines for the antimatter core!"

By her eyes, I can tell that Valerie immediately grasps what that means, but I do not. "I assume this is bad?"

"Very," says Martin. "When the thrusters fire, they'd exert many times the force expected. The torque would tear the ship apart! Marissa...Marissa, you are sure this is the order that Auto gave you? And the others?"

"Yes," I say. "The instructions were very clear."

"I would never approve such a decision," says Valerie, shaking her head.

"I know," says Martin grimly. "It was Auto...It was always Auto..."

A chill goes through my whole body. "Auto..." I near whisper. "Auto, why would you want to kill us? Aren't we your friends?"

There's a pause, then Auto's voice comes through, but wrong--higher-pitched, tinged with an emotional resonance he has never shown before. "I don't want to kill you," he says. "I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill you." The voice cuts off abruptly.

The sunstrand goes out.