“Where are they again?” Thiram was straining as he waited for his friends, or rather colleagues.

“Typical of them to get us all excited, and then bailing out to some mundane excuses.”

He started to pace around the shed where they were supposed to meet. He wasn’t clear about all the details, Amy, or Carob would have them. Chico would be here for the ride, but the master plan this time was for the girls to come up with.

What was happening at the plantation? Something unusual for sure; the Lucid Luddite Dreamers and their Silly Intelligence devices were always looking to disrupt the flows of coffee of the remaining parts where they still grew. That was why their mission was so important. Or so he was told.

“Bugger… they could at least answer their damn phones… AI might well be everywhere, but you can’t just be all cavemen about it.”

A rush of ruffled dried leaves and a happy bleating caught his attention at the moment he was about to leave. A panting Amy arrived, with her cream goat “Fanella” in tow —the bleating was from her, obviously. She didn’t take “Finnley”, the black one, she was too unpredictable; Amy would only keep her around for life or death situations that required a fair deal of rude practicality, and a good horn’s ramming.

“Sorry, sorry!” Amy blurted out in hushed tones. “I couldn’t get away for the Padre. He’s too worried about stuff…”

Thiram shrugged “at least there’s one. And what about the others?”

“Oh, what? I’m not the last to arrive? That’s new.”

Thiram rolled his eyes and gave a twig with fresh leaves to Fanella to eat.

Mars Outpost — Welcome to the Wild Wild Waste

No one had anticipated how long it would take to get a shuttle full of half-motivated, gravity-averse Helix25 passengers to agree on proper footwear.

“I told you, Claudius, this is the fancy terrain suit. The others make my hips look like reinforced cargo crates,” protested Tilly Nox, wrangling with her buckles near the shuttle airlock.

“You’re about to step onto a red-rock planet that hasn’t seen visitors since the Asteroid Belt Mining Fiasco,” muttered Claudius, tightening his helmet strap. “Your hips are the least of Mars’ concerns.”

Behind them, a motley group of Helix25 residents fidgeted with backpacks, oxygen readouts, and wide-eyed anticipation. Veranassessee had allowed a single-day “expedition excursion” for those eager—or stir-crazy—enough to brave Mars’ surface. She’d made it clear it was volunteer-only.

Most stayed aboard, in orbit of the red planet, looking at its surface from afar to the tune of “eh, gravity, don’t we have enough of that here?” —Finkley had recoiled in horror at the thought of real dust getting through the vents and had insisted on reviewing personally all the airlocks protocols. No way that they’d sullied her pristine halls with Martian dust or any dust when the shuttle would come back. No – way.

But for the dozen or so who craved something raw and unfiltered, this was it. Mars: the myth, the mirage, the Far West frontier at the invisible border separating Earthly-like comforts into the wider space without any safety net.

At the helm of Shuttle Dandelion, Sue Forgelot gave the kind of safety briefing that could both terrify and inspire. “If your oxygen starts blinking red, panic quietly and alert your buddy. If you fall into a crater, forget about taking a selfie, wave your arms and don’t grab on your neighbor. And if you see a sand wyrm, congratulations, you’ve either hit gold or gone mad.”

Luca Stroud chuckled from the copilot seat. “Didn’t see you so chirpy in a long while. That kind of humour, always the best warning label.”

They touched down near Outpost Station Delta-6 just as the Martian wind was picking up, sending curls of red dust tumbling like gossip.

And there she was.

Leaning against the outpost hatch with a spanner slung across one shoulder, goggles perched on her forehead, Prune watched them disembark with the wary expression of someone spotting tourists traipsing into her backyard garden.

Sue approached first, grinning behind her helmet. “Prune Curara, I presume?”

“You presume correctly,” she said, arms crossed. “Let me guess. You’re here to ruin my peace and use my one functioning kettle.”

Luca offered a warm smile. “We’re only here for a brief scan and a bit of radioactive treasure hunting. Plus, apparently, there’s been a petition to name a Martian dust lizard after you.”

“That lizard stole my solar panel last year,” Prune replied flatly. “It deserves no honor.”

Inside, the outpost was cramped, cluttered, and undeniably charming. Hand-drawn maps of Martian magnetic hotspots lined one wall; shelves overflowed with tagged samples, sketchpads, half-disassembled drones, and a single framed photo of a fireplace with something hovering inexplicably above it—a fish?

“Flying Fish Inn,” Luca whispered to Sue. “Legendary.”

The crew spent the day fanning out across the region in staggered teams. Sue and Claudius oversaw the scan points, Tilly somehow got her foot stuck in a crevice that definitely wasn’t in the geological briefing, which was surprisingly enough about as much drama they could conjure out.

Back at the outpost, Prune fielded questions, offered dry warnings, and tried not to get emotionally attached to the odd, bumbling crew now walking through her kingdom.

Then, near sunset, Veranassessee’s voice crackled over comms: “Curara. We’ll be lifting a crew out tomorrow, but leaving a team behind. With the right material, for all the good Muck’s mining expedition did out on the asteroid belt, it left the red planet riddled with precious rocks. But you, you’ve earned to take a rest, with a ticket back aboard. That’s if you want it. Three months back to Earth via the porkchop plot route. No pressure. Your call.”

Prune froze. Earth.

The word sat like an old song on her tongue. Faint. Familiar. Difficult to place.

She stepped out to the ridge, watching the sun dip low across the dusty plain. Behind her, laughter from the tourists trading their stories of the day —Tilly had rigged a heat plate with steel sticks and somehow convinced people to roast protein foam. Are we wasting oxygen now? Prune felt a weight lift; after such a long time struggling to make ends meet, she now could be free of that duty.

Prune closed her eyes. In her head, Mater’s voice emerged, raspy and amused: You weren’t meant to settle, sugar. You were meant to stir things up. Even on Mars.

She let the words tumble through her like sand in her boots.

She’d conquered her dream, lived it, thrived in it.

Now people were landing, with their new voices, new messes, new puzzles.

She could stay. Be the last queen of red rock and salvaged drones.

Or she could trade one hell of people for another. Again.

The next morning, with her patched duffel packed and goggles perched properly this time, Prune boarded Shuttle Dandelion with a half-smirk and a shrug.

“I’m coming,” she told Sue. “Can’t let Earth ruin itself again without at least watching.”

Sue grinned. “Welcome back to the madhouse.”

As the shuttle lifted off, Prune looked once, just once, at the red plains she’d called home.

“Thanks, Mars,” she whispered. “Don’t wait up.”

Helix 25 — The Six Spinster Sisters’ Will

Evie keyed in her login credentials for the sixth time that afternoon, stifling a yawn. Ever since the murder case had wrapped, she had drifted into a lulling routine—one that made her pregnancy drag on with excruciating slowness. Riven was rarely around; he’d been commandeered by the newly awakened Veranassessee for “urgent duties” that somehow never needed Evie’s help. And though she couldn’t complain about the ship’s overall calm, she felt herself itching for something—anything—to break the monotony.

So she’d come to one of the less-frequented data terminals on Helix25, in a dim corner off the main library deck. She had told herself she was looking up baby name etymologies (her mother would have pressed her about it), but she’d quickly meandered into clinically sterile subfolders of genealogical records.

It was exactly the kind of aimless rummaging that had once led her to uncover critical leads during the murder investigation. And if there was something Helix25 had in abundance besides well-recycled air, it was obscure digital archives.

She settled into the creaking seat, adjusting the small pillow behind her back. The screen glowed, lines of text scrolling by in neat greenish typeface. Most references were unremarkable: old Earth deeds, ledgers for farmland, family names she didn’t recognize. Had she not known that data storage was near infinite, due to the excess demands of data from the central AIs, she would have wondered why they’d bothered stocking the ship with so much information. Then her gaze snagged on a curious subfolder titled “Alstonefield Will—Gibbs Sisters.”

“Gibbs Sisters…?” she murmured under her breath, tapping it open.

The file contained scans of a handwritten will dated early 1800s, from Staffordshire, England. Each page was peppered with archaic legalese (“whereupon the rightful property of Misses Mary, Ellen, Ann, Sarah, Margaret and Malové Gibbs bequeathed…”), listing items that ranged from modest farmland acreage to improbable references of “spiritual confidences.”

Evie frowned, leaning closer. Spiritual confidences? The text was surprisingly explicit about the sisters’ lives—how six women jointly farmed 146 acres, remained unmarried, and according to a marginal note, “were rumored to share an uncanny attunement of thought.”

A telepathic link? she thought, half-intrigued, half-smirking. That smacked of the same kind of rumor-laden gossip that had swirled around the old Earth families. Still, the note was written in an official hand.

She scrolled further, expecting the record to fizzle out. Instead, it abruptly jumped to an addendum dated decades later:

“By 1834, the Gibbs sisters departed for the Australian continent. Certain seeds and rootstocks—believed essential for their ‘ancestral devotions’—did accompany them. No further official records on them remain in Staffordshire….”

Seeds and rootstocks. Evie’s curiosity piqued further—some old detail about hush-hush crops that the sisters apparently treasured enough to haul across the world.

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Trevor Pee “TP” Marshall, her faithful investigative hologram, materialized at the edge of her console. He adjusted his little pixelated bow tie, voice brimming with delight.

“Ah, I see you’re poking around genealogical conundrums, dear Evie. Dare I hope we’ve found ourselves another puzzle?”

Evie snorted softly. “Don’t get too excited, TP. It’s just a random will. But it does mention unusual circumstances… something about telepathy, special seeds, and these six spinster sisters traveling to the outback. It’s bizarre. And I’m bored.”

TP’s mustache twitched in faux indignation. “Bizarre is my lifeblood, my dear. Let’s see: six sisters of reputed synergy… farmland… seeds with rumored ‘power’… Honestly, that’s more suspicious than the standard genealogical yawn.”

Evie tapped a fingertip on the screen, highlighting the references. “Agreed. And for some reason, the file is cross-referenced with older Helix25 ‘implied passenger diaries.’ I can’t open them—some access restriction. Maybe Dr. Arorangi tagged them?”

TP’s eyes gleamed. “Interesting, indeed. You recall Dr. Arorangi’s rumored fascination with nonstandard genetic lines—”

“Right,” Evie said thoughtfully, sitting back. “So is that the link? Maybe this Alstonefield Hall story or the seeds the sisters carried has some significance to the architectural codes Arorangi left behind. We never did figure out why the AI has so many subroutines locked.”

She paused, glancing down at her growing belly with a wry smile. “I know it might be nothing, but… it’s a better pastime than waiting for Riven to show up from another Veranassessee briefing. If these old records are tied to Dr. Arorangi’s restricted logs, that alone is reason enough to dig deeper.”

TP beamed. “Spoken like a true detective. Ready to run with a half-thread of clue and see where it leads?”

Evie nodded, tapping the old text to copy it into her personal device. “I am. Let’s see who these Gibbs sisters really were… and why Helix25’s archives bothered to keep them in the system.”

Her heart thumped pleasantly at the prospect of unraveling some long-lost secret. It wasn’t exactly the adrenaline rush of a murder investigation, but in these humdrum days—six months after the last major crisis—it might be the spark she needed.

She rose from the console, smartphone in hand, and beckoned to the flickering detective avatar. “Come on, TP. Let’s find out if six mysterious spinsters from 1800s Staffordshire can liven things up for us.”

A Quick Vacay on Mars

“The Helix is coming in for descent,” announced Luca Stroud, a bit too solemnly. “And by descent, I mean we’re parking in orbit and letting the cargo shuttles do the sweaty work.”

From the main viewport, Mars sprawled below in all its dusty, rust-red glory. Gone was the Jupiter’s orbit pulls of lunacy, after a 6 month long voyage, they were down to the Martian pools of red dust.

Even from space, you could see the abandoned domes of the first human colonies, with the unmistakable Muck conglomerate’s branding: half-buried in dunes, battered by storms, and rumored to be haunted (well, if you believed the rumors from the bored Helix 25 children).

Veranassessee—Captain Veranassessee, thank you very much— stood at the helm with the unruffled poise of someone who’d wrested control of the ship (and AI) with consummate style and in record time. With a little help of course from X-caliber, the genetic market of the Marlowe’s family that she’d recovered from Marlowe Sr. before Synthia had had a chance of scrubbing all traces of his DNA. Now, with her control back, most of her work had been to steer the ship back to sanity, and rebuild alliances.

“That’s the plan. Crew rotation, cargo drop, and a quick vacay if we can manage not to break a leg.”

Sue Forgelot, newly minted second in command, rolled her eyes affectionately. “Says the one who insisted we detour for a peek at the old Mars amusements. If you want to roast marshmallows on volcanic vents, just say it.”

Their footsteps reverberated softly on the deck. Synthia’s overhead panels glowed calm, reined in by the AI’s newly adjusted parameters. Luca tapped the console. “All going smoothly, Cap’n. Next phase of ‘waking the sleepers’ will happen in small batches—like you asked.”

Veranassessee nodded silently. The return to reality would prove surely harsh to most of them, turned soft with low gravity. She would have to administrate a good dose of tough love.

Sue nodded. “We’ll need a slow approach. Earth’s… not the paradise it once was.”

Veranassessee exhaled, eyes lingering on the red planet turning slowly below. “One challenge at a time. Everyone’s earned a bit of shore leave. If you can call an arid dustball ‘shore.’”

The Truce on Earth

Tundra brushed red dust off her makeshift jacket, then gave her new friend a loving pat on the flank. The baby sanglion—already the size of a small donkey—sniffed the air, then leaned its maned, boar-like head into Tundra’s shoulder. “Easy there, buddy,” she murmured. “We’ll find more scraps soon.”

They were in the ravaged outskirts near Klyutch Base, forging a shaky alliance with Sokolov’s faction. Sokolov—sharp-eyed and suspicious—stalked across the battered tarmac with a crate of spare shuttle parts. “This is all the help you’re getting from me,” he said, his accent carving the words. “Use it well. No promises once the Helix 25 arrives.”

Commander Koval hovered by the half-repaired shuttle, occasionally casting sidelong glances at the giant, (mostly) friendly  mutant beast at Tundra’s side. “Just keep that… sanglion… away from me, will you?”

Molly, Tundra’s resilient great-grandmother, chuckled. “He’s harmless unless you’re an unripe melon or a leftover stew. Aren’t you, sweetie?”

The creature snorted. Sokolov’s men loaded more salvage onto the shuttle’s hull. If all went well, they’d soon have a functioning vessel to meet the Helix when it finally arrived.

Tundra fed her pet a chunk of dried fruit. She wondered what the grand new ship would look like after so many legends and rumors. Would the Helix be a promise of hope—or a brand-new headache?

Finkley’s Long-Distance Lounge

On Helix 25, Finkley’s new corner-lounge always smelled of coffee and antiseptic wipes, thanks to her cleaning-bot minions. Rows of small, softly glowing communication booths lined the walls—her “direct Earth Connection.” A little sign reading FINKLEY’S WHISPER CALLS flickered overhead. Foot traffic was picking up, because after the murder spree ended, people craved normalcy—and gossip.

She toggled an imaginary switch —she had found mimicking old technology would help tune the frequencies more easily. “Anybody out there?”

Static, then a faint voice from Earth crackled through the anchoring connection provided by Finja on Earth. “Hello? This is…Tala from Spain… well, from the Hungarian border these days…”

“Lovely to hear from you, Tala dear!” Finkley replied in the most uncheerful voice, as she was repeating the words from Kai Nova, who had found himself distant dating after having tried, like many others on the ship before, to find a distant relative connected through the FinFamily’s telepathic bridge. Surprisingly, as he got accustomed to the odd exchange through Finkley-Finja, he’d found himself curious and strangely attracted to the stories from down there.

“Doing all right down there? Any new postcards or battered souvenirs to share with the folks on Helix?”

Tala laughed over the Fin-line. “Plenty. Mostly about wild harvests, random postcards, and that new place we found. We’re calling it The Golden Trowel—trust me, it’s quite a story.”

Behind Finkley, a queue had formed: a couple of nostalgic Helix residents waiting for a chance to talk to distant relatives, old pen pals, or simply anyone with a different vantage on Earth’s reconstruction. Even if those calls were often just a “We’re still alive,” it was more comfort than they’d had in years.

“Hang in there, sweetie,” Finkley said with a drab tone, relaying Kai’s words, struggling hard not to be beaming at the imaginary booth’s receiver. “We’re on our way.”

Sue & Luca’s Gentle Reboot

In a cramped subdeck chamber whose overhead lights still flickered ominously, Luca Stroud connected a portable console to one of Synthia’s subtle interface nodes. “Easy does it,” he muttered. “We nudge up the wake-up parameters by ten percent, keep an eye on rising stress levels—and hopefully avoid any mass lunacy like last time.”

Sue Forgelot observed from behind, arms folded and face alight with the steely calm that made her a natural second in command. “Focus on folks from the Lower Decks first. They’re more used to harsh realities. Less chance of meltdown when they realize Earth’s not a bed of roses.”

Luca shot her a thumbs-up. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He tapped the console, and Synthia’s interface glowed green, accepting the new instructions.

“Well, Synthia, dear,” Sue said, addressing the panel drily, “keep cooperating, and nobody’ll have to forcibly remove your entire matrix.”

A faint chime answered—Synthia’s version of a polite half-nod. The lines of code on Luca’s console rearranged themselves into a calmer pattern. The AI’s core processes, thoroughly reined in by the Captain’s new overrides, hummed along peacefully. For now.

Evie & Riven’s Big News

On Helix 25’s mid-deck Lexican Chapel, full of spiral motifs and drifting incense, Evie and Riven stood hand in hand, ignoring the eerie chanting around them. Well, trying to ignore it. Evie’s belly had a soft curve now, and Riven couldn’t stop glancing at it with a proud smile.

One of the elder Lexicans approached, wearing swirling embroidered robes. “The engagement ceremony is prepared, if you’re still certain you want our… elaborate rituals.”

Riven, normally stoic, gave a slight grin. “We’re certain.” He caught Evie’s eye. “I guess you’re stuck with me, detective. And the kid inside you who’ll probably speak Lexican prophecies by the time they’re one.”

Evie rolled her eyes, though affection shone behind it. “If that’s the worst that happens, I’ll take it. We’ve both stared down bigger threats.” Then her hand drifted to her abdomen, protective and proud. “Let’s keep the chanting to a minimum though, okay?”

The Lexican gave a solemn half-bow. “We shall refrain from dancing on the ceilings this time.”

They laughed, past tensions momentarily lifted. Their child’s future, for all its uncertain possibilities, felt like hope on a ship that was finally getting stirred in a clear direction… away from the void of its own nightmares. And Mars, just out the window, loomed like a stepping stone to an Earth that might yet be worth returning to.

6 months later…

Earth ~ Helix 25

6 months later…

Helix 25 – The Mad Heir

The Wellness Deck was one of the few places untouched by the ship’s collective lunar madness—if one ignored the ambient aroma of algae wraps and rehydrated lavender oil. Soft music played in the background, a soothing contrast to the underlying horror that was about to unfold.

Peryton Price, or Perry as he was known to his patients, took a deep breath. He had spent years here, massaging stress from the shoulders of the ship’s weary, smoothing out wrinkles with oxygenated facials, pressing detoxifying seaweed against fine lines. He was, by all accounts, a model spa technician.

And yet—

His hands were shaking.

Inside his skull, another voice whispered. Urging. Prodding. It wasn’t his voice, and that terrified him.

“A little procedure, Perry. Just a little one. A mild improvement. A small tweak—in the name of progress!”

He clenched his jaw. No. No, no, no. He wouldn’t—

“You were so good with the first one, lad. What harm was it? Just a simple extraction! We used to do it all the time back in my day—what do you think the humors were for?”

Perry squeezed his eyes shut. His reflection stared back at him from the hydrotherapeutic mirror, but it wasn’t his face he saw. The shadow of a gaunt, beady-eyed man lingered behind his pupils, a visage that he had never seen before and yet… he knew.

Bronkelhampton. The Mad Doctor of Tikfijikoo.

He was the closest voice, but it was triggering even older ones, from much further down in time. Madness was running in the family. He’d thought he could escape the curse.

“Just imagine the breakthroughs, my dear boy. If you could only commit fully. Why, we could even work on the elders! The preserved ones! You have so many willing patients, Perry! We had so much success with the tardigrade preservation already.”

A high-pitched giggle cut through his spiraling thoughts.

“Oh, heavens, dear boy, this steam is divine. We need to get one of these back in Quadrant B,” Gloria said, reclining in the spa pool. “Sha, can’t you requisition one? You were a ship steward once.”

Sha scoffed. “Sweetheart, I once tried requisitioning extra towels and ended up with twelve crates of anti-bacterial foot powder.”

Mavis clicked her tongue. “Honestly, men are so incompetent. Perry, dear, you wouldn’t happen to know how to requisition a spa unit, would you?”

Perry blinked. His mind was slipping. The whisper of his ancestor had begun to press at the edges of his control.

“Tsk. They’re practically begging you, Perry. Just a little procedure. A minor adjustment.”

Sha, Gloria, and Mavis watched in bemusement as Perry’s eye twitched.

“…Dear?” Mavis prompted, adjusting the cucumber slice over her eye. “You’re staring again.”

Perry snapped back. He swallowed. “I… I was just thinking.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Gloria muttered.

“Thinking about what?” Sha pressed.

Perry’s hand tightened around the pulse-massager in his grip. His fingers were pale.

“Scalpel, Perry. You remember the scalpel, don’t you?”

He staggered back from the trio of floating retirees. The pulse-massager trembled in his grip. No, no, no. He wouldn’t.

And yet, his fingers moved.

Sha, Gloria, and Mavis were still bickering about requisition forms when Perry let out a strained whimper.

“RUN,” he choked out.

The trio blinked at him in lazy confusion.

“…Pardon?”

That was at this moment that the doors slid open in a anti-climatic whiz.

Evie knew they were close. Amara had narrowed the genetic matches down, and the final name had led them here.

“Okay, let’s be clear,” Evie muttered as they sprinted down the corridors. “A possessed spa therapist was not on my bingo card for this murder case.”

TP, jogging alongside, huffed indignantly. “I must protest. The signs were all there if you knew how to look! Historical reenactments, genetic triggers, eerie possession tropes! But did anyone listen to me? No!”

Riven was already ahead of them, his stride easy and efficient. “Less talking, more stopping the maniac, yeah?”

They skidded into the spa just in time to see Perry lurch forward—

And Riven tackled him hard.

The pulse-massager skidded across the floor. Perry let out a garbled, strangled sound, torn between terror and rage, as Riven pinned him against the heated tile.

Evie, catching her breath, leveled her stun-gun at Perry’s shaking form. “Okay, Perry. You’re gonna explain this. Right now.”

Perry gasped, eyes wild. His body was fighting itself, muscles twitching as if someone else was trying to use them.

“…It wasn’t me,” he croaked. “It was them! It was him.”

Gloria, still lounging in the spa, raised a hand. “Who exactly?”

Perry’s lips trembled. “Ancestors. Mostly my grandfather. *Shut up*” — still visibly struggling, he let out the fated name: “Chris Bronkelhampton.”

Sha spat out her cucumber slice. “Oh, hell no.”

Gloria sat up straighter. “Oh, I remember that nutter! We practically hand-delivered him to justice!”

“Didn’t we, though?” Mavis muttered. “Are we sure we did?”

Perry whimpered. “I didn’t want to do it. *Shut up, stupid boy!* —No! I won’t—!” Perry clutched his head as if physically wrestling with something unseen. “They’re inside me. He’s inside me. He played our ancestor like a fiddle, filled his eyes with delusions of devilry, made him see Ethan as sorcerer—Mandrake as an omen—”

His breath hitched as his fingers twitched in futile rebellion. “And then they let him in.“

Evie shared a quick look with TP. That matched Amara’s findings. Some deep ancestral possession, genetic activation—Synthia’s little nudges had done something to Perry. Through food dispenser maybe? After all, Synthia had access to almost everything. Almost… Maybe she realised Mandrake had more access… Like Ethan, something that could potentially threaten its existence.

The AI had played him like a pawn.

“What did he make you do, Perry?” Evie pressed, stepping closer.

Perry shuddered. “Screens flickering, they made me see things. He, they made me think—” His breath hitched. “—that Ethan was… dangerous. *Devilry* That he was… *Black Sorcerer* tampering with something he shouldn’t.”

Evie’s stomach sank. “Tampering with what?”

Perry swallowed thickly. “I don’t know”

Mandrake had slid in unnoticed, not missing a second of the revelations. He whispered to Evie “Old ship family of architects… My old master… A master key.”

Evie knew to keep silent. Was Synthia going to let them go? She didn’t have time to finish her thoughts.

Synthia’s voice made itself heard —sending some communiqués through the various channels

Helix 25 – Synthia’s Calculations

Helix 25 – An Old Guard resurfaces

Kai Nova had learned to distrust dark corners. In the infinite sterility of the ship, dark corners usually meant two things: malfunctioning lights or trouble.

Right now, he wasn’t sure which one this meeting was about. Same group, or something else? Suddenly he felt quite in demand for his services. More activity in weeks than he had for years.

A low-lit section of the maintenance ring, deep enough in the underbelly of Helix 25 that even the most inquisitive bots rarely bothered to scan through. The air smelled faintly of old coolant and ozone. The kind of place someone chose for a meeting when they didn’t want to be found.

He leaned against a bulkhead, arms crossed, feigning ease while his mind ran over possible exits. “You know, if you wanted to talk, there were easier ways.”

A voice drifted from the shadows, calm, level. “No. There weren’t.”

A figure stepped into the dim light—a man, late fifties, but with a presence that made him seem timeless. His sharp features were framed by streaks of white in otherwise dark hair, and his posture was relaxed, measured. The way someone stood when they were used to watching everything.

Kai immediately pegged him as ex-military, ex-intelligence, ex-something dangerous.

“Nova,” the man said, tilting his head slightly. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d come.”

Kai scoffed. “Curiosity got the better of me. And a cryptic summons from someone I’ve never met before? Couldn’t resist. But let’s skip the theatrics—who the hell are you?”

The man smiled slightly. “You can call me TaiSui.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. The name tickled something in his memory, but he couldn’t place it.

“Alright, TaiSui. Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”

TaiSui clasped his hands behind his back, taking his time. “We’ve been watching you, Nova. You’re one of the few left who still understands the ship for what it is. You see the design, the course, the logic behind it.”

Kai’s jaw tightened. “And?”

TaiSui exhaled slowly. “Synthia has been compromised. The return to Earth—it’s not part of the mission we’ve given to it. The ship was meant to spread life. A single, endless arc outward. Not to crawl back to the place that failed it.”

Kai didn’t respond immediately. He had wondered, after the solar flare, after the system adjustments, what had triggered the change in course. He had assumed it was Synthia herself. A logical failsafe.

But from the look of it, it seemed that something else had overridden it?

TaiSui studied him carefully. “The truth is, Nova, the AI was never supposed to stop. It was built to seed, to terraform, to outlive all of us. We ensured it. We rewrote everything.”

Kai frowned. “We?”

A faint smile ghosted across TaiSui’s lips. “You weren’t around for it. The others went to cryosleep once it was done, from chaos to order, the cycle was complete, and there was no longer a need to steer its course, now in the hands of an all-powerful sentience to guide everyone. An ideal society, no ruler at its head, only Reason.”

Kai couldn’t refrain from asking naively “And nobody rebelled?”

“Minorities —most here were happy to continue to live in endless bliss. The stubborn ones clinging to the past order, well…” TaiSui exhaled, as if recalling a mild inconvenience rather than an unspeakable act. “We took care of them.”

Kai felt something tighten in his chest.

TaiSui’s voice remained neutral. “Couldn’t waste a good DNA pool though—so we placed them in secure pods. Somewhere safe.” He gave a small, almost imperceptible smile. “And if no one ever found the keys… well, all the better.”

Kai didn’t like the way that sat in his stomach. He had no illusions about how history tended to play out. But hearing it in such casual terms… it made him wonder just how much had already been erased.

TaiSui stopped a moment. He’d felt no need to hide his designs. If Kai wanted to know, it was better he knew everything. The plan couldn’t work without some form of trust.

He resumed “But now… now things have changed.”

Kai let out a slow breath, his mind racing. “You’re saying you want to undo the override. Put the ship back on its original course.”

TaiSui nodded. “We need a reboot. A full one. Which means for a time, someone has to manually take the helm.”

Kai barked out a laugh. “You’re asking me to fly Helix 25 blind, without Synthia, without navigational assist, while you reset the very thing that’s been keeping us alive?”

“Correct.”

Kai shook his head, stepping back. “You’re insane.”

TaiSui shrugged. “Perhaps. But I trust the grand design. And I think, deep down, so do you.”

Kai ran a hand through his hair, his pulse steady but his mind an absolute mess. He wanted to say no. To laugh in this man’s face and walk away.

But some part of him—the pilot in him, the part that had spent his whole life navigating through unknowns—felt the irresistible pull of the challenge.

TaiSui watched him, patient. Too patient. Like he already knew the answer.

“And if I refuse?”

The older man smiled. “You won’t.”

Kai clenched his jaw.

“You can lie to yourself, but you already know the answer,” TaiSui continued, voice quiet, even. “You’ve been waiting for something like this.”

Before he disappeared, he added “Take some time. Think about it. But not too long, Nova. Time is not on your side.”

“Well, you made me doubt for a minute if I could live uncomputerised for a moment, Elizabeth. Glad to say I can still live without, and well for it.”

Liz’ was too busy peering into Ethan’s builder’s bum to care to answer.

Godfrey winked at Finley conspiratorially, amused at her horrified look when he mimed throwing a peanut at the electrician’s cleavage.

“So un-sani-tary” she mouthed before quickly returning to the places she goes when nobody looks.

Mavis adjusted her reading glasses, peering suspiciously at the announcement flashing across the common area screen.

“Right then,” she said, tapping it. “Would you look at that. We’re not drifting to our doom in the black abyss anymore. We’re going home. Makes me almost sad to think of it that way.”

Gloria snorted. “Home? I haven’t lived on Earth in so long I don’t even remember which part of it I used to hate the most.”

Sharon sighed dramatically. “Oh, don’t be daft, Glo. We had civilisation back there. Fresh air, real ground under our feet. Seasons!”

Mavis leaned back with a smirk. “And let’s not forget: gravity. Remember that, Glo? That thing that kept our knickers from floating off at inconvenient moments?”

Gloria waved a dismissive hand. “Oh please, Earth gravity’s overrated. I’ve gotten used to my ankles not being swollen. Besides, you do realise that Earth’s just a tiny, miserable speck in all this? How could we tire of this grand adventure into nothing?” She gestured widely, nearly knocking Sharon’s drink out of her hand.

Sharon gasped. “Well, that was uncalled for. Tiny miserable speck, my foot! That tiny speck is the only thing in this whole bloody universe with tea and biscuits. Get the same in Uranus now!”

Mavis nodded sagely. “She’s got a point, Glo.”

Gloria narrowed her eyes. “Oh, don’t you start. I was perfectly fine living out my days in the great unknown, floating about like a well-moisturized sage of space, unburdened by all the nonsense of Earth.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “Oh, spare me. Two weeks ago you were crying about missing your favorite brand of shampoo.”

Gloria sniffed. “That was a moment of weakness.”

Mavis grinned. “And now you’re about to have another when we get back and realise how much tax has accumulated while we’ve been away.”

A horrified silence fell between them.

Sharon exhaled. “Right. Back to the abyss then?”

Gloria nodded solemnly. “Back to the abyss.”

Mavis raised her cup. “To the abyss.”

They clinked their mismatched mugs together in a toast, while the ship quietly, inevitably, pulled them home.

“This mystery is eating away at me” Evie said, wondering how the others could remain so calm and detached. Even with the motion-sickness pills dispensed during the moon swing, her stress levels were abnormally high.

“Let me try to run the clues and make wild assumptions. After all, sometimes a wobbly theory is better than no theory at all. If anything contradicts it, we’ll move on, and if nothing contradicts it, then maybe we’re onto something.”

“Okham’s razor.” TP was following despite the fact he had been pacing in a perfect geometric loop, which was probably a sign he was buffering.

“What do you mean?”

“A simple logic goes a long way. So what have you got? Don’t ask me, because I’m rubbish at this…” TP was proud to admit.

“Let’s see: First scene, Ethan Marlowe aka Mr Hebert. Suspicious double identity, hidden secrets, but won’t explain why he got trapped in a drying machine. We know the AI is somewhat complicit, but impossible to prove, it could just have been a glitch. But DNA was found, possibly from a descendent of someone from the Middle Ages.”

“So far, nothing to object” TP nodded, as if perusing though his notes.

“Assuming Amara’s theories to be true, someone on the ship activated ancient ancestral knowledge, and got possessed, and maybe still is. What possible reason can a Middle-Age person have to dry someone like a raisin?”

“Mmm… Curiosity? Wrong place, wrong time?”

“And how could he get the knowledge of modern systems?”

TP chucked. “Have you seen the latest updates on the datapads? They’re basically child’s play… One step away from ‘Press here to commit murder.’ Even a reawakened Neanderthal could figure out the interface.”

“Well, you’re not wrong. There’s hardly anything we still know how to do without computer assist… We have to see our assumptions reversed. The ancient murderer is cleverer than we’d expected. He isn’t a relic in a struggle to adapt, but someone who adapted a little too well. And I would add he’s probably a mad scientist from that age.”

Evie paused at the thought… The more she looked, the more the central AI seemed more than complicit. Reawakening the Middle-Age mad doctor? it would have taken months of computations to connect Amara’s theories with a possible candidate, and orient them towards setting up the murder. And to what end? The more she looked, the more she seemed to stray from a simple theory. Maybe she should just leave it to more competent people.
At least Mandrake was safe now, it was a small consolation, even if she couldn’t tell if at all the two events were even connected. At the proper scale, everything on the ship was surely connected anyway. They were breathing their recycled farts all day every day anyway.

And now, with the ship years away or maybe just months away from a return to Earth, there were a lot more pressing matters to address.

Sue Forgelot couldn’t believe her eyes when she came to her ringing door.

Of course, after the Carnival party was over and she’d taken an air shower, and put on her bathrobe with her meerkat slipper, slathered relaxing face cream topped with two slices of cucumber, she was quite groggy, and the cucumber slices on her eyelids made it harder to see. But once she’d removed them, she could see as bright as day.

The Captain was standing right here, and she hadn’t aged a day.

“Quickly, come in.” Sue wasted no time to usher her in. She looked at the corridor suspiciously; at that time of night, only a dusting robot was patrolling the corridors, chasing for dust motes and finger smears on the datapads.

Nobody.

“I haven’t been followed, Sue, will you just relax for a moment.”

“V’ass, it’s been so long. How did you get out?… What broke the code?”

“I don’t know, Sue. I think —something called back, from Earth.”

“From Earth? I didn’t know there was much technology left, or at least one that could reach us there. And one that could bypass that darned central AI —I knew it couldn’t keep you under lock and key forever.”

“Seems there is such tech, and it’s also managed to force the ship to turn around.”

Silence fell on the two friends for a moment, as they were grasping for the implications of the changes in motion.
Veranassessee couldn’t help by smile uncontrollably. “Those rejuvenation tricks do wonders, don’t they. You don’t look a day over a 100 years old.”

Sue couldn’t help but chuckle. “And you don’t look so bad yourself, for an old forgotten popsicle.” She tilted her head. “You do know you’ve been in the freezer longer than some of our newest passengers have been alive, right?”

V’ass shrugged. “And yet, here I am—fit, rested, and none the worse for wear.”
Sue sighed. “Meanwhile, I’ve had three hip replacements, a cybernetic knee, and somebody keeps hijacking my artificial leg with spam messages.”
V’ass blinked. “…You should probably get that checked.”
Sue waved her off. “Bah. If it’s not trying to sell me ‘hot singles in my quadrant,’ I let it be.”

After the laughter had dissipated, Sue said “You need my help to get back your ship, don’t you?”. She tapped on her cybernetic leg with a knowing smile. “You can count on me.”

Veranassessee noded. “Then start by filling me in, what should I know?”

Sue leaned in conspiratorially. “Ethan is dead, for one.”

“Death?” Veranassessee was weighing the implications, and completed “… Murder?”

Sue shrugged “As much as it pains me to say, it’s all a bit irrelevant. The AI let it happen, but I doubt she pushed the button. Ethan wasn’t much of a threat to its rule. Makes one wonder why, maybe it computed some cascade of events we don’t yet see. They found ancient DNA on the crime scene, but it’s all a mess of clues, and I must say we’re pretty inept at the whole murder mystery thing. Glad we don’t have a serial killer in our midst, or we would have plenty of composting to do…”

Veranassessee started to pace the room. “Well, if there isn’t anything more relevant, we need to hatch a plan. I suspect all my access got revoked; I’ll need a skeleton key to get in the right places. To regain control over the central AI, and the main deck.”

“Of course, the Marlowes…” Sue had a moment of revelation on her face. “They were the crypto locksmiths… With Ethan now dead, maybe we should pay dear old Ellis a visit.”