HAB 12 (Scrapyard Ship) by Mark Wayne McGinnis

forms,” Ricket replied.
    “Alright, let’s get up there. Go ahead and give everyone the phase-shift coordinates.”

Chapter 11
     
    “You’re getting warmer, Mollie. You’re definitely going in the right direction.”
    “When I said I wanted you to be harder on me, I didn’t mean this hard,” Mollie replied. She hadn’t previously ventured above Deck 4. With the other Decks you entered and left the DeckPorts through various corridors. But here, on Deck 5, she entered a large room remote unto itself. The first thing she noticed as she left the DeckPort was the muted lighting and soothing background music. Shaped like an oval, with large-cushioned seating around the perimeter, the room was all about the space above. This was the observatory that she had heard other crewmembers talking about. Mollie stood in the middle of the large room with her head back. Thousands of stars streaked by and disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
    “Mollie, are you still playing the game?” the AI’s friendly voice asked her.
    “Yeah, I guess. This place is so cool.” Mollie brought her attention back to matters at hand. She took several steps forward and squinted her eyes against the darkness.
    “You’re getting colder, Mollie.”
    Mollie stopped and took a tentative step towards the left bulkhead and then took several steps more.
    “You’re getting hotter, Mollie. Scalding hot!”
    Mollie had gone as far as she could; the wall and the couch were directly in front of her. She made a face. “Hmm, you’re being pretty tricky, Lilly. Let’s see. There’s nothing in front of me on the wall. Nothing on the couch.” Mollie smiled. “Maybe I’ll look beneath the cushions.” She crouched down, put her fingers in between the cushions, and pulled them apart. There, sitting at the back of the couch beneath one cushion, was a little six-inch square device. “What is that thing?” Mollie asked, now unsure if she should be touching something foreign to her. Lilly didn’t answer. “Hello, are you there, Lilly?”
    “Yes, I’m here, Mollie”
    “What is that?” she asked again. The soft music played in the background, but silence from the AI.
    “Lilly?”
    “Yes, Mollie. For you to win this game, you must complete your task, remember?”
    “I’m not so sure I should be doing this. Maybe this thing is something important?
    “Would I have you do anything that would get you in trouble, Mollie?”
    “I don’t think so. No, you wouldn’t.”
    “We can’t continue onto the next part of our game until you complete the task—as we outlined when we started.”
    “Okay, okay, okay …” Mollie picked up the small device. It was heavier than she thought it would be. Well, whatever this thing is , she thought to herself, it certainly shouldn’t have been left lying around, anyway. She made another face and looked around the room. As part of the rules of the game Lilly AI had come up with, every time she found one of the hidden items, she was to find the nearest incinerator panel and drop the item inside. At the far end of the room was a small bar, and behind that, a kitchenette. She walked around the counter and looked for the characteristic metallic panel. There were hundreds of those things, little trash ports, all over the ship. “There it is,” she said in a singsong voice. Without another thought, she pushed open the little metal door and let the device fall inside.
    “I win.”
     
    * * *
     
    The solemn-looking seaman walked slowly down the corridor. His mind was conflicted. Why should I be tested? His own brother, and I have to be tested? He’d accomplished more than anyone. The simple fact that he was here, a trusted crewmember wandering the corridors without suspicion, should not only be enough to prove his loyalty, but his higher intelligence. He was coming up to the wide hatch for the rear hold area. I can almost smell them , he thought to himself. He accessed the keypad and entered the code he’d