The Star Pirate's Folly

Chapter 4: Silver

Bill Silver padded naked down the vacant steel halls of the starship Wanderlust, exposed and fervently hoping he could make it back to his quarters before one of the crew saw him. He'd woken up in the nullroom, just floating there curled up in a ball, nude as the day he was born, completely alone. He had no idea how he'd gotten there. Luckily it was the middle of the night cycle on the ship, so most of the crew was asleep.

Bill hated being naked. It made him feel hideous—and not just because of his aged, sagging gut. He detested the sight of his arm without his cybernetic prosthetic hand, and even now he hid the smooth stump of his left wrist underneath his good right hand.

The last corner before his room was just ahead. Silver peeked cautiously down the next hall, both ways. Clear. He was quick on his feet despite his declining figure—there still lingered some remnant of his taut-muscled youth. He darted down the hallway and allowed himself a sigh of relief as the doors to his private quarters slid open for him just as he approached.

This wasn't the first time he'd had to make the nerve-wracking trip. It reminded him of his childhood, tiptoeing through the hallways past bedtime, frightful of making the slightest noise—and then the sweet relief of safety. He pulled a bathrobe off the back of his desk chair and wrapped it around himself.

He was beginning to worry about these types of incidents, as they were getting more frequent and lately did not limit themselves to his sleep cycles. Sometimes he just blanked out. That's what he had started calling it. He'd found himself in the dining hall one morning a few months before, just sort of came to in the middle of eating breakfast. He had attempted to retrace his steps, but came up with nothing. No unusual activity on his finances. No visible wounds or other bodily damage. Just a three-hour gap in his memory. All he remembered was waking up that morning.

Bill knew he should check the records on his neural implant. The tiny computer at the base of his brain stem allowed him to control his prosthesis. He could use its logs to track his movements, figure out where he'd been, and maybe from there put his mind to rest. Probably just sleepwalking. Nightmares or some such. He just couldn't bring himself to look.

This squirming feeling in his gut told him he shouldn't.

Facing the turquoise glow of his computer's display, Bill Silver stared aimlessly and chewed his lip. He couldn't access the ship's security logs without raising eyebrows, and he definitely didn't want to draw attention to the incidents. But he had to know. His eyes lost focus as he walked himself through the mental process of sending the location data from the implant to his personal computer. Just the thought of bringing up the logs was enough to tie his innards in slippery knots—a belly full of snakes. He mentally peered inside the location data folder.

Before he could send the data to his personal computer his mind snapped shut. He began to hyperventilate, then watched in horror as his right hand trembled violently. The tremors spread up his whole arm. He felt sweat beading up on his skin. A fierce shiver shook his body, but then the episode passed as quickly as it had come upon him. He caught his breath in heaving gasps, in deep through his nose and slowly out from his mouth.

As much as these incidents terrified him, Silver refused to tell anyone about them. If he was deemed incompetent in his duties the other officers would toss him planetside and forget about him. No room for dead weight on a crowded ship, and what use is a man who can't be trusted with his own brain? Especially a man of his standing—he'd been Quartermaster aboard Wanderlust for three years running. The crew trusted him, depended on him. He'd spent a long time cultivating that trust, working his way up to his current position.

It wasn't easy starting from scratch with a new crew, but he'd proven his worth as an able crewman since his first trip through the belt with them. It was valuable to him on a personal level in addition to the obvious benefits. He didn't want to leave that way.