Bug Park by James P. Hogan

“We’ll look into it when we get clear. The boss says we move now.”

And then the shrill woop-woop-woop of an alarm sounded somewhere in the depths of the vessel, echoed by a repeater in the bridge monitor panel. Ellipulos sprang up and moved to quieten it, checked the status displays. “We’ve got a fire in the galley!” he told Payne. “This whole day’s getting insane.” Running footsteps sounded, and Zed appeared in the doorway from the boat deck. “Get below and give Trevor a hand,” Ellipulos told him. Zed disappeared down the inside companionway, while doors opened and slammed below, and voices shouted. Bazhin and Garsten appeared on the foredeck below, looking alarmed. Then the engine room intercom buzzed. Ellipulos flipped a switch. “What is it, Cole?”

“I can’t start it,” Cole’s voice said from the speaker. “We just had a bang down here.”

“What do you mean, a bang? What went bang?”

“It sounds like something shorted out in the starter. There’s smoke, and a breaker’s out. I’ll have to check it.”

“I’m coming down there.” Ellipulos snapped off the intercom and headed for the stairway that Zed had taken. Vanessa had swung the breaker panel wide open, torn the bundles of cables aside, and was searching determinedly around the back of the uncovered racking. As Payne started to turn to follow after Ellipulos, Vanessa seized something inside and straightened up triumphantly to brandish it at him.

“There!” she exclaimed. “There’s your saboteur, Martin!”

It was an intermediate-size mec, maybe an inch high. One of its grasping limbs was detached, hooked to its utility belt, and had been replaced by a pair of scissorlike cutting blades.

Payne stared at it incredulously. “How . . . ? I don’t understand.”

Vanessa marched to the open window at the wing station and threw the mec far out over the water. “Oh, don’t you see? It’s that woman. This wasn’t the only one that she had. Come on.”

They left the bridge and went below through the day cabin. Gray, choking smoke filled the passage leading forward to the galley. In the middle of it they could make out the figure of Zed in the galley doorway, directing a fire extinguisher. Trevor, the cook, was waving his hands and remonstrating to Ellipulos. “I know it was oil all over the stove, but I’m telling you there wasn’t any oil open or anywhere near it. Hell, Mike, you think I don’t know how to run a galley, for chrissakes? . . .” Ellipulos cut off the alarm, which had been drowning out the voices and other noises coming from around the boat. Vanessa led the way aft past the dining room, toward the main salon, Payne following.

One of the two guards that Finnion had left was hovering at the forward entrance to the salon, trying to gauge the situation, when Vanessa and Payne came in. Michelle sat on the bench seat farther back, doing her best to seem detached and contemptuous of the fiasco going on around her. Vanessa came over and stood in front of her, face flushed, eyes blazing, looking as if she was barely able to prevent herself from attacking Michelle physically. “Okay, how many are there, and where are they?” she grated.

Michelle eyed her distastefully, refusing to show any comprehension. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. What other ones have you got?”

“What other what?”

“Give them to me!” Vanessa’s voice rose as she finally lost control. Payne caught her arm to restrain her, but she shook him off.

At that moment a man in crew’s dress appeared from the stairs at the rear of the salon, going down to the corridor leading aft past the bathroom. Michelle guessed he had come from the engine room. He was holding something between his fingers and looking mystified. “What do you make of this?” he said, addressing Payne.

“What is it?”

The engineer showed it. Payne turned it over and passed it to Vanessa without comment. The engineer went on, “It was jammed across the starter solenoid. That was what shorted it out. How’d it get there? I never saw anything like that before.” It was another inch-size mec—or what was left of one. Its casing was blackened, and an arm and a leg had been partly melted.

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