Chapter Nine

Maxim felt like he couldn’t go any further when they finally saw the ship looming ahead of them against the darkening horizon. They had pushed themselves harder and faster through this crossing than he had during the first because it was only the three of them and they didn’t have to concern themselves with the abilities of the women or the injured. Though it had brought them to the ship far more quickly, it had also pushed the three men nearly to their physical limits and they were all exhausted as their destination finally drew closer.

Each holding a lightstick, they walked around the perimeter of the ship, scanning the sand beneath them and the walls of the vessel itself to see if they noticed anything that might have changed. Not noticing anything that might have told them how Frederick could have gotten out or where he might be, they returned to the front of the ship and the control panel near the bottom. Maxim recalled the code from the first visit that they had made, and he typed it into the keypad. A moment later there was a low scraping sound and the stairs unfolded from where they were tucked into the side of the ship. They climbed the stairs to the door and he input the secondary code to release the locks.

He didn’t know what to expect when the door opened, but he braced himself for it. His muscles tightened as the series of locking mechanisms within the door released in sequence and the door pushed out toward them to open slightly. Avery took hold of the handle and pulled the door the rest of the way open to allow the men to step inside. The motion detection lights in the front section of the ship turned on as Maxim stepped over the threshold. The entirety of the ship seemed quiet, an eerie sense hanging over it almost as if the ship itself had been waiting for their return.

“We should get some rest,” Avery said. “We aren’t going to be able to do much good as tired as we are.”

“We need to look around first,” Maxim countered. “We can’t just go to sleep without even checking the ship out.”

Aegeus agreed, and the three men started into the ship. Maxim knew that they wouldn’t be able to explore the entire vessel that night, but they did a cursory sweep through the first level, visiting the room that Jacob and Phaedra had shared and then the observation dome before heading up to the second floor and the containment unit that had held Frederick. Maxim opened it and stepped aside to allow Avery and Aegeus inside. Both men entered cautiously and looked around, sweeping the space with fresh eyes. Maxim hoped this would give new perspective and that maybe the two men who hadn’t seen the space before would be able to notice something about it that he hadn’t been able to in the chaos and confusion of them first discovering that Frederick was no longer inside.

“Anything?” he asked after a few silent moments.

“This is the containment unit that he was in?” Avery asked as if he was confused that he hadn’t been able to notice anything and needed to confirm with Maxim that they were in the right place.

“Yes,” Maxim said. “This is the only unit that we opened. We brought him in, locked him in, and didn’t come back to it until the next morning when we found that he wasn’t here anymore.”

“Lock me in,” Aegeus said.

Maxim looked at him.

“What?” he asked, sure that he hadn’t actually heard what he thought that he did.

“Lock me in,” his father repeated. “Go out into the corridor and lock me into the containment unit.”

“Why?” Avery asked.

“I want to see what Frederick did. We are thinking about this from our own perspective, from the perspective of captors. Let me see it from the perspective of the captive and I might notice something that we haven’t been able to before.”

Maxim thought about the request for a moment, knowing that that was something that he never would have considered, something that only came into his father’s mind because of the years that he had spent chained within the laboratory. This was the reason that he had wanted to go with them and the proof of what he had said that he could do for them. Though it made him uncomfortable, Maxim nodded, and he and Avery stepped out of the unit and back into the corridor. Aegeus sat down on the edge of the bed where he had last seen Frederick and watched him without emotion as Maxim closed the door and input the code to secure the locks.

“Papa?” he called through the door. “Do you see anything?”

“He won’t be able to hear you,” Avery said. “The containment units are designed to be soundproof. No one inside can hear anything that his happening outside so that those within them can’t listen to what the crew is saying because it can compromise the integrity of the ship and its missions. No one on the outside can hear what’s happening on the inside so that the prisoners can’t communicate with them or create a disruption with yelling or other noise.”

“But that also means that no one on the outside will be able to hear if the person inside is in danger or if they are doing something that might get them out of the unit,” Maxim said.

Avery shook his head. Time seemed to be slowed, dragging by as he wondered what was happening beyond the door to the containment unit. He hated that he didn’t know what was happening inside. His father could be in danger and he wouldn’t know. There could have been enemies there, lying in wait somewhere where they couldn’t see them, and he could have been attacked as soon as the door closed, and they wouldn’t know because of the soundproofing. Maxim didn’t know how long he waited, but finally he couldn’t take it any longer and input the code to open the door. Relief rushed over him when he saw Aegeus standing on the far side of the small room, staring up at the ceiling. He turned to look at his son.

“What is this?” he asked, gesturing up toward the ceiling.

Maxim came to his side and looked up to see what he was looking at. It was a flat, narrow piece that contrasted with the rest of the ceiling around it, made of shimmering metal and outlined with small round lights.

“I don’t know,” Maxim said.

“That’s connected to the life force monitors,” Avery said. “It sweeps the room every few seconds and provides information to the ship’s main computer.”

“We used that system to check the entirety of the ship after Frederick said that there was someone on the ship that was a threat. There were no unaccounted-for life forms in any area of the ship.”

“Avery said that it checks every few seconds,” Aegeus said. “Did you check more than once?”

“Yes,” Maxim told him. “We monitored it for quite a while. Nothing changed. We also checked after finding out that he was gone and there were still no other life forms.”

“What did you see in this containment unit?” Aegeus asked.

“What do you mean?”

“When you did the scan after you put Frederick into the containment unit and then again after you found out that he was missing. What did you see in here?”

Maxim shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We didn’t really pay attention to it.”

Aegeus nodded and looked at Avery.

“What I don’t understand is why the ship is still here.”

“Why?” Avery asked.

“However he did it, whatever led up to it, Frederick escaped. He got out of the unit and he managed to not be found while the rest of the crew was still here. The crew left. They took every single person off of this ship and crossed to the compound. Yet, the ship is still here. Frederick was the pilot. He brought the ship from Earth. If he was cooperating with the enemies or was trying to threaten us in some way, wouldn’t he have taken the ship?”

“Maybe he left it here on purpose to lure us back so that the army could get to us,” Avery said.

“Or maybe he didn’t want the ship,” Maxim said. “Maybe he had no use for it.”

“Or maybe he wouldn’t use it,” Aegeus said. “If there really was a threat, there is the possibility that he didn’t escape, but that he was taken from the unit. If that’s the case, then he wouldn’t be able to take the ship. If he was really up to something, he would have taken the ship. They wouldn’t use it to bait us. They know that there is too much technology, too much opportunity on this ship. It would be too risky. The crew has already gotten a ship off of the planet when the army was trying to control it. They know that it can be done again. There’s more to his disappearance than just getting out of the unit.”

Maxim watched as Aegeus stepped out of the containment unit and started for the elevator that brought them back down to the first level of the ship. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his father had said about Frederick. Though he would have had the capability of taking the ship and leaving the planet or going to another side so that the enemy army could utilize the ship, he hadn’t. In the time that they had been gone, though brief, something could have been done in the ship, but it seemed that nothing had changed.

Was it possible that Frederick had been telling the truth?