“Lieutenant?” I said when Ana stopped talking for several seconds. I didn’t think she was listening to Pavo. I was pretty sure he’d gone silent.

The walls, on the other hand, were pulsing a dark red.

She turned to stare at me, a guarded look on her face.

“Where do I send Chan’s men?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“He won’t let you near him,” she explained. “If you make a move, Archibald will know. Pavo thinks it’s a trap.”

I leaned back. Not an altogether inappropriate thought. Pavo might be right. Stefan Archibald could well have played me.

I nodded my head. “He could be right.”

Ana looked surprised.

“I am pleased you agree, Captain,” Pavo said. I didn’t let the relief show on my face; he was still talking. Still here. Still functioning.

“But we do have a problem, Pavo,” I said. “If they already know where you are, you’re vulnerable without backup.”

“I am not without resources of my own, Captain. I have…moved locations.”

Well, that was new. And disturbing. I met Ana’s eyes.

Letting out a slow breath of air, I asked Pavo, “Can you be sure he isn’t tracking you?”

“At the moment, I am prepared to believe he can’t.”

“That’s an awfully big risk, Pavo,” I said. “And please bear in mind, I have a ship full of passengers to protect. Two sector fleets to protect. I have a responsibility to them all. As do you now.”

“Then I suggest we locate Damon Archibald before he, in theory, can locate me.”

“Any suggestions on that?” I asked.

Silence.

“Pavo can’t find him,” Ana advised. “Damon’s biosignature has disappeared.”

I nodded my head and looked at Torrence. He shook his and shrugged.

“Why is Archibald doing this?” I finally said, opening up a discussion.

We had no choice for now but to do as Pavo said. Maybe he’d trust Ana enough to let her in. Maybe he wouldn’t. But we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the AI to grow up. We needed to act before Archibald did.

“He doesn’t want to wait for the Sector One Fleet,” Taylor offered from across the bridge. “He made that perfectly clear. It would give Sector Four and Three an unfair advantage according to him.”

“The longer it takes for us to get there, the less likely it is he’d get a fair, or advantageous portion of New Earth, for this sector fleet,” Torrence said.

“For him,” Ana sneered. “It’s all about him and no one else.”

I agreed with her, but knowing that didn’t help us right now.

“He can’t take over engineering without Pavo stepping in,” I said instead.

Ana kept scowling at everyone. She was cute when she was mad. An observation I was sure she’d resent.

“But he will once he gets Pavo,” Taylor offered.

“He will not get me, Lieutenant,” Pavo said.

“We’d like to believe that, Pavo,” I replied. “But we can’t risk not thinking of every possibility. Even the possibility that he could gain control of your parameters and change them to suit his plans.”

“And if he did that, we’d be shut out of everything,” Torrence said. “Engineering. Life support. The bridge.”

“It would be mutiny,” Marshal offered.

“He’s not crew,” I murmured, thinking.

“But it would have to break the lease, at least,” Taylor said. “I’m sure I read something about interfering with ship systems as being a cause for suspension.”

“The lease has well and truly been broken now, anyway,” I announced. “As of now, we are operating under Anderson Universal Protocol Zulu-Alpha-One.”

“Zulu-Alpha-One instated,” Pavo officially said.

“Does it make a difference, Pavo?” I asked, more intrigued than concerned now. “To your protocols as they currently stand?”

He’d already breached them. Most if not all of them. I hardly thought a change in AU directives would alter things for the AI now.

“I am still part of this ship, Captain,” Pavo said.

Did that mean he was still part of the AU team? Part of our family as Ana had put it?

It was a question I couldn’t answer, and we had, maybe not more pressing matters but, equally pressing matters to be concerned with.

“All right,” I said. “So, Archibald is now our main obstacle to maintaining control of this ship and saving what is left of the Sector One Fleet. Without Pavo, we’re out. And I wouldn’t put it past him to space us. He’s clearly got some technical know-how. He can ghost his way through the ship without Pavo being any the wiser. And he had the capability to blank out a portion of the ship, but that’s changed. To what?”

“Masking himself and perhaps that blank spot as something else,” Marshal said.

“Is that possible, Pavo?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I am unsure, Captain. But it is the only available explanation. I cannot find him, Marama Kereama, or his men. Nor can I locate a blank spot.”

“He’d need a large room,” Ana guessed. “Or a particularly cramped one.”

I offered her a grin. She looked a little startled.

I cleared my throat and said, “Stefan Archibald said Damon had removed himself to his secondary base. Which would lead us to believe this was planned. He’d have had something organised before we launched. But there isn’t a part of this ship that’s not as Anderson Universal designed it. So, he’s taken over an existing function and used his mobile interrogation room masking abilities to provide this new bolt hole.”

“I am assessing those locations currently not in use by crew or passengers.”

“Process of elimination,” Taylor said with approval.

“There are currently twenty-three such locations,” Pavo said, without acknowledging the lieutenant, “This changes daily, so I have reduced the suspected number to eight; which have not been used in the past four days or longer. Would you like me to place them on the viewscreen, Captain?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

The screen lit up with locations pinpointed all over the ship.

“Four spare berths, two each on decks H and G,” Marshal read. “A science lab on deck C, an armoury cache on deck E, and two shops in the Habitat Three central hub on deck H.”

“It won’t be the armoury,” Torrence said.

“Because we’d be even more screwed if it was?” I quipped.

My 2IC frowned at me.

“But I agree,” I rushed to add. “Access there would be prohibitive.”

“The empty berths are our best bet,” Taylor concluded.

“Even so, we’ll have to check them all,” I said.

“I’ll start working with Lieutenant Chan to assign teams,” the lieutenant offered.

“Do that.” I kept staring at the layout of our ship.

Only eight locations. That wasn’t so bad.

Until Ana said, “He could have always commandeered someone’s assigned berth. One of his merc’s. A random passenger who doesn’t have a set routine yet and wouldn’t be missed.”

We all turned to stare at her, various looks of mortification on our faces.

“What?” she said, looking defensive.

I grinned. Again. “Not just a pretty face, Lieutenant,” I said.

I’m not sure anyone else on the bridge felt as happy as I did, right then.

Now we had hundreds of locations to search.