“Charles Dickens,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sir, you’ve lost me,” Camille replied.

“Ever read A Tale of Two Cities, Chief?”

“Not core reading material in France, sir. Ours was Dumas’ Le Comte de Monte Cristo.”

“Yes. More’s the pity,” I muttered.

“Dickens, sir?”

I started pacing. My hand ran through my hair; I almost starting pulling on the end of the strands. This was one hell of a peculiar situation.

“The computer,” I said, “just quoted Dickens to us. A Tale of Two Cities, to be precise.”

i care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me

“That is…strange,” she said.

I sank down into my chair and rested my elbows on my desk, clasping my hands together before me.

“I’d value your opinion on this,” I advised.

Camille remained silent.

“OK,” I said. “So, the saboteur is likely to be English, then.”

“Possibly,” she agreed. “Although, how hard is it to locate a copy of A Tale of Two Cities in the onboard library?”

That’s what I liked about Camille; she always thought outside the box. Never took anything at face value. For an engineer, that was an unusual gift. But I’d long ago realised that Camille Rey was far from usual.

I nodded my head. “But why quote it?” I asked.

She shrugged in that gallic way of hers.

“I can only speculate,” she offered.

“Then speculate.” I needed something to go on here, and I was coming up blank.

“To confuse us. Throw us off the scent. If the saboteur is someone we know and could recognise, perhaps quoting literature will make us suspect the wrong people.”

I nodded. It was a good speculation. The saboteur could be someone who favours calculations over words, but by quoting a famous novel, they make us think otherwise.

“Of course,” Camille added, “they may expect us to think that way. To suspect them of subterfuge. If we know them, then they surely will know us. And our quirks.”

“Speak for yourself,” I muttered. “Captains don’t have quirks.”

“Oh, you’ve got quirks. Sir.”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“So, speculation gets us nowhere,” I said.

Camille smiled. It was one of her soft smiles. The one she reserves for poor lost souls who don’t know any better.

“There is never a time where speculation is not warranted, Captain.” She sobered. “Another system malfunctioned,” she announced quietly.

“Where?”

“Officers’ mess galley. The refrigeration unit. We lost some meals, but managed to salvage most of those scheduled for the coming week.”

“This is getting serious.”

“It was already serious, sir. They’re in the Chariot’s computer system. The system that potentially controls every aspect of this ship.”

“You said everything was separated. To protect against cross-contamination.”

“It is. But…”

“But what, Chief?”

“But they’re doing things I would not have thought possible.”

Camille leaned forward, her face lighting up with excitement and enthusiasm. I knew she wasn’t excited about the sabotage per se. But Camille did love an engineering mystery. Anything that challenged her mind excited her. For a second, I was jealous of the Chariot’s computer system.

Oh, to have Camille Rey excited about me.

I shook my head.

“They’ve managed to create some sort of algorithm that responds to stimuli far faster than I have ever seen the Chariot respond before,” she said, her eyes flashing. “The main boost thrust,” she added as if that explained it. “And then, they’re rewriting code in such an elegant manner. Even I would be hard-pressed to write better code than what the saboteur is coming up with. It is quite exquisite.”

She was quite exquisite.

“Go on,” I said because I could listen to Camille all day.

“The tactical console,” she said. “The hack was poorly done, but the code that corrected it; I have never seen the like before. Simple but neat. Code can be elaborate or convoluted, and sometimes it can be perfunctory. But rarely is it done with such grace.”

Only Camille Rey would call computer code graceful.

“But what’s the point, Chief?” I asked. “Why hack something and then fix it? Why go to the trouble of threatening our perishables and then not carrying through with the threat?”

“The saboteur likes vegetables.” She said vegetables like the French sometimes did; each syllable separated musically. Camille was becoming stressed.

From excitement to angst. Gotta love the French and their penchant for emotional volatility.

“None of this is making sense, Camille,” I said.

“I know. I know,” she conceded. Then proceeded to call the saboteur every French swearword known to the universe.

“I can understand you,” I pointed out.

She offered me a very French glare.

“Putain!” she said with energy.

“Listen,” I started, just as my comm chimed. I glanced over at my desk’s viewscreen and saw the message was from the mayor. “Damn.” My turn to swear.

“Sir?”

“The civilians are getting antsy,” I offered. “And apparently you’re needed on Deck H. Habitat Three is experiencing malfunctions in the cabin hygiene units.”

“How many?” Camille had already stood from her seat.

I held up a finger and commed the mayor. Jean-Claude’s face appeared on the screen.

“That was fast,” he said by way of greeting. “I thought I’d have to queue up for at least an hour to see our venerable captain.”

“The hygiene units?” I pressed.

“No ‘hello’ today, Noah?”

“Jean-Claude. How many?”

“Well, let me see.” He bowed his head while he read something. “I’ve half a dozen complaints, but there seem to be more coming in as we speak. Perhaps something is affecting the entirety of Habitat Three? There’s another one. And another. Good Lord, Noah, what is happening?”

I looked across my desk toward Camille. She didn’t look excited or enthusiastic now. She looked concerned. Her bottom lip firmly between her teeth, her forehead furrowed slightly.

“I’ll get a team together,” she said. “But I fear, by the time I get there, the saboteur will have fixed it already. And there will be no breadcrumbs to follow.”

Other than another obscure Dickens’ quote.

I nodded my head. “See to it, Chief.”

She offered a distracted salute and walked from the room. I returned my attention to the mayor.

“You better come on over for a chat, Jean-Claude.”

“Shall I bring the Williamine?”

I shook my head. “We’re gonna need to be sober for this.”

“Ah, putain!”