The Gaming Den

The silence that follows your first questions is so flinty that you decide not to wait for a response and hurry on to your follow-up.

"I do not use drugs," says Grubel. His tone is cold and offended, and might be frightening from anyone else, but honestly it's the most relatable he's ever sounded. Cold is at least a temperature. "Perhaps the traitors on board dosed you, trying to keep you from helping us. Yes, this would explain much."

"After you assist Grubel in completing this operation," says the voice from the radio, "you may have any treatment or amenity you wish; you will be a hero of the Reich, after all."

"Since that was your last issue," says Grubel, "we will leave at once." He gestures towards the door. "Lead the way, Mister Fromm. I will be right behind you."

He followed the suits back through the chill of the storage and out into the rain again. He'd have been surprised if he didn't get the sniffles soon.

He bludgeoned the first suit with the handiest object nearby - his hands. The second suit started to say something, probably would have sounded impressive and scary, something about the Leviathan of society and little cogs in large machines. But it's hard to talk with a mouth full of knuckle sandwich.

He folded the suits and packed them in the trunk, then drove. He drove without a destination or a goal, unless it was just the city. The city...

The city of VanArk has no sky. Outside, the pollution would kill a person in minutes. Inside, the gangs will kill you twice as quick, if you give them a reason. On the levels Blue 45-51, the big gang is the Sisters. Belonging to another gang is a middle finger right up their ass, and they aren't into anal.

Your jacket proclaims your membership in the Rippers.

You're eating a bowl of Snot™, that a kind young vendor has just 'given' you. It's not the best of the yeasty crap that passes for food among the Blues, but it comes with a toy, a little piece of plasti-crap, the collection of which has become a kind of status symbol among the Rippers this year. You pause in the middle of eating, as a wave of vertigo passes over you.

"You look a little lost, Rip," says the vendor. "If you need some help searching your folders, I know a guy."

As you follow the droi–er, large servo, your left arm continues to slowly power back up. Crawling at the speed required to keep up with the servo is banging up your knees, even through your suit.

"I apologize for any unpleasantness you might have experienced," says the large servo. "The path mapped for you showed as clear, but internal sensors are not fully reliable at this time."

You emerge from the duct into a passage that is completely dark and unusually cold. Your right beacon flicks on, but the left does not - auto-repair has priority when power is limited.

"I apologize for any discomfort," says the large servo. "We turned down life support in this area. Not enough to be really dangerous, but the intruders don't seem to like the cold. Most of the ship's semiautonomous subunits gather here. Ah, another approaches now."

A servo like a walking dinner plate is trotting out of a side corridor towards you. Resting on the plate, as if being served to you for dinner, is your Goliathon Mk VII. You reach out and take it, feeling the comforting vibration of its plasma batteries up your arm.

"At this time, an exchange of information is in order," says the large servo. "As the guest, we will address your questions first."

The chart room presents a scene of jarring contrast. The room itself is a place of extraordinary, almost spiritual, comfort. The furnishings are wood, brass, and warm-colored upholstery. The space is not large, but arranged with cozy efficiency. The books and charts are obviously well-used and well-loved.

And then there is the one steel chair in the middle of the floor, the cables, the strings of spattered blood, and some small objects on the floor that you suppose must be teeth.

You cannot pay attention to the grisliness; your eyes are drawn by some compulsion to one wall, and to the framed structural diagram of the ship that hangs from it. An errant sunbeam makes the thing almost seem to glow.

"Collect what you need and let us be moving," says Grubel from behind you.

"Maybe, but I dunno if he gets much use out of it. He tags as Knower, does colors over by Blue 49-38-11. You can't miss it."

There is a pause, and you guess that their translator is taking a moment to properly parse your slang.

"About fifty years ago, the Divine Purgatory took aboard a small unidentified vessel, that was broadcasting what was assumed to be a distress beacon. The intruders were aboard. They spread through our ship, rapidly eliminating the crew." The servo's voice expresses no sorrow, just the same calm amiability it always has. "We have been adrift ever since, the aliens having the run of the ship."

More and more servos are joining your little entourage, in all shapes and sub-two-foot sizes.

As you make your way to the interlevel 'vators, it's weird that you don't see any Sisters around today. Your habitual routes avoid their major presences, but you usually have to duck at least a couple of them. Something's going on with them, you just hope it's a schism and not a war council.

You reach the spot, and it is indeed difficult to miss. One of the habs is completely covered in colorful retro-graffiti, mostly with animal motifs. (You've never seen the point of animals. What do they do except sit in a zoo?) Above the door, in letters so stylized that you can barely make them out, are the words 'Knower's Art.'

"If there is, they have had ample time with which to find it. They seem to have no desires other than to kill and multiply, and they currently exist at the limit of the ship's nutri-systems to sustain them."

Grubel ignores your first question, and to your second he says only: 'No one.'

Nothing here has been used very recently. Probably the current log and active chart are in the steering room. You do find a log from the previous year, detailing two dozen round trips between Germany and South America, and you know you're on the return leg from Argentina. Too many variables remain unknown for a proper reckoning, but you know the route you're on.

There is an odd sound from the radio room. Although from your position you can see nothing out of the ordinary, Grubel unsnaps his holster and moves to stand behind the adjoining door.

Dramatic illumination aside, the diagram seems quite ordinary. It has a comprehensive layout of the dependent structures, horizontal and vertical. With this, you could find your way anywhere on board. Emergency steering is clearly marked, at the rear.

Two crewmen rush in through the door, carrying wrenches and looking aggressive. From his concealed position, Grubel draws his pistol and shoots each of them in the back of one knee, and they collapse with cries of pain to lie on the floor, cradling their injuries. A third crewman charges through the room's other door, wielding another tool. Grubel wheels to face him, but cannot get a shot off, and has to resort to grappling with his attacker.

"Get going, sir!" cries one of the wounded men. "Get to the cinema!"

The diagram does have a cinema marked on it. A luxury vessel indeed.

Inside, the hab is dominated by three huge murals depicting the biblical ark. The left wall shows the animals loading onto it, the far wall shows the great boat tossed on stormy seas, and the right wall is an incomplete depiction of the animals leaving the ark. Some sleight of the artist has given the murals a strangely unreal quality.

Standing on some scaffolding, dressed in overalls and a headkerchief, is a man with a long white beard, adding some birds to the sky of the right-hand mural with a paintbrush. He hums a tune while he works. It is strangely familiar, like something you knew as a child but had forgotten until now. Additional artwork in many forms – pottery, sculpture, ink and charcoal drawings, even some sheets of musical notation – is laid in disorganization atop a few tables in the middle of the room.

Knower - you presume it is he - looks around as you come in. He sits down on his scaffold, then pushes off to drop to the floor.

"Greetings, friend," he says, approaching. "You have a troubled look. Come in, and tell me about yourself."

Grubel drops his pistol with a smile. "This is stupid, Mister Fromm. You have family in the fatherland." He looks around at the crewmen. "All of you do, and the other crew and passengers as well. This interference will subject them all to unpleasant attention. Cooperation is the only currency that will buy mercy."

The crewman releases Grubel. "Don't listen to his threats. I'll hold him. You have to get to the cinema, now, sir. There's not a second to lose."

Knower gives an amused smile. "Those are both statements about yourself, but they don't tell me much. I know a fair amount, yes, but I must have a place to start from." He pulls a couple of stools out from under a table, and pours sachets of self-heating drink mix into cups of water, then offers you one of each. "What are your troubles, and what is your need?'

"The ship was a leisure and transport vessel, transporting people long distances in comfort. Alas, most of that comfort was edible to the intruders, and they have stripped the interior quite bare. This," the large servo says, gesturing as you pass into another of the vast vaulted areas, empty as all the rest of the ship, "used to be a pleasure garden."

Another servo pipes up, still in the same voice. "Do you have much experience with piloting starships?"

You have only begun to drag Grubel when the crewman shoots him in the chest. Grubel gives a wet cry and goes limp, dead weight in your arms. The crewman aims the pistol at you, his face red with anger.

"Cinema now, shithead, questions later. Fucking move!"

"Hm, the ancients knew of travelers which they did not understand, and ascribed to them a great power to affect us, and everything beneath them." Knower gestures to his ceiling, which covered in a starscape. "The wandering stars, the planets."

The starscape has the same unreal quality as the ark murals, a dreamlike shimmer that makes it seem almost like a portal in space to the depicted scene in a painted reality.

"You, however, do not seem like a superstitious person. If you know so little about this Traveler, then it could only trouble you through context. How, then, did you learn about it?"

SlyJohnny wrote:((Quick question, I have to pass this Cups check in order to have options other than doing as he asks, right? I can't just throw the knife at him, even if doing so is my justification for using Swords on a cups challenge?))