Staring up at the ceiling, Quen whistled in bored annoyance. The chimp had found nothing wrong, which heâ€™d expected. Now he was waiting for it to inspect and clean Zilahâ€™s clothing. The Agniastra was small enough that the Corps had found it more efficient to clean clothes and sterilize instruments in the same machine.<br/><br/>He was in no great hurry, but was impatient anyway. Wasting time had become almost second nature to him. Certainly he could be finishing his report or taking a look at the codes the chimp had found, but that would leave less to do later.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Found: Blood not belonging to primary suspect. Typeâ€¦ </span>â€œEnd and display, chimp.â€ He really didnâ€™t want the chimp to list off all the specifics. Or hear its voice anymore today.<br/><br/>Later. Later heâ€™d look at that along with everything else he needed to do. First though, heâ€™d do the same thing he did every day after lunch.<br/><br/>His bed folded into a recess in the wall and from one side he could pull down a bench and the tension cables that served instead of weights. Going through the motions helped him forget how furious he was with himself.<br/><br/>When the chimp reminded him it was almost time for dinner, he told it to deliver Zilah her food and he retrieved his own. Safer if he didnâ€™t open the door again. He wouldnâ€™t have any chance to do something stupid that way. Plus, he had work he should do, didnâ€™t he?<br/><br/>The feed was still up on his screen; heâ€™d forgotten about it. What was she doing? From what he could see, she hadnâ€™t moved. There was no reason to worry about that, it wasnâ€™t his problem. He shut it off and added the discovery of someone elseâ€™s blood into his report. It might not be important, or even turn out to be needed at all, but he wasnâ€™t going to forget details that might end up important.<br/><br/>That was done and he still had time to waste, so he ran the codes through every breaker he could find in every combination he could think up while he and the chimp played chess.<br/><br/>At the end of the night he went to bed, a little troubled that he hadnâ€™t made any progress.<br/><br/>A grating shudder went through the ship. Quen was startled out of sleep, completely awake in seconds, and more than a little unhappy about it. Something banged. The emergency alarm started to go off again. â€œWhat the hellâ€¦?â€ Had he hit something again?<br/><br/>When he tried to open the door, he found it locked. After three attempts at the code, he finally asked, â€œWhatâ€™s wrong with the door, chimp?â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Ser Giann, I request that you not leave this room. You now threaten the primary objective.</span><br/><br/>â€œWhat do you mean, chimp?â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">You have deviated, Ser Giann. There is no reason for such deviation not to occur again. I have found that for your own safety, and that of the primary objective, quarantine is the best solution. </span><br/><br/>â€œThen why is the alarm going off?â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I have taken steps to seal the Agniastra. </span><br/><br/>â€œWhat? Why?!â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I cannot effectively maintain pressure between both ships.</span><br/><br/>â€œWhy not?â€ It was too early to be playing this game with the chimp. Quen hit the manual release to open his bunk door and another alarm followed. As if he didnâ€™t know that heâ€™d had to lever the door open himself.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">There is a breach.</span><br/><br/>He could have sworn his heart skipped a beat. â€œWhere?â€ The bridge doors wouldnâ€™t open for him either. This time he only tried the keycode once before hitting that release too. A third alarm joined the noise. Those needed to be turned off now.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">There is a breach.</span><br/><br/>â€œYou said that already chimp brain! Where is it?â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">There is a breach.</span><br/><br/>Thoroughly annoyed with the computerâ€™s antics, he shut down the alarm system and deafening silence descended. Now what?<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Please remain in quarantine Ser Giann. The doors will be locked for your safety. There is a breach.</span><br/><br/>â€œWhere is the breach, chimp? You need to tell me or I canâ€™t fix it.â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">There is a breach. All safety measures have been initiated. I recommend you remain on the bridge, Ser Giann.</span><br/><br/>Quen was beginning to think there was no breach, that something had just gotten knocked loose in the collision. The chimp had never been so incoherent before. Sometimes getting useful information out of it was like playing 20 questions, but nothing like this.<br/><br/>It wouldnâ€™t let him out of the bridge either, so he had let himself out. The chimp locked the doors behind him and another alarm went off. By the time this was over, he was going to have a headache.<br/><br/>Ear shattering or not though, he had to make another check of the core. Was there something heâ€™d missed? No, there couldnâ€™t have been. But heâ€™d take a look anyway, see if a connection had come loose. He deactivated this lock manually too, determined now to find out why it kept locking him in. The chimp had no authority to keep him from the manual locks. If he wanted to walk out an airlock naked, that was up to him.<br/><br/>Opening those doors was a choice he instantly regretted. All the heat and air in the corridor swept away, and there was that peculiar mist that one sometimes got on opening an airlock before it had cycled all the way. He was quick enough to close it before it choked him. â€œShit, thatâ€™s bad. Thatâ€™s bad, thatâ€™s bad, thatâ€™s badâ€¦â€<br/><br/>A slow leak. That was why he hadnâ€™t noticed it before. There was probably a jagged gash on the outside of his ship. And he would have seen it if he hadnâ€™t been in a hurry. Would have seen it if the chimp hadnâ€™t decided to let that woman on his ship without asking him.<br/><br/>Infallibly, the alarm started up, screaming over top of the first emergency alarm that always sounded when he was forced to manually disengage a lock. â€œYes chimp! I know the air is leaving. Turn it off!â€ The thing hadnâ€™t turned off the alarm from opening his bunk door, or from opening the bridge doors, so why did he expect it to happen this time?<br/><br/>What was he going to do about this? The entire system would need to be reset and heâ€™d have to patch the hole. â€œIâ€™m going to need to shut down some of your functions, chimp. I have to fix this.â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I cannot allow you to do that Ser Giann.</span><br/><br/>â€œYou donâ€™t have the authority to stop me.â€<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Ser Giann, you are not recognized Imperial Space Corps personnel. I cannot allow you to do that. Please remain in quarantine until we have docked, for your own safety.</span><br/><br/>That was even worseâ€¦ â€œI need to find the breach in the hull, so that I can repair it. If I donâ€™t, itâ€™ll freeze the core. Neither of us wants that. And to do that, I need to shut down some of your damaged functions, chimp.â€ Now he was actually starting to get angry with it. Heâ€™d known all along it was a piece of junk.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I cannot allow you to do that, Ser Giann.</span><br/><br/>That was too bad; he was going to do it anyway. At least the alarm couldnâ€™t start up while it was already going off. Once again, he had to lever the doors open himself, and they werenâ€™t exactly made for easy manual opening. This time he didnâ€™t bother trying to shut off the alarms. He started to enter the series of shutdown codes, making through the second level of security before the console went dark.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Your actions have threatened the primary mission objective, Ser Giann. I have attempted to perform quarantine. You refused to remain in quarantine. You have threatened the integrity of my operations. The only option remaining is to purge the system.</span><br/><br/>He slammed both hands down on the console keyboard. â€œAh! You fuckinâ€™ cuntmonger, why wonâ€™t you listen to me!â€ Quen had never cursed at the AI before. It was too stupid to understand that it was being insulted.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I am always listening to you, Ser Giann.</span><br/><br/>There was a manual safety override, which he turned and locked in place. Vents hissed shut and the electronic locks on the doors were all severed. It wouldnâ€™t allow the chimp the option of opening any doors or flushing out his air. But it also wouldnâ€™t let air in. So unless he fixed this, either the chimp or the safety would suffocate him.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Why did you do that, Ser Giann?</span><br/><br/>He was going to have to turn it off. That was his only choice now. It was broken, and it was trying to kill him because it was broken, not for any other reason. If there was something else wrong with it, he could have talked it out of that. After all, he had the codes to it.<br/><br/>It wasnâ€™t easy to just turn the chimp off. That wasnâ€™t supposed to happen in deep space, so it hadnâ€™t been built that way. Without the chimp, there was no navcomp and that thought was no less terrifying than losing his life had been.<br/><br/>He might get lost in the void forever without the chimp.<br/><br/>Alongside that was the fact that it took at least two people to turn it off. The manual switch needed to be turned and the core disengaged within half a second of punching in the release code at the keypad in the bridge.<br/><br/>He was alone though. Quen winced visibly, and pounded the console again. No, not entirely alone. Did he really want to let her out? That might be killing himself as surely as leaving the chimp turned on. Butâ€¦ damn it allâ€¦ Zilah at least wasnâ€™t broken, was what it came down to.<br/><br/>The trick was, he couldnâ€™t let the chimp know he was going to turn it off. It had a simple self-preservation code, which it was never supposed to run against Imperial Space Corps personnel. Since it had stopped considering him a Corps member, it would kill him as soon as it knew he was trying to kill it.<br/><br/>Quen swallowed his pride and released the significantly more complicated series of manual locks on the brig. â€œDonâ€™t panic,â€ was the first thing he said on releasing the doors. â€œBut if you want to live, Iâ€™m going to need your help. Donâ€™t ask why or how. I canâ€™t tell you.â€