Saving Thanehaven by Catherine Jinks Page A

the people around him. “Have you ever seen clothes like these before?”
    “Maybe
we’re
going mad,” proposes a redheadedteenage boy. But the beautiful dark-haired woman isn’t impressed.
    “Collectively?” she retorts. “I don’t think so, Dygall.”
    “Unless there’s some kind of neurotoxin in our air supply,” suggests the woman with short hair. “Maybe we should take a reading.”
    “How?” someone else inquires, from the back of the group. “We can’t use the instruments, Quenby.”
    “And we couldn’t
all
be having an identical hallucination,” the craggy-faced man points out, just as Noble decides to weigh in.
    “You’re not going mad. Can’t you see that I come from another place? I’m not like you. I’m different. Look at me.”
    Everyone looks at Noble. Then the pasty child raises his hand again. “Are you an alien life-form?”
    Noble doesn’t understand this question. It’s Rufus who answers for him.
    “No, he’s not,” says Rufus. “But if he were, he’d be the
least
of your problems. Right now, you guys are sitting ducks. It’s won’t be long before those giant blobs get in and eat you alive.”
    Quenby frowns. “If we reach the Biolab—” she begins, much to Rufus’s disgust. He doesn’t let her finish.
    “The Biolab can’t help you,” he insists. “I can, though. I can get you out of this game.”
    Several crew members make scornful noises. Theyshake their heads and roll their eyes. The insect man, however, isn’t among them.
    After studying Rufus intently for a moment, he says, “Let’s pretend you’re not a figment of our disordered imaginations, and that every one of us is a subprogram in some giant computer.” His level gaze is hard to read. “What’s your plan, exactly?”
    Rufus gives a brisk little nod. “Okay. Well, first off … um … what’s your name?”
    “Arkwright.”
    “First off, Arkwright, like I said, we have to get you out. And to do that, I thought we’d try a kind of buffer overflow.” Rufus cocks his head. “You know what that is, right?”
    “
I
don’t,” Noble butts in. So the pasty child tries to explain.
    “It’s where a program writing data to a buffer puts in more data than the buffer can hold,” he squeaks, “and all that extra data overflows into other memory locations, overriding them.”
    Noble isn’t enlightened. He just stares blankly at the boy, whose hair is so fair that it’s almost white.
    Then Arkwright intervenes. “You won’t be able to infiltrate our Core Artificial Intelligence Program with a buffer overflow attack,” he informs Rufus. “Didn’t you hear? Our instruments aren’t working.”
    Rufus heaves a long-suffering sigh. “I’m not talking about the ship’s computer,” he says. “I’m talking about the
real
computer.
We’re
going to be part of thisattack. Only we’ll need every single person on board.” He frowns as he scans the gathering. “I assume you guys aren’t the only crew members left?”
    “Of course not!” Quenby exclaims.
    “Fine. All right. So we’ll head for the Biolab, pick up everyone that we meet along the way, and then retrace our steps to the airlock.”
    “The
airlock
?” Arkwright echoes in disbelief.
    “That’s our exit,” Rufus assures him.
    “Don’t be ridiculous.” It’s the big man talking—the one with gray hair. “That airlock leads into space.”
    “No, it doesn’t. We’ve been through it ourselves, haven’t we?” Rufus appeals to Noble, who nods.
    “I don’t believe you. This is ludicrous.” The extremely beautiful woman turns to her companions. “How do we know these two aren’t the
cause
of what’s happening? How do we know they’re not trying to play a trick on us?”
    “Calm down, Sadira. We mustn’t panic,” says Quenby. But Sadira ignores her.
    “Maybe our brain waves are being manipulated! So that we’ll leave the ship and fall into alien hands!” Sadira cries. “Maybe these two are really giant bugs,