The Meat Tree Read Free

brain to the scent molecules on board. What do you get?

    Apprentice
    I don’t know…

    Inspector of Wrecks
    Yes, your body does…

    Apprentice
    Can it be? Flowers?

    Inspector of Wrecks
    What else?

    Apprentice
    Flowers. And meat.

4

    Entry
    Synapse Log 29 Jan 2210, 20:30

    Apprentice
    End of a long day. Boarding was exciting, but after that Campion had me combing through the voyage log – paper, for Chrissakes! – looking for anything unusual, while he poked around the habitat module. I’ve had to drag out the grapho-palaeography from the back of my brain and try to make sense of the script.
    But it’s basically nada . Nothing unusual, everything as you would expect.

    Inspector of Wrecks
    I never expected to see one of these early Earth exploration vessels and in such a perfect state of preservation. It’s like something in a museum. Even the hammocks are intact, as if someone just got up out of them and left them warm.
    Missie’s been moaning about having to decipher the ship’s log, it’s a history lesson for her. It’ll do her good to see how space travellers in the past had to work, how uncomfortable it was.
    Something’s not right, though. It’s all too perfect.

    She
    My print reading’s crap but I managed to decipher that the vessel had a crew of three. One woman, two men. That must have been challenging in the days before phero-dampeners. Hard enough working with a man when we’re both shielded from each other’s body chemistry. Two men and one woman, must have been a recipe for disaster. What did they get up to?

    He
    Where are the bodies? Not even three piles of dust for us to analyse. No sign of forced exit, no breach in the spacecraft’s hull. Nothing for us to go on.

    She
    And why can’t we find any personal logs? Why they thought I had to do this one voyage the old-fashioned way, I don’t know, it’ll be irrelevant to everything else I do.

    He
    That ship’s such a classic, it’s like something out of the manual. The paper log and the black box show nothing out of the ordinary, and yet something devastating happened on board. And then there’s the mystery of how a vessel designed for short-haul travel ended up millions of light years from Earth. Think, think. Something’s staring us in the face but we’re not seeing it…

    She
    Can’t keep my eyes open. Even that noisy reactor isn’t going to keep me awake tonight. What’s that scratching on the hull? Must be bits of meteorites. I’m sure I can see flashes of particles passing through my eyelids…

    He
    I know! The VR couches! Right in the middle of the main cabin. They must have valued them highly to place the equipment so prominently. There may be some information to be gathered there. It’s a big ask for the new girl to adapt to a strange VR, but what an education for her! Besides, she’s quick on the uptake. Tomorrow, I’ll take her in.

    *

    Joint Thought Channel 30 Jan 2210, 09:00

    Inspector of Wrecks
    Now, remember, if you feel uncomfortable at all, just raise your hand and we’ll get out of the Virtual Reality Field immediately. The Escape button’s in your right glove. The important thing to recall is that this is just fantasy. There’s nothing in the programme that can hurt us, however realistic it looks at the time. Mind you, given how old this ship is, I expect the FX will be very crude.

    Apprentice
    All right, all right. I expect it’s no different from the neuro games we play now.

    Inspector of Wrecks
    Hard to tell exactly what we’re dealing with until we’re in. The field could be anything. You’re not claustrophobic, are you? If you are, let’s note it in the Hazard log.

    Apprentice
    No. I’ll be fine.

    Inspector of Wrecks
    These old VR helmets can be quite uncomfortable. But it’s more than that. We’re used to VR forming itself auto matically to our