3.

Toll Seven allowed himself a faint smile. Ship’s AI had succumbed to his program. The Master Plan went forward with flawless precision.

He shook his bald head—he looked like a robot with plastic flesh, with a shark’s dead eyes. He used inner nanonics to dump chemicals into his brain’s pleasure centers to dampen his joy. Neither fear nor happiness must mar the smooth working of the plan. Clean concentration was paramount. That blood globules floated past him, under him, over him and behind him meant nothing. The raw stench of gore influenced him not at all. Even more importantly, the adrenaline that had surged through his body when he’d fought ship’s security had been carefully drained away by his inner nanonics. The enemy bio-form floated head-down behind him, a trickle of blood still oozing from the torn throat and adding to the floating hemoglobin.

Toll Seven issued the next command through the leads in his fingertips. He’d plugged his first three fingers into computing slots. The converted AI obeyed and locked all inner ship’s doors. Toll Seven then slipped a computing cube into the security key. He checked his inner clock. Nine seconds to gassing. Once the IH-49 crew was immobilized, all eighteen of them, he would begin transferring their bodies to his stealth pod. Nothing would be wasted.

“Attention, First Rank,” said the AI.

“Yes?”

“Three crew members have exited the ship.”

With his broad, seamless face as smooth as ever, Toll Seven slipped a VR monocle over his eye. “Transmit image.”

Through virtual reality imaging, he saw the bulky vacc-suits and the twinkling stream of hydrogen spray that propelled them. With a flawless knowledge of the ship’s layout, both inner and outer, he realized that they jetted to the laser-link.

His nanonics dumped extra chemicals into his brain and throughout his body. Anger and bewilderment weren’t allowed. He considered his options. Gassing would commence in two seconds.

He gave the AI its instructions. Then he pushed off, floated through Homo sapiens blood and headed for an airlock. He would have to dispose of these three personally.