Dark Omens (4)
The person he spoke with seemed to be from the Yujin family.
As far as I knew, the Crisis Management Team Leader was not of Yujin blood.
His name was Arnold Russell. The surname Russell belonged to neither the Noble Capital nor the Prime Capital—it was an utterly ordinary family name.
Could it be an alias?
Or he might simply be a servant of whoever was on the other end of that call.
Judging by the content of the conversation, the other side wanted Kisaragi dead.
Internal strife, then?
In the game, too, the Noble Capital were cold-blooded creatures who recognized neither family nor friend when power and money were at stake. The Yujins were Noble Capital as well, which meant the possibility of kin killing kin—and being killed by them—was more than plentiful.
Reading between the lines of that call, his goals were twofold: kill Kisaragi, and lure the ship to C-08.
Well, I happened to kill Kisaragi already.
Whatever his reasons, thanks to me his objectives had all but succeeded.
Not that it matters to me whether the Yujins tear each other apart.
What mattered was what to do with Arnold Russell.
Livestock exist to be raised as food. Prey that is clever beyond its station must be culled.
What plans he held, what thoughts he harbored—none of it mattered.
He had been made to suspect me.
That fact alone was reason enough for him to die.
Now that I had evolved into a Juvenile, fighting soldiers was no real problem. With a surprise attack, even that mountain of muscle could be subdued with ease.
But no good opportunity presented itself.
Arnold had been on my kill list since my Hatchling days, yet he was astonishingly airtight. He always stayed where crowds gathered and avoided anywhere sparsely populated.
Kill him in his quarters, like the Material Management Team Leader?
I'd considered striking while he slept, but that proved difficult too.
For a man so physically formidable, he was remarkably paranoid—he slept in a reinforced suit. A mid-grade one, at that.
Someone wearing mid-grade reinforced armor couldn't be killed in a single strike even from ambush. If I failed, things would become extremely troublesome; the communicator built into the suit would surely be used to alert the ship's AI.
So in the end, there's only one thing I can do.
If he had no weakness, then I would simply keep observing him until one appeared.
What hunting strong prey requires is time.
I gave him one last long look, then turned and made my way back toward the nest.
Dangerous an opponent as he was, Arnold had picked the wrong enemy.
Not once in my life had I ever let prey I marked escape.
It was a world where more humans came out of incubators than out of their mothers' wombs.
Nothing could be more absurd than searching for god in a place like that—and yet, somehow, I couldn't shake the feeling that god really did exist.
Because otherwise, there was no explaining how the situation kept arranging itself so conveniently in my favor.
"Security Team Leader! What in God's name have you been doing?! You told me you would find him!"
"I-I'm sorry, sir…."
Below me, Yuseong was shrieking at the top of his lungs. Through the gaps in the wire mesh, I could see the back of the Security Team Leader's head as he bowed it, at a loss for what to do.
I was crouched above the conference room, eavesdropping on their conversation.
"How many times has that sorry apology of yours been repeated now?! We're scheduled to make contact with the pirates in two days, and we have nothing to show for it!"
"W-well, we've added more cameras and more guards, but he slips through everything somehow…."
"Damn it all! Navigation Team Leader! How many people are missing from this ship right now?"
"…Eight, including the former Material Management Team Leader."
"Seven disappearances since the Research Team Leader died, and you still can't catch him? Don't tell me you're in league with that bastard?!"
"N-no, sir!"
As far as the crew knew, the mysterious murderer stalking the ship was the Material Management Team Leader.
He had behaved suspiciously before his disappearance, and his container had been discovered.
A smuggler who had infiltrated the ship under a false identity—who then vanished after a string of unexplained murders. Given how blatantly suspicious his conduct had been, everyone had taken him for the culprit.
How unfortunate, then, that the real killer is right here.
Yuseong, oblivious to the true culprit hovering above his head, slumped into his chair with a heavy sigh.
"Let me ask you one thing. The Material Management Team Leader was a human being, wasn't he? Shouldn't you have torn apart every last place a human could possibly go?"
"Th-that's the problem—we simply don't have enough cameras. We have them installed in all the critical areas, but he evades them like a ghost."
"Hoo. Then what about the bodies? The corpses don't walk around on their own—he must have stashed them somewhere. Why can't you find them?"
"Every location suitable for disposing of bodies is under hourly surveillance. I don't know how he's handling them, but I cannot find them anywhere."
The Security Team Leader, bearing the weight of every gaze in the room, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. His thinning hair made him look all the more pathetic, yet not a single soul moved to help him.
"Technology Team Leader. Could a tracker not be arranged?"
"Not with my abilities. And even if I built one, I couldn't guarantee its reliability."
"Damn it. He starts by killing the one man who could track him. He is definitely not an ordinary human."
The lazy smuggler had turned into a professional assassin without anyone noticing. If this body weren't Amorph's, I'd have burst out laughing.
It was then that the Crisis Management Team Leader, Arnold, raised his hand.
"Captain. I believe the Security Team Leader is telling the truth."
"And what brings this on, all of a sudden?"
"I've reviewed the camera placements myself and mapped out every hiding spot aboard this ship. The Security Team Leader has done all that can reasonably be done."
"He failed to catch the culprit and now you're defending him—"
"What I mean is!"
Arnold's voice boomed out, as if to smother Yuseong's rising temper.
"It means this is true by human standards. No human could hide that well."
"What? Crisis Management Team Leader. Do you understand why we've gathered here today? Because certain strange rumors needed putting to rest, that's why."
Hm?
The mood was shifting in a strange direction just as I was enjoying the show.
Arnold seemed to have committed to his opening entirely. Even rebuffed by the captain, he pressed on without a flicker of hesitation.
"It's possible that something we know nothing about is the one attacking us."
"Come now, Crisis Management Team Leader. The ship's AI is no fool. It isn't the latest model, but it once served on a battleship. If an animal were prowling these halls, it would have flushed it out long ago."
"I was a soldier myself, so I know exactly how capable AIs are. Navigation Team Leader. But everyone here knows, don't they? The Material Management Team Leader's container. Every single freezer inside it was empty."
"Hmm. That's true, but—"
"Then where would you say all the creatures in those freezers went?"
Several of the team leaders nodded at his words. Even Yuseong seemed to find the logic persuasive, straightening in his seat.
Oh no.
The current of attention was flowing somewhere very unwelcome.
The thing I had guarded against above all else—suspicion of alien life—was beginning to take root in their minds.
"Fine. Let's say some bizarre space monster is prowling around. Then where would it roam? We have cameras mounted in the middle of every corridor, and we haven't caught so much as a whisker of the thing."
"There is one place we haven't been able to search."
As he said it, the man pointed a finger upward. The moment I saw every head in the room turn toward me, I withdrew swiftly beside the wire mesh.
"The ventilation shafts?"
"The ventilation network spans the entire ship. I don't know how large the creature is, but anything around one meter could move through it freely."
He was exactly right.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who had underestimated an enemy. I may have been guilty of treating Arnold far too lightly myself.
That was a strategic blunder.
The plan had been to take my time and work through him slowly, but Arnold was displaying insight beyond anything I'd expected. I should have dealt with him long ago, whatever the risk.
"A meter? Isn't that far too small to kill a human being?"
"Captain. A Metallic Gremlin grows to a maximum of eighty centimeters, and it can tear a battleship apart. Size is not the issue."
"Indeed."
It felt like watching auxiliary organs at work. Every person in that room was being won over by Arnold's words. The cold sweat of anxiety was drying up, and their once-erratic heartbeats were steadying into calm.
"There is a problem. If this creature truly killed those people, what became of the Research Team Leader's corpse? If it ate him, then either way, we're finished."
"That matter resolves itself once we capture the creature and hand it over to the Noble Capital. Once it's proven that the thing ate the Research Team Leader, they'll let the matter pass."
Questions flew from every direction, but Arnold answered them all without a stumble. As though he had rehearsed for this, he met every query with a ready reply.
When the barrage finally subsided, only Yuseong remained.
"Crisis Management Team Leader."
"Yes, Captain."
"How many soldiers will you need?"
"I'll select six of our quickest men from the Eighth Unit and sweep the ventilation network."
"Permission granted. I trust you'll bring back results worth the effort."
"Thank you, sir."
After the meeting adjourned, I returned to the nest.
…I held out a long time.
However carefully I moved, this day was always going to come. Short of abandoning the nest and leaving, I could not evade them in the ventilation ducts forever.
And even if I left the nest, there would be nowhere to go.
Knowing Arnold's nature, he would certainly install countermeasures around every vent. The ventilation network would then be sealed to me in all but name.
Corridors bristled with surveillance cameras, and the ducts were about to become off-limits. We weren't in full-scale war yet—but that, too, was only a matter of time.
The moment of choice had arrived.
Flee, or fight.
Since the egg, the nest had been dry and withered—but now it overflowed with life, as if spring had come at last. Lying back against it, I reached out a small hand and caressed the spores.
Feeling their slow pulse beneath my touch, I made my decision.
I fight.
This ship may have belonged to them, but the ventilation network was another matter entirely.
This was my territory—the place where my home stood. Those scheming to hunt me here had nothing but blueprints and maps; the sheer gap in information between us was a gulf.
The conditions favor me, too.
It wasn't just the battlefield. The entire situation surrounding the ship was turning against them.
The meeting with the pirates was two days away.
With the bodies vanished, it was hard to imagine Yuseong parting happily with his credits. The pirates had nothing to deliver, yet he would be paying them a fortune.
Even if my side raised no objections, there was no telling how the other side would play it. He knew perfectly well that the Space Dogs—walking emblems of betrayal—would never simply let the ship sail away.
Yuseong had ordered the rendezvous, and yet even now he was preparing for war, gnashing his teeth over his subordinates' failures.
In any case, to fight the pirates, they would need to preserve every soldier they could. They couldn't afford to throw many men at catching me alone.
And Arnold had declared he would take me alive.
Capture an Amorph?
An Amorph is a thing that never stops until its enemy is annihilated. A hostile alien organism that will sink its teeth into your throat even with its limbs severed and nothing left of it but a head. That is what I am. Arnold seemed to think of me as roughly the equivalent of any wild animal you might find crawling around some backwater planet—he couldn't have been more wrong.
It goes without saying how foolish it is to try capturing an unknown enemy, in unfavorable terrain, with only a handful of soldiers.
Let me teach them how terrifying it is to fight an Amorph in open space—inside a ship, no less.
I would show them, using every weapon at my disposal.
What hell truly looks like in the void of space.