He could see various discoloured patches on the hull’s surface that didn’t look right, and a few small dangling tubes and wires, up near the newly emplaced lights. Part of him wondered why they had bothered with the lights. The hull’s interior was evacuated, open to space; nobody would be coming in here without a full suit, so they would have the concomitant sensory equipment that made lights unnecessary. He looked down at the floor. Maybe the technicians had been superstitious, or just emotional. The lights made the place seem a little less forbidding, less haunted.

He could understand that wandering around in here with only ambient radiations to impinge upon the augmented senses might well induce terror if you were of a sensitive nature. They’d found much of what they’d hoped to find; enough for his mission, sufficient to save a thousand or so other souls. Almost certainly not enough to fulfil his hopes. He looked about. It appeared they had removed all the sensory and monitoring equipment they’d been using to inspect the wreck of the privateer Winter Storm.

He felt a shudder through his boots. He glanced up to the side, as the sliced-off bow of the ship was put back in place. Enclosed, in this ship of the dead. At last.

~ Isolation established, it says, said a voice in his head. The machine in his backpack produced a faint vibration.

~ It says the proximity of the suit’s systems are interfering with its instruments. You’ll have to switch your com off. Now it’s saying, Please remove the pack from your back.

~ Will we still be able to talk?

~ You and I will be able to talk to each other, and it’ll be able to talk to me.

~ All right, he said, slipping the pack off. ~ The lights are all right? he asked.

~ They’re just lights, nothing else.

~ Where shall I put—he started to say, but then the pack went light in his hands and began to tug away from him.