Chapter 3

Sam was walking towards the access panel that led to the bridge casually, whistling idly a tune that would only seem familiar to someone long ago forgotten in a malfunctioning stasis chamber. The service corridor looked like a prehensile, flimsy thing in contrast to the usually bulky navy constructs; nothing more but a metal grid floor, pipes, cables and a paper-thin outer shell that wouldn't stop a mote of dust without the engine's magnetic field.

He stooped somewhat low and reached for the panel, a large mechanical handle etched firmly onto it. Suddenly then, all around him the light coming in through small observation slits, casting shadows and light like long dashes inside that corridor took on a reddish hue.

"Redshift," said Sam with a voice that was not his own, not entirely, not for some time now. His new friend felt suddenly worried, agitated; it was a very rare and exotic feeling that Sam had only half-hoped wasn't entirely unknown to him, it, whatever one should call it. That had been a matter of perspective as well.

"What does that mean?" Sam said, still unable to comprehend why his hands could not turn the handle at all, even though he was pretty sure that was the intention from the start. His voice became rather guttural, heavy and slow; anger bordering on rage washed over him instantly. He had said something to upset his master, friend or symbiot. Again, a matter of perspective.

"It means the ship's moving at relativistic speeds. It means, I can't jump off this ship!", Sam said spitting out the words. In the flick of an eye, he was given back control of his facial muscles. It was as if he was genuinely schizoid, only he was not. Though it was still a point in question, whether or not he should have kept his sanity after everything that had happened since the day he and the Trader had formed an Exchange.

"Why are you talking aloud about this?" Sam asked puzzled, but not scared. He really didn't think there was any reason to be scared when the Trader took over. His face then suddenly spasmed and the Trader was now blaring out loudly, veins sticking out from his neck:

"Because, it means they knew! They somehow knew!"

His punch went right through the panel and into the bridge below. Soft, subdued blue light poured in through the ever widening hole that Sam was ripping apart on the bridge's neodymium ceiling, while he was asking softly, curiously, without tension:

"About us?"

The answer came in force, and Sam found out it was quite one thing to come prepared for a fight, and quite another to be expected as well. The Exchequer was hovering easily a few feet below while the Dispatcher nudged himself neatly through the hole and grabbed Sam from the neck with a huge metal clamp that closed itself shut with a loud echoing snap. It fit perfectly, allowing only breathing in a very rudimentary sense.

The Trader had been caught off guard because of his lousy temper. As much as he tried to foam through the mouth and irregularly curse in unknown dialects and verses, he had been caught. They, Sam corrected in his mind, had been caught.

He was now trying to pry the clamp open but it did not budge, nor give way. Sam noticed sigils, symbols and drawings, formulas and scripts like some of the stuff he had been dreaming when the Trader left him a few moments peace of mind.

Wards. The clamp was warded. The Exchequer said so as well, only with a terribly oversized grin:

"Wards. I wouldn't waste any more vitality on that."

"On what?"

"Escape," said the Exchequer as all three of them they were being lowered down gently after a nod to the Drone, wielding a small, unassuming device with no visible controls.

"Why would I do that? I came for the ship," said Sam with a bad smile and a painfully obvious attempt at trying to hustle his way out of what seemed to be a rather regrettable situation, especially for the Trader who felt distant, withdrawn to another part of his mind. Like a child pouting and running away to his room, or a venerable but slightly eccentric lord barring the gates to his throne. with a deep-set frown, Sam was trying to remember where he had seen or heard about the very notion of feudal lords, while the Exchequer was scrutinising his every pore and muscle up close, with an eerily scientific, cold and calculating gaze. His words had a strangely enough mellow tone, almost conversational.

"Don't you mean 'we'? Who am I speaking to?" he asked and as they were all now back on the bridge, the Exchequer folded his hands behind his back and waited patiently but intently for an answer, while Sam's face twitched and sagged, contorted and moved as if didn't know which way to run.

"Sam," he finally said, though the voice was not Sam's. It sounded very much like him, but it wasn't really him. The Exchequer exploded suddenly, spitting the words wrathfully:

"Not the host! Who are you, really? What's your name?"