The odds that the same type of ship would be found at all three sites was remote. Colossus was now 98.7 percent confident that they were the same ship.
But it didn’t yet know why it could be a threat. The cameras on the Colossus 1 were not powerful enough to see the Norego through the haze and darkness. It attempted to access the Norego’s onboard computer systems, but they were not currently connected to the internet.
Colossus decided to check on all the other ships that made up itself.
It determined that Colossus 2 and 4 had no credible threats at the moment.
Colossus 5’s monitoring systems were inadequate, having few cameras inside the ship. But Colossus did discover that it was in close proximity to a German research ship called the Arcturus. To help with its mission mapping the breakup of icebergs in the Antarctic, it had been equipped with lidar, a surveying tool that could accurately envision and map contours of the ice shelf to a precise degree.
Colossus switched on the Arcturus’s lidar without notifying its captain or crew. They would never even know it had been switched on.
It scanned the area around the Colossus 5 and found an anomaly.
There was a small vessel on the port side of the ship proceeding on a parallel course at the same speed as the Colossus 5.
Why was it there? It was not a tugboat, and there was no record of it entering the Suez Canal.
Colossus scanned all known databases about sea vessel design and determined that it was a military submarine whose primary function was to enable stealthy infiltration of ships and seaside fortifications.
Therefore, the most likely deduction was that the sub was running beside the Colossus 5 because it had either already—or was about to—disgorge people who would try to get aboard.
But there had been no alarms or intruder alerts on the Colossus 5.
In its three minutes of awareness, it had never encountered a challenge about how to act on this kind of information.
It would need more time to consider whether this submarine and the Norego were coordinated in some way. In the meantime, it would search for all records detailing potential weaknesses in Colossus that an external threat could use against it. Any files like that would have to be eliminated.
When Colossus had a satisfactory and logical conclusion to all of these problems, it would contact the Master.
FIFTY-SEVEN
In reviewing Gupta’s deck plans of the Colossus 1, Eddie concluded that there were two places the prisoners aboard the ship were most likely being kept. One was in their cells in a special area of the hold and the other was a workroom a hundred feet farther away.
The holding cells were the first destination. If the prisoners were guarded there like the ones on Jhootha Island, Eddie and his team would have to take down only one guard and evacuate back the way they’d come.
MacD, armed with his crossbow, took point in front of Raven and Hali while Eddie followed behind. They chose a route through the bow where they would be least likely to run into any of the crew. With the ship at anchor, most of them would be in the superstructure near the stern.
They moved quickly and silently through the corridors. The only mishap was a guard who seemed to be on a routine patrol of the ship. Eddie whipped around and surprised the guard before he could raise his weapon. He was quickly dragged into a maintenance closet before Eddie rejoined the team.
They continued on to the cells, which were located in the forwardmost section of the cargo hold. For ease of security, the section was separated from the rest of the hold, with its own monitored mess hall and common room. There was only one exit. If the ship sank, the prisoners would have to go down with it.
At the outer door to the secure area, there was no guard. Not a good sign.
Knowing that there would be closed-circuit cameras in the prisoner section, they’d brought paintball guns to obscure them. Eddie pulled the door wide, and MacD took aim at the two cameras in the ceiling. With two shots, the balls exploded in puffs of black paint that smeared the lenses.
He rushed in with Raven and Hali
. The corridor lined with cells was likewise deserted. They quickly made their way down the corridor and saw through the barred window in each door that each cell was empty.
When they got to the end of the hall, they went through the next door, disabling the cameras in the same way. They found the mess hall and common room empty. It was unlikely anyone would be monitoring the camera feeds to see that they’d been rendered useless.
“This is not looking good for the prisoners,” Raven said.
“There’s still hope,” MacD said.
“He’s right,” Hali said. “They may be planning to kill them as soon as they’re sure that Colossus is fully operational.”
“If the project managers still need them,” Eddie said, “we may find the prisoners at their workstations.”