The Syphon

 

The Syphon

by Chris Morton

Four days into the voyage you will notice a change in the crew. Each of the other ten will have heard the Syphon’s call by then, and will have made their visits to its chamber.

None will form an official report of their private meetings with the Syphon. They will record no log entries. Already there will be a growing sense of paranoia among the group.

Lilly Clark, the ship’s assistant engineer, will be the first to be affected. She has never experienced love of any kind, so she is the most susceptible. Abandoned at birth, no lasting relationships and still a virgin; to say she is unsuitable for this mission would be an understatement.

We approximate that five or six days in she will make an attempt to lock herself in with the Syphon. The crew, too preoccupied with their own feelings, will fail to notice her mental instability in time to stop this. She will shut herself in its pod; the pod within the room that will be referred to as its chamber. And with her knowledge of the ship’s computer, she will be able to temporarily override any efforts to break her out.

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This story appears in the collection Adventures in Sci-fi. To continue reading, click here.