29.

One problem certain to circle around the ship would be and is the wonder as to where the insides of both Carlos and David had got to and what exactly had been done with them. There had been a liver casserole on the lunch menu a couple of days before Rory had been taken into custody. The assurances from the command team that human liver or any other human organs or insides where definitely not used in any of the ship's food preparation didn't help much.

The thoughts that Carlos may have been in one way, or another consumed by those possibly in the wrong place at the wrong time made a lot of people physically sick, and no one particularly wanted to be served anything which could possibly include pieces of David.

Rory thought to himself that whoever had put him in the position he so happens to find himself in must be revelling in the chaos they have created. Whether or not Rory is being in any way targeted, or if he had just been in the right place at the wrong time, and no matter if the command team and members of security think that he is innocent, there are a lot of eyes on him.

Keeping Rory in the holding cell for the time being allowed everyone else on board to eat in comfort or as much comfort as possible but it remained something of a worry to the command team, what indeed did happen to the removed parts of both Carlos and David? It did indeed seem quite possible that not only was there a murderer on board but he or she may just also have cannibalistic tendencies.

Wednesday the eleventh of December brought with it no luck with discovering the identity of the ship's possible cannibalistic killer or possibly even killers, neither did this day bring with it any seasonal feelings, being only about two weeks away from the festivities that Christmas usually brings. Festivities of any sort at this point seemed like a luxury, a luxury which may not get to be taken advantage of.

The three members of cleaning crew number thirty-two sit together having come off from shift moments previous and this moment is short lived as Angus excuses himself saying that he isn't feeling too well and that he was gonna go lay down for a bit. Sheila and Badger remain right where they were.

Badger has mostly always been a good guy, a good friend, chatty though in the here and now he is more than a little distracted. He has had his moment. That light returned for him and sent him back to himself in the moments leading up to when he first met Angus. Job is done, the second part of his life's biggest mystery has occurred, and he has no idea as to the how and why it happened, what he does know is somehow he got to travel through time and space in an instance to have a talk with his younger self and the thoughts of this makes him smile.

His smile would soon become contagious as Sheila herself could not refrain from smiling a smile of her own as she sat watching Badger looking so lost in his own thoughts that she possibly isn't even aware that he is still in her company.

'What has gotten into you?' Sheila just has to ask.

It may indeed seem that Badger is lost in his own world but that moment he has had, it cannot simply just be moved on from. Sitting here in the main mess hall it has only been ninety minutes since he had his moment, and it has also been about twenty years. After all, he did experience it from two perspectives.

On duty and moving from one destination onto another, cleaning crew number thirty-two came close to the right ship wing walkway. Of course, Badger couldn't help but take a slight detour and it didn't take long. It was if the light was searching for him, waiting for him for it came right at him the moment he came to the view port he so likes to come to.

In an instant he was gone, back twenty years in time, back across space and back to the streets on Earth where he once had spent so much time. He knows exactly where and when he has come to be for he has been on the other end of a coming together which is about to come once more. He sees his younger self not so far away sitting on a low-lying wall holding on to a half drunken bottle of whiskey, so he moves towards and sits next to himself.

'So, who are you ... supposed to be?' his younger self asks.

'Are you so drunk you can't put it together?' the two look one another in the eyes. '...Of course, you are. Forget I asked anything.'

'You do look a little familiar' spoken words which are slurred a little but not all so much for yeah when he was a young lad Badger could handle his whiskey better than most.

'Yeah, this is because I am you, twenty years from now ...'

Young Badger laughs, his first laugh in a hell of a long time. 'Ha, yeah right, pull the other one why don't ya.'

'It's true' present day Badger remembers how that laugh felt.

'Prove it.'

'Tell you what. Something is going to happen very soon. Involve yourself in it then forget about the whiskey. When it is gone lay off it and things will begin to improve for you.'

'You what?'

'You'll see.'

Older Badger stands, smiles and then moves on.

'Hey' young Badger calls after him though the older fellow has gone.

There is that lady, not all so far away, watching events enfold before her as if she knows something. What could anyone other than Badger himself know of this moment?

Twenty years ago, it had been moments after this meeting Badger had with himself when his younger self came to the rescue of his soon to be brother like best friend Angus and the rest as they say is history. For present day badger, once this meeting finished, he was simply returned to The Pathfinder. How or why any of this happened is beyond him, and without it he certainly would not be right where he so happens to be.

Upon his return he wasted no time catching up with Angus and Sheila and now in the mess hall he responds to Sheila's question. 'Oh, it's just a memory which has been playing on my mind.'

'Anything you'd like to take about or share?' asks Sheila.

'No, not really, but it's nice ya know, to have the odd, good memory or two.'

Badger does consider telling someone about what happened to him for what if it happens again to either himself or to anyone else? Nothing bad came from his experience, if anything it was something he may have needed in his life from both the points of view of being seventeen and being thirty-seven, so why tell anyone? Would anyone even believe him? For the moment at least, he will keep it to himself.

As Badger has his moment, sitting across from Sheila in the mess hall, Maria's daughter Cindy is also in here, she is sitting alone and is about to have a moment of her own.

30.

Cindy has come to a particular moment where she is sitting alone in the mess hall. She would be approached by someone she does not know or recognize, a man who looks to be in his mid to late twenties, a man who asks if it is alright to sit across the table from her. She would have preferred it if the guy sat somewhere else for the mess hall in not overly busy in this moment, but she told him it was alright for him to sit wherever he likes.

He, this man, had brought with him what looked to Cindy to be a bowl of beef stew but whatever was in the bowl it made Cindy's stomach turn. She hadn't felt like eating for more than a while now at this stage. David's death is of course foremost on her mind.

'My name is Cormack by the way' says the man as he begins to eat his meal.

'Cindy' she says being not particularly interested in getting involved in a conversation with a stranger.

'I could sit somewhere else if I am disturbing you.'

'No, no stay where you are. I have just been going through a difficult time lately.'

'It will become more difficult Cindy. It will get worse before it will get better.'

Cormack reaches for Cindy's right hand and begins to hold it tightly. It had simply been resting upon the table before her. She tries to pull her hand away but can't. Cindy's heart began to beat faster, and her eyes opened wider. What is this guy doing?

'Let go of me ...' she says tugging her hand still trying to escape the grip.

Cormack's own hand begins to ooze blood and this blood oozes its way onto the table sending Cindy into more of a panic than what she was already had come to be in. When she looks up at the face of the man sitting directly across the table from her, she could see blood trickling from his nose and from both of his eyes. His bowl of beef stew suddenly looks like a bowl of live earthworms moving, wriggling around in thick blood.

Cindy stands up and finally gets her hand back. She then leaves the mess hall as quickly as she could. The strong sick to her stomach feeling made her want to vomit out in the hallway but running on an empty stomach all she could only manage was to dry heave. Jasmine sees this and quickly comes to her friend's aid. When Cindy looks back inside the mess hall Cormack is no longer at the table, in fact she couldn't see him at all. Jasmine tells Tim to go get some soup and sandwiches and to then follow right to Cindy's quarters.

Maria would soon be informed about Cindy's incident, so upon such information, she leaves the command center to make her own way to Cindy. Almost as soon as she leaves the place she can be found more often than not, Maria is hit by a strange I am alone but not alone and I am being watched kind of feeling. As things are, she believes that Rory is an innocent man so moving on her own around the ship is not a clever thing to be doing especially when a real killer is out there freely moving about, but she needs to get to her daughter.

Paranoia is one thing but with the way the last couple of months have gone for Maria ... Paranoia just goes right out the window. Maybe this feeling Maria was having was just a feeling that maybe Brandon could possibly be somewhere nearby, that is what she hoped it is but unfortunately for her, the feeling she feels has nothing to do with Brandon at all. Before she could come across anyone else, living or otherwise she had been hit on the back of the head and knocked out.