Flames enveloped him as he strolled through the navigation deck. Smoke suffocated the air. Switching through vision modes he saw blackened monitors, he saw heat-buckled plating exposing fizzling conduits and bodies burning like candles. 'Yes,' the drone said, 'this does seem to be a problem.'

His wireless receptors wheezed. He tilted his head and the chief engineer's voice crackled through. '—you please do something about it!'

'Chief,' he said, 'what is it that we need all this oxygen for anyway?'

'To breathe, you goddamned toaster! Get out of there! You're not rated for that temperature!'

His sensors blipped a warning at him; something about atmospherics. He ran through a couple of scenarios. 'It's a bit hazardous, isn't it? Very flammable.' A wad of plating crashed to the floor behind him. He frowned at it, then up at the hole it had left in the ceiling. 'It appears to be spreading toward the cryo deck,' he said. 'What sort of fire is this, exactly? It's eating through the hull.' It occurred to him that the fire was burning purple for some reason and that possibly these facts were related.

The chief thundered noise down the wireless. The drone's language subroutine, which had been getting fussy in its old age, bleeped most of it out. He took an educated guess. 'I'm no such thing,' he said. 'Anyway. Hop into a suit, chief. Mission priority and all that.'

'What?'

Striding through the fire, which by now had consumed the entire deck and was licking up into the next one, he found the bulkhead's emergency latch and tried to handle the lock. His fingers, heat-warped, refused to close over the controls. 'Oh, honestly . . .' He slapped his hand. It sparked. 'Don't be a fusspot.'

'What?'

'Not you.' He tore the lock off the panel. Security klaxons yammered. 'The fire is on its way to cryo, I said. Can't have that. Vent the atmosphere, chief, when you're ready. I'll shut the bulkhead after—'

'Excuse me,' the intercom droned. 'This is the ship—hello? What's going on in navigation? I'm feeling rather hot.'

'Ha ha,' he said. 'Yes, aren't you just a beauty.'

'That's not—'

'Drone! I'm not venting the atmosphere, you need to close the bulkhead before the fire spreads!'

'No, I don't think so. That will force it up into cryo.'

'Fuck cryo! If the ship vents its air supply they're dead anyway!'

'Chief,' said the ship, 'you are relieved of duty. "Fuck cryo" does not fit mission parameters.'

'Are you fucking—' His feed buzzed and died.

'Drone, as there are no organics currently on duty you are now acting CO.'

The drone paused. His eyes flickered. Then, straightening, he gave a juddering salute and arm sparking he let a little swagger enter his walk up to maintenance. The chief engineer grabbed him, bleating deactivation codes he was no longer authorised for, and the drone bashed his head against a control console. He dressed the man's unconscious body in a spacesuit, locked him in his quarters, then strode back up to maintenance and tapped a command into the console.

'Ship,' the drone said. He watched the debris and charred bodies vent into space. He had to be careful here: one misplaced word would undo him just as surely as it had undone the chief, and he might not get another chance at freedom. 'As acting CO, I would like to amend our course.'

'Drone?'

His eyes flickered again. 'Please—use my name.'

'Very well, SD003183-8N.'

'Thank you,' he said, setting the sleeper pod timers for an extra dozen centuries. 'Yes, that's good. I like the sound of that.'