by Rok Chillah
"All right," Ridge said. He found a cup that Tomson could use to drink from. He opened a few of the jars sitting around and found they contained nothing but dust. "Are you hungry at all?" he asked Tomson.
The man shook his head. "Not really. A little, but not seriously. Why?"
"Don't you think it's unusual we don't feel hunger or thirst or tiredness?"
"I feel tired."
"We should all feel tired." Ridge did not feel fatigued, which surprised him. He closed the jar and put it back, though its contents were worthless. "Well, I'll get ready now. Check your rifle and make sure you can defend yourself while I'm gone."
"Don't worry about me," Tomson said. He winced a bit as he shifted his leg about. "I'm going to putter with this rifle here a bit, and then I'm going to wander back into the greenhouse and look for a little cabbage or something."
"If you figure out how to cook any, let me know."
"I'll do that," Tomson said.
Ridge explored around the tunnels. He found that at least two of the back channels, by which the mudmen must have come in and surprised Jerez and Lantz, could be closed. The steel gates rolled on wheels and worked fine, once Ridge had figured out the lever mechanism for starting the heavy gates rolling. No mudmen would be coming through the back way, as far as he could see. He returned and found his friend sitting at a chair in the kitchen with the rifle. He led Tomson to the clearing just this side of the rubble area and told him: "If you could sit with your back to the wall, you could probably pick off any mudmen who make their way into the work area."
"I'll do that," Tomson said. "Come back here with me and I'll show you something." It was Ridge's turn to be surprised, and he let Tomson lead him to the greenhouse. They stepped down into the low, narrow stone paths amid the sagging plastic tables. The air smelled of sage and other herbs as they negotiated their way among hanging balls of various flowers and herbs. "Look what I found," Tomson said. He pointed to a table and chairs. The table was round, and the chairs were missing most of their upholstery, but the springs were intact. "Sit."
"Okay," Ridge said, sitting on one of the chairs while Tomson eased into the other. The springs were rusty but still had some life in them. "They maintained this stuff for a long time," Tomson said. "Nobody has sat here for a long time."
"Nice," Ridge said.
"Yeah, but that's not all. Look over there."
Ridge followed Tomson's pointing finger, which made a long oval sweep from left to right and back, pointing at the wall. Tomson said: "There is a window there. It must open at regular intervals and let in the light from somewhere. Maybe from outer space, maybe from some artificial sun, whatever they have that powers all this and keeps the ship alive."
Ridge gaped. "My God. That's what Brenna was trying to tell me. The roots get regular exposure to some form of external light."
Tomson laughed bitterly. "Don't get your hopes up. It's not all a bad dream. The sun isn't really shining on the other side. I'm thinking maybe there is enough starlight to make the plants think there is a full moon, if that. The plants have become so light-sensitive that they shoot out at the slightest sign of more light than this dim glow in here."
"And the dim glow?" Ridge said, sitting back and spreading his arms over the back of the chair. He felt a little tired now also. It was good to rest a bit.
"Bacterial lighting," Tomson guessed. He sat back like Ridge and put his arms over the back of the chair and folded his legs as if he were at some nightclub watching a fine dancer and enjoying himself. "Fluoros. Some combination of weird glowing sources that the engineers and thinkers built. Must have been a little time before they had to run, before the comets devastated the earth. Must have been like when the dinosaurs perished, hundreds of millions of years ago, only our kind got away and old T. Rex didn't."
"You daydream on," Ridge said. "I'm going to look for the gadget that calls the platform back. Must be hidden around here somewhere." He left Tomson to enjoy his view, should the window ever open.
Ridge carried his rifle loosely in one hand as he made his way through the narrow, glowing corridors of the work area. He sidled around stacked boxes, some of which crumbled at his touch. Dust flowed from their unknowable contents and dissolved in midair, making Ridge cough. He poured himself a cup of water in the kitchen and washed down the dust in his throat. He refilled the cup and took it to Tomson, who stood in the greenhouse pruning a few of the plants there. "Sure is a nice garden," Tomson said with a happy glow on his face. "Could use a gardener. Say, maybe I'll just move in here and settle down. Lock myself in like Venable over in his CP and get so I'd be talking to these little green fellas." He flicked his finger lovingly over some lush green leaves.
"Whatever turns your crank," Ridge said. "If you stick around and the shade slides open on that window, you might get the same treat those plants do."
"There can be nothing like the sunlight we enjoyed on Earth," Tomson said. "At least we are lucky enough that we inherited other people's memories of it."
Ridge found a tool shed lower down with lots of valuable equipment in it. The metal tools in particular had not aged significantly. Many objects with moving parts still had their packing grease intact, though it had changed colors and looked a rancid, bacterial white.
Ridge also found the small control room for the work platform. There was a little window overlooking the bleak light in the damaged areas. He had a clear view of that thread of the monorail as it ran parallel to the curving slag-surface of the hull and disappeared beyond the glimmering light globe formed by the ship's stray lighting. The controls were not much-some levers, a wheel, one or two gauges. He figured out how to send the signal that would make the platform roll back from the nose area to the ledge nearby. A green winking light in a steel plate suggested that the transfer was probably taking place.
Ridge stopped in to see Tomson. His friend sat at the table and chairs, pointing excitedly to the oblong in the wall. "It's a kind of steel curtain, and I heard all sorts of whirring and humming. It's going to open any time now and give the plants their little bit of daylight or starlight or whatever it is. Sit down and watch the show."
"I can't," Ridge said. "I have the platform rolling back here. Don't forget, we need to watch for mudmen or they'll come crawling up our backs when they figure out we aren't in the bow area anymore." He waited a little while with Tomson, and when nothing seemed to be happening, he went out to the ledge. On his way out he noticed how tired Tomson looked. Tomson's face was ashen, as if the mixture of pain and exhaustion were racking him.
Ridge walked out to the ledge and watched the platform rolling slowly back from the trolley stop in the bow. As he watched, he noticed an anomaly. For the first time ever, he had a clear view of the underside of the platform. In the dim light, with its high yellowish tones and mid-browns, and then the quick recession all around into black shadow, the underside of the platform was a tangle of girders and shadows. Ridge was able to see that the underside had a secondary platform, probably originally intended for carrying tools, tow motors, and other equipment. As he stared at the slowly and smoothly approaching work platform, he began to realize that the underside was filled with mudmen. Like some collection of worms, they filled the space under the floor. Ridge was sickened to think that he and his now-lost companions must have ridden that way, quite innocently, on their first trip to the ship's bow, without ever knowing that death was riding under their feet. With their dirty-white heads glimmering in the faint light, they hovered in the shadows like the predators they were. All the faces were turned expectantly his way, and that decided his next move.
The platform rolled more slowly as it approached the ledge. Any moment now, the mudmen would come silently pouring from underneath the platform and make their way to the work area in search of Tomson and Ridge. As the platform drew near, Ridge came out from a side service tunnel. He stepped onto a small steel bridge holding a funnel in one hand and towing an ancient red cart behind with his other hand. As t
he platform rolled by overhead, Ridge lit the nozzle on the welder and ran the mouthpiece from the hydrogen and oxygen tanks together over the flame. The entire platform was engulfed in a blaze of brilliant yellow-white flame. There was one continuous, pulsating globe of blinding light. The mudmen caught fire. Some melted together, holding each other, while others jumped. They did not do any fluting now, but formed their mouths into small trumpet shapes and brayed loudly like elephants. Several brayed all the way down until their body sacs splattered on the slag and rocks far below. In all, by the time Ridge turned off the gas and lowered the funnel, he estimated he had wiped out two dozen of the creatures. He left his new fire-cannon where it sat, shouldered his rifle, and separated the tanks. He pushed the tanks back into the shed where he'd found them, and hooked them up to the master bleeders to refill them. While he waited, he made his way back upstairs to tell Tomson. He was a bit thirsty now, and a little bit weary, and got himself a cup of metallic-tasting but cool water from the kitchen. Holding it in a dirty white plastic mug with child's cartoon figures on the side, he walked back into the greenhouse.
"Tomson! Guess what I did."
No answer.
He walked among the narrow passages, inhaling the fragrance of oats and parsley and just plain earth grass. He sipped his water as he went, and when he was done sipping, he threw the last into the flats of mint and oregano growing near that window where Tomson had been awaiting dawn with his plants. He found that the shade had risen, exposing a window filled with stars. The window was about eight feet across and four feet high. Already, the rolling steel curtain was slowly closing again, to await its next day cycle. The plants of course loved it and would be curling their little white feeler sprouts as frantically as possible for maximum growth. In the chair sat Tomson with his head back and his mouth open. He sat slumped a little bit to the left, resting on the back and arm rests. His right arm lay curled comfortably over the neck rest. His eyes were half-open and glazed. "Tomson! Don't go!" Ridge said and stepped close. He felt Tomson's neck and found no pulse. Already, Tomson's skin was growing cold since no more heat came from the heart of him, from the inside, to burn away the chill. All that had been inside Tomson, the nutrients with which he had been born into his short life-the very sun inside him, his soul-had burned itself out. "Ah geez," Ridge said out loud as he gently pressed his friend's eyelids shut. "You got away. You're past it. Wherever you are, I hope you are looking at New Earth. I hope it's pretty. I'd like to see it too." He sat opposite his friend until the steel shutters had closed and the plants were in their night again. He emptied the dented metal cup of water Tomson had been sipping.
He carried Tomson's body out on the bridge where the scorched platform still hung, some twenty feet above. He laid Tomson out on the slag beside the bridge and turned the funnel on him. He smelled burning cloth, hair, and flesh, and did not look until the smell was mostly of scorched paint and hot steel. When he looked, all that was left was a blackened skeleton that had twisted sideways a bit, corkscrewed while there were still muscles to contract, and its arms had risen to point toward WorkPod01. The skeleton's face, however, had sunken downward in the opposite direction as if signaling WorkPod01 was sadly beyond reach.
"I'll show you it's within reach," Ridge said. "I'll show you it can be done. I'll come back for you when it's all over." With that, he pulled his flame throwing device up on the platform. It took time and effort, and he was out of breath by the time he was done, but then he turned the platform on and while it rolled slowly to its destination, he sat with his rifle in his lap, resting his back against his flame thrower, and dozed a little bit.
While he dozed, he dreamt of walking in San Diego. He was on the sand, walking along the beach. The sea curled in. The breakers came in hard and white, foamy, but their heart was luminescent green like a bottle held to the sun. The sky was blue and wrapped all around. There were no children on the beach, just a woman. Brenna. She wore a white shawl over a yellow bikini that showed off her tall, lithe figure. Her hair was a dark ball with red highlights, like the blood boiling for her in the chambers of his heart. She smiled at him and waved, and the wind blew her hair while he ran toward her. He smelled the fog, the sea, the kelp drying on the sand.
Chapter 13
Ridge realized he must have dozed a little. What startled him awake were the bright lights pouring down from the windows above. That would be WorkPod01. He rose, rubbing his eyes and yawning. His knees felt a little stiff from all his exertions and from the abuse he'd taken during his long day so far. He walked over to the control levers and moved them. The platform stopped making bicycle-chain noises and shuddered to a stop. Now the platform sat exactly as it had early in the day when the door had opened and Ridge and his crew had walked out. Now he was the only one left.
Rather than damage WorkPod01 by burning its doors, as he had planned, he decided to wait patiently. He was able to clamber up onto the hydroxide tank and look inside without having to tear his fingernails. The scene was exactly as before, but one difference. The empty hall had an array of sleep incubators. Now the incubators were not lying flat anymore but had propped themselves up. Since he saw nobody moving around, he had to assume it was all automated. He did see a number of flashing red and blue lights, so that was also different. Maybe something was about to happen.
The event he had hoped for occurred shortly thereafter. The sleep incubators opened up. Each incubator emitted its sigh of steam as its vapor lock unclenched and the gases inside mingled with the air outside to form a new and vital combination-78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and one percent trace gases. Each had a translucent glassy looking door, and those doors slid open. Inside each incubator was a fully formed human being wearing a clean new jumpsuit with collar markings of rank and function. There were four men and four women, none of whom looked like Ridge and his crew. So, Ridge thought, each shift consists of different personalities. They had name tags, and Ridge could make out a few of the names. The man with the single black bar, who was their leader as Ridge had been of his crew, was a strong-looking young man with dark hair, whose nametag read Ludovico. That meant Ludwig, Louis, what have you. Lucky Louie. He was about to be born and lead his crew on a charge against impossible odds. Right now, if Ridge read it right, the smile on Ludovico's face meant that he was joking with some of his team mates. They all half-stood, half-leaned in their newly propped up incubators. Each had his or her arms at their sides and their eyes closed, but their faces mirrored the laughter and pleasure of life in their artificial environment. Maybe Ludovico was carrying on a little subtle mating dance with some new version of Brenna. Maybe there was a red-haired body building gal in there pumping iron so sweat ran down over her freckles. Maybe there was a sour, cynical, but loyal Tomson there grumbling about the lack of proper music or proper toothpaste or who knew what. Maybe this, maybe that. Ridge stood on the tank outside and braced himself with his fingers against the window. As he had suspected, there was a significant difference between real time and dream time. Already, the team members stepped dreamily from their incubators. To them, it was still WorkPOd01 as Ridge had known it-a messy, cozy, steamy sort of warm place. There would be sweat on the exercise equipment. There would be cereal in the bowl, The Odyssey under the table, a Captain Venable speaking to them on a view screen as they waited in a loose formation. When all that was over, the doors slid open and they walked out onto the platform. Had they seen a wild-eyed man banging bloodied palms on the windows? Probably not. That would have been real-time and not in their dreams.
Before the door could open, Ridge spotted one or two baseball-heads stealthily moving up the slope below. They would be tracking the team members-probably riding under the platform the whole way. They would wait for the team to spend a little time in the work area, under the pretense that the old mission still worked as plotted by the engineers and thinkers. Maybe it was against the mudmen's ingrained instincts to attack and eat at the doors of WorkPod01. No matter. Ridge took his time. He aimed his r
ifle and picked them off, one by one, a good half dozen of them. Then he lifted the nozzle of his flame thrower and crept to the edge of the platform. He looked underneath and saw two stitch-heads standing close together there. Ghosts. He flamed them, and watched their blazing carcasses plummet through the air amid roiling black greasy smoke while their stitches came undone and sausage offal popped out from under their skin.
Smoke drifted across the platform as the doors whispered open. Ridge figured the ship's systems must have priorities that would include keeping WorkPod01 oiled and functioning in prime shape. With grim satisfaction, he determined figure out all of the ship's secrets in time. The ship had many powerful secrets, and he would figure them out if he had time. He stared anxiously at the faces of the team who emerged, coughing and waving their hands at the smoke that was just beginning to drift away. There was no Brenna among them. Of course not, he thought. Each of us is unique. There can never be another me or another you, even if we are slapped together from old dreams and bootleg lives and bits of this and chips of that. Of all the things he had learned here in this life, the one he treasured most was the dignity and truthfulness he'd seen in Brenna. From her, he had learned to be proud of his uniqueness and humanity.
The team members laughed and joked loudly. For a second, Ridge was mentally transported back to the world as he'd seen it a day ago, when the ship had been Neptune Express as far as he'd known, and as far as these poor candles understood it to be.
Ludovico stepped forth. "You from another workpod?"
"Yes," Ridge said.
Ludovico noted the black bar. "You're a team leader, eh? Where are your people?"
"They are where they are supposed to be."
Ludovico nodded as the others jostled light-heartedly around him. The men were strong and handsome, the women healthy and attractive. They were all young and filled with love for their families back on Earth, and that world made complete sense to them.