Termination Shock

by Gillian Andrews

  Rastin hung in space, with the backdrop of the Peliss Nebula in the far distance. I had a bird’s eye view of it, because Mel and I were outside, checking the hull-side cooling conduits. The shuttle’s skin sparkled as the ship spun uselessly below our feet. It was magnificent, frustrating and terrifying, all at the same time. Our air supplies were good for a couple of weeks, and we could further ration our few remaining food supplies, but after that we had no chance of survival. Again. I looked across at Mel, who had volunteered for EVA because claustronetics generally prefer being on the outside of a ship rather than on the inside of one. Personally I can’t see why. Space is continually dangerous. Whether you are inside or outside a ship is pretty irrelevant. In fact, you are probably safer inside. Still, she was the one who had volunteered, and I wasn’t about to say anything about it.

  She had one of the inspection hatches open and was engrossed in the loops of conduits exposed. She seemed to have found a certain calm after Commorancy. She no longer looked so scared all the time. “This way of cooling is really risky,” she told me as she peered more closely at one of the couplings. “Why don’t the Avaraks protect these conduits more? It leaves their ships tremendously exposed to cosmic dust and debris.” Then she gave a short gasp, and her legs disappeared altogether as she dragged herself further into the sub-skin. “Oh no!”

  I scuttled hastily over to her position and pulled myself inside the hatch. “What?”

  “We won’t be going anywhere. Look!”

  No kidding. There was a gaping hole about ten meters further in. All the tubes had been obliterated. She was right. This shuttle was dead in space.

  I frowned. The edges of the casings were all facing outwards. This had been no casual collision with space flotsam. This was the result of an explosion. And I didn’t think it was by chance.

  My blood began to boil. “This is Vebor’s work!”

  “You can’t know that!”

  “Can’t I?” I moved my head, letting the light from my helmet play over the whole area as I spoke. “It had to be after we spoke to the Captain of the Avarak cruiser, right? I mean, before that nobody knew if they would take the Rastin or not.”

  Her brow crinkled. “I guess …”

  “And who is the only Avarak who went inside the shuttle after that?”

  She turned her helmet to me. I saw the whites of her eyes through the plexiglass. “Shells! You are right. He went to pick up his medical instruments. It was either him or one of us. I thought he was in there a long time!”

  “Yes. I think we have a small score to settle with Dr. Vebor. Though perhaps they don’t have to swear to the Hippocratic Oath when they qualify on Rhyveka.”

  “Why,” she wailed. “Why would he do that?”

  I saw the old Mel for a moment. The shaky, petrified Mel. I didn’t want her to slip back into that state of panic. I tried to keep my voice even. “We may not even have been the target. He may just have been expressing his anger at Seyal’s keeping the Rastin. You know how the Avaraks feel about their womenfolk. I mean, let’s face it, women’s suffrage has a way to go on Rhyveka.”

  Mel’s mouth formed a large O. I could practically see the cogs working. Eventually she just let all the air out through her teeth. “Then he deserves everything he gets!”

  I couldn’t help but agree. I myself was looking forward to seeing him again. A real deserving cause.

  “Have you found anything?” Zenzie’s clear voice interrupted our thoughts. She and the others were waiting for our update on the situation.

  I explained. There was silence over the comlink for quite some seconds. Then Zenzie’s voice came back over to us. “What about Sammy?”

  “What about him?”

  “His tank is redlining too. It must use the same cooling system.”

  “Then get him out of the tank. We have left him in there as long as we could. Tell Seyal to open it up.”

  There was a hurried conversation in Avarak on the other end of the line. “Seyal says that he may be left with a permanent limp if he doesn’t go the whole time, even though he only needed a couple more days.”

  “But he will walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell Seyal she has done all she could. It will be enough. The Agazeds are renowned for their leathery hides.” I could hear Sammy disputing that indignantly. I ignored him, hiding a smile. “Deploy the interstellar distress beacon, will you?” That was a lottery, too, but if we did nothing, we would all die.

  Another quick conversation. “Didjal has gone to do that. Anything else?”

  “Do we have any propulsion at all? Apart from the core drive?”

  “No. All the engines use the same coolant system.”

  “Then there isn’t much else we can do. Unless anyone has any ideas?”

  This time the silence went on for much longer.

  “Right. Mel and I will see if we can mend any of these pipes. We will be back in when we run out of oxygen.”

  “OK. I’ll tell Didjal to rest. I will too. He and I can take over from you later.”

  “You are too young to go outside, Zenzara.”

  The comlink huffed. “I have been training in EVA since I was four.”

  “All right! Fine! Whatever!”

  “You know, Rye, you should try to relax. You get really uptight really fast.”

  I cut the connexion. Like someone aged eight would know stuff like that.

  Mel was grinning.

  I frowned. “Maybe we could get on with this?”

  “Maybe we could.”

  There was still a grin in her voice, but I let it pass. We pulled ourselves further in between the twin skins.

  I was fast asleep, curled up in a fetal position, when Sammy’s none-too-gentle hand shook me awake.

  “Whaa-a-a?” I blinked. My mouth was dry and tasted metallic. My tongue felt furry. “Wha-what time is it?”

  “You have only been asleep for two hours, Rye. Sorry, but something has happened to Zenzara.”

  My brain snapped awake. “The kid?” I scrambled up. “Where is she?”

  He held my arm, to restrain me. “She is outside the hull. She and Didjal were continuing the work you and Mel started, but Didjal says they were in the middle of a conversation when she suddenly stopped talking to it. It says she is breathing all right, but that she appears to have gone into a trance. She has been like that for fifteen minutes. It is going to need help to get her back in. It suggested I wake you.”

  “Of course. I will put an EVA suit on. Is she completely catatonic?”

  “Nearly. Didjal says she smiles at it, but she won’t answer its questions. It is almost as if she has been drugged.”

  I flipped mentally through everything I knew that could cause that sort of a reaction. Lack of oxygen? I didn’t think so. Carbon monoxide? Possibly, but where could a sufficient quantity have come from? Why the fitz had I let her persuade me to send her extravehicular? What had I been thinking?

  I dragged the EVA suit over my legs, cursing to myself. The Tyzaran girl was more trouble than she was worth. Well, it would be the last time she was allowed to go anywhere except the bathroom on her own! And I was certainly going to contact the Tyzaran authorities. They could just take her back. There was no way I was going to be lumbered with a child to look after.

  I stormed out of the hull hatch and into the icy confines of space. The change in temperature was noticeable through the suit, though not really uncomfortable.

  I pulled myself hand over hand across the hull, using the welded steel clips put there for that purpose. Within a minute I was over the gaping hole in the hull.

  I found a worried Didjal clutching Zenzara tightly. I nodded and took her out of its hold into my arms. She was as lig
ht as a feather.

  “Zenzara? Kid! Are you all right?” She didn’t reply, so I shook her, probably harder than I should have. “Answer me!”

  She gave a frown, as if she was having a lovely dream interrupted. “Go away!”

  “You have been drugged. I have to take you inside.”

  She smiled again, almost drowsily. “No. Not drugged. I have been chosen.”

  Like that made any sense.

  “I am taking you inside. Right now!”

  She clutched at me suddenly. “No! Not yet! Wait!”

  I couldn’t help shaking her again. “Wake up, will you!”

  She gave a sigh. “Stop it, Ryler Mallivan Bell. You are disturbing the Chakran.”

  “Chakran? What Chakran?”

  “The Chakran who has found me. I think I am becoming a Chyzar.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about. Chakrans are a myth.”

  She looked pained. “Please let me concentrate. I will explain everything, but I need some more time out here.”

  I checked her breathing apparatus. “You only have half-an-hour’s air left.”

  “That will have to be enough then. But don’t disturb me.” Her eyes opened and she found mine. I could see from their expression just how serious she was.

  “Will you swear to me that you are not hurt? Not drugged?”

  “I swear to you on my crest that I am in no danger.”

  Certainly her crest was flat against her skull. There appeared to be no reason for her sudden lethargy. I hesitated.

  She gave me a nod. “Thank you.” Then her eyes closed again and she lapsed back into something like sleep, a blissful expression on her face.

  My eyes met those of Didjal. It shrugged. “Don’t ask me. She’s been like that for nearly an hour now.”

  “What do you know of the Chakrans?”

  Its skin rippled along its glossy black appendages. The Enif didn’t need EVA suits. They could survive for quite long periods in open space. However, I was in full EVA, which made it much harder for us to communicate. There was a delay in its answer as my software worked overtime. “Nonlocal entities. Many species assume them to be fictitious.”

  Exactly. Things that didn’t really exist in real life.

  It wasn’t finished. “They extend over huge expanses of spacetime. Individual cells can be hundreds of light years apart. Yet they form some sort of a whole being, about which little to nothing is known. Because each cell exists so far apart from the next, inter-cell communication must be by quantum entanglement and possibly, elective quantum decoherence. So far they are only known to have communicated with Tyzarans, and then only very occasionally. The Tyzarans seem to be the only Major Shell species that is in any way compatible.”

  I looked down at the alien girl in my arms, wrinkles slightly smoothed in peace. Surely not?

  Didjal’s compound eyes whirled. “We Enif believe the Chakrans exist.”

  I pulled a face. “Spacelanders don’t. I was taught that they were a myth.”

  I felt like taking Zenzara back inside, back to safety, yet something kept me outside, stationary under the starry black light. Her face was so calm, so beatific, that I couldn’t bring myself to remove her from it. I felt she was begging me to let her stay just a little longer. And for some reason my inner self was listening. It was uncanny. It made me shiver slightly.

  Didjal and I waited out there together like two sentinels, surrounded by the grey slate of space. I remember staring at the Peliss Nebula, wondering if I had gone slightly mad. I remember the comlink chattering to me as the others asked for updates. I reassured them as best I could and then everything went quiet as the minutes ticked by.

  I wasn’t the individual having this strange experience, and yet it was touching me too. I was aware of a certain aura of importance about this moment, of a solemnity. I could feel that something of great import was occurring; I just didn’t know what. The Enif and I stood to attention, silent witnesses to something greater than both of us. Aware that we were privileged, but unsure why.

  I doubt I could ever forget those moments.

  I let her stay until the oxygen marker dipped into the red line. Then I nodded to Didjal. It tied all three of us safely together. We let her drift out from the hull as we pulled her back toward the hatch. She made no sign of noticing. We manhandled her back into the shuttle, where Seyal bustled up to take over from us.

  As I removed her EVA helmet, her eyes flickered open. “Thank you,” she breathed. “I think there was time.” And she patted both Didjal’s and my hands. Then she closed her eyes again and became still.

  We let Seyal examine her.

  After a few moments the Avarak aide turned to the rest of us. “She is sleeping. I can find nothing wrong with her. But I will take blood samples. I think we should monitor her, but leave her to sleep for as long as she needs.”

  If I had been on my own ship, Faraday, I could have researched the Chakrans. As it was, all that would simply have to wait. The Rastin’s computer responded only to Avarak, and was really little more than a navigational tool in any case. It wouldn’t have any answers about beings that might exist in the vacuum energy of spacetime. I shook my head to clear it. There was something extremely surreal about all this.

  Zenzara hibernated for two whole days. By that time we were worried she would never wake up again. Seyal had her hooked up to an intravenous drip and was trying to keep her as stable as possible. The small girl looked like a waif as she lay on the cot in the tiny medical bay. Her crest was bedraggled and wilted. The wrinkles around her tiny face were dragging the skin outwards and downwards, so that the inside of her face was almost smooth but the outside surrounded by a ruff of skin folds.

  The quality of life on board was hardly improving. If nobody answered our distress beacon soon, we would all be dead. We had enough food and water for a week, but the air supply was already degraded. I thought we would be lucky if it lasted another forty-eight hours. Zenzie might never wake up. She was probably the lucky one.

  Eshaan was in charge of supplies. It was busy dishing out a ration of water when a small murmur from the medical cot made us all look that way. Sure enough, Zenzie was stretching. She was awake.

  In an instant we were all surrounding her. She blinked up at us, relaxed but obviously confused. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Nothing. Why? What did I do?”

  I smoothed her crest, which was quivering slightly. There was no point going any further with this if she truly remembered nothing. “You collapsed, is all. We don’t really know why.”

  She frowned, the skin over her forehead crinkling with the effort. Then she gave a sigh of frustration. “No. No, I can’t seem to …”

  “You don’t remember anything about the Chakrans?” asked Didjal.

  “The Chakrans? No! Should I?”

  I gave her a few sips of water. It doesn’t matter now. How are you feeling?”

  She struggled to a seated position, propping herself up on her forearms. “Tired, for some reason. I can’t think why I fainted. I … I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind. You seem fine now.”

  “Did we manage to fix the tubing?”

  Our silence gave her answer to that. Her face went blank. “I see. Then we are stuck here. Until … until …”

  “Yes.”

  She stared around, before turning her eyes to me. “I have failed, failed in the Savior Protocols. I was meant to save your life, in exchange for mine. I apologize.”

  “Not your fault, kid. You can thank Dr. Vebor for that.”

  She looked slightly sick. “I still should have foreseen it.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. We may s
till get rescued. We are not out of time yet.”

  She stood up, shakily, and tried a few steps. Then she stopped. “I … I feel different.”

  I moved towards her, just as she doubled over and vomited up a substantial amount of bile and water.

  “Shells!” I leapt backwards, too late to prevent my clothes from being spattered.

  Her mournful cat-like little face gazed up at me. “Sorry again.”

  I retreated more, fighting down my own nauseous reaction. “Not a problem. Why don’t you lie back down?” I raised one eyebrow at Seyal. She nodded and gently pushed the Tyzaran girl until she was horizontal once more. “Time,” Seyal told her severely. “You need time.”

  Zenzie’s eyes were already closing again. “OK. Maybe I will rest a little longer …” Moments later, she was fast asleep again.

  I scrubbed at my shirt with a small amount of water still left in my ration cup. “Krikk! She could have aimed someplace else!”

  Sammy was laughing. “Bit slow in your reaction there, Rye.”

  And suddenly it seemed the funniest thing that had ever happened. We were soon all hysterical. Lack of air, I guess. We laughed until it hurt, until the tears ran down our cheeks.

  Chapter 5

  By the time help arrived we were past desperate. We had been sitting for a full week in a ship with increasingly stale air, getting hungrier and hungrier and more and more desperate. We were more than ready to be saved.

  We had no way of knowing what sort of a ship it was that had answered our beacon. Our instruments had been affected by Vebor’s sabotage, too. We were lucky the distress beacon had been on an independent circuit.