Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02

by Under a Killing Moon

The catwalk was perilously narrow, and one false step would send me down through a ceiling tile, into God only knew what. There could’ve been just about anything below us, from an ocean to a desert. Eva and I were now moving at a recklessly dangerous pace.

  To make matters worse, a wall loomed directly in front of us. Eva reached an

  intersection on the catwalk and turned right.

  We continued at break-neck speed, zigzagging left and right along the narrow walkway.

  We were quickly approaching another wall. Behind us, the gunshots echoed

  sporadically. When I turned to check our pursuers, it was clear they were gaining on us.

  As I looked back to Eva, I saw her reach the wall, then drop out of sight, followed an instant later by a loud clang. I reached the spot where she had vanished and saw that she’d jumped down onto a metal-grate landing. I lowered myself just as a slug put a dimple into the wall right above my head.

  Now on the landing, I saw that we’d arrived at an access point to the elevator shaft. Eva was leaning into the opening, craning her neck up, then down. She looked back at me. “I can’t tell if the elevator is above us or below. We’ll have to risk it and hope it doesn’t catch us in a bad spot.”

  She backed into the opening and began to climb down. I waited a moment, then

  followed. The ladder rungs were built into the wall. As I climbed carefully down, I looked around and saw that there were no old-fashioned elevator cables in the shaft.

  Instead, each of the four corners had tracks constructed into them. The elevator was probably run electrically. And with the ladder imbedded in the wall, I was willing to bet that there would be no appreciable space between the walls of the shaft and the exterior of the elevator. If we weren’t close to an access window when the elevator passed us, we’d have no choice but to go with it. Suddenly paranoid, I began looking up, then down, like a spectator at a tennis match.

  We continued our descent for several minutes, passing access windows about every thirty rungs. Above us, the voices of our pursuers were now audible. Once they reached the access window, we’d be dead. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. And I’d be the first to go.

  Then I heard the elevator. It was above us. Eva seemed to have heard it, too, and glanced up sharply. “Hurry!”

  We moved even faster than before. A gunshot went off, and a bullet went pinging down the shaft. A security guard was leaning through the access window, cradling a rifle. I tried to pull my head in between my shoulder blades like a turtle, but it wouldn’t retract.

  Below me, Eva had reached an access window and was crawling in. Another shot rang out. One of my feet reached the access window. A bullet ricocheted off a ladder rung just above my hand. A scream suddenly erupted and echoed down the shaft. As Eva helped pull me through the opening, a spray like red rain passed by, followed closely by the top half of a bloody corpse and a rifle. A split second later, the elevator flashed past.

  I probably wouldn’t have reacted on my own. I felt Eva’s hands on my back, and then I was falling helplessly through the air. A moment later, I hit the top of the elevator, and then Eva landed on me painfully. I laid there, more stunned than hurt, as Eva rolled over and onto her knees. Above me, gunshots rang out, but the distance between us and the guards was increasing rapidly.

  We continued to descend for probably twenty seconds, and the elevator slowed and stopped alongside another access window. Eva motioned for me to follow her into the opening. “C’mon.”

  “Where we going?”

  She flashed her grim smile. “All the way to the bottom. Voorman’s freighter should still be in the cargo bay. And if the life-support systems don’t shut down in the next few minutes, we might still make it out of here.”

  “So why are we climbing out of here?”

  Eva looked at me indulgently. “Because going up at this point would be a bad thing.”

  Following Eva’s lead, I crawled into the opening. We waited breathlessly until the elevator moved. It was going down. As we jumped back on, the elevator shuddered slightly, and the lights dimmed, then brightened. I wondered how much longer we had before the Winter Chip’s work was done. Every breath felt precious. Eva leaned toward me. “We’re almost there. Get ready.”

  I wasn’t certain what getting ready entailed, so I tightened up and gritted my teeth. The elevator came to an abrupt halt, knocking us off-balance. Eva rolled over toward the ladder. An access window was about four feet above us. “Hurry!”

  Eva scrambled up the ladder and into the window. I was just a beat behind her. As I dragged myself out of the shaft, I heard the elevator lurch. I’d just pulled my legs in behind me when the opening was sealed off momentarily by the passing elevator. We waited for a few seconds and listened to the elevator ascend. Eva nudged me, and I lowered myself into the shaft and onto the ladder.

  I went down the ladder as fast as I could, figuring that Eva would let me know when I should stop. As it turned out, the elevator had taken us most of the way, and we only had to climb down about another hundred feet before we reached the bottom. I was just about to jump off the ladder and onto the floor of the shaft when Eva shouted to me.

  “Stay on the ladder! The floor’s hot! Go into the lowest opening.”

  I did as she told me, and seconds later I was back in a crawl space like the one we’d been in up above. As I waited for Eva, an alarm started to blare. When she caught up to me, she gave me an amazingly calm look, and then darted down the catwalk.

  Eva seemed to know exactly where to go. I followed her along the narrow walkway for several minutes until she came to a sudden halt. Getting down on her knees, she pried up one of the ceiling tiles and peeked beneath it. Apparently satisfied, she lifted the tile and set it to one side, then nimbly swung down into the hole and dropped. Not wanting to seem apprehensive, I followed her lead without my usual preliminary inspection.

  Fortunately, the drop was only about ten feet, and I suddenly found myself in the midst of a women’s lavatory. I’d heard rumors about “the other rest room,” talk of luxurious daybeds and sparkling clean facilities, not to mention the strange compliment of dispensers. Even now, seeing it with my own eyes, I’d never dreamed it’d be so much nicer than ours. Of course, Eva had no reason to be awestruck. She moved quickly to the door and opened it. As she did, the lights flickered, then went out.

  We left the restroom and stepped into a dark hallway. Some kind of emergency lighting had come on, giving the passage an eerie, greenish glow. Eva turned, and we bolted down the hallway. When we reached a door on the left side, she opened it. Then she led the way down an almost pitch-black stairwell. The still-blaring alarm echoed over the concrete. My lungs burned, and I realized that the air was growing warmer and thinner.

  It felt as though the circulation function of the life-support system had quit working.

  I was planting like a dog by the time we exited the stairwell. Following Eva, I stepped through a door and entered the cavernous cargo bay. The air here felt like a cool ocean breeze. The cargo bay was as dark as the stairwell had been, but there were searchlights constantly scanning the area. I traced the searchlights to a dimly lit tower that rose about forty feet above the floor. With the darkness, the alarm, and the wildly circling spotlights, the scene resembled the pre-tip-off extravaganza at a Bull’s game. I could clearly hear several voices as they echoed around the chamber. It didn’t sound like there was a lot of security in the cargo bay, but there was certainly enough to make me uncomfortable.

  Eva pulled me close and whispered fiercely in my ear. “Where is Voorman’s ship?”

  I squinted my eyes and tried to get my bearings. I’d only been here once, and I hadn’t been in a particularly observant frame of mind. After a minute of scanning and trying to catch sight of things when the searchlights hit them, I decided that our freighter was parked at least a hundred yards away, somewhere between ten and eleven o’clock from our relative position. The guard tower was about a hundred and fifty
yards away and at the two o’clock position.

  I pointed out the freighter to Eva. She waited for the searchlight to illuminate the ship, and nodded. Then she again put her mouth to my ear. “Can you fly it?”

  I wasn’t sure, but I figured I could wing it. “You bet.”

  Eva nodded. “I want you to get inside it and fire it up. Do you see that door?”

  She pointed across the cargo bay to one of the exit doors for aircraft, and I nodded.

  “I’m going to try to get that open. When you start up the freighter, that should get everyone’s attention and hopefully give me a chance to get into the control booth. The door is hydraulic and isn’t connected to the network, so I should be able to access it, even if the computer system’s down. Once it starts to open, they won’t be able to close it for at least thirty seconds. Hopefully, that’ll give you enough time to squeeze through.”

  “What about you? I’m not just gonna leave you here.”

  Eva smiled indulgently. “The important thing is that one of us gets out of here. Percival and some of the others undoubtedly have their own private escape pods and are probably already clear of the Moon Child. Someone has to notify the authorities and have the cult leaders picked up. And you know where to find the evidence that will put them away.”

  I must’ve looked confused. Eva’s smile changed from indulgent to sympathetic. “I’ll try to make it back to the freighter, but you can only give me twenty seconds after the door opens. No more.” Her smiled disappeared. “After that, our window of opportunity will disappear. Literally. Once the cargo-bay door is open, fly the ship through it and into the vacuum tunnel. There’s another door at the end of the tunnel that will open as soon as the door behind you seals.”

  Eva waited for me to acknowledge that I understood, then headed off toward the searchlights. I watched her for a moment, wondering if I’d ever see her again, and then began to make my way across the bay. The room was not unlike a speeder lot, with hundreds of vehicles and other pieces of machinery neatly arranged. Keeping my head low, I moved from one hiding place to another, careful to freeze whenever the searchlights seemed to be close.

  It took about five minutes to reach the freighter. I waited for the searchlights to flash across the ship before opening the hatch on the underbelly. Scrambling inside, I climbed into the cockpit. Then I strapped myself into the driver’s seat and surveyed the instrumentation. It didn’t look too difficult to manage.

  The windows in the cockpit wrapped around, and I could see both the escape door and the guard tower. Taking a deep breath, I turned on the pilot console and fired up the engines. Moments later, like a scene from an alien abduction movie, the cockpit was suddenly bathed in bright white light. The security personnel seemed to have noticed me and had focused the searchlights on the freighter. I glanced at the bay door, but it wasn’t opening. Looking toward the tower, I saw several dark shapes running straight for me.

  I checked to make sure I was ready to lift off, then looked back toward the hydraulic door. It wasn’t moving. For the first time, it occured to me that Eva might not get to the control booth. Maybe she’d been discovered and killed. What if the door never opened?

  I’d locked the hatch behind me, but the security guards would be able to blast their way in eventually. And even if they didn’t, the Moon Child’s life-support system would fail sooner or later, and being in the freighter would only prolong my fate.

  Several light bursts flashed in the corner of my eye. Shots were being fired in the guard tower. I strained to see, but could make out nothing. Then everything went dark.

  Someone had shut down the searchlights. A starry pattern floated in the darkness as my eyes slowly adjusted.

  Beyond the stars, a vertical stripe of faint light appeared, then slowly widened. I squinted my eyes, trying to make out what was happening. After several seconds, I realized the cargo-bay door was opening.

  Under the hull of the freighter, someone started banging on the hatch door, sending a metallic clanging through the ship. My eyes were now accustomed to the darkness, and I scanned the area between the freighter and the guard tower for signs of Eva. Then I began to count silently. Thousand-one, thousand two, thousand three…the cargo-bay was opening from right to left. When it was fully open, the doorway would be about thirty feet high and fifty feet wide. Thousand ten, thousand eleven, thousand twelve…the freighter was probably twelve feet high and twenty feet across. Thousand twenty, thousand twenty-one, thousand twenty-two…cursing under my breath, I shoved the freighter into gear and lifted off.

  As I raised Voorman’s shuttle-cruiser off the floor, the cargo-bay door was fully open and holding. I accelerated and steered toward the opening. Pinging sounds told me that the guards were firing their guns at the ship, but that wouldn’t do any good. The only thing that could stop me was the door, which gradually started to close.

  The freighter was slow to accelerate…and I was about three hundred yards from the door. If I didn’t get there in time, something told me I’d hit the door and crumple like a pop can. The ship was gaining speed, but not quickly enough - it was going to be tight. I angled toward the right side of the opening, my knuckles white on the steering handle.

  Fifty yards away, I realized I wasn’t going to make it. At least not horizontally. I raised the elevation, then grabbed the balance-control stick and wrenched it hard to the left.

  Immediately, the ship rolled. I heard and felt metal scraping along the floor. I tried to adjust the elevation, but the ship only veered slightly to the left, away from the opening.

  I was seconds away from hitting the door. Using both hands, I threw the balance-control stick hard in the opposite direction. The ship rolled wildly to the right and veered in the same direction. The cockpit slammed into the opening. The force of the entry carried the freighter through the door, but the loud sounds of metal being snapped off and crushed told me that the ship had sustained considerable damage.

  I looked out the window and saw that both sides of the freighter had been raked. Even worse, the rudder mechanism had been ripped off the back. The cockpit was untouched, but the freighter wasn’t in good shape. It was probably still capable of propulsion, but I wouldn’t be able to steer it.

  As I was assessing the situation, I felt a giant shudder as the door behind me closed and sealed. Up ahead, the outer door cracked and began to slide open. I pushed the accelerator and felt the engine rev up, but the freighter didn’t move. I tried again, but it was no use - the ship might as well have been in neutral.

  Helplessly, I watched as the gap in the outer door widened, the blackness of space seeping in like an oil spill. I was trapped, a scant few yards from freedom. Desperately, I began manipulating the controls. I tried everything, but could do no more than rock the freighter and raise the back end slightly. The outer door was now completely open. As my eyes searched the instrumentation frantically, I spotted a small panel marked Emergency. I tore it open and found a T-shaped handle. A sticked beneath it read Eject Capsule.

  My speeder didn’t have an eject button, and I’d never used one before, but now seemed like a good time for a new experience. It wasn’t like I had anything to lose. I was about to pull the lever when it occurred to me that I might just be making a big mistake. I had to assume that the cockpit capsule would eject straight-off, which would send me into the ceiling of the vacuum tunnel.

  But I had to do something. I glanced up and saw that the outer door had begun to close.

  One of the things still working on the freighter were the rear elevation thrusters. I cranked them up as far as they would go, until the cockpit was almost face down on the tunnel floor. In front of me, the opening was half the size it had been a moment ago. I pushed the thrusters as far as they would go, then grabbed the T-shaped ejection handle and pulled.

  What followed was a sensation I hadn’t felt since the final time I rode the Hammer at the state fair. In a blur, the cockpit jettisoned from the freighter and slammed into the roof
chamber, just in front of the closing door. The force of the impact caused the capsule to careen toward and through the opening. The g-force had me pinned painfully against my seat, and the spinning motion blanketed me in a wave of nausea.

  It took several minutes for me to regain control of my equilibrium. The capsule continued to spin out into the darkness. I checked the air pressure, and it was holding steady. Apparently, the capsule had survived the collision inside the tunnel. I searched for a set of capsule navigation controls, but there didn’t seem to be any. There were only two useful mechanisms on the console. The first was an oxygen-level display, which showed I had enough to last for at least as long as it would take me to die of thirst. The other was an SOS emitter, which I flipped on.

  I leaned back in my chair and relaxed for the first time in days. Outside the window, the Moon Child was dark and dead. Minutes earlier, it had been the greatest threat ever known to mankind. Now it was a slain dragon, a massive, metal graveyard floating in the great abyss.

  Lowell Percival had said he wanted to create a perfect world. Well, so do most people, but Percival tried to play God, and it wasn’t his call to make. A lot of people had died on the Moon Child. Their fate proved only one thing: There’s no easy path to Utopia. Hell, maybe it doesn’t even exist…but it made me feel good to know that Louie would be telling stories and slinging hash for years to come. Louie - and Chelsee and even Rook -

  all have as much right as anyone else to live long, happy lives. Even if they were Mutants.

  As the gigantic satellite spun slowly out of my view, my eyes wandered down to a recessed handle on the underside of the console, which I hadn’t noticed before. I reached down and pulled the handle. It turned out to be nothing more than a glove compartment.

  Sitting on top of an owner’s manual and a pile of receipts were a mangled pack of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches.

  There were four cigarettes left. I took one out and molded it gently back into shape.

  After wetting the end, I placed it gently in my mouth and lit it. God, it was good to be alive.