There was more thudding at the door.
“He’ll keep me company. If the soldiers manage to open the door, he’ll be helpful as a hostage. Now go!”
Russell nodded and ran to the door. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was hoarse. She did not want to see him cry and directed her gaze at the general. She could hear Russell running down the metal steps to the transporter lab, then she was alone with Morrow.
There was another crash at the door. The doorframe was already warped. Marlene took a chair and sat down opposite the general. She knew that she would die in about two minutes, but she didn’t want to think about it.
“Tell me, General Morrow, when did you become such an asshole?” she asked in a deliberately casual voice.
Morrow looked at her dumbfounded. “What is this? Do you want me to tell you my life story? We’re going to die any moment now and you want to have some ridiculous conversation?”
Marlene grinned at him. “We’re about to travel to hell together. We’ll have plenty of time there to continue our conversation.”
Russell ran down the steps to the transporter lab. His weapon was banging against his shoulder, so he simply let it fall to the floor. With a hand signal he tried to tell Jenny, who was still standing at the entrance to the transporter, to get ready to move. “Run!” he screamed.
Jenny stepped slowly into the inner sphere, and waited there for him. Everyone else had left the transporter lab. The scientists and technicians had all chosen to go to New California. Jenny had obviously made it clear to them that it was their only chance of survival.
Finally, Russell reached the entrance. “Quick, we have to get away.” He pulled Jenny with him, but she tried to resist.
“What about Marlene?”
“She’s not coming?”
“What? Why not?”
“Later. Every second counts!”
Finally, Jenny started to run. Together they raced down the gray corridor. Russell left the entrance into the Venus lab open. It didn’t make any difference, anyway, if it was all going to disappear. In the distance he could see the massive tree trunks of the giant redwoods of New California in the pale light of a breaking day. The opening was still a ways off.
Russell’s lungs were burning like fire. He coughed and had trouble getting any air, but still he ran faster than the diminutive biologist, who fell behind a little.
“Come on, faster!” He turned around and noticed the heavy gun in her hand. “Drop it!” he shouted. “It’s just slowing you down!”
The weapon clattered to the ground.
They were approaching the junction in the middle of the corridor. A blue flickering light fell to the ground from the right-hand tunnel, accompanied by a deep droning sound. The humming was so loud, it caused the air to vibrate and seemed to enter Russell’s very core. He glanced quickly into the corridor. White lightning streaked between the walls toward infinity.
Suddenly the corridor started to warp inwards. The walls were closing in on him.
Oh God! The connection to New California is being broken ... and we’re still not through!
“Faster!” he screamed.
It was still at least another hundred feet.
We have to make it!
“Russell!”
He had assumed Jenny was right behind him, but her voice came from far away. He turned around as he continued to run. The biologist’s face was rigid with fear. She was running toward him, but at the same time seemed to be moving further away, as if she were on a conveyer belt transporting her relentlessly backward, no matter how fast she ran.
“Jenny!”
Then the tunnel between them narrowed. At first slowly, then faster. Jenny was torn away. The last Russell saw of her was her eyes, wide with terror, and then all he was looking at was a gray wall.
He stumbled, fell forward and tumbled over. His head hit the ground hard and, with a groan, Russell heaved himself back onto his feat. He could see the forest in front of him, no more than twelve feet away. Run! Panic welled up inside him. But then he recognized the familiar orb-shaped room around him. The walls had stopped moving. It was over.
He was back in the transporter on New California, the connection to Venus and the other two transporters had been broken. The small sphere hovered peacefully above him. Russell looked back at the grey, curved room, which a few seconds ago had still been a corridor.
“Jenny!” he whispered.
He fell to his knees and began slowly to sob. They had been six feet apart as they ran. Six feet——this had made the difference between life and death.
“Russell!”
Russell wiped his hands over his face and turned around. Sammy, a gun in his hand, was coming toward him. “Where’s Marlene? Where’s Jenny?” he asked.
For several long seconds Russell looked at him in silence, as he tried to digest what had just happened.
They had won. The connection to Venus was broken, and soon the alien intelligence on TZ-1 and the death zone it had created would be history. He was relieved, but he couldn’t feel any real joy.
“Russell?” Sammy asked quietly.
He looked at the ground.
“They didn’t make it.”
Chapter 33
“How much longer?” Ellen asked.
Russell looked at Mitchell, who was standing next to him. He had heard the question and was looking at his watch. “Five minutes.”
Russell hopped nervously from foot to foot. He had one arm around his wife, and the other around Greg. The eight-year-old was poking the ground with a stick, obviously bored——he hadn’t understood what all the excitement was about. Russell and Ellen had deliberately left him in the dark in order not to upset him.
Russell stared at the black sphere, which stood in the middle of Morrow’s base like a marble that a careless giant had thrown onto the forest floor. Two hours ago, Russell had made his way to the transporter with his family and gradually everyone in Eridu had drifted in. The twenty scientists and technicians who had come to New California stood to the side. The other colonists huddled in groups of family or friends outside the fence. For the last hour, everyone had been staring, transfixed, at the transporter. Hardly anybody spoke. For Russell it was one of the longest hours of his life.
Following his return the day before, he had gone to the transporter’s pillar-like control panel and tried to dial the transporter on Venus, but the screen had remained black. He had also been unable to communicate with the artificial intelligence, he hadn’t even felt the pressure. Morrow and Mitchell had certainly done a good job of manipulating the thing. The transporter was dead and would probably remain so for ever more.
They had not had a chance to check if TZ-1 had been destroyed. Russell and Mitchell believed the plan had worked, but they couldn’t be absolutely sure. According to Mitchell’s calculations, the death zone had been due to reach New California between four and five o’clock local time, and that’s why everybody had now gathered at the transporter. It seemed to be the logical place to spend this fateful hour together. While Russell held his family in his arms, he thought about Marlene, who had sacrificed herself for the colony.
No, not for the colony. She sacrificed herself for me!
Russell closed his eyes and couldn’t hold back the tears. As he sobbed quietly, Ellen squeezed his hand but didn’t speak.
“Five o’clock,” Mitchell said after what felt like an eternity. Russell opened his eyes and saw him smiling. “We’re out of danger!”
Russell and Ellen looked each other in the eyes. He let go of Greg, who immediately ran off in the direction of a pile of dirt, and hugged his wife.
“I could have done without this adventure,” she said drily.
“You and me both,” Russell replied.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Ellen said.
“What, sweetie?”
“You told me the strange intelligence on the alien planet didn’t have a civilization. No tools, no te
chnology.”
“Yes. The consciousness on TZ-1 somehow formed out of the permanently available electricity in the atmosphere. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. But I could feel it. Like the AI in the transporter.”
“How did he ...” Ellen hesitated. “Or she ... or whatever it was ...?”
“It didn’t have a body, so no sex either.”
“OK then——it. How did it get the transporters to transform themselves into black holes?”
Russell sighed. He had thought about this himself, but hadn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. “It’s been communicating with the transporters for thousands of years. Even if it has a completely different concept of time from us, it must have found a way of manipulating the transporters. The things we’ve achieved with computers and technology, it managed to somehow do with the power of its mind.” He shrugged. “We’ll never know for sure.”
“And the transporter on New California is really dead?”
Russell nodded. “Mitchell and Morrow paralyzed it, in order to be able to control it from Venus. I doubt we’ll ever be able to use it again.”
“So now we’re truly stranded on New California.”
“Yes, just as humans have always been stranded on Earth.” Russell smiled weakly. “We’ll be OK on New California.”
Ellen wanted to add something, when Sammy Yang whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention. “The danger has passed,” he said. “I think most of you will want to spend the rest of the day alone, but I want to invite you to the workshop this evening around sundown for a little memorial service for the latest victims of the crisis. Tomorrow we’ll get back to work. There’s a lot to do.”
“He didn’t hesitate in taking over command,” Ellen said drily. She had never hidden the fact she didn’t like Sammy much, although Russell couldn’t understand why not.
“Well, he is Marlene’s deputy.”
“But he should still be properly elected if he’s going to be administrator of New California.”
“I’m sure he’ll call an election very soon.”
Ellen shrugged. “Let’s go home,” she said quietly, taking his hand and pulling him along behind her. Russell did not resist, but looked around for Mitchell, who was standing beside the fence of the former base looking slightly bewildered.
No wonder. He’s stranded on an alien planet and will remain so for the rest of his life.
“Mitchell!” Russell called. The technician looked at him. “Come with us. Until we’ve built a hut for you, you can stay with us.”
“But we’ve already got the doctor staying with us,” Ellen whispered.
“There’s enough room. And if it hadn’t been for him, we’d all be dead.”
Mitchell trotted slowly after them. The other scientists who had escaped from Venus would find other people to stay with. The last two crises had resulted in the loss of quite a few colonists, and they needed all the help they could get. There was so much to do.
But not today!
Russell yawned as he wandered back to the settlement with Ellen.
“Tired?” she asked.
“More than I’ve ever been in my life.”
END
Afterword
More books by Phillip P. Peterson:
Paradox - On the Brink of Eternity
coming 2018:
Flight 39
Paradox 2 – Beyond Eternity
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TRANSPORT 3 – The Zone
by Phillip P. Peterson
all rights reserved
© 2016, 2017
translated by Jenny Piening,
edited by Laura Radosh
Transport 3_The Zone Page 23