“Great, that’s just fucking great,” Lilly sobbed. “I fucking told you it wouldn’t work!” Spit shot from her mouth. “Now we’re in a worse mess than before we started. I fucking-well told you so!” She was right.
Pernio calmed the situation by initiating action. “Come on fellers, no time for that shit, let’s get Jenny to a medical.”
“You mean Jenna,” I corrected unnecessarily, given the situation.
Everybody helped to lift Jen to a bedroom off the nearest corridor. It had been kitted out as a makeshift emergency room, though a pretty poor impression of one. There were cup-mounts for saline drips, a metal cabinet on wheels - that probably contained drugs and medicine - and a diagnostic stem-system. We undressed Jen and left her with the twitching Pernio, who declared herself trained in paramedical procedures. We were past caring, which is bad, because Jenna’s life probably depended upon her ministrations. She’d never been over friendly… but still. My immediate and selfish thought was to get another drink, never mind a mention for Neil, who’d been blown away by Clem for being a useless twat!
We all assembled by the bar, as if we’d all just popped out to do some shopping and had met up again for afters. “What now?” I asked, banging my third empty tumbler on the faux-marble top. “Anybody got a plan B?”
San must have put some thought into the conundrum prior to our disastrous return. “We could use the Tasla bots,” he ventured. He too had taken to heavy drinking during emergencies (all the time) and his eyes were glazed and goggling, but he was still there.
I tried sitting on a bar stool but the bottom half of my space suit with its bulk and slippery texture prevented such a luxury. I remained standing.
“It’s already been tried,” Lilly countered. She’d joined in the happy party. “That’s what Dobson and Prendergast had been trying to do before they were eaten alive… remember?”
“Well go on,” I insisted, after she refused to elaborate the story about D & B, “I don’t remember, tell me about it.”
Lilly looking more middle aged than ever, took her drink and went to shake, rather than sit, in a comfy chair that was still within earshot. “At hangar two, the main workshop, four bots had been brought in for maintenance whilst the boffins decided what to do with them. You see the rising water was going to be a problem… if only we had known how much of one.” Lilly trailed off, glass trembling in her hand. “Anyway,” she began again after a big gulp, “they were left there, awaiting further instructions that never came. Then when we really needed them, and tried to raise them via remote signal, they wouldn’t respond. The water between us was preventing a clear signal. We got mumbled replies from them but without a definite instruction, they are hard wired to stand still… it’s a safety feature to guard against human idiocy.” Lilly looked at me and my lips tightened. “The Taslas wouldn’t respond, so Dobson and Prendergast were trying to get nearer to their location, in fact to the control centre, where they could have taken direct command of the bots. They could, if they’d been successful, have had them bring us the large quantities of salt and food we required, to one of the three ground level airlocks, or some to each. They got less than half way there before the Sporo found them, or detected them, and that was that.”
“How come you call ‘em Prendergast and Dobson, didn’t they have first names?” gravelled Bram, asking a stupid question for God knew what reason. I mean, did it fucking matter?
“They were first class Vanguard, even we have hierarchy.”
Pernio returned to the room. “I’ve had to cauterize the stump. Luckily it was nearly off at the elbow, so only needed a bit of cutting away. She’s asleep now. Hope I didn’t overdo the opiates.”
Clem shrugged and made a face that said, ‘so what!’
Lilly continued as if the interruption had been merely a report on the weather. “If they had’ve made it to Hanger 2 safely and managed to open the wheel hatch to the control room, we could have done something about this… this…” words failed her.
“If they had got there, what did they have to do?” asked Clem helpfully.
“It was a big ask. They would have had to wait whilst the water fully immersed the inside of the control room before they could even get in. Then, with a lot more luck, they might have been able to patch-through their comms or used the remote monitor, to speak to the Taslas. The equipment in there - the control room - is hermetically sealed, good for forty atmospheres; then I suppose it was simple; just tell ‘em what we wanted… that is until their oxygen supply ran out, not to mention how they’d get back to Blue… oh and commanding four bots at the same time.”
“And bring back stuff like the salt and food supplies?” I said, annoyed.
“Yeah, maybe rip that fucking monster to shreds too,” Clem added.
“If you got the salt back, how were you gonna make this so-called sodium hydroxide… that… this err Dobbo and Prendy thought powerful enough to kill the Sporo outright?” Pernio was already thinking one step ahead.
“Not easily, now that the sorbent canisters are saturated. We need them because chlorine gas is given off in the refining process. It is messy too, and the air will poison if not purified. They, Dobson and Prendergast, had already rigged up some copper and carbon electrodes that they ran through the auxiliary water tank down corridor three. Apparently, according to them, you send an electric current through a salty brine, and from the exchange electrolysis, solids, in the form of crystals, can be harvested when they begin to separate. Pure sodium hydroxide, crush it to a powder and that’s all there is to it. It’s roughly a fifty percent mark down on the quantity of salt you add to the water. Dobson said if we exploded the whole fucking lot of the refined stuff, over the main bulk of the Sporo, then we could kill it; ‘Osmosis sucking the life out of the fucker’, I think he said!” Lilly’s head went down again and mumbled, “…but we didn’t even reach first base.”
“There must be a manifest with what supplies there are on Burgesses?” I queried.
“Well course there is, it’s all in hangar one, neatly boxed and sorted. It’s all fully protected from elemental contamination. The boxes we brought from earth at great cost, knowing we would have to store minerals for a long time once they had been extracted from Burgesses’ mantel.”
“Well then,” I began my gambit, upbeat and positive, “let us suppose that one or two of us can get to this control centre and can operate the bots, can one of them not pick up some new canisters, these sorbent things?”
San and Lilly looked at each other knowingly, as if they were dealing with a swivel eyed loon. “Yes, they could,” San said, “but weren’t you listening, we tried it and it failed.”
“So, we got to try again. We’re dead anyway unless we get those supplies. I’m suited and booted, sort of, full of drink, the sun is just coming up and if you give me a gun, one to end it all before I get dissolved by Sporo, then I’m willing to try.” You might think I was mega brave or suicidal, but the way I saw it, just at that moment, was with a clarity of mind and spirit that was not all down to the puggle that was swilling in my gut. I had some idea that I might be able to make it. For another thing, I meant to take that handgun aforementioned, and blow my own brains out if I got caught. Then I wouldn’t have to endure the horrible torture of being slowly digested, or the even slower death of starvation or asphyxiation if we did nothing. “Look,” I said, “that Sporo’s going crackers up on the roof of level one. Say Clem goes back and gives the eggs another blast of fire and gets Sporo real mad again. I could sneak over to this hanger place, before it has time to realize what’s happening, and start up a whole load of robots.”
“But you have no idea how to operate them,” Lilly said exasperated.
“Well you do, come with me?”
I thought Lilly would find all sorts of excuses to say ‘No,’ but she didn’t. In fact, she brightened. “Got to get myself drunk,” she said, “then I’ll think about it.”
Chapter Sixteen. Fried Eggs.
/> Whilst waiting for the sun to fully take to the sky, which we hoped would afford us a thin red glow, and help us find our way to Hanger 2, we chatted and drank and tried a few laughs. Bram was smoking some foul tobacco he’d sniffed out from someplace or other, (he wouldn’t tell me where) adding to the ever-voluminous effort the air-con had to make. Then San had a lightbulb moment, coming up with what, on the face of it, seemed like a brilliant idea. He told us that before the crisis at Blue Base and the water had begun to lick around the perimeter, water pumps had been sought to deal with any eventualities, excepting of course total submergence. To that end, a selection of large pumping equipment had been made available; some smaller portable ones brought inside. “What if we cut off most of the hose, switch the pump to reverse… erm… I think we can do that… what I’m trying to say, from suck to blow, then maybe you could have an underwater jet propellant. Like, you could aim for Hanger 2 and get there loads quicker?”
By this stage I was quite drunk and would have tried hand-made flippers. I still asked, “You sure that would work?”
“Why not?” San’s eyes were bulging with excitement, “It shouldn’t be too difficult to rig, just press a button I think, then aim the business end. Spray away and hopefully end up where you want to be.”
“What do you think Lilly?” I asked, “If we get over there, can you program these bots to get us some respite?” She was the one that really mattered. “Yes, provided the comms still work and the signal is strong enough to reach them. I could use the suit uplink maybe, if the control panel is buggered. San could write down the commands before we went, so I wouldn’t forget them.” She suddenly stood up. “Fuck it, can’t sit here anymore I need to go, I think I’ll crack up otherwise.” She took a big breath. “OK refresh Paul’s life support and bring me a suit. Get them water pumps as well, San. Let’s do this.”
“What about the Sporo?” Clem asked, almost caring.
“You can keep it busy, frying its kids for breakfast.”
Chapter Seventeen. Thrown in the Soup.
Lilly drew me a diagram using spit as ink, her finger as pen and the bar top as paper. “How to get to Hanger 2, should we get separated.” It was roughly fifty metres in a diagonal right, from exiting airlock one. She explained how to find the control centre, open the wheel hub’s spindle fastenings and release the compression bolts. Then she explained the extra security levers that acted as a fail-safe. The centre, she described as an ‘Igloo type of building’, was also to the right. Whether she expected me to know what the fuck an igloo was, I don’t know, but just getting in the place required a P.H.D. in applied engineering. It’s a good job I’d read all those books back on Burgesses, otherwise I wouldn’t have realized how dumb I was.
“Just in case I don’t make it,” she went on for a second time, “watch out for the possible explosive percussion when it opens.”
“Possible? Man, you better make it, you lost me just after the fifty metres in a diagonal right.”
Whilst glugging our last drinks, and Lilly confusing the crap out of me, San brought in a replacement backpack for my suit and a whole new kit for Lilly. “It’s the smallest one I could find,” he said, dropping the stuff on the floor and turning with the words, “Gonna sort them water pumps out for you. Be back in a minute.” Lilly’s new helmet rolled a few feet from where San had chucked it and then stopped; it rocked backward and forward for a time. Pernio went and picked it up and helped Lilly into her rig. The command instructions, which San had already prepared, were wrapped into a water tight, see-through bag, writing uppermost. Lilly placed it in the leg pocket of her oversized trousers. The helmet was so ridiculously big that it made her head look like that of a circus freak, all forehead, bathed in green refracting light for added lurid attraction.
Not more than a few minutes later, Lilly and I were ready, and stood in the inner chamber of airlock one. We were attached to each other via a loop around our wrists, that in turn, was coupled to a long tether of lightweight rope. If we needed to, one pull on the mooring hitch would separate our umbilical connection. We each held one large cylindrical canister, equipped with short hose attachments at one end, funnel shaped fins at the other.
“Water will rush at you; stay calm. As soon as pressure equalises, go for it,” San advised shaking hands for luck. Bram and Clem were on their way back to the Sporo’s nest eggs, to make them into omelettes. San and Pernio were to stay in the hub, keeping the home fire burning. I didn’t get to take the gun, Clem said that it wouldn’t fire underwater anyhow. I did get a sheaf knife though. Perhaps the Sporo would allow me to cut my own throat and then wait awhile, whilst I bled to death.
I expected the water to rise quickly, but not like it did. As soon as the first crack appeared at our feet there was a violent race of water that had both of us spinning like protein balls in a shaken can. It was brief, but reorienting ourselves took a minute. We established what was up from down, left from right and knocked helmets together in mutual support and readiness. I grabbed the outer door frame and reassessed the direction we needed to travel. I pointed a diagonal right to Lilly’s face, saw that I had 120 minutes of air time left, and mouthed the words, “Ready?” We’d said we wouldn’t talk unless it became absolutely necessary, an extra precaution to prevent the Sporo from hearing. I hoped my pal Bram, and Clem, especially Clem, were blasting the shit out of those eggs so that we had a clear run. Lilly counted down from three on her fingers and we pressed buttons simultaneously on our cylinders. There was a moment where we fought each other’s momentum and turned a full circle, till there came a point when we got things together, and whooshed away, roughly in the direction of Hanger 2.
Heading across the liquid fog, I couldn’t see two metres in front of my face. I pressed another quick blast on the pump and glided somewhere forward, further into the mire. Lilly, as if losing a tug of war, followed me with delayed reaction. As she caught up with me, she brought a whole load of silt with her. I had hoped that the sun being up, would have given us a fair bit of light, albeit red in colour, but the water was little more than dark maroon and very hazy. Perhaps there were clouds up there obscuring the already weak rays of the red dwarf sun. What I could see though were unidentified blobs of floaty things. Everywhere! I wasn’t sure if they might be some small part of the Sporo, the stuff that had originally infected the crew of Blue Base. The blobs were moving in a current left to right and I hoped they weren’t just idling the neighbourhood, ready and waiting to infect new victims. Surely, they would have gone and joined up with the main mass by now. In any case, I thought, the spacesuit was proof against them, right?
Our helmets had lit themselves to maximum. I saw something solid, undulating through waves of half-light. A bit further, quick as a jack-in-the-box, three huge stanchions stood out against the backdrop of swamp water. We had reached the outskirts of Hanger 2. Barrels of fuel or similar, were laid on their side. Lettering that had adorned their skins was blistering, as if under attack from a very potent rust. The entrance was one huge black mouth, a Leviathan. I felt like a small mouse mesmerised by the sight of a giant cobra.
Lilly banged on my helmet. I started backward. A few bubbles escaped the re-breather and boiled before my visor before beginning their trip upward. I gulped some air and widened my eyes to show her I was annoyed. You frightened me, I mouthed. We were as close as we could be without kissing. She indicated, by allowing the water pump she carried to slump and then bob just off the bottom, that we should leave them and go on foot - inside. I left mine floating with Lilly’s, hoping they would be there when we returned. If we returned. Oh God!
Lilly must have known pretty well where the control pod was located. She pulled us to the right, where we met up with some metal crates and then a reinforced interlocking wall. Running in an exaggerated way, we made good progress, unhindered by what had been a fairly strong cross current outside the hanger.
There came into view a dirty, yellow and grey domed shell, which did look remarkably
like the igloo I’d seen in a sepia tinged postcard – a method people had once used as a greeting. I even remember the writing on the back that said, “Wish you were here.” It must have been some sort of joke because it wasn’t addressed to anyone or signed. The irony, if that was what it was, was uncannily accurate, given our circumstances as they stood right at this moment.
The viewing windows were thick and multi-layered, and viewed closely, gave the impression of helmeted doppelgängers peering into infinity. They were all intact and the beacon on top still flashed a weak, if half-hearted, amber warning. We strode around and peaked inside the largest window. All was dark, our helmet lights were working for a bonus, but getting nowhere. There were some obscure shapes that wouldn’t resolve into anything recognisable, but at least they weren’t moving.
Through the sick-thick soup, Lily motioned me to the base of the structure. Had it been a foot, it would be suffering from the disfiguring parasitic disease we Scrits knew all about, but could never afford to treat; elephantiasis. It was massively over engineered. We climbed a small ladder to a portal with black rubberised seal and a steel wheel-hatch, front and centre. Above the hatch there was an electronic information bulletin that ran a bar of scrolling letters. It said - over and over again - “ATTENTION. LIFE SUPPORT CRITICAL. REFER TO MANUAL FOR GUIDANCE.”
Shit, I thought, we won’t be able to breathe. Then realized it didn’t matter because we were wearing spacesuits. Besides, the whole thing would be flooded very shortly. Silly me! Lilly tried turning the spindles. Whether she forgot about radio silence or didn’t, her voice popped into my ear. “The wheel is jammed the hatch motor must have shorted.” Her head moved to the right. “We’ll have to crank it.”
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