To Driscoll, Cormac ordered, “You stay here, I’ll go get him.”
“What if―what I saw grabbed him?”
“You didn’t see anything.” Cormac said. “Get a hold of yourself. You have space dementia. There isn’t anything out there. He probably dropped his book.” Cormac looked at Ludmilla as he spoke. She had a coy expression on her face. Oh, she is good he thought, playing up any slight advantage to benefit her fight against us.
“Don’t lose this,” Cormac ordered, as he extinguished his cigar.
Driscoll rubbed his eyes and looked out the portal window. “I saw something. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Cormac strapped his helmet on and adjusted the sealant. “Keep your head on.” He climbed into the airlock. “Ryman, hold tight. I’m coming to get you.”
A panic ridden cry came from Ryman’s radio but there were no words.
***
Mere minutes in the chamber stretched into an eternity for Cormac. Speed was half the reason he became a pilot, waiting only made him angry.
The light flashed and Cormac reached for the handle to open the hatch. He did so carefully and deliberately, prepared for the worst.
He saw nothing behind the door.
Inching out of the capsule, he looked for any sign of Ryman or whatever had made him cry out.
Nothing.
Naught but pin-pricked blackness stretching infinitely beyond.
Cormac pulled himself halfway out of the airlock when a force bludgeoned him. It glanced across his helmet but the brunt went to his right shoulder, knocking him almost all the way back inside.
An orange suited cosmonaut with a Baikonur wrench stood there.
Cormac caught himself and struck back with a left hook; hitting the cosmonaut squarely in the knee. An unsatisfactory and equally useless assault.
Unfazed, the cosmonaut hit Cormac on the helmet with the wrench.
A strangely earthen clang echoed in Cormac’s head before being joined by another strike.
Reaching higher, Cormac punched at the unprotected groin with a sterilizing intensity.
This halted the cosmonaut’s attack.
Exiting the airlock, Cormac quickly attached himself to a tether and drew his knife and faced the cosmonaut who had recovered somewhat on an even keel. He could not see Ryman anywhere, but focus remained on his opponent.
The Russian had tied one of the much shorter, cut tethers to his own waist harness. That he had survived floating freely in space was in itself a dark miracle.
“How’d you get here? If I wasn’t gonna kill you, I’d take you to Vegas.”
The cosmonaut gestured as if he still had the gun and held up four fingers.
“You shot yourself back? Lucky bastard. Let’s dance.”
“Poyekhali,” said the cosmonaut, hefting his wrench.
The two men bounded together, crashing blows in a slow dance of brutal menace.
The Russian had to respect Cormac’s blade and Cormac in turn had to avoid the skull crushing blows of the Baikonur wrench.
Back and forth they struggled atop the world, champions of east and west, paragons of their lands and very ideals. Seemingly equals in strength and resourcefulness.
Faking a hay-maker with his wrench, the Russian lured Cormac in for a strike with his knife. Like a Venus flytrap, he caught Cormac and immobilized the knife in an arm-bar. Pressing ever harder, he was almost ready to break an arm.
But as he raised the wrench, Cormac ripped away from the Russian’s death-grip and tumbled backward.
The knife fell away, lost in the gloom.
Charging with wrench upraised, the Russian was halted by his very own shortened tether. It yanked him backward just before he might have done a faceplate smashing blow.
Regaining his sense of balance, Cormac waited just out of reach of the Russian’s strike.
Stalking like a caged animal, the Russian beckoned for Cormac to attack, to let loose the beast and join him in death.
With no other weapon but his longer tether, Cormac went wide around the Russian who initially believed the American was fleeing from him.
But hooking back, hard and fast by bouncing and pushing off the Salyut hull like a swimmer kicking off a pools walls, Cormac wrapped the tether about the Russian.
Undaunted, the Russian pulled Cormac in and readied to brain him with the wrench. Cormac yanked back to resist the hit. Neither could gain traction over the other, too close in strength and skill, too close in raw brutality and savage cunning.
But there is no cosmic balance, no level to which all can hope to attain in equal measure. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter how small the difference, someone comes out a little farther ahead in every competition.
There is no such word as fair in the universe.
Cormac raised his feet from the tension he had upon the hull and let the Russian pull him in again.
Cormac swiftly kicked the wrench away. Having lost the wrench, the Russian decided to use his own skills to wrestle the American into death.
The big cosmonaut caught Cormac in a bear hug with each facing each other. He squeezed, hoping to pop something. He would assuredly win in a wrestling match, of that Cormac had no doubt.
But there is no fair in the universe.
Beyond indomitable, Cormac beat his own faceplate repeatedly into the cosmonaut’s.
Each cracked.
The Russian let go and tried to extricate himself from the insane American.
Cormac charged in again, slamming his own cracked faceplate into the panicked Russians.
“Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!”
“Das-Vee-Dan-Ya!” Cormac caught the Russian by the shoulders and brought the face plates together in one last shattering embrace.
Each spider-webbed crack grew, popped and the air was gone. The broken helmets were instantly jagged glass caskets.
The Russian splayed out in a reverse fetal position, clutching vainly at his throat as the vacuum took his life.
Cormac exhaled everything from his lungs and pushed himself to reach the airlock.
It wouldn’t open.
Knowing that it could only be locked because one side of the airlock was open from the other side, Cormac gripped the hull, and crab walked himself to the Soyuz capsule airlock, fighting to remain conscious the entire way.
He was blacking out.
Puffy eyes struggled to remain focused on the next handhold.
Twice he missed, as his fingers felt like hams and he nearly drifted away into deep space.
At the Soyuz hatch, he struggled to just hang on let alone open it.
It would not budge, locked by an open hatch on the other side no doubt. He dimly remembered having Driscoll secure it so that it couldn’t be opened.
He won but he had lost.
The universe is not fair.
He dazedly put an arm through the airlock entrance bar to hold his body to the station and consciousness slipped away.
Darkness returned as light was banished from the universe and all were one within the void once again. And with the departure of life, so too did death abandon the horror of existence. A symmetry of bare equal nullity reigned and the darkness was pleased.
Then came the light.
A hand reached forth scorching its way into the gloom and broke the emptiness of the void.
***
Driscoll grabbed Cormac’s body and brought him to the airlock. He stomped the big Cyrillic flat-topped A.
“Don’t you die on me! Live ‘Jack-Hammer’!” shouted Driscoll, beating upon Cormac’s chest. “Lord, help this wicked man!”
Fresh oxygen pumped into the chamber and Cormac’s lungs refilled. He coughed and his swollen bloodshot eyes blinked as he heard Driscoll’s prayer of thanks.
“What happened?”
“I came out to help and saw you crawling to the other hatch. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“Didn’t,” cough, “know you cared that much.”
; “No, that thing is out there. It was hovering over us the entire time I pulled you inside. I was afraid it was going to grab us and eat us. It was watching like, like a lazy shark.”
“Now who is delusional? Let me up.”
Cormac attempted to get what seemed like upright, but he only twisted in the chamber like a writhing eel.
“You should be dead. Take it easy.”
“Where is Ryman?”
“You never saw him?”
“No, maybe the Russian killed him.”
“Which Russian?”
“The lucky bastard with the gun.”
“I thought he shot himself into deep space.”
“He did,” coughed Cormac. “But he shot his way back. We’re lucky he was out of ammo by then, killer wrestler too. I had to do this to beat him.” He waved his hand about his shattered helmet, which he removed.
“That was risky.”
“You think?”
The light blinked complete and the hatch opened.
“Did he see it,” asked Ludmilla.
“No, he didn’t.”
“I saw it from the viewing portal,” said Ludmilla. “Where is your comrade? Did it get him?”
“Knock it off, it didn’t get him and you didn’t see anything,” growled Cormac. “There is nothing out there. There is no big black space monster.”
Driscoll and Ludmilla were quiet, staring at Cormac.
Cormac frowned and looked about the cabin.
Sergei was no longer tied up, but gibbered softly in the corner.
“What the hell? Why isn’t he tied up?”
Driscoll took Cormac by the shoulders. “Relax we have bigger problems than what is between our two countries.”
“Tell that to the Commie I just killed.”
“Arkady?” asked Ludmilla.
“Wrestler? Yeah.”
She hung her head a moment, composed herself as if nothing had been said.
“Sorry, Red.”
“I am Major Ludmilla Serakovna, please address me as such.”
“Whatever Red.”
“Cormac, don’t. We need to work together to sort this out.”
“Sort what out? We do our mission, we go home. If we lost Ryman, we go home.”
Driscoll shook his head, “Regardless of Ryman, I don’t think we should go back out there. I only dared to save your life. I told you, I’ve never been so afraid before.”
Cormac shrugged him off. “This has gone far enough. Stop talking about this space monster. Stop thinking you see something that isn’t there.”
“You are half right,” broke in Ludmilla.
“Quiet Red!” Cormac rubbed his swollen face. “How can I only be half right? I’m all right. You’re both delusional.”
She frowned at his dismissal, insisting, “Sergei can see it too. He is terrified.”
“What do you mean see?”
Ludmilla nodded.
Driscoll pointed at the viewing window. “It’s been at least partially visible since just after you went into the airlock to look for Ryman.”
Cormac cocked his head, disbelieving the pair of them. Sergei was tucked away in a corner sobbing. “You’re having a laugh,” grumbled Cormac, as he turned to look out the window.
He went silent, staring in disbelief at the refutation of all his accepted knowledge.
A vast blue-black shape writhed and moved its great paddles or perhaps feet one after another not unlike a caterpillar, if there were even solid ground out the window. Stars winked randomly through the monstrosity, sometimes clouded sometimes piercing the mottled hide as if invisibility were a fluctuating rhythm. Only a score of glowing green eyes at the forefront remained constant.
Cormac rubbed his eyes and looked again at the gigantic behemoth.
“It almost looks like a tardigrade,” said Ludmilla. “A water-bear.”
Cormac furrowed his brow at that remark and returned to staring at the colossal monstrosity outside their window. “Never heard of ‘em.”
“But they are less than six millimeters. This looks to be at least two kilometers long, maybe more.”
Cormac watched intently, asking, “Why does it flicker?”
Ludmilla agreed. “Like it is phasing in and out.”
“I think it is only partially here.”
“Partially? You were the first one to argue it was here. Now you’re telling me it’s not?”
Driscoll nodded, “Ryman said something about opening a gate, a dimensional window. Maybe we are only seeing a shade of the creature.”
“Entity. I remember. Ryman called it an entity.”
“A dark entity.”
“What the hell did Ryman get us into?”
The radio crackled alive through Cormac and Driscoll’s headsets. “I am still here.”
“Ryman, you son of a bitch! Where are you?”
“I appreciate your concern. I was about to open the airlock when a cosmonaut that you failed to take care of, hit me repeatedly. I lost my grip on your tethers and in trying to escape his brutality, I went free-falling below the station and the X-20. Striking something in the process I was rendered unconsciousness for however long that has been. I awoke to your inane use of my name in vain.”
“Are you hurt?” grumbled Cormac, who shrugged at Driscoll.
“Ah, yes. I am very sore and do not know that I can climb back up my line. This is much harder than I ever gave you both credit for.”
Driscoll spoke up. “I can pull you in, but before I do, we want an explanation on that thing out there. Is it dangerous?”
“Ah, very. But not to you. Not yet.” Ryman’s breathing was labored and he exhaled roughly several times between his stunted phrases. “Please, Major Driscoll, Captain Ross is injured, will you pull me inside?”
Cormac put his shattered helmet into a cabinet. “You want to give me yours and I’ll go do it?”
“No, you’re still recovering yourself. I’ll do it. I am coming Mr. Ryman.”
“Good. I await your assistance.”
Driscoll put on his helmet, climbed into the airlock and shut the inner hatch.
“That should have been you,” said Ludmilla. “He is brave man. Not just a killer.”
Cormac shrugged. “We all have our failings, and our talents.”
“You may be talented at what you do, but do not think it makes you hero or even valuable. Anyone can kill.”
Cormac smirked, “I’ve heard Russian’s say laughing bride weeping wife, weeping bride laughing wife. Which are you?”
“I am not married,” she said, licking her lips.
Cormac flipped a switch and took off his suit.
***
Driscoll opened the outer airlock hatch. “Cormac. Did you turn your radio off? Cormac?”
There was no response.
“He must have,” grunted Ryman. “Can you see me?”
Driscoll scanned past the X-20 and saw the dangling tether going underneath. He looked toward the earth and the behemoth that still loomed overheard, its strange image coalescing in and out of reality. “No, Ryman. I can’t see you yet.”
“My line is from the X-20, but I am beneath the Salyut. Dragged like a dog through space. Weak as an infant. Help me.”
“I’m coming, hold on.” Driscoll held Cormac’s secured tether from the airlock back to the X-20 where he could see a line running from the cargo-hold down beneath the space plane.
Ryman’s radio crackled, “Where are you?”
“I just reached the X-20. I almost have your line and I’ll pull you in.”
“Thank you.”
Driscoll took firm hold on the tether and planted his feet firmly against the X-20. It was hard work straining against his suit and keeping balance. All movement wished to betray him to become his own satellite orbiting the earth; and from every perspective he could still see the bloated phasing creature listing in the ether like a beached whale.
“Cormac, is your radio on? Are you receiving me?”
/> “We are alone,” said Ryman cryptically.
Driscoll wondered at that, as well as feeling no weight attached to the tether, but supposed it was because of the zero-G of space. “Are you all right Mr. Ryman? I can’t tell if you’re about to come up from beneath the Dyna Soar or not.”
“I’m fine!” Ryman leapt up from the X-20’s cargo hold and beat Driscoll with a Baikonur wrench.
Ryman mercilessly struck Driscoll’s limbs and chest repeatedly. Having been straddling the cargo entrance, Driscoll was in the worst possible position to defend himself. In the melee, he lost his grip on the X-20’s deck and began to drift away.
Ryman pulled him back and bludgeoned him against the hull of the ship.
“Cry for help and I’ll smash your faceplate in! Turn your two-way radio off.”
Driscoll groaned but did as his tormentor required.
“If our thug of a captain happens to turn his back on, I alone will do the talking. Even now I am sure that what I predicted is occurring.”
Spitting blood, Driscoll mouthed ‘Why’ at his cruel keeper.
“I read the psychological reports. Our good captain has a thing for redheads and accents and she for brutes. Their union is the positive energy half of the necessary invocation. And you my friend, you and I will be the negative half.”
Ryman battered Driscoll’s limbs again. “What if it didn’t happen this way you ask? I would make it so. I will it!”
But for the vacuum of space forcing his body apart, Driscoll would have been in a weeping fetal position, but the pressure on his suit and broken bones kept him splayed in agony.
Ryman dragged Driscoll from the X-20 toward the Salyut’s airlock hatch, following the tethered guideline left by Cormac.
“Soon enough this will all be over. Your broken soul will feed and mark the way for the coming of the Dark Levy and I, Chief of the Apostate’s, will rule at the Grand Decreators side!”
Smashing Driscoll’s body into the airlock, Ryman delivered several more brutal kicks and beatings before shutting the hatch. He pressed the Cyrillic flat topped A button and waited as the pressurization and oxygen adjusted. He broke the seal on Driscoll’s helmet, removed it and his own.
Driscoll stared blankly and gasped.
Ryman returned a wicked smile and slammed Driscoll’s head against the steel wall, knocking the broken man unconscious.
At the Highways of Madness Page 16