Screaming Science Fiction

by Brian Lumley

  “‘Men and women.’ She corrected me, shivering a little.

  “So I put my arm around her, and she drew close. ‘We’re all there is,’ I said. ‘So we must make the best of what we’ve been given. Even of each other.’

  “She pulled away just a little. ‘But we haven’t, we aren’t, making the best of it. We’re making a mess of it at the expense of everything we touch! And yet something you said has given me hope.’

  “I smiled and pulled her in again. ‘Now don’t you start going soft on me, Laurilu!’

  “She drew away again, quite suddenly, which caused the zipper on her uniform blouse to unzip two or three inches. But she didn’t seem to notice. I noticed; after all this time away from Earth, well I was bound to. But just then it didn’t occur to me that she’d been the same time away. And: ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t distract me!’ (Though I didn’t know I had.) ‘It’s what you were saying about the tree ferns: how the settlers can use every bit of them. See, it’s all the waste that I hate the most.’

  “‘The waste?’

  “She was up on her feet in a moment; one pace of those long legs took her to her bookshelf…there’s not too much room in a grav-ship’s bunks. And: ‘See,’ she said again, ‘when I got to know I was assigned to the Starspike Explorer’—she got down a book, one of her several antique volumes, and came and sat down again—‘I decided to take at least an interest in every aspect of the expedition, which included ecology: planet Earth’s ecology; or, as you might say, “when it had one.” So I picked up a couple of old books on the subject. And this is one of them.’

  “‘Ah!’ I said, nodding however reluctantly.

  “‘Even in those days there were people like me who deplored the waste,’ she went on. ‘And when you look at this you can see why. It’s perfectly horrible!’ Opening the book to a bookmarked page, she handed it to me. I knew at once what it was that Laurilu found so disturbing, and said:

  “‘Buying this was probably a mistake. An aunt of mine moved into an old house and explored the attic. She found a five-hundred-year-old book on human diseases—the Compendium of Common Ailments & Household Cures, or some such. And from that time on she had every disease you can name! If they were in the book my aunt got them, one at a time and often, or so it seemed, by the half-dozen! It was all in the mind. And you know what, Laurilu? She’s still going strong at eighty-two! Still thinks she’s sick, too.’

  “She shook her head. ‘But this isn’t imagination. It really happened. Go on, look at it.’ As she leaned to look at the book with me her zipper slipped an inch or two more. But like a fool I didn’t look, except at the book. Well, mainly at the book.

  “It was a picture of the bloody deck of a fishing boat. One of the fishermen had driven a long knife or machete through the head of a shark, almost nailing it to the deck, and another was slicing off its dorsal fin. There was a big basket full of fins to one side of the picture….

  “And Laurilu said, ‘It was the fins, Mike. They only wanted the fins…to make soup! The rest of the fish got tossed back in the ocean, and as often as not alive! Before that it was the whales, those huge great beasts, cut up alive for their livers, their oils. And those beautiful jungle cats—skinned for their furs. Ecology? On planet Earth? It was us, we murdered the home world, Mike! And we did it despite the warnings of real ecologists, like the man who wrote this book.’

  “‘Laurilu—’ I began, without knowing how to continue. But as her arms crept round my neck it appeared that as suddenly as that her entire attitude had changed, and cutting me off before I could find any soothing or conciliatory words she went on:

  “‘Yet now—now like some kind of fantastic psychoanalyst or layer-on-of-hands—it seems that you’ve solved my problem, Mike! In giving me hope, you may even have cured me. It was the waste that was becoming my obsession, but now I see that it was just a part of everything that the human race does. Moreover, I think I know how to handle it now.’

  “‘And can you also see,’ I said, taking her zipper all the way down, ‘that we’ve simply got to make the best of what we’ve got? Get as much out of our short little lives as we can, while our hearts are still hammering and our blood still coursing? We—and now I mean you and me—we have to live our lives to the full, Laurilu, snatching at every opportunity we’re given just as often and, er, as naturally as possible.’

  “‘Yes, I see that,’ she answered, shrugging out of her uniform and assisting me with mine. ‘And now maybe I’ll be able to sleep without dreaming those dreams.’ She began to bite my ear.

  “‘Dreams?’ I repeated her, purely for the sake of something to say as we got down to business. ‘About sharks, you mean?’

  “‘Well, that’s one of them,’ she answered between bites. ‘I see them in my dream: unable to swim, dying and rotting away in their own environment, and not knowing how or why it happened.’

  “‘Exactly!’ I told her. ‘Not knowing how or why: non-sentient. And the reason the fishermen threw them back was so they’d go toward feeding other fishes, and them to feeding us. The sea was like—I don’t know—like a big compost heap. The fishermen couldn’t take those carcasses back to land where they’d rot and stink the place up, so they simply returned them to the sea where they had caught them, toppled them overboard into the big watery compost heap.’ Our bodies were working in perfect unison now, becoming slippery as the temperature rose.

  “‘But there are other dreams,’ she said, clawing at me spastically.

  “‘Oh, really? And what are they about, Laurilu?’

  “‘Well, there’s one that’s been bothering me quite a lot.’

  “‘And which one’s that?’ Actually, at that point in time, I couldn’t have cared less.

  “‘The one where I look at the stars flickering by, and then look at the ship’s engines, and find myself thinking that if we had never discovered the grav-drive, worlds like Ophiuchus VIII would be safe forever. But no, we’ll soon be taking all of this knowledge, everything we’ve learned, back home with us. And me, I myself—Laurilu Nagula, Second Engineer—I’ll be in large part responsible for bringing the Starspike Explorer home again in one…one piece.’ She had gone quiet and thoughtful again, and had almost stopped moving under me.

  “‘But of course you will!’ I groaned. ‘And I’ll be responsible for what I do, and likewise the rest of the crew: everyone responsible for the things they do.’ Utter gibberish!

  “‘But now—’ she came alive again, her hips powering, ‘why, now I know my duty to…to everything! I know what I must do, Mike! You’ve helped me to realize that. But Mike?’

  “‘Yes?’ I panted.

  “‘Please don’t impregnate me.’

  “‘Don’t worry about it,’ I told her. ‘Low sperm count. And anyway the radiation in your engine room will take care of what few tadpoles might manage to squirm through.’

  “‘My engine room, yes,’ she whispered. ‘It would seem to be the answer to everything.’

  “‘I’m glad I’ve been able to help you,’ I told her. ‘As for my feasibility report: well, you’ve also helped me. I can probably write it up from our conversation alone—without all the gloomy bits, of course.’

  “‘Do you think we can do this more often?’ she said, sounding as sexy as anything I ever heard before, her need as strong as mine.

  “‘Often as you like,’ I answered, my head beginning to buzz.

  “‘And on the way home, too?’

  “‘Absolutely!’ (But wait a minute! Wasn’t she beginning to sound just a little too serious?) ‘Er, before we’ve been reassigned, split up, sent in our different directions, do you mean? Which of course we’re almost certain to be.’

  “‘Something like that,’ she said, her nails digging in just one last time. ‘Before we…before we’re split up and sent in our many different directions, yes.’ But it was all babble now, meaningless babble as the sugar boiled over and began its melt-down onto our singing, soaring brains.
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br />   “Then, in a little while and after we had recovered, we did it again. Only this time without speaking. And I was especially satisfied because I’d not only had it out with Laurilu but off with her, too….”

  VIII

  NOTE:—On 12 Sept. 2405, having returned from exploring Ophiuchus VIII, and while attempting a landing at the Darkside Luna Base, Starside Explorer suffered a catastrophic failure of its engines. There were no survivors of the crash. While culpability—if such exists—is yet to be properly established, the ship’s log and all shipboard books and documents have been recovered to Space Central, there to be studied, catalogued, and retained in the library’s “restricted” archives until suitable excerpts can be released for general perusal and information….

  IX

  SESSION ELEVEN.

  (Eleventh Week)

  Subject: James Goodwin,

  former crew member United Earth Station IV.

  NOTE:— The fitting of Goodwin’s prosthetic, just eight days ago, has had something of the desired effect. His spirits appear to have been substantially elevated and he is now far more positively receptive in respect of casual conversation.

  As a direct result of Goodwin’s massive loss of muscular tissue and skeletal support, however, his prosthetic adjunct—a device fashioned in an atmosphere of the utmost urgency—is of an unconventional, indeed unique design. An adaptation of a small power-loader’s tractor, and equipped with a neural interface, a certain element of the grotesque was obviously unavoidable. Goodwin is aware that a lightweight and more esthetically pleasing model is currently under construction.

  However, while Goodwin makes excellent physical progress by virtue of his renewed mobility and rapid mastery of his adjunct, his aversion to hypodermics and similarly sharp implements—symptomatic as it is of his extremely deep-seated psychosis—continues to be of great concern. And since the psychoactive drug Exaxavin is best delivered intravenously, it has now become necessary to introduce mild sedatives into his food as a means of premedication.

  In general:

  It appears that I was correct in my optimism regards ex-shuttle pilot Goodwin’s prosthetic: the positive affect it might have on his well-being. We can now be fairly certain that in large part it was his loss of mobility—the sheer fact of his hospitalization and protracted recuperation, resulting in what must have seemed to someone of Goodwin’s previous astronavigational skills, his agility, spatial coordination, and employment on the permanently low gravity United Earth Station IV, an interminable and claustrophobic confinement—it was that rather than his actual, physical truncation that was aggravating his mental condition and further delaying his recovery.

  Therefore and in conclusion, I insist that the following transcript be read in the light of all the above information, and hasten to point out that despite the unsatisfactory culmination of the interview definite progress is being made as I probe ever more deeply into Goodwin’s psychosis.

  SPECIFICS: the following interview was recorded in Goodwin’s quarters with the subject in a state of hypnotic regression, having reacted positively to an injection of fifteen milligrams of the drug Exaxavin. His trunk was upright in the upper frame of the prosthetic, giving him a standing elevation perhaps seven inches taller than my own. I therefore carried out the interview standing, the better to observe his expressions and speak to him “face to face,” as it were.

  Interrogating Officer:

  Dr. Gardner L. Spatzer,

  Space Central, Arizona.

  3rd Nov. 2407.

  RECORDED INTERVIEW

  Dr. S: “Jim, do you remember where you were when last you heard my voice?”

  Goodwin, without hesitation: “Sure. I was trying to look in through the window of this alien ship or probe, whatever it was. Couldn’t see a thing—the glitter was blinding—which was odd because the sun was on the other side. Like it wasn’t reflected light.”

  NOTE:— At this point during the previous interview, Goodwin had showed considerable irritability and signs of recovery from a seven milligram dose of Exaxavin. He was therefore instructed to sleep; and shortly, upon displaying normal REM, was awakened and the interview terminated.

  CONTINUATION

  Dr. S: “Well, that’s where you are right now, trying to look in through the alien vessel’s window. Can you see anything?”

  Goodwin: “Nope, I’m still dazzled. But here comes Rafferty, so if I just give her a little room…there we go. She’s something else, Susannah Rafferty: a really sweet thing. Damn it to hell, these pressure suits really piss me off! ‘Hey, Sue—how come we never get this close aboard the UES, in atmosphere?’”

  Dr. S: “And does she answer?”

  Goodwin: “Yeah—something about regulations. And now she’s got her flashlight ready. Maybe if we both shine our torches at this thing together the light will cancel out the dazzle. Okay, here we go. ‘Lights, action, camera…eh?’”

  Dr. S: “Jim? Are you okay? What’s happening now?”

  Goodwin, after a long pause: “Blinded! I’m blind as a fucking bat! And scared shitless! Weightless, too, but it’s a different kind of weightlessness. And now…now I think I can see something. Yes, I believe I can see…something?”

  Dr. S: “But where are you? What do you see?”

  Goodwin: “This can’t be real. I mean, I have to be dreaming this. I’m…I’m looking down on the universe—on everything—and its spinning like a top! It’s like a globe of the Earth, except it’s the whole damn universe…spinning. Whoah!”

  Dr. S: “Jim, what is it?”

  Goodwin: “Now it’s stopped spinning and I think…I think I’m on the other side of…of the universe? And the light…there’s that brilliant light again! A single flash of light…and now…the darkness returns. Utterly empty darkness; emptier than the void. I feel…nothing, no sensation whatsoever, it’s like sleeping without dreaming, without even being asleep! Hard to explain or describe…”

  Dr. S: “And the darkness? How long does this darkness last? Do you remember, Jim? Are you conscious in the darkness?”

  Goodwin: “No idea. Weightless. Timeless. Totally lacking in any and all kinds of sensation. It’s like…like I’m paralyzed in everything but my thoughts. I’m trying to call out to Sue…but it doesn’t work. Nothing is working except my mind. And I’m thinking: maybe I’m badly hurt, in a sick-bay bed on UES IV. Some kind of trauma. But now—now, all of a sudden—all of a s-s-sudden….”

  Dr. S: “Be calm now, Jim. It’s okay. Everything is okay. So then, are you emerging from the darkness? Is that what’s happening?”

  Goodwin, becoming very agitated: “I…I think so. But…but I don’t want to! And…and I’m not going to! I won’t! So you can forget it, and I’ll just stay right here in…in the d-d-dark.”

  Dr. S: “But Jim, I—”

  Goodwin, arms and hands twitching, fists knotting, perspiration forming on forehead: “The darkness…is clearing. But I can’t let it! Because I know…I know what’s there behind it! I know…know…no…no…n-n-oooooo! Get the fuck away from me!”

  Dr. S: “Jim! Listen to my voice now—”

  Goodwin: his voice rising to another terrified shriek: “No, no, no, noooooooooo!”

  (At this point Goodwin’s arms began flailing, his hand inadvertently activating the neural interface switch situated on the console to his right. In short, as his tractor undercarriage hummed into life, he became somnambulistically mobile and commenced jerking to and fro, trundling forward, and advancing upon me however involuntarily. Goodwin was not threatening me; on the contrary, he was trying to escape from a resurgent situation. )

  Dr. S, in a louder tone of voice but as calmly and steadily as possible in the circumstances: “James Goodwin, the next time you hear me say ‘stop,’ you will at once disconnect your neural interface and fall peacefully asleep!”

  Goodwin, beginning to froth at the mouth and swaying in his frame as his prosthetic lurched forward: “Ach-ach-arrrggghhh!”

 
; And finally Dr. S: “STOP!”

  Session ends.

  X

  NO DUFF MSG!

  URGENT! URGENT! URGENT!

  On this day, 12th Nov 2407, at 2244 Hrs, Cmdr. Abel Berresford, Darkside Luna Base, requests immediate voice contact with Cmdr. Space Central, AZ.

  “Abel? This is Frankie Zazarro. What the hell is happening up there? Man, I was at Liz’s birthday party, and if this is one of your practical…. Are you talking over the top of me?”

  “Frankie, shut up and listen! I’m really sorry about Liz’s party but we have an anomaly. In fact we have five of them. My meteor cannons are locked on them right now and I need to know what to do. I mean, hell, I know what to do but SOPs won’t let me, not without your say-so.”

  “An ‘anomaly’? Five anomalies? You mean like Anomaly 13?”

  “Exactly like that, Frankie! Now let me tell you about it. All nine hundred of us, we’re situated in our three interconnected crater domes in a rough triangle of some five acres…but you already know all that; you were the Officer Commanding up here way before me! I’m just putting you in the picture, is all. Anyway, these things appeared out of nowhere maybe twenty or twenty-five minutes ago. They’re something like a mile away, in the hills to the north and on the plain in the south, completely encircling the base. And they just sit there like small silver pyramids. They’re not doing anything, but their pattern—the way we’re surrounded—I mean, this has got to be about us! And Frankie, I don’t like it at all.”

  “Abel, General Sellway and my security people are on their way into HQ right now. And meanwhile I’m told we can’t get you on screen. Now why the hell is that?”