She pressed another keypad.
Beneath the decks, artificial gravity units ramped up, humming. Peters felt the rising fields as a pulsing, tingling sensation through her body. Suddenly she had weight again, not just mass.
The frozen corpse, aloft once again, arced down to the deck. Peters jumped back as it shattered on impact, scattering frozen flesh and blood across the deck.
In the Second Containment, Cooper heard the warning and aimed for the deck, coolant or no coolant, an effort to make certain Justin was safe. He almost made it all the way before the artificial gravity pulled the two of them down.
They hit the deck in a rain of coolant. Cooper held Justin close, trying to shield his faceplate with an arm.
The gray downpour ended abruptly, leaving them lying in a slick gray pool.
Cooper propped Justin up, making sure he was still breathing, then scrabbled his way upright, using the console for leverage.
He looked down into the Second Containment, seeking the source of Justin’s condition.
The Core rippled with blackness and seemed to turn in on itself, taking on a new solidity. Rings appeared around the main casing, spinning slowly. The dark energy seemed to bleed away to nowhere.
Cooper shook his head. None of this made any sense. None of it.
Something else caught his attention. Sections of Justin’s safety line, across the Second Containment. They had spread a considerable length of rope around the place after Justin had emerged from the Core, but not all of it had come out.
He tracked the sections.
Both ended at the Core. Both were lying on the gantry, sheared through.
There should have been a couple hundred meters more of the line, Cooper figured, between those shear points.
It was nowhere to be seen, but he knew exactly where it was, and the thought of what might have happened froze him, leeching his strength. He turned, his back against the console, and slid down until he was sitting in the coolant again.
Oh, Baby Bear, he thought, where did you go?
Chapter Nineteen
Miller raced through the Event Horizon, his feet pounding against the deck.
Time was a critical factor now, and he had no time to waste in strolling down to the airlocks. This mission had gone to hell in a handbasket and it was going to take a miracle to pull them back from the edge.
He reached the airlocks just as Weir arrived, the rest of the Lewis and Clark’s crew coming behind him. Miller was mildly surprised. Weir’s body language displayed an almost inhuman eagerness. Starck followed Weir into the ship, DJ arriving right behind her. Smith trailed in reluctantly, hanging back as much as he could. Miller glared at his pilot, but he no longer had any time to waste in cajoling the man along.
“Everybody okay?” Miller said, looking them over.
“We’re all here,” Starck said.
“Okay.” Miller took a deep breath, knowing full well that none of his crew would like his next selected move. “Let’s find out how much time we just bought.”
“I still have to test the air,” DJ said, hurriedly.
Miller shook his head. “No time. This is the only oxygen we’ve got for three billion klicks.”
DJ stepped forward, lifting a hand. Miller did not expect the move to go much further than that. “And if it’s contaminated?”
“I’ll let you know,” Miller said.
He undogged his helmet catches and heard the hiss of the seal opening. He exhaled slowly, then lifted the helmet off, taking a deep breath.
DJ was watching his face, unblinking.
Miller breathed out.
He smiled.
Chapter Twenty
The Event Horizon rippled with light and power, coming alive.
On the bridge, Weir moved easily between the different bridge stations, restoring power, bringing things back to life. Watching him, Miller found it hard to accept that the scientist had spent seven years away from his pet project. Even harder to accept that Weir had spent relatively little time aboard the vessel before its ill-fated maiden voyage. He seemed completely comfortable aboard the ship, oblivious to the signs of carnage around him.
Miller turned back to Starck, who had taken up residence at the communications workstation. She had spent the past ten minutes running one diagnostic routine after another, trying to ascertain the state of the communications equipment.
She looked up now. “The antenna array’s completely fried. We’ve got no radio, no laser, no high-gain.” She looked directly into his eyes, playing the brave soldier to the hilt. “No one’s coming to help us.” She coughed suddenly, covering her mouth. “This air tastes bad.”
Miller had to agree with her on that score. “But you can breathe it.”
“Not for long,” she said.
“Not enough oxygen?”
“Oxygen is not the problem,” Starck said.
“Carbon dioxide.” Miller’s voice was flat.
Starck nodded. “It’s building up with every breath we take.” She sat back, rubbing her face. “The CO2 filters on the Event Horizon are shot.”
Miller considered a couple of possibilities, then said, “We can take the filters from the Clark.”
Starck nodded again. “I thought of that,” she said, tapping her fingers on the communications station. “With the filters from the Clark we’ve got enough breathable air for twenty hours. After that we’d better be on our way home.”
Miller nodded, accepting that judgment. “What about the life readings you picked up?”
Starck grimaced, then shrugged. “The Event Horizon sensors show the same thing—‘bio-readings of indeterminate origin.’ Right before the Clark got hit there was some kind of surge, right off the scale, but now it’s back to its previous levels.”
Miller knew he was trying to get blood from a stone with this line of questioning, but he had to find answers. If he was going to keep everyone alive, he needed all the information that could be gathered. He had not had all the information when the Goliath went out from under him, and it had cost lives.
“What’s causing the readings?”
Starck looked back at the silent comms board, frowning. “Whatever it is, it’s not the crew.”
“So where are they?” He looked around, frustrated, feeling helpless. “We’ve been over every inch of this ship and all we’ve found is blood.”
Weir had paused in his peregrinations around the bridge. At the moment, he was standing silently, looking at a bloody smear high up on one bulkhead.
Miller looked up at it too. There were many more around the ship. The only complete corpse they had discovered so far was now packed piecemeal into a cryogenics unit in the hope that they could get it back to Earth for analysis and disposal. DJ had barely complained about cleaning up the mess.
Weir looked down from the bloody wall, then turned his head to look at Miller. There was something strange in Weir’s eyes, but Miller pushed the thought aside. Right now everyone was a little weird, some worse than others.
“What happened here?” Miller asked.
Weir remained silent.
Chapter Twenty-one
Even with lights cutting into the darkness of it, the Event Horizon was a frightening beast of a ship, a huge construction that was difficult to comprehend. Against it, the Lewis and Clark was a speck, a pilot fish accompanying a whale.
Feeling like a brother to dust, Smith clung to the hull of the Lewis and Clark, bulky in full EVA gear and cautious as he moved forward, one magnetic boot at a time. This was a hell of a way to earn a pension, but af least it got him off the Event Horizon. There was something sick and unholy about that ship; he had been certain of that since Weir had started to explain what all this was about.
Just ahead of him, there was a long rip in the hull plating. The metal had buckled together, tearing like aluminum foil under the pressure of the wave that had struck the two ships. Vapor was still leaking slowly into space.
He knelt down carefully, tak
ing a closer look, then keyed his suit radio.
“Captain Miller, you copy?”
“I’m here, Smith,” Miller said. Jesus, Smith thought, am I sounding insecure or something? Miller’s tone was almost condescending. “How’s the ClarkT”
I’m fine, sir, doing okay out here. He bit his tongue. Miller was doing all he could. “I’ve found a two-meter fracture in the outer hull. We should be able to repair it and repressurize.” He paused for a moment. “It’s going to take some time.”
“We don’t have time, Smith. In twenty hours we run out of air.”
That certainly put things into perspective.
“Understood,” he said.
Out here all alone, then, which was fine, because he would rather be here than aboard that monstrosity of a spaceship. Neptune passed below him, a dizzying experience if he wanted to look in that direction. He kept his attention entirely on the Lewis and Clark.
He reached to his utility belt, extracting the basic patch applicator, emptying it into the tear. The compound went in almost as a gel, but quickly foamed and spread. Within moments it had hardened. The patch would be durable, though not pretty, and secure once it was riveted into place.
He tossed the empty applicator away, not watching to see it begin to fall in a decaying orbit toward Neptune. He reached down to the utility belt again, pulling out a zero-gravity nailgun. He began riveting the edges of the patch into place.
All tied to each other in one way or another, planet, man, and ships hurtled on through the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-two
Justin had retreated somewhere deep inside himself, Peters thought. He had seen something, heard something, been somewhere that his conscious mind could not accept, and this condition was his best defense. Cooper had not been able to fill in many of the details—he had been in a mild state of shock himself.
She looked down at Justin, and her heart ached for him. He was too young, too kind, for this to have happened to him. Perhaps he should never have been assigned to this particular vessel in the first place—at this age people ought to be confined to milk runs. Let the grizzled old combat veterans fly the desperate missions.
Justin was stretched out on a diagnostic table, covered with a thermal blanket. Looking at him, it was hard to believe that there was anything seriously wrong.
She looked up from Justin. DJ stood at the other side of the bed, watching her. She found his studiously neutral expression to be irritating.
“How is he?” she said, trying to push her mind away from the annoyance. DJ
was doing everything he could. The mask he wore was nothing more than his way of coping with the situation.
“His vitals are stable,” DJ said, slowly, “but he’s unresponsive to stimuli. He might wake up in fifteen minutes. He might not wake up at all.”
Peters looked down at Justin again. He seemed to be sleeping.
She turned away abruptly, squeezing her eyes shut, willing the pain back.
There were things to be done. She headed for the bridge.
Chapter Twenty-three
Miller had gone so far as to issue an “at ease” command, but even that edict could not overcome the tension and exhaustion in his crew. There was too much evidence of mayhem, too much debris, too much blood. Too much of everything except time, air, and answers.
Weir was the exception amongst them. He had taken up a position at the briefing table, lounging there as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Miller had expected the scientist to be falling apart by this point, given his earlier behavior. It could be that Weir was simply comfortable on board the Event Horizon, but that discounted the gory, battered state of the spacecraft.
Starck could barely sit still. Miller suspected that it was only the issue of their air supply that kept her from pacing about like a caged cat. Even so, she fidgeted constantly. More irritating was Cooper—he was bouncing that ball of his. Miller kept quiet about it; better he do that than come up with something wilder. DJ, meanwhile, sat quiet, sometimes glancing over at Peters, who was staring out of the bridge windows, hiding her emotions as best she could.
Miller turned to look at a video monitor. Smith was still working on the hull of the Lewis and Clark. Miller suspected that Smith could have been finished long ago—he just did not want to be back on board the Event Horizon.
Miller turned away from the monitor and faced his crew. He took a deep breath, wondering if he could get them out of this mess. He trusted them to pull together, and he figured Weir would pitch in, but the circumstances were wretched and their resources far too tight.
“Okay, people,” he said, pitching his voice low enough to avoid being threatening while still maintaining authority, “there’s been a change in the mission. In less than eighteen hours we will run out of breathable air. Our primary objective now is survival. That means we focus on repairing the Lewis and Clark and salvaging whatever will buy us more time.”
He looked around at his crew. Weir was staring at him, an unnerving focus.
Peters had turned around from the bridge windows to listen to him. This was not new information, but he was gratified that they could still follow the protocols.
“Our secondary objective,” he went on, “is finding out what happened to this ship and its crew. Two months from now I fully intend to be standing in front of the good Admiral giving my report, and I’d like to have more than my dick in my hands.” That brought a couple of weary smiles. No one was going to be cajoled by cheap humor, however. “DJ, take samples from these stains, compare them to medical records. I want to know whose blood this is. Peters, I want you to go through the ship’s log, see if we can’t find some answers.”
Peters straightened up, nodding. “I can use the station in Medical, keep an eye on Justin.”
“Fine,” Miller said. He looked at Starck. “Starck. I want you to repeat the bio-scan.”
Starck closed her eyes, sighing. “I’ll just get the same thing—”
“Not acceptable,” Miller snapped. He was not about to allow Starck to quit trying now. As soon as any of them quit trying, that person was as good as dead. “I want to know what’s causing those readings. If the crew is dead, I want the bodies. I want them faund.”
Starck sat for a few moments, thinking it through. Then she looked up at Miller, her expression determined. “I can reconfigure the scan for C-12, amylase proteins.”
“Do it.” Starck turned away, getting to work. Miller turned to the briefing table. “Dr. Weir.” Weir did not flinch away. “Yes.” “One of my men is down. I want to know what happened to him.”
Cooper grabbed his ball out of the air with a loud smacking sound. “I told you,” the rescue tech said anrgily. “He was inside the Core.”
Weir was shaking his head, the relaxed look lost now. The scientist looked confused, juist as he had looked confused when Cooper had tried to explain what had happened earlier. At that point all they had on hand was chaos; Miller had hoped to get something more out of Weir during the briefing. Cooper was silent for a few moments. Weir said nothing, intent on Cooper. Miller nodded at Cooper, giving his assent for Cooper to continue.
Cooper swallowed and tried to compose himself. “It was like… nothing was there.” Cooper looked up at Miller, but found no cure for his helplessness there. “And then Justin j appeared and then it… it was like…” Cooper was becoming unfocused, trying to find his way back into memory, putting words to the clutter of images. “… liquid. And then the rings started moving again and it froze solid.” “That’s not physically possible,” Weir snapped. Cooper stared at him, shocked at Weir’s tone. “Excuse me, Dr. Weir, you weren’t there. So don’t talk to me about physics.”
Weir was set and determined. He leaned forward, onto the table. “Mr.
Cooper, those rings only stop moving just before the gravity drive activates, If they weren’t moving, that would mean the gateway was open—”
“Then that’s what I saw,” Cooper said, interrupting We
ir. “The gateway was open.”
“—and the gateway can’t have been open,” Weir continued, ignoring Cooper, “because the gravity drive was not activated.”
Cooper turned to Miller, a desperate look on his face. “Skipper, you’re not going to listen to this fucking pogue—”
“It can’t just turn on by itself,” Weir snapped.
Cooper turned angrily, rising from his seat. His right arm snapped back, forward, sending the ball at Weir’s face. To Miller’s surprise, the scientist ducked fast, the ball doing no more than ruffling his hair. The ball struck the rear bulkhead and caromed off into the deck and back into the air.
“Cooper!” Miller reached out and plucked the ball from the air. Cooper sat down heavily, boneless. Miller gave Weir a hard look. “Dr. Weir, Justin may die. Whatever happened to him could happen to all of us.”
Weir hesitated for far too long, a pause that told Miller that the scientist was trying to sugarcoat the truth. Finally Weir shrugged and said,
“Maybe Mr. Cooper saw an optical effect caused by…” Weir frowned, hesitating again. “Gravitational distortion.”
Cooper glared at Weir. His hands were clenched into fists. “I know what I saw and it wasn’t a fucking ‘optical effect’!”
“Mr. Cooper!” Miller barked. Cooper subsided, glaring at Weir. This was all he needed—Cooper acting like Smith. He was faintly glad that Smith was elsewhere, working on the Lewis and Clark. Miller turned his attention to Weir, who was warily resuming his seat. ” ‘Gravitational distortion?’ “
Weir hesitated for a moment, watching Cooper. His scrutiny made no difference in Cooper’s attitude or posture. Reluctantly, he looked at Miller.
“If a burst of gravity waves escaped from the Core, they could distort space-time. They could have made Justin seem to disappear. They could also have damaged the Lewis and Clark.”
As far as Miller was concerned, there was something missing, something Weir was avoiding saying. “What could cause them?” Weir was silent, staring helplessly at Miller. “What’s in the Core?”
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