Weir-and Starck remained frozen in their violent dance.
Something lifted from Weir. His face cleared. He lowered his hand, staring at Starck.
“In our current environment, Dr. Weir,” she said, “self-control is an asset.”
Peters tried to slow her breathing, stop the shaking. She could not afford to be weak now. Put off the reaction as long as possible, she thought, she could spend some time healing in the tank and get the rest over with when they got back to Earth.
Weir-stared at Starck. “I’m all right,” he said. “Please.”
Keeping her eyes on him, Starck released the scientist and stepped back.
Somewhere in the distance, the pounding started again. This time it was moving away from them, deeper into the ship. Even at a distance, the sound terrified Peters. Something unknown was out there. A monster without explanation.
There was a loud beep from one of the consoles—the ship systems workstation, she remembered as she turned. A light was flashing. DJ left Peters and went over to the workstation, looking it over.
“What is it?” Starck said.
DJ looked around, baffled. “The forward airlock.”
Starck keyed the radio. “Miller, Smith, Cooper, any of you in the airlock?”
Miller’s voice came back, distracted. “That’s a negative, Starck.”
Peters’ mind cleared for a moment, and she remembered, swearing at herself for forgetting in the first place.
“Justin,” she said.
There was a general scramble for the pressure door then, and to hell with whatever was out there. They left Weir standing in the middle of the bridge, forgotten.
Peters raced through the corridors, DJ and Starck trying to keep pace with her. She was growing frantic again, wondering just what was going on with Justin. If he had been affected the way that Weir had, there was no telling what he could be doing now.
They raced into the forward airlock bay.
Justin was there, moving slowly, sleepwalking. He stepped into an open airlock, turning. He was not wearing a suit.
Peters tried to increase her speed, running across the bay, screaming,
“Justin, no!” at the top of her lungs, feeling the lining of her throat inflaming with the force of her shout.
Justin stared at her, his eyes cold and dead. He reached out to the controls on the inside of the airlock.
The hatch hissed shut. Peters slammed into it, screaming at Justin, pounding her fists on the metal.
She slid to the floor.
Chapter Thirty-three
It was getting to be crowded out here, Miller thought. He, Cooper, and Smith had ended up together on one section of the Lewis and Clark’s hull, surrounded by an assortment of zero-g tools.
Cooper and Smith unbolted an access panel. Together they lifted it, moving it aside, letting it float nearby while they attended to the job at hand. The compartment beneath the panel was a mess of scorched wiring and battered components.
“We’ll have to re-route through the port conduit to the APU,” Cooper said, shining a light down into the compartment.
Smith grunted. “What about the accumulator?”
The radio pinged, and then Starck was saying, “Come in, Miller.”
Miller looked up from the work at hand, annoyed at the interruption.
“What’s going on in there, Starck?”
“Justin’s in the airlock,” Stark said.
Miller froze. DJ had not been very hopeful about Justin, and Peters had basically entered a state of denial, hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
“What?” Miller said.
Cooper and Smith were watching him intently, their work forgotten.
Starck said, “He’s awake, he’s in the airlock, he’s not wearing a suit.”
Jesus Christ, Miller thought, it just gets crazier. He wanted the insanity to stop just long enough for them to get home.
Grabbing a handhold, he swung himself to face Cooper. “Stay here! Don’t stop working!”
“Captain,” Cooper snapped back, “you need me on this!”
The last thing Miller needed right now was for Cooper to start grandstanding over Justin. “Fix this ship, Cooper, or we’ll all die. I’ll get him.”
Miller changed his position, orienting himself towards the bulk of the Event Horizon. Taking a deep breath and cursing his fortunes in this world, he kicked off.
He was not about to lose anyone, not now, not on this mission.
Not Justin.
Starck worked frantically at the airlock control panel, trying everything she could think of, short of hammering on the panel with her fist. There was no response at all from the panel.
“He’s engaged the override,” she said, stepping back. Frustrated, she smacked her hand against the control panel.
“Can you shut it down?” Peters asked.
“I’ll try,” Starck said. She turned, took a step, went to work on the access panel for the airlock. She had it open in a matter of moments, digging into the circuitry. All she needed was some way to screw up the outer door mechanism. If she could stop the outer door cycle, they could take their time getting the inner door open again.
DJ was peering at Justin through the hatch window. Turning to Peters, he said, “He’s in some kind of trance. Try and make eye contact, talk him down.
I’ll be right back.”
DJ turned and ran out of the airlock bay.
Peters started hammering on the hatch, trying to snap Justin out of his trance, or to at least get his attention. “Justin!” she screamed, her throat feeling like liquid fire. “Open the door! Open the door!”
Justin’s expression did not change and he did not look at her. He reached out again, slowly, touching the control panel inside the airlock. He started to move, slowly, drifting sideways and up. He had executed a localized shutdown of the artificial gravity, a utility function that had been intended to help transition delicate cargo between zero-g and local gravity.
Justin looked like a man lost in a dream.
Coming to him, Starck,” Miller said, wishing he had a full EVA thruster pack on his suit. “Gimme status.”
He was using the Event Horizon as a means of propulsion, shoving himself from section to section. The huge ship was blurring by beneath him as he gained more and more velocity. He was going to have to shed some of that and change vectors sooner or later, and that was going to hurt.
“You better hurry,” Starck said, her voice urgent. “He’s engaged the override and we can’t open the inner door.”
Miller swore, pushed himself onward.
Peters was still hammering at the door, her hand hurting. “The door, Justin! Open the door!” She coughed, the effort of so much yelling taking its toll on her.
Justin turned slowly around, to stare at the outer door of the airlock.
There was nothing on the other side of that door but space.
“Did you hear it?” Justin said, suddenly, his voice carried through the airlock intercom. His voice was flat, the voice of someone dead.
The hair stood up on the back of Peters’ neck. Starck came over to stand beside her, staring at Justin.
“Yes,” she said, willing to lie, to do anything if it would save Justin.
“Yes, Justin, we heard it.”
“Keep him talking,” Starck whispered.
Peters nodded, sharply. “Do you know what it was?”
“It gets inside you,” Justin said, softly. There was no tension in his body. He hung in the microgravity like a mannequin. “It shows you things… horrible things…” A shuddering breath, almost a sob.
“Can’t describe it… there are no words….”
Weir, on the bridge, had moved to the communications, workstation, sitting unmoving. The intraship intercom system was open, tied into the radio. He had not missed a moment of the conversation.
He sat rigid, listening, trying to keep his mind blank and empty.
“What, Justin?” Peters was
saying. “What shows you?”
Then Justin, almost crying: “It won’t stop, it goes on and on and on….”
“What does?” Peters said.
Weir closed his eyes.
“The dark inside me,” Justin said.
Weir moaned. The tension went out of him. He leaned forward onto the console, his head in his hands.
The darkness was coming.
Miller’s breath was coming in hard ragged gasps now as he made his way along the hull of the Event Horizon. He had made one vector change already, and had the aching arms to show for it.
He sailed onward.
“It’s inside and it eats and eats until there’s nothing left,” Justin was moaning.
“‘The dark inside’?” Peters said, her voice sounding remarkably calm. “I don’t understand.”
“From the Other Place,” Justin said.
Miller passed from shadow to light and back to shadow. Neptune turned beneath him, the Great Dark Spot malevolent at the edge of his vision.
The other crew,” Justin said, softly. He lifted an arm, the movement causing him to turn slowly in the microgravity. “They’re there, they’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for you. I won’t go back there… I won’t….”
Peters pressed up against the airlock door, trying to keep her expression calm. There had to be some way to break through to Justin, some way to make him continue to find his way out of this fugue or whatever it was that had overcome him.
“Justin,” she said, using her best motherly voice, the one that worked so well with Denny, “look at me. Look at me. Open this door.”
DJ was back, sprinting into the bay, his medkit in hand. He almost slammed into the airlock, gasping for breath.
Starck said, urgently, “I don’t think she can talk him down.”
DJ looked at Justin, gently floating in the airlock, then at Starck. He stepped away from the airlock. “If he opens the outer door he’ll turn inside-out.”
Peters was watching Justin, trying to marshal her thoughts. Starck was still trying to do something with the airlock control circuit, her hands lost in a jumble of wiring and circuit modules, her face beading with sweat.
“Almost got it,” Starck muttered.
“Come on, Baby Bear,” Peters said, “open this door.”
Justin was staring at her now, his eyes devoid of spirit. She could not imagine what he might have experienced in the heart of the Core. Justin had been changed, stripped of himself.
He raised a hand, touching the hatch window. “If you could see the things I’ve seen, you wouldn’t try to stop me.”
“That’s not you talking,” Peters said, her heart breaking. “Come back to us. Come back to me, Baby Bear.”
Hope surged in her as Justin’s hand moved, floating toward the switch that would open the inner airlock door. She tried to will him to make the final motion, throw the switch, open the door, get this nightmare ended.
His hand moved again, stabbing at the outer door control.
“Noooo!” Peters screamed.
Warning lights flashed on, inside and outside of the airlock. A Klaxon honked warning, reverberant, even louder inside the airlock than outside in the bay. Justin covered his ears with his hands, squeezed his eyes shut.
From somewhere, a computer voice, all modulated reason and no humanity: “Stand by for decompression. Thirty seconds.”
Inside the airlock, Justin opened his eyes, staring. Peters gasped.
Justin’s eyes were clear, alive. Whatever had taken hold of him had been shaken off, at least for now.
He reached out with one hand, making his motion worse. “Hey…” he said, slowly, sounding confused, “what are you doing?” He turned his head wildly, making his spinning motion worse. Peters could see the realization strike. “Oh my God. Oh my God!” He lunged for the hatch.
Peters whirled. “Starck!”
Starck pulled back from the airlock access compartment, her expression horrified. “I can’t! The inner door can’t open once the outer door has been triggered. It would decompress the entire ship.”
The computer continued to count down, heedless of human dilemmas.
Justin screamed, “Get me outta here!” He swung a fist at the door, but all it did was make him bounce. “If that door opens, I’m gonna—oh God, my eyes!”
Peters was losing her battle against hysteria, hanging on grimly. “We have to do something… oh God…”
Counting down.
Miller caromed from one piece of superstructure to another, hurtling through space in a dizzying, sickening parabola, kicking off again.
“Captain,” Starck said, “Justin just activated the door. It’s on a thirty-second delay.”
“Patch me through to him,” Miller said.
Kicking off again, hurtling along the endless Event Horizon. Nothing compressed about this ship, and never mind the origins of its name or its main drive unit.
He could hear the computer counting down.
“Justin,” Miller said, his tone firm, authoritative.
“Skipper,” Justin gasped out, “help me, help… tell them to let me in!”
Brusquely, Miller said, “They can’t do that, Justin. Now listen carefully—”
Miller came over the edge of the ship, caught himself on an antenna, swung over. The muscles in his right arm protested at the brutal misuse.
He kicked off again.
There. He could see the bulge of the airlock.
“I don’t want to die!” Justin screamed.
“You’re not going to die!” Miller snapped. He kicked, flew on. “Not today!
I want you to do exactly as I say and I’m gonna get you out of there, all right?”
And I hope like hell that I’m not bullshitting you, man.
There was a low thump as the air pumps started. Justin looked up, and around as air moved by him. The airlock was being evacuated rapidly.
“Oh God, it’s starting,” he cried.
“Justin,” Miller said, his voice coming from the intercom speaker overhead, getting thinner, “I won’t let you die.”
Justin was crying helplessly, the dark and the cold pressing in on him. His tears flowed from his face, hung in the air. “Help me,” he whispered.
He started to hyperventilate, trying to hold on to as much oxygen as he could.
“Tuck yourself into a crouched position,” Miller said. His voice had a father’s authority, and Justin tried to obey it, hurrying, pushing against the wall and huddling into a corner.
His tears were turning to blood as the pressure dropped.
“My eyes,” Justin muttered. It felt as though someone was trying to push them from their sockets. He moaned with the pain.
“Shut ‘em,” Miller yelled, his voice fading as the air went away. “Shut your eyes, tight as you can!”
“Five seconds,” Starck said, her voice sounding muffled.
There was a low booming sound, as though something had hit the superstructure near the airlock.
“Exhale everything you’ve got, Justin,” Miller was yelling. “We can’t have any air in those lungs, blow it all out!”
Justin had squeezed his eyes shut, clamping his hands over them. He could feel the blood, slick, sticky, too much of it, far too much of it.
“Oh God, oh God,” he whimpered. He was going to die, he knew he was going to die. The darkness would have him, the voice would have him.
Somewhere in the distance, the last fading sound of Miller’s voice. “Now, Mr. Justin! Do it!”
Justin breathed out, hard, everything gone in one last spasmodic moment, one last silent scream.
The outer door slid open.
Chapter Thirty-four
It was a matter of timing now.
Miller hunched down, watching the airlock, his concentration becoming absolute. He had about five meters to cross, he estimated.
The airlock opened.
There was a puff of vapor as the last of the atmosphere blew out, ca
rrying Justin with it. The engineer was curled up into a ball, his arms wrapped around his knees.
Miller sprang up and outwards, pushing as hard as he could, grunting with the effort. He spread his arms as he leapt outward, seeing the brightness of Neptune.
He slammed into Justin, tumbling them both back toward the ship. There was more pain as he struck the side of the airlock, but he disregarded it, turning himself, holding Justin with one hand while he used the other to pull them both into the open airlock, keeping one boot pressed up against the side of the airlock in case the door decided to try and close on them.
They tumbled inside.
Miller reached out and slapped the switch that closed the outer door, going more by gut instinct that anything else. The door closed, too slowly for his taste.
Justin floated in the middle of the compartment, his veins bulging, pinkish ice covering his skin, his face covered with a layer of frozen blood that had streamed from his mouth, nose and eyes. Capillaries had burst everywhere in his face and hands, very likely in other places too. If he survived this experience, Justin would spend some time looking like a road map of hell.
The outer door locked.
The count in Miller’s head told him five seconds had elapsed since the door had opened.
The airlock began to repressurize quickly. That might do more damage to Justin, but that was a chance they had to take. Miller despised the lack of options, but he was not about to abandon hope.
He reached out again and slapped the control that triggered the artificial gravity, cradling Justin as he slowly dropped to the deck. Through the window in the hatch he could see the anxious faces of Peters, Starck and DJ.
A green light. Miller reached out, hit the switch to open the inner door, then flattened against the wall as Peters and DJ rushed in.
“Oh God, Justin…” Peters said.
DJ went to one knee, his medkit open already. Peters knelt on the other side, taking Justin’s wrist. DJ got Justin’s mouth open, slipped in a tube.
There was the hiss of oxygen.
“I’ve got a pulse,” Peters said. “He’s alive.” She reached out, pulled an instrument from DJ’s medkit, unrolling a blood pressure cuff, slipping it over Justin’s bicep.
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