“I can take care of Weir,” DJ said.
He turned around, intending to look for a reasonable weapon.
Weir was waiting for him, smiling. His face was covered in dried blood, his eye sockets nothing more than two bloody holes, still oozing a little.
DJ started to scream, but Weir’s red right hand slammed into his throat, silencing him. Pain flared into his head.
There was an odd sound from DJ, muffled by the intercom.
Something crashing, like steel and glass falling to the deck.
Weir.
DJ kicked, fighting away from Weir, but it was no use. Weir tore at him with a terrifying strength, his lack of eyes no handicap. DJ was picked up, slammed into an examination table, picked up again, sent flying through the air, smashed helplessly into storage cabinets.
Weir strode through the carnage, bending down to pick DJ up. The doctor stared up at his tormenter, blood on his lips.
Weir smiled.
He turned DJ around, pulled back his head.
DJ closed his eyes.
In a swift, exact motion, Weir cut DJ’s throat from ear to ear, letting the blood spray for a few moments.
He released the corpse, putting aside the scalpel he had used, and turned his attention to cabinets filled with surgical instruments. From one he took surgical needles. From another he took thread.
Sitting down to work, he began threading a needle.
Miller was still trying to get a response over the intercom. Frantic, he changed the channel, keyed it again.
“DJ? DJ, come in.”
The intercom hissed.
“I told you,” Weir said, his voice soft and strange. “She won’t let you leave.”
Miller swore and ran out of the airlock bay.
Chapter Forty-five
Miller raced through the Event Horizon, driven beyond exhaustion, knowing that if he survived now, he would pay for his efforts.
He reached Medical, barely allowed the hatch time to open.
He stopped, staring.
“DJ,” he whispered, staring. “Oh God.”
There was blood everywhere, trays toppled, instruments scattered.
DJ had been suspended in a cocoon of bandages and surgical tape, hanging over an operating table at the far end of the medical bay. His throat gaped open.
Miller walked closer.
DJ’s midsection had been opened neatly. He had been eviscerated, his organs placed in an orderly fashion on the open surface of the table.
Miller fled from Medical, his mind blurring. Somewhere, he found a tool locker with a nailgun inside, a poor tool overall, but functional enough for killing Weir.
Resolution clearing his mind, he set off for the bridge.
Cooper figured he was either shaking off the panic and terror or falling into complete hysteria when it occurred to him that there were surfers back on Earth who would kill to get this sort of ride. Would have curled my hair if it wasn’t already.
Then he was back in the world, ready to deal with the problem at hand.
Smith was gone, that much he knew from the radio transmissions. The crazy bastard had tried to get the bomb off the ship, against Miller’s orders.
It was, Cooper decided, a mess.
The Event Horizon was in the distance now. The wreckage of the Lewis and Clark’s front section had passed over the starship and away from Neptune. The orbit would stabilize eventually and then start decaying. Given the location of the bomb, he figured that the drive section had been kicked back toward Neptune and was most likely vaporized by now.
Time to go.
He oriented himself carefully, trying to avoid pushing himself away from the wreckage. His boots clamped firmly to the hull plates. First step, or lack of it. He breathed out, hard, shaky.
He looked at the readout for his air tanks. This was the critical factor now. He was reading one tank full and one tank at half pressure. Relief flooded through him. He could do it.
Carefully, he got his backpack pulled around. This was the really tricky part. Working quickly but carefully, he closed one of the main valves, shutting off the full tank. The, readout nickered and told him he was on his reserve air supply.
He disconnected the hose from the main tank, unhooked it and pulled it out.
He eased his backpack into place again.
He wrapped himself around the full tank, reaching for the valve as he oriented himself to the receding Event Horizon. This trick had worked for some people in spaceside training, but not for others. It was popular in the Big Rock Range too, where assorted gasses were easy to extract from the asteroids.
He opened the valve, cutting his boot magnets off. Air puffed from the valve, misted, liquefied, froze. He began to move toward the Event Horizon, gathering speed, leaving a crystal trail pointing to where he had been.
The remains of the Lewis and Clark spun silently on.
Miller stalked toward the hatchway that led into the bridge, the nailgun feeling hot in his fist.
The hatch was open.
Slowly, he stepped inside, looking left and right.
Someone was sitting at the helm, apparently staring out of the main bridge windows. He raised the nailgun, ready to fire.
Hesitated.
“Weir,” he said. His voice was flat and dead.
No movement. He moved forward, slowly, ready to open fire with a hail of rivets. He could barely breathe.
He moved around the helm position, looking over the nailgun.
Not Weir. It was Starck, wired into the helm flight chair, legs pulled back, her wrists bound to them, wire wrapped around her throat to keep her head up though she was unconscious. Blood trickled from her throat where the wire was cutting in. Even in the gloom, Miller could see that she was becoming cyanotic from the slow strangulation.
“Hold on,” he whispered, kneeling down and putting the nailgun on the floor, within reach. “Get you out of these…”
He was going to space the crazy bastard, that he swore, shove him out of an airlock and watch him die in vacuum. Even that was better than he deserved.
He worked at the wire, cutting his fingers, but managing to undo the binding around her throat. Starck suddenly breathed in, a great painful gasping noise that startled him. He set to work on her arms and her ankles, freeing her, trying to stay aware of the bridge around him.
Starck opened her eyes, moved an arm, stared at him, stared past him, her eyes widening.
Miller turned, knowing he was too vulnerable.
Weir was behind him, appearing with the silence and skill of a ghost. His eyes had been sewn shut, black lines of thread clumsily zigzagging across his eyelids. Lines of dried blood coated his cheeks and chin, marred his flight suit. His hands were blood-red.
Starck lunged sideways, trying for the nailgun. Weir moved like greased lightning, hitting Starck so hard that the navigator was hurled across the bridge, into a bulkhead, stunning her. In the same move, before Miller could do anything about it, Weir snatched up the nailgun, aiming it at Miller’s head, then shifting his aim to Miller’s right eye.
Miller rose, backed away. “Your eyes…” he whispered.
“I don’t need them anymore,” Weir said. His voice was a cracked curiosity, light with perverse humor, the undertones dark and demonic. This was more than madness, Miller thought. Weir had taken the same road that Kilpack had gone down. “Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see.”
“What are you talking about?” Miller said.
“Do you know what a singularity is, Miller? Can your mind truly fathom what a black hole is?” Sightless, he watched Miller. He smiled slightly. “It is nothing. Absolute and eternal nothing. And if God is everything, then I have seen the Devil.” He grinned broadly, spreading his arms joyfully. “It’s a liberating experience.”
The nailgun swung back to point at Miller’s eye. Weir reached out with his free hand, tapped pads, flipped a switch. Displays lit up.
Words appeared on one of the screen
s, pristine text against a dark background: Gravity drive is now primed. Do you wish to engage?
“What are you doing?” Miller said.
“You’ll see,” Weir said. He grinned again, reached out and tapped a key. He lowered the nailgun again, barely paying attention to Miller.
New text appeared on the display: Gravity drive engaged. Activation in T-minus ten minutes. A countdown timer appeared, running backwards.
Miller started a lunge for the nailgun in Weir’s hand. It snapped up again.
He backed away carefully. “If you miss me, you’ll blow out the hull. You’ll die too.”
“What makes you think I’ll miss?” Weir said.
He has a point there, Miller thought.
Something moved at the edge of the bridge windows. Miller had to work hard to cover his shock. Cooper had just drifted into view, peering into the bridge. Miller could barely believe it. If he could keep Weir distracted—
Weir turned so fast that he seemed to blur. The nailgun made a loud spitting sound. A six centimeter nail struck the thick quartz glass of the bridge windows, buried up to the head. A web of minute cracks radiated out from the impact point. Miller could hear the glass creaking.
Weir seemed oblivious to the effects of what he was doing. He stepped toward the window, the nailgun held out.
Cooper suddenly vanished from the window, leaving behind a crystalline trail. Miller almost smiled. Cooper was a resourceful cuss, that was for sure.
Miller turned and ran, diving for the door, hitting the deck and rolling through.
Behind him there was the sound of the nailgun firing and the smack of a nail going into the window. Miller turned around, rising.
Weir turned to look at Miller.
The bridge window shattered, the pieces pouring outward with the atmosphere of the bridge. A gale plucked at Miller, trying to take him from his feet. He managed to grab hold of the door frame, pinning himself in place.
Weir was picked up by the rush of escaping atmosphere, slammed into the helm console and bounced up toward the shattered window as he flailed, trying to grab hold of something, the nailgun falling from his hand and flying out of the window.
Miller’s nose was beginning to bleed.
The pressure door was moving.
Weir spread out like a starfish, somehow getting hold of the shattered edges of the bridge window, heedless of the glass chopping into his hands. He started to haul himself back inside, bloody ice forming on his hands and face.
One of the less secure bridge monitors ripped free of its mountings, sailing towards the window, slamming into Weir’s midriff. The scientist flailed wildly, trying to regain his grip, but it was too late. Trailing bloody crystals, Weir vanished.
Starck was conscious again, clinging to the side of a console, losing her battle against the outrushing atmosphere. The Event Horizon had a lot of atmosphere to dump.
“Come on!” he yelled to Starck, hoping his voice would carry.
“I… I can’t,” she shouted back. Her hands were slipping and she was gasping for air, blood starting to stream from her nose.
Miller turned, grabbing the first almost-loose item that he saw, some kind of compressor unit just outside the bridge. With a yell of desperation, he yanked it loose, slamming it down in the path of the pressure door. Straddling it and putting a hand on the door to help keep it propped open, he leaned into the bridge, holding his other hand out to Starck.
“Give me your hand!” he screamed. “Your hand!”
Starck lunged toward him, reaching out. He closed his hand around hers. The temperature was dropping rapidly, cold enough now to form a layer of ice on their arms. Their veins were bulging as the pressure continued to drop. He did not want to think about the level of capillary damage they were both experiencing.
The door jerked forward in its track, pushing him, crumpling the compressor slightly.
“The door,” Starck yelled. “It’ll cut you in half! Let go! Let me go!”
“I’m not leaving you,” Miller yelled, and he hauled back with all the strength he had left, pulling her back with him into the corridor. As she came she kicked the compressor, loosening it.
Starck fell on top of him, screaming, and he rolled desperately, trying to get them up against a wall.
The compressor pulled free, flew toward the window.
The pressure door slammed shut, almost taking Miller’s boot heel.
The winds died down.
Miller gasped for breath, cradling Starck. They were alive, battered, and half-frozen, but they had made it and Weir had not.
In the depths of the ship, a Klaxon began to sound.
Chapter Forty-six
“The forward airlock,” Miller said. His lungs hurt beyond belief, drowning the pains in the rest of his body. Starck looked like hell.
They got to their feet, making the best speed they could to Airlock Bay 4, deep in the nose of the ship. It could be Cooper, but there was no way of knowing yet. He had no idea what Weir might be capable of—for all they knew, he might consider an involuntary unsuited spacewalk to be no more than lighthearted fun.
They ran into the airlock bay, coming to a stop. The dim light was no help and the flashing light inside the airlock did nothing but confuse things. All Miller could see was a humanoid shape, moving slowly as it came in.
Miller crossed the Bay, opening a tool cabinet, taking down a zero-g bolt-cutter. It made a more than adequate bludgeon.
“It can’t be him,” Starck said.
“I’m not taking any chances,” Miller said, hefting the bolt-cutter as he walked towards the airlock. “Stay behind me.”
The airlock hissed open abruptly.
Cooper tumbled in, frantically trying to remove his helmet.
“Cooper!” Starck shouted. She ran to him, opened the clasps, pulling his helmet off. He bent double, his hands on his knees as he took a deep breath of the dank air and started coughing.
He straightened up, trying for another deep breath. “Let me breathe,” he gasped, “let me breathe.” Cooper must have been down to the wire when he started back, Miller realized.
“You’re okay now,” Starck said. “It’s over.”
“It’s not over,” Miller said.
Starck turned, following Miller’s look. A workstation was active, a display flashing. Gravity drive engaged. Activation: 00:06:43:01
“Weir activated the drive. We’ve got to shut it down.”
Cooper glanced at the workstation, looked back at Weir. “How? The bridge—”
“The bridge is gone,” Starck said. “What about Engineering?”
Miller gave her a hard look. “Can you shut it down?”
“I don’t know the process,” Starck said angrily. “Dr. Weir was the expert.”
“I don’t want to go where the last crew went,” Cooper said, giving Miller an unwavering look. “I’d rather be dead.”
“Then we blow the fucker up,” Miller said.
“Blow it up?” Starck said, staring at him as though he had followed Weir into the mouth of madness.
Miller went over to the workstation, the others following. He keyed in commands, pulling up a schematic of the ship, pointing. “We blow the corridor.
Like Weir said: use the foredecks as a life boat, separate it from the rest of the ship. We stay put—”
“And the gravity drive goes where no man has gone before,” Cooper said, his eyes narrowing.
He did not smile.
Chapter Forty-seven
They entered the Gravity Couch Bay at a trot. Justin was still floating comfortably in his tank, unperturbed by the recent events. Miller was grateful for that—Justin had been spared some of this insanity.
Miller stopped and turned. “You prep the Gravity Couches. I’m going to manually arm those explosives.”
“Will this shit work?” Cooper said.
“It worked for Weir,” Miller said. He doubted anyone was in the mood for ironic comments. “Prep the tanks.
”
Starck stepped toward him. “I’ll go with you—”
“Just get those tanks ready,” he said, moving toward the hatchway. He nodded at the hatch. “Close it behind me. Just in case.”
Starck stared at Miller for a long moment, as though trying to burn his face into her memory. “Miller…”
“Be right back,” he said, attempting a reassuring, confident tone and knowing that he was failing miserably.
He smiled, knowing it to be false, and stepped through the hatch. She stared at him for a moment longer, then reached to her right.
The hatch closed with a dull sound and he was alone.
He took a deep breath and ran.
He made it to the central corridor in record time, hurtling along it as though trying to break every sprinting record in the book. Reaching a coupling, he dropped quickly to one knee, reaching down to pop the catches on the cover of an explosive charge.
He lifted the cover off. There was an unlit indicator on the charge, and a single switch. One of the switch positions was labeled MANUAL in bold letters.
Leaving the cover off, he went to the next charge, repeating the process, hurrying as much as he dared. They were almost out of time….
Chapter Forty-eight
Cooper and Starck went down the rows of Gravity Couches, checking each one, opening them, closing them again, checking the display panels. As long as everything worked in the life suspension systems, they were in fine shape. On this trip they did not need to worry about the state of the inertial dampers—they were unlikely to be picking up much in the way of thrust.
“I’m gonna activate the emergency beacon,” Cooper said.
“Hurry,” Starck said. All things considered, she did not want to spend any time alone, not now.
Cooper grabbed a flashlight from an open locker and pulled open a floor access panel. He peered down into the access tube, then sat down on the edge, lowering himself into it. She watched him vanish, then turned back to her work, going over to the main workstation.
It was a redundant check, but it still needed to be done. She activated three of the empty Gravity Couches, watching the readouts to confirm the proper rate of gel flow into the tanks. So far so good.
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