Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space

by Stephen Euin Cobb

  Folding the knife, she slipped it back into her thigh pocket; then, holding her hands flat like paddles, placed her wrists at the sides of the hole in her suit and rested her forearms firmly against her belly. In this position, she used her hands like the steering vanes in the early liquid fueled rocket engines: to alter the path and guide the flow of the escaping gas.

  First, she forced the streaming jet of gas up past her face to slow her tumbling to a stop, then she pushed the jet to the left to gently rotate herself until she was facing Ophiuchus. She then wiggled the jet until it was pointed directly at Rasalhague. At this point she removed her hands from the jet, checked her suit’s clock on the back of her left wrist and relaxed for a few seconds while watching closely to see if the jet strayed from Rasalhague. When it did she pressed two fingers diagonally into the spray and counted out five seconds before removing them. This seemed to put it back on target.

  Without bending at the waist, which would have altered the jet’s aim, she reached down into the large pocket on the front of her left thigh and once again pulled out the emergency patch-kit. She removed from it an oversized hypodermic with a built-in pistol grip. The hypodermic was clear plastic, seven inches long, and filled with a thick white fluid. Its nose was not a sharp metallic needle designed for stabbing; it was a long tapering plastic tube, rather like the business end of a common caulking gun, only smaller and pointier.

  She waited; then checked her suit’s clock again. Not yet. Thirty more seconds will make a full three minutes.

  Placing the pistol grip in her right hand, she removed the cap from the tip of the tapering tube and rested an index finger against the trigger. She watched the clock for the final seconds and at just the right moment poked the tapering tube deep into the hole in her suit’s belly and squeezed the trigger hard. The jet of air disappeared and a growing mass of white bubbles erupted from the hole. She withdrew the hypodermic. The white mass swelled into a hemisphere the size of half a football and abruptly congealed—a chemical transformation made visible as the white surface changed from glistening-wet to non-reflectively dull.

  She wiped the excess fluid from the tip of the hypodermic, capped it and placed it back into the patch-kit, then placed the patch-kit back into her thigh pocket. Swinging her arms in large circles, she rotated her body until she faced her goal: the extra star in the belt of Orion.

  It was still there—unchanged. She surprised herself by being disappointed at this. Apparently she had hoped it would already be brighter, though a single moment’s thought would have told her not to expect it.

  Nothing to do now but wait and see if it gets bigger. She tried to relax the muscles throughout her body. She shook her hands and feet slightly to search out any tension. I hope I accelerated long enough to overcome whatever my velocity was away from it; if I was even traveling away, instead of toward it. And I hope I didn’t accelerate so long that I used too much of the oxygen in my tanks. I’d hate to run out and suffocate before I got there. She opened and closed her hands a few times; they seemed the most tense. I can also worry about my aim being off. Is Ophiuchi really opposite of Orion?

  Something tickled her eyelashes. She blinked a few times, even shook her head but it didn’t solve the problem, so she stuck out her lower lip and blew upward. A few straggling blonde hairs shifted up off her lower forehead and became enmeshed with higher straggling hairs which were not being nearly so annoying.

  And even if I did everything right, I’m still not out of the woods. Just before I get there, I’ll have to do the whole acceleration-by-air-leak maneuver over again to slow down enough so I can grab a handhold on that ship without ripping my arms off… Straining to see detail, she squinted at the extra star. …assuming it is a ship.

  _____

  “What do we do now?” asked the woman.

  Mike responded by pulling his little red pocketsize out of his left shirt pocket and flipping it open in one move. This doubled the computer’s surface area and reduced its thickness by half. Its hinge mechanism locked in position the moment the unit was fully open and lying flat in his hand. By deeply ingrained habit, he avoided touching the display surface—his fingertips were against one edge, his thumb against the other.

  The unit’s display surface was smooth and contiguous and somehow covered the hinge. The surface was uniformly black, and had no buttons, keys, knobs, writing or markings on it of any sort. Its area was equal to the front cover of an antique paperback book, though the pocketsize was much thinner—no more than 50 pages.

  Mike was about to tell it to call the captain when the image he had instructed it two weeks ago to always display when first opened, appeared on its surface: a photo of Kim and himself French-kissing at a party while holding water-balloons over each other’s heads.

  Again, he worried: Where’s Kim? And why hasn’t she called me? He felt a wave of fear spread through his body like a dark mist. Something’s wrong. Really wrong. He tried to ignore the fear, pretend it didn’t exist, but it refused to go away. “Get me the captain.”

  A new image appeared on the surface: a wide angle view of the inside of the ship’s bridge. The captain’s gray command chair was empty, its seat belt dangled straight up and a body lay on the domed ceiling directly above it. Mike recognized the body partly because of the white hair and muscular arms but mostly because of the protruding stomach.

  Before Mike had met Larry Palmer—back in Mike’s early days as a welder in the spaceship yards of Von Braun, back when Larry had been his apprentice teacher—Mike had sworn it was impossible to keep a beer belly in zero-g for more than a few months. It was Larry Palmer who had proven that theory wrong.

  “Larry, are you all right?”

  The captain spoke softly and in short bursts. “No, I’m hurt pretty bad.” His breathing was shallow and rapid. “But that’s the least of our problems. Mike, the ship’s been sabotaged; engine two’s primary fuel filter was blown with C-4. It’s spraying liquid hydrogen sideways out into the vacuum. That’s what’s making the ship tumble. We’ve already lost most of the fuel and the leak isn’t going to stop until we’ve lost it all. With the ship tumbling this fast the g-force is so strong no one can get to the engines to work on them.” He hesitated, then said, “Mike, I hate to be the one to break it to you.”

  “Hey, It’s not your fault. I’m sure you did every—”

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s Kim.”

  The dark mist grew thicker and more oppressive. “Is she hurt?”

  “I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do.”

  “What happened?”

  “She was working near the filter when it blew. The explosion didn’t get her, but I saw her fall and snap her tether at two gees. She must have hit something as she fell; she didn’t answer when I called her. I’ve sent Frank after her, but if he can fly a pod out of the hanger while the ship’s tumbling like this he’s a better pilot than I am. And even if he can get the thing out he’ll never get it back in. Not as long as the hanger’s a high-speed moving target.”

  For a number of seconds Mike said nothing. The mist had solidified in his throat and seemed to be trying to choke the life out of him. He winced as though in pain. When his expression cleared he spoke with an odd certainty. “Kim’s dead.” He said it as though he knew it to be true and had actually accepted the fact. He hadn’t. He was in denial.

  “What?”

  “Kim’s dead,” Mike repeated. “She hasn’t got a chance; not if her life hinges on the heroism of Frank Walters. The man’s an idiot and a coward! I guarantee he’s sitting in a pod right now too scared to leave the hangar and too scared to come back and show his face. Call him; you’ll see.”

  “First let me talk to Ms Bernadette.”

  Deciding this must mean the woman, Mike handed the pocketsize to her and stepped around next to her so he could continue looking at the image on its surface.

  His viewing angle was now ideal for admiring the softly curving skin of her perfect breasts, es
pecially the far breast which could be seen almost in its entirety when she breathed just right. Mike didn’t notice—even when her shoulder brushed his and then brushed it again—not because he was wonderfully noble or chivalrous, and not because he accidentally glanced for a split-second and then looked away pretending he hadn’t seen anything. It was simply that his concern for his old friend was such that this woman had momentarily ceased to exist.

  “Yes, Captain?” she said.

  “Ship, I want to see her face.”

  In the pocketsize’s display Mike saw an image of the woman beside him appear on the curved surface of the bridge dome near the captain’s head. Her neck and most of one cheek were covered by a small pool of red fluid that matched a large red stain in the captain’s white hair.

  The captain seemed to try to lift his head. If so, he failed. Instead it just rolled a little toward the image. “I’m sorry to break this to you, Ma’am,” the captain said, “but I am afraid we are going to be very late.”

  “Yes, I understand,” she said, her voice remaining steady and calm. Mike found this surprising. He had expected her to fall apart by now. “Captain,” she said, “you sound as though you are in pain.”

  “I am.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Mike grabbed the pocketsize from her hand and started walking slowly toward the door to the vertical hallway. Walking slowly was necessary since he was staring intently at the image on his computer and the ceiling in front of him was an obstacle course of tripping hazards. “Larry, don’t try to move. We’re coming to get you.”

  “Wait, Mike,” the captain said. “Ship, what’s the g-force in here?”

  “Four point one gees: inverted.”

  “Mike, I weigh four times my weight on Earth. If you were in here, all your blood would run down into your legs. Your brain would get so little oxygen you’d blackout just trying to stand still.”

  Mike stopped a few feet from the door. “But—”

  “And even if you could stand without blacking out, you’d be helpless. What do you weigh on Earth? Two hundred pounds? In here you’d weigh eight hundred! And don’t even think about trying to pick me up: your arms aren’t strong enough, and if they were you’d break both of your legs trying.”

  “Larry, we’ve got to do something! We can’t just leave you in there.”

  “Stay where you are and try to relax. I’ve sent a message to Von Braun. We should get a response in a few minutes. Once I get their opinion I’ll have a better idea of what to do.”

  “Do you think they’ll come up with a way to get the ship to stop tumbling?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

  “OK, Larry. I’ll stay here for a while, but I’ll be thinking about ways to get you out of there.”

  “Good. I’ve called the other passengers and told them to join you on deck ten. They should be arriving soon. I’ll call you again after I talk to Frank. Captain: out and clear.”

  The image of the bridge disappeared.

  “Pocketsize,” Mike said, “I want you to download all the technical information and diagrams available concerning this ship.”

  The little computer answered, “As you wish.” It said this using a silky feminine voice which Mike had long ago selected from the forty-seven preprogrammed voices in its standard software; a voice which might be described as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich; a voice that Kim had twice told him she hated.

  He glanced around the cargo deck to see what kind of equipment was available for use in rescuing the captain.

  “I’m sorry,” his pocketsize said. “There is too much technical information. All of it will not fit in my memory.”

  Mike turned to his companion. “What’s your name again?”

  “Tina Bernadette,” she said with a shy smile as she stepped closer to him; close enough that he became uncomfortable.

  He leaned back slightly.

  She slipped the travel case strap from her shoulder and dropped the case to one side without bothering to look where it landed. As the pea-green strap slid off her shoulder it dragged her frilly blouse’s shoulder strap off as well. With her blouse draped precariously, supported only by one shoulder strap, her openly suggestive outfit was now all the more provocative. She made no move to correct this and took another half-step closer to Mike.

  He tucked his chin, but held his ground.

  She bowed her head and placed her left hand behind her back in a gesture of childlike shyness. With her right hand she tugged gently on the little white ribbon that held the front of her blouse together. Softly, she said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you back there.” The musical tones of her delicately sculptured southern accent rang as clean and clear as gently thumped Steuben crystal.

  Instinctively, Mike’s eyes followed the movement of her hand as it tugged on the ribbon tied in a tiny bow between her breasts. A bow which, in Mike’s judgment, did not look particularly secure. It occurred to him that if she kept tugging she might easily tug just a little too hard: hard enough to make it come undone.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, still watching her hand. One little tug, that’s all it would take. He found it easy to imagine the outcome: a sudden unraveling of the ribbon; an equally sudden widening of the blouse’s already open front; a momentary exposure of breasts; just a second or two, perhaps; whatever length of time it takes to yelp in surprise and cover oneself with a pair of hands or crossed forearms; maybe just a second; but even a second would be enough. And if they’re anything like the rest of her, they must be incredible. One good tug, that’s all it would… He glanced back up to her eyes.

  She was smiling at him; her head tilted to one side.

  He blushed at the realization that she’d been watching him watch her. She’d purposely drawn his attention to her breasts, and purposely gotten him to fantasize about her accidentally pulling her blouse open.

  She batted her eyelashes at him, playfully.

  Mike closed his eyes as if in pain. Kim’s not dead a full hour and already I’m ogling strange women. Am I insane? He stepped away and tried to change the subject back to the problem at hand. “Do you have a computer on you?”

  “Yes,” she said, still smiling. “My glasses.”

  He looked at them more closely. “You’re kidding; you have a headup? How’d you get one all the way out at Titan? I know Huygens Colony has good equipment but headups have only been on sale on Earth since January!”

  Mike was familiar with headups from their manufacturer’s promotional campaign. They were a new type of personal computer; one shaped exactly like a traditional pair of eyeglasses. A headup’s clear glass lenses were capable of displaying full-motion color images over any or all of its wearer’s field of vision, and displaying them in flawless 3-D. What’s more, the display was completely private: no one could see it except the wearer. After a great deal of advance promotion, headups had been marketed in eighty-four cities worldwide. They proved to be even more popular than expected. The initial supply had sold out in only one day.

  “It was a gift. My mother sent it to me.”

  “I’ve been wanting a headup for weeks. I was gonna’ try to buy one as soon as we docked at Von—” He forced his eyes closed. I’m off track again! “How much free memory does it have?”

  “15 Gig.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It just told me.”

  “I didn’t hear it say anything.”

  “It has very small speakers mounted near my ears.” Tina’s smile was fading into a bored and restless pout. The flirtation game was over and her side hadn’t won.

  “But you didn’t ask it.”

  “I’ve instructed it to anticipate my need for information.” She crossed her arms. “It heard you ask.”

  “OK, OK.” Mike looked away from her. “Pocketsize, will 15 Gig hold the rest of the data?”

  “Yes.”

  “G
ood. Download the data and split the storage task between you and Tina’s headup.” He looked at Tina. “If you have no objections.”

  “No,” she said with a shrug. “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Good.” He turned back to his pocketsize and started pacing. “When you get the data I want you to look through it for anything that can be used to rescue the captain and/or slow the ship’s tumbling. Maybe by leaking a liquid or gas through some kind of exhaust port or something. See what you can come up with. I’ll listen to even the wildest ideas.”

  “Download is complete,” the pocketsize said. “I am now searching the data, as instructed.”

  Mike looked at Tina. “I suggest you have your computer do the same.”

  She stepped over a black fiber-optic cable to reach a large rectangular ventilation duct covered with blue foam insulation which just happened to be the perfect height to sit upon. She turned herself about and sat. “It has already begun discussing its ideas with your pocketsize.”

  “Good.” Mike looked up at the writing above their heads. “I wonder if the poems—” but he was interrupted by a new voice coming from his pocketsize.

  “Michael Tobias McCormack,” it said, “this is the ship’s computer speaking.” Its pronunciation was crisp, intelligent and matter of fact—a genuine no-nonsense kind of voice. Its tonal range and level of inflection were balanced exactly between those generally associated with men and with women. It didn’t sound artificial or sexless but it could easily have been mistaken for either a male or female voice.

  Mike looked down at his pocketsize. “Yeah, this is Mike.”

  “The captain has recalled the assistant flight engineer, Frank Walters, as you suggested. He will be joining you shortly.”

  Mike continued looking at his pocketsize, though its display remained black. “Where was he?”

  “You were correct. He had been sitting in pod number one, apparently doing nothing, for several minutes.”