Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space

by Stephen Euin Cobb

  “Yes.”

  “Can you close it?”

  “No. He used the manual override. At this point it can only be closed manually.”

  Mike frowned. “This doesn’t make sense. If Frank wouldn’t go out after Kim when she might still have been alive, he sure wouldn’t go after her now.”

  “His behavior may be the result of the message.”

  “What message?”

  “The message from Von Braun.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I can’t tell you. As soon as he’d finished listening to it, Mister Walters ordered me not to reveal its contents to anyone for one full hour.”

  “An hour? And he didn’t say why?”

  “That is correct.”

  Mike finally pulled his pocketsize out of his pocket and opened it. “Give me a visual of Frank.”

  An image appeared on the surface of the pocketsize. It showed the inside of one of the ship’s hangars—a large rectangular garage-like room with silvery-gray stainless steel walls. One of the walls was open to space and showed nothing but black sky and white stars. The stars were all sliding downward constantly, and at a dizzying pace.

  In the center of the room sat a white object: approximately spherical, with windows. It was a pod—a two-person maintenance craft; highly maneuverable, but with limited range. The pod bore a vague resemblance to a vacuum suit helmet, except that it was more spherical, the glass of its faceplate was too small (it would have hid the wearer’s mouth from view and cut off most of the peripheral vision) and, of course, it was far larger than a vacuum suit helmet—almost ten feet across.

  Frank came into view. He was wearing a white vacuum suit with yellow trim and walking upside-down across the ceiling almost directly above the pod.

  For a moment Mike was startled by this; until he realized the camera providing this image was mounted securely to one of the hangar walls, and so remained oriented such that the ceiling was up and the floor was down. The pod had not fallen to the ceiling since it too was anchored, in its case to the hangar floor by its docking grapples.

  Frank walked out of the image, then returned carrying a metal box painted bright red. He stepped onto a yellow plastic cargo crate lying on the ceiling above the pod, and lifted the red box high over his head. He had to stretch to get it down far enough to slide into the pod’s open rear hatch. But having done that he stepped off the crate and back onto the ceiling, then pushed the crate away with one good shove from his foot. Next, he grabbed a chain ladder which dangled up to the ceiling from the pod’s hatch and used it to climb up/down into the pod. Once inside, he pulled the ladder in after him and closed the hatch.

  Mike said, “Can you get me a visual from inside the pod?”

  “No,” the ship said. “Mister Walters has ordered the pod’s computer not to comply with any instructions it receives from me.”

  “That’s kind of…” Mike’s voice trailed off as his brain struggled to change course in mid-thought. His voice returned with conviction. “Frank’s abandoning ship!”

  “Ridiculous,” the ship said. “That would be suicide.”

  “Why? Why would it be suicide? The rat’s got all the provisions he’ll need for weeks. Besides, if he’s not abandoning ship, what’s he doing?”

  “I do not know. That is, I—”

  The image on Mike’s pocketsize showed the pod drop from its docking grapples and fall up. It slammed into the metal reinforced ceiling like a boulder. The thundering sound—most of which reached Mike through the walls and floor and ceiling and not through his pocketsize’s tiny speakers—was deafening. The impact shook Corvus so thoroughly that all the loose supplies and consumables on deck six bounced three inches into the air.

  And so did Mike. “Owww!”

  In the image, the pod bounced once then rolled straight out the hangar’s big open door into space.

  “Gimme a visual from an external camera!” Mike yelled.

  An image appeared of the pod against a black starry sky. But in the image the sky and pod were both moving. Within one second the pod slid off the edge of the screen. Another image appeared, but the pod slipped out of it just as quickly. And another image appeared.

  “I’m sorry,” the ship said. “We are tumbling so fast I can’t pivot the external cameras rapidly enough to compensate. The best I can do is keep switching cameras.”

  Another image appeared. This time, before moving out of view the pod’s four main engines—which flanked the rear entry hatch and were recessed into the hull—ignited. The four nozzles projected parallel blue flames: clean, smokeless, translucent, unwavering. The pod began to accelerate.

  Mike asked, “Is he heading for Kim?”

  The ship’s computer paused before answering—presumably watching the pod to estimate its course. “No,” it said softly. “He seems to be abandoning ship.”

  Mike wasn’t sure what to say; or do; or even think.

  “Michael McCormack,” the ship announced, “of the employees of Hyperbolic Shipping remaining aboard this spacecraft you have both the highest security clearance and the most seniority, consequently, I declare that until further notice you are in command. Do you, Michael McCormack, wish to terminate my orders from Mister Walters and listen to the message from Von Braun now rather than wait the thirty-seven more minutes he instructed?”

  “Huh? Um, yes. Yes, of course.”

  “Very well. You will not enjoy it.”

  The surface of Mike’s pocketsize went blank. The others all gathered beside him, squeezing together and looking over his shoulders to watch the message. There was nothing to see, however. It was voice-only.

  The voice that emanated from the little red plastic computer possessed the unmistakable tone of a career military man. It carried confidence and authority the same way a thunderbolt carried electricity. “This is an official emergency class-one message to Captain Lawrence Palmer of the commercial transport Corvus. Message broadcast at 17:36 universal time; March 4, 2039. I am Captain Thomas Bolger of the SpaceGuard Cutter Mandela, currently docked at Von Braun. Sorry for the delay in responding, but your situation has generated a lot of discussion here as well as on the surface of the Earth and Moon.

  “Due to the technical nature of your problem we have pulled together a team of scientists, technicians and engineers. They’ve run a large number of computer simulation scenarios using the details of your situation. Their results are as follows:

  “Concerning the question of how to stop the leak from your fuel filter: They see no way for you to approach it physically in order to work on it and no way for you to stop it remotely, and therefore no way to stop it short of waiting for the remainder of the fuel to leak out.

  “Concerning the question of how to stop your ship’s rotation: The team has so far been unable to devise a means of stopping it, or even slowing it by more than just a few percent. They are still working on this. They have, however, discovered a way to shift the rotation 90 degrees, making the ship rotate around its long axis. But they have not put forth any reason for you to do this. I should stress that if you change the rotation such that the ship is spinning on its long axis, you would not gain physical access to the bridge or the engines. This is because the conservation of angular momentum would cause the ship to rotate almost eight times faster and produce centrifugal forces near the ship’s hull as high as eleven gees. This would be extremely dangerous; far worse than the rotation you are dealing with at the moment.

  “Concerning the question of a rendezvous: There are no ships with a location and heading that will allow them to meet you before you make your closest approach to the sun. Normally, this would not be a problem, we would just have someone dock with you on the other side. However, because your engines failed during the J-maneuver, your course will take you very close to the sun. Too close, in fact.

  “Our projections of your course indicate solar passage proximity at just over one solar diameter—specifically: nine hundred and eighty-one thousan
d miles. At that distance the radiant heat absorbed by your ship will produce temperatures above 4000 degrees absolute. The ship’s hull, which is composed primarily of foamed stainless steel, will melt, and everything inside the ship will either melt, burn, or boil away to vapor.

  “The technical team is still experimenting with simulations of your ship and examining methods you can use to reduce damage from extremely high solar energy influx. However, I feel I should stress that they have yet to devise even one method that will allow you to survive the event.

  “Their work is further complicated by our uncertainty over how long you will be able to receive our transmissions on your low gain antenna. If they manage to develop a useful method of any sort, we will transmit it immediately, regardless of our belief in your ability to receive it.

  “We will also send you regular transmissions every two hours, even if we have nothing useful to report. The next message will be sent at 19:35 universal time. This is Captain Thomas Bolger of the SpaceGuard Cutter Mandela: out and clear.”

  The pocketsize, with its little blank screen, fell silent; and for many long seconds the group too remained silent—until Tina broke the spell. “That’s it?” she said. “We’re going to die?”

  “We aren’t going to die,” Mike insisted. “We’ve still got time to think of something. Ship, how long have we got?”

  “Eight days and seven hours until perihelion, based on Captain Bolger’s figures, but the hull should melt several hours before that.”

  “When will the temperature get too hot?” Mike asked. “So hot we can’t survive?”

  “That is difficult to predict with precision. Lifesupport can keep the inside of the ship comfortable even when the hull is more than three hundred degrees above room temperature. At some point, however, the cooling system will become overloaded and experience a catastrophic failure. At that point the ship’s interior temperature will begin to match the temperature of its exterior and Corvus will no longer be habitable.”

  “Approximately, when will this catastrophic failure occur?”

  “Since most of the ship is covered with a highly reflective mirror finish, this shouldn’t happen until we are well within the orbit of the planet Mercury: about seven days from now.”

  Tina said, “Then we have seven days until we die.”

  “Will you stop saying that?” Mike said. “We have seven days to think of a way to live. Ship, isn’t there another pod?”

  “Yes, it’s in the other hangar.”

  “Can’t we do what Frank did? Use it to escape?”

  “I would not recommend it. Mister Walters seems to have acted out of panic. I’ve been monitoring his pod’s acceleration. He has used all his fuel to change his course so he will pass farther from the sun. But because a pod is designed for close-order maneuvering, rather than traveling great distances, the change he has made is small. He will pass approximately one percent farther from the sun than Corvus. What’s worse, because the surface of a pod is white instead of mirrored, and its lifesupport is less capable of ridding itself of excess heat, he will overheat and die approximately one and a half days sooner than… Well… Let us just say that his odds are far worse than yours.”

  “OK,” Mike said. “Escaping in a pod is out. We’ll just have to keep thinking of ideas until we get one that’ll work.”

  “If all those scientists and engineers can’t think of a way,” Tina said, “what makes you think we can?”

  “We have an advantage they don’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They don’t have our motivation.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. Didn’t you pay attention to the message? Didn’t you notice the one thing he didn’t say?”

  “What?”

  “That they’d send a ship to rendezvous with us on the far side of the sun. Even if by some miracle we do survive the heat, we’ll just keep right on going; past all the planets and out of the solar system. We’ll starve to death and never be heard from again.”

  “Good point,” Mike said. “Ship, I want you to send a message to Captain Bolger of SpaceGuard.”

  “It will have to be voice-only,” the ship said. “And I would recommend you keep it short. Our rotation rate requires that I send it in bursts of two seconds duration with gaps of three seconds in between.”

  “No problem.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Tell him we said to meet us on the other side.”

  Chapter Six

  Cold Food

  Mike gripped the rough texture of the yellow nylon rope and leaned far backward in the feeble gravity of deck ten. “Come on, pull!” he said to those behind him. “This is the last load.” He was talking to Gideon, Nikita and Zahid who—exhausted from hauling the seven previous loads up the four floors from deck six to deck ten—were pulling with all that remained of their strength. “As soon as we get this one up, we can all rest.”

  The door to one of the vertical hallways was propped open and the yellow rope stretched through it to a rung on the left side about shoulder-high. The rope passed over the rung and extended downward four floors to where it was tied to the top of load number eight.

  Number eight was an assortment of food, toiletries and bedding supplies stuffed into three thicknesses of the largest plastic garbage bags they could find. The dangling load bounced gently against the vertical hallway walls outside a similarly propped-open door on deck six.

  The hauling project had proceeded much better than Mike had expected. So much so that he’d even let Tina put that silly microwave oven she’d wanted into this load. “Pull harder!” he said. “The harder you pull, the sooner you rest!”

  Zahid, huffing and puffing and bringing up the rear, said “I’m pulling as hard as I—”

  But Mike cut him off. “On the count! 1—2—Pull!”

  They pulled in unison, then stepped back to take up the slack they’d created.

  “1—2—Pull!”

  They pulled again and stepped back.

  “Five or six more should do it! 1—2—Pull!”

  They pulled again, but as Zahid stepped back he stumbled over one of the bags brought up earlier. His legs shot out in front of him and knocked Nikita’s feet out from under her too. With half the team down and the remaining pullers hampered by the deck’s low gravity the load was too heavy. Mike and Gideon began to slide toward the open door with Mike leading the way.

  “I can’t hold it back!” Gideon yelled.

  “Then let go!” Mike said.

  “OK! Look out below!” Gideon opened his hands.

  Mike felt the rope yank his hands forward, but was ready for it and opened his too. The end of the rope ran through the doorway, slapped the far wall, whipped over the rung and disappeared downward. The room echoed with the sound of a full bag of supplies being ripped apart by random strikes against ladder rungs.

  Hurrying to the door and peeking over the edge, Mike saw the large black bag tumbling down the vertical hallway. Dozens of colorful plastic food envelopes had already been thrown from a gaping rip in its side. Hitting another rung reversed the bag’s rotation and scattered rolls of toilet paper, which tumbled and bounced individually from wall to wall on their way to the end of the hallway down—or up, technically—on deck one.

  Half the toilet paper rolls trailed out long white streamers; some straight and some curving; though two rapidly spinning rolls threw out tightly spiraled coils that arched gracefully and hung in the air for seconds before drifting into tangles.

  The black bag made another sudden tumbling reversal, punctuated by another flying flurry of food envelopes, which was then followed by the final reverberating crescendo at the shaft’s bottom.

  Mike yelled, “You guys all right down there?”

  Tina leaned out and grabbed a rung to brace herself before looking up. “We’re all right, but Akio is trembling badly. I think he needs to rest a minute. He was looking up at the load when it started falling and barely had time to
pull his head back when it came crashing down.”

  “OK, you two stay there for awhile. When Akio calms down, come on back up.”

  Nikita jumped to her feet and spun around to yell at Zahid. “You stupid oaf! You could have gotten someone killed!”

  “It was an accident,” he pleaded. “I tripped on the supplies.”

  She glared at him.

  “It’s all right,” Mike said. “Nobody was hurt and we’ve got plenty of everything we need. We can do without that stuff.” Though secretly he wished the microwave oven hadn’t been lost. He could eat cold food if he had to, but now that Tina had gotten him anticipating hot meals, he realized he wasn’t going to like it.

  _____

  While the others rummaged through the bounty of plastic food envelopes trying to decide what they’d like to eat, Mike sat alone, his appetite not functioning. He opened his pocketsize and stared at the picture that appeared on its surface: the picture he’d instructed it to always show whenever he opened it.

  Should I have gone after her? He knew that was impossible. He didn’t know how to pilot a pod; didn’t have the authority or license or access codes. He wasn’t even sure how to power one up. Should I have done something different? And if so, what?

  He stared at the picture.

  I never even kissed her goodbye.

  He studied the expression on her face and thought about the party where the picture had been taken and the water-balloon fight that had preceded it. He thought about other happy times they’d had, and then about the happiness they might have shared through the rest of their lives. But that was all gone. She was dead, and it was all gone.

  I never even kissed her goodbye.

  Mike hadn’t had any illusions about the hazards of Kim’s profession. Anyone who’s work took them out into vacuum knew there was always the danger of a suit rupture, a lifesupport failure, or any number of other life-threatening surprises. But while the dangers were real, the odds were good. It was easy to feel reasonably safe—until a catastrophe destroyed your personal universe.

  I should have asked her. Even if she’d turned me down, at least I could tell myself that I had asked. Now I’ll never know.