by MadMaxAU
“Lintz speech-routing to Spacer Osborn’s headset, please connect for conversation.” He knew there were more economical ways to ask the main computer to link him to Carl—he had seen the spacers chirp routing instructions in less time than it took to do a good hiccup—but he had forgotten the correct protocols. This way, at least, the machines were sure to understand.
A short pop, then a hissing carrier wave.
—Lintz, Osborn. What’s up, Saul? —
The reply in his left ear was spare, to say the least. But spacers were like that. Terseness didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“Carl, Joao Quiverian and I have finished checking out sleep slot one. Destroyed twenty-three infestations. Can’t be sure we didn’t overlook a few minor ones, but the slots don’t appear to be in immediate danger anymore.”
Saul quashed the tickling sensation of a threatening sneeze. He spoke quickly.
“I took an hour and went up to the surface to rummage through the storage tents, to see if there was anything we might use. There were a couple of dozen halogen-hydrogen space-signal lamps that gave me an idea. I figure we can place some at critical passage junctions and set them to bathe an area, at intervals, with intense ultraviolet. Who knows? It might slow the beasts down a bit.”
There was a pause before Carl answered again.
—Sounds reasonable. But we don’t want to blind or burn anybody. —
Saul nodded. “I thought of that. Brought down goggles and sun salve for the hall gangs. Also, I tore apart an unused mech-controller board and pulled out some type-five malfunction alarms . . . you know, the ones that go brrr-ap! brrr-ap!”
The carrier wave came on again, suddenly. It sounded like coughing until he realized Carl was laughing at his rendition. He grinned.
“Anyway, an alarm will go off a minute before each lamp is triggered. Both will stay on for five minutes on the hour.”
—Good enough. Where’ll you set ‘em up? —
“At the entrances to each sleep slot, just outside Central, and along Shaft One. I’m not sure if we have enough power or bulbs to do more, so—“
Carl interrupted, —Fine, Saul. But I want to try them on something else, first. I’ll send Vidor and Ustinov down to pick up the goggles and half-a-dozen lamp. —
“What’s up?”
There was another brief pause. Then Carl confided.
We’re about to mount an assault on the purples that have surrounded the power plant. Maybe your idea will help there.
“Uh, I sure hope so.”
—Yeah. Anyway, give Garner a few more minutes, then wake him. Tell him he’s to come back with Vidor. We’re going to need every hand on this one. Osborn out.
The carrier wave clicked off. Saul stood very still for a moment, shaking his head.
The power plant. I had no idea.
No wonder Virginia had been so terse the last time he had called. He’d felt like a silly teenager, wondering if she still loved him, because she had blown him a hurried kiss and hustled him off the line.
She probably had her hands full right now, preparing mechs to help Carl. If any of a dozen conduits leading into or out of the pile were clogged by organic matter, it could trip an automatic shutdown. That, in turn, could mean the end for all of them.
He ought to give the lamps a brief test before sending a set to Carl. No sense in burdening the man with a clutter of useless equipment if the things wouldn’t do more than give the Halleyforms a suntan. Saul slipped on a set of goggles and bent to turn on the timer.
The sudden brrr-ap! of the tiny alarm made him jump, even though he was ready for it. Then came a faint pop as the lamp suddenly filled the amber tunnel with sharp, actinic light. Even under the goggles, Saul blinked and had to turn away.
When he next looked, he realized that something funny was going on. All at once every surface appeared to be coated in a shimmering haze. The walls themselves seemed to ripple and crawl, like the fur on a caterpillar’s back. At first he thought it was an optical illusion—an effect of the weird coloration and glare. Then he realized.
There’s Halley Life everywhere! It’s impregnated into the fibercloth, and now it’s fleeing from the lamplight.
The fuzzy ripples swept back in waves. Nearby, Saul saw the air begin to fill with a fog of fine dust—killed organisms, he supposed—floating free of the walls and settling with glacial slowness towards the floor. Trying not to inhale any of it, he wafted bits into a sample bag and sealed the container tight.
The, as abruptly as it erupted in brilliance, the lamp shut down. The noisy alarm quit without an echo and suddenly all was dimness and quiet. Saul pulled off the goggles, blinking as he warred for the spots to fade.
His bonephone crackled to life.
—Lintz, Vidor. Saw your glare all the way down at Shaft Three, Doc. Is it safe to come in now? Carl wants Garner and those lamps right away . . . like yesterday. —
“Uh, yeah.” He shook his head. “Lintz to Spacer Vidor. We have lamps and goggles and fresh coffee for you guys. Come on in, boys.”
He turned and skip-launched himself back into the irregular, vaulted chamber. Through the frosted sides of the slots, the sleepers were still silhouettes. Status lights on each casket made the center of the dim hall glitter like some phosphorescent Christmas tree, or a giant, glimmering starfish at the bottom of the ocean.
Ninety packages, waiting to be opened. Someday. If we make it.
The several-times-delayed unslotting of emergency replacements was reaching a critical stage in sick bay, where Nick Malenkov was all alone, now. One med tech had died of a purple bite, and Peltier, the other, had succumbed to some raging infection yesterday. At this rate it was a good question whether the “unthawing” crew would find anyone alive to greet them when they awakened.
No. We will succeed. We must.
He passed the bench where Joao Quiverian still muttered to himself, piecing together lamps and bulbs with snaillike deliberation. Later, Saul knew, he would have to personally check all the lamps himself.
He made sure the coffee maker was full, then gathered up his own spacesuit.
They’ll be needing all the help they can get, even if Malenkov has declared me an invalid. I may not be able to fight as long and as hard as these youngsters, but even a middle-aged alter kocker like me can hold up a lamp and squeeze a spray bottle in a fight like this.
Funny thing about that. Although he was weary—and in a perpetual haze from the drugs that kept his sinuses clear—in some ways Saul had never felt better. His digestion, for instance—there were no faint twinges anymore, and his knee joints no longer grated and vibrated as he moved.
Weightlessness and calcium deconditioning, he decided…or maybe it’s just that somebody loves me again. Never, never underestimate the effects of morale.
He almost stopped to call Virginia then. But of course he would get his chance to talk to her when he joined the others at the power plant. She would be there, at least in surrogate, controlling up to a dozen mechs, doing the work of ten men.
Perhaps he would have a chance to wink at one of her video pickups, and make her smile.
He had just stepped into his suit—and was reaching for his tabard decorated with a DNA helix—when voices over by the entrance told of the arriving spacers.
Vidor and Ustinov shot through the opening in graceful tandem. Tired or not, pride wouldn’t let them skim walk or pull along the wall cables. The two men twisted in midair and landed in crouched unison not more than two meters in front of Saul.
“Where’s Ted?” Joseph Ustinov asked tersely. The bearded Russo-Canadian took quick note of the direction Saul indicated, and headed out past the stacked packing crates toward the dim corner where Spacer Garners electric blanket was a radiating ball of warmth.
“Got that Java, Doc?” Vidor asked Saul, grinning. The young Alabaman seemed to have thrived in the adversity of the last week. Days of combat in the halls had brought him out of the depression of having been t
he one to find Captain Cruz slumped over his sleep-webbing, almost dead.
“Sure, Jim.” Saul handed him a bulb of hot, black coffee, and began filling a thermos for Carl and the others. “There are fresh sandwiches over in that bag. I’ll help you fellows tote the lamps and goggles, and show Carl how—“
A shrill, horrified scream seem to curdle the air.
Hot coffee spilled out in globby spray as Saul whirled. Across the dimly lit chamber, Spacer Ustinov tumbled in midair, still rising toward the ceiling and sobbing as he shook a clublike object in one hand.
Someone or something had startled him into leaping skyward with all his might. Whatever it was had scared him half out of his wits, for the man was gibbering, transfixed on the thing he held.
As Saul and Vidor stared, Ustinov cried out again and threw it away. The object arced through the chilled air, curving over gently in Halley’s faint gravity, and struck a packing crate barely meters from Joao Quiverian’s workbench.
The Brazilian scientist jerked back, first in astonishment and then in revulsion when he saw what had bounced within close reach. A delicate bulb shattered into power in his left hand.
There, dripping ocher onto the lime-colored fibercloth floor, lay a dismembered human arm. Impossibly, the grisly limb seemed o be still twitching.
Things, Saul realized, sickly, were crawling out of the hunk of flesh and bone. Purple things.
He grabbed the wide-eyed Vidor by the collar and pushed him toward the stacked equipment. “Get goggles and a lamp!” he told the spacer quickly. “They’re our only weapons here. Joao! Rig an extension to that outlet! Quickly!”
This time the Brazilian didn’t argue. Vidor fumbled with the cords binding the lamps while Saul squeezed a spray of scalding coffee at a purple that was about to duck out of sight behind a sleep slot. A whistle escaped the thing as it retreated back into the open.
“Dammit, Doc!” Vidor cursed. “I gotta teach you how to tie proper knots!”
Saul started to answer when he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh damn,” he moaned. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you goin’?” Vidor cried out.
By then, though, the die was cast. Saul had crouched and leaped off into open space.
Vidor was really the one more qualified for this sort of thing. But right then he was tangled up in lamps and cords. Saul had been the one to see Ustinov begin to fall again, and realize that the man was still sobbing and unaware of where he was headed. Even Halley’s gravity wouldn’t allow any explanations or delay.
Ustinov’s suit was a lot more sophisticated than Saul’s. But the incoherent spacer didn’t seem about to use his jets, or anything else, to keep from falling back toward the tattered ruins of Spacer Tech Garner’s electric blanket, now awrithe with waving purple forms.
Everything was happening in slow motion, or so it seemed to Saul, who spoke quickly into his communicator.
“Lintz routed to Osborn and Herbert. Mayday! Purples in sleep slot one! Garner’s dead. Mayday!”
The two floating men drew toward each other, one rising, the other descending microscopically faster with each passing moment. Saul turned away after one glance down at what awaited the falling spacer. It was more than his stomach could bear.
Oh God, please let me have done this right.
But no. Saul realized that his trajectory was too low! He would pass under Ustinov. It looked as if there was nothing in this world to prevent the man from dropping back into the spreading, pulpy mass.
Suddenly, he was as near as he was going to get. “Ustinov, wake up! he shouted. “Stretch out!”
The man might have understood, or maybe it was just a spasm. But a booted foot kicked forth and struck Saul’s outstretched hand stingingly. He fumbled for a grip and the momentum exchange sent him rocking over. The cavern whirled as he held on for two seconds, three, and then was kicked free by Ustinov’s next jerk.
Was that enough? Did I divert his course? Or am I Maybe on my way to meet a crowd of purples up close myself?
The floor came up toward him. Everything might seem to happen in slow motion; but he had to land with energy equivalent to his takeoff, and he had taken off in a hurry. His right shoulder struck hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs in a burst of pain.
He rolled over onto his hands and knees. It took a moment to blink away the dizzy whirling, and another to catch his breath. Then he saw Ustinov, lying only two meters away, moaning, shaking his head, and apparently unaware of the small, crawling things that wriggled toward his warmth from only a few feet away.
Saul gasped for breath and put everything he had into scrambling toward the man, racing to get there first. He lunged, grabbed the folds of Ustinov’s insulsuit, and fought for traction to drag him backward.
“Don’t move any farther, Dr. Lintz!” It was Vidor calling out to him. “There are two more behind you! The electric blanket must’ve shorted out. The ones not eating Garner are fanning out across the floor now.
Saul had never before felt this way toward any living things—even the fanatics in the mob that had burned down Technion. Right now, though, he wished looks really could kill. He stared at the horrible things closing in on him from all sides, and knew what loathing was.
He gathered the quivering Ustinov into his arms. What is wrong with the man? I thought spacers were built of stronger stuff than this.
My God. I’ll bet he’s been bitten!
Ustinov wasn’t heavy, of course, not in Halley’s gravity. But he massed nearly the same as he had on Earth, and that made the Russo-Canadian’s inertia and bulk awkward. Still dizzy and disoriented, Saul knew he wasn’t ready to jump out of here holding this unwieldy burden.
It was one thing or the other, though. Jump or throw. He crouched.
“I’m tossing him to you! Get ready!”
“No! Wait! I’ve almost got a lamp—”
“No time!” Saul insisted. He uncoiled, heaving with all his might. The helpless man flew out of his arms, sailing over the writhing mass that had erupted through the fibercloth floor in search of heat.
It was a good throw, but recoil sent him drifting backward. He craned to look. Clearly, he was going to land between two of the pulpy, hungry heterotrophs.
Strangely, part of him was less concerned than curious. It was his first chance to look at one of the higher Halleyforms up close and not already pickled for dissection. The nearest one tracked him waving a pulpy maw rimmed with red, glittering needles of primordial nickel iron. There was no face, per se. But he could sense the thing’s regard.
Probably track by infrared, he thought.
They were odd creatures indeed. Though perhaps no less odd than those worms that live down in deep, undersea vents, back on Earth. They, too, dwelled in total darkness, under immense hydrostatic pressures, living off sulfide-transforming bacteria. Lord, thy handiwork never ceases to amaze me.
Marvelous, yes. And mysterious. But ugly was ugly, and death was death.
He fumbled at his waist for something to throw, to change his trajectory, but the belt loops were empty. All he accomplished was to set himself turning awkwardly, still drifting toward the creatures.
No doubt he could squash any number of them in his bare hands, but he had no wish to tangle with them if he could help it, not after Samuelson and Conti had suffered such agony from their poisoned wounds.
Saul writhed around, catlike, somehow bringing his feet to the fore. His left boot caught and the right stabbed out at an awkward angle to compensate, striking a waving, grit-lined orifice. There was a sick, squishy impact as he skidded and began to tip over again.
“Jump, Saul!”
It was his chance. But as he bent his knees, pain lanced up his left ankle and that leg gave way. He swerved to avoid falling into a crowd of open-mawed worms, and in so doing tripped.
The slow-motion illusion helped as he landed on his fingertips and somehow walked across the floor on his hands—hopping from arm to arm to avoid the damned
things. There was no other way. If he stopped to turn over or gather his strength, they would get him.
At last, there looked like an open space ahead, where he might flex and really push off…
“Saul!” someone shouted. “Shut your eyes!”
He heard a loud, grating noise.
Oh great! Just when I need to see where I’m going!
His eyes squeezed closed at the very last instant. The last thing he saw was a dirty, segmented mass of pulpy mauve tissue turning toward his heat, bringing forth a round glittering of sharp, primordial stones.
Then the world disappeared in brightness. Saul cried out and his arms convulsed as he pushed away from the floor, drifting off in the direction of who knew what. He wrapped his arms over his eyes and rolled up into a ball, hoping his spacesuit would protect him when he next landed among the ravenous creatures.
The ratcheting sound groaned louder in counterpoint as another lamp joined the first from a new angle. The brilliance could be felt as heat on his skin. Saul couldn’t open his eyes enough even to seek shelter from the beams, designed to be visible across thousands of kilometers of open space, against the diamond-bright stars.
He hit the ground again and rolled to a stop against something hard. Saul tried to keep still, not to move, and imagined himself an icicle.
—Saul? This is Virginia. Can you be more specific? What’s the matter? All of a sudden my remote pickups in sleep slot one have gone out. —
Another voice broke in, —Lintz, Osborn. On our way in. Four with sprayers and torches. E.T.A. two hundred seconds. —
Saul realized then that it must have been no more than a couple of minutes since he had reported the purple breakout. Time had telescoped. The cavalry was coming, but would he last long enough for help to do any good?
Over to one side he heard Spacer Vidor mutter surprised oaths, then shout into his own mike.
“Carl, Jim. Intense UV sends them into retreat! They dissolve if they can’t get out of the light fast enough!”
Saul lay curled in a ball, but his breathing came easier. If only…
There was a loud pop, and the level of hurting brilliance penetrating his tightly closed lids suddenly cut in half. There was cursing, then Vidor spoke again.