by Victor Koman
The corridor’s a pit. Something moves. It’s the dead man. He reaches up, up, fingers of hope with bones of broken dreams. You won’t grab me. Let go!
Jord Baker tried to orient himself. Starry darkness hung outside the port. He was no longer in Con-One anymore. Part of Circus Galacticus extended beneath him. A viewscrim before him displayed the words: STAND BY FOR REPAIR INFORMATION.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Hearing no reply, he looked at the scrim.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
“Jord Baker.”
DAMAGE TO LOGIC CIRCUITS OF MAIN COMPUTER NECESSITATE HUMAN ASSISTANCE. YOU ARE IN CON TWO. PROCEED TO RING ONE- LEVEL TWO-THREE O’CLOCK.
“Wait. Give me a second. I remember doing something back in Con-One…”
PROCEED TO RING ONE-LEVEL TWO-THREE O’CLOCK. WE ARE UNDER ATTACK.
“What?”
WE ARE SAFE FOR THE MOMENT, BUT REPAIRS ARE ESSENTIAL BEFORE TRANSFERRING TO EPSILON INDI. MOVE.
He moved.
Baker floated in the tiny chamber and tried to make sense of the twisted hole before him. Little more than a meter in diameter, it looked as though someone had taken a scoop and hollowed out a section of the computer. Vaporized metal coated the inside of the hole.
“No residual radioactivity?”
NONE, read one of the two viewscrims he had stuck on the panel next to him. The other displayed technical readouts of the logic circuits he was to cut away and replace. He signaled up the first page. Reading it, he hummed a nameless tune and tapped at the melted plastic and seared nerve tissue. The hole smelled of burnt flesh.
He scrolled to the next page, humming even louder and more meditatively. After a moment, he said, more as a statement than a question, “How would you like to cut this tour short?”
WE ARE SCHEDULED FOR FIVE MORE STAR SYSTEMS.
“You said you found the process disquieting.”
FELT CIRCUITS SHUTTING DOWN. POWER DRAIN. MEMORY CORE-DUMP SENSATION.
“All right. I’m going to have to remove a lot of neurons that are partially damaged to replace this section with complete circuits. This part of the net is weighted toward controlling what seems to be”-he signaled the third page of readout-“a systems defeat for the manual override. Since I’m going to have to re-circuit this entire section, I can weight it to do away with the four light-day intra-system travel restriction. It’ll take a little work and I may leave some neurons spilling out into the hallway here, but I can do it if you do nothing to stop me.”
COULD NOT STOP YOU ANYWAY.
“Are you capable of cutting this tour short-no tricks-if I re-net you as I’ve said?” Baker peered at the scrim, trying to catch a nuance in the way it answered.
YES.
Not much body language there, he thought, but at least it was direct.
By the second day, Baker had the computer speaking to him. The hole, which he had enlarged through the removal of ruined biocircuits, now held an entirely new neural net that bulged like a fleshy protuberance into the corridor.
“How soon?” the computer asked, a certain impatient expectation in its voice. Baker wondered about that, then said, “Another day or so.”
“You work fast.”
Baker smiled. “Well, I’ve had trouble with navigation computers before.”
“I am not just a navigation computer.”
“What?”
“I am also a weapons system, life support, medical, library, and communications computer.”
“You said ‘I.’ ” Baker picked up the readout scrim and scrolled through the pages, glancing at each one for only a few seconds. He then signaled a readout of his own work to that point. Then he stuck the scrim back on the panel.
“How did I do that?” he wondered.
“When you removed the program-adherent interface that locked my logic decision circuits into parameters determined exclusively by programming, I think you gave me free will.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Then maybe the micro-explosions that occur throughout the entire ship when we transfer into interstellar gas molecules, as rare as those may be, have etched new neural paths.”
Baker floated quietly for a moment, then asked, “Are you still capable of functioning in a manner that will not endanger either of us?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about-”
“Alert!” the computer cried.
Something crashed and whined through the plating. Air screamed away, pressure seals slammed shut. More explosions followed like the echoes of a thunderbolt. The ship pivoted, throwing him against a bulkhead.
“What’s going on?”
“Under attack. All defense systems on automatic targeting. Extensive damage.” Something disintegrated very near Baker’s compartment. The chamber deformed inward.
This is it, he thought. A blackness formed before his eyes.
Chapter Seven
July, 2152
A voice breaks through the darkness of the pit. She claws at me, but falls back in the light which appears from everywhere at once. A new cipher babbles away through the roar. Why won’t they leave me alone?
“Wake up.”“What?”“What is your name?”Virgil screamed a primal howl. How long? How long will
you drag me back from death? How many times must I die before it’s the real death? Why can’t I cross the gate? Why-
“Wake up. What is your name?”
“Virgil!”
“Virgil-you’re trapped inside the neuron chamber in Ring One-Level Two-Three O’Clock.”
There was the roar, and I watched someone rip out the guts of Master Snoop and rebuild him using my hands then we shook when Nightsheet grabbed us and the titans battled and-and- and-and-and-
“Are you in need of medical assistance? If so, I can’t provide it.”
Virgil stopped drawing uncontrolled breaths and lay still. He felt light, but not weightless.
“Is that you, Ben?”
“I am not Ben. I am the main computer of Circus Galacticus. Now listen, Virgil. We’re twelve light days from Epsilon Indi. I have powered down as much as possible. The ship that attacked us around Beta Hydri returned while we were conducting repairs outside the system. I held it at bay with the lasers long enough to calculate a transfer here, but it fired on us in the interim, causing extensive damage to rings One and Two. Most of the Nostocacæ cylinders were destroyed, but the anti-matter units are safe and their electrostatic fields intact. Nothing vital was hit in Ring One, though the colonist area is open to space, along with the recreation hall and the seed inventory.”
Virgil scanned vidscrim images of the damage.
“How can I get out of here?” They’ll pay, they’ll pay.
“The neuron chamber has only one exit, and it was ruptured by a blast. You will have to cross a gap of ten meters that is open to space.”
You keep trying to kill me but you never do. Stupid game. “All right. Let’s not delay.” Did Ben just sigh?
“Good. Get oriented. The pressure door will open. Look past your left foot. The passage you must jump to has a light on in it. The pressure seal is two meters inward, so you’ll have to maneuver through some twisted metal in the corridor. Be careful.”
Virgil pulled slowly toward the pressure door with slow, hesitant motions.
“I can only let the atmosphere out, Virgil. I have no way to pump it back in, so make this your one try. Take ten deep breaths.” Virgil did so. “Now, open your mouth and trachea. Depressurizing.” The seal parted slightly.
Virgil’s ears ached. Tightening his jaws, he released the pressure on his Eustachian tubes. Air rushed from his lungs without exhalation. The hatch opened wide.
Stars whirl about to my left and right. Something inside my skin tries to push its way out. Across and down lies the gateway. I must pass this corridor of blackness and go beyond the gate. Maybe this is the final trip through. I feel all cold and bursting. Fly. Fly.
Virgil kicked off into th
e void below him. Empty lungs struggled for breath. Sweat boiled from his skin, chilling blood that threatened to boil in his veins.
Drowning. Lights flashing before my eyes. Death Angel, must you put me through all this to make you smile beside Nightsheet? Reach, reach.
His left hand seized a jagged piece of metal sticking out from the side of the passage. Fingers refused to tighten and his wrist slid along the serrated steel. Blood squirted outward in a stream of spheres that instantly exploded, sizzling like water thrown into hot grease. He slid until the wrist wedged between the twisted strut and the bulkhead, pinioning him in the airless pit. Blackness swam before him. Blood evaporated and crystallized across his face in bright crimson, freeze-dried flecks. The pressure seal stood open less than a meter away.
No! It won’t end this way. With a powerful tug, he wrenched his hand from its trap-tearing the flesh and muscle down to tendon and bone-and pulled toward the door. He contorted into the illuminated chamber.
Consciousness faded from him in a growingly familiar manner. So cold. Nightsheet has sucked me dry. I am an empty shell of nothingness. The walls twist and bend toward me. Death Angel, I wanted your wings to wrap me for too long. Now I look for you, but you’re not here.
He saw a figure he had never seen before.
Who are you? I can break your cipher, but I can’t see your face. Get out of my death! What? Not through with me? Who are you to want me to die again and again and again?
“No!” He screamed and struggled, but something pricked his arm and he collapsed slowly to the sheets.
The next time he wakened, it was as if from a slumber. Reaching up to brush the hair from his eyes, he hit his forehead with a bandaged stump. He tried again with the same result. Focusing on the amputation, he looked at it from all sides.
I flex my fingers but don’t see them move. I don’t see them at all. I rotate my hand but it’s not there to turn. Once I saw my hand. Hand saw. Master Snoop needed a hand repairing Ben. Death Angel became a handmaiden. He lowered his arm to the sheets.
“I need a hand job!” he shouted.
“What is your name?”
“I’m VirgilVirgilVirgilVirgilVirgilVirg-”
“Virgil-you cut your hand severely when you crossed the gap. By the time I could get a robot to you, you had lost two liters of blood, your core body temperature had dropped to fifteen, your blood pressure to zero, your heart had stopped beating-”
“All right!” Virgil lay back and stared at the bulkhead above him.
“You were dead for almost eight minutes.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“I’m glad you recovered. I am currently giving one-half gravity thrust for you during your recovery. We are still twelve light days from Epsilon Indi. The system comprises five planets, two suitable for life, seventeen moons, and a number of comets and asteroids.
“You may be interested that we received a message from the other ship during its last attack. Would you like to see it?”
“Yes.” He touched the stump of his left hand with his fingers. A spot of blood encircled the bandage near the injection port.
An image appeared on one of the wallscrims. At first, the picture displayed a mere jumble of light and computer coded indices. Once the information had been correlated, the scene snapped into view.
Virgil stared at a tortured face. Hell looks at me, hate in his
eyes. A wild mane of ashen hair explodes out from his head, wrapping under and merging into his matted beard. His cipher breaks easily.
“I have come!” he cried, like some howling wolf. “I have come to destroy the destroyer!” Virgil heard the sound of laser fire. The man on the screen wiped spit from his beard with a grime crusted sleeve and continued to speak.
“Dirty death, Wanderer. Dirty death for straying!”
“You’re not translating this, are you Ben?”
“No. He is speaking twenty-second century Americ. I am not Ben.”
The man played with battle controls, his eyes darting around in a fevered glaze. The control room he sat in held a dozen other chairs. In most of them were strapped corpses, mummified and dry. Their hollow eyes watched blinking lights without seeing. Their fingers rested on chair arms discolored by their death.
“I am the avenging angel of death come to take you for all you’ve done!”
No. You’re not Death Angel. You’re a trick. Sent by Master Snoop to confuse me, to make me hate Death Angel. Virgil gazed more intently at the image.
“Can you give him a shave and haircut?” he asked.
“Explain.”
Virgil leaned forward, his gold-hued eyebrows narrowing under a meditative frown. “Edit the image. Interpolate his face.”
“Not accurately. His hair is too thick for its surface to give any clue to what lies beneath.”
Virgil raised his left hand to stroke his chin. The bandaged stump rubbed against his jawline. “All right then,” he said. “Can you compare his eyes with those of faces in your memory?”
“Yes.”
Virgil’s voice was steady, but hesitant. “Is it Brennen?”
“It is Dante Houdini Brennen.”
The other madman continued his rant. “Wanderer, we tried to follow. All dead, all dead. All danced down the dark cavern. Then up from death I rose to avenge. If you don’t die for your murders now, I meet you. Meet you at Tau Ceti, June Twenty-Two Twenty-Three. Give you plenty, plenty of time. Complete your death tour-I’ll be following. Every time I die, I grow stronger. Death, Wanderer, I am Death-” The image ended suddenly.
“We transferred just then.”
“He’s out of his mind. Mad Wizard!” The computer made no reply, so Virgil asked, “Was there anything else?”
“No.”
“What year is it now?”
“Approximately the summer of Twenty-One Fifty-Two. Mid-July.”
Forty-four years. All I knew, old and gone, except this madman. “And I can only return after completing the tour?”
“No.”
“What?”
“After sustaining severe damage to my neural net, I was recircuited and the tour program adherence command was defeated.”
Virgil rolled over and stared at the speaker grill behind him. “Then calculate a course back. What’re you waiting for?”
“I think we should wait until you have your hand back.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the lower level of the medical bay is the cloning unit. It is currently growing a cell sample, trimming away unnecessary portions, and your left hand-a new one-will be ready in about three months. I have it under intensive forced generation, since we don’t care about the brain or any other organs.”
“I don’t have three months, I don’t care about my hand. I want-want-” Death Angel must be old and dead, taken by Nightsheet for services rendered. Time. Press a button and it’s gone, eaten up. I don’t have time. Time on my hands. Hand.
He touched his lower lip with his right hand and bent it inward so that it rubbed against his teeth. He slid the fold of skin back and forth several times, thinking, then let go of it to speak.
“You’re saying there’s no limit on my individual transfers now?”
“None.”
“Can the cloning unit be disconnected from the medical bay and the computer?”
“It has emergency modular functioning; it can be.”
“Can it be fitted into a lifeboat and set adrift?”
“Yes.”
He sat up in the bed, fighting the forces that doubled his vision. “Then let’s put it in, transfer out a distance of six light weeks and transfer back.”
Silent for a moment, the computer replied, “Acceptable. When you have recovered.”
“I’m recovered.” He stripped the sheets from the bed to stand. “And uncovered. Let’s go.” Rising so quickly in the half-gravity acceleration was enough to pull him to the deck in a faint. He bounced lightly once and lay still. If the computer could hav
e cursed, it would have.
He awoke, rested and refreshed.
“My name is Virgil Grissom Kinney. Wake up, Ben!” He tried to slap his chest, but only one hand hit. The stump of the other thumped as on a watermelon. “I’m ready to go.”
“You should be. You’ve slept for over fourteen hours. The lifeship has been powered to full capacity, the cloning tank and peripherals have been fitted out for independent functioning, and your trunks have been washed.”
Virgil slid out of the bed in one motion, then slowed and lowered his feet to the deck, standing up with easy care. He reached for his trunks and realized he still had no left hand.
Picking them up in his right hand, he turned to the speaker and asked, “Can you cut the acceleration for a moment?” He listened for the sudden silence that accompanied the cessation of gravity. Like a mild roar, I get used to the engines. He found it easier to slip into the trunks when not having to worry about falling.
“How’s the rest of the ship?”
“I have put power on in the passages to the medical bay and the lifeship-temperature and pressure normal. All other sections are losing heat at a rate of three degrees temperature per hour.”
Virgil headed toward the exit. “Meet you in the bay.” He kicked down one level to examine the cloning unit. As big as two coffins. Are you inside, Death Angel? Or are you cold and gone? Do you want me back in the reaches of Nightsheet?
Robots had disconnected the cloning unit from the bulkhead. Virgil pushed it slowly toward the hatchway, weightlessness making it easier for him to jockey the parcel about. In the curving corridor, he gave the unit a strong shove, then walked along the deckplates with the mass of aluminum and electronics over his head, pushing it away from the walls, bending its trajectory until he reached the other side of Ring One.
The steel cylinders fit easily into the hold of the lifeship, so he fastened the unit to one wall, flipped on the ship’s power switches, flitted out, and sealed it up.
“How’s she check?” he asked, floating out of the airlock and into the observation booth.