by Samuel Best
Jeff smiled.
“Just kidding,” said Kate. Then she sighed. “Too much has been going on here for such a small message like this one. I'll send you a data packet with the latest updates. Did you find out why Venus Lab hasn’t been communicating? We’re all antsy for an update about what’s happening out there.”
While she spoke, Jeff began the process of collating the ship’s data for transmission back home, including the new information Erikson had just shared with him.
“Yes, we know about the other comet,” Kate went on.
Three comets, now, Jeff silently corrected.
“It's moving so unnaturally fast, Jeff,” Kate continued. “We don't have time to send another ship to Venus Lab. The Seeker only holds two, and there are four of you.”
Three of us, thought Jeff. Sandra is gone.
Kate paused for several long moments, then she sniffed. Jeff could imagine her wiping her nose and trying not to cry, but when she spoke again, her voice was firm and confident.
“I know you'll do everything you can for everyone on that station. I just want you to do the same for yourself. Please be careful. I love you.”
The message cut off.
Jeff sat motionless for a long time, his finger poised over the transmit button on the control panel.
As soon as he sent the message, Kate would know there was a comet streaking toward Venus, as well as Earth and Mercury. He didn’t want to add that on top of the stress she was already juggling, but he had to warn someone.
He transmitted the data packet to Earth, then called up the ship’s systems interface on the control panel. If there was a way to squeeze three people into the Seeker for a trip back home before the comet hit Venus, he would find it.
18
JEFF
“The problem is the oxygen scrubbers,” said Jeff.
He floated with Dr. Erikson in the central corridor of Venus Lab after returning from the Seeker. The door to Hideo’s supply room was open, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“All three of us could fit in the ship,” Jeff said. “It would be cramped, but it's nothing the two of you aren't already used to.”
“What about the scrubbers?” Erikson asked.
“They’re not compatible with the ones on the station. In other words, I can't remove the ones from the lab and use them on the Seeker.”
“Not even with some modification?”
“Square peg, round hole,” Jeff replied. “In this case, the peg is too square to retrofit.”
Erikson frowned. “What about the spacesuits? Could we wear those?”
“Only enough extra packs for thirteen hours, if you’re lucky,” Hideo shouted from his room. He drifted past his open door, intently focused on prying at a metal box in his hand with a screwdriver.
“That’s nowhere near enough time to cover the two-week journey,” Erikson groaned.
“There’s something else we need to think about,” said Jeff. “What if there’s no Earth when we get back?”
Hideo stopped fiddling with his metal box and looked up slowly. He emerged from his room to float next to the others.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Erikson whispered.
“The other ship,” said Hideo.
“What other ship?”
“The Odyssey.”
“Riley’s crew,” said Jeff.
“If the comet is headed toward us,” Hideo said, “then the Odyssey must set a course to pass Venus.”
Jeff chewed his fingernail in thought.
“Depends on fuel, timeline, our own orbit. They might need to slingshot around Venus to get to the comet. They wouldn’t be able to slow down.”
“What about on the way back?” Erikson asked.
“If they come back,” said Hideo.
Erikson tsked. “Don’t be a pessimist.”
“I’m a realist, Niels.”
“If they come back, it’s a possibility,” Jeff admitted, “but a distant one. I’m going back to the Seeker to see if I can come up with another idea.”
A metallic clunk echoed in the corridor. The three men looked at each other in confusion. Erikson shrugged.
Clunk.
“Where’s that coming from?” Jeff asked. “Outside?”
“No,” said Hideo. “Down there.”
He pointed to the other supply room at the end of the corridor. The door to the dark room was sealed.
Jeff drifted down the corridor and bumped gently against the door. He pressed a button near the handle and the lights inside flickered on.
The room was empty.
Clunk.
The noise sounded like it came from inside the thick metal door.
Jeff turned around slowly to face the other two.
“I’m going to try something,” he said carefully, watching their reactions. “It’s not going to make any sense at first. I promise I’ll explain everything when I get back.”
“Back from…where?” Erikson asked.
“I’ll explain that, too. Just be calm when I go.”
While Erikson sputtered demands for an explanation, Jeff closed his eyes and entered fold space.
When he was brought back from Titan after the first mission, he returned with a small black sphere, about the size of a golfball, embedded at the base of his skull. Riley had one, too, along with anyone else brought back by a torus. Presumably, the spheres were implanted in every human drone the tori manufactured. They allowed the drones to utilize fold space—a multidimensional tactic of creating multiple instances of a room or area in the same three dimensional space.
The drones were everything the impassive machines could not be: dexterous, agile, and dispensable. The tori created soulless human automatons to build vast, complicated structures on the surface of Titan—structures that facilitated the rebirth of an extinct race.
After years of practice, Jeff could create several instances of a room on top of itself, and even use the separate instances to store different items. He thought of it as unlimited closet space.
Whenever he closed his eyes and entered fold space, the sphere in his skull became cold. It emitted a low-grade electrical current, about the same as one would feel licking a 9-volt battery.
There were no visuals associated with multiple fold space rooms. It wasn’t as easy as calling up a screen where he could see different video feeds as if he were observing multiple security cameras.
But he could feel it.
The instances spread out like a deck of cards, and each card had a texture in his mind. At home, in Florida, the hallway closet had five instances stacked atop one another. Whenever Jeff needed access to one of them, he had to “feel” the texture. He came to know which one held the vacuum, which one was full of his long-sleeved shirts, and which one Kate used for storing their Christmas decorations.
Jeff had no way of knowing if there were any other fold space instances on Venus Lab. He certainly hadn’t created any. Yet, with the alien creature so close—a being that had undoubtedly mastered fold space to the point of imparting it to the tori, and by extension, the human drones—the entire solar system could very well be stacked on top of itself multiple times.
The one instance inside Venus Lab Jeff could sense had a texture that was almost empty…but not completely.
He shifted over to that second instance. Erikson and Hideo vanished in the blink of an eye.
The station was empty of everything that wasn’t structural, gutted of all its loose electronics and equipment.
Of course, thought Jeff. They’re all in the other instance—the one with Niels and Hideo.
He spun slowly in place, inspecting the corridor. It showed the same smudges near the missing workstations where someone had repeatedly attached and removed a piece of equipment.
That meant the instance was created recently, and Jeff could guess exactly when.
Clunk.
He peered through the window of the empty supply room at the end of the corridor.
A
woman floated inside. A wall panel had been removed and tumbled in slow motion behind her. She touched two exposed electrical wires together and another clunk sounded from inside the metal door.
The woman was in her mid-forties, with frizzy brown hair that was half-tamed by a loose hair tie. She wore a dirty orange coverall and suffered from obvious malnourishment. Her face was ashen, her lips parched. She stared off into nothingness as she touched the wires together to a slow, slow rhythm.
Jeff opened the door and waited.
The woman paused as she was about to touch the wires together. She dragged her gaze away from the distance and her eyes eventually met Jeff’s.
“Sandra?” he asked.
“Please tell me you brought water,” she whispered hoarsely.
“No, but we can get some right now.”
He held out his hand, but she passed out before she could take it. Jeff drifted over to her and gripped her shoulders. He closed his eyes, and switched back to the other instance of Venus Lab.
19
RILEY
Sergeant Kenneth Miller lay on the work table in the lab, held down by several of the thick black straps Piper used to secure her equipment to the wall. The inside of his face shield was a dark blue smear.
Riley had volunteered to be the one to move the sergeant from the command cabin to the back of the ship. In zero gravity, it was easy enough to gently guide the sergeant by only occasionally tapping the bottom of his boots.
Carol Brighton, Piper, and Riley floated around him at a distance, staring at the blue smear on his face shield.
“I thought you said the suits were designed to keep things out,” said Piper.
“They are. But clearly it doesn’t apply to whatever is on that comet,” Brighton replied.
Riley glanced at Miller’s wristpad.
“The sergeant’s heart rate is slowing,” he said. "Oxygen levels in the suit are dropping, and he’s barely breathing.”
“What do we do?” Piper asked nervously.
“I’ve been trying and failing to think of a way to get him out of the suit without touching the blue stuff,” said Brighton. “We can’t risk anyone else touching it, so we keep working.” She checked her wristpad. “The ship will be at full stop in less than an hour. First priority is patching the hull. Then we run a systems check, primary burn, and drop that bomb.”
“I’ll patch the hull,” said Riley.
On the table, Miller jerked once against his restraints and Piper screamed.
“Sergeant, can you hear me?” said Brighton.
Miller’s body went limp.
“But he’s the bomb guy,” Riley said.
Brighton sighed. “Then we don’t have much time to learn everything we can about our payload. I’ll pull the schematics.”
“What about me?” Piper asked.
“Stay with Miller,” Brighton told her. “I’d like someone by his side in case he wakes up.”
“Is it…is it safe?”
“Just don’t touch him,” said Riley.
Piper swallowed hard as she looked at the sergeant on the table, then nodded.
An hour later, Riley was in space, coasting along the hull of the Odyssey while trying his best to ignore the trio of blue sparks in the distance that seemed to grow larger with every passing second. Despite his intent, he couldn’t help but wonder which of the three was barreling toward his ship.
He gripped the bulging tool bag containing his patch kit in one hand and operated his suit controls with the other.
Commander Brighton’s voice came in over his headset.
“Temporary patch on the hole inside,” she said. “I’ll shore it up after you’re done out there.”
“Copy,” Riley replied. “Approaching the breach.”
The stubby starboard fin gracefully bulged from the hull a little more than halfway from the nose. A black pockmark marred the otherwise smooth surface. A swath of vibrant blue, plasma-like material had been slapped across the hole as if flung by a paintbrush.
He grabbed a recessed handhold a meter away from the gentle rise of the fin and bumped to a stop against the hull. After hooking his safety tether to the handle, he fished around inside his full tool bag, pushing aside various pneumatic and hand-powered tools, until he found the bolt gun. He connected the tube on the bottom of the gun to a small container of compressed air strapped to his utility belt.
Riley let the bolt gun drift free, tethered by its tube, and he closed his eyes.
The base of his skull went ice cold. Goosebumps surged over his body. He jerked once in his suit, as if zapped by an electric shock.
He opened his eyes slowly, then reached back into the tool bag. A rigid piece of FlexPanel the size of a shoebox lid was the only thing inside.
Riley smirked.
He hadn’t needed to use his fold space ability in a long time. In fact, he actively avoided it. There were a lot of unnatural circumstances involved in his resurrection after he died on the first mission to Titan, yet the fold space ability seemed to push the limits of his acceptance.
His wife—before she became his ex-wife—used to say he was a simple man. Sometimes she meant it as an insult, but other times it was a compliment. Riley couldn’t disagree. In retrospect, it was one of the few areas of common ground between them.
He closed his eyes again, switching to another instance of fold space he had created inside the tool bag. Reaching back in, his gloved hand bumped against the spare oxygen packs he had brought outside.
Ever since the adventure with Noah in the torus, he never intended to go EVA again without a healthy backup supply of breathable air.
The bolts were in the last instance of the bag he had stacked on top of the others. He carefully placed them on a magnetized strip on his spacesuit just above his utility belt.
Riley let out some slack in his safety tether, drifting closer to the hull breach. The blue gunk painting the hull reflected brightly in his face shield. He tapped a command into his wristpad, and his pack spurted nitrogen to stabilize him in front of the hole in the hull. Riley touched the middle of the FlexPanel to the hole. It slowly curled in at the edges until it was flush with the edge of the stubby fin.
After pulling off a cord around the edge of the panel to release the strong adhesive, Riley methodically loaded eight bolts into the bolt gun, one after the other, and fired them through the FlexPanel and into the hull. His pack streamed nitrogen with each pull of the trigger, keeping him from spinning away from the Odyssey.
“Breach sealed,” he said.
“Copy,” came the quick reply from Brighton. “I’ll finish the one in here.”
Riley drifted away from the blue patch of glowing material on the hull, eyeing it with suspicion.
He swapped his bolt gun for a drill when he arrived at the access panel under the starboard fin. The bit spun slowly, drawing out the long bolts that secured the panel. Riley flipped it open and poked his helmet into the shallow maintenance cubby.
“Starboard O-2 scrubber intact,” he announced after calling up its status on a touchscreen inside the maintenance hatch. “Everything in the green.”
“Miller’s gone,” said Piper, her voice thick with emotion.
Riley’s gloved finger paused over the touchscreen.
“There’s nothing solid inside his suit,” Piper continued. “It’s like he disintegrated in there.”
After a long silence, Riley said, “I’m all done out here. Returning to airlock.”
He sealed the maintenance panel and secured his tools.
As he neared the airlock, the HUD readout inside his helmet flashed bright red.
“Riley, get in here now!” Brighton screamed over the comm channel.
“What is it?” he asked, jamming his control stick forward with his thumb.
“The comet is accelerating. We have to move or it will smack right into us.”
Riley was going too fast. He hit the airlock door and tumbled past it. With a loud curse, he overc
ompensated, sending himself spinning away from the ship.
“Now, Riley!”
“Open the hatch!” he shouted.
He manipulated his thumb control stick until he faced the ship, slowing his backward trajectory. He mashed it forward and shot toward the airlock door.
It cracked open slowly. Riley’s eyebrows went up as he quickly approached, unsure if it would be open in time.
His left shoulder slammed into the edge of the hatch as he coasted inside the airlock, spinning him sideways. He crashed against the inner airlock door with a shout of pain, his helmet cracking against the curved wall.
“Close it!” he yelled.
The hatch lowered slowly, sealing out the black void beyond.
“Riley, I’m sorry,” said Brighton. “I have to burn.”
“Give me time!” he said, turning to face the airlock controls.
“Don’t have it. Brace yourself.”
He stopped fumbling with the controls and looked around the airlock in a blind panic.
Three backup spacesuits hung like scarecrows within recessed cubbies carved out of the aft-side airlock wall. They vibrated as the Odyssey’s engine warmed up.
Riley kicked off the wall and landed on one of the suits, his impact cushioned by its many layers of shielding.
He quickly ripped the other two suits off the wall and laid them over the first, creating three layers of padding. Riley put his back to the padding and, gripping the handholds on either side of the recessed cubby, sank himself into the suits until his helmet knocked against the wall.
The engine fired.
Riley was only able to scream for a moment before the air was crushed from his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pressure that made it seem like they would flatten against the back of his sockets.
The chairs in the command cabin absorbed most of the vibrations during a primary burn. Riley was in direct contact with the wall of the ship, and his bones rattled. He clenched his jaw shut tight but his teeth knocked together with the speed of an ultrasonic dental cleaner.
Commander Brighton’s voice was a distant echo inside his helmet.