by Greig Beck
“Weird, his suit is all torn.” Minchin looked up at the black sky. “Maybe micropellet damage. Let’s grab him and get out of here. This is giving me the creeps.”
Dawson put his finger in one of the holes in the suit and craned forward. “Hey, what’s this?”
* * *
“All done.” Briggs stood. “Power should be back online.” He came back across the panels like a tightrope walker.
“Good work.”
When he alighted, he put his hands on his hips, and then looked one way then the other. “Where’re the others?”
Mia faced the direction they left. “They should have been back by now.”
“Let’s go see what’s keeping them.” Briggs picked up the toolkit and started off. Then he cursed, and half-turned to her. “I hate the long-range comms being down. Got your burner?”
“Oh, yeah.” Mia noticed he’d lifted his from his belt and carried it loosely – for now.
They crested the rim of the crater, and saw the men, three of them. There was the body of Eric Wilson, but ominously, there was another body lying next to it. The third man stood stock still leaning over them. It was impossible to tell who it was with the shading on his visor, but if he saw Mia and Briggs, he didn’t acknowledge them as they approached – or even move a muscle.
“Hey!” Mia waved.
Briggs held out an arm and slowed. “Let’s just wait and see if everything is okay before we barge in.”
He waved an arm vigorously over his head. It was soundless, but it should have been hard to miss. The man still didn’t move. Briggs put the toolbox down, opened it, and took out a wrench.
“Stand back.” He tossed it at the standing man.
The wrench landed just to the side of the man, bounced and kept on going in the low gravity. The man never moved a muscle.
“Shit,” Briggs exhaled. “Stay here.”
“Not a chance – sir.”
He chuckled softly. “Come on, then.”
The pair moved cautiously now. The suits’ internal communications worked on a different system, but you needed to be close if there was no booster capability from the base.
“I think it’s Dawson,” Briggs said.
“Yup.” Mia felt the flutter of nerves in her stomach as they approached. The bigger frame did make it look like Dawson, and that meant it was Minchin lying crumpled next to Eric’s body. Why?
In fact, it looked like it was only the suit lying there with no one in it. But that was impossible. If you take any part of your suit off on the moon, you end up like Eric: dead in seconds. You don’t take it off and run away, leaving your clothing behind. Just like the body on the crawler when it returned, she thought ominously.
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Mia said.
Briggs didn’t reply, staying focused on the standing man. “Dawson, do you read?”
They were just a few dozen feet from the men now, and they should have been able to pick up the communication. They could see that Minchin’s suit was riddled with holes and tears.
“Dawson, report. What the hell happened here?” Briggs demanded.
Dawson finally reacted. With glacial speed, he leaned forward to grip his leg just above the knee, and began to vibrate. When Mia and Briggs were a dozen paces from him, his head lifted. The weak sunlight entered his visor.
“Oh God.” Mia couldn’t help taking a step back.
For the first time she was happy they couldn’t hear the man, as his mouth was open impossibly wide in a silent scream. As they watched, his helmet began to fill with stalks. They grew up from inside his suit, then popped from his flesh and ended in ripe-looking bulbs.
After another moment his helmet was full and then the doughy-looking substance pushed and ebbed, less like a thick liquid, and more like something alive.
Briggs took a few steps toward him and held out his hands. But Mia rushed to grab his suit arm.
“Stop!” She pointed to the lunar surface and the boot of the leg Dawson had been holding. “Look.”
Briggs stopped dead. From the toe of Dawson’s tough spacesuit boot a glistening black cord traveled along the ground and disappeared underneath Eric Wilson’s body. It pulsed like an artery pumping blood.
“Jesus Christ. What’s happening here?” Briggs lifted his burner.
Dawson’s visor was now totally black, and there was a hurricane of movement behind it as the viscous matter fought and strained inside the helmet. Then the man bent at the knees, then hips, and then his shoulders sagged, but all at strange angles.
Mia’s mouth hung open as, right before their eyes, Dawson’s suit deflated and crumpled to the ground.
“Fuck this.” Briggs pointed his burner and opened it up.
Mia did the same, bathing the man, or what was left of him, in long gouts of ignited gases. Though the suits could take extreme heat in the range of hundreds of degrees, the thermal stream from the welder’s tool was in the thousands.
Finger-thick stalks appeared from dozens of points in Dawson’s burning suit, swelling at their ends. They bulged, looking like strange blooms sprouting all over him, and then finally the black matter exploded outwards and escaped down into the lunar surface.
“Get back.” Briggs stumbled backward, and Mia grabbed him to stop him falling.
The pair retreated and Mia watched, terrified, as Dawson’s suit emptied via the holes. The matter seemed to travel along the cords to Eric Wilson’s body, where it vanished.
Dawson’s suit was now just another deflated bag, nothing remaining of him but empty clothing and streaks of a dark, glutinous liquid.
“That’s what happened … that’s what happened to our people,” Mia said in a rush, and suddenly felt sick and dizzy.
“Maybe.” Briggs strode toward Eric’s body. “It’s in there.”
“Careful,” Mia urged, but followed him.
The captain pointed his burner and let loose a long jet of super heat, and Mia did the same, concentrating on the exposed head of the prone man. The suit and flesh began to singe, and sure enough, just like with Dawson, the man exploded in a mass of questing stalks and then the shining black stuff sought to escape the incendiary blast, this time by burrowing into the moon’s crust.
Soon the final suit was empty; even where the man’s head had been exposed there was no hair, skull or anything else remaining.
“He’s all gone. It’s all gone. Under the ground,” Mia said.
“Let’s, ah, get back to the base,” Briggs said.
The pair moved as fast as their suits would allow back to the airlock. Once there, Briggs kept watch on the moon’s surface while Mia hit the button for door opening.
Once they were inside, the air was flushed and a rapid decon began. When it was complete, Mia tore her helmet off.
“Goddamn, I knew it – it was a trap. That thing set a trap for us.”
Briggs nodded, and she noticed that the man looked tired as hell. “Yeah, and I fell for it. Let’s keep most details about what happened out there to ourselves for now. It’ll cause a panic.”
Mia looked into his eyes. “I’m already panicking.”
CHAPTER 23
The pair finished their decon and quickly pulled on their clothing. Mia had to jog to keep up with Briggs, who strode fast to the communication panel on the wall and punched the button to the control center.
“Captain Tom Briggs here. You there, Stevens?”
“Yes, sir. Myself and Thomas on today.”
“Seal all external doors, override only on base commander’s authority. Confirm order.”
“What’s up?” Stevens asked.
Mia saw Briggs bare his teeth for a moment.
“Carry out and confirm order, immediately,” he snapped.
“Yes, sir. All external doors and vents now locking down.” Stevens paused as he initiated the locks. “Override on base commander’s authority. Confirming order has been carried out.”
“Good. I’m coming up.” Briggs turned to
Mia, his face still drained of color. “Let’s go and scan the surface.”
The pair headed to the command center. Briggs used to like sitting out on the lunar surface just watching the heavens. Mia wondered whether he’d ever do that again.
The heavy door of the command center slid to the side as they approached. All eyes turned to Briggs, and Stevens leaned back in his chair.
“Hey, chief. Uh, how come the lockdown order?”
“We were attacked.” Briggs headed for the main console. “Initiate external motion sensors.”
“What? Attacked? By what, ah, I mean … what?” Stevens half-rose from his chair.
“Do as I ask.” Briggs was obviously in no mood for any further discussion.
Stevens turned to Mia and raised his eyebrows. But Mia just shook her head, and the man spun in his seat back to his desk to initiate the external motion sensors embedded around the base site.
He swivelled back around. “Sensors online.”
“Thank you.” Briggs slowly straightened. “Any word on the second crawler we sent to find our missing team members at the Russian base?”
The man shook his head. “Nothing, sir.”
Briggs and Mia glanced at each other. They knew exactly why they hadn’t heard, and would probably never hear from the team again.
Briggs stood with hands on his hips. “Thank you. Everyone else, there’ll be a full briefing soon. But for now, back to work.” The base had two-dozen cameras dotted about their perimeter, and each one could be independently operated. He brought the camera feeds up onto the screens and focused on where the three men had fallen on the lunar surface.
Mia leaned on the console beside Briggs and watched the split screens. He swivelled them until they found the bodies then enlarged the view. Mia could see the problem even before he had fully amplified the quadrant.
“Shit,” she said softly and then straightened.
“Yep …” Briggs blew air from between his pressed lips. “One of them is missing.”
“But which one?” Mia asked. She turned to him. “Did we lock down in time?”
“I think so,” he replied softly, but not convincingly.
“I want more eyes on the external feeds,” Briggs said. “We’re looking for a solitary walker in a torn suit.”
Each of the technicians on duty brought up one or more camera feeds from the surface.
“Who is it?” Stevens asked.
Briggs folded his arms and rested his chin on his neck for a moment. After another moment he seemed to make a decision, lifted his head, and leaned forward on the console.
“A little while ago, Art Dawson, Benny Minchin, Mia Russo, and myself went outside to repair damage to the solar array beds. Once we completed our task, I sent Minchin and Dawson to recover the body of Eric Wilson, who we believed had committed suicide.”
The assembled people looked from one to the other, and there were a few gasps and mumbles. Briggs held up a hand to quiet them and ward off any questions before he went on.
“After a few minutes the men hadn’t returned so Mia and I went to investigate.” He straightened. “The men had been attacked. By something.”
Briggs had to wave them to silence again, as some rose to their feet.
“Something?” Stevens’ brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“Lifeform,” Mia added and she noticed Stevens blanch.
“I guess that’s why we’re in lockdown?” he exclaimed. “So, it’s locked outside, and can’t get in? That’s good news, right?”
Briggs shook his head. “We thought Eric had committed suicide, and maybe he had. But the thing was inside him, and it attacked and killed Art and Benny.” He turned and brought the image up on the large wall screen. “But now one of the bodies has gone. The thing is on the move.”
There was silence for a moment, before one of the chemists, Bridgette O’Neil, spoke in a quavering voice from the rear. “Was it the Russian woman who attacked him?”
“Good question. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that.”
“But how could one of them get up again? Maybe he wasn’t really dead,” Bridgette pressed.
“They were dead. Gone,” Mia announced. “Whatever attacked them ingested them, or absorbed them …” Her gaze was level as she scanned their shocked faces – most were pale, and a few had glistening, fear-filled eyes. Understandable, she thought.
“Ingested?” Stevens sat down slowly.
“It may try and get back in here,” Briggs said. “I want a constant scan of the surface to see if we can locate him – it. Then we’ll organize for the tracking sensors to trigger the cameras. If it moves, we can find it.”
“But then what?” Bridgette pressed. “What happens when we find it?”
“For now, we monitor it, and work to keep it outside of the base.” Briggs folded his arms. “While we work on our defenses.”
After another moment, the crew scanning gave up – there was nothing on the camera feeds.
Stevens swung in his chair again. “Will it stay outside?”
“Our doors are designed to seal against the pressure of a vacuum, and they’re all locked, from the inside. We’re safe here now.”
There were relieved murmurs, some loud exhalations, a few whoops and even a smattering of hand claps.
Mia walked to a corner and called Briggs closer. “There’s something that bothers me. Well, two things really. One is that maybe Eric knew he was infected and went outside, taking the thing with him, and sacrificed himself thinking it’d kill the thing as well.”
Briggs nodded. “Plausible. But didn’t work did it? Didn’t kill the thing, only himself.”
“And that brings me to the second thing. Why did it draw us out? Just to kill two men, and reveal itself to us? It could have stayed in the base and done that, especially if it really did just get locked out. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s smart, but it’s still just an animal,” Briggs replied. “We’ve got to believe it’s operating on instinct.”
“I’m not so sure.” Mia looked to the external-image screens for a moment. “And where’s Olga? Is she dead and absorbed, or hiding? If Olga was the thing, then it wasn’t just mimicking her, it was her.” She looked at him with a broken smile. “And that generates another question – was the thing that attacked us outside the only one there is?”
Briggs’ soft laugh held no humor in it. He closed his eyes for a second, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Mia, the worst thing we can do now is lose hope. We already doubt everything and everyone. I don’t want any more of the base crew killing themselves out on the moon’s surface.” He faced her. “Or killing each other.”
“Okay.” Mia hiked her shoulders. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Briggs placed a hand on her arm. “We survive. That’s what we do. And we keep everyone else safe.”
“But stay on our guard,” she replied.
“Always.” Briggs dropped his hand. “The supply ship will arrive soon, and then we can start arranging an evac. And as for what you can be doing – go and see where Doc Sharma is up to on that test. I’ll get everyone together this afternoon for a town hall update.”
‘Okay, good.” She turned for the door and noticed Stevens watching them. He slowly turned back to his console. We already doubt everything and everyone, Briggs had said.
You got that right, Mia thought. Bring on the supply ship, and soon.
CHAPTER 24
Alex felt the reverse thrusters kick in to slow down the lander’s approach. He saw the small lights coming on at the console units of the other passenger seats and knew their drip lines were automatically being fed small doses of adrenaline, glucose, and other stimulants to rouse them from their slumber.
He had disengaged his long ago, not needing the chemicals, and had spent the long hours reclined and strapped in his chair, ignoring the pain and just letting his mind work – he knew Aimee was right about him having responsibilities a
t home. Maybe they should begin to outweigh his responsibilities in the field.
One day they would. But he didn’t undertake HAWC missions simply to piss her off or because he was some sort of adrenaline junkie. He did it because he knew he could make a difference.
And he also knew that there was a demon that needed to be fed. The missions usually brought a level of challenge and aggression that sated the beast inside him, if just for a while. If not, then one day it would come and take it all itself.
His biggest fear was not dying, but having the Other being the dominant psychology, and his being the one locked away in the depths of his mind forever.
“Ain’t gonna happen.” Alex sucked in a lungful of recirculated air, turned to his left, and saw Casey Franks mumble something as she came awake. Beyond her the large and dark form of Roy Maddock took a deep breath, filling his lungs. Sam Reid was stirring up front in the pilot’s chair, and behind him was their youngest HAWC, Vincent “Vin” Douglas. Rounding out the team was the ice-cold Klara Müller. Back in the rear stalls were Doctor Marion Martin, their astral-biology expert, and Angus McCarthy, the Kennedy Base designer.
McCarthy coughed and then moaned. Sam inclined his chair forward and started the pre-arrival procedures, and once again tried to raise the Kennedy Base.
“Are we there yet?” Casey drew out the drip needle and slotted it away. The others did the same, as they’d been instructed during pre-flight training.
“That’s some hangover,” Maddock said.
“You got that right; even my teeth ache,” McCarthy replied as he rubbed his jaw.
“It’s the result of coming off the high dose of beta blockers, and now an added adrenaline infusion.” Marion grimaced and kept her eyes closed. “Our blood pressure will also spike for a while as it gets back to normal.”
Sam half-turned. “Kennedy Base is still comms-dark. Coming up on the Aitken crater and the base now.”
There were no windows in the rear but each of their seats had a small external feed built into the armrest. Alex watched his as they came over the horizon to the crater-strewn far side of the moon. It reminded him a little of Death Valley – extraordinary geological features, but instead of the uplifting of mountains, ancient riverbeds, and weathering cracks in the earth, there were the sharp edges of craters from meteor strikes, some of them huge, which had caused the molten material to flow like water, then cool, leaving a shining skin.