“The linkage is awkward. I’d prefer not utilizing it.”
Jonomy reconnected without donning the suit. It took him only seconds to come up to speed on network status.
“What can we do to help Rigel?” Ericho asked.
“At this juncture, it would appear he is beyond our capacity to assist.”
In the HOD, the combo robot disappeared, leaving only a swath of distant stars.
“I have forced a reset of the systems involved in the invader’s deception,” Jonomy said. “I should have been aware of this possibility.”
“You were tired,” June offered.
“An untenable excuse.”
“How did the combo robot get back to the ship? I thought it didn’t have enough fuel.”
“An obvious solution, regrettably overlooked. The link robot manned by Alexei also remained within the ship’s geonic field. The invader took control of that robot and utilized it to perform a rescue.”
Jonomy switched the HOD’s view to a hull camera outside the port lander hold. The link robot floated a few meters away from the hatch. Its emergency harness system, a tangled mess of pitons and cables, tethered it to the Alchemon.
“Note the blackened spots on its chest cavity. Those are the locations of its primary batteries.”
Ericho nodded. “The creature shorted out the batteries, caused them to explode.”
Done in sequence, the inertial thrusts from those tiny explosions had enabled a rendezvous with the combo robot. Had their situation not been so dire, Ericho almost could have admired the cleverness of the ploy.
Jonomy outlined the rest of the scheme. “Linked together, the two robots were able to navigate back to the ship. Powering up the lander was part of the creature’s deception, providing what seemed a legitimate reason for opening the hold’s outer hatch. The real purpose was not to launch the lander but to allow the combo robot to slip inside.”
Faye returned to the intercom. She sounded increasingly desperate.
“Still no sign of them. I can’t stand this. I have to do something.”
Ericho sensed she was on the verge of attempting a rescue. “Two people are in peril already, Faye. Don’t make it three.”
“All right. But I’m not leaving here…” She trailed off.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something’s happening.”
CHAPTER 31
LeaMarsa stood with Faye at the edge of the pool, riveted to the violent transformations. The surface had become a constant roil. The large globules with the flagella tails erupted madly from the depths. Some leaped high in the air before falling back into the bubbling muck. Muscular waves broke against the perimeter.
Faye struggled to remain calm and analytical. “This is more than just a cell-culturing medium, a gigantic petri dish run amok.”
LeaMarsa had already figured out what the pool was becoming.
“It’s an incubator.”
“An incubator for what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“The creature,” Faye whispered. “The transformations are for achieving its next developmental metamorphosis. Maturation into an adult phase.”
That was only part of it, LeaMarsa realized. The creature planned a far more radical transformation. She had no idea how she knew such a thing. Perhaps in those glorious moments when their hands had touched, her subconscious mind had absorbed some of its knowledge.
Only one thing mattered now. The creature would soon emerge in its final form. And LeaMarsa would do whatever was necessary to permanently experience its sanctuary, that incredible lightness of being, that freedom from the reek and all her torments.
“Look!” Faye yelled, pointing to the center of the pool.
A rectangular outline took shape beneath the turbulent waters. Moments later, Alexei and the autobed broke the surface. Bed and patient moved slowly toward them, rocking from side to side like a boat in turbulent seas. Had Alexei not been strapped down, he would have been thrown over the side.
The bed reached the pool’s edge, grated against the wall. Faye knelt down to secure it.
“Help me!” she urged.
LeaMarsa grabbed one side rail, Faye the other. But before they could pull, the bed rose into the air and cleared the turbulent surface.
“Rigel!”
Faye’s shout echoed relief as the tech officer’s upper body came into view. He stood on the bottom of this shallow end of the pool, arms stretched skyward like a weightlifter to support Alexei and the heavy autobed from below. Shieldsuit motors whined in protest, pushed to their limits from bearing such weight.
“Grab the bed.” His words carried the strain of exertion. He was using muscle power to augment the suit’s power modules.
LeaMarsa and Faye gripped the railings from opposite sides and pulled hard, struggling to lift the bed over the pool’s lip. The roiling mass fought them, as if not wanting to release its prisoner. Globules with flagella tails leaped across Alexei’s unmoving form like marine animals performing at some Helio Age aquatic show.
But suddenly, whatever force was controlling the sludge-like mass seemed to change its mind. Resistance ended. The autobed popped free of the pool. Momentum sent Alexei and his berth shooting past them and disappearing into the fog. Moments later came a muffled clang as it slammed to a halt against something solid.
“I cut the bed’s servo cabling with the HC,” Rigel said, breathing hard. “It won’t be doing any more wandering.”
“Check on Alexei,” Faye ordered.
LeaMarsa dashed into the fog. The bed had come to rest against one of the exercisers. The sheet covering the trainee was sopping wet but none of the pool’s organisms clung to him. The mask remained in place over his mouth and nose, the O2 sacs pulsating gently as he drew shallow breaths.
“He’s alive,” she said.
“Get back here!” Faye hollered. “I need your help!”
LeaMarsa scurried back to the pool. Rigel remained submerged to his chest. He couldn’t extricate himself. No matter how forcefully Faye yanked on his shieldsuit arms, their combined strength wasn’t enough to free him.
LeaMarsa knelt beside her, leaned out over the lip to get a two-handed grip on Rigel’s elbow.
“On three,” Faye said. “One… two…
“Three!”
They pulled with all their might. But nothing happened. They couldn’t budge him.
“We need to pull harder,” Faye urged.
Rigel shook his head. “It ain’t happening. This crap’s suddenly like glue.”
He drew a sharp breath, winced in pain.
“Goddammit! Son of a bitch!”
“What is it?”
“My right ankle. Something tore through my suit, something sharp. It’s ripping into my skin.”
LeaMarsa watched the tech officer elevate his gaze to scan the overhead readout within his helmet. His face twisted with agony. He struggled to speak.
“I’ve got… penetration. Both ankles now. Med panel says… I’m bleeding bad.”
“The creature,” LeaMarsa whispered, realizing what was happening. Its final transformation would be into a human, the species that had enabled its rebirth. Alexei had been its original choice. But a physically superior specimen had become available.
“Goddamn! Hurts like a motherfucker!”
“Use your HC!” Faye yelled. “Burn it!”
Rigel grunted pained laughter. “Dropped the damn thing when I was trying to lift the autobed.”
Faye drew a utility knife from her belt. “I’m coming in. I’m going to cut whatever’s holding you.”
“No! Won’t work. You won’t get enough leverage, even with the servos. This crap is too dense. You’ll just end up being trapped too.”
“We have to do something! We can’t just–”
“Shut up for a sec. Just listen, OK?”
“OK.”
The pain in Rigel’s voice was starker now. His words emerged between clenched teeth.
&nb
sp; “I need you to do me a favor. When you get back to Earth, I need you to tell my fiancées something.”
Faye shook her head, fighting tears. “You’re not giving up! We’re getting you out of there.”
“Tell them I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”
“Stop it!” Faye cried. “Stop talking like that! Move your ass! Do it!”
A violent shudder passed through the tech officer. His shieldsuit arms swung wildly, paddling the turbulent sludge. Chunks of the surface ripped loose, cascaded through the air.
Rigel’s mouth opened wide, as if to speak. Instead, a spray of blood shot out. It caked the inside of his visor, cloaking his face behind a scarlet curtain.
And then something yanked him under and he was gone. Only swirling ripples on the agitated surface marked his disappearance.
“No!” Faye screamed, the tears rolling down her face. “Rigel, no!”
LeaMarsa should have been equally upset, overwhelmed by grief, or at least some sort of emotion. But she felt nothing. All she could think about was freedom from the reek, the taste of it she’d received.
Faye struggled to regain her composure. “We need to get Alexei out of here.”
They ran to the autobed. Faye grabbed the front support rails, LeaMarsa the ones at the rear.
The bed was dead weight with its servo cabling cut, maneuverable only on tiny casters that somehow gained added friction against the damp floor. Even with Faye’s shieldsuit doing most of the heavy work, it was slow going as they pulled and shoved Alexei toward the opening cut through the airseal.
The hole was just large enough to get the bed through. Faye strained as she lifted it over the bottom lip. Finally, they made it to the short corridor beyond.
LeaMarsa halted, released her grip on the rails.
“What are you doing?” Faye asked. “Keep pushing.”
“This is as far as I go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m staying here.”
“You can’t stay here. What’s the matter with you?”
The scientist circled around the bed and came toward her. LeaMarsa backed into the natatorium.
“I’m staying. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You’re acting crazy.”
Maybe I am.
An inner voice warned that she was behaving like one of those Helio Age drug addicts, driven by overwhelming base urges that trumped all forms of emotional and intellectual governance. But the realization made no difference. If she was behaving like an addict, so be it.
When the creature was ready, when it emerged from the pool transformed into its final incarnation, she would be waiting for it.
CHAPTER 32
Ericho refused to believe Rigel was gone. The tech officer was a survivor. Somehow, he would make it through this ordeal. People like Rigel Shaheed didn’t die, not like that.
Faye’s disembodied voice trembled as she finished her account. “What should I do about LeaMarsa?”
“Let her go,” Ericho said, glancing at June who nodded her affirmation. “We need to concentrate on Alexei. Time’s running out for him.”
It was the right thing to do. If LeaMarsa wanted to remain in the natatorium, so be it.
Yet even as the thought echoed, a sense of foreboding came over him. LeaMarsa had told Faye the pool was becoming an incubator for the creature, some sort of fantastic organic soup enabling it to achieve a final metamorphosis. Whatever emerged from that cauldron had trapped LeaMarsa in the natatorium for a reason. Somehow, the creature needed her to achieve its ultimate goal.
Every fiber of Ericho’s being warned that LeaMarsa and the creature together would bring about the prescient future of June and the others’ nightmare. The Quad would reach Earth, and from there the other worlds of the Corporeal. Civilization would fall, its cities destroyed, its skyscrapers reduced to rubble. Humanity would die.
He recalled his dream of piloting the lander toward a Barstow that no longer existed. It seemed possible that the dream was yet another illustration of the dark fate awaiting them all.
“The autobed’s hard to move, even with my suit,” Faye said. “I could use some help.”
Ericho didn’t need to give the order. June was already racing toward the airseal.
“Be careful,” he urged.
She acknowledged his worry with a quick smile and was gone.
“Captain, I am registering a series of Level One power spikes,” Jonomy said. “They are emanating from the dreamlounge. One of the pods has been activated. I do not believe it is a false reading caused by the invader. Since Hardy is the only crewmember unaccounted for, it must be him.”
It wasn’t exactly the best time to go dreamlounging. “Do an interrupt, tell Hardy he has to get to the bridge.”
“He is not responding. I tried cutting Level One power to the pod but the secondaries fired up immediately to maintain an uninterrupted circuit.”
“Override them.”
“I cannot. SOP has been compromised, as have most other Level Two systems. I am tapping into the dreamlounge system.”
“What the hell does Hardy think he’s doing?”
The question was rhetorical. Jonomy answered anyway.
“He has entered a convoluted pleasure fantasy, one programmed for perpetual repeat. In it, he is being given a Corporeal knighthood amid accolades from the most famous members of the scientific community, both contemporary and historical. Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking are among those praising him for the monumental discoveries he made on Sycamore.”
Ericho wasn’t about to go down there and manually snap the science rep out of his imaginary laurels. That would lead to another Hardy Waskov temper tantrum. He had more important concerns.
“Let him have his crazy dream.”
The science rep, still oblivious he was a victim of psionic attack, had retreated into an ultimate safe zone, a place where he could deny he was in crisis while simultaneously stroking his colossal ego. The fact that he’d programmed the fantasy for perpetual repeat meant he had no intention of ever leaving the pod.
Eventually, the dreamlounge’s safety circuits would recognize that he was in physiological distress from too many hours without hydration, nourishment and sleep. He would be forcibly ejected from his fantasy.
The idea of being ejected from a fantasy resonated with Ericho. For reasons that still eluded him, his thoughts returned to that fractured conversation with LeaMarsa at the Homebound, about her parents being bioresearchers specializing in mitochondrial DNA.
Again, he recalled asking June to unearth more information and put together a file on LeaMarsa. The nonstop battle with the creature had made him forget the request. He vowed to speak to the crewdoc about it as soon as she returned to the bridge.
But why was it so important? An answer seemed to float just beyond the edge of awareness, tantalizing him to rein it in. Before he could do so, Jonomy snared his attention.
“Captain, I have discovered another serious issue.”
He sighed. “What now?”
“When the creature was still within the combo robot in the port lander hold, prior to Rigel and Faye’s arrival, several minutes of its activity were unaccounted for. Utilizing uncorrupted data from a mélange of systems, I have pieced together the missing timeline. The combo robot entered the maintenance shaft and accessed the Big Three nexus.”
Their ticket home. Still, presumably the creature also wanted to reach Earth. Sabotaging SCO, POP and PAQ didn’t seem a likely goal.
“I have been unable to ascertain its purpose. As far as I can tell, the Alchemon remains in control of all Level One systems. Be that as it may, a half dozen repair pups have gathered at the portal to the nexus site, presumably at the creature’s bidding. They appear to be in a holding pattern.”
“If they enter the nexus, would the Sentinel awaken?”
“Almost certainly.”
Even with SEN’s probable response, he di
dn’t like the idea of the pups being that close to the Big Three, ready to take some unknown action. “Anything we can do about it?”
“At the moment, no. I will continue monitoring their presence.”
Monitoring their presence. The phrase served to renew the feelings of helplessness that had been gathering in Ericho over these past hours. It seemed that all they ultimately could do was monitor their own impending doom.
CHAPTER 33
LeaMarsa ventured back to the edge of the pool. The violent agitation had ceased and the white mists had disappeared. The water, or what had been water, was nearly motionless. Only an occasional ripple disturbed its serenity.
The multihued globules had vanished, as had the oily sheen and those islands of algae. The surface had taken on a metallic appearance, like a lake of mercury.
A humming sound emanated from behind her. She turned to see a swarm of maintenance pups congregating in the hole Rigel had cut through the airseal. There were twelve of them. They positioned themselves three wide and four high, extruding and intertwining their various specialized appendages to form a makeshift wall. LeaMarsa knew that the wall was meant to keep anyone else from entering the natatorium, and to keep her here in case she changed her mind.
But she had no intention of doing that. She’d made her choice. She would await the rising of her savior from the depths and partake of its offer, liberation from the reek.
CHAPTER 34
“We made it to medcenter in time,” June reported over the intercom. “Alexei is stable.”
Ericho was relieved. Rigel’s bravery hadn’t been in vain. A wave of sadness came over him as he thought of his lost friend. He forced himself to repress the emotion. The time for mourning would come later.
Provided there was a later.
He didn’t like the idea of June and Faye back in medcenter. With the MED system compromised, it was no longer a safe environment.
“You should have brought Alexei up to the bridge.”
“If we had, he’d be dead. It was a close call. I couldn’t have saved him without a full complement of med gear.”
“And what if you again lose control of that gear?”
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