by H C Turk
Looking again, less woozy now, Kathlynn saw that the suits had become so unfocused they lost visible cohesion—lost physical cohesion, for they vanished. The ash piles within each function retainer began settling, but never reached the floor, fading into lighter shades of grey before disappearing. Disintegrating. Even the headless suit’s spurt of ashes changed from ugly to immaterial.
Parno dropped the nozzle with a motion that suggested anger. The hose flipped to the floor like a square, casual snake. The Earth suit had also vanished, leaving a sizable volume of thin smoke. Smoke that began coagulating into a more compact, more humanoid, whole. More demonic.
Parno slid ahead only to stop after a few paces. Then he began walking—and sinking. His foot disappeared in the technol mud, and Parno jerked his leg away. Instantly he retreated.
As Kathlynn ran beside Parno, he spoke.
“Let’s go to the ribbon entry. We’ll have to move around the drive bay. Let’s hurry, before the ghost regains its shape.”
Before them, the dark haze congealed into an unliving figure.
“You can’t burn smoke,” Parno grumbled.
Kathlynn took one step, and Parno placed one arm firmly across her shoulders. She halted, but the two began sliding rapidly, effortlessly.
She recalled their lovely travel in the air sled, along the forest’s edge, across the pink sand, beside the rushing water….
“Parno, can’t you just cycle the airlock and we can leave?”
“We can’t,” he said plainly. “I think I just fused it shut.”
She almost, almost threw his hand away. How would they ever leave? But if Parno did not hold her, she would have to walk. Kathlynn would be left behind, alone with the ashes of her own death.
Though not looking to Parno, Kathlynn placed her arm around his waist, not wanting to be parted from her favorite bastard, her only hero.
* * *
“Thanks for the tour of the guidance cell,” Kathlynn said, but Parno wasn’t listening. He could not listen in English and emote alien at the same time.
Even the solid walls of this chamber were too close to each other for Kathlynn. She could scarcely move without approaching a dark function suit half bent before an alien periscope, elbows propped in cupped supports. In this cemetery, the corpses were situated like trees in a forest. An alien cemetery where residents and headstones were one.
She turned to Parno, and her eyes went wide. He had accepted the identical position, partially bent behind a periscope that received the Earther’s thoughtful glare. But Kathlynn saw his head, his living face, and his hands moved, pulling technol appendages with foreign motions.
As Parno straightened and turned, Kathlynn found that she had to speak.
“Parno, I feel lousy. All of this dying is killing me. Ha ha.”
Parno showed no humor when stepping from his workstation.
“It won’t open. The vessel considers the airlock door and adjacent wall congruent.”
“Parno, you sealed our fate. Ha ha.”
She wanted to weep, or scream.
“You have to kill a cow to make a beefburger,” he grumbled.
“Does the device you utilized on the zombies work in reverse?” Kathlynn asked. “After all, you can cut things apart with a welder.”
“But you can’t build a city with a bomb.”
“We don’t want to build a city,” she insisted. “We want to build a hole in the city we have.”
In this smaller chamber, the ghost ends seemed inches away. Ashes stretched to infinity, the extension of death.
“Your brain is working super now,” Parno told her. “I did learn something pertinent about the erg adjunct remediator.”
“The what, Parno?”
“The apparatus with the square coil tube,” he explained. “Kathlynn, it’s portable. Maybe we can create a hole in the vessel’s hull with it. I was thinking of trying where the ghost has ruined a chamber. The outer walls may be weaker there, where they self-repaired.”
“Yes, yes, that sounds promising.”
“Would you like to try wearing this suit, Kathlynn?” Parno asked mildly. “Perhaps you would learn something new.”
“No thanks, you’ve been sweating in it. I want to feel clean when I burn to cinders.”
“Oh.”
“Now what do we do? I’m ready when you are.”
With an alien combination of clear intent yet unthought moves, Parno pulled his hands along the function retainer. The device unwrapped, remaining erect behind Parno.
“Ah, I feel so much better,” he sighed. “That suit makes me feel…alien, and they’re all dead.”
“I’m keeping my abettor on,” Kathlynn said. “It’s not uncomfortable. Parno, you should continue to wear your suit,” she insisted. “It offers a certain type of protection.”
“Yes, that type is ‘incompetent’ and ‘inadequate.’ You’re sort of right, though. We should return to the warehouse and get a function retainer for you. The ghost is probably gone from there by now.”
“Yes, he’s probably on his way here. Shall we?” she concluded, turned, and began walking toward the ribbon panel.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll surprise you,” she said unpleasantly. “It’s my turn to kill us.”
He watched her walk, not staring at her fundament, but noticing that hitch in her step from her painful spine. He did not bother to ask of her injury. Wincing silently, he followed the superfem.
Sliding along, his work suit followed.
* * *
Kathlynn showed no injury upon smashing both palms against the entry panel. Standing in the lobby, Parno watched as Kathlynn smacked the door to the loo, but it refused to open. Approaching tears of frustration, Kathlynn kicked the door with either foot. Still no response.
“Kathlynn,” Parno said calmly.
She stopped, glaring at the door as though to rip it open with her vision. Panting, she would not look to Parno. Though reaching to rub one shoulder blade, she refused to wince. Then she whirled to Parno, showing pain only in her anima.
“I want to get this off of me!” she shouted, displaying more fury than sorrow as she fiercely pointed to the black stain on her suit.
“Kathlynn, you told me that you saw the infirmary disintegrate while you were outside. That chamber is connected to the loo. The ghost must have ruined them both.”
“The ghost is stupid,” Kathlynn growled, turning sharply from Parno only to grimace in pain. “Why doesn’t it go ahead and destroy the vessel chamber by chamber?”
“Of course he’s stupid,” Parno said. “He’s not all there.”
He could not resist smiling. Kathlynn could.
“You bastard,” she snarled. “You nearly made me laugh, and I’m trying to save our lives.”
“So far, saving our lives has turned out to be a joke.”
“Ha,” Kathlynn snorted, “that’s amusing. Maybe you’d be happier dead, though the ghost seems rather miserable. Parno, I wanted to enter the infirmary to check for structural self-repair. You mentioned that. An Earth space boat can repair a breach in its hull—don’t you think this vessel could do better?”
“Maybe it is,” Parno suggested. “Maybe the ghost can’t ruin more chambers because the vessel won’t allow it.”
“Oh, Parno, do you think the big airlock will repair itself?” she begged.
“No.”
“You bastard.”
“I’m sorry, Kathlynn, but I don’t know about the possibilities of that repair. We’ll have to check.”
Kathlynn looked above him, but not in fear.
“Parno, let’s try the small airlock where we entered.” Then her eyes went wide, finding faux-revelation on high. “All we have to do is go up there and open the door. We’ve learned so much since we entered—it should be easy.”
In that moment, she looked so enthused, so expectant, so positive. Parno had to look away.
“It doesn’t work,” he stated plainly.
&nb
sp; “The small airlock doesn’t work? How do you know?”
“One of the inhabitants told me when I was in their suit.”
“Maybe he was wrong. Who was it, the ghost?”
“It was Grazio.”
Kathlynn couldn’t argue. The suits had never lied to her, regardless of their alien voice.
“Well, I have an idea that should work,” she insisted. “All we have to do is wait inside the next chamber the ghost disintegrates, then slip through the opening in the hull. When I was in space, I saw materiel from inside the vessel float away. Since we’re on the planet again, all we have to do is step outside!”
“What if we’re part of the materiel that disintegrates instead of part that remains whole?”
“Well, Parno, I don’t have an answer to that question,” she declared. “Furthermore, we don’t know which chamber the ghost will next try to destroy, or even if he’s still interested in that tactic. So, I guess we should see if the big airlock has self-repaired. When do you want to try? I have to pee.”
“Spacers call it ‘urination.’ My country, your nation.”
“Ha. If you’d like to loan me your function retainer now, I’ll pee in your nation, then give it back.”
Parno turned and stepped away from Kathlynn. His suit followed. Only the human walked. Since Parno now had his back to Kathlynn, she felt free to press her bladder. This action only made her back hurt.
They entered the warehouse, not finding belligerent work suits, the smoke ghost in any guise, or an open airlock. Standing near the discorporated area of the floor, Parno gestured for Kathlynn to approach.
“Look,” he said, pointing to his erect, unwrapped work suit. “The foot where I stepped in the melted floor.”
The material was translucent beneath the ankle, thinner.
“I see, Parno, that we should not go swimming in this swamp.”
In order to approach the airlock, they would have to move around the lengthy drive bay structure. Facing his work suit, Parno stepped ahead. After the function retainer wrapped on Parno, he placed one arm across Kathlynn’s shoulders, then took a step ahead. Kathlynn winced, but began sliding alongside Parno.
This passage felt harder than the ribbon rug. Parno and Kathlynn sensed motion, feeling that they might topple over if they did not comport themselves with utmost rigidity. Along and around the drive bay they traveled, following the hull’s inner surface, proceeding to the airlock, stopping short. The suit would not enter the liquid floor.
“Only ten feet, Parno,” Kathlynn groaned.
Kathlynn saw the door’s location, but Parno viewed its composition. The material sagged. Nebulas on the great door drooped as though the universe approached stellar entropy.
Parno turned, Kathlynn followed, and they slid around the wet floor, along the drive bay, arriving at the process margin. What a vast space with no corpses occupying the floor.
Still in his function retainer, Parno stepped to the creativity cusp, tapping the wall with his suit’s undamaged foot. Without thought, he began manipulating the register nubs, folded non-plases, lengths of apparent-hair, inflexible rods.
Moments later, Parno stepped away. Looking to Kathlynn, he shook his head.
“You try it,” he suggested.
He could not remember when Kathlynn had last sported that snobby look first seen while riding on the air sled. Parno had to smile, but would not let her see. He watched her bend her torso, evincing no pain, as she implied informational authority to the creativity cusp by feeling and grasping its tangible ends.
As Kathlynn straightened, the creativity cusp retracted. Not looking to Parno, she turned away.
“The vessel no longer considers the inner airlock door a passageway,” she reported, still retaining that haughty Terran visage. “Parno, why are you smirking?” she yelped.
“Stay here,” he said, then slid away in his function retainer.
She complied, but imperfectly. Kathlynn would not remain in that small room, which had only one entry. One exit. She waited on the warehouse floor, looking at the dissolved area that seemed a gel, a swamp of wet ashes.
Looking toward the ghost ends, Kathlynn saw only depthless, inactive, waiting death, no clawing delivery creature. She looked to the warehouse entry panel, seeing no horror approach in her own ground suit. The creature attacked from behind. Led by Parno.
Kathlynn saw the huge machine before she saw Parno in the lead. He slid more slowly now, lest he leave the beast behind.
A pale, open shell with a helical dent followed. Twice Parno’s height, the “erg adjunct remediator” was set on a darker, layered base, not floating or sliding, but rolling on a type of unsegmented tread. Bright forms of warm coloration jutted from the top like plas fruit sculptures in a food hopper’s bin.
Kathlynn wanted to rub her eyes, but still wore the environ abettor. After further staring, she recognized the beast. A familiar nozzle sprouted from one side. The square hose that Parno had stretched toward the suit zombies now lay flat against the device’s convoluted flank.
“What did you say this is?” Kathlynn finally asked.
“Well, it’s hard to translate,” Parno replied, “but I think it’s a smelting device used for mining. It breaks down molecular bonds on a gross level.”
“Parno, what are you going to do with it?”
“Kathlynn, it’s time for suicide,” he said.
“Parno, I don’t have to pee that bad.”
“Here’s my plan. We find the weakest spot in the vessel’s hull and try to burn a hole in it. Failing that, I may be able to overload this bitch. That will blow a hole through the hull.”
“And through us,” Kathlynn said.
They looked closely to each other, neither seeing humor.
“You can’t build a city with a bomb,” Parno said.
Kathlynn turned away. Reaching to rub her back, she emitted a groan too intense for her minor pain. Lowering her arm, she stared at the machine.
“Parno, the thing is shaking.”
“It’s just a mild vibration, Kathlynn, part of its preparation for function.”
“Parno, your contraption is dripping a viscous fluid, like…machine mucus.”
Kathlynn nodded toward the machine’s lower flank, and Parno bent to look. He could only shrug.
“It had to pee,” he said.
Kathlynn pointed an extended arm at Parno so suddenly he thought she would stab him with her fingernail.
“Don’t you dare move,” she scowled, then walked away. Away from Parno, away from the machine, around the wall of the drive bay, out of sight.
He waited, staring at the machine, trying to recall more clearly what he had learned of the device. Two words came to mind: “powerful” and “unstable.” He beseeched the spirits of salvation for a better translation. The only blessing he received was Kathlynn’s return.
“Now I don’t care if the loo is ever repaired,” she declared, glaring at the machine. “The next time I have to explode, I’m sure it will be for real.”
Her coveralls were not on perfectly straight.
They decided that Kathlynn should wrap on a function retainer and try to move in it, or exit the warehouse and try to bring the suit along. After removing her abettor, Kathlynn complied, but found little success, even when stepping toward the retainer face first. Parno had to remove her, not fully conscious of the moves his hands made against Kathlynn’s suit.
“You’ve prejudiced the work suits against you somehow,” Parno guessed. “They know you’re a supervisor, not a worker.”
The suit would not follow Kathlynn. Parno could not instruct it to follow himself. Wrapping on an undamaged function retainer, Parno failed to pull another from the wall to carry as a spare.
Time to leave. After wrapping on her environ abettor, Kathlynn decisively led the way. Parno followed, his vast contraption last in line, tagging along like a technol pet.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
Kathlynn whirle
d as though a child’s top, facing Parno with new anger.
“Parno, how are we going to penetrate a weakened outer wall when the lobby won’t let us enter a damaged chamber?”
“Well, I don’t know, Kathlynn. You’re the supervisor.”
“Yes, and I’ve made a decision. The parlor has one door that we have never tried. How can we be so foolish? What if that chamber has a tertiary exit and no lost souls?”
“What if the ghost is waiting there in the second of our ground suits? I only destroyed the one, you’ll recall.”
“I recall your suggestion of suicide, Parno,” she said.
He could not place her expression. Did he see dejection, or a subtle grimace from pain? Her look then changed, literally, for Kathlynn glared at that black stain on her suit. The blood of ashes.
“Parno, I would rather kill myself attempting to leave than allow the ghost to torment us eternally. If you can’t breach the vessel’s wall with that contraption, I can learn enough to make it a bomb.”
Though Kathlynn led, Parno understood that they moved together. In this realm of unsettled spirits, he knew that they would follow each other to their end.
Chapter 17
The Deity Of Peace
Parno understood that he was dead. Not only dead, but a haunt. He would spend eternity traveling through this vessel, never achieving blissful repose. This fact was proven by his fellow ghost, Kathlynn, who had begun to relive previous horrors. There she stood, back to Parno, silently pounding against an entry panel with the heels of both hands. Only the door had changed. Kathlynn now kicked and beat against the closet panel.
Noting that the door she faced had literally changed, Parno spoke to the superghost.
“Kathlynn.”
“Please don’t bother me when I’m undergoing catharsis,” she seethed.
“Kathlynn, look at the door. You’ll see it denotes the chamber’s new state.”
Focusing at eye level, she saw the closet’s conglomerate shapes. The appliqué, however, no longer suggested depth. The shapes were flat and translucent, having the substance of a ghost.
Kathlynn turned to Parno as though confronting a fool.
“I noticed the same change on the loo door when I tried to enter,” she patiently explained.
