by H C Turk
She thought of that cold, black feeling when passing through the smoke, the shadow. Yes, death casts this cold shadow before removing one’s life—exactly equal to combustion in effect, opposite only in temperature, degrees on the scale of death. The ghost’s frozen shadow and searing conflagration, through absorption or burning, would eliminate the energy of life. Kathlynn would never be able to select the horror that delivered her demise. She and Parno would not be safe inside the vessel until the smoke ghost rested.
“Parno, we’re at the parlor.”
The wall had dilated open. Kathlynn saw no immediate danger within. Still on his back, Parno hesitated before attempting to sit. Bending at the waist, he grimaced as though having seen a ghost, this expression only adding to Kathlynn’s chill. Though Kathlynn supported Parno’s shoulders with her upper body, he shook his head in negation.
“If I can’t stand,” he said, “I can’t walk.”
With a hard set to his face, Parno arranged his feet, then rose to his knees. Holding out one arm for balance, he slowly stood, breathing harshly through his nose. He stood as though rising from the dead, toward life.
Kathlynn’s back still hurt, but she didn’t notice.
“Parno, what can we do about your injuries?” Kathlynn asked, trying not to sound piteous, worthless.
Breathing deeply, Parno responded after one Earth-norm moment of recuperation.
“I don’t know, now that the infirmary is gone. Let’s try to prevent any further injuries, to either of us.”
“Parno, I don’t have any good ideas.”
“I don’t have any good ideas either, Kathlynn, but I have ideas. If I had remained in the function retainer, I think I would have been able to blast the ghost before he blasted me.”
Parno’s strength seemed to increase with his speaking. He stepped toward the parlor’s center, having good balance, and a great deal of pain. He rubbed that bleeding corner of his mouth, then looked at his thumb.
“Let’s get some new work suits from the process margin,” he suggested. “They don’t seem to offer any powers of recuperation, but they’ll offer protection, as well as physical support.”
Parno seemed to be wrapped in a crippled function retainer, for he virtually slid along the floor, scarcely lifting his legs. To Kathlynn, he seemed an elderly man, not an upcoming ghost. Not yet. Clenching not her muscles, but her mind, Kathlynn refused to be inundated with tremendous sorrow for Parno. As long as he remained strong, she would not become weak.
“If the vessel has repaired its great airlock,” Kathlynn said, not quite brightly, “we can just pop out, and go for a frolic on the island.”
“You didn’t get enough frolicking with the kitty?” Parno asked.
“What happened to us in there? Alien entertainment?”
“Perhaps, but I’m not certain. Alien vibrations doped us. Something worse occurred, however.”
“Yes, I know,” Kathlynn blurted, trying not to sob, “I allowed the ghost to trounce you while I played.”
“If I hadn’t been playing, too, I would have been prepared with the erg adjunct remediator instead of the vacuum cleaner. That’s not what I meant, Kathlynn. I meant your terrible words. You said you wouldn’t ask me for a date because you had the rat instead.”
“Parno,” she choked, “I am your only girlfriend on this island, and in the universe of my heart.”
They turned to embrace, but lightly. Both aliens were injured. They parted, recuperated in their emotions and improved in their ideas.
Parno looked upward, not to the ceiling’s pseudo-sky, but to the wall.
“Kathlynn, it only makes sense that we try the foyer.”
“The what?”
“That’s what Grazio called the small airlock where we entered.”
“Parno, you told me before that Grazio was your informant,” Kathlynn said. “I don’t understand.”
“When I was in the suit with ashes, I communicated with the vessel’s system, and the voice seemed to be Grazio. The system informed me that the Kapnosans had ruined the little airlock when they forced it open with voodoo. But we should try it. What do we have to lose?”
“Our lives.”
“We’re losing them anyway.”
He began walking in a shuffle to the area where they had originally arrived, by descending. If only in her imagination, Kathlynn saw him move with improved strength.
“I hate the foyer,” she had to say.
“Why, Kathlynn?”
“It’s so small, and the ghost ends are so close—there’s no place to run.”
“The entire vessel is becoming smaller. All the ghost ends are getting closer.”
He stopped and looked up, in that moment full of confidence.
“This can’t be hard for the aliens,” he said. “You just think, ‘Up I go,’ and up you go.”
Looking up and lifting his leg, he ascended.
“Non-bastard genius!” Kathlynn yelped in joy.
“And when you get there,” floating Parno said, “tell the door to open, and it will.”
But not before dead, black hands tried to press through, reaching for the rising bastard.
Both Earthers began screaming “Down, down!” as the invisible elevator ascended. Having turned, Parno tried to jump, but the elevator prevented his dangerous move. It could not prevent the ghost from jumping. As the elevator neared apogee, the door opened, revealing the smoldering smoke ghost, which immediately leapt at Parno only one dead step below.
Since the elevator began following instructions and descended, the ghost leapt past ducking Parno, heading for Kathlynn.
In a hard moment of brilliance that cut through the death ghost’s smothering fear, Kathlynn knew they should flee to the warehouse; so she ran away from that door. Yes, the ghost followed.
Kathlynn was not so courageous that she could look to the ghost as it ran to her.
“The warehouse!” she screamed, and Parno ran painfully to the ribbon entry while looking only to Kathlynn, who slipped past the ghost and joined her lover at hell’s exit, her face showing pain and fear, not calculation.
Kathlynn knew how substantial smoke could be. People in burning buildings most often die from smoke inhalation. A ghost is the shadow cast by death, and shadows drown people in darkness.
They entered the ribbon rug, and the vapid ghost could not follow. In that moment of success, both Earthers felt exhilaration.
“We’re all right!” Kathlynn screamed, Parno understanding her anger.
“We’re beating the bastard,” he seethed, just as the storm came.
Far away, but not too far, came a shudder, a storm on the seas of space, or another of the ship’s chambers melted by automation.
Since both Earthers were brilliant, they did not have to inform each other of the machinations set in motion by the dead.
* * *
“If the main airlock won’t function, Parno, we can try to manifest your last suggestion: producing a hole in a weak part of the vessel’s wall, somewhere.”
“You thought of it first,” he said as the ribbon whisked them to the warehouse.
“This isn’t a competition.”
Her speaking wasn’t truly a complaint.
“I can’t think of anything better to do,” he told her. “Or worse.”
Kathlynn stepped through first. Though frowning at the chamber’s ghosts ends, she saw no greater horror, no immediate doom.
Parno looked toward the process margin. He had to walk those many paces. His rejuvenated strength in the parlor had been burned away by the smoke ghost. Taking short strides, he felt as though he were walking around the pain in his abdomen. Retaining his balance was difficult, for Parno could not swing his arms without spasms searing from shoulder to coccyx. He did not need a med cab to provide a prognosis. The thick dullness everywhere inside informed him of injuries that bed rest and happy thoughts would not cure. If not for anti-shock vaccines, he would be prostrate, and not recuperating fro
m the pose.
“Could I give you a hand?” Kathlynn offered.
“Maybe you should walk ahead and look for tragedy about to pounce,” Parno said, hearing himself wheeze. “Watch out for the fuzzy part of the floor.”
Parno wondered of anatomy. What was between his spine and lungs that hurt so much?
“I’ll run along to the process margin and verify interchange domain cycling,” Kathlynn said, and trotted away.
“Affirmed,” he said quietly.
Though Parno loved to see Kathlynn move, he looked only to the floor. He had to make certain that his feet arrived after every step.
No work suits lay on the floor within the warehouse or the process margin. As Parno arrived, Kathlynn turned from the creativity cusp, appearing gloomy. Parno predicted the bad weather of alien entrapment.
“The vessel still does not recognize the interchange domain as a functioning portion of its whole,” Kathlynn reported.
“Oh.”
Kathlynn then became more enthused in her speaking, in her madness.
“Parno, let’s try to make a bomb. While we were in the ‘entertainment’ chamber, the ghost disintegrated another section of the vessel.”
“I know. The kitchen.”
“We can’t wait much longer. If you’re injured more, you won’t be able to move. Or I’ll be injured worse, and we won’t be able to do anything but lie on the floor and wait to die.”
“Let’s make sure we’re floating on a cloud when we’re waiting to die,” Parno quipped. “That way we won’t have far to go to enter heaven.”
“Exactly, Parno. Let’s wrap on work suits, go to the rat room, and blow up the nearest wall.”
“The nearest exterior wall,” he corrected her, “is not in that chamber. If you think of it, you’ll understand that we know of very few available walls that are part of the vessel’s hull.”
He nodded to the wall with the airlock.
“Maybe I can wrap on a function retainer and learn more,” Kathlynn suggested. “Parno, you have more experience in the work suits than I do. While you were in one, did you continue to learn?”
“Very little, at least to my conscious knowledge.”
“How is it you achieved so much knowledge that one instance?”
“Kathlynn, that’s because I wrapped on a function retainer that the ghost had just smacked open. A suit with ashes inside. It was like entering a grave. I’d do it again, but that suit was unique.”
“Oh,” she sighed, and turned from Parno. “I’m going to wrap on a suit and try to learn something. Anything.”
Her tone did not imply confidence. Parno didn’t argue. After Kathlynn backed against a vertical function retainer and the device wrapped around her, Kathlynn’s expression changed. More open yet intent, not so dull.
Parno also wrapped on a work suit. After a moment of transition, as though stepping from a dark interior to bright daylight, he felt different. He felt worse. His internal pains did not increase, but he felt an anxiety noted before. Not so bad he could not continue. He learned nothing else.
Parno looked to Kathlynn, who had not changed in her position or expression. From his own alien experience, Parno predicted that she would not be entering a state of locomotion.
“Kathlynn?”
In a type of molestation, he ran his hands over her body without permission. These unthought moves caused the function retainer to unwrap.
Kathlynn blinked, then focused beyond Parno. Shaking her head, she winced, reaching for her back. After intently staring nowhere for a moment, she looked to Parno, slumping: in her posture, her face, her intensity.
“I learned something new.” She spoke as though confessing to a failure. “Our interface with these suits is not good. The system has trouble providing us common knowledge we don’t have, because that ignorance proves we’re interlopers. Aliens. So, it gets confused. The system has less trouble allowing us to work in the work suits: that’s what they’re for.”
“The system can’t walk and think at the same time,” said Parno.
“It’s a bastard.”
“We’re all aliens.”
“Some of us more than others.”
“Kathlynn, how much time do you think we should devote only to learning while wrapped in a work suit?” Parno wondered.
“Not much,” she said. “We’re too susceptible in that position. Parno, if we try anything of the kind, I think we should be in the guidance cell. That’s the data and control core of the vessel.”
“Let’s try the guidance cell later,” he said, “after we blow up the ship.”
Kathlynn then spoke loudly, nearly blurting.
“Parno, I am getting anxious to leave. I don’t think I can take much more of this. I can’t tell you how I feel to see you hurt.”
Her eyes were watering. Parno felt so bad that he did not want to look.
“I’m glad you can’t tell me,” he said while reaching for her shoulders. “Because I’m not exactly fond of seeing the ghost pummel you.” He turned her completely around. “But you did look sweet getting thrashed by the rat. Step ahead.”
She stood before an upright function retainer. Without asking, Kathlynn complied. After the function retainer wrapped around her, Kathlynn turned. She was able to walk toward Parno.
“It works!” she cried. “The vessel is no longer prejudiced against me.”
“Kathlynn, that’s terrific,” Parno declared with renewed enthusiasm, “because it proves we’re still learning.”
“Now that I’m talking, I guess I won’t be learning further. Let’s go blow up this terrific vessel, Parno. I hate it.”
“Me too. I love you, Kathlynn.”
Instantly furious, Kathlynn cried out:
“Don’t say that, Parno! I can’t kiss you when I’m in this!”
They could embrace. Insulated by manifestations of alien technols, Parno and Kathlynn felt more with their emotions than their bodies.
Spirits survive the ages with less substance than space.
Parno moved away first, turning while holding his abdomen.
“That hurt,” he said curtly. “I’ll get even on the beach.”
He led the way across the warehouse floor, sliding. Kathlynn slipped along behind him, not moving her legs. The Earthers traveled on metaphoric ribbon rugs.
Looking down to the floor, Kathlynn said, “This will be fun when we’re not dying.” Then she saw the floor move.
Their shared dream returned. Invisible lightning caused thunder that shook their home. Storm clouds so completely covered the sun that the interior partitions turned dark. Accepting the identity of rain, the furnishings inside began flowing, leaving a residue like thick, gritty ink. The drive bay’s solid-wall ends had turned to a porridge of technol materials, though the gelatinous drive bay proper remained undamaged.
Without asking for speed, Parno and Kathlynn found themselves sliding more quickly toward the ribbon panel, a rate requested by their emotion. As a flash of light from behind filled the warehouse, Parno thought of combustion, conflagration, turning to see the sky.
Despite pain from his spine and neck, Parno did not turn away. Facing the wall adjacent to the airlock, he did not see the vessel, but the island. Above the lahar and the forest’s edge, a cloudless sky reached across the world with no illusion. Natural light then ended, curtailed by connected strips of an artificial material that stretched across the vessel’s outer wall, an impromptu curtain that sealed the ship’s injury.
“That’s what we want to blow up!” Kathlynn shouted. “But how do we get there when the floor is melted?”
“We won’t get anywhere if we are melted,” Parno seethed.
Thirty feet remained, ten human paces, between the Earthers and the ribbon conveyor entry. Seconds later, the greater wall ahead began darkening and flowing as the work suits’ sliding passage ended.
“Run!” Parno shouted, and grasped Kathlynn’s wrist.
They ran to within two paces
of the door, then found themselves sloshing through steaming liquid. Stumbling that last step, they fell against the panel, each person extending an arm. As Parno and Kathlynn collapsed, the ribbon accepted them, pulling them peacefully along.
Behind, the panel closed. Neither Earther expected it to open for them again.
Settled on her knees, Kathlynn reached for her throat. Parno saw that she was perspiring heavily, her face twisted. Parno felt the same heat rising inside his function retainer, smothering him. Though reclined on his side, Parno reached upward against Kathlynn’s torso, and her suit unwrapped. It did not achieve an upright position, but sagged away from her. Parno removed his own suit, then painfully stood as the hot fabric flowed onto the ribbon, conjoining with Kathlynn’s.
Fighting the ribbon, they stepped away from the puddle, feeling the steam surrounding them dissipate. This instance, the ribbon passage did not seem effortless, but crippled. Turning toward the warehouse entry, Parno and Kathlynn saw a liquid follow them, leaving a froth like agitated ink. The warehouse’s melting proceeded along the ribbon conveyor, the entry wall now replaced by a repair curtain. The damage extended slowly toward the Earthers, its rate decreasing, then stopping, along with the ribbon.
“We’ll have to walk,” Parno said.
Holding hands, Parno and Kathlynn proceeded with pain. Looking down to their feet, they saw that the plasweave of their coveralls was shredded, their shoes thin, abraded. They felt raw skin on their feet and ankles. This personal disintegration did not continue flowing upward, so the Earthers proceeded, harshly grasping each other’s hand in a type of wincing, a reflex that brought no relief.
The lobby wall opened normally. Parno and Kathlynn had achieved their goal, but failed to gain salvation. They stepped through unsteadily, hoping they had not arrived at their end.
Chapter 19
Pretend It’s An Angel
Limping with both feet, Kathlynn stopped in the center of the parlor. Bending, she saw her toes through her shoes. She saw too much pink.
“Parno, my toenails dissolved,” she said, surprised. “The flesh is so tender I can barely walk.”
