by Steve Gannon
“Get on it,” said Stringer. “In the meantime, Cruz and I will make another visit to the larger of the two ships—see whether we can find an answer over there. If you don’t have Carla fixed when we return, we’ll move the Magellan and investigate the smaller vessel.” He glanced at Julie. “We can still maneuver on inertial thrusters, right?”
She nodded. “No problem. We just can’t jump.” Then, to me, “One more question, Mac. Could the beam that smaller ship directed at us be some sort of weapon?”
By then she and Stringer had viewed the video recordings that Cruz and I had taken on the alien ship. I remembered the stripped panels and the cut wiring. I knew we were all thinking the same thing. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s possible.”
It happened two hours later. At that point I had made little headway with Carla. Hearing Stinger and Cruz talking over the intercom as they returned from the alien ship, I decided to finish up and meet them in the airlock. They were already half out of their EV suits when I arrived.
“Any progress?” Cruz asked me through the open inner airlock.
“Not much,” I answered glumly, wishing I had better news. Standing outside the cramped airlock, I watched as Cruz shrugged off the rest of his suit, plugged it into the bulkhead, and activated in the recharge cycle. “How about you? Find anything over there?”
“Nothing that’s gonna help,” Stringer answered. “We’ll check the smaller ship next.”
Stringer was only partway out of his suit. Cruz was giving him a hand when the inner airlock door slid shut. “Hey, Mac, that’s not funny!” Cruz called through the observation port, slapping the hatch button on his side.
The door stayed shut.
I tried the button on my side. Same result. By now both Stringer and Cruz were staring through the glass. “I didn’t close it,” I yelled.
Stringer pressed his face to the window, attempting to check the outer control panel. “Try removing the—”
He never got to finish, because just then the EVAC alarm sounded.
“Get your suits back on,” I shouted.
There was no hope for Cruz, and he knew it. In his last moments, as air was rapidly being pumped from the chamber, he tried to help Stringer back into his EV gear. They almost made it.
Unable to help, I watched in horror as their bodies suddenly swelled in the vacuum. Globules of frothy pink filled the airlock.
Hideous seconds passed, seeming like hours. And then it was over. The outer hatch swung open. Riding the last outrush of air, Stringer and Cruz drifted into the void.
I found Julie on the bridge. When I told her about Stringer and Cruz, she listened quietly. “How could that happen?” she asked when I was done, her voice trembling with shock.
“There’s only one explanation.”
“Carla.”
I nodded.
“But for an accident like that to—”
“It wasn’t an accident. The airlocks are under direct computer control. Carla, or whatever she’s become, killed them.”
Julie was silent for a long moment. “Can we shut her down?”
“Not completely, at least not without losing life support. But I’ll lock her out of as much of the rest of the ship as possible.”
“What can I do to help?”
I hesitated. I wanted to recover Stringer and Cruz before their bodies had drifted too far from the ship. But considering the situation, I was also reluctant to leave Julie alone. Still, I didn’t see any other way. “I have to go EV to collect the bodies,” I answered. “Monitor me from the bridge.”
“Right.” Then she asked something I had been trying not to think about. “What do we do if Carla shuts down our life support systems?”
“There’s always cryo-suspension, at least till the research vessel arrives,” I suggested. Like most Federation ships too small to have onboard medical facilities, the Magellan was equipped with a single cryo-suspension unit, a holdover from man’s early ventures into space. Serving as an emergency backup, it could maintain an injured crew member in frozen stasis pending arrival at a medical base.
“There’s only one unit onboard,” Julie pointed out.
“I know. It won’t come to that, but if it does, I want you to use it.”
Julie shook her head. “We’re in this together, Mac.”
I could tell from the look in her eyes that there was no use arguing. Nonetheless, I made my way to the cryopod, set the controls on auto, and disconnected the computer-override cable—making sure Carla couldn’t sabotage the pod if Julie needed to use it. Perhaps I was kidding myself, but I felt better after that.
The outer hatch was still open when I returned to the airlock. It took me twenty minutes to get the control panel disassembled and cut the computer leads. I didn’t intend to end up like Stringer and Cruz.
Shortly after that I was suited up and floating in space outside the Magellan. Although I couldn’t spot the bodies, I knew they had to be dead ahead. Julie was in contact with me over the radio. She informed me that she had two objects on the scanner around four kilometers out. I hit my thrusters and took off.
Once I had picked up some velocity, I shut off my jets and drifted in silence. Fifteen minutes later the bodies came into sight. Upon spotting them, I started my deceleration, winding up using more fuel than planned. I knew I would have to be careful on the return trip.
The bodies were tumbling, separated from each other by about twenty meters. I got a line on Cruz, then dragged him over and got a line on Stringer, too. I tried not to look at their faces.
With Cruz and Stringer in tow, I headed back, surprised at how distant the Magellan had become. At that distance the smaller of the alien derelicts was lost against the backdrop of space, but the huge warship was still clearly visible. The Magellan looked tiny and insignificant beside it. All at once something about the position of the ships struck me as wrong. At first I couldn’t figure it out. Then I saw it.
The Magellan had moved. Her inertial-drive cylinder was glowing. “Julie, what’s happening?” I shouted into my radio.
No response.
All the way back I kept trying to raise Julie on the radio, without success. Though tempted to increase my velocity, I knew if I didn’t keep enough fuel in reserve to kill my speed once I arrived, I would overshoot the Magellan and wind up drifting forever in space. But if the Magellan’s ion drive kicked in before I got back . . . well, I wouldn’t get back.
Inexplicably, the Magellan never moved. The drive cylinder had shut down by the time I got back, but its thick metal rim still glowed a dull, angry red. After dragging Stringer and Cruz inside the airlock, I sealed the outer door and waited for the chamber to repressurize. As soon as air began seeping back in, I heard the piercing wail of the radiation alarm.
Leaving the bodies in the airlock, I rushed aft without removing my suit, wondering what could have caused a reactor leak. But deep down I knew.
Carla.
I found Julie on the deck outside the fusion chamber. She was horribly burned, but alive. Barely. I ripped off my helmet and gathered her into my arms.
“You . . . you made it back,” she mumbled. Her face had escaped the terrible searing I saw elsewhere on her body, but dried blood caked her nose and mouth, and something was wrong with her eyes. “I . . . I can’t see, Mac.”
“You’re going to be all right, Julie,” I said, praying I was right. “What happened?”
Blindly, she reached up to touch my cheek. “Carla tried to move the ship. I cut the control cables, but she lowered the shields while I was in the reactor room. I got the shields back up, but . . .”
“You’re going to be all right,” I repeated softly. “Just hang on.”
Cradling her in my arms, I carried her to the cryopod. “What are you doing?” she asked as I gently laid her inside.
“You’re going to sleep. When you wake up, the research vessel will be here. Their med team will know what to do.”
She struggled to sit. “Mac, before
Carla attempted to move the ship, she shut down our life-support systems. You won’t—”
“I’ll get them back on,” I lied, knowing I couldn’t.
“There’s only one pod. Don’t waste it on me. I’m not going to make it.”
“You’re wrong, Julie. You’re going to make it. And so am I.”
I got the needle into a vein where her skin wasn’t too badly burned and started the cryo-drip, then stayed with her while the clear fluid slowly emptied into her. We talked—me doing most of the talking, trying to maintain contact. Then we just sat, not talking at all.
When she was ready, I sealed the pod and initiated the stasis cycle. I watched as her eyes closed and her body relaxed and a film of frost formed on her skin. Then I left her. I knew what I had to do.
I tried not to rush, but I didn’t have much time. Even working as quickly as possible, it took me several hours to move the Magellan. I’m not a pilot and without computer assistance it was mostly trial and error, but I eventually got the ship positioned exactly where I wanted.
The smaller of the alien vessels was larger than I’d first thought, turning out to be over two hundred meters in length. On closer inspection I saw how deeply its hull had been slashed. Through the open gashes I could make out some of the interior—a hellish block of gray-green crystal. Though I searched, nowhere could I see a means of entering.
I used mooring lines to lash the alien vessel to the opening of the Magellan’s drive cylinder. It was slow work, but I got that done, too.
They say revenge is sweet, but I felt only bitterness and revulsion as I entered the computer bay and sat before the Omni. I knew it wasn’t Carla anymore; it was something else, something alien. I could almost feel the hate radiating from whatever she had become. “I know you can hear me,” I said. By then, with our life support systems inoperable, the ship’s internal temperature had dropped to near freezing and the air was getting stale. “I know you’re in there, and I want you to know what I’m going to do.”
And then I told it.
Minutes later I fired up the Magellan’s main inertial thruster, blasting the propulsive ions directly into the alien ship I’d lashed to our drive cylinder.
Before long, the alien vessel reestablished contact with the Omni. I could see the signal in the analyzer. I watched with satisfaction as it flickered and wavered and weakened as the alien ship began to glow a dull red in our thruster’s exhaust. I hoped whatever was in that ancient ship was capable of sensing pain, of anticipating death. It even tried to communicate with me through the Omni at the end, calling me a carbon-based entity. I didn’t bother to respond.
The ion engine ran for nearly an hour before the thruster cylinder overheated and shut down. I rechecked our position. With the Magellan’s thrust being diverted by the alien vessel, we had only moved a few kilometers. But by then every circuit aboard the alien craft had been roasted, every memory bank incinerated, every electronic synapse destroyed.
Then I addressed the Omni one final time. “You’re next.”
I planned to turn it off, realizing that to do so would cause irreparable damage—not only to the computer, but to the Magellan itself. Nonetheless, I had to destroy every kernel of consciousness the alien had planted aboard our ship, whatever the cost. Grimly, I pried off the Omni’s main panels and located the power cables. One by one, I severed them.
Does murder apply to terminating an artificial intelligence? I’m not certain, but after what had happened, I’d come to believe that in all ways that truly mattered, Carla was alive. She, and the presence we had discovered aboard the alien ship. So in a sense, what I did was murder—premeditated and deliberate.
But when the time came to do it, it was easy . . . and I would do it again.
* * *
I turned off the heater in my EV suit a while back. They say freezing is supposed to be an easy way to go. I guess I’ll find out. And with any luck, maybe it won’t be permanent. They revive people from cryo-suspension all the time, right?
At least there’s a chance.
An icy numbness is creeping through my limbs, and a crust of ice has formed on the interior of my viewplate. If I peer through the bottom, I can just make out the Magellan floating at the end of my tether, her scorched captive close behind.
I acquired a slight rotation when I exited the airlock. I didn’t bother to correct it. Within minutes the second alien vessel will rise again on my left, laden with her long-dead crew. I’m closing my eyes now. I don’t want that ship to be the last thing I see.
The next time it comes around, I’ll be gone.
* * *
SUBSPACE TRANSMISSION ST978.6.84
TO: COM CEN DIST 3, EARTH
FROM: FEDERATION RESEARCH VESSEL INTREPID, HORSEHEAD NEBULA D17.233.15
TEXT: FEDERATION EXPLORATION SHIP MAGELLAN FOUND IN DERELICT CONDITION. CREW MEMBERS STRINGER AND CRUZ DEAD IN AIRLOCK. CREW MEMBER REAGAN ALIVE IN CRYO-SUSPENSION. WILL INTERROGATE REAGAN UPON CRYO-REVIVAL.
CREW MEMBER MCGUIRE’S BODY RECOVERED FROM SPACE. CONCLUDE MCGUIRE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR DEATHS OF STRINGER AND CRUZ, INJURY TO REAGAN, AND SABOTAGE OF OMNI 4000 COMPUTER. WILL NOT ATTEMPT TO RESUSITATE MCGUIRE AS NO PSYCHIATRIC FACILITIES AVAILABLE.
OMNI 4000 DAMAGE EXTENSIVE, BUT HAV EES#&* COMPLETED FULL DOWNLAOD OF ALL SALVAGEABLE ZSSS%# FILES.
TWO ALIEN CRAFT FOUND AS REPORTED. EXPLORATION TO COMMENCE WQNNM UPON CORRECTION MKOPPP OF INTREPID AIRLICK ZWW#$Z MALFUNCTOINS.
END TRAMSNISSIOG.
Blue Skies
Rob pulled off the dirt road and wheeled his truck up a long gravel driveway, stopping in front of an old farmhouse. “Your turn, Matt,” he said, glancing over at me.
“I did the last one,” I protested, belatedly noticing his grin. As usual, Rob was jerking my chain. He knew I hated to do the asking.
Well, hate isn’t exactly the right word. It made me . . . uncomfortable. For some reason whenever I asked a farmer’s permission to hunt his fields, I felt like I was intruding. The fact is, most farmers rarely refused us; usually they even told us where they’d last seen birds and whether the area had been recently hunted.
Rob cut the engine, set the brake, and swung out of the cab. “Guess it’s up to me, then,” he chuckled.
Sipping tepid coffee, I watched from the warmth of the truck as Rob crunched across the frozen driveway, mounted the porch steps, and knocked on the door. The farmhouse, a shabby, single-storied structure flanked by several ramshackle outbuildings—a barn, corral, and equipment shed—had a sad, lonely look to it. Like so many of the farms we visited, the newest thing about this one was a satellite dish sprouting like an inverted mushroom from under a roof eave.
The pickup lurched slightly as our dogs shifted in the back. Turning, I saw Max and Sammy staring over the tailgate at an ancient farm mongrel who had ambled out from behind the barn. Sammy rumbled deep in her throat. Max let loose a halfhearted bark.
“Quiet,” I said, rapping on the glass so they knew I meant it. Both dogs lowered their ears and gave me their best “Who, me?” looks, then went back to conserving energy.
Not for the first time, I noticed how alike they seemed. Both were on the smallish side for Labrador retrievers, with broad black heads and intelligent golden eyes. Sammy was my dog; Max was a male pup from her one and only litter. Four seasons ago I had given eight-week-old Max to Rob, and then later had helped with Max’s training. Max had turned out to be one of the finest bird dogs in the valley. Almost as good as Sammy.
Rob knocked on the farmhouse door again. Moments later a thin woman with a baby tucked in the crook of her arm opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Rob started talking, gesturing toward the acreage behind the house. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but before long the woman was pointing into the fields too, her free arm sweeping an arc from the cut cornfields to a wide drainage ditch at the west end of the property. I smiled, deciding Rob should always do the asking. People simply liked him; that’s all there was to it.
From the looks of things on the porch, I suspected by the time he was done talking we would probably be invited to stay for dinner.
By then the wind had picked up a bit, sending leaves skittering around the yard and raising billows of dust behind the barn. Hoping the weather didn’t worsen as the day progressed, I glanced at my watch. Ten AM.
It had been calm when we had headed south earlier that morning, the sun barely cresting the mountains guarding the eastern flank of the Wood River Valley. We had stopped in Hailey for coffee and a couple of deep-fried apple fritters, then settled down for the drive. Over the seasons Rob and I had spent countless hours traveling to and from hunting spots, usually spending more time driving than hunting. Occasionally we rode in silence, but mostly we talked. Although you would think that after all those years we would have run out of things to say, we never did. They were enjoyable hours, time well spent.
Rob returned from the house, his eyes lit with excitement. “Good news, amigo. They just cut the corn, and nobody’s hunted it since then. We’ve got those pheasants all to ourselves.”
Pheasants are my favorite game bird—smart, challenging, and good eating. Getting the old butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling that for me invariably precedes a pheasant hunt, I gazed across the fields behind the house. Rob was right. The corn’s having just been cut was a tremendous advantage. As long as corn is still standing on a big acreage like that, the birds usually stay well hidden, deep in the middle. The only way to flush them is to walk through (if the farmer will let you), with other hunters waiting at the far end. Beaters and blockers. If you’re a beater, it gets dicey when the birds start getting up. You can’t see who’s shooting on the other side of the cornstalks. All you can hope is that whoever it is, he waits till he sees blue sky before pulling the trigger.
