The Furnace

by Timothy S. Johnston

  Her brow crinkled. “A brain tissue sample is the only thing I can think of,” she said. “Take a few neurons, check them for nanos—”

  Malichauk had said the same thing, but it was too invasive. We needed something simple, fast and easy to do. “There must be a better way.” I backed toward the hatch. “Think of something. For me.”

  “Wait!” she yelled. “What will you do until then?”

  I hesitated. “I guess I have to prove I’m still human.” I had come up with the plan on the way over from the command center. It was crazy, but it was all I had. I swallowed. “I’m going to get Malichauk, Brick and Bram. Perhaps they can help.”

  Silence. Then, “What?” Her jaw hung open.

  “Malichauk designed the nanos. He might still help us develop a test for them.”

  Rickets snorted. “Why the hell would they help you create a test to detect the nanos? They want to remain hidden.”

  “They want to survive, Rickets. That’s all they want. Infect humanity and spread outward, yes, but in the end it’s the same thing.”

  “So?”

  “If I threaten them enough, Malichauk may talk. If they’re the only three left of their kind, death would be the end of it. I’m hoping they’ll do anything to avoid that.”

  * * *

  I thought furiously as I ran from engineering. There were three infected people out there—assuming Malichauk was indeed one of them—but I had no idea where. The way Brick and Bram had disappeared and damaged the station’s power distribution implied that they had planned this for some time. I was a stranger on the station. Brick had brilliantly manipulated me, and I suddenly found myself alone in unfamiliar territory.

  Simply hiding on the station as Shaheen developed a test was high on my list of options. But if she failed to come up with something, then it would mean nothing but a short wait until the batteries drained and the air ran foul. Or perhaps until we burned alive under Sol’s intense heat and radiation. Neither was a promising alternative.

  Second, I could go back to the command center and let Manny restrain me. It would prove my good intentions, and I could simply wait for Shaheen’s test.

  I pressed my lips into a thin line. That put too much faith in people who were growing increasingly paranoid. No, I couldn’t go back. It would be suicide.

  Locating Brick, Malichauk and Bram seemed the most reasonable option. Malichauk had disappeared only two hours earlier. If he had been uninfected at the time, then he still had sixteen and a half hours before the nanos took hold.

  But if they had infected him some time ago...

  Could he already be one of them?

  I shoved the thought aside. I would deal with that scenario if and when I actually located him.

  Brick Kayle made me nervous. If I found him, I would have to make sure to surprise him. If I didn’t, a one-on-one confrontation could end either way. This was no tough-talking, soft-bellied punk who tended bar in a sleazy dive on Mercury. Brick was military. He was fit, and he was well trained.

  Bram O’Donnelly, Manny’s big, red-bearded friend, was also a question mark. Was he armed?

  A shudder passed through me. The nanos had amplified in Bram and taken control right under our noses. We had never noticed. There had been absolutely no change in behavior or appearance.

  It was enough to frighten anyone.

  * * *

  First on my list of priorities was a place to hide. I needed sleep; my body was screaming at me, and a headache that had begun during the autopsies was beginning to make itself felt with each pounding step I took. I regretted not grabbing something from the clinic to relieve it while I’d had the chance.

  Where could I go? I needed a place where nobody could stumble across me, even accidentally. I also needed to think in quiet, to come up with a more concrete plan.

  It was too bad I didn’t know the station as well as the regular personnel. Shaheen had mentioned something about ventilation and maintenance ducts, but I didn’t know where they were or how to access them. The crew and officers’ quarters were out of the question, although picking an obvious place to hide had its merits.

  “Think, dammit,” I muttered. The undamaged supply module? Too easily accessible. The scientists’ labs and quarters? Too obvious. The mass-driver module? Possibly, but there were few good hiding spots there. It was unfortunate that I had jettisoned the life pods. I might have hid in one, behind a hatch and away from prying eyes.

  I came to a sudden stop. I needed a place that was separate from the station and not too easy to access.

  The jumpship in the docking bay.

  It was perfect. I could seal the hatches on either side of the docking umbilical. I could lock the ship with a security code different from the Captain’s. It had a tiny galley and lavatory facilities. It had a bunk.

  I switched directions and made straight for Module G.

  * * *

  Once inside the umbilical, I sealed the first hatch and frowned inwardly. It was part of the station and therefore responded to the captain’s emergency access code, which Brick knew. There was no way I could change it.

  I pulled myself along the handholds inside the flexible tube’s zero-gravity environment. I needed some sort of alarm, I thought, as I worked the ship’s air-lock controls. Something to warn me if someone tried to gain entry. There was nothing like that on board the small jumpship, unfortunately. Perhaps in the station’s supply module? I disregarded the idea immediately. Sleep was too important. After a few hours—maybe three—I could risk a trip to the stores to try to find a motion detector or a simple trip wire that I could set up.

  After I hit the gravity of the jumpship’s air lock, I sealed the outer hatch. Since multiple people piloted the ship, there was no firewall protection, and I easily assigned a new code to the security system. I then sealed the inner air-lock hatch with yet a different one. If someone wanted in, they would now have to get through two locked hatches.

  The interior smelled acrid from the destruction I had caused earlier. The narrow access-junction hatch that led back to engineering was still open; within, the gravtrav equipment was in ruin. Parts had clearly shorted, and the odor had invaded the living compartment.

  I searched the ship to make sure I was alone, collapsed on the bunk in the tiny cabin and fell instantly asleep.

  * * *

  I awoke to the sound of heavy banging on the outer air-lock hatch. I bolted from the bunk—located only two meters from the inner hatch—and looked around, frantic.

  “Dammit!” I swore. They had found me. Had I been that obvious?

  There was only one way into the ship—through that air lock. I had locked both hatches, but someone determined enough could probably get in anyway.

  There were seemingly no options. I had completely destroyed the ship’s control systems, the gravtrav, everything. There was nothing to do but wait for them to enter, in which case I would have to deal with them violently. I jerked a glance toward the control cabin. The console was an absolute mess. The access panel lay on the deck where I had thrown it; severed optics were everywhere. Too bad I couldn’t just undock the ship and leave this terrible place...

  Undock the ship and leave.

  The thought triggered a crazy idea. I had destroyed all means of propulsion—I wasn’t going anywhere—but what if I deactivated the magnetic grapples that held the ship to the bulkhead in the docking bay? The ship would float gently away from the station’s air lock and stretch the umbilical until the tension grew too great. Umbilicals weren’t very strong; they only contained a single atmosphere of pressure, and they were flexible.

  Tear the umbilical with someone inside.

  I scrambled to the tiny control center and stared at the deck. “Shit,” I moaned. I had cut every optic cable I could get my hands on, including minor sy
stems such as the grapples. The magnets were locked in place.

  A muted hiss.

  I sprinted back to the air lock and peered through the tiny viewport. Nothing. I opened the inner hatch and stepped into the small enclosure. The hiss was louder now. I pressed my hand against the outer hatch. Was air escaping? No, the sound was too shrill. Was it a drill? No, there were no vibrations transferred up the deck. Was it a—

  “Oh, fuck,” I muttered. I had heard the sound before. Many times, in fact, at docking facilities all around the system. It was common during routine maintenance on ships that had just arrived or were soon to depart.

  It was a torch. They were cutting their way in with a welding torch.

  * * *

  I sealed the inner hatch and raced back to the shattered control console. I threw myself under it and frantically searched for the docking system’s optic cables. It would be a minor bundle, probably only seven or eight cables in all.

  The hiss of the torch seemed to grow louder, though it had to be my imagination. They weren’t through the outer hatch yet. I had maybe a few minutes remaining, ten at most. In order for this to work, I had to undock while whoever was trying to burn their way in was still out in the umbilical. If he managed to get through that first door and into the ship’s air lock, I was done for.

  I shoved my head as far under the console as possible and searched in vain. Where the hell was the docking system? All I could see were the ragged ends of severed cables, barely protruding through the far bulkhead.

  After a minute, I pulled myself out, exasperated. When I had cut the cables, the colored labels that denoted each cluster’s function had fallen to the deck. They now lay heaped in a mass at my feet. There was no way to determine each one’s purpose.

  I had done too thorough a job.

  “Fuck!” I yelled, hands clenched at my sides. What the hell could I do? When I had cut these, only gravtrav and communications had been necessary, but I had decided to slice them all just in case. I might as well have slit my own throat.

  A flicker of light caught my eye. I turned to its source and realized that the flame of the torch had penetrated the outer hatch and now stabbed into the air lock. The inner hatch viewport strobed, as if in warning of what was to come.

  Only about two minutes remained.

  I removed my pistol from its thigh holster. This was not want I wanted, but there was no other way. The magnetic grapples and docking jets were my only hope, but I had destroyed the—

  The controls! I had only damaged the controls, not the actual equipment! The grapples worked just fine. All I had to do was gain access to the equipment and cut power manually. Without power, the magnets would shut down and the ship would float free.

  I sprinted back to the living area and ripped open the hatch that led to the narrow maintenance-access junction. I moved as quickly as I could through the tiny, twisting passage. Gravtrav was demolished; optics lay strewn on the deck, and shards of circuit boards and processors spilled from its panel. I glanced at the labels on the equipment as I flew by.

  “Waste Jettison...Recycling...Exterior Lighting...Interior Lighting...Environmental Controls... Shit! Where could it—Docking Jets/Grapples!”

  I lunged at the panel and practically tore it from its hinges. The controls within were absurdly simple, just backups of the main board in the command center.

  I stabbed at the buttons and hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The ship shuddered slightly as the grapples separated from the dock bulkhead. The automatic mechanism retracted, and as the magnets withdrew, the maneuvering jets fired. They were simply tiny bursts of compressed air with no heat or exhaust—they were meant for use in pressurized docking bays only.

  The jumpship inched from the bulkhead.

  I visualized it as it happened. The ship pulled away at a few centimeters per second, the umbilical stretched, its folds grew more and more taut—

  The hiss of the cutting torch ceased suddenly. Its operator hadn’t made it into the jumpship’s air lock yet, thank God.

  I jabbed the button again in an attempt to speed the jumpship. The docking jets were minuscule, however—merely pinpricks on a whale’s skin, and only used for the tiniest of velocities. I sped back to the air lock and jammed my face against the viewport to peer out. I could see the black tracing of the torch’s cut; it circled over three quarters of the exterior hatch.

  It had been close.

  The ship shivered and yawed slightly to port. Another shudder and a tearing sound reverberated through the hull.

  It had worked!

  The umbilical ripped under the stress, and I heard a clang as the cutting equipment inside spilled out and hit a glancing blow off the hull of the ship. The person within had probably raced back to the safety of the station. Even had he stayed, however, he wouldn’t have been in any real danger. He would just be floating outside in null gravity, flailing in the darkness of the great cavernous expanse, helpless.

  Who was it? Brick maybe? Bram? Malichauk?

  I realized with a start that I had to get out of the jumpship immediately. I was still in great danger; they knew where I was.

  As I cycled the air lock, I watched with trepidation as the charred hatch slid aside slowly. I was worried the jagged cut would get hung up on the lock mechanism and jam, but thankfully, it whispered aside. My breath blew out in a rush. I was damn lucky.

  I peered into the docking bay.

  It was nearly pitch-black. Some red emergency lights shone from the bulkheads, but they were so far away that the air in the bay largely scattered the glow by the time it reached me. The torn umbilical was plainly visible; its white metallic fiber reflected what little light there was. Recesses in the bulkhead beside it marked the three other retracted umbilicals, and the hatches within were barely visible under red spotlights. I could see the gloom of the station’s corridor lights just beyond the small round viewports.

  I made sure the pistol was still secure in my holster, took a deep breath and jumped into the abyss.

  * * *

  The nine modules that made up the bulk of the station were all identical from the outside—fifteen meters across and forty in length. It was into that huge, empty space that I flung myself, with the hope that I could escape in the darkness.

  I aimed for the umbilicals along the length of the bay. One was now a tattered mess; monstrous gashes traced across its length. I felt a surge of nausea as I left the ship’s artificial gravity field. As I sailed through the empty darkness, a pit of molten dread formed in my gut. I wasn’t going to make it—I was a few meters off.

  And then I saw a face appear in the viewport of the hatch I had aimed for.

  Bram O’Donnelly.

  * * *

  He looked determined as he gazed into the bay. His eyes flitted about in vain.

  He couldn’t see me!

  I soared closer and closer, helpless and unable to stop my movement. I hoped he would withdraw, but inside I knew there was no chance of that. He realized I was in here, somewhere.

  His plan was clearly different from Brick’s. Bram wouldn’t stop until I was dead or infected.

  Either outcome would be the same in the end.

  * * *

  The hatch and the face in the viewport disappeared beneath me, and as I hit the bulkhead I scrabbled for purchase on the safety rungs. I hoped he hadn’t seen me; he had been cupping his hands on the glass as he tried to peer into the docking bay, clearly having difficulty seeing.

  The hatch sighed open.

  He was only three meters below me now, and he thrust his head out beyond the bulkhead threshold and searched in all directions. He jerked his head from side to side, and I desperately hoped that he would not look up. After all, he was still standing in the statio
n’s gravity well. The docking bay, on the other hand, was a zero-g environment, where conventions such as right, left, up and down simply did not exist.

  I held my breath.

  He looked up.

  “Shit,” I muttered as our eyes locked.

  “Hello, Inspector,” he snarled. He raised a pistol.

  I tucked my feet under me, gave a massive push off the bulkhead and soared into open space. As I pushed off, I twisted sideways and brought my own pistol to bear. I squeezed the trigger and a blast of energy lashed toward Bram.

  He ducked back into the station, and the energy pulse hit the deck where he had stood only an instant before. It left a charred smear on the smooth steel.

  The recoil of my weapon added to my velocity, and I suddenly realized that I was going way too fast. I could hurt myself if I hit the far bulkhead at this speed.

  I wrenched myself around and took aim at an innocuous space on the surface I was speeding toward. I fired once, twice, three times before I finally slowed to a near halt. I gasped for breath and tried to calm my rapid heartbeat. Despite my experience tracking and fighting killers, this situation had me unnerved.

  Turning back to the entrance, I swore under my breath. There were only four hatches leading out of here, and Bram was in the corridor that lay outside each.

  I heard a sudden crash and turned just in time to see the jumpship crush against the bulkhead. Its velocity, although minuscule, had finally led to a collision. The gravtrav pods—protrusions on the ship’s hull—hit first with a sickening crack. The hull crumpled at the point of impact, and vapor from the ship’s cooling system immediately began to surge out.

  Once any mass started to move, it took energy to stop it. In this case, the bulkhead had done the job rather nicely. I had ruined the ship—inside and out, now.

  I examined the viewports and wondered what Bram was up to. The hatch where he had just been was still open; the others were sealed tight. I could see the dim hallway beyond each.