by Phil Rossi
Phil Rossi
Crescent
www.dragonmoonpress.com
Crescent
Copyright © 2009 Phil Rossi
Cover Art © 2009 Neil Aschliman
All rights reserved. Reproduction or utilization of this work in any form, by any means now known or hereinafter invented, including, but not limited to, xerography, photocopying and recording, and in any known storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without permission from the copyright holder.
ISBN 10 1-896944-52-3Print Edition
ISBN 13 978-1-896944-52-4
ISBN 13 978-1-897492-04-8 Electronic Edition
Dragon Moon Press is an Imprint of Hades Publications Inc.
P.O. Box 1714, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7, Canada
www.dragonmoonpress.com
www.crescentstation.net
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
(acknowledgements)
The journey to bring Crescent to the page began, as of this printing, two years and two months ago, almost to the day—when I released the first episode of a podcast that became bigger than I could have imagined. In that span of time, there have been many late nights and just as many early mornings spent doing my damndest to craft the best story I could possibly tell. I’ve now come to realize that the journey began long before I wrote the opening sentence to Crescent. Many people have inspired and supported me along the way. I’m going to use this page to express my humble thanks to the following: Jen, for the seemingly endless solo nights and the unflagging support, for being one of the first sets of eyes to read the very first iteration of Crescent. Bren, for your laughter. Zach, for being the other first set of eyes and for your general demeanor as a surly bastard. Scott, for taking me under your wing and giving me honesty. Tee, for the beers, ears, and shoulders. Gabrielle, for making me a better writer. Lindsay, for coming in and influencing my writing at the right time. Steve, for keeping that barstool warm. Gwen for taking this book on. All of my listeners, for making this happen.
And thanks to Mom, Dad, Lisa, and Laura for being there from the beginning. I had this dream—there was an alligator… and a baby.
(Dedication)
This novel is for Jennifer and Bren
(Prologue)
Warm morning light fell from sun globes suspended high above Main Street, Crescent Station. The bazaar buzzed with activity as residents of the station went to and fro on their Saturday morning errands. Some shopped at rickety stands of metal and fake wood, examining fruit and vegetables with discriminating interest. Squealing girls stepped out of fashion booths, showing off potential purchases to their friends. Merchants shouted the merits of their goods, each seller trying to out-yell the next. A sidewalk cafe bustled with waitstaff ferrying out omelets and coffee to hungry patrons. A pub was across the busy causeway from the cafe, and the raucous sounds of a televised sporting event drifted through its metal batwing doors.
“This is boring,” Brian said as he tossed a few empty aluminum cans at the big, black collector robot’s feet. The machine looked foolish when it bent over to snatch up the scattered drinking containers. Its multiple arms whirred and clicked as they swept down and came back up with Brian’s trash, then crushed each can and placed it into the bin on the robot’s back. “I’m sick of playing with the bots, Will. We’ve been doing it all morning long.” Brian ran a hand through the mess of red hair atop his head.
“Yeah. I know… ” Will picked another can out of the trash and cradled it in his chubby hands. In truth, he never really got bored on Main Street. He liked to watch the people come and go. Fussing with the bots was Brian’s idea. Will would have been happy to sit in the cafe eating hash browns and watching the girls in the fashion booths. His stomach growled.
Brian looked up at Will and smiled, his green eyes twinkling. “I found something cool the other day. I haven’t checked it out yet, though. Thought we should go there together.” Brian glanced around and said in a conspiratorial voice, “Think I can trust ya?”
“Waddya mean?” Will said. “Yeah. Tell me what is!”
“I dunno, man. You’re not gonna tell your parents, are you?”
“What? No. Why would you say that?” Will’s round cheeks flushed. He knew why.
“Remember how they tanned our hides when they caught us playing on L Deck?” Brian asked. There was no way that Will could have forgotten, but Brian enjoyed making Will feel inadequate at every opportunity.
“Well, yeah.” Will said. It had been Will’s fault that they were caught playing where they didn’t belong. Will had slipped up when his parents asked him why he had come home so wet and dirty on that fateful day.
“I found a special hatch on L Deck,” Brian said.
“You went back to L?” Will couldn’t believe it. Brian’s parents had given their son such a whooping that Brian had hardly been able to walk for the better part of a week.
“Yeah, man. I found this little hatch in one of the alleys. It looked like it had been welded shut, but it was f’d up from the floods. I got the thing off without even trying. Wanna go explore?” Brian tossed a can to the collector. The robot caught it in midair, orange eye nodes flaring as it placed it into the bin.
“Do I? Shit yeah, I do,” Will said. He hoped he sounded convincing. He didn’t really want to go exploring. But he was afraid of Brian giving him a hard time.
“Even though we’re not supposed to be on L Deck?” Brian prodded.
“Whatever, man. Beats messing with the collectors.” Will placed his can back into the refuse bin.
(•••)
L Deck was quiet. The residential level had been abandoned for nearly a month after a water line busted in the worst possible way. L had been completely submerged. It had happened in the middle of the night, and as a result, a lot of people had died there. L was drained now, but it would be months before people were allowed to live there again. The result was a ghost town. Will looked around at the dark, gaping doors of abandoned apartments and shuddered. The place felt like a morgue. A week ago, Will and Brian had snuck down there to see if they could find any salvageable items in the empty apartments. Will had hated the idea, but Brian had a knack for being persuasive.
Will glanced at one of the open apartment doors. Starlight filtered in through a grimy window and illuminated a child’s stuffed animal, coated in black mildew.
The two boys wandered up and down the dimly lit station corridors for hours. Brian was paying no heed to the abandoned homes this time. Will was grateful. He felt dirty going through people’s things. Dead people’s things, at that. It just wasn’t right. No, Brian was set on finding his supposed hatch, and that was just fine by Will.
“Are you sure you remember where this hatch is?” Will said, hoping that Brian would say no and they’d be able to go back to Main Street.
“There it is!” Brian was pointing at a dark hole in the wall of the alley; the metal grating had been cast aside and lay in a pool of standing water. Will peered into the opening and could see nothing but darkness. He didn’t want to go in there. There were probably a dozen rats the size of housecats crawling around.
“Geez. I dunno, man. We probably shouldn’t do this. What if we get lost?” Will shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“What if we get lost?” Brian mimicked. “Geez, Will. Grow a freakin’ set, will ya? I’ve already checked it out. It’s a straight shot.” Brian pulled a small black flashlight out of his pocket and clicked it on, shining it directly into Will’s eyes. The boy squinted into the glare and grabbed at the
light, but Will was too slow and Brian snatched it away. Laughing, Brian got onto his hands and knees and spared Will a final look before disappearing into the shadows. Suddenly, the vacant corridor felt very much like a crypt, and although Brian was being an asshole, Will didn’t want to be alone. He took a deep breath and crawled after him.
The narrow passage was damp and reeked of mold. The air was choking, and Will’s nostrils burned. He could see the glow of Brian’s flashlight bobbing up ahead and crawled as fast as he could to catch up. Will worried that he was too fat to be in the tunnel and that he would get stuck, but when the tunnel descended at a steep angle that made it difficult to keep traction, he was thankful for his extra padding.
Will came out into a large compartment. Brian’s light disappeared, leaving it too dark to see. Will fumbled for his own flashlight, clicked it on, and screamed. Several hulking figures loomed in the center of the room. He heard Brian’s laughter somewhere close by. Will focused the beam of his light on the things. They were only collector bots, old and rusted, covered in a thick layer of dust. The big, multi-limbed robots were probably from the station’s original complement of worker bots. They looked scary, all rusty like that, but their power cells had run dead a long time ago. These collectors couldn’t hurt him. Will shivered, all the same. There was an open panel at the far end of the room, and Brian’s face appeared in the dark space.
“What are you waiting for? Come on, scaredy cat.”
Will ducked through the opening and came out into a wide causeway. A few ceiling panels glowed with a tawny light. Behind where the boys stood, the tunnel extended into alternating patches of weak light and complete darkness. Ahead of them, Will could make out a large door. Brian leaned against a bulkhead across from the hatch they had come through. The bulkhead looked like it had been sealed shut with a plasma caster; the seams were bloated with brownish, oxidized chrome. Brian tapped his foot with growing impatience. His arms were crossed over the chest of his now-dirty tee shirt and his pale, freckled complexion looked sickly in the flickering light. He gave Will the middle finger, turned, and ran into the shadows.
“Come on, man!” the slim boy called over his shoulder. “You gotta see this!”
Will caught up to Brian toward the end of the corridor. The tunnel terminated at a massive, black door. On it was painted a crude, red X. Written across the door in big yellow letters, Will read: Authorized Personnel Only. No Access.
“Holy shit,” Will gasped. “Is this… ”
“The Vault, Will. The freakin’ Vault. Can you believe it? I found the Vault. I thought I couldn’t get any more awesome than I already was. I guess I was wrong.”
“I didn’t even think it was real!” For a moment, Will forgot he was scared.
“What do you think is behind it?” Brian asked. “Biological waste? Dead things? They closed this part of the station for a reason.” Brian approached the door and reached out a hand to touch it.
“Don’t do that! What if there’s an alarm or something?” Will took a step forward.
“Oh, give me break. This place probably isn’t even on the grid. I mean, it’s not even supposed to be here.”
The air seemed to grow cooler. Will glanced up, expecting to see an air vent above his head—there was only a guttering light panel.
“Brian, let’s go. I don’t like it here.” The chill had reminded Will of his fear. A rat squealed in the shadows.
“Wanna run home to mommy? Go, run home, then. I’m gonna touch it,” Brian said, and smirked.
“No, Brian. Come on. This isn’t cool. Let’s go,” Will protested. Brian shook his head and placed his hand on the door. He recoiled.
“Wow. This thing is ice cold.”
“Happy now? You touched it. Can we please go?” Will turned to leave. A low groaning sound made him stop in his tracks. His breath caught in his throat.
“Did you hear that?” Brian said. He didn’t sound so brave anymore.
“Yeah. I heard it. Let’s go… ” Will said. Suddenly, he had to pee really bad.
“Wait.” Brian paused. “There it is again… Shit. Do you see that?”
Will turned back to the big door. A growing shadow seeped out from around its girth now, devouring the meager light. Brian was staring at it as it grew, his jaw agape. Will took another step back. The liquid darkness twisted toward Brian, growing and reaching like charcoal tentacles.
“Brian!” Will shouted, but Brian didn’t move; he stood transfixed. The shadows wrapped around him, an ethereal shroud of sable. Brian’s form seemed to go fuzzy, out of focus, for an instant. Then Brian finally moved. He turned his head at a sick angle and emitted a choked scream before the shadow completely enveloped him, cutting off the sound. Will took off running back the way they had come, flashlight pointed ahead of him to beat back the darkness. Hot tears ran down his face.
He dove through the small opening in the corridor wall and cried out at the sight of the rusted collector bots. Their dusty eye spots flared orange.
The joints of the robots whined and chirped as they moved for the first time in centuries. Will stood transfixed. Large segmented arms, thick with rust, reached out to embrace him. They were the last thing Will ever saw.
(Part I: 15 Years Later)
Gerald Evans tapped a floor vent with the toe of his boot.
The heat was blocked again.
Nothing but a vague whisper of warmth rose from between the metal slats, but Gerald was far too busy marveling at the backlog of messages that choked his communications terminal to worry about a blocked vent. Flushing the heating system was far from his mind. Much like with the vents, the comm system’s hard drive went months without regular purges. Even still, Gerald wondered why he had gone six months without a flush. He was bad, but not that bad.
Gerald hit the next page of messages. A video sat at the top of the queue. Oh. You again. The communication was six months old, to the day, and was the very reason Gerald had put off cleaning out the system. Liam’s last rites, Gerald thought and frowned. The message was the last time he’d heard from his brother. Sure, he could’ve deleted the message or, just as easily, he could have saved the message, but both actions would have represented final acceptance that he’d never hear from Liam again. Instead, Gerald had let the message linger until he had all but forgotten that it was still there. Gerald hit play and sat back in the control couch. The monitor blanked and then filled with the image of his brother. Liam’s dark hair was just beginning to gray. His delicately creased features were bright with the flush and smile of hopeful anticipation. Liam’s wife stood at his side. Long, thickly braided hair hung over one bare shoulder and she held Gerald’s nephew in her arms. The kid was just scraping at the one year mark. Chubby fingers tugged at his mother’s braid; she kept pushing the small, pink hand away.
“Hey Gerry. I was hopin’ you’d pick up,” his brother said. “We’ll be outta radio contact for a few weeks while we make this last cargo run and… Man, that feels weird to say. But, shit. This is it, little brother. The last run, and then retirement.” Liam smiled wide, as if he couldn’t contain his happiness. He paused and glanced at his wife and child and then returned his attention to the camera. “Look. Believe it or not, I didn’t call to give you a lecture. I know Mom always lays into you about this crap but, it is important. You haven’t saved a penny as far as any of us know. You’re not all that much younger than I am, Gerry. You can’t fly forever. The odds of something happening out there, they’re just not in our favor. Sooner or later…” Liam shook his head and smiled. “Ger, it’s never too early to start planning for retirement. So, that’s it. If I don’t get a chance to talk to you, be safe and be well. I’ll shoot you a line when we get to Habeos. Seriously, though, do call me back if you get a chance.”
“End of message,” the terminal stated in a clipped and metallic voice. And end of the line, brother.
He noticed the lack of warmth, then.
Gerald Evans harbored no particular l
ove for space. It was always cold. The chill possessed a knack for entering uninvited. Tenacious as hell, even the thickest of hulls couldn’t keep the cold out. It didn’t even knock. The quiet—that was another thing. Reinforced plating wouldn’t keep that silence out, either. Gerald Evans didn’t have a hard-on for space; but between the stars, the floating rocks, and the endless dust, lay the salvage. And hauling salvage was how Gerald made a living.
He reached out and removed one of several photographs taped to the control console. The snapshot showed a picture of Gerald, standing between Liam and his wife. How long ago had the picture been taken? A year? Maybe a little more? Gerald laughed. He was nearly bald in the picture—a victim of a tragic haircut. His dark hair, previously thick and wavy, had been cropped so close to the skull that his scalp was visible. The playful ridicule from Liam and his wife had been without mercy.
That was the last time Gerald had actually seen Liam and his family.
He ran a hand over his head; the hair was longer again.
Liam and his family had never arrived in Habeos. The search for the missing cargo pilot and his family was given up after just two months; Gerald’s mom just didn’t have the money to pay for an extension, and Gerald was no help there, either. Space had claimed itself another victim—three of them, for the price of one.
But those were the odds.
Gerald had shed his tears and spent his time grieving. There was nothing left to do to but…
“Message deleted.”
(•••)
Crescent was visible through the front viewport. The station was a disembodied talon, black-silhouetted as it floated six hundred and fifty kilometers above the gray-green expanse of the planet Anrar III. Starships, appearing as tiny globes of light from Gerald’s current distance, came and went from the bulbous docking hub at the top of the sickle. Gerald waved his hand over a swatch of controls and engaged the final approach. He watched as Crescent grew larger in the octagonal glass viewport. The space station’s hull bore the scars of centuries of small impacts. The metallic skin was pockmarked and scorched in spots. In other places, old breaches were mended with a patchwork of scrap material.
