Event Horizon

by Steven E. Mcdonald

  Behind her, two of the tanks began to fill with green gel.

  In Medical and on the ruined bridge, the bio-scans were going wild again, off the scale, the electronics distorting the data to try and make it fit within the parameters their designers had set.

  In the Second Containment, the Core darkened, rippling as energy built up within it. Dark lightning curled around it, reaching out to the control spikes.

  Reality ran like water.

  Behind Starck, something thudded against the side of one of the Gravity Couches, startling her out of her focus on the workstation. Before she could turn around, the sound came again.

  She expected to see Cooper, back from belowdecks.

  She stared for a long moment. Two of the Gravity Couches had filled with green gel, but the third was darker, more liquid. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought that the liquid was blood, but it could not be.

  Somewhere in the system, there had been a fluid containment failure, allowing the gel to degrade. She would have to drain the tank and activate another one.

  There seemed to be something moving in the tank. Slowly, she walked over to it, trying to focus, trying to figure out what could have gotten into the fluid. She had never heard of this sort of gel breakdown before, but Gravity Couches were not her area of expertise by far.

  She leaned toward the tank.

  Another low thud.

  A face pressed up against the glass of the tank, grinning at her.

  Weir.

  She screamed, backing away. Weir’s face had not finished forming yet, the skin incomplete, the white of bone showing through, muscle tissue flexing as he worked his jaw.

  “Cooper!” she screamed.

  The tank exploded in a torrent of glass shards and thick blood.

  Weir, still grinning, still forming, came for her.

  Cooper crouched in the access tunnel beneath the Gravity Couch Bay, working his way along the circuit panels, finally locating the breaker that controlled power to the emergency beacon. It had somehow been fused open.

  Working quickly, he rigged a bypass, restoring power. The panel in front of him lit up like a bad night in Las Vegas. It would take hours yet, but USAC

  would eventually pick up the distress beacon.

  He closed the panel and backed up.

  Something wet and sticky struck his shoulder, soaking into his flight suit.

  He turned his head, shocked, looked up. Blood was running in a rivulet along the ceiling, dripping at intervals.

  He started back toward the vertical access.

  “Starck?” he called. Blood was splashing into the access tunnel, far too much of it to be from one single person. “Starck?”

  He reached the ladder, moving cautiously to look upward.

  Starck fell, almost catching herself on the ladder, losing her grip. She was covered in blood. She landed awkwardly on the deck, rolled over, tried to get to her feet. Cooper bent to help her.

  “Run!” she screamed at him, shoving him away.

  He looked up.

  Weir oozed into the vertical access, staring down at them, coming headfirst down the ladder like a gigantic spider. He hissed as he moved. Cooper saw raw muscle, distorted tissue.

  Cooper ran. The Hellhound had arrived.

  Starck, staggering, came after him.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Miller knelt, opening the last of the charges, flipping the switch. This was the important one, marked with a red radio sigil. There was a second switch inside the container. He flipped it. A small cover popped open.

  Carefully, he reached inside and removed a small radio detonator. This system had been built with fail-safes in mind, granting the possibility that the computer-controlled systems might be offline or destroyed. In an emergency the Event Horizon’s crew could have made it home to Earth, given that they were still within this solar system, or to landfall on any seemingly hospitable planet.

  There were two buttons on the radio detonator, one green, one red. He pressed the green button.

  Red lights glowed through the gloom of the corridor, marking the location of the couplings. He was almost down at the First Containment now. He would be racing the clock to get back to the Gravity Couch Bay before the gravity drive activated.

  He found an intercom panel, keyed it. “We’re armed, she’s ready to blow,”

  he said. “Repeat, we are armed.”

  There was no reply from the intercom. “Starck, you copy? Cooper?”

  He swore under his breath. The only thing he could do now was run like hell and hope he made it.

  He turned.

  The corridor flared with red light, and heat washed over him.

  The burning man had returned, filling the corridor with fire from wall to wall, blocking Miller’s escape.

  “You left me behind,” the burning man hissed, his voice crackling and popping like flaring tinderwood.

  “Corrick…” Miller said, afraid.

  “I begged you. I begged you to save me.”

  “I couldn’t,” Miller said. Was there any hope that Corrick would ever understand? Did it matter? In his heart, he had always expected that amends would someday be due. “Do you think I didn’t want to?”

  “You abandoned me. You stood there and did nothing.” The voice crackled with anger and the flames brightened momentarily. The heat was threatening to suffocate Miller.

  “That’s not true!” Miller screamed.

  “You let me burn!” The flames were almost white as the burning figure howled, the howl becoming a terrible scream of rage and accusation.

  The burning man pointed. Fire poured around him, liquid and swift, flowing over the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

  Miller turned and ran frantically into the First Containment. An alarm shrieked. The flames were almost at his heels, chasing him like something alive as he fled into the separator and toward the Second Containment.

  The main door to the Second Containment was closing, either in answer to the Core, or in response to the flames. He pushed harder, dove headlong through the remaining gap, skinning his side on the door. The floor here was slick with coolant, and he could not get his balance. He slammed into the main workstation console, fetching up hard.

  The door was not quite closed. Flames gouted through the tiny opening, spewing towards him. He rolled aside, covering his head, feeling the heat of the fire going past him.

  The console exploded, showering him with hot plastic and metal, parts splashing into the coolant and ricocheting from the bulkheads and the door.

  He looked up. The door was shut firmly now. The paint on it bubbled with the heat from the other side, darkening.

  Miller stood up, carefully. He looked at the detonator in his hand, shaking his head. They were about out of time, and he regretted his reassurance to Starck. She would get Cooper and herself taken care of, no matter what.

  He was afraid of where he was going.

  Red light washed over him again, and his shadow grew tall in front of him.

  He turned, expecting to see his latest adversary. He took an involuntary step backward, shocked at the sight that greeted him.

  The Second Containment was a fury of fire, a wall-to-wall holocaust, fire flowing over the control spikes, over the surfaces, pouring through the air.

  The Core glowed cherry red, orange, its color shifting through blazing white, a small, corrupt sun in the heart of chaos.

  “Don’t leave me!”

  He turned toward the crackling voice. The burning man was beside him.

  Miller started to back away, but he was not fast enough. The burning man swung his arm, smashing it into Miller.

  Miller tumbled and slid, his clothes burning, his hair singed. He fell into the coolant, losing the detonator as he struck the deck. His head went under the muck and coolant went into his mouth, tasting foul.

  He rolled over and pushed himself up, spitting coolant out, choking from the taste, trying not to vomit. The coolant had
at least doused the flames on his clothes.

  The burning man was walking toward him, the coolant bubbling and steaming where his feet came down.

  Miller knew, now, knew the truth, or at least some of the truth. There had been just too much…

  “Look at me!” the burning man commanded, but Miller was not having any of that now.

  Facing the burning man, Miller shouted, “No! You’re not Edmund Corrick. I know you’re not… because I saw him die!”

  The burning man stopped.

  The flames faded away, leaving only a ghost of heat. The Second Containment was dark, humming with the power that was building.

  William Weir stood before him now, but this was not the Weir he knew. The body was larger, misshapen. The face was Weir’s, but the skin appeared to have the texture of wood. Runes had been etched into Weir’s forehead and cheeks.

  The monster had eyes. They glittered green, too large, too deep. There was a reptilian coldness there, a look that spoke of millions of years. The creature had some of Weir’s form, but it reeked of an alien nature that left Miller with a sense of horror that transcended anything he had ever felt.

  “Weir?” he said.

  “Weir is gone,” the creature said, but its voice was remarkably like that of the scientist. “The poor fool. He was reaching for the heavens, but all he found was me.”

  Miller stared, forcing himself past his reactions. “Well, what the fuck are you?”

  “You know what I am.”

  Without thinking, Miller swung, a right cross that the creature caught easily. Miller screamed as his fist was slowly crushed. Long nails cut into his flesh and blood ran.

  The creature hurled him away, into a bulkhead. Something cracked in Miller’s side, and he slid down, sitting in the coolant, stunned, barely able to breathe.

  The creature walked slowly toward him. “I am your confessor.” It bent to look at him, tilting its head. “Confess your sins to me. I feel the weight of Edmund Corrick’s death inside you.”

  Miller raised his head. “What do you want from me?” He was weary. He wished this would be over.

  “Respect,” the creature said, crouching to face him. “The reverence I deserve. Or did you think you could profane this place without it coming to my attention? Did you think you could come pounding on my door and I would not answer?”

  “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” Miller hissed.

  The creature grinned. “Kill you? I don’t want you dead. Just the opposite.

  I want you to live forever.” The creature reached out to him, grasping his head. Miller struggled, twisting. He could not break the creature’s grasp.

  “Let me show you.”

  Miller screamed.

  Images cascaded through his mind, horrific, endless. In moments he saw the bloody fates of the original crew, saw them torn apart, degraded, destroyed from within and without. He was drowning in blood and suffering, too much of it for him to accept, too much to withstand.

  “Do you see?” the creature asked, its parody of Weir’s voice almost a caress.

  Miller writhed, trying to break the contact, trying to make the horror stop.

  His hand struck something under the surface of the coolant. The pain jarred him free of the cascade of images for a moment, long enough. He reached down, grasping, found a familiar handle. A CO2 scrubber, dropped by either Smith or Peters.

  The visions surged back, swirling through his mind.

  “Do you see?” the creature whispered.

  He saw. Justin, Starck, and Cooper had been crucified upside-down over the Core, blood dripping from their bodies.

  “No!” Miller cried, thrashing. “They’re not dead! You didn’t get them!”

  “Not yet,” the creature said. “Soon. Very soon.”

  “No!” Miller screamed.

  He thrashed around again, and this time his head came away from the creature’s hands. He sank beneath the coolant for a moment, then surged up, bringing the CO2 scrubber up and around, slamming it into the creature’s head.

  The creature staggered back, shaking its head, blinking.

  Miller came to his feet. “Leave them alone!”

  He swung the scrubber again, with all the force he could muster, snapping the creature’s head around, making it stagger. He saw blood pouring from an open wound, filling the runes.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Miller screamed at the creature, letting the fury take him over. He swung the scrubber back and forth, scything, each blow sending the creature staggering back.

  He swung again.

  The creature reached up, snatching the scrubber out of the air, ripping it from Miller’s hands, hurling it away. In a blur, it had Miller, too, lifting him, flinging him into the coolant.

  Miller slammed into the deck, coolant washing over him. Pain flooded his body from head to foot. He knew things were broken, ribs, organs, there had to be internal bleeding.

  He could not move.

  The creature stood over him. An improbably long tongue eeled out of its mouth, licking at the bloody runes on its face. It smacked its lips, pleased.

  “Yes,” it hissed. “I had forgotten how good that can taste.”

  Miller lay in the coolant, moaning.

  The creature squatted over him. “You should be flattered I’ve taken an interest in you. Weir, the others… they were easy. But you will fight.”

  Beyond the creature, the Core was a deepening darkness, swelling outward.

  All around, the control rods were moving. Darkness seemed to be filling the universe.

  Dark fire flashed through the runes on the creature’s face, traveled down the length of its body, revealing more runes, intricately woven together.

  “You will struggle against me with every ounce of strength you possess…

  right up to the moment when you surrender to me willingly.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Miller hissed through clenched teeth.

  His fingers touched something small, hard in the coolant.

  A great deep rumbling filled the Second Containment. The control rods were entering the Core now.

  Hoping blindly, Miller closed his hand.

  “I don’t ask you to embrace me with blind faith,” the creature said, softly. “I will win you.”

  Will you now? Miller rolled over, getting to all fours, trying to get to his feet. It’s time, he thought, time to go.

  The creature kicked out.

  Miller slid again, pushing a bow wave of coolant ahead of himself. Pale fire ripped through him. At this rate he would not last much longer.

  Sorry, Starck, so sorry, he thought.

  He tried to rise again, and could not complete his movement. He fell back into the muck.

  In the distance, the Core swelled, its humming reaching a crescendo. Energy pulsed forth, along the control rods, rippling along the surfaces of the walls.

  The creature came down to him.

  Through a red haze of pain, Miller said, “You want me to pay for… mistakes?”

  “I want to reward you for them,” the creature said, smiling. It was a mass of brilliant runes now, growing stronger as the Core continued its progress.

  Reality had melted around the Core, the walls shifting, changing, vanishing, becoming part of the Core’s intolerable blackness. The universe was being swallowed by the heart of this ship.

  The Core grew, screaming.

  “You want me to burn in hell?” Miller said. “You want to take my soul?

  Sorry, it’s not for sale.”

  The creature was folding its body into a kneeling shape by him. It bent until its face was centimeters from Miller’s. He could smell the stink pf its breath over everything else.

  “I will give you endless days of pain,” the creature said, “immeasurable agony. The more profound your despair, the greater will be my pleasure. And, in the end, after all of it… you will thank me.”

  A surge of movement. The creature grasped Miller by the front
of his flight suit, lifting him from the coolant, holding him in the air, still eye to eye.

  Miller glared into the hellish corruption of Weir’s face, unwavering.

  “Do you see?” the creature said. It was framed by the chaos that had been the Second Containment. “Do you see?”

  “Yes,” Miller said, choosing his destiny there and then, regretting nothing, “I see.”

  He raised his fist, held it between their faces. Without irony, he said,

  “Go to hell.” He pressed the second button.

  Chapter Fifty

  Starck and Cooper were in a side corridor when the explosive charges went off. The Event Horizon seemed to lift and leap forward, pulling free, sending them both tumbling to the deck.

  They got up again, made it to a window.

  The drive section of the Event Horizon had plunged into the atmosphere of Neptune, some of its velocity leeched away by the separation of the foredecks.

  A black sphere was growing around the heart of the drive section, swallowing it up, growing. The blue clouds were swirling around it, a whirlpool forming. They were witnessing a black hole forming and working.

  The black sphere expanded rapidly, paused as it swallowed the main part of the drive section.

  Even more quickly, the black hole shrank, Neptune’s clouds becoming ever more agitated the more the Schwarzschild radius contracted. Within a few moments, all that was left was a dark gap in the cloudscape, and even that was being filled in as Neptune’s winds worked to erase the scar.

  Starck touched the cold quartz of the window, her heart breaking, knowing that her captain would not be coming back. The thing that had been Weir had suddenly abandoned its pursuit of the two of them, scenting more interesting game. She had known that Miller would not be returning, no matter how much of a brave face he had put on.

  She leaned against the window while Cooper watched the place where the other half of the Event Horizon had been. They would have to get into the Gravity Couches soon, taking their chances that USAC would mount another rescue mission. They might well drift forever, lost.