Beyond the Ice Limit

by Preston, Douglas

  There was a moment of stasis. And then worms surrounding the thing came whipping down the duct toward him, keening and scrabbling, their black teeth poking out.

  He tossed the second zapper and made another direct hit, with its attendant flash of electricity. At this the thing ruptured open, expelling a foul, jelly-like mass of half-formed worms.

  Garza crawled backward as fast as he could go, but the worms coming at him were faster. As they caught up to him he zapped them with a third prod; as he did so, the worms would make a little screech, then contract into grotesque, pretzel-like shapes.

  “Get going!” he shouted. “Retreat to the nearest opening!”

  A worm reached him, slashed at him; Garza zapped it, then zapped another. One after the other after the other. But his zapper’s recovery time was slowing. The battery would soon be dead.

  “Give me the other one!”

  Moncton handed Garza the last prod.

  “There’s a big vent here!” a voice called from behind.

  “Exit!”

  The men dropped out of the vent, Garza last, followed by a river of worms.

  “Forget the worms!” he shouted. “Run!”

  They had come out in the corridor beyond the engine room, and they all immediately took off, ducking beneath a bulkhead door. Garza slammed and dogged it behind them.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he said, leaning against the door and gasping for breath. He had cuts all over his hands from the slashing worms.

  “You think there are more of those breeders?” Moncton asked.

  “The way our luck is going, I sure as hell do,” Garza replied, pulling out his radio to call Bettances. “And at the rate those worms are being pumped out, I’ll lay you ten to one we’re all zombies by lunchtime.”

  59

  PATRICK BRAMBELL AND Antonella Sax emerged onto the hangar deck shortly after the sun rose over the rim of the ocean.

  “What remarkable weather we’ve been having,” said Brambell cheerfully as they strolled across the hangar. “Nice of that approaching storm to hold off long enough for us to accomplish our goal.”

  “Really remarkable.”

  The DSV John sat in its rolling cradle, strapped down and draped in canvas. No one was around; the ship was in an uproar and all security personnel had been pulled off to assist in the hunt for worms.

  “Are you sure you know how to operate this thing?” asked Brambell.

  “Part of Glinn’s habit of ‘double overage,’ you know: safety in redundancy. Really, it’s rather like playing a video game. Joystick-controlled. Pretty simple. Although in this instance I’ll have to disable the autopilot AI and turn off the surface override. Otherwise, the do-gooders might try to pull me back up and stop our mission.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I was in mission control when they forced Gideon Crew’s DSV back to the surface. Back when Alex Lispenard went to her new home. I saw them open the procedures manual on how to override the AI and the DSV operator’s control. I saw the codes.” She shook her head. “If they hadn’t meddled so unnecessarily like that, maybe Dr. Crew could have come home then, too.”

  Once again, Brambell considered how profoundly misconceived the entire mission was. An intelligent, alien life-form had come to earth. And what was mankind’s first response? Kill it.

  How sad. And yet how predictable.

  “All right, let’s take a look at this,” he said.

  They each gripped an edge of the tarp and slid it off, exposing the mini sub. It looked fresh and new, gleaming in the sodium lights of the hangar, ready for its next dive, iron ballast already attached. Sax walked around, unclipping the tie-downs that held it in place on the cradle. She climbed into the motorized cart used to haul the DSVs to and fro, backed it up, and attached it to the towing pin.

  “Open the hangar doors,” she said.

  Brambell rolled back the double doors, the sunlight pouring in. What a beautiful day it was, he thought, as he looked out to the distant sea horizon. A beautiful day in which to open a channel of communication—real communication—with the life-form. It had tried to speak to them in blue whale speech. If it could learn that, it could surely learn English. Indeed, with all the chatter it must have been picking up, chances were it already knew some English. He breathed deeply, thinking about the momentous step they were about to take—not for themselves, but for all humankind.

  He stood in the warm spring sun and watched Sax expertly tow John into position under the A-frame crane, get out, unhook it. She waved him over.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Daydreaming. About being part of a day that will go down in history.”

  She laughed and gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Come on, we’ve got work to do. Help me roll that ladder into position.”

  They took the rolling ladder and together wheeled it over to the DSV. Brambell held the ladder in place, then watched her derriere as she climbed up and attached the crane’s two cables to hooks on the DSV. Then she came back down. “What are you grinning about?”

  “You.”

  She smirked. “I’m getting inside. Do you see that console over there? Those are the controls for the crane. Once again, joystick-operated. You know how to use a joystick?”

  “Oh, dear,” said Brambell. “Never in my life.”

  She took his hand. “I’ll show you. It’s easy. Just try not to bump me around too much before putting me in the water.”

  At the console she demonstrated up, down, sideways for the boom, plus the control to raise and lower the cables. And finally, the button that unhooked the DSV. “Don’t hit that button until I’m in the water, floating, with the cables slack.”

  “Understood. Ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Brambell helped her onto the ladder and watched her climb up to the hatch at the top. The DSV really did look like the Yellow Submarine. Brambell had always felt a special affiliation with the Beatles, on account of his grandfather, the actor Wilfrid Brambell, having played Paul McCartney’s fictional grandfather in the film A Hard Day’s Night.

  “Okay, Patrick!” She waved to him and gave him a thumbs-up. He smiled and waved back, and then she descended and shut the hatch.

  Brambell looked around to see if anyone was paying attention. There was a knot of people at one end of the aft deck, talking or arguing, but they paid him no heed. His mind was unusually clear, and he remembered the directions perfectly. He maneuvered the joystick. The cables tightened, raising the sub from its cradle. When it was clear of the cradle, he pushed the crane stick sideways and the crane obediently swung away from the A-frame, carrying the DSV until it was dangling over the stern. Checking to make sure there was plenty of clearance, he lowered John to the water, where it settled in, still buoyant. He pressed the button that disengaged the hooks, and the DSV was free.

  “Good luck, Antonella,” he said to himself under his breath, as a rush of air bubbles around the DSV indicated Sax was filling ballast tanks. The mini sub sank beneath the surface. He watched for a few minutes as it went down and then disappeared.

  Brambell felt a certain loneliness steal over him. He had to admit he was a bit in love with Sax. But he would see her again, and soon—he was certain of that.

  Leaving the console, he wandered back into the hangar, feeling restless and anxious. He wondered what there was to do now. It did seem as if there should be more to do, and then it occurred to him what it was: stop this insane use of the nuke. He wasn’t sure when that was supposed to be deployed, exactly, but it didn’t matter: he could stop that right now.

  At the far end of the hangar, set apart from everything else, was another draped submersible. It was not a manned DSV, but a smaller ROV. That, he knew, was the intended delivery vehicle for the bomb.

  It would be a simple matter to make sure the ROV never delivered a bomb anywhere.

  Antonella Sax worked the controls of John as it descended into the depths. She located the main p
anel, then punched in the code to deactivate the mini sub’s AI and disable any surface override of her autopilot. She felt a sensation of warmth and security as the DSV was enveloped in darkness. She could almost feel the massive weight of water pressing in on it relentlessly, increasing with every meter she sank. There was a feeling of anticipation, of excitement, as she was about to perform perhaps the greatest mission ever conducted by a human being.

  As she descended, humming a little tune to herself, she saw movement: a head poked out of a gap in the electronics, a small head with two beady eyes and a tiny puckered mouth. The mouth opened, exposing a single tooth.

  “Who are you?” Sax asked playfully.

  As if in response, the little creature crawled out of its hiding place and came over, curling up against her thigh for warmth.

  She touched it. “There’s a good boy,” she said, stroking it as it relaxed in contentment. “There’s a good boy.”

  60

  GREG MASTERSON HAD gathered the mutineers in the rec room, adjacent to the staff quarters, to explain the plan of attack. They had arrived well equipped with weapons. Many had knives, but some of the ex-servicemen had their sidearms, as well. At the last minute, the group had been joined by two of the security guards who had been sweeping for worms, including the deputy security chief, a man named Vinter. Vinter was a godsend: he not only knew the layout of the ship by memory, but also knew its security protocols and codes.

  As the men and women assembled in the room, Masterson thought about what was coming. He had no illusions. But what had to be done had to be done. That this crazy mission kept going forward, even in the face of obvious failure, suggested to him that the top officers weren’t just affected by bad judgment, but may have actually been infected: perhaps all of mission control, or the entire bridge.

  He looked around. Everyone appeared ready. “Okay, listen up.”

  Silence fell.

  “We’re very fortunate to be joined by Mr. Eyven Vinter. He was, or rather still is, deputy chief of security. I’m going to turn the floor over to him to describe the plan we’ve worked out.”

  Vinter, a massive man with a charismatic presence, stepped forward. “The primary goal is to take the ship’s bridge. The key element will be surprise. The secondary goal is to take over, or at least incapacitate, mission control. With those two objectives complete, we will proceed directly to Ushuaia.”

  His tone was blunt and direct, and he spoke with a quiet, pleasing Scandinavian accent.

  “The captain and officers will defend the bridge with a strong sense of duty. We may need to resort to violence. But no one on the bridge is likely to be armed. Only security is allowed to carry arms on the bridge—and there is no security there at the present time.”

  A steely look around the room. No one flinched.

  “The bridge is designed to stop entry by anyone who might try to commandeer the ship. There are only two points of ingress, port and starboard doors. Quarter-inch steel. Under normal operations, those doors are left open. So we go in fast and hard, taking them by surprise, and seize control of the openings to prevent the doors from being shut and locked. Once we gain control of the bridge, then we turn the bridge’s defenses to our own purpose by sealing the doors.”

  Masterson stepped forward. “Thank you, Mr. Vinter. Any questions?”

  “What about the engine room?” someone asked. “Can’t they shut down the engines from there?”

  “Yes,” said Vinter. “But once we’re safely in control of the bridge, we can make our case, via the ship’s intercom, which we will also control, to the rest of the crew. They can conceivably shut down the engines and power, but that will only render the Batavia dead in the water. Not much use in that—and not a good means of persuasion.” He paused, and then said with quiet and unshakable conviction: “We will have the upper hand. We will prevail.”

  As Masterson looked out over the group, he saw that this man, with his rock-like presence and quiet voice, was having a galvanizing effect. “We can’t wait,” he said. “Word will leak out—it always does. So we’re doing this now. Are you all with us?”

  Everyone was.

  “There are twenty of us. We’re going to divide into five groups of four. We’ll head toward the bridge, strolling easily through the corridors, chatting lightly, attracting no attention. We’ll converge at the lower bridge deck below the companionway—but there will be no pause. Just keep up the momentum, rush the doors, and secure them. Those with firearms, cover the officer of the watch, the captain, and the other bridge officers. If they resist, shoot—but only as a last resort. Those with knives, take up a defensive position at the doors.”

  Masterson paused. He realized he was sweating. He felt afraid. But when he glanced over at Vinter, standing beside him, he grew reassured. He wasn’t afraid. The man exuded confidence.

  “What if the bridge doors are already locked?” someone asked.

  “They won’t be,” said Vinter. “That’s against all security protocols. But on the off chance they are—if there has been a recent worm attack, for example—then I will talk us in, as deputy chief of security.”

  Masterson divided the people into groups and sent them off on different paths, all of which would converge at the bridge. He led one group. They took a somewhat roundabout route forward, trying to look nonchalant. As they moved through the ship, Masterson was struck by the atmosphere on board; while some people were still going about their business, much of the crew seemed idle, standing about in agitated groups. Others were obviously inebriated, and one man lay in a corridor, empty bottle in hand, passed out. The withdrawal of security to sweep for worms, the lack of sleep, and the rampant suspicions among the crew about who might have been infected had caused a sharp deterioration in morale.

  It only reinforced Masterson’s belief that they needed to get this ship into port as soon as possible. They could deal with the worm infestation once people were off the ship—burn the vessel to the waterline, scuttle it if necessary, put everyone in quarantine until the infected could be identified. But decontaminating the ship wasn’t his immediate problem. Right now, his problem was getting them the hell out of there.

  As he walked, he felt the bulge of the .45 Vinter had given him. Masterson wasn’t a gun enthusiast, but he’d hunted with his father and knew how to aim and fire a pistol. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to use it.

  He led his group to the lower bridge deck, where the others were now converging. Without acknowledgment, they climbed the stairway to the bridge deck. The port bridge door was indeed open. Vinter was ahead of him, and he had his gun out. The man stepped easily through the door, Masterson following.

  Everyone on the bridge was so focused on their individual tasks that no one even looked in their direction. Masterson watched as Vinter raised his gun, casually aimed, and fired at the officer of the watch, hitting him in the back. The sound of the gun going off was incredibly loud, and the man went down as if he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The cold-bloodedness of it froze Masterson. This wasn’t what Vinter had said was going to happen.

  First Officer Lennart, who was standing next to the officer of the watch and was, to Masterson’s surprise, armed with a sidearm, spun, drew and fired her own weapon with astonishing rapidity. Vinter was hit and thrown back against the wall. She fired again, the bullet whining just below Masterson’s ear. She kept coming, kept firing; Masterson fell back through the door as a third round banged off the steel doorjamb; meanwhile, the rest of the bridge personnel were drawing weapons—they all had weapons—and were charging the mutineers, returning fire.

  Vinter, up against the inside wall of the bridge, fired his weapon a second time and dropped Lennart with a bullet that, all too obviously, took out her heart and its attendant plumbing. He fired again, hitting another officer, even as he himself took a second round. He staggered back through the door, bullets ricocheting around him, sparks flying. He took cover behind the door, and a moment later it was slammed shu
t. Masterson threw himself against it to force it back open, but it was too late: it was sealed.

  An alarm sounded on the ship’s emergency system.

  “Son of a bitch!” Vinter roared, blood pouring from an ugly wound in his shoulder and another in his forearm. There was confusion among the mutineers behind them.

  A shot was fired in the companionway, then another. “We’re under attack from behind!” someone yelled.

  Vinter swung around and, still bleeding, charged down the stairs, gun still in hand. The others followed. Several security officers, converging on the scene, began shooting and took down a couple of mutineers, but were themselves quickly cut down by Vinter and some of the others.

  “Retreat to staff quarters!” Vinter shouted. “To quarters!”

  They raced along the maindeck, people scattering as they charged past. There was very little additional security to be seen. Vinter plunged down the companionway to the staff quarters; as they poured through, he slammed and dogged the door.

  “Seal the doors in back!” he cried. “We can defend this space!”

  The doors were sealed. Vinter leaned against the wall, his hand pressed on the gunshot wound in his shoulder.

  “We’ve got to get you help,” said Masterson.

  The man gave an ugly laugh. “Get me some bandages and compresses and I’ll be fine.”

  There was bewilderment and confusion among the mutineers who had managed to get back. “What the hell happened?” one asked.

  “They were armed,” Vinter said. “The presence of the worms must have changed the no-arms protocol. My fault.” He sagged down into a chair as the rest gathered around. “We can hold out here—we’ve got food and water. And arms. It’ll be hell for them to root us out—it would take cutting torches or explosives to get through those doors, and we’ll be keeping a watch to nip any of that in the bud. Besides, they have other things on their minds.”