by Steve Perry
“Affirmative that,” the tech said.
The pilot worked a control.
“Uh-oh,” the tech said.
Both their screens showed that the hatch cover was still open.
“Somebody is going to be in real deep shit,” the pilot said.
“Got an EVA,” the tech said. “Hull pickup is still working.” The tech switched on the exterior lamps. “Look.”
The image of a spacesuited figure tumbled slowly in their field of view, brightly lit by the outside floods.
“Who the hell is that? What is he doing out there?”
* * *
Easley awoke.
What?
His throat!
He reached for it, found the ribbing of the suit with the gauntlet. He was in vac, zero gee, in a suit. Fluid from his wound floated up and clouded the suit’s visor. Frantically, Easley tried to speak. To call for help.
“Ungh! Gaugghh!”
He couldn’t make words.
He twisted his head, trying to see where he was.
There, there was the ship, but it was moving away!
He reached for his tool belt, looking for a squirt can, to push himself back to safety.
The tool belt was empty.
Panic gripped him in cold fingers. He coughed, choking from the wound in his throat. He was going to die!
No, no, wait, wait! They’d spot him. You couldn’t go EVA without the proximity detectors seeing you. The lights were on, they knew he was here. They’d send somebody out for him, it would only be a couple of minutes at the most. He’d be okay. They could patch him up—
Something drifted in front of his face. At first his obscured vision wouldn’t let him see just what it was. He pulled his head back as far as it would go, blinked several times. A small cylinder, about the size of a roll of quarter-credit coins, floated up against the plate. He slowly turned and the ship’s lights angled across his faceplate, giving him a better view. The cylinder had a digital counter on it—
The coldness stabbed Easley all the way to his bones.
The cylinder was an AP grenade. And the flashing numbers on it were going down.
Five… Four… Three…
“Nnnooo!” Finally, he managed a word.
It didn’t help. He was going to—
* * *
The hull pickups polarized as the blast of fight washed over them and the spacesuited figure shattered soundlessly into fragments. Body fluids crystallized almost instantly in the cold vacuum, spraying into frozen, colorless, gauzy clouds against pinpoints of distant stars in the blackness. Pieces of suit and flesh tumbled away, some hit the ship’s armor harmlessly.
On the bridge, the tech said, “Oh, man.”
The pilot merely nodded. What a way to die. He wondered if the guy knew what hit him. He hoped not.
15
In Houston, Likowski, James T., had been given the news.
There was a thing growing inside of him. Sooner or later, it was going to pop out of him like a birthday surprise, eating its way free, and when it was born, he would die. So long, Jim. Nice knowing you.
Simple.
He had been numb with the shock, and when that had worn off, the fear had claimed him. He was going to die.
Dr. Dryner and Dr. Reine were sorry, but there was nothing they could do.
“Can’t you kill it? Cut it out?”
“Not without killing you,” Dryner said. “It’s a very tenacious life form.” He was calm, as if he were discussing the weather. Easy for him. He didn’t have a monster growing in his belly.
“Oh, God.”
The two doctors stood next to where Jim sat on the bed, both of them safely wrapped in cleansuits. An armed guard stood just behind them, also suited. He had a handgun holstered on his right hip.
“So I’m like an incubation chamber for this thing.” It was not a question.
“Yes. Listen, if it is any consolation, your wife will get the full insurance. She’ll be taken care of.”
“Oh, right, that makes me feel a whole lot better.” The sarcasm made the words bitter. Now that he knew what it was, he was sure he could feel the thing moving inside him.
Getting ready to rip his guts out.
No!
“Hey!” he said, putting his hands over his belly. He suddenly stood up next to the bed, made himself sway a little.
The doctors showed concern.
“Likowski? Are you all right? James?”
“Telemetry, what’s going on?”
They weren’t worried about him, he realized, but about their pet creature inside him. Damn them.
“I—something’s happening!” He began to jerk, as if losing muscular control. Yeah, something was happening, all right, but not what they thought. He snatched his arm away from Reine, slapping the man’s face in the process. He danced in a little half circle, shivering.
Reine backed away. “Dammit!”
Come on, come on, get the guard over here!
“Give us a hand!” Reine ordered.
Good.
The guard, a burly man, wore his sidearm in a snatchproof rig, an old-style Delrin thumb-break strap keeping it safe in the holster. Jim knew about them, he’d done a tour in the Street Guard, they’d used the same kind of gear. If it had been a military hand ID unit, he wouldn’t have a chance, but it wasn’t, the guard was wearing gloves and the more sophisticated rig needed a bare hand for a print to register.
The guard grabbed him by the shoulders and Jim let himself be pushed toward the bed, where they could trigger the pressor field to hold him in place. “I’m—it’s okay, it’s gone now.” He pretended to relax. “Thanks for the help,” he said to the guard. He smiled.
When the guard smiled back from behind his clear faceplate, Jim reached down, rotated the thumb-break safety, popped the crow-tab, and pulled the gun from the holster. The weapon was a 4:4mm softslugger with a hundred-round magazine. The safety was in the trigger, it only had to be pulled. Jim twirled the pistol in his hand, pointed it at the guard, and fired.
Five rounds of hypervelocity softslugs tore into the man. The bullets were designed to mushroom on impact, to expend all of their energy on a human target without passing through the body. The entrance holes were small—the bullets would punch through class III body armor—but the missiles then expanded and dug craters the size of a baby’s fist through vital organs.
The guard fell. He wasn’t going to be getting up on his own.
Dryner and Heine turned to run, but Jim gave them two rounds each between the shoulder blades and they tumbled.
A siren hooted, over and over.
Jim turned to the mirrored wall and let go a dozen shots. The plastic chipped and shattered and he threw himself at it, falling through into a room with techs and more guards digging for weapons.
Jim came up, spraying the room. Men screamed and fell.
He paused long enough to dig out a spare magazine from the belt of a fallen guard, jamming it into the waistband of his hospital shorts. He ran.
Guards spilled into the hall. Jim shot them.
He found a keycard on a dead one next to the exit, waved the card at the scanner, and flattened himself against the wall as the door slid open.
Two guards came through, guns out. Jim emptied the last twenty shots in his softslugger into them. They fell like their legs had disappeared.
He ejected the empty magazine, snapped in the fresh one. Ran.
He made it to a building exit. Shot three unarmed people who tried to stop him. They didn’t matter.
Outside it was hot, damp, the air had an oily stink, but that didn’t matter, either. He was free.
He ran into the street. Behind him somebody yelled. He spun, fired a couple of shots, missed.
The softslugs spattered on the synstone walls like drops of dark paint dropped from a great height.
A hovercar fanned to a dragstop, almost hitting him.
Jim ran to the car, pointed the weapon at the woman dr
iving. “Out!” he screamed.
The woman obeyed, terror in her eyes. He waved her away. She was a civilian, no reason to shoot her. He leapt into the car. Pulled the dragstop up, shoved the leaners on full. The car blew dust up, fanned away.
A round of hardball spanged against the car’s body. A second tore through the canopy, but missed him by half a meter. Air whistled through the exit hole.
The car picked up speed. He had time to notice that the seats were vat-grown leather, a rich brown color, with the right smell. The control panel was real wood, burled and polished smooth.
They wouldn’t catch him now.
At the complex’s gate, a guard stepped out in front of the onrushing car, waving frantically for it to stop. She didn’t have her gun out.
Jim ran the woman down. The car’s front collision plate dented from the impact, the car slowed a little, but kept going. The gate was open.
The expressway entrance was ahead. It led through the city, to the suburbs. Where he and Mary had lived, before this happened. Where Mary was.
A police fanner rumbled into view behind him as he merged with the expressway traffic. The fanner flashed its lights. Vehicles moved aside to allow it room.
Jim put his car into full-speed mode. The whistling from the hole in the canopy went up in pitch, grew louder. The car was a hot machine, expensive, built for speed as well as looks, and quickly passed the speed limit.
The fanner was built to chase such cars, however. It gained on him.
The fanner would be armored. The softslugs wouldn’t stop it.
They cranked up their hailer: “Stop your vehicle immediately! Houston Traffic Police!”
Jim laughed. What were they going to do? Give him a ticket? Take away his license?
The fanner pulled up level with him on his right. They were alone on the expressway now, the other traffic having dropped back or moved off to surface streets.
Jim looked at the two cops. In a second they would pull ahead of him and try to block him.
He had nothing to lose.
He shoved the control stick to the right. The car turned, slammed into the fanner. The traffic unit was larger, but he had inertia on his side. They veered toward the guardrail.
The fanner’s driver tried to compensate, but too late. His engine screamed with power as he unleashed it, but the fanner dug into the rail, hit a support post, spun.
The impact slammed the fanner back into Jim’s stolen car. Now both vehicles spun. Jim shoved his control forward, opened the drive fans to full again. Slewed. Almost lost it and flipped, but powered out of the spin. Wobbled, then the gyros caught and held the car steady.
Not so lucky the cops. The fanner caught a rear blade on the rail, shattered the tough black plastic fan. Shards of jet sprayed. The loss of lift dropped the rear of the fanner. The friction flipped the vehicle like a man spins a coin on a table. The fanner smacked into the rail again, bounced, tumbled, and went over the side. It fell twenty meters and went through the roof of a fast-food shop.
Jim kept going.
He reached the resiplex where Mary was. Killed the fans. Got out, went to the building. Shot the guard who rose to stop him at the elevators.
The door to their unit opened. Mary’s eyes went wide.
“Jim! I—they said—you were dead!”
“Not yet.”
She reached out and they embraced. Hugged.
Down the hall, somebody yelled. “There he is!”
Of course. They would know where he lived.
“Good-bye, Mary. I just wanted to say that.”
He twisted away from her, sprayed the hall. The slugs flattened on the walls as he waved the gun back and forth, ricocheted away, screaming almost like some tortured animal might.
“Aahh!” somebody said as they caught one.
“I have to go now, Mary. I love you.”
It all felt unreal to him. Mary stood there, hands pressed to her face, as he turned and sprinted away.
He headed for the roof. Somebody would have a flier there he could steal.
Feet pounded behind him as he reached the roof. He found a flier with a card in the drive control. Smashed the door open. Got in. Lifted.
Bullets chewed at the flier, but he was off.
Where would he go? It didn’t matter. He pointed the nose at the sun, shoved the power lever full on. Flew away. They’d never catch him. He was free. Free. Free.
But there was something large and ugly suddenly sitting in the seat next to him, something dark and monstrous. And his stomach started to hurt—
Likowski, James T. Lying on the pressor bed. His stomach hurt. Tears flowed from the outer corners of his eyes, ran down his face, pooled in his ears. The two doctors stood over him in their cleansuits, peering through protective faceplates, eyebrows raised. There was a guard behind them, but he wore no weapon. There was no need, and they would never have let anyone with a gun in here. Never.
All in his mind, Jim knew. A fantasy of escape that could not be.
The pain in his stomach increased, a sharp burning, as if a hot knife were being driven into him.
“Aahh!”
An amplified voice said, “Vital signs in flux, doctors! Heart rate up, blood pressure rising, myotonus pushing the limit.”
Jim glanced at his own body. His bare flesh bulged suddenly, just under his sternum. The pain was incredible.
It was time!
Dryner reached out and touched the bulge on the patient’s solar plexus. The skin immediately flattened. “Amazing,” he said.
Reine said, “Get in here with the catch net!”
The man on the table screamed, a primal noise that set Reine’s teeth on edge. Lord, what a sound! “Hurry up with that damned net!” Reine turned back toward the man on the table.
“Won’t the pressor field hold it?” Dryner asked.
“I doubt it. Insufficient mass. Where the hell is the net?”
The amplified voice said, “Nobody is suited up out here, it’ll take a minute—”
“This shouldn’t be happening yet,” Dryner said. “Our term estimates—”
“—were obviously wrong,” Reine finished. “If somebody doesn’t come through the lock in thirty seconds with that catch net I will fire the entire fucking staff!” he yelled. “None of you will ever work in this field again!”
To Dryner, Reine said, “This specimen is invaluable. Nothing can be allowed to happen to it, nothing!”
He leaned over the struggling man.
The patient screamed again. His flesh erupted, burst outward, and the alien’s blind, toothed head came forth.
“Good God!” Dryner said, leaning away from it.
Reine, fascinated, leaned closer. “Why, look at it! Fascinating—”
“Here’s the net!” somebody said.
Reine turned to look.
“Fuck!” Dryner said. “Look out!”
Heine twisted back toward the patient. Too slowly.
The thing shot out of the dying man. Impossibly fast, like a thick, armored, blood-slick arrow. It hit Heine’s cleansuit, bit the osmotic material, and chewed through the heavy substance as if it were tissue paper.
Reine, horrified, stared at the thing.
“Bring the net!” Dryner yelled. “Hurry!”
Now Reine sought to bat at the thing, but its head was already inside the protective suit. He felt it reach his skin.
“Ahh! It’s biting me! Get it off!”
Dryner reached for the thing’s tail, but his gloved hands slipped on the gore that coated it. It moved away from his touch, pulling more of itself into Reine’s suit.
“Help! Help me! Aahh! Oww!”
The tech with the catch net grabbed Reine, but the doctor twisted away from him in panic. In his fear, he tried to run from what was attacking him.
The inner hatch had not cycled closed. Reine ran for it.
“Louis, no! You’ll breach isolation!”
Reine was beyond hearing, beyond caring.
The only thing that mattered was that this thing was eating into him, burning like molten metal!
“Stop him!” Dryner yelled.
The tech reached for Reine, missed. Got in Dryner’s way. They tangled, fell.
Dryner scrambled up, in time to see Reine clear the inner lock, lunge for the outer lock’s control.
“Freeze the door controls!” Dryner yelled.
Too late. Reine pounded on the emergency override. The outer door slid wide. He staggered out into the hall.
Isolation was blown.
Dryner ran after his boss, yelling for him to stop.
“Kill it, kill it!” Reine screamed.
The security guards pulled their guns.
“No!” Dryner yelled. “Don’t shoot it!”
The guard looked confused.
“Shoot him in the head!” Dryner commanded.
Now the guards really looked puzzled.
“Do it!”
The guards didn’t move. Reine started to run. He might damage the specimen!
Dryner moved. He grabbed a gun from the nearest guard, who didn’t try to stop him. Raised the weapon. Dryner had been a champion pistol shot while in college. Could have gone to the Olympics if he’d worked at it harder. He hadn’t fired a gun in years, but the old reflexes were still there. Reine was only ten meters away. Dryner put the red dot square on the middle of the fleeing man’s cleansuit helmet, took a deep breath, let part of it out, held it, and squeezed the trigger carefully, so as not to pull his aim off. At twelve meters now, it was an easy shot.
Reine’s head shattered. He fell.
Dryner lowered the weapon. “Sorry, Louis,” he said. “But you were the one who said how valuable the alien was. We can’t chance hurting it.”
The guards and techs stared at him.
“Now,” he said, “bring the catch net.”
He still had the gun. They all moved very fast.
And in the end, they didn’t even need the net. Apparently the thing liked where it was. Good. That made it even easier.
16
Pindar the holotech lay on a table with a pressor field holding him down. He could turn his head, but that was about it. Since he was a tech, he knew how a pressor field worked, knew also it was impossible for an unaugmented man to break free of one. Even an expendable android built for short-term bursts of strength would have trouble with a functional pressor field, maybe it could escape, maybe not. That was an academic question, in any event. He wasn’t going anywhere.
