by Steve Perry
Wilks looked at Billie, then back at Bueller. “Truth? No.”
“Then I’ll stay here and continue to work on the computer.”
Wilks could almost see Billie’s anger smoldering. If he had said he thought there were aliens on the ship, then Bueller would have had to go along, being an android. To try to protect the two real humans.
“Let’s move out, Billie.”
Her jaw muscles danced and she nodded. “Fine.”
* * *
What the hell, Wilks thought, it was something to do. So far, it had turned up exactly what he thought it would, zero. They’d been through all the ship big enough to hide a small dog and so far hadn’t seen even an insect. Sometimes you got a few bugs on a ship, despite the zap fields supposed to keep ’em off. Some guys made pets out of them.
“That’s it, Billie. End of sweep. Nobody home.”
“What about the aft cargo storage?”
Wilks leaned the carbine against the wall and scratched a sweaty itch on his shoulder. “Can’t get into it. Coded lock. We can’t get in, nothing can get out, either.”
“Come on, Wilks. I’ve seen these things operate. So have you.”
“We could take a look at the door, that’ll make you happy.”
“It won’t make me happy, but we have to check.”
He shrugged. He could cut her a little slack. She hadn’t exactly had a great life. Both parents killed by the aliens or, worse, webbed into hatching chambers as baby alien food. Years in a mental hospital on Earth where they thought she was nuts because the mind-wipe they’d tried broke down and let her remember it. And all the shit they’d been through since. What the hell.
The corridor leading to the aft cargo hatch was narrow and dimly lit. But Wilks could see down its length that the hatch door was shut and the LED on steady red-lock. Like all inner doors, it was airtight and proof against sudden decompression or hammering of fists—if somebody got on the wrong side of it during an emergency. Standard duralloy plate, six or seven centimeters thick. Even the aliens could have trouble clawing through that.
“Knock, knock,” Wilks said, “anybody home?”
The pair of them stood in front of the hatch for a moment. “Sorry, Billie. Looks like the hunt is over.”
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
Wilks sniffed. Something burned. It smelled acrid, like… cable insulation. A short somewhere? Could be easy enough, given how this ship was put together.
“It’s stronger over here,” she said, pointing toward the side corridor they’d just passed.
“Better check it out—”
A lazy wisp of smoke crawled from the corridor, a heavy vaporous snake that stayed low, hugging the deck.
“Better grab an extinguisher,” Wilks said.
Billie pulled one of the portables from the wall.
Suddenly there came a loud metallic scream, the blare of a Klaxon. Foam from a ceiling fire suppressor sprayed into the corridor ahead of them, gushing from the cross-corridor.
“Shit!” Wilks said.
* * *
In his cradle Bueller saw the FIRE alarm visual flash onto the screen in front of him. “Shit!” There wasn’t a PA system onboard. He couldn’t call Billie and Wilks.
Using his hands, he flipped himself out of the cradle, hit the deck on his palms, and began to “walk” as fast as he could. It was awkward, but quick, as a man might move if he were late for an appointment but didn’t want to embarrass himself by running.
* * *
The foam shut off and the Klaxon followed it a second later. Wilks sighed. That meant the fire was out. Or else the suppression system had given up the ghost. But he didn’t feel any heat pour out of the corridor.
“Stay here, I’ll check it.”
“Fuck that. I’ll be right on your ass.”
He had to grin. “Okay. Watch it, deck’s slippery.”
They were walking parallel to the aft cargo compartment, and it only took a couple of meters to find the source of the smoke. A dangling cable, burned through, still smoking a little even though covered with fire foam.
“Wilks.”
He turned to see what Billie wanted. There was a hole in the wall between the corridor and the aft cargo hold. A ragged, melted gap big enough for a man to walk through without touching the edges.
Melted by acid.
“Oh, shit,” Wilks said.
Billie nodded. “Yeah.”
3
Billie let the fire extinguisher drop as she hauled the handgun from her pocket. She clutched the pistol in hands gone sweaty and cold. Fear turned her bowels into a gelid lump. She wanted to run and hide, but there was nowhere to go.
“You were right,” Wilks said. “I stand corrected.”
He catfooted his way through the hole in the bulkhead, being careful to avoid touching the edges. “Careful,” he said.
Billie followed him. The room was dark, a faint gleam from the corridor on the remnants of the fire foam the only light. No, wait, there were instrument diodes…
Wilks found a lume control and dialed the lights up.
“Jesus.”
Billie nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.
Lying on the floor was an alien. Part of the deck beneath it was eaten away by its blood, a fluid so acidic as to defy belief. One theory Billie had heard in the ’casts was that it made the things taste bad. That was fairly horrifying. What kind of creature could possibly eat these monsters?
Along with the dead alien, the main cargo in the hold seemed to be four hypersleep chambers. Each had once contained a person. What was left of the four bodies wouldn’t add up to one full-size corpse. The lids of the chambers were cracked and blood-spattered, human blood from the look of it, and long dried.
Billie felt like vomiting. She fought for control, won, but barely.
Wilks examined one of the control panels next to a ruined chamber. He turned back to Billie, who was glancing quickly around, expecting an attack at any second.
“These four were deep into it,” he said. “Iced as cool as you can get without killing them. I think maybe somebody knew they were infected. Trying to keep the things growing inside the humans dormant. Looks like it didn’t work.”
“Why? Why would somebody do that?”
Wilks shook his head. “Dunno.” He looked around, the carbine held ready. “Politics. Profit. We can talk philosophy later. Way I figure it, there were four aliens. Three of them killed the fourth and used its acid blood to eat themselves an exit. They’ve finished off breakfast”—he waved the carbine at the mostly eaten bodies—“and they’ll be out looking for dinner.”
“Mitch!”
“Don’t worry about Bueller, they don’t much like the flavor of android. We figured that out on the trip to their homeworld.”
“But if they find him, they’ll kill him.”
“Yeah. Him and us, too. They must have left just before we got here. The acid triggered the fire foam. Come on. We need to get back to a section of the ship we can fortify.”
Something rattled behind them in a dark recess of the cargo hold.
“Wilks—”
“I heard it.”
He turned, brought the carbine up, flicked on the sighting laser. The tiny red dot danced in the shadowy corner.
Something hissed.
“Billie—”
The thing stepped out into the light. Three meters tall, gleaming black. If the monster had eyes, they were hidden from view as always, but whatever senses it used, it knew they were there. The external jaws opened and drool dripped from the rows of finger-thick needles that were its teeth. The spiky tail lashed back and forth like that of a cat about to pounce.
“Wilks!”
“I got it.” He raised the carbine to his shoulder slowly. Billie saw the laser’s red spot move up the creature’s chest, over its chin, to shine on a lower tooth.
The thing’s mouth opened wider. The red dot disappeared.
“Adios, motherfucker,” Wilks s
aid.
The boom! of the carbine was loud in the cargo hold, a blast that bounced from the hard walls and hurt Billie’s ears. The alien fell backward, Billie saw the top of its head ten centimeters behind the jaws burst outward, tiny chips of armor flying as the bullet tore through. A thin stream of yellowish liquid spewed, painted the floor. It seemed to fall in slow motion, collapsing into a heap onto a hatch set flush into the deck.
“You got it!”
The hatch began to smoke where the stream of acid landed. More liquid pooled from the punctured skull.
“Out, Billie, out! That’s a dump hatch, it leads to a lock between here and the hull! If that shit eats through the outer door—”
Billie didn’t need to be told. She jumped for the alien-created door in the bulkhead behind her. Wilks was right on her heels. “Move, move!”
The fire alarm went off again, the hooter filled the corridor with noise. Foam sprayed inside the cargo hold behind them as they slipped and slid along the corridor still wet with the dregs of the earlier foam.
“Go, go, we’ve got to clear the next hatch!”
Billie was two meters ahead of Wilks when another alarm, more strident, began to blare. That would be the hull breach warning. The floor-to-ceiling hatch five meters ahead began to slide down, a light next to it lit and flashed red. Unless something plugged the hole in the hull, all the air on this side of the hatch was going to piss itself into the vacuum. Anybody on this side of the hatch was going to die trying to breathe nothingness.
Billie dived at the closing hatch, made it through, hit the deck. She skidded on her belly, felt the skin on her arms and hands scrape and abrade, but she was through! She rolled over. Saw that Wilks wouldn’t make it.
He tried. He dived, stretched out full length, slid. But the door came down across the small of his back. Billie saw it press into his flesh.
“Aaggh!”
“Fuck!” Billie scrabbled on her hands and knees. She had to get something under the plate! A fire extinguisher, something! But there was no time, the door would break Wilks’s spine in another second—
The gun. Billie still held the pistol. She shoved it, twisted it. Almost, not quite—“Breathe out!” she yelled.
Wilks couldn’t see what she was doing, but he obeyed. She shoved as hard as she could and the barrel of the weapon touched the underside of the descending plate. When Wilks exhaled, it bought her a half centimeter. The back of the pistol’s receiver skidded on the deck, got almost directly under the door, then stopped. The heavy plastic and steel of the gun creaked, began to bend.
Billie slid back, grabbed Wilks’s wrists, and pulled.
“Come on, Wilks! Pull!”
The thin fabric of his pants snagged on the door, tore. The underside of the door scraped skin from his buttocks away, dug into the muscle, but he moved.
The pistol made a sound like a nail being pulled from wet wood as Wilks’s thighs cleared the portal.
Billie shoved her heels hard against the deck, leaned back, and Wilks crawled up her, grabbed her shoulders, and pulled himself into a frantic hug, his feet sliding under the narrowing gap just as the pistol bent and shattered like a crystallized steel spring. Something sharp hit Billie’s face just under her left eye. The descending hatch slammed into the deck as she fell backward with Wilks sprawled full-length on top of her.
Billie felt the muscles in Wilks’s upper back relax under her hands. They lay pressed together for another second. Then Wilks drew a ragged breath and rolled off her to lie on his back next to her. After a moment he said, “Thanks.”
Billie fought to slow her breathing. “No problem. I don’t usually go this far on a first date, though.”
Wilks shook his head. Managed a weak grin.
* * *
When the hull breach alarm went off, Bueller was halfway to the aft cargo bay He had gotten fairly efficient at walking on his hands, but the sound made him hurry even more. Billie and Wilks were in danger. He had to save them. Especially Billie.
* * *
Wilks saw Bueller padding toward them, a distorted version of a man gone from the waist down. From the angle, it looked like somebody wading through the deck.
“Billie! Wilks!”
“We’re okay,” Wilks said. “Just another wonderful day on the exotic starliner cruise vacation. Come on.” He extended a hand.
Bueller leaned to one side, resting all his weight on his left palm. He reached up with his right arm. The two locked into a wrist grip, and Wilks pulled Bueller up onto his back. Bueller said, “Billie…?”
“We’ve got company,” she said. “Maybe next time you two will listen to me when I tell you something.”
* * *
Back in the computer access room, Wilks began playing with the internal video cams. They weren’t much, basic and cheap bottom-of-the-line Cambodian units. Terran regulations required such equipment, even on robot ships, and for once, Wilks was glad to see union politics doing something useful. No motion sensors or infrared, but something was better than nothing.
Bueller sat cradled in the operations chair. His reflexes were faster and he knew the systems better.
“We figure there are two of them left,” Billie said. She leaned against the back of Wilks’s chair, watching the monitors as Wilks brought up the various views.
Nothing in the main corridor.
“How did they get on board?”
Wilks said, “Somebody had four demi-stiffs in chambers in the aft cargo hold. Infected.”
The midline cargo bay was clear.
“Why would anybody do that?”
“Good question. Fuck if I know.” He winced. “Ah, shit.”
“You okay?” Billie asked.
“Muscle spasm in my back. I’m not going to be running the marathon for a few days.” He looked at Bueller. “Billie hadn’t stopped it, the pressure hatch would have made me into your twin brother.”
No monsters in the makeshift head.
Wilks brought up another view, this time of the kitchen they’d rigged. Nobody home.
“That’s it,” Wilks said. “Cheap bastards put in the minimum required, we’re blind everywhere else. Damn.”
Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Then: “I can maybe give us some more eyes,” Bueller said.
Wilks turned. Pain shot down his spine, hurt all the way to his goddamn feet. He bit his lip. “What are you talking about? You aren’t going anywhere.”
“No, that wouldn’t be very efficient in my present condition. But there are a couple of mobile cleaners, battery-operated dumbots. If we can rig a cam to one, we can program it to do a search.”
Wilks managed a smile. “That’s good, Bueller. And here I thought your brains were in your ass. Let’s do it.”
* * *
It took a couple of hours for Mitch to wire the things, but when he was done, they had a portable camera. Billie didn’t know what they could do about it if they found the aliens, but she figured it was better to know where they were. They still had four shots left in the carbine.
The dumbot and camera were together as big as a medium-size dog. The unit rolled on six fat little silicone wheels and should be able to go anywhere a person could walk.
“Okay, puppy” Wilks said, “go find us the nasty monsters.”
* * *
It took them nearly two hours to spot the aliens. They were on the ceiling of the corridor just outside the midline cargo section. If Wilks hadn’t known they could do that, latch themselves to the ceiling, he wouldn’t have had the camera doing full pans, but he’d seen the things come off the walls and ceilings of their nests. They weren’t moving and if he hadn’t known better, they looked like some kind of sculpture hung by a modern artist.
“There they are,” Wilks said.
Billie leaned forward for a better look. “Now what?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“I could take the carbine,” Mitch began. “If I can get close enough before they move�
�”
“No,” Billie said. “Can you make the robot make noise?”
Wilks and Mitch looked at her.
“Put it into the midline lock,” she said. “If we can lure them into the lock…”
“Yeah,” Wilks said. “We could blow them out into vac. Maybe.”
“Better ideas?” Billie said.
Wilks and Mitch looked at each other. Shook their heads.
“Let’s do it.”
* * *
Bueller was good at taking over the dumbot with the remote. He got it through the inner hatch to the lock and started running it into the walls. They didn’t have a sound pickup, but it must be thumping pretty good.
“Move it next to the outer hatch,” Billie suggested.
Bueller did so. He trained the cam on the inner portal. Less than a minute later, the two aliens moved into view.
“Let’s give them something to chase,” Wilks said.
The dumbot moved back and forth in front of the outer hatch, Bueller had it going in jerky stops and starts.
“They probably know they can’t eat it,” Wilks said.
“They’re both inside,” Billie said.
“Shut the fucking hatch,” Wilks said.
Bueller abandoned the controls to the dumbot and slapped the override button for the hatch. Before the aliens could react, he grabbed the controls to the mobile unit again and sent it at the aliens. The little machine crashed into one of the aliens’ legs.
The picture canted wildly as the alien kicked the robot.
“Grab hold of something, I’m shutting the gravity off!”
Wilks felt that familiar pit-of-the-stomach lurch as his body told his brain he was falling and would soon be smashed flat.
“Blow the outer hatch!”
Bueller hit the control. The ship wobbled.
“Can we get the camera?” Billie asked.
Bueller’s hands did their dance, fingers wiggling impossibly fast. The picture spun. “It’s outside the ship,” he said. “Tumbling—there, there’s one of them!” He froze the picture. One of the aliens floated past, its horrible expression made more so by the realization it was leaving the only sanctuary for millions of klicks. Or maybe that was just Wilks’s imagination.
“Where is the other one?”
