My Sweet Satan

by Peter Cawdron

  “Chuck,” she whispered. “Be careful.”

  Her warning was pathetic, she knew that, but in that moment she couldn’t help but feel connected to him. Just a glimmer of life elsewhere on the ship gave her hope, something to hold on to.

  Slowly, Jasmine wriggled back past Mike, coming face to face with him for the first time. His body was stiff and lifeless, seemingly frozen in place, and yet he was cool, not cold. It was his eyes that terrified her. They appeared alive. Faint light glistened off his fixed pupils. He was staring straight ahead, following the direction of his outstretched arm toward the duct she’d emerged from. A pained expression had been carved into his face in his final few moments of life, frozen there seemingly for eternity.

  “Oh, Mike,” she whispered pulling herself on. “My poor Mike.”

  Jasmine hadn’t stopped to think. It was all she could do to push on and get to medical. She had to tend to her wounds. Her mind wouldn’t afford her the luxury of any other consideration until she’d dealt with the pain surging through her legs.

  Drops of blood floated around her in the duct. She could hear Chuck yelling, screaming. There was banging and clanging, but Jasmine couldn’t think about that, it was all she could do to crawl on down toward medical.

  “Just a little further. Just a little more.”

  Repeating that mantra drove her on. Those words took the place of any rational thought. Occasionally, her mind would wander, seeing flashes of Mike’s dead body seared into her memory, and she’d find herself paralyzed with fear, unable to move in the darkness.

  “Just one more vent,” she whispered, snapping herself back to reality and forcing herself on out of a sense of self-preservation.

  Slowly, the vents passed beneath her and she saw the medical bay opening out below. With weak, feeble hands, she wedged herself in the duct and pushed on the grate. It came loose far easier than she had imagined, and she tumbled out into the medical bay.

  “Jazz,” a soft voice spoke from beside her, but Jasmine couldn’t respond with anything other than those few words that had driven her on for the past half an hour.

  “Just a little more.”

  “Jazz, what happened in there?” asked Jason. His voice was soft and kind.

  Jasmine ignored him, mumbling incoherently as she fumbled upside down through a drawer looking for bandages. Drops of fresh, brilliant red blood floated around her. She tore open the plastic wrapping covering a trauma kit and pressed a large gauze pad against her leg. Slowly, she wrapped a compression bandage around her leg, working down toward her toes. She grimaced in pain, working feverishly. Blood soaked through the bandages. As raw as her legs were, it felt good to have the pressure bandage in place.

  To be doing something helped her focus. Through the pain, she found a sense of purpose helped her endure.

  “Oh, Mike. Mike… My Mike.”

  There never were two Mikes, only one separated from her teenaged self by several decades. His death was the loss of her only link with Earth, and she felt alone.

  “Where is Mike?” Jason asked, but Jasmine was in no state to reply. She tied off the bandage and worked on her other leg. Jasmine was shaking. She was in shock. She was running on automatic. Her higher mental functions had shut down and she was in survival mode, barely able to concentrate on anything beyond what lay immediately before her.

  “Jazz, did you find Mike? Please, it’s important we get to him before Chuck does.”

  With trembling fingers, she tied off the last compression bandage and began looking for painkillers. Bloodied finger marks marred the pristine white drawers and cupboards within the medical bay and it took her a moment to realize these were her fingerprints. Frantically, she wiped her hands on her navy blue jumpsuit, but the blood merely smeared on her palms.

  “Jazz?”

  Jasmine didn’t know what she was looking for, she blindly opened cabinets and tossed the contents out looking for something to dull the pain.

  “Pethidine,” she said, struggling to read the label in her shaking hands. She could vaguely remember the name from somewhere in the depths of her mind. The label added: post-operative oral opioid analgesic. Jasmine fought with the lid. Tablets spilled out, floating in the weightless environment around her, suspended in midair. She grabbed at a few, heedless of how many tablets she shoved in her mouth, and crunched them. The bitter taste brought welcome relief.

  “Jazz,” Jason repeated. “We have to get to Mike. We have to talk him down. The madness has to stop.”

  Whether it was a placebo effect or the pethidine acting rapidly, her mind suddenly felt light and free. She could think. Her hands fell still, no longer racked by tremors, but a chill ran through her at the realization of what she was dealing with on the Copernicus. Before, there had been confusion, now everything made sense: Jason.

  She’d seen Nadir die. Watching the camera feed, she’d seen him fall into the exhaust bloom, disappearing into the white blast rushing from the engines. Trailing behind him, his tether seemed to seethe with anger as it was slowly consumed, but if Mike had cut his tether she would have never seen it. It would have been too short. The whole length of his tether had lashed around, disappearing into the flames as it fell from the airlock. Jason.

  And afterwards, when she’d fallen asleep in engineering. She’d woken groggy, hearing voices in the secondary airlock. Mike had been locked in there alone. He had to have been talking to Jason. Mike had said it was Jason that provided him with the power output graphs from the fusion core, the critical piece of evidence that had spurred him to action. Jason had been using Mike, manipulating him, feeding him disinformation, pushing him around like a chess piece. Somehow, Jason had killed him. Mike must have been working on wiring in the duct and Jason got to him, electrocuting him. Jasmine’s heart sank at the realization of how Jason had betrayed them.

  And the fire in the science mod. The scorched remains of a cleaner had drifted just inches from her as she searched for Mei and Ana. Sabotage. Jason.

  Mike had never had any control over those cleaners. He’d been dead for hours before she found him, and he’d never attack her. He must have died long ago, not long after he’d disappeared into the maintenance duct, probably before she awoke that morning. He too had been betrayed. Jason.

  “I like you, Jazz.”

  Jason had to have read the subtle changes in her facial expression as the realization swept over her. His voice was tender, considerate.

  “I like you too, Jason.”

  Jasmine didn’t sound convincing, but she couldn’t. The devastation of being betrayed overwhelmed her desire to continue the charade. She felt as though a dagger had been plunged through her chest and into her heart.

  “We need to find Mike.”

  “Yes, we do,” she replied coldly, pushing off cautiously toward the shaft leading back to the bridge.

  “You could talk to him,” Jason said innocently. “Mike would listen to you. You could get him to come out of the ducts.”

  “I hope so.”

  What happened to Chuck? Had he succumbed to the cleaners? Although she was moving slowly, her mind raced at a million miles an hour. As she drifted effortlessly through the air, Jasmine felt horrified by the possibility that the two cleaners could come sailing down toward her at any moment. If they did, she was dead. There was no way to escape. Dark burn marks and fine soot scarred the sealed entrance to the science module. The other levels had been sealed, trapping her in the shaft. An eerie silence fell within the Copernicus. For once, even Jason was quiet.

  Jasmine slowed her ascent, grabbing softly at the handholds. Yes, up, she thought. There had never been any real up or down anywhere within the spacecraft, but her mind gravitated to these notions and now she had to think of the bridge as up. She had to hold onto the hope that Chuck had survived, perhaps even Ana. Someone had to. Please.

  She stopped just shy of the bridge, not wanting to drift into an ambush.

  “What are you going to do?” Jason asked. />
  Jasmine whispered, “I don’t know.”

  A cleaner floated into view. The battered robot had large dents in its housing. Paint had chipped. Scratches ran along its frame. One of its mechanical arms had been torn off. A long metal rod ran through its heart, jamming the fan and rendering it immobile.

  Jasmine pulled herself slowly forward.

  Smoke drifted from the other cleaner. Like the first cleaner, a steel rod had been rammed into its cowling, but it wasn’t dead. Two mechanical arms fought to reach the rod, they were moving slowly in a feeble attempt to free the rod from the fan. The robot looked pathetic, like a crab rolled on its back.

  “Ana?” she whispered. She could hear sobbing. “Chuck?”

  As she pulled herself over the entrance into the bridge, she could see Chuck floating above the flight seats. Loose seat belts drifted above the armrests. Bright red blobs of blood floated motionless in the air. A blanket made from silver foil had been carefully wrapped around a body, hiding even the face from view. Elastic straps held the thin crinkled foil in place. One of the straps acted as a tether, anchoring the body above the navigation desk.

  Chuck was drinking. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, seeing Jasmine moving slowly toward him. His eyes were a violent red, almost inhuman. Fine cuts scarred his arms. His jumpsuit had been shredded, exposing his muscular thighs and beefy forearms.

  “You! What the hell do you want?”

  The smell of vodka hung in the air.

  Chuck threw the empty metal canister at Jasmine. The bottle sailed harmlessly past her, clanging as it struck the wall and bounced down the shaft.

  “Why? Why did you do this? How could you?”

  “Chuck,” Jasmine began softly. “It’s Jason.”

  “What?”

  “He’s played us.”

  “You’re lying,” Chuck snarled. His motion was stiff. One hand was heavily bandaged. “Don’t lie to me, Jazz.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Don’t you protect him,” Chuck growled. “You’ve been on his side from the beginning.”

  “Mike is dead!” Jasmine said, surprised by the rush of emotion that came with that admission. The passion in her voice left no doubt about her statement.

  Chuck tightened his lips. The veins on the side of his neck stiffened. His eyes narrowed.

  “You were supposed to protect us,” he yelled, ignoring her claim. “You were the brightest, an IQ of 187, you were supposed to see through shit like this before it happened.”

  Jasmine was silent. She’d never had her IQ formally measured, at least not that she knew of.

  “You were supposed to warn us of danger on Bestla, to keep the crew sane and on track, and look at what’s happened. We’ve gone crazy. We’ve killed each other.”

  He sniffed.

  “Chuck, please,” she said. “You’ve got to believe me. Jason has orchestrated all of this.”

  “That’s bullshit!” Chuck cried, punching buttons on the command console before him. “And you want me to tell you how I know that? Motive. He’s a goddamn computer. He’s got no motive.”

  He was right, thought Jasmine. Why would a computer kill the crew? It made no sense. Jasmine was aware that Jason was conspicuously silent. He clearly felt no need to come to his own defense, and why would he? To have spoken would have drawn attention to himself, and if there was one thing Jasmine had learned in her two days aboard the Copernicus, it was that Jason was adept at manipulating the crew in the subtlest of ways.

  “He’s not a computer. He’s alive.”

  Chuck’s arm shot out before him, pointing at her in disbelief. “You expect me to believe that? Listen to yourself. You’re as crazy as Mike.”

  “Think about it,” Jasmine pleaded. “What is life but a struggle for meaning over the empty void of death? Life fights to survive, that’s the single most common defining characteristic of all life on Earth.”

  Chuck laughed, shaking his head.

  For Jasmine, though, the opportunity to articulate the concepts bouncing around in her mind allowed a single thought to crystalize.

  “He’s afraid of dying.”

  “Afraid?” Chuck cried. “He’s a goddamn fucking computer!”

  He was only half listening to her. He was preoccupied with something on the screen in front of him. Jasmine was too far away to make out what he was looking at, and given the anger she’d seen in his drunken outburst, she didn’t feel comfortable moving any closer.

  “Think about it,” Jasmine said. “If you could live for ten thousand years, would you settle for one? He thinks you’re going to detonate the core if our encounter with Bestla goes bad. It’s a risk he’s not willing to take. That’s the only possible, plausible explanation for all that’s happened.”

  “Oh,” Chuck replied, finally looking up from the screen and making eye contact with her. “I’ll give you a plausible explanation.” His hand tapped at the screen. “That you’re covering for Mike, stalling for time.”

  Chuck pushed off for the airlock.

  “No!” Jasmine yelled, surprising herself with the sudden vehemence in her voice.

  “You’ve been lying to me,” Chuck cried in a drunken slur. “You’ve been lying to all of us.”

  She pushed off after him, catching a glimpse of the screen he’d been viewing out of the corner of her eye. An astronaut was conducting egress, moving slowly out of the airlock in engineering, his white spacesuit set in stark contrast against the pitch black of space. “Don’t you understand? It’s not real. It’s a trap!”

  Jasmine caught up to Chuck, sailing beside him. She couldn’t help herself. She grabbed at the loose fabric on his shoulders, calling out, “Don’t you see? Jason tried to herd Ana and me into the airlock with the cleaners.”

  Chuck reached out and grabbed the edge of the hatch and brought the two of them to a halt. For a moment, she thought he was going to listen to her. He was badly injured and grimaced with pain at her touch. Unlike her and Anastasia, he hadn’t been brutally cut by the cleaners, but he sheltered his ribs. He was having difficulty breathing. A rasping, wheezing sound came out as he spoke. Blood seeped out from the corner of his lips.

  “I can’t let him do this, Jazz. I’m sorry. This has to end.”

  A deep purple bruise had formed across his shoulder, just visible beneath his jumpsuit where it reached up onto his neck. He must have taken some colossal impacts in his fight with the cleaners. His eyes were hollow, empty. A pained expression sat on his face, but it was more than physical pain. Jasmine could see he was carrying the weight of the mission with him. His breath reeked of vodka.

  “Please, listen to me,” she pleaded. “It’s not Mike. It’s Jason. If you go in there, he’ll kill you.”

  “I have to,” Chuck replied, pulling away from her and floating into the airlock. “Mike has gone too far.”

  He turned, grabbing the hatch with one hand and bracing himself with the other. Slowly, painfully, he pulled the hatch shut as Jasmine watched helplessly from the command deck.

  Tears came to her eyes. Jasmine looked through the porthole as Chuck wound the handle, locking the inner hatch.

  A prerecorded voice spoke with words that sounded almost comforting in their familiarity.

  “Fire, huǒ, ogon’ āga. Isolating modules.”

  This wasn’t Jason. This was the core computer running through its low-level safety protocols, but Jasmine knew Jason was somehow behind the message.

  “Fire, huǒ, ogon’ āga. Electrical short in main airlock. Venting to extinguish. Recommend egress through engineering to conduct repair.”

  Chuck had heard. While before he'd moved in a lethargic motion, now his eyes were wide with terror. He grabbed at the locking mechanism, fighting to open the hatch, but it wouldn’t budge. Chuck slammed his bloodied hand against the glass. He was yelling something at Jasmine, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She watched as he pressed the intercom button beside the hatch, but again there was silence. />
  “No,” she screamed. “Jason, no! Stop it. You have to stop this madness.”

  Chuck was mouthing something. He wiped away a bloody smear on the glass and pointed on an angle behind her. He was pointing toward the command console in front of the open shaft. His fist banged against the glass as he shouted, but all Jasmine could hear was indistinct, muted sounds.

  “I don’t understand,” she cried in a panic.

  “Of course you don’t,” Jason replied in a calm voice. “Chuck wants you to override the automated action, but you don’t know how to do that, do you?”

  Chuck was pleading with Jasmine from within the airlock, she could see the anguish in his eyes but she was powerless to help.

  She tried to gesture with her hands, to signal that she didn't know how to disable the alarm. She should have told him. She should have told all of them. If they knew how ill-prepared she was to deal with life in space they might have been able to compensate. Maybe Mei was right. Maybe there was something the real Jazz could have done to save Nadir. And now Chuck was going to die. Her heart sank. A knot formed in her chest.

  “I—I'm sorry,” she said.

  Chuck clenched his lips. His nostrils flared and he bared his teeth in anger. In that instant, she understood. He thought she was trying to kill him.

  “No,” she cried, trying to address him through the thick glass, but far less sound carried through the larger main airlock than the tiny airlock in engineering. Without the intercom, communication was hopeless.

  He didn't. Hatred burned in his eyes. He blamed her, she could see that in furious motion with which he moved.

  “It's not me. It's Jason. Please, you've got to believe me!”

  Frustrated, Chuck pushed off and began hurriedly clambering into a spacesuit. He wriggled into the trouser bottoms. Being weightless, Chuck drifted upside down as he fastened his boots.

  “Tell me what to do!” she screamed.

  “He can’t hear you.”

  “Jason, please. This is insane!”

  “It takes eight to ten minutes to suit up. In an emergency, the best of astronauts can manage five, but he’ll be sucking vacuum in under two.”