Readings show different temperatures on each door as well as humidity and a few other numbers that didn’t make much sense to anybody uninvolved with the programming.
This is not a room anybody enters – at least, not crew. This is an Earth compartment. It is stocked by Earth on Earth, and it is meant to be opened only when the vehicle returns to Earth.
Indicator lights on each door turn red, in a cascade that spreads from the centre outwards. Each opening is followed by a thunk as bolts within locks are slid back and magnetic seals are deactivated. Neither the lighting nor the surveillance camera fails. When one of the doors swings open, the shipwide alarm goes off.
The video feed dies, so abrupt that the IFCs send an after-image to all their owners.
“Do we have an inventory?” says Larry.
“We do not,” says Shell. “Node E is usually none of our business.”
“And we’re sealed back here,” says Joké. “Umm, not cool, I guess.”
“Count your blessings, girl,” says Shell. “We have functional airlocks on this side.”
“We’re killing ourselves?” asks Fin. “I’d like to go on record as wanting to try something else first.”
“Nobody else is dying here. Not crew, not passengers,” says Shell. “But we will use the airlock first. Salvo?”
“Captain?”
“Is the minisat ready?”
“It is.”
“Okay, let’s go to the equipment lock.”
“You have to record the message we want it to broadcast.”
Shell floats towards the device and Salvo activates it. He nods.
“This is the starship Ragtime in low planetary orbit of Bloodroot. Our principal antenna is down and we have four days of life support left. There is also a risk of microbial contamination. We need urgent assistance or hundreds of souls on board will die.”
The message marker has the Bloodroot date and time as well as a counter so that anyone listening will be able to tell how long ago the satellite was launched.
Salvo opens the equipment lock and places the sat inside. He reseals it. Fore of this position, the crewlock lies dormant. On the walls above the panels, the signatures of every mission specialist who has traversed the airlock before now. There are some thumbprints and photos. Two EVA suits stand attached to opposite walls. From there, Salvo moves to a glove-box arrangement so he can manipulate the sat with sealed gauntlets. He nods to Shell.
“Ragtime, open equipment lock,” says Shell.
Nothing.
“Ragtime,” says Shell.
“Captain,” says Ragtime.
“Open equipment lock.”
“I am forbidden from carrying out this instruction.”
Motherfucker.
Shell manually opens the lock and Salvo pushes the minisat free. It floats away and is soon gone from view.
They return to the bridge.
“What’s the plan here?” asks Lawrence.
“We need to hold this area, and we need to hold Toruses 1 and 2,” says Shell.
“How? There are only five of us,” says Fin. “Besides, it’s tactically suspect. You want to hold one area fore, then cross a no-man’s-land, then hold another area aft. You split your forces creating an enemy sandwich. Can’t do it with five. Can’t and shouldn’t.”
“And we don’t know what’s out there,” says Joké.
“We don’t have five,” says Salvo. “We have three at the most. The captain can’t go out on field missions because she’s the only one who can even marginally talk to the Ragtime, and it doesn’t always listen. I can’t go because as important as this biological spill is, building and re-attaching the high-gain antenna is more pressing. When I’m done, I’ll need Lawrence.”
“Superb,” says Fin.
“We need data. A reconnoitre,” says Shell. “Ragtime, do we have a drone?”
“There is no drone under your command, Captain,” says Ragtime.
“I’ll go,” says Joké.
“I just got you back from becoming a meal for exotic insects,” says Larry.
“Action Governor! None of them bit me, and I wasn’t prepared. They caught me by surprise and I was more disgusted than harmed. I love what insects do for us, but I hate looking at them or having them creep all over me. I’m prepared now.” Joké is smiling. Shell figures risk-taking is in the family DNA.
It can’t be Fin. Too clumsy, too important for weapons synthesis.
The truth is, Shell would rather go herself, but Salvo’s point is valid, same as what Joké said before. If she dies or is incapacitated, nobody can command the Ragtime.
But Joké lost the EVA suit she was fitted for. Or half of it, at any rate.
“You’ll need a new suit,” says Shell.
While the others help refit Joké, Shell does a sweep of the cameras. None of them function except external hullcams, which are dull to watch since they show the Big Dumb Arm and service bots scrambling. Not exactly useful in this situation.
Ragtime agrees to unseal the bridge and Joké, after sharing a melodramatic kiss with Fin, slips through. When did that happen? The crew syncs with her suitcams this time, and Shell notices they are all starting to work like a team.
The node adjacent to the bridge is already coated with some moss-like substance. It looks different from just an hour earlier. The Ragtime’s walls are all invisible under this creeping plant-like thing, the cargo nets acting like a trellis in places. Joké lingers over a clump.
“Joké, don’t. Advise rapid movement. Don’t stop for anything.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Flying insects stop on Joké’s helmet and slide off. Some might defy easy definition as they don’t look like anything Shell has ever seen. There are spiders the size of kittens, but with no eyes. They scuttle out of the way when Joké approaches. The going is difficult because although she is flying from node to node, the moss obscures the handrails or the directions.
Shit, the directions.
“Joké, stop,” says Shell.
“What is it?”
“Turn around, please. I want to see something.”
Behind, a sea of grey-blue, but no grab rails. The moss grows fast.
“Joké, how are you going to make your way back? You have no breadcrumbs,” says Shell. “Even Ragtime’s cameras can’t see you. Or maybe they can, but not in a visual electromagnetic spectrum.”
“Umm… I have a great sense of direction, Captain. I’ll be fine.”
Shell isn’t so sure. The lighting was already in power-saving mode because of the reactor leak. Now, covered in moss, the lights barely shine through. The gloom makes the Ragtime look more like a rainforest under the canopy. What is this gunk doing to the air filters? And what’s the moss feeding on? Growing on? There’s no soil or wood. The little Shell knows about the experimental organisms is that some of them are extremophile derivatives: they can live in difficult circumstances, which is the whole point. Human scientists need to know what can survive deep space. They need to know if this is something that can be genetically programmed into humans. Currently, deep-space travel involves hibernation, cooled temperature, slowed metabolism, that kind of thing. If humans can somehow be like the fungus that grows in nuclear reactors…
“Captain, can you see this?” says Joké.
A mound in the moss heaves sluggishly, like a velvet-covered animal.
“Avoid it,” says Shell. Are the creatures consuming each other? “Joké, I need you to get to the toruses, first priority.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The camera shows other vegetation now, some flowering. Blob-like beings fling themselves at Joké and hang on to her suit before dropping away, disappointed. The passages are narrowed at hatches. The crew and service areas of the Ragtime weren’t built to be pretty, and at the best of times they have rivets visible, bags of junk festooned, cables and ties and duct tape all over the place. The grey moss smooths everything out, like a soft-focus camera, a blanket of blun
tness over reality. Cosy danger.
Joké flings herself into the next node and is blanketed in something scaly, slimy and muscular.
She screams out briefly, but the screen is covered in slime and blurry.
“Joké!” says Fin.
“I’m all right. The suit is holding, but I’m stuck. Something has me. I can’t see what it is, but I think it’s trying to pierce my suit. Or eat me. I can’t figure which. Um, both?”
“Can you move at all?” asks Shell.
“Negative.”
“Sit tight, I’m coming,” says Shell. She turns to the others. “I don’t want to hear any objections. Suit me up. Fin, weapon.”
“What kind?” asks Fin. “What are we facing?”
“I have no idea, and I will find out when I get there. Give me whatever you have.”
One of the storage bags attached to the walls contains an MCP suit, which is more manoeuvrable than a pressurised suit. This one is experimental but fully functional. Shell remembers being told to “take it for a spin a few times” back on Earth. It will protect from kinetic and radiant energy as well as inhalants.
Before anyone can object, Shell is out into the grey.
The MCP feels like every part of Shell’s body is being squeezed by a boa constrictor. It makes her more aware of the microgravity. It’s like a new and different force acting on her, but of course it isn’t. She propels herself the normal way: grab rail to steady herself, then push off through the air to the next node. The grey moss layer between her gauntlet and the alloy feels disgusting, like rot. It comes off and forms puffs of powder.
The entire experience is like swimming down the throat of a giant.
She is passing one of the shapeless mounds when it bursts open and reaches for her from her left. It’s one of the hauler bots and latches on to her. She cries out in surprise. It pulls her towards the wall, where a second one shakes free of the moss. She doesn’t fight. She needs the firmness of the wall to push off against, so struggling would be a waste of energy. Both bots have cutting implements on their appendages: one mechanical like a saw, the other a fine laser. She doesn’t wait to see how the suit will hold up. She fires at their appendages, which break off and fragment, scattering into a cloud. Their centre mass still functions, but it doesn’t matter. Without limbs they are harmless units, and maybe Salvo can make something with their parts.
Shell keeps going aft, noting from her visor that the weapon stays hot; no air currents to take the heat away.
She can’t see any signs, but Shell estimates that she’s in Node 4, just before the hatch into the spoke for the first torus. She grabs a rail to stop herself moving when she spots a heaving mound with a boot poking out.
“Joké, is that you?” asks Shell.
“Aye, Captain,” says Joké on the radio.
“How’s your suit integrity?”
“No warning lights, Captain.”
Joké is surrounded by tentacles and held fast. They come from three different sections of the Ragtime’s wall and, given their placement, are likely to be emerging from air vents. What are they growing on? The tentacles, once free of the grey moss, lack skin – or visible skin, at any rate. Shell can see muscles tensing and relaxing, fine blood vessels transporting blue liquid.
“I’ll get you out of there,” says Shell. “Don’t move.”
“Umm… I can’t.”
Closer look. There are spines on the tentacles. Even so, Shell gets a grip, braces her feet against the body of the ship and pulls. The tentacles do not budge. Shell traces one to the point furthest away from Joké and closest to the wall. She arms her weapon and fires. The tentacle ruptures, but it spews something that aerosolises – black inky stuff that obscures vision and does who knows what else.
“That worked… something gave,” says Joké.
“Try to disengage. It has some kind of counter-measure,” says Shell. She shoots the other two tentacles, and the same thing happens. The entire node will be full of the stuff. She grabs Joké’s gauntlet and pulls her free.
“The bridge is that way,” says Joké.
“I know. We’re not going to the bridge.”
Shell looks back. The blackness of the node is complete. She shines her powerful suit light at it, but it bounces off. “Ragtime, decrease atmospheric pressure on Node 7.”
No response. No guarantee that the moss isn’t blocking speakers.
“Lawrence, come back,” she says.
“Lawrence here, Captain.”
“Reporting. I have Joké, no injuries. We’re continuing aft. Be advised, the robots are still in play.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Out.”
“I’ll go first,” says Shell. “Keep a hand on my suit.”
“Ooh, Captain.”
“Try to be serious,” says Shell. “And why didn’t you just… you know, get out of your suit the other way?”
“It doesn’t work like that. It’s somewhat unpredictable, my connection with the Lambers; you never know where you’re going to end up, and, umm, I wasn’t in danger yet. It was snug in the suit, but I had lots of air.”
Joké’s suit is covered in something, maybe a digestive slime? Thankfully it cannot digest the suit.
They fly past a quadruped hunched up, eating something. It eyes them and emits a low growl. Shell considers shooting it.
They get to the first spoke and manoeuvre into the first torus, which is clear of the moss.
“Ragtime, spin Torus 1.” Shell isn’t sure the ship will respond.
“Yes, Captain.”
The sinking feeling, the brief nausea, as artificial gravity comes on.
“We need to check here and the second torus. I was here before the alarm went off and there were things here.”
“What things?” asks Joké.
“I don’t know. They were slithering things that slithered in my direction. They drilled through alloy. I didn’t wait to see.”
“So these… things can get through our suits?”
“Probably. If they can drill through walls.”
“So why are we here?”
“Because I want to see. If we know what they are, how many of them there are, we can decide how to fight them. I also want to be sure the passengers are intact.”
All round the passenger section, they don’t encounter anything biological. The hole Shell saw before is still there, and Ragtime still does not allow entry into the pod. Just before Shell and Joké arrive at the point they entered, they see a much larger hole, maybe a foot across, cut into the floor. The edges are sharp and jagged, but regular.
“That looks like a problem,” says Joké.
Shell gives the gun to Joké and gets prone.
“Whoa, don’t stick your head in there,” says Joké.
“It’ll be okay,” says Shell.
“No, come on. It will not be okay. The mission was to check if the passengers were intact. They are. You’re the captain. We have to go back and regroup.”
Shell hesitates.
“You don’t go in such tunnels, Captain. That’s just asking for your head to be cut off. You get drones to explore them, preferably the kind of drone with a lethal payload.”
“You were there when I asked Ragtime. There are no drones.”
“That’s… um… not what Ragtime said. It said there are no drones under your command.”
Shit, that’s true. The constant stress is getting to Shell.
“I still have none to drop down this hole.”
“Um, then Salvo can build one for you. Come on, Captain. You know I’m right.”
She is.
“Fine. We check Torus 2, then we go back.”
Torus 2 is full of robots. Medical, haulage, mechanic, exploratory, cleaner, general maintenance, all-purpose serpentine – everything except the gargantuan hull robot crane Big Dumb Arm, and that’s because it’s outside the Ragtime.
“No,” says Shell.
“No,” says Joké.
They make their way out and aft.
“We have to focus on what we can fix,” says Shell. “Because we can’t fix it all. We need to get the antenna running, but at the same time we need to clear these vermin from the ship. Dormant, they weren’t an issue. Awake, they’re using more energy and will factor into our calculations about how many days we have left. Awake, they’re capable of mischief, by which I mean they might damage machinery, cause disease or kill us directly.”
Fin says, “Why can’t we just fix the antenna, find a hole to hide in, and wait for the cavalry?”
“Because we do not know if the cavalry is coming. Have you ever tried planning and executing a mission in three days? Maybe on Earth, or Space Station Lagos. But Bloodroot’s space programme isn’t designed for that. It’s more a reception party for these kinds of missions than a constantly evolving exploration apparatus. In between colonist deliveries, it goes dormant. Plus, we’re contaminated. We have no idea if their response will be to detonate us in orbit.”
“Would they do that?” asks Larry. “Do they have that kind of missile tech?”
“I don’t know. Any spaceship can be a missile if you pack it with enough explosives and send it on a collision course. But it’s a colony. They have to be careful of outsiders,” says Shell.
“You do realise the irony of using ‘outsiders’ in this context, right? All colonists everywhere are outsiders by definition,” says Fin.
“The point is their reaction should be marked ‘x’ for unknown. I need you to print weapons and MCP suits for all of us.”
Fin looks at Salvo, who nods.
“All right. You all have your tasks. Go. Lives are at stake.”
They somersault and brachiate to the labs.
Shell holds Fin back.
“What is it?” he asks.
“I want to ask you something unethical.”
Sudden interest in the eyes. “Go on.”
“Hypothetically, if I… if someone were to ask you, hypothetically, to lie to Bloodroot Mission Control, hypothetically, whether you deceived them or not, would you be obliged to report it?”
An expression that Shell did not expect darkens his face. Anguish, pain, weight.
Far from the Light of Heaven Page 12
