Maybe if he took short breaths, it would be better. Then he wouldn’t use up the oxygen so quickly. He was still sweating, the sweat was still pouring off him, but he wasn’t giggling about it now: he was afraid. He was afraid of what was happening and afraid of Dantec.
Hennessy, get a grip on yourself, he thought. Or, rather, a part of him thought. Another part was screaming in his head, over and over. Another part of him was trying to force that part down belowdecks and then batten the hatch down. But then there were also the parts that were speaking, or rather whispering, all the whispering going on within his head that he didn’t even know for sure was him at all. Hennessy, the voices were whispering, Hennessy. As if trying to get his attention. They were both a part of him and not a part of him.
A wave of pain flashed through his head. He grunted and pushed his thumbs hard into his temples, and then looked back at Dantec to see if he’d noticed. Dantec, he saw, was clutching his head as well, his face pale and pearled with sweat. He was grimacing. After a moment his face slipped back into expressionlessness and he straightened, met Hennessy’s gaze.
“What are you looking at?” he growled.
Without a word, Hennessy turned back to his control panel, hoping it had been longer, but not sure if any time at all had gone by. Maybe they still had nine hundred meters to go.
“How many meters?” he asked in as flat and noncommittal a voice as possible.
He watched the distorted, ghostly reflection of Dantec’s face in the observation porthole. The man looked deranged.
“I’ll tell you when it’s time,” Dantec said. There was a slight tremor to his voice now, unless Hennessy was imagining it. Maybe, thought Hennessy, it’s as bad for him as it is for me.
On one level, the thought was comforting. On another, it made him realize that things might be much worse than he’d thought.
He kept looking out the observation porthole, sometimes watching the murky water, sometimes watching Dantec’s phantom reflection. How much longer, he thought, how much longer? He shook his head. Hennessy, the voices said, Hennessy. They were voices he recognized but he wasn’t sure from where, and then he realized they were the voices he’d heard in his dream. But one in particular was even more familiar. He knew who it was, he was certain, but couldn’t picture a face to go along with the voice. How could you hear a voice and know it was familiar and still not know who it was? They’ve gotten into my head, he thought. I must have done something to let them into my head. Something is wrong with me.
Oh, God—oh, God, he thought. Please help me.
If he started screaming again, Dantec would kill him. He’d said as much.
There was a flash of something outside the bathyscaphe, down below them.
No, wait, he thought, it’s just Dantec’s reflection. It’s nothing. But there it was again, coming out of the gray, something lighter, slightly textured. The ocean floor.
He slowed the bathyscaphe until it was moving at a snail’s pace.
“Three thousand meters,” said Dantec.
“We’re almost there,” he told Dantec, his voice suddenly confident again. “We’re almost at the bottom.”
He watched it approach. It was as barren as the moon, a thick layer of muck extending in all directions. They settled down very softly, raising almost no sediment. A flatfish that had been lying in the dust flicked its body and glided away, slowly settling again just outside the lights. In practice runs, there had been a fear that the craft would roll in landing and they’d have to struggle to right her, but she came down smooth and even.
“We’ve made it,” he said to Dantec. “Should be easy from here on out.”
Dantec just stared.
Hennessy contacted Tanner. Strangely enough, the signal here was better than it had been a thousand meters higher up, perhaps because of the new angle of the craft, though there were momentary pulses of energy that fuzzed everything out.
“We made it,” he said once Tanner was on.
“What’s it look like?” Tanner asked.
“Smooth, flat,” he said. “First layer anyway shouldn’t be too difficult to dig through.”
“It looks like the end of the world,” muttered Dantec from behind him.
Tanner nodded. “—say?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, sir, I missed that first part,” said Hennessy.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Tanner. “Proceed when ready. And good luck.”
Hennessy put out the struts for stability and to elevate the back half of the craft. The drill angled down until it was touching the ocean floor. He readied the controls.
15
He felt a hand on his shoulder, turned to see Dantec there, out of his seat and swaying, his eyes glazed over.
“I’ll run the drill,” he said.
“But I’m the one—”
Dantec squeezed and a sharp pain shot to his shoulder and neck; one of his arms went suddenly numb.
“I’ll run the drill,” said Dantec again, voice like flint. “Move.”
It was a struggle to get the seat belt unbuckled with Dantec squeezing his shoulder, but in the end he managed. He stood up. Dantec was still holding on to him, but he made his way to the other seat. Only once he was sitting and buckled in did Dantec let go.
Hennessy breathed a sigh of relief and began massaging his shoulder with his fingers. Slowly feeling began to come back into his arm. He stared resentfully at Dantec.
“You hardly know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to get us both killed.”
“Shut up,” said Dantec, not even bothering to turn around to look at him. He powered up the drill and started it going. The whole craft shook. With a jerk, they slowly began to burrow into the muck.
· · ·
The F/7 performed better than expected, digging slowly but inexorably downward, the drill gouging a path forward and the pulverizers decreasing the debris. At first it was mainly mud and silt, particulate matter that had filtered downward over the years. It was easy to dig through, but also there was very little for the drill to grab, so the going was slow.
The real question, thought Hennessy, looking out the back through the navigation porthole at the way the tunnel was already filling up, was how easy it would be to get out again. The pulverizers were definitely getting rid of some of the debris, but not all of it, and they could very well get stuck if they just tried to reverse out the way they’d gone in. They’d have to dig a circle and try to rejoin the tunnel. Either that or just dig a second tunnel going up. As long as Dantec was careful, it’d be okay.
“Dropship, can you read me?” he heard Dantec say. “Dropship?”
All Hennessy heard on his own earpiece was static. He assumed from the fact that Dantec didn’t continue speaking that he was hearing the same. Just the two of them, then, at least for the moment.
And me, said a voice within his head before scuttling away.
He groaned.
The F/7 lurched a bit. The sound the drill was making changed. They hit something harder—marl, he guessed, from what he’d seen of the geological maps. Calcium carbonate and mudstone. He’d be able to check the readings and the exact composition if he were in the chair he was supposed to be in.
He checked the readouts, looking over Dantec’s shoulder. They seemed to be on track. So far, nothing to worry about.
You’ll listen to me, said the voice in his head. Before you’re done, you’ll listen to me.
“I’m busy,” he said aloud. He shook his head. He bit the insides of his mouth until he tasted blood, hoping that would distract him from the voice he was hearing. For a moment, it did.
“What?” said Dantec.
“Pardon?”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, that,” Hennessy said. “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”
He held still, phasing out a little bit, listening to the hum of the drill, feeling the bathyscaphe shiver around him. I’m not here, he started telling himself at one point.
This is all a dream. Nothing but a dream.
He leapt into awareness again as the craft jerked and the sound of the drill changed again. The F/7 slowed considerably. He turned and plastered his face to the rear navigation porthole, trying to see the side of the tunnel. Darker rock now, a breccia amalgam and andesite glass. Here and there traces of shocked quartz, due to an impact.
“We must be getting close,” he said to Dantec.
Dantec grunted. “Fifty or so meters to the tip of the target,” he said. “It’ll take some time still. You’ll have to be patient.”
Be patient, he thought. He couldn’t promise anything, but he would try. All they could ask of him was that he try.
Then suddenly the drill stopped and the oxygen recirculator died. The lights flickered out and the readouts on the control panels were reduced to lines of static. Not even the emergency lights were working. He heard in his ears, for just an instant, Tanner’s voice, his tone terse: “—do you read, co—” and then nothing but dead air.
In the silence he listened to the sound of Dantec pressing buttons, trying to work the controls. Nothing. His hands, he suddenly realized, were doing the same.
“What’s happened?” he asked, almost screaming it.
“I don’t know,” said Dantec. “It’s not working!”
Hennessy felt the porthole and started pounding on it.
“Stop it,” said Dantec. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it!”
The darkness was thick all around him, too thick. He could feel it tightening its fingers around his throat, the air already growing warm and then hot. It was more than he could stand.
And then suddenly it got worse. There, briefly illuminated, on the other side of the porthole, was a face. At first he thought it was his own face, but it was pitch dark. How could it be his own face? Or maybe a deepwater fish, something with its own luminescence. But no, it was a human face, not a fish, and he was sure it was not his own face. It was there, just on the other side of the glass, pressed between the glass and the wall of the tunnel they had just dug, glowing softly. And it was a face he knew—a puffy and slightly pudgy face, curly hair that floated in the water, a somewhat slack mouth, crooked teeth. He and the face shared the same eyes—their father’s eyes. It was his half brother, Shane.
Shane had been dead for years. He had died in college, a freak accident when he’d been driving down the highway and a restraint broke on an automobile transport vehicle in front of him, sending a car crashing off its top level to crush him. Hennessy was sure he was dead. He’d seen the body. Even seen, when the undertaker was looking the other way, how if you grabbed Shane’s hair and tilted the head, a huge bloodless gash opened up just under the collar. No, it was impossible.
And yet, here he was.
Hello, Jim, Shane mouthed. Hennessy heard the words sound aloud within his head.
“Hello, Shane,” he said. “What are you doing out there?”
“Shut up!” said Dantec. “What’s wrong with you? Shut up!”
It’s good to see you, Jim, said Shane.
Hennessy put his face very close to the glass. “I have to be quiet,” he whispered. “If I don’t, Dantec’s going to throw a conniption.”
Shane nodded and smiled, then pretended, as they had done when they were kids, to be zipping his mouth shut.
“I have to be honest, Shane,” Hennessy whispered. He couldn’t see his own face in the darkness, but he imagined his forehead to be wrinkled with worry. Hopefully Shane could see that and would take the question in the spirit it was intended. “I thought you were dead.”
Of course you did, Jim, said Shane. That’s what they wanted you to think.
Hennessy nodded. “Those bastards,” he whispered.
Shane nodded. They’re not that bad, he said. They just don’t know any better. But you know better, don’t you, Jim?
“I do now,” whispered Hennessy. “God, Shane, it’s really great to see you. But I have to ask you another question.”
Go ahead, said Shane. You can ask me anything.
“What are you doing out there?”
Well, said Shane, looking down shyly, to be frank, Jim, I was hoping you’d invite me in.
Hennessy looked around at the darkness, trying to picture in his mind what the cabin looked like. “Shane, it’s already pretty cramped in here. I don’t know if there’s room.”
Trust me, there’s more room than you think, said Shane. Invite me in and you’ll see.
“But what will Dantec think?” he asked.
“Stop whispering!” shouted Dantec. “Stop it now!”
Shane gave him a sleepy grin. He’s not the boss here, Jim. I know how things really are. You’re the boss. Dantec, he’s just a big bully. He needs someone to put him in his place. I’ll be quiet. I bet he won’t even notice me.
“You’re right, Shane,” whispered Hennessy. “He’s nothing more than a big bully.” He waited, pressing his face against the thick glass of the porthole. “Why not, then? Come on in, Shane. Come on in.”
With that, suddenly the lights flickered and went out again, then came on in full force. The readouts went live again. Hennessy heard crackling in his ear, saw Tanner’s ghost on his holoscreen before it was rubbed out by static.
The oxygen recirculators started up and the drill began to hum. Dantec gave a whoop. “We’re okay,” he said, casting a quick glance over his shoulder. His face, Hennessy saw, was slick with sweat. “We’re going to be okay.”
But Hennessy already knew it would be okay. His brother, good old Shane, was here now, sitting right beside him on a chair he hadn’t remembered being there before. Shane must have brought it with him. He was smiling, holding Hennessy’s hand in his own. Now that Shane was there, everything would work out.
16
He gently disengaged his hand from his brother’s and looked at his chronometer. Six thirty-eight, it read, but he could tell by the way the numbers flashed and then slowly faded that it had stopped. Why wasn’t it working? He showed it to Shane, who just nodded.
Nothing to worry about, brother, Shane said. It doesn’t really matter.
Shane was right, of course, it didn’t really matter, but he still wanted to know what time it was.
“What time is it?” he asked Dantec.
“Leave me alone,” said Dantec. “We’re getting close. I have to watch this.”
Hennessy waited a moment and then asked again.
Distractedly, Dantec looked at his wrist, then held his chronometer to his ear. “It’s stopped,” he said.
“Mine, too,” said Hennessy.
Dantec turned and looked at him. He didn’t seem to notice Shane, even though he was right there, right next to Hennessy. People see what they want to see, thought Hennessy.
“Doesn’t that seem weird to you?” Dantec asked.
Hennessy shrugged. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter.”
Dantec narrowed his eyes. “And another thing,” he said. “Why are you so fucking serene all of a sudden?”
Hennessy cast his eyes toward Shane, then realized what he’d done and flicked them back quickly to look at Dantec. Dantec’s eyes moved to the side, stared through Shane, then moved back.
“It’s just like that,” said Hennessy. “I just feel better. I don’t know why.”
Rolling his eyes, Dantec turned away.
Just between you and me, Jim, should he really be doing this? asked Shane.
“I don’t know,” said Hennessy, “should he?”
Some things it’s better not to mess with.
Hennessy nodded. Shane was probably right, but if he told Dantec that, he wouldn’t listen. What could he do about it? Maybe it was a bad idea, but even if it was, he didn’t know how he could get Dantec to stop.
After a few more minutes—or maybe it was longer, impossible to say—Dantec slowed the drill. He drilled forward slowly until they struck something and the drill made a whining sound. He reversed it, backed up
a little, and then approached at a slightly different angle, shearing away the side of the tunnel wall. Hennessy just stayed smiling, glancing occasionally over at his brother, waiting.
Are you sure it’s a good idea? asked Shane again. Hennessy shrugged.
Dantec backed up again, came in once more, then a fourth time.
I think it’s a mistake, Shane said.
There was, Hennessy could see, a strange shape, still half enclosed in rock on one side. It was hard to see past the particles of rock and silt swirling through the water. Dantec pulled back a little, then turned off the drill.
“What’s out there?” asked Hennessy.
“How the hell should I know?” said Dantec. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
It’s the Black Marker, said Shane.
The Black Marker, Hennessy thought. As the water settled, he began to see it more clearly. It looked like a monolith made of some sort of obsidian. It narrowed to a point at the top, the whole of it twisting slightly as it rose. It was horizontally striated and covered with thousands of symbols, symbols unlike anything he had seen before. Were they glowing, or did it only look like they were because of the way the light was catching them? He couldn’t tell for sure. What he could see of it, of the part that was uncovered now, was probably three meters tall.
“Oh my God,” said Dantec, his voice filled with an uncustomary awe. “Who put this here? Or what?”
That’s the last question you want to ask, said Shane to Hennessy. Better not to know.
He remembered suddenly the schematic that Tanner had shown them of the Marker. He pulled it up on his holoscreen. There were two horns at the top, pointing out in either direction, and he could see the Marker went on much deeper below them, probably another twenty meters or more. “How big is it?” Hennessy asked.
Dantec, confused, said something, but Hennessy wasn’t asking him.
Dead Space™ Page 6
