Altman played along as long as he could, finally admitted he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You’re not Perkins?” the scientist asked.
Altman shook his head.
“Never mind,” said the scientist, retreating quickly into his lab. “Forget I said anything.”
Showalter, too, was almost as much on the outside as Altman, though he knew geophysics well enough that he was somehow consulted.
“Always just bits and pieces,” Showalter confessed to Altman in a low voice over coffee. “They think if they give me just a little, I won’t be able to figure it out. That’d be true if it was just them, but their colleagues sometimes consult me as well. I know more than anybody realizes.”
“And?” asked Altman.
“I think we’re very close to bringing it up,” said Showalter. “Almost all the theoretical problems have been solved. A few more tests and they’ll just be waiting for an okay.”
Ada had made friends with the medical team, even helping out informally when she was needed. And she was needed more and more. In the floating compound, Ada told him, reports of scientists and soldiers beset by insomnia and hallucinations were on the rise.
“According to Dr. Merck,” she claimed, “he’s never seen anything like it. Violent incidents of all kinds are on the rise, nearly double what they were just a few months ago. The suicide rate has skyrocketed and the assault rate has climbed considerably.”
“It’s a tense time,” said Altman, playing devil’s advocate, the role Ada usually would play. “Maybe that’s all it is.”
“No, you were right. It’s more than that,” said Ada. “Even Merck thinks so. There are signs of widespread paranoia, people having visions of dead relatives, and more and more people speaking in a trancelike state of ‘Convergence,’ without being really able to explain what that meant exactly once they were themselves again. Everyone is on the verge of paranoia or panic. Goddammit, you’ve got me thinking like you.”
Altman nodded. “Then my nonscientific inquiry was right,” he said. “Everyone is on edge. Something is going on.”
“What do you think it means?” Ada asked him.
“What does it mean?” said Altman. “If you ask me, it means were fucked.”
43
Altman was on yet another descent, this time with a researcher by the name of Torquato, someone from Markoff’s inner circle. He had with him a simple black box, homemade, with a single knob on it and a needle readout. The technology was old enough that it could have been made in the twentieth century. As they descended, Altman tried to make idle conversation to pass the time.
“You’re what,” he asked, “some kind of scientist?”
Torquato shrugged. “You could call it that,” he said.
“Geophysics?” asked Altman. “Geology? Volcanology? Something more theoretical?”
“It’s hard to explain,” claimed Torquato, “and not very interesting.”
But Altman was interested. He was descending into the heart of the crater with a man who was being deliberately vague. Something was up.
“So what brings you down here today?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“A few measurements,” said Torquato.
“What’s the box about?” Altman asked.
“This?” responded Torquato, pushing at the box with his thumb. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
A few more questions and Altman gave up. They descended in silence down to the artifact and held position just above it. Robotic units had dug out under its base and were well on the way to netting it, the net itself attached to a series of cables that would eventually be hooked to larger, stronger cables on the freighter. The artifact would be reeled in, with the help of the nascent field of kinetic technology. It was to be secured and then brought through the water doors into the floating compound.
Beside him, Torquato gave the single knob on his box a counterclockwise twist. The needle immediately came to life, engaging in a rhythmic and regular movement along its graph. Torquato grunted, jotted something on his holopad.
“What is it?” asked Altman.
“Hmm?” said Torquato. “Did you say something?”
When Altman started to repeat the question, Torquato interrupted. “Take the bathyscaphe lower,” he said.
“How much lower?”
“Halfway between the top of the object and its base,” he said.
Carefully Altman nudged it down. The black box’s needle he saw continued to bounce, but its rhythm and scope changed.
“That’s good,” said Torquato. “Now, can you slowly circle around, staying just at this level?”
“I can try,” said Altman. He started moving the bathyscaphe slowly around the monolith, casting glances from time to time at the box.
When Torquato noticed him looking, he cast him a withering look and from then on shielded the readout with his hand.
“You’re here to drive,” he said. “Nothing more.”
“Look, buddy,” said Altman. “I’m not stealing any secrets here. I have no idea what that thing does. I’m just trying to pass the time.”
Torquato didn’t bother to answer. Exasperated, Altman turned away, focusing on trying to bring the bathyscaphe within a few meters of the monolith without touching it. When he looked back, Torquato was still covering the readout with his hand. Asshole, he thought.
Torquato’s turn was different from that of the others, much more abrupt, little if any warning. One moment he was sitting there, shielding the black box’s needle display with his hand, and the next he had attacked.
How he’d undone the restraint on his leg, Altman hadn’t been able to figure out at the time, though later he discovered it had been cut, whether by Torquato or someone else, he never could be certain. In a flash, Torquato was free, and that was all that mattered. Altman tried to get the tranquilizer gun out and fire a dart, but Torquato had been too quick, and when he reached for it, he found the holster empty, the pistol aimed at him instead. He dived to the side, but the pistol had already fired, and there it was, the dart sticking out of his arm.
He reached down and, with effort, plucked it out. His tongue already felt thick in his mouth. Torquato was talking to him, he suddenly realized, though he was a little less clear on what he was saying. He blinked and Torquato blurred out of focus, only slowly coming back in again. The man was speaking incomprehensibly, endlessly, about the necessity for Convergence.
Altman made an effort, bit the inside of his mouth until it bled, succeeded in focusing.
“You’ve been here again and again, just beside it,” he said to Altman, stroking his cheek. “Yet you have felt nothing. Don’t you hear it calling to you? Won’t you answer?”
When he regained consciousness, it was to find himself pressed up against the observation porthole, the bathyscaphe pushing up against the artifact with the motor still running until it was tilted on end. There were repeated banging noises coming from somewhere, punctuated by long moments of silence.
“It’s stuck,” he heard Torquato’s voice mutter. And then, “I’m trying, I tell you, I’m trying.”
Trying to what? Altman wondered.
The banging started again. Altman slowly pulled himself up, standing on the porthole. The cabin felt extraordinarily warm, stuffy. He scaled the side of the console and stood on it. The oxygen recirculator had been disabled, was nothing but a mass of tangled metal, sparks flying off it. He was careful not to touch it. No wonder the air felt stuffy. How long had he been out? He looked down at the console until his eyes found the chronometer. It, too, had stopped.
The ladder leading to the hatch was directly above him, horizontal along the ceiling, and he could see Torquato’s feet sticking out of the passage.
The banging started up again.
Oh, shit. Altman realized, his limbs instantly going heavy: He’s trying to open the hatch. He’s trying to flood the bathyscaphe.
He clambered onto the sideways chair, nearly fell
when it swiveled. There was a brief groan, and for a moment he thought it was going to come unbolted from the deck, but it held. Carefully he put both feet on the chairback and stood.
From there, he could almost reach the fixed metal ladder. He steadied himself, reached as far as he could, but his fingers just grazed it. He’d have to leap up, hope that his fingers caught the rung and held it the first time, so that he wouldn’t come down with a crash and alert Torquato.
The banging started again, Torquato screeching along with it. Altman jumped, caught the rung. He flailed his leg up, managed to get his ankle around the side rail of the ladder as well. The banging stopped.
He hung there motionless, hoping Torquato wouldn’t turn around.
“It’s stuck!” he shouted, apparently at nobody. “I’m trying, I tell you!”
Holding on to the ladder, Altman tilted his head back until he could see Torquato there, upside down. He was lying flat in the passage, a metal bar in one hand, a strut maybe, something stolen from the remains of the oxygen recirculator. His knuckles were bloody, and Altman could see symbols like those on the artifact, painted here and there along the passage in blood.
Torquato tugged on the wheel, then gave a little cry of frustration. He raised the bar and started striking the hatch again, at the hinge. The pressure was too great, Altman realized with relief. Unless he loosened a hinge or blew the hatch from the control panel, the seal might hold. Much more worrisome, though, was the lack of air.
Torquato stopped, breathing heavily. “A cleansing,” he was muttering. “Yes, a cleansing. Start again, new and fresh.”
He began pounding again. Carefully, Altman started along the ladder, back into the passage. As he got farther up, he had to bend his arms, pull himself up closer to the ladder so as not to brush Torquato’s back. By the time Torquato stopped again, Altman was hanging directly over him, their bodies less than a foot away from each other. Altman could smell the man’s sour sweat.
He held his breath, staring at the ladder a few inches from his face, the muscles in his arms starting to cramp. Torquato kept muttering to himself, laughing softly under his breath. Altman heard the sound of him scrabbling at the hatch, the cry of frustration, then the pounding began again.
He let go of the ladder and pushed off it hard at the same time, crashing down onto Torquato’s back. It hurt like hell. He tried in the confined space to scramble around to face him, but Torquato was trying to get up, too, and for a moment his face and chest were pressed against the ladder. With a shout he pushed down as hard as he could and Torquato collapsed underneath him. He started to turn around again, knocking his shoulder against the ladder, and made it this time. Torquato was half-turned over now and groping for the metal bar, which had fallen and was under him.
Altman grabbed his head by the hair and brought it down hard. Torquato was bellowing now, struggling, trying to slip back and out of the passage. Altman wrapped his legs around him and held on, trying to keep him there, slamming his face into the floor again. Torquato had the bar now and was trying to get it up, but his arm was still pinned beneath him. He turned his head as far as he could, trying to look at Altman, and Altman saw his collapsed cheekbone and orbit, the blood that was washing over his eye. He slammed his head down again, and then a second time, until the bar slipped from Torquato’s fingers and his body went slack.
Altman lay there on top of him for a while, holding him by the hair, trying to catch his breath. Knocking against the walls, he turned Torquato the rest of the way over, faceup. His face was a mess, the nose and cheekbone broken and in a pulp. He held his ear close to his mouth. His breathing was shallow, but it was still there.
Now what? thought Altman. What do I do with him? He could tie him up, as he had done with Hendricks, but there was always the chance he would break free. And there was the bigger problem, the lack of oxygen. With the oxygen recirculator broken, he probably didn’t have enough air to make it to the surface for one person, let alone two.
Am I a killer? Altman wondered. Am I the kind of person who is willing to kill someone so as to stay alive himself? He ran it through his mind again, considered other alternatives, but couldn’t come up with anything. It was either Torquato or him. Torquato, he told himself, would have died anyway if he’d gotten his way and managed to open the hatch, so the choice was either both of them dead or just one of them dead.
He looked at the bloody face below him. He’d done that. Maybe he’d had no choice, but in any case, he’d done it, was responsible for it. And was about to be, he realized, responsible for more.
He reached out and put his hands around Torquato’s throat. It was sticky with blood. He let his hands lie there, then very gently began to squeeze.
At first he thought it would be easy, that Torquato would simply slip from unconsciousness to death without waking. But after a moment, Torquato’s eyes suddenly sprang open. Altman squeezed harder. Torquato’s arms began to flail and shake, striking Altman’s shoulders and arms. He arched his back, knocking Altman into the wall of the passage, but Altman held on, squeezing tighter.
In the last moment before he died, a light came into Torquato’s undamaged eye that Altman couldn’t help but see. Human, pleading. He closed his own eyes to it and turned his head to the side. Gradually, he felt Torquato’s movements slow and stop. When he finally opened his eyes again, Torquato’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets. He was dead.
He dragged himself out of the passage, climbed down the wall and onto the console. There, he reversed the screws, bringing the bathyscaphe backward and away from the artifact. It slowly righted itself, Torquato’s body spilling out of the hatch passage and onto the floor.
Altman climbed off the console and to the chair to start the bathyscaphe rising. The lead-pellet release was jammed, the panel all around it scarred from where Torquato had dented it. The craft started to rise, pellets slowly dribbling out, but not as fast as he’d hoped. Chances were he’d reach a certain water density and then the craft would stop moving entirely and he’d hang there suspended, slowly dying.
He recorded an SOS message and then sent it to loop and broadcast, asking them to come for the bathyscaphe, to make it rise as quickly as possible. Whether they’d get the message soon enough, he didn’t know. He recorded another message for Ada, telling her he loved her and that he was sorry, just in case he didn’t make it.
It was getting very warm. He wasn’t getting enough air. He wondered if the best thing was to go to sleep. He’d use less air that way. He contemplated getting down on the floor of the submarine, thinking the air might be better down there.
But he just stayed slumped in his chair, staring at Torquato’s remains.
And then suddenly, he saw Torquato’s hand move.
Impossible, he thought. He’s dead.
He swiveled his chair around so that he could see him better, watching carefully. No, he was dead, he wasn’t moving, how could he?
And then the hand moved again.
Hello, Altman, Torquato said.
“Go back to being dead,” Altman said to him.
It’s not as easy as that, said Torquato. I need you to understand something first.
“Understand what?”
“This,” said Torquato, and leapt forward.
Torquato flew up on him, choking him. He tried to pry his hands off, but they were digging too firmly into his neck. He latched his own hands on to Torquato’s neck, squeezing with all he had; then he blacked out.
He came conscious to find his hands around the neck of a corpse. It was rigid and cold, had been dead a very long time. What is going on? he wondered.
He tried to stand up to get away from the corpse, but couldn’t. He moved his fingers away and rolled off, lying just beside it. He hoped he was close to the surface, but there was no way to tell from here.
Suddenly he saw something strange. A woman. She looked a lot like Ada, though it wasn’t her. It was obvious when he looked close. But maybe it was her mother,
back when he had first met her, before she had cancer.
But that’s impossible, he thought. Ada’s mother is dead.
I’m hallucinating again, he thought. Just like with Torquato.
Hello, Michael, she said.
“Aren’t you dead?” he asked.
How can I be dead if I’m here with you?
For a moment he wanted simply to accept what she was saying, but then found resistance welling up within him. “Who are you, really?” he asked. “Why am I hallucinating you?”
Ada’s mother didn’t answer either question. I’ve come to give you a message, she said. About the Marker.
“What’s the Marker?”
You know what it is, she said. You’ve come near it again and again, but somehow you’ve resisted it. She crossed her index and middle fingers, held her hand toward him.
“Tail of the devil,” he said. “The artifact, you mean.”
She nodded. You need to forget about it. The Marker is dangerous. Above all, you need to leave it where you found it.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Altman. “What do I have to do with the Marker?”
Not just you, she said, and spread her arms wide. You. Whatever choices are made will affect all of you.
She cocked her head in a manner very similar to the way Ada often did. A tremendous pressure built rapidly in his head; then it was gone.
“What’s the message?” asked Altman.
Convergence is death, she said. You must not give in to the Marker. You must not allow it to begin Convergence.
“What does that mean, Convergence?
It means you shall finally begin, from the new beginning.
“The beginning of what? And just me?”
She again spread her arms wide. You, all of you, she said. Then, for a moment, she seemed almost exactly like Ada in a way that he found very disturbing. I love you, Michael, Ada’s mother said. I’m counting on you. Please help me stop it. Please don’t fail.
Dead Space™ Page 19
