I climbed aboard again and cut as many two-foot-long pieces I could from it. I’d reached five when I heard the door at the end of the corridor click closed and the sound of someone moving toward me.
“Welcome aboard,” I said, turning to look back over my shoulder to where I knew Chou and Freuchen would be.
Instead, I froze in horror at the sight of Thomas Abernathy standing midway between me and the door. Or more accurately, what had once been Thomas Abernathy, because this warped and twisted thing was no longer a man.
Whatever the orb had been, it was now a part of Abernathy. In the time between our little group watching from the hulk of the dead robot while the orb seized him and now, terrible changes had been inflicted on Thomas Abernathy. What was left of his clothing hung in tatters from his malformed body, exposing almost every part of him. From his midriff to his left shoulder and down his left arm was coated in the same oily substance as the orb. It clung tightly to his skin, almost like it was made of rubber, but it was moving too, shifting along the edges, slowly but inexorably spreading over what remained of his body, transforming him from a man into something... else. Something that, to me, seemed more machine than human.
It was Abernathy’s face that kept me pinned to the spot in horror. It was a mass of scars run through with thin black veins. His nose was a misshapen globule, more like a dog’s snout than a human nose. His head, almost completely hairless with only a few wispy tufts left here and there. He glanced back over his shoulder, and I saw that the three raised, bony protrusions that pushed up from beneath the skin of his forehead ran back over his mottled skull and appeared fused to his spine just beneath the nape of his neck.
Our eyes met again.
Only a small part of his upper lip still remained. The rest was just two thin lines, like the mouth of a fish. And when he parted those lips, I saw two rows of pointed teeth where his own should have been. His eyes were sunken pits with a black copy of the orb that had performed these perverted alterations to him in each socket. Within each of those orbs, blue rings of light burned like St. Elmo’s fire where irises should be.
“Whash haff… haffening true me?” he slurred from between the thin lines of his lips.
“I... I don’t know,” I said. I took one tentative step backward.
Abernathy shuffled toward me. His left leg and half of his right were coated in the same midnight-black oil. I stared hard, unable to shake the terrible fascination I felt as it shifted and moved over him, expanding inch by inch across what was left of his human skin.
“You did thish too meeee,” he mumbled, burning with inhuman hatred.
I took another step back toward the ladder that lead up into the balloon.
“No,” I spat at him. “You brought this on yourself.”
The oil spread across the last human parts of Abernathy’s face, completing its work on his lips. With the transmogrification now complete, his slurred voice became almost human again.
“You should have just given us what it wants,” Abernathy said. His voice carried an electronic resonance to it now, as though it was being synthesized rather than spoken by a human.
“What?” I said, honestly confused. “Given who what it wants?”
Abernathy took another step toward me. “What was it your people on Avalon called him... the Adversary? Yes, the Adversary. You should just have given the Adversary what it wanted.”
I felt my mouth fall open in astonishment. How on earth could Abernathy know any of this? He hadn’t been there… no, he hadn’t been on the island with us, but the Adversary’s deadly mechanical bugs had been. Which meant only one thing: it had been listening to us all that time. But it couldn’t have heard everything because then it would have no need for me. Which meant it still didn’t know about the collector or Candidate 1.
The oil shifted across Abernathy’s chest, spreading bit by bit over his shoulder. It was mesmerizing to watch as this man was slowly subsumed by whatever mysterious substance the orb had been made of. And terrifying beyond belief.
Abernathy made a grab for me. I squealed and leaped back… and felt my heel kick against the body of the unconscious Jean-Pierre. I spun around and grabbed the rifle he had been carrying from the floor, then turned back to face Abernathy.
He was just four feet from me now. “If you pull that trigger, you will destroy us all,” Abernathy snarled.
“Maybe it’ll be worth it?” I said.
Abernathy stopped mid-step.
I didn’t want to die, but I also wasn’t going to let this thing get its hands on me.
“But then, who said anything about shooting you, asshole?” I yelled. I flipped the rifle around, gripping it by its barrel, then lunged at Abernathy’s head, hoping to any gods that might still be listening that I didn’t accidentally fire the thing. The wooden butt struck him right between his glowing eyes. It landed with a loud crack against the mask of black oil covering Abernathy’s face. The mask broke apart momentarily, and, this close, I could see it wasn’t oil. It was made of tiny spider-like creatures. Machines. They had to be machines—like the nano-clusters that floated unseen through the air. These things were larger, but they were definitely machines, I was sure of it.
Abernathy staggered back down the corridor. I leaped across the space between us and caught him again with the rifle butt. He staggered backward, his hands reaching for the wall to steady himself.
Behind Abernathy, Freuchen’s huge form pulled itself up into the corridor, followed by Chou. Both had their respirators on. They froze for a second when they saw Abernathy.
Abernathy must have seen my distracted glance toward them and turned. Then, just as he returned his gaze to me, I jabbed the rifle at his head again, but this time he ducked, snarled something indistinguishable at me, then barged past me. His shoulder caught me and sent me spinning to the floor. I looked up in time to see him race back down the corridor.
“Are you okay?” Chou said, suddenly at my side.
I nodded, allowing Freuchen to pull me to my feet. “Vas that…?”
“Abernathy? Yes, what’s left of him anyway.”
“Come on,” I said, and we raced after him. I rounded the corner just in time to see him throwing open the second exit. He jumped to the ground, looked back at us one final time, then vanished into the darkness.
Chou raced to the open door, leaned out, but after a few moments, she stepped inside and locked the door behind her.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said when she looked at me. “Right now, I want to get the crew off this thing before they asphyxiate. If they aren’t already dead.”
I could tell by the way Chou’s eyes narrowed behind the visor of her respirator that she still wasn’t happy about letting the crew go.
“A deal’s a deal,” Freuchen rumbled. “Now, let’s get on vith it.”
We opened all the portholes we could between the exit and the crew’s quarters to help the AC system force the remaining hydrogen out of the Brimstone. The crew lay in disheveled heaps around the room, some still in their bunks which were stacked three high, others on the floor. Many were bloodied—presumably injured during the delirium caused by the lack of oxygen.
“Excuse me,” said Freuchen and pushed past me. He picked up two crewmembers, both women and carried them out, one under each arm. I grabbed one of the men by his boots and dragged him into the hallway and then out to where Freuchen had lain the two women. The rain had stopped, but the ground was like quicksand and sucked at my boots. Chou followed behind me, carrying a woman under one arm while dragging a man by his ankles.
“They will start to recover quickly now that they have access to fresh air. Tie them up securely and make sure they have no weapons,” Chou said.
For the next couple of minutes, I went about doing just that while my two friends brought the remaining crew out. I felt a wave of relief wash over me when Freuchen carried the Captain out and laid her next to the rest of the crew, announcing that she was the last. Ever
y one of them was breathing, cloudy puffs of warm air drifting from their mouths in the cold night. One of the women we had brought out first was starting to moan and move against her bonds, but the rest were all still unconscious.
“We can’t just let them sit out here in the cold and rain,” I said as Chou approached me.
She pulled the respirator from her head and tossed it back toward the ship. Freuchen and I did the same.
“Yes, we can,” Chou said. “It is more mercy than they showed the people of New Manhattan that they killed without compunction.”
Freuchen wiggled his formerly lost thumb at me. “And don’t forget vat they did to me, eh?”
They were right, of course. Still, I felt as though I was letting Silas down, but I couldn’t see any other way to help them. And I knew that if any of our prisoners got free, they would kill all of us if they had the chance.
“What we need to do now is refill that empty bladder and get airborne so these fools cannot cause us any more harm. Peter, will you watch over them, please?”
Freuchen nodded. “It vould be my pleasure.”
“And watch out for Abernathy,” I said, as I followed Chou back into the Brimstone. “He could be lurking out here somewhere.”
“The air should be fine to breathe by now,” Chou said, “but if you feel even slightly nauseous, let me know.” We walked to the access ladder and climbed up into the balloon.
Chou moved to the control panel next to the bladder I’d deflated to gas the crew into unconsciousness. “It is actually a very clever design,” she said with a hint of admiration in her voice. “The photovoltaic skin of the Brimstone’s balloon captures energy and charges those batteries.” She nodded at a bank of black boxes toward the front of balloon. “They power the amenities and electronics on the ship, but they also allow the engineers to create their own hydrogen.” She nodded up to the large tank suspended from the top of the balloon by thick cables. “That contains water, and using the process of electrolysis, the Brimstone can create as much hydrogen as it needs, giving us almost unlimited fuel.” She flipped a couple of switches on the console. There was an electrical humming and what sounded like a jacuzzi bubbling to life above our heads. A ripple passed through the almost empty bladder, and it began to inflate. Chou tapped the screen with her finger. “It should take about an hour to fill back. Then we are on our way.”
I smiled broadly, threw my arms around her, and gave her a squeeze. Surprisingly, Chou hugged me back just as tightly.
“I am proud of you,” she said, releasing me and taking a step back. “What you just did was very brave. And your insistence on keeping the crew alive, while I believe it to be somewhat foolish, was also commendable.” She paused for a long moment as though she were searching for the right words to say next. “I will strive to live up to your standards more often,” she said eventually. Then she turned and made her way back to the ladder, leaving me to watch her in shocked silence at this unusual show of emotion. The smile didn’t fade as I ran after her.
“Anything going on?” I asked Freuchen. He was sitting on the lip of the exit, his legs dangling over its edge, moving his flashlight over the Brimstone’s former crew as they sat in the orange glow of the airship’s lights. Most had returned to consciousness, but three of them, including the Red Baroness, still lay in the mud, their chests rising slowly. At least I knew they were alive. The conscious crewmembers watched us silently, but their eyes conveyed the fear they all felt. And if the roles had been reversed, I’d feel the same way, too. I’m sure they all expected to be executed at any moment; after all, that’s what they would have done to us. And I was quite happy to let them keep thinking that too if it kept them quiet and submissive until we were ready to leave. Jean-Pierre sat next to his unconscious captain, his eyes focused exclusively on me.
“No sign of Abernathy?” I said, keeping my voice low so our prisoners would not hear.
Freuchen shook his head. “None. I think he is long gone.”
“Okay, well, Chou says we can expect to be ready to leave in about forty minutes or so.”
“Ver is she?”
“Up in the pilothouse, familiarizing herself with the controls.”
“Do you know vat—“
Light splashed across the sky, and the air was lit with the twinkle of pixie dust as the aurora finally arrived. I felt the tension drop away, only to be replaced by a welcome feeling of wellbeing. I exhaled a deep sigh of relief when I saw the three crewmembers who had, until now, still lay unconscious. They sat up, confusion evident on their faces as they, no doubt, began asking their fellow captors what had happened. They fell silent again when they noticed us watching them from the airship’s doorway.
It took longer than Chou had anticipated for the bladder to fill, and by the time she announced that we were ready to leave, it was close to dawn. I followed her out of the cabin, where I had just taken a shower. It felt amazing to have washed all the mud from me and change into some fresh clothes. We joined Freuchen, where he still stood guard over our prisoners. Our band of captives sat in the mud, their heads down, all resistance now beaten out of them by the rain and cold.
“I’ll untie the mooring lines,” Freuchen said, handing me his rifle before dropping to the ground. Moving from line to line, he untied the rope from the pegs, then heaved the pegs from the rain-soaked ground with his bare hands. Chou pulled the lines aboard and stored them again, then rejoined Freuchen and me at the doorway.
I jumped down and walked to the Red Baroness, who sat at the end of the line of captives. I pulled a knife I’d taken off of one of the guards and threw it into the mud about ten feet from her.
“If any of you tries to get to that knife before we are airborne, my big friend over there will shoot you dead. Once we are in the air, you can use it to cut your bonds. Do you understand?”
“You can’t leave us here,” Jean-Pierre yelled at me. “We’ll die with no food or any way to defend ourselves.”
I turned and looked at him, then nodded in the direction of the tree line. “We’ve left food and water in the woods over there. There’s at least three days’ worth, more if you ration it properly. We’re confiscating all of your firearms and ammunition, but we’ve left your knives and swords. You won’t be defenseless.”
I made my way back to the airship but stopped and turned to face the prisoners again.
“Oh, and one last thing. If any of you should get the bright idea to come looking for revenge, understand that we will be ready for you, and next time we won’t be so forgiving. This world has plenty for all of us, go live your lives. You’ve been given a second chance you did not deserve. There won’t be a third.”
I took Freuchen’s proffered hand and climbed back inside the Brimstone, closed and secured the door behind me, then followed Chou to the pilothouse while Freuchen stood guard at the door and made sure the prisoners kept up their end of the bargain.
The Brimstone’s wheelhouse was a glass bubble that gave us a two-hundred-degree view of the area immediately around and below us. That included the airship’s former crew, their dejected faces watching us as we made our preparations for takeoff.
A large black panel placed all of the knobs and levers needed to control the airship in front of the leather pilot’s chair. A second co-pilot’s chair sat next to it. I stood to Chou’s left, watching her flip switches, turn a couple of knobs, and pull down on three overhead levers.
“I do not like to fly,” Freuchen said, joining me at the window.
I laughed. “But to be fair, you haven’t experienced it when you’re not a prisoner.”
He nodded. “This is very true. Still, I do not—“
The Brimstone lurched, and I felt butterflies in my stomach as the ground began to recede. Freuchen’s eyes grew wide, and he grabbed hold of a stanchion with one hand and my shoulder with his other. For such a big tough man, he really was easily frightened.
We rose slowly above the tops of the trees, their boughs transfor
med to bronze by the early morning sun. Through the plexiglass bubble, I watched the Red Baroness scramble through the mud to retrieve the knife. She moved to Jean-Pierre and got to work on the rope that bound his hands together. When he was free, he did the same for her.
Our ascent slowed then stopped, and we hung motionless in the air, about seventy feet above the ground.
“I need your help, Meredith,” Chou said
“What’s up?” I said, parking my butt in the co-pilot’s chair.
Chou pointed to the three computer screens in front of her. “Your translative ability does not appear to work on the written word and numbers. Would you please translate these for me?”
“Sure.” I began reading the headings at the top of each display aloud for her. It seemed to work as she nodded each time I spoke.
“And these,” she said, pointing to a bank of switches.
“Those control the landing and traveling lights,” I explained, reading each aloud too. “And these over here—“
“Meredith! Chou!” Freuchen snapped, his voice laced with panic. “Something is… my God… vat is he doing?”
Chou and I wasted no time joining Freuchen at the window.
“What are you—“ The words stuck in my throat. Below, a figure dressed entirely in black ambled toward the Brimstone’s crew. The Red Baroness lay face down in the mud a few feet behind the figure, her body convulsing as though she were being electrocuted. She’d managed to free three others, and now those men and Jean-Pierre were cautiously approaching the black-clad figure, their fists raised.
“Abernathy!” I hissed.
It was difficult to make out too much detail from where we hovered, but it was obvious that whatever change Abernathy had gone through after the orb had grabbed him was now fully complete. Now, he resembled his previous human form in shape only. His head was covered by what I thought was a cowl like Chou’s, but when he looked in our direction, I saw that it was more like the hood of a cobra, two black fleshy extensions on either side of his head where his ears should have been. His face was a point-down-triangle, his features too far away for me to make out with any clarity, but his eyes… they burned with such intensity I could feel the hatred emanating from them. The rest of his body looked mostly human, except that his limbs had all grown more muscular, and longer, suggesting a newfound strength. He alone would have been terrifying enough, but something else was moving at Abernathy’s feet.
A Memory of Mankind: (This Alien Earth Book 2) Page 14
