The void, p.9
The Void, page 9
The wire stretched out as I soared away...
And the dart hit the ship.
With another press of the trigger the mechanism in the pistol’s barrel seized.
And nearly yanked my shoulder from its socket.
I grimaced at the pain, but kept my mouth clamped shut.
An instant later I realized I had something else to worry about. I had hit the hull farther down from the air locks, closer to the gravtrav emitters. As a result, my momentum shifted and I swiveled in space as my legs rotated around.
I was a pendulum, and my velocity had just increased.
I was rocketing back toward the ship in a long parabolic arc.
Keep a grip on the pistol! I told myself.
Keep a grip on the pistol!
My lungs were aching and I knew I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. The gases were boiling from my blood and the pressure was mounting. My eyes were stinging as the water on them flash froze.
Phoenix was a large ship, and I was curving under it now as the taut wire and my momentum hauled me through space. I was thirty meters from the ship. The helmet was still in my right hand, but I had no way to get it over my head and lock it to the mechanism or the hinges at my shoulders. I could see the research pods silhouetted against the milky clouds of stars, but everything seemed slightly out of focus.
Then I found myself arcing upward, toward the underside of Phoenix, and I realized with dread that there was going to be an imminent brutal impact. The pistol was straining my grip; it had stretched out my left arm, almost to the breaking point, while my right arm hung behind me as I desperately gripped the helmet—
And vacuum clawed at my fully exposed face and head.
The tension of the pendulum swing was tearing me to pieces. My shoulder was in agony—the pain seared through the joint and pierced my chest like a newly forged blade in my flesh.
I turned my face from the upcoming impact, putting my shoulder into the hull as I hammered into steel.
Velocity null.
Sight dimming.
Lungs bursting.
I released the pistol and fumbled with the helmet in both hands. I slammed it over my head, into the locking collar, and as my sight faded to black, I clumsily hit the locking mechanism.
A rushing sound thundered in my ears.
Had my eardrums burst? Was I a dead man?
It was my last thought before I passed out.
* * *
“Tanner! Tanner! Wake up goddammit! Right now!”
I blinked over and over to clear my vision. My eyes hurt like hell.
My shoulder hurt like hell.
My side hurt like—
Damn. Everything hurt like hell.
“I’m here,” I finally managed, but it was a rasp. The underside of the ship was above me, but out of reach. I could see safety rungs nearby, on the hull, but they were roughly ten meters away. I was adrift, but was not moving away from the ship. The impact had stopped my momentum, and I was floating freely in space. I couldn’t see the mag-pistol or the wire. “How long have I been out?” I mumbled.
“Five minutes maybe.” Shaheen sounded relieved. “We’re suiting up right now to get you.” Nothing could keep her from coming after me, I knew.
“Good,” I sighed. And then I closed my eyes again.
* * *
“What the hell happened?” Major Driller asked. Her expression showed total and absolute concern, and her eyes were daggers that she hurled at Drake and Captain Jackson.
Jackson shook his head. “I have no idea. The control systems wouldn’t work. The air locks opened with Tanner in the staging area. He was lucky that he got partially into a vacsuit and grabbed a mag-pistol. Saved his own life.”
I was hunched on the bench with my head in my hands, victim of a splitting headache.
“But he was in the staging area,” Driller continued. “With only the inner lock—”
“Both air-lock hatches opened,” Drake grunted, “on both air locks.”
Driller turned to him, horrified. “All four hatches? How is that possible?”
“It’s not, under normal circumstances. However, these obviously aren’t normal circumstances.”
“You’re saying the computer malfunctions caused this.”
I wanted to speak up and tell them what I thought of that, but I held my tongue.
Drake continued, “It has to be. Nothing else could have caused it.”
Shaheen was sitting next to me, and I looked up and caught her eye briefly.
She was thinking the same thing I was.
* * *
In the clinic, one level down, Shaheen found some painkillers to ease my throbbing head and shoulder.
“Do you want some priority nanos?” she asked as she studied the cabinets along a bulkhead.
Nanos were microscopic devices that doctors could inject into patients. They would search out injuries to repair before migrating to the bladder for natural expulsion. Along with antibiotics, they were without much question a watershed invention in medicine, and had lengthened our life spans considerably.
“No. It’s not that bad.”
I sat on a procedures table and took a deep breath. I could barely make out the interior of the area because most of the lights were still out. The ship was still suffering from major mechanical malfunctions, but something about the whole situation seemed off. It was as if the opening hatches had lured me in, and then trapped me.
“Someone tried to kill you,” Shaheen hissed.
“Seems like it.”
“They think it’s just the computer that’s messed up.”
I shook my head, lost for words.
She grabbed me around the neck. “Thankfully you’re a quick thinker. If you hadn’t fired the mag-pistol...”
“I’m lucky it was even there, in the locker. Otherwise...” I let the statement hang between us.
And I decided to keep a mag-pistol with me at all times.
Her eyes were wide. “Why would someone do it?”
There could be only one reason.
Someone was doing something here that they didn’t want me to discover.
* * *
After an hour I felt almost back to normal. My shoulder was still aching, but my headache had all but vanished and my eyesight was no longer blurry. I found Captain Jackson in engineering, and his concern was obvious.
“Tanner,” he said. “I can’t believe that happened. I had Drake look over the systems. He had to rewrite some computer code. The...the singularity or whatever it was that damaged the ship scrambled the program that controlled those hatches. He says it shouldn’t happen again. Still, I know it’s no consolation.”
“It’s okay,” I muttered. “Next time I’ll just go the other way. I guess it’s just my investigator’s instinct. I saw a dark corridor and had to find out what was going on.” I didn’t want to really say what I thought. There was no need to let anyone know my suspicions.
I paused and stared at the man, wondering what the chances were that he had actually tried to kill me. After all, he had been at the hatch controls, along with Drake. Maybe together they had controlled the systems that led to my near-death.
I sighed.
“Listen,” I said. “I want to bring my prisoner over to Phoenix. He’s in the pitch dark over there, in cold zero-g. It’s difficult.”
Jackson stared at me for a moment, but he didn’t speak.
“You have a facility here, don’t you?”
He nodded. “One of the cabins on level two can double as a brig. I just have to enter a few commands into the computer and it’ll lock the man in there.” And then he shrugged. “As long as the computer is functioning, that is.”
“Can you have Drake check it over?”
He hesitated for several seconds. “You’re sure it’s necessary?”
“I think my jumpship is gone. We’re not going to get it fixed before our new transport arrives. We have to move the prisoner eventually anyway.”
Jackson mulled it over for a bit before finally nodding. “I’ll have Drake check the code. Give it thirty minutes. It’s cabin sixteen on level two. I’ll signal you when we’re ready.”
* * *
Transferring Petrov was easier said than done. I didn’t want to risk an escape attempt; after all, I was taking the man to his execution. Nevertheless, I knew that he would attempt to get away, and possibly try to take my life in the process. Even with my pistol in his back he would try—it was human nature. And if I had to kill him, I would be in serious trouble with CCF HQ in Alpha System.
The only option was to drug him and move him over sedated and asleep.
Shaheen said, “Are you sure you want to do this? Why?”
I didn’t want to tell her the real reason. I felt that there was something there that was going to be useful. Something about his story, about why he killed four people in such a heinous way.
It mattered, but I didn’t yet know why.
* * *
Once again I entered the aft compartment of my little jumpship—I was getting used to the larger spaces on board Phoenix, and now this area felt abnormally small—and approached the cell. Phillip Paul Petrov stared at me silently as he waited for me to speak. He had his blanket around his body, and his breath was frosting out.
“I’m moving you,” I said.
“Finally.” He snorted. “If it means anything, thanks.”
“It doesn’t. But I do want something from you.”
“What?”
“I want you to keep telling me the story. Why the killing.”
He looked perplexed. “The forty-one hours?”
“You got it.” I floated in front of his hatch; my elbows were on either side of the viewport, and I fixed my eyes directly on his. “Otherwise you stay here, in the dark. And I’ll leave you here until we’re ready to get moving.”
“You mean until you repair the systems.”
“Yes.”
He glanced around him. “Obviously this jumpship isn’t going anywhere. But where are you putting me?”
“In another cell, on another vessel.”
He thought for a moment before he finally nodded. “Deal.”
“One more thing,” I said. I held up a needle. “You have to stick yourself first.”
“Fuck you.”
I swung myself around and prepared to kick off the hatch and propel myself away from the cell. “Suit yourself.”
“Wait!” he cried. And then he swore again. “There’s no other way?”
“Nope.”
He paused for a long moment as he considered his options. Then he nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. Send it through.”
“I want to see it up close. I want to see the plunger depressed.”
He sneered at me. “I’m sure you do. Maybe it’s full of poison.”
“If I wanted to kill you I’d just do it with a pistol.”
He floated over slowly, but kept his eyes on me the entire time. “You better not be screwing with me, Tanner.”
“You don’t have any other options. Take it or leave it.”
He took it.
Chapter Nine
Thirty minutes later, after Petrov was secure in cabin sixteen and I had double-checked the facility and the hatch controls, I was standing outside the cell staring inward at the man sprawled across the bunk as the drugs continued to keep him asleep. He would remain so for another hour.
At least it was warmer in there. If left in my jumpship, eventually he would have frozen to death.
There was a shutter over the viewport, and I could close it so he could not look out to see anyone on Phoenix.
A hatch from the mess hall opened, and a shiver passed through my body.
Not again, I thought.
But of course it was nothing. There was no air lock in that direction.
Major Driller marched toward me with an angry expression on her face. “What gives you the right to bring a prisoner on board this ship?”
I blinked. I had already passed it by the captain, who was in charge of the vessel, but the major outranked him, and she was also the project coordinator there. Technically I should have asked her as well, but there was enough going on at that time to motivate me to start acting without permission. I knew it would piss them all off, and here it was, just beginning.
“And how do you know the hatches here won’t malfunction and let—” she peered through the viewport at the man within, “—him escape?”
While I had been coordinating Petrov’s transfer, Captain Jackson had asked Drake to look at the computer command code for the hatch on cabin sixteen. The engineer had noted that the program than ran the hatches leading to the air-lock staging area, as well as the air locks themselves, had large chunks of missing or scrambled code. It had caused the malfunctions—or so he believed. He’d also discovered that this cabin’s code—the program that currently imprisoned Petrov—had not been affected by the spatial anomaly.
“Engineer Drake checked it already,” I said. “And since I’m transporting the prisoner, I decided that this is in the best interests of getting him to Alpha safely.”
Her eyes narrowed. “By bringing him in here? I have authority on this vessel, Tanner. Not you.”
Her use of my surname annoyed me, but of course I couldn’t say anything. “I checked with the captain. He cleared it.”
She studied me for several more seconds, during which I watched her carefully. She was in her fifties but there weren’t many lines in her face. No doubt she was under a lot of stress, being the coordinator of the particulate matter project, but she had been pleasant and nothing but understanding of my presence and this situation.
Until now.
I sighed. “Major, my ship is completely powerless. Nothing is up and running. This ship is slowly coming back online. I didn’t think it was a good situation for him.” I gestured toward Petrov.
Driller eyed me for a moment and then turned to the port. She watched the prisoner as his chest rose and fell slowly. “Who is he?” she finally asked in a soft tone.
“A killer. I deal with them every day.”
“Is he a particularly bad one?”
I frowned. I couldn’t sugarcoat this. “One of the worst. He’s on his way to his execution. I have to get him there in one piece.”
Driller remained silent again. Then she deflated. “Very well, Lieutenant. But from now on, decisions of this type go through me. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” I replied instantly.
Her expression softened. “How are you feeling after your experience...outside?”
“I’ve been through worse.”
“But you nearly died.” She looked aghast.
“In my line of work, it’s nothing new.” I shrugged. “I’m not bragging, it’s just something I had to get used to.”
“But surely it’s not every day that you get blown out into space!”
“No, of course not. But people have tried to kill me before.”
She didn’t seem to make the connection between the two thoughts, and simply moved on. I didn’t point it out. She said, “I’m glad you made it. This whole situation is mysterious. I did some research on ships dropping from cavtrav like this. It’s rare, but it has happened. Usually it’s just a hyperspace drive malfunction, and the other systems are unaffected. But for all the systems to be out, such as with your ship—I couldn’t find a single instance.”
“Is that so,” I muttered.
“Yes. Thankfully we still had some power, and Drake is pretty skilled at what he does.” She glanced at me. “Lieutenant Ramachandra is incredibly knowledgeable. She’s stabilized some systems already.”
I glanced up at the dark fixtures in the ceiling. “Environmental hasn’t changed.”
“Not a priority. We’re trying to get life support and the cavtrav going first.”
There was some motion inside the cell; Petrov had moved an arm.
Driller turned from me and said over her shoulder, “Make sure he stays in there, Tanner.” She slammed the shutter over the port.
“You don’t have to worry,” I replied.
She left without another word.
* * *
Dinner approached quickly and the ship’s personnel—including me and Shaheen—collected in the mess. Everyone arrived promptly. It surprised me. Even the scientists were there. I spent another few moments studying Melinda Fantigras. There was still something so familiar about her. Her red hair and pale skin were stunning. Her gray eyes were also unique.
She caught me looking and I turned away, embarrassed.
Only to find Shaheen watching me.
Damn.
Ishani Tatana had a smile on his face as he sat. He was also studying me.
Everyone had picked their own drink for dinner. Since alcohol was forbidden in the CCF, most people chose water, tea or coffee, but Robinson selected a carbonated drink of some type.
Corporal Leland said, “We heard about the accident in the air-lock staging area, Lieutenant. It’s incredible that you survived.” His eyes showed admiration. “Quick thinking on your part.”
“Luckily there was a mag-pistol there.”
“That’s what they’re for.” He didn’t mean for severe incidents of the sort I had experienced, but for EVA situations where an astronaut accidentally drifted too far from a ship to return.
Tatana said, “You’re obviously resourceful. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now.”
I grimaced. The same could have been said after hundreds of incidents in my career.
He continued, “Your job has prepared you for any circumstance, probably.”
