Inseminoid (10 page)

Now she turned her attention back to the screen. She had the creature in focus. “Gary, are you and Kate in position?”

“We are,” Gary replied through the open intercom.

“As far as I can determine, our friend is about thirty metres to your left as you enter the corridor. Don’t take any chances.”

Gary’s voice cut Holly off. “Mitch has joined us. He doesn’t want the creature killed. What do you say, Holly?”

“Mitch, are you there?”

“Holly, please, for the sake of science we must try to save this specimen. Think about the answers it can provide. Dead, it would be only as useful as a fossil.”

“Don’t take any chances. It’s already attacked Sandy. It’s not worth a human sacrifice.”

“Holly, give the tranquilizer gun a chance. Maybe we can get it back to the lab.”

Holly considered the request. “All right,” she relented. “But remember if it’s not practical use the laser. Gary, you’re the person in charge down there. If the tranq. is ineffective, go for the kill. Do you understand?”

“Right, Holly,” Gary acknowledged the instructions.

“Sharon and Mark, I want you there to back them up,” Holly said, still shouting down the intercom. “If they need help I’ll give the order from here and you go right in. Acknowledge, please.”

“We’re on our way.”

Holly looked at the digital time-piece set into the control panel. “One minute from now I’ll count to three and then I’ll remote the door open. Then it’s up to you.”

Karl entered the command centre, watching the screen over Holly’s shoulder. “Can you tell how bad Sandy’s hurt?”

“Look for yourself,” Holly said, putting a closeup of Sandy’s prone body on the alternate screen.

“There don’t seem to be any major external injuries visible. A gash along the forehead and what looks like a couple of bruises. But then for all we know, she could be dead. I shouldn’t have left her alone with the creature. It’s my fault it got free.”

Holly swung around and looked Karl hard in the eye. “On missions like these none of us can be in all places at all times. Sandy is a professional and she knows how to take care of herself. You are responsible only for yourself. There’s no time for self-incrimination or,” she paused and lowered her voice, “self-pity.”

She turned her attention to the digital counter. “Ten seconds.” She waited. “Three, two, one.” And the door slid open. The creature turned towards the three crew members.

Gary moved forward carefully with the tranquilizer gun held at waist level. “A little closer,” he mumbled to himself. “Don’t move. Take it easy, we’re not going to hurt you.”

The creature lunged at him. Gary let go with the first dart. That stunned it and it staggered backwards. Gary fired again and yet another time but the creature regained its balance. The tranquilizers were having no effect. Suddenly, it leaped on to Gary, knocking the instrument out of his hand. It picked up the 250-pound human with ease and tossed him on to Kate and Mitch, toppling them over. Kate’s laser slid along the floor out of reach. Then the Being ran forward.

Kate dived for the laser but she was caught by the creature’s claw. It flexed and opened a hole in her abdomen the size of a grapefruit. Horror covered her face and she brought her hands to her wound. Two claws came up and sliced through her eye sockets, sending blood squirting from the two gaping holes in her face. She went down with a horrific scream.

The creature went for Mitch but was suddenly distracted by Mark and Sharon running towards it from the other end of the corridor.

“Mitch, get down!” Mark shouted.

The professor kissed the ground and the back-up team fired their lasers into the creature. A roar went up from the Being which shook the entire corridor. The laser struck again. This time the creature toppled back on to the wounded Kate sprawled out in a pool of blood. There was a sudden stillness broken only by the gurgling of the fluid seeping from the creature’s wounds.

Mark and Sharon raced to their fallen comrades. Seconds later Karl entered the blood-spattered corridor. Mitch was trying to stand up. He was shaken but not injured. Karl saw this and passed him, coming upon Gary, who was bleeding slightly from the nose and the mouth but was coming back to consciousness. Gary waved him off and Karl moved the short distance to where Kate lay. Her intestines had been ripped through her stomach and were hanging over the lower part of her body. What remained of her eyeballs lay next to her on the floor.

“She gone?” Mark asked.

Karl found a trace of a pulse. “No, somehow she’s alive but she’s fading fast. Help me get her into the lab and on to a life-support machine. There’s nothing we can do for her here except keep her technically alive, and alert the hospital on the space station to be prepared for some major surgery when we head back.”

The two men lifted Kate’s near-lifeless body on to an examining bed. Karl immediately strapped electrodes to her chest to keep her heart pumping. Then he sprayed her open wound with disinfectant and with his laser knife sealed those arteries still dripping blood. But she’d lost a substantial amount already and Karl pulled her dog tags out of her shirt and looked for her blood type. Working as fast as he could he raced to his refrigerator, removed a quart of matching plasma and attached the appropriate tubes to her arm. Finally he wrapped a white bandage around her exposed eye sockets.

“I hope that holds her for a while,” he said, “at least until I can get a chance to do more than just a patchwork job. But for better or worse, it’ll have to do for the time being.”

Next he turned his attention to Sandy, who was still lying on the floor. But there was a strong pulse and he let out a sigh of relief. He motioned to Mark and Sharon. “Help me up with her. But be careful, she may have internal injuries.”

They followed his instructions. Sandy was lifted on to an examining table and Karl began his probe.

Holly rushed down to the lab as soon as the fighting had stopped. Until now she had stayed well in the background, letting her crew go about its desperate work.

“How is she?” Holly asked.

“Got to do some tests, but it seems she’s just out cold. Maybe a slight concussion.” Karl felt the top and back of Sandy’s skull.

“Thank God she’s all right. But Kate?”

Karl shook his head. “Kate, I’m afraid, is living on borrowed time. I’ve got her hooked up but how long she can hold out is anybody’s guess. She’s in pretty bad shape and even if she does live, she’ll need a double eye transplant if the nerves are still functional. If not she’ll be blind for the rest of her life. So many ifs.”

Holly sucked in her breath. “Oh God! Maybe it’s better to let her go now.”

“That’s not my decision,” said Karl. “You’re the commander.”

Holly shook her head. “No, no. Let’s give her a chance.”

He returned to his examination of Sandy, who was starting to come around. She opened her eyes. “What happened?”

“That’s what we’d like to know,” said Karl, deadly serious.

Sandy tried to sit up but a pain throbbed in her head and she lay back down. “Hell, that hurts.”

“Take it easy, kid. I’m going to give you a shot to ease the pain, it’ll help you sleep.”

“Okay.”

Karl gave her the injection. “You’ll feel tired in a couple of minutes but see if you can answer a few questions before you fall asleep.”

“I’ll try.”

“How did the creature get loose? Did you remove its bonds?”

“I wasn’t even near it. All I remember—and I swear this is the truth—is that I was cleaning up the lab and spilled something on my clothes. I took them off. Then I went over to the creature and turned on the light.”

“Why did you do that?” Holly was insistant. Doubt was evident in her voice.

“That’s all I can remember. I’m so tired now. Can I sleep? Please let me sleep.”

“The drug has taken effect,” Karl announced. “She won’t be able to talk again for at least twelve hours. Mark, will you wheel her into the infirmary. I’ll examine her there.”

“And what about the creature?” Mitch asked.

“It’s not going anywhere now. It can wait right where it is,” Holly told him. After the others had gone, she turned to Karl. “I have a few questions.”

“Shoot,” he said, now sponging Kate.

“I’m concerned about Sandy.”

“She’ll be okay,” Karl replied confidently.

“That’s not what I mean. What was that liquid all over her body? What did the creature do to her?”

Karl stroked his face and tried to come up with a reasonable response. “The substance looked like the saliva the creature produced while eating. What kinds of injuries Sandy sustained, I don’t know yet. I want to do a computer read-out of her body-functions and run a blood sample through the analyzer before I come to any conclusions. You know, she just might have been knocked over by the creature on its way out of the door and that’s where it ends. It seems to me that the thing was quite possibly in a real hurry.”

“And you figure she just fell down, hit her head and blacked out?”

Karl nodded. “It could have happened that way.”

But Holly wasn’t satisfied. “And the fact that she was naked when we found her?”

Karl shot her a questioning look. “She told us that she spilled something on her clothes and removed them. Just what are you driving at?”

“I don’t know myself,” said Holly. “Look, Karl, run through the tests and let me know what you find out. By the way, when do you think you’ll be able to get to do an autopsy on the creature?”

“Not before tomorrow. With Kate and Sandy, and getting the lab back in a semblance of order as my priorities, it may not be for a while.”

The laboratory was indeed a shambles. During the creature’s attempt to break out, some key data had been destroyed and a couple of pieces of valuable equipment damaged, though still repairable.

It was then that Mark returned. “You intend to keep the mission going?” the sub-commander queried in astonishment.

“Of course,” Holly replied quickly. “Any reason why I shouldn’t?” She didn’t like to be second-guessed. Especially by Mark. From the start he hadn’t concealed his resentment that she’d been given the command post over him.

“Yeah, I have a couple of reasons. First of all we don’t have the personnel available to do a creditable job any longer. Between the explosion and what’s happened today, well, we’re not equipped to handle emergencies. And we don’t know how many more of these creatures may still be out there.”

Holly wasn’t moved. “I reject both arguments. We’re staying. However, because we do have a shortage of personnel, we shall each be forced to take on additional duties. I’ll work that out tonight and let you know what they are tomorrow.” She turned her attention back to Karl. “Let me know as soon as you find something out about Sandy.”

CHAPTER
FIVE

S
haron was just finishing the repairs to the smashed lab door with Gary working next to her. Behind them was Kate, just as good as dead. And the strange creature from this strange lifeless world, a place with two suns but no heat.

“It’s crazy. This was supposed to be a simple archaeology expedition,” Gary remarked. “Instead it’s a disaster. I figured we’d dig up a few rocks and go back to the space station.”

“You never know what you’re going to find when you touch down in another world, Gary.”

“But to die like this? It’s such a waste.”

“Does it matter how we die? One thing science won’t ever be able to achieve is eternal life. If we’ve got to go, one way is as good as another.”

Gary turned to Sharon. “You are a damn hard person! Kate was your closest friend!”

“Gary, haven’t you learned yet we have no friends when we’re out here? We do our jobs. We eat, sleep, write reports and fuck. We gave up friends and families and all that other bullshit when we chose this life. Don’t ever think for a minute that Kate on that machine or Dean or Ricky or Gail in the freezer ever really expected to grow old in this business. And if you think you’ll ever collect your pension you’re fooling yourself.”

“I don’t see it that way. Sure it’s dangerous but that’s the kick of it. I’m not ready to cash in. It’s still exciting for me.”

“You’ll get over it,” Sharon promised him. “We all do.”

Mitch approached Holly slowly. She was deep in thought and he wondered whether he should disturb her.

“Commander, are you busy?” he finally said.

The words broke her trance and she turned around. “Oh Mitch, it’s you. I was thinking about what a hell of a couple of days it’s been.”

“Yes, it really has been hell,” he agreed.

“What is it?” Holly wasn’t one to beat about the bush. “What have you got on your mind?”

“Holly, words are useless to express the way I feel. I now see it was foolish to try to dope the creature. It was me who convinced you to use the tranquilizer gun. I’m sorry.”

“Mitch, I’m the commander. I made the decision. You only made the suggestion, which was your duty.”

“But if I hadn’t . . .”

She cut him off. “There are no ifs or buts. We took a risk. I knew what the chances were but you were right. The value to science of a being, adaptable to multiple atmosphere and still alive after God-knows-how-many years, would have been a remarkable achievement. We’re both scientists. When we mix the wrong chemicals we come up with a solution that could blow us to smithereens. We learn by our mistakes. This was a mistake but you know, if we had to try again I would probably make the same decision. How’s the work going?”

“I think we’ll have something before long. I feel we’re on the verge of breaking this new script.”

“Good! I’m glad to hear that.”

Mitch glanced at the radio. “Have you told Central Control about our situation yet?”

“Can’t,” said Holly. “Space station’s got its sun shield up and it’ll be at least a few days before we can re-establish radio communication with it.”

“Then we’re staying?”

Holly nodded and managed a weak smile. “We’re staying. After all we can’t go anywhere for a week at the earliest. We couldn’t get a shuttle down here before then. You’ll see, everything’ll be back to normal and this will just be a bad dream.”