Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space (12 page)

Finally, she hit the ship’s mirrored side very gently.
With ease, she absorbed her forward motion using only the toes of her boots and
the fingertips of her gloves—the impact was that gentle. Face to face with her
own reflection, she was again, at least for the moment, motionless with respect
to the surface of the ship; and only fifteen feet from what would have been the
ship’s rotational north or south pole had the object been a spheroid.

The nearest handhold, however, was three feet beyond
reach and she could feel the ship’s surface rotating in front of her. There was
a distinct sensation of friction as her rubber-clad fingertips and boot toes
began to slide. Clean rubber slides poorly on clean metal, and vacuum does
nothing to improve this. The surfaces grab and jump, grab and jump, grab and
jump. Each of her fingertips and boot toes began tapping out its own
independent rhythm: every one of them out of sync with the others.

Drifting very slowly in the general direction of her feet—downward,
in her personal frame of reference—she gained tiny amounts of speed as she
inched farther and farther from the ship’s center of rotation.

If I slide all the way out to one of the ends, I
could get slung off so fast I might never be able to get back. Or worse: I
might slide out where one of the ends can swing around and give me a big
bone-crunching slap in the face.

Her pulse began to tap in her neck. Fear—as pure as it
was useless—consumed her thoughts; until her toes, knees, and hands bounced
gently across the ridges and seams of what appeared to be an eight foot wide
roll-up style garage door.

Hooking the fingertips of her right hand on the
recessed edge of the door’s little round window slowed her, but also caused her
body to pivot—half-sliding, half-swinging—sideways around the anchor point of
that hand. In mid swing, the toe of her right boot struck one of the ship’s
tiny external cameras mounted just below the door. This induced her body to
roll rather than slide for a moment, which in turn forced three of her four
fingertips to slip off the recessed window. She grabbed for the window with her
other hand but missed.

The centrifugal gravity-like effect was sufficiently
weak here that she had time for one more quick grab. She caught the recess with
two fingers: enough to pull herself a bit higher and get all the fingers of
both hands in place on the window’s narrow lip.

Hanging very still with her hands above her head and
her belly against the ship, she felt a little extra pressure against her
stomach from the two bulging air patches. She shifted position. The stomach
pressure shifted too.

Directly in front of her face, painted on the roll-up
door in black with digits two feet tall, was the number twelve.
Door twelve?
No, probably
deck
twelve. And it looks like a cargo door.

Pulling herself up, she touched her faceplate to the
center of the window and took a look inside.
It’s a cargo deck all right.
In an effort to see as far as possible to the right and left she rolled the
curved glass of her faceplate back and forth across the flat glass of the
window. She’d been hoping to get someone’s attention—someone who might help her
get inside—by banging on the door, but all she saw were coils of yellow nylon
rope hanging on stainless steel I-beams.
No help coming from in there. Gonna
have to get inside on my own.

Glancing at the ship’s surface around the cargo door
for a handhold, she saw the nearest was five feet above her head: toward the
ship’s center of rotation. She pulled herself as high as the window would take
her, then reached up with her right hand and grabbed the door frame’s welded
lip which was even thinner than the recess of the window. She used it to draw
herself up until her face was level with the door frame. But beyond this there
seemed nothing more to grab, and the handhold was still two feet outside her
reach. She decided to take a chance.

Placing the toes of her vacuum boots on the window’s
lip, she began to stand up: gently, slowly, carefully. As her head rose above
the door the ship’s mirrored surface displayed a reflected image of her helmet
which included all the details of her face and hair and eyes.

Half-way up, her right foot slipped off, followed
immediately by her left. As the tiny centrifugal effect slid her downward
across the door, she clawed madly, trying to catch hold of any one of its
features. She failed and failed and failed again. The artery in her neck
pounded out a frantic beat.
Lord God in heaven, give me a stinkin’ break!

As the door frame’s lip slid by, her faceplate bounced
off it with a clang so loud she thought for sure it would shatter and let all
her air out in a single great frost-cloud of death. In which case nothing else
would matter, and explosive decompression was surely a slower more painful way
to die than being squashed like a bug. Her faceplate, however, did not shatter,
and as the door’s little window swept past her eyes she had time for one
panic-based reflex action. She grabbed for its lip, and caught it.

Hanging by the fingertips of both hands, she closed her
eyes and listened to her pulse, waiting for the adrenaline to ease and her
heart rate to return to normal. Two minutes later she started climbing up,
repeating the same steps, though with skill gleaned from her first attempt.

This time when she stood on the window’s recess she
stood all the way up and successfully grabbed the handhold above her head.
Drawing herself close, she uncoiled her broken tether and tied herself to it,
securely. She then eased her grip and hung limp as a rag doll for a well-deserved
rest.

Chapter Eight

“Over here!” Gideon yelled. “I’ve found batteries!”

Mike dropped the white corrugated plastic carton he was
looking under and carefully stepped through the piles of miscellaneous supplies
scattered across the ceiling of deck six. The gees were even worse now than
before—about two and a half. So Mike, who would have weighed 180 pounds on
earth, here weighed 450.

The strain on his legs felt similar to trying to walk
while carrying a very large man on his back but the sensations throughout his
body didn’t feel like that at all. Blood pooled in his hands and fingers; when
he flexed them they felt bloated. His toes were worse—each felt like a little
blood-filled water-balloon. His feet and lower legs accumulated blood too but
working their muscles helped shove the fluid back up into his torso;
consequently, in this area, the swelling seemed limited mostly to his skin.

“Ship,” he said as he walked, “how much time is left?”

“Fourteen minutes until power failure.”

Mike stopped between Gideon and a pile of broken
plastic crates from which had spilled many small bags of expensive name-brand
candies.

Gideon smiled as he handed Mike a rectangular battery.
“There are at least forty of these here.”

“Nope, sorry,” Mike said, “that’s a nine volt,” then
added quickly, “On the other hand if the nine volt batteries fell onto this
part of the ceiling then the C and D cells might be pretty close too.” He
nodded to Gideon and tried to give him a brave smile. “Keep looking in this
general area.”

As Mike turned away his smile faded.
Even if we find
the right batteries they won’t do us much good if we don’t find any
flashlights.

Three minutes later, while across the room from Gideon
and searching through a scattered pile of unbroken yellow crates, Mike heard
Tina’s voice ring out from an adjacent store room. “Quit following me! I’m
searching here.” There was a short pause, then, “Well, maybe I don’t want your
help!”

Mike turned toward the disturbance. Tina stomped in
through an open door and began searching near Gideon. Zahid also appeared at
the door but when he made eye-contact with Mike he dropped his gaze, turned and
stepped back out of sight.

Tina’s back was to Mike, so he paused a second or two
to admire her legs. He did not find it surprising that the Libyan, or indeed
any man, would want to help her. In courtship, proximity is always the first
goal and helpfulness the usual means to achieve it.

Without bending her knees, Tina reached down for a few
objects near her feet. This caused her white shorts to stretch tightly over the
curves of her butt.

Mike’s nervous system—hardwired through millions of
years of evolution—responded exactly as it was programmed: he froze at the
sight and held his breath.

The tightness of her shorts, combined with the visually
dramatic shading typical of white cloth, seemed to do everything possible to
openly display the sensual roundness of her backside.

“Mister McCormack,” interrupted the ship, “I’ve been
running calculations you will need to know after the power failure, but I must
tell you the results now before it occurs since afterward, with no electricity,
I will be unconscious.”

“Go ahead,” Mike said, still admiring Tina.

“First, the obvious: with no electricity you will have
no radio contact with the outside world and no light except from flashlights.
Worse, you will have no lifesupport system whatsoever. I estimate the breathing
air in the decks that are still safely accessible to you will last no more than
six days. Deck ten’s air, for example, should be good for approximately thirty
hours.”

How can she hold that pose in this gravity?
Mike
decided he didn’t care. She looked magnificent.

Glancing between her smooth bare knees, Tina caught
Mike staring absently at her rump. Completely unprepared—with no pre-planned
direction to avert his eyes—he flinched, then stood there stupidly.

She smiled serenely, as though pleased he found her
body desirable. Her smile remained unchanged as her eyes left his to resume her
search. Her pose too remained unchanged: provocatively bent over for Mike’s
continued visual enjoyment.

He turned his back to her.

The ship was saying: “If, after six days, you have not
succumb to the heat of the sun and are still alive, you may be forced to rely
on bottled oxygen. There are a number of oxygen tanks in the—” The ship’s voice
paused momentarily, then suddenly sped up. “I am detecting another coded radio
transmission. It seems to have originated from deck—”

All the lights went out and deck six disappeared into
darkness.

Mike turned to see if lights burned anywhere, but saw
none. He lifted his hand and waved it in front of his face. He couldn’t see it:
not even the faintest silhouette.

Someone screamed in pain. The scream was loud and long
and followed by two crashes and a thud. Mike looked in the direction of the
scream but saw nothing. He didn’t dare take a step. The likelihood of stumbling
over the wall-to-wall mess was as certain as its danger was great. He forced
himself to stand still. “What happened?” he yelled.

Somebody moaned, sucked air loudly, then moaned again.

Beams of light swung through the darkness on Mike’s
left. Ovals of illumination scanned the walls and the miscellanea strewn about
the ceiling. They moved like search lights in an old prison movie. Mike counted
four ovals emanating from four bright and wandering sources, and they were
coming closer. One oval discovered the moaner and stayed on him.

The moaner was Zahid. He was in the next room, visible
to Mike through the doorway. He lay on a smashed pile of white plastic crates,
curled into fetal position, shaking his head and holding his left ankle.

A human-shaped silhouette—shining a beam of light in
front of its feet—walked up to Mike and, without speaking, pressed a hard
plastic cylinder into the palm of his hand.

Recognizing the object by touch, Mike turned it
on—recoiling when he accidentally shone its bright beam into his own eyes. He
used it to light his path as he made his way to Zahid. On the way, in the
shifting light and shadows, he realized it was Nikita who had handed him the
flashlight.

“What happened?” asked Gideon, already standing over
the man.

Zahid cringed as he rocked forward and back in response
to the pain. “I stumbled when the lights when out. I think I’ve sprained my
ankle.”

“How bad is it?” Mike asked, as he stepped over the
last obstacle. “Does it hurt to bend it?”

“Yes, it hurts! It’s bad. Very bad!”

Mike frowned. “I guess we’ll have to haul you up one of
the vertical hallways. We can use ropes and a body sling. It’s dangerous—even
more dangerous because of the high gravity—but we can’t leave you down here.”

“You’re not hauling me up by rope! We’ve already
dropped one load of supplies and I saw what it looked like after it fell to the
bottom.”

“If I understand correctly,” Nikita said, “you will not
be entrusting your life to the idiot who’s fault that was.”

_____

Almost blew it that time! Almost waited too long
before triggering the charge.
The saboteur glanced at the worried
expressions of the little group now gathered around their fallen comrade.
Backed by darkness, the only light on their faces was that scattered and
reflected back at them from their own flashlight beams.

Stupid computer didn’t know when to shut-up. Well,
I’ve learned how to silence things that don’t know how to be quiet on their
own.

Mike was quizzing Zahid about his injury.

The saboteur looked down at Zahid, then up at Mike who
was standing almost within reach. The saboteur’s expression grew cold.
Your
number is up, prospector. I’m going to enjoy watching you die. But not too
fast! No, not fast at all. Your death must be a slow, drawn-out affair. I want
to watch you die gradually, painfully. I want to watch you suffer, the way you
made me suffer. And I will. Soon. Very soon.

Mike looked the saboteur in the eye. The saboteur
half-smiled at him. Mike half-smiled back, then looked down to ask another
question.

Haven’t got a clue. Have you, moron?

_____

Hanging by her tether and scraping softly against the
mirrored hull of the giant tumbling ship, Kim yawned; then yawned again even
wider.
Man, I could use some sleep! I wonder how long I’ve been awake.
Yawning so wide it forced her eyes closed, she raised a gloved hand to cover
her mouth and pressed her fingertips against her faceplate, which slid them all
a short distance apart.

Surveying her surroundings, she noticed a hole in the
ship’s gently curved surface just a few feet away. The hole was four inches
wide and two inches deep and looked as though it had been made by a stray
baseball striking the ship, but was actually typical of an impact between an
interplanetary ship and a stray rock the size of a grain of sand.

During such an impact—one involving speeds of many tens
of miles per second—the rock’s momentum was changed into heat, producing
temperatures of many thousands or even hundreds of thousands of degrees.
Temperatures so high that the rock, along with a similar portion of the ship’s
hull, was instantaneously vaporized, creating a small explosion which blew a
little round crater in the ship’s surface.

A crater this size could easily let the air out of an
entire deck, and would have if not for Corvus’s ablative meteoroid shield. The
shield was a six inch layer of very light foamed aluminum which covered the
ship’s stainless steel hull, and was itself covered by a mirror-like outer
layer of aluminum foil. The shield’s function was to provide impacting rocks
with just enough material to vaporize themselves in tiny explosive puffs of
plasma without also vaporizing a hole in the hull.

Most impacting rocks were smaller than dust—invisibly
small—and the craters they produced weren’t much easier to see than themselves.
On a ship traveling the solar system for a decade or two craters the size of a
pinhead were fairly common, occasionally one might spot a couple the size of a
pea or a even a quarter. The crater Kim found was a monster.

Holding herself at arm’s length from the ship, she
examined a larger area but spotted only two more holes: both pinhead-sized.
Other than that the surface was almost flawless.
Must be a newer ship. Odd
that it already took a big hit.
As she eased herself back into hanging
position, she shrugged off the oddness.
Hits are random and randomness never
comes out even. Some ships get lots of big hits while others get none.

Turning her head to the left, she sucked half a
mouthful of orange flavored syrup from the suit’s feeding tube; then turned to
the right and drew two sips of water to wash it down.
I’ve hung here long
enough. I’m not gonna get any more rested.

She grabbed the handhold she’d been hanging from and
pulled herself up enough to create slack in her tether. With one hand she
maintained the slack and with the other she untied the knot.

Handholds being so scarce—a fact that would not have
been a problem if the ship were not tumbling—she’d decided to climb from this
handhold between decks twelve and eleven up to a cargo door on deck eleven,
then to a cargo door on deck ten. At that point she would climb diagonally to a
door on deck nine and then laterally about fifteen feet to an emergency airlock
she’d spotted while approaching the ship. The entire route offered only three
handholds. As a plan it was risky, but at least it was a plan.

The first five minutes went well. She slipped only once
with a hand and twice with a foot and neither slip resulted in a fall. Clinging
to the frame of a cargo door on deck ten, she paused for a moment to decide on
her grips and foot placements for the diagonal climb to deck nine.

That went well too.

Safely on deck nine, she eyed her next target: a
handhold halfway between her and the airlock. She inched along the door frame
toward it, but arriving at the edge of the door realized that leaning out and
reaching for the handhold was not going to be enough. It was too far away. She
was going to have to jump. She tried to think of another way but after the
exertion of the climb, her brain—desperately in need of sleep—was slowing down.
She leaned out, counted three, and jumped.

She didn’t miss it by much but it was enough.

Sliding across the mirrored surface—as the huge ship rotated
and she didn’t—her hands, knees and lumpy gear-laden belly scratched out a
circle that touched decks eleven, ten and nine. As she slid farther from the
ship’s center of rotation, she traced out larger and larger circles. Her
circles became a spiral of ever increasing diameter. And she was sliding
faster.

The ends! I’m gonna slide out in front of one of the
ends!

She needed to do something, and whatever it was had
better be quick. Instinct screamed
grab something
, but she knew that
wasn’t likely to work, so she tried for invention.

Yanking open her tool pack, she glanced through the
tools and pulled out the biggest screwdriver she could find, then drew back and
stabbed it into the meteoroid shield as deep as she could stab.

The shield’s foamed aluminum—never intended to possess
any kind of structural strength—yielded easily to the penetration and began to
rip in the direction she was sliding. The rip grew into a long ragged scar
which began to slow her. But after plowing a ten foot furrow, her grip weakened
enough that she let the screwdriver tilt in the wrong direction. Immediately,
it slipped out of the rip and sent her tumbling backward.

The back of her helmet bumped lightly against the ship,
then her toes did so, then her helmet. After two more back-flips she tried to
stop her tumbling by again stabbing the screwdriver into the shield. She missed
the ship entirely.