Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (55 page)

Confused exclamations, grunts are coming over the suit channel; apparently there is a difficulty with the module port. One of the sensor men drops his probe, moves in. Another follows. What’s the trouble?

The screen shows nothing but suit backs, the whole EVA team is in there—Oh! Sudden light, cracks of radiance between the men silhouetting them blue against a weird pink light—Is it fire? Aaron’s heart jumps, he clambers onto a stanchion to see over heads. Not fire, there’s no smoke. Oh, of course, he realizes—that light is the alien’s own luminescence! They have opened the module.

But why are they all in there, why aren’t they falling back to push the sensors in? Wide rosy light flashes, hidden by bodies. They must have opened the whole damn port instead of just cracking it. Is that thing trying to come out?

“Close it, get out!” Aaron calls into his suit mike. But the channel is a bedlam of static. Everybody is crowding forward toward that hatch, too. That’s dangerous. “Captain!” Aaron shouts futilely. He can see Yellaston’s hand still on the panel, but Tim Bron seems to be holding on to his arm. The EVA men are all inside
China Flower
, inside the module even, it’s impossible to tell. A pink flare lights up the corridor, winks out again.

“Move back! Get back to your stations!” Yellaston’s voice cuts in on the command channel override and the intercom babble goes dead. Aaron is suddenly aware of pressure around him, discovers that he is all the way up at the XB stations, being crowded by someone behind. It’s Akin’s face inside the safety guard visor. They disengage clumsily, move back.

“Go back, to your stations! EVA team, report.”

Aaron is finding movement oddly effortful. He wants very much to open his stifling helmet.

“George, can you hear me? Get your men out.”

The screen is showing confused movement, more colored flashes. Is somebody hurt? There’s a figure, coming slowly out of the hatch.

“What’s going on in there, George? Why is your helmet open?”

Aaron stares incredulously as the EVA chief emerges into the corridor—his faceplate is open, tipped back showing his bronze ax-shaped face. What the hell is happening? Did the alien grab them? George’s arm goes up, he is making the okay signal; the suit-to-suit channel is still out. The others are coming out behind him, the strange light shining on their backs, making a great peach-colored glow in the corridor. Their visors are open, too. But they seem to be all right, whatever happened in there.

The screen is showing the module port; all Aaron can make out is a big rectangle of warm-colored light. It seems to be softly bubbling or shifting, like a light show—globes of rose, yellow, lilac—it’s beautiful, really. Hypnotic. They should close it, he thinks, hearing Yellaston ordering the men to seal their helmets. With an effort Aaron looks away, sees Yellaston still by his station, his arm rigid. Tim Bron seems to have moved away. It’s all right, nothing has happened. It’s all right.

“Get those suits closed before I depressurize!”

The EVA chief is slowly pulling his faceplate down, so are the others. Their movements seem vague, unfocused: One of them stumbles over the biopsy equipment. Why doesn’t he pick it up? Something is wrong with them. Aaron frowns. His brain feels gassy. Why aren’t they carrying out the program, doing something about the bioluminescence? It’s probably all right, though, Yellaston is there. He’s watching.

At this moment he is jostled hard. He blinks, recovers balance, looks around. Jesus—he’s in the wrong place—everybody is in the wrong place. The whole corridor is jamming forward of where it’s supposed to be, staring at that marvelous glow. The guards—they’re not by the ports! Something is not all right at all, Aaron realizes. It’s that light, it’s doing something to us!
Close the port
, he wills, trying to get back to his station. It’s like moving in water. The emergency switch—he has to reach it, how did he ever get so far away? And the ports, he sees, the vitrex is crowded with faces, people are in the access ramps staring into the corridor. They’ve come from all over the ship. What’s wrong? What’s happening to us?

Cold fear bursts up in his gut. He catches the EVA lock and clings to it, fighting an invisible slow tide. Part of him wants to push his helmet off and run forward to the radiance coming from that port. People ahead of him are opening their visors—he can see Jan Ing’s sharp Danish nose.

“Stand away from that port!” Yellaston shouts. At that Jan Ing darts forward, pushing people aside. “Stop,” Aaron yells into his useless mike, finds himself opening his own visor, moving after Jan. Voices, sounds, fill his ears. He grabs another stanchion, pulls himself up to look for Yellaston. The captain is still there; he seems to be struggling slowly with Tim Bron. The light is gone now, hidden by a press of bodies around the port. That thing in there is doing this, Aaron tells himself; he is terrified in a curious unreal way, his head is singing thickly. He is also angry with those people down there—they are going in, blocking it. Lost! But is it they who are lost or the wonderful light?

Someone bumps breast-to-breast with him, pulling at his arm. He looks down into Lory’s blazing face. Her helmet is gone.

“Come on, Arn! We’ll go together.”

Primal distrust sends an icicle into his mind; he grabs her suit, anchors himself to a console with his other arm. Lory! She’s in league with that thing, he knows it, this is her crazy plot. He has to stop it. Kill it! Where is his emergency release? It’s too far, too far—

“Captain!” he shouts with all his strength, fighting Lory, thinking, two minutes, we can get out. “Depressurize! Dump the air!”

“No, Arn! It’s beautiful—don’t be afraid!”

“Dump the air, kill it!” he yells again, but his voice can’t override the confusion. Lory is yanking on his arm, her exultant face fills him with sharp fright. “What is it?” He shakes her by the belt. “What are you trying to do?”

“It’s time, Arn! It’s
time
, come on—there’re so many people—”

He tries to get a better grip on her, hearing metal clang behind him and realizes too late he has let go his hold on the console. But her words are now making a kind of sense to him—there
are
too many people, it is important, quite important to get there before something is all used up. Why is he letting them hide that light? Lory has his hand now, drawing him toward the press of people ahead.

“You’ll see, it will all be gone, the pain. . . . Arn dear, we’ll be together.”

The beauty of it floods Aaron’s soul, washes all fear away. Just beyond those bodies is the goal of man’s desiring, the fountain—the Grail itself maybe, the living radiance! He sees an opening by the wall, pulls Lory through—and is suddenly squeezed by more bodies from the side, a wall of people flooding out of the access port. Aaron fights to hold his ground, hold Lory, only dimly aware that he is struggling against familiar faces—Åhlstrom is beside him, smiling orgasmically, he pushes past Kawabata, ducks under somebody’s arm. As he does, a force slams their backs—he is clouted into something entangling and falls down under an XB analyzer still clutching Lory’s wrist.

“Arn, Arn, come on!”

Legs are going by him. It was Bustamente who hit him, forging past followed by a forest of legs. They have all come here to claim the shining glory in the port! Wildly enraged, Aaron struggles up, falls again with his own leg deep in a web of cables.

“Arn, get up!” She jerks at him fiercely. But he is suddenly calmer, although he does not cease to wrench at his trapped leg. There is a small intercom screen by his head, he can see two tiny struggling figures—Yellaston and Tim Bron, their helmets gone. Dreamlike, tiny . . . Tim breaks away. Yellaston nods once, and fells Tim from behind with a blow of both locked fists. Then he slowly steps over the fallen man and goes offscreen. Pink light flares out.

They have all gone in there, Aaron realizes, heartbroken. It has called us and we have come—
I must go.
But he frowns, blinks; a part of him has doubts about the pull, the sweet longing. It feels fainter down here. Maybe that pile of stuff is shielding me, he thinks confusedly. Lory is yanking at the cables around his legs. He pulls her in to him.

“Lor, what’s happening to them? What happened”—he cannot recall the Chinese commander’s name—“what happened to your, your crew?”

“Changed,” she is panting. Her face is incredibly beautiful. “Merged, healed. Made whole. Oh, you’ll see, hurry—Can’t you
feel
it, Arn?”

“But—” He can feel it all right, the pull, the promising urgency, but he feels something else too—the ghost of Dr. Aaron Kaye is screaming faintly in his head, threatening him. Lory is trying to lift him bodily. He resists, fearing to be drawn from his shielded nook. The corridor around them is empty now, but he can hear people in the distance, a thick babbling down by that hatch. No screams, nothing like panic. Disregarding Lory, he cranes to get a look at the big ceiling screen. They are all there, milling rather aimlessly, he has never seen so many people pressed so close. This is a medical emergency, he thinks. I am the doctor. He has a vision of Dr. Aaron Kaye getting to the levers that will seal that cargo hatch, standing firm against the crowd, saving them from whatever is in that hold. But he cannot; Dr. Aaron Kaye is only a thin froth of fear on a helpless, lunging desire to go there himself, to fling himself into that beautiful warm light. He is going to be very ashamed, he thinks vaguely, tied here like Ulysses against the siren call, huddling under an analyzer bench while the others—What? He studies the screen again, he can see no apparent trouble, no one has fallen. The EVA men came out all right, he tells himself. What I have to do is get out of here.

Lory laughs, pulling at his legs; she has freed him, he sees. He is sliding. Effortfully he reaches into his suit, finds the panic syringe.

“Arn dear—” Her slender neck muscles are exposed; he grabs her hair, seats the spray. She wails and struggles maniacally, but he holds on, waiting for the shot to work. His head feels clearer. The aching pull is less; maybe all those people are blocking it somehow. The thought hurts him. He tries to disregard it, thinking, if I can get across the corridor, into that access ramp, I can seal it behind me. Maybe.

Suddenly there is movement to his left—a pair of legs, slowly stepping by his refuge. Pale gold legs he recognizes.

“Soli! Soli, stop!”

The legs pause, a small hand settles on the overturned stand beyond him. Just within reach—he can spring and grab her, letting go of Lory—to reach her he must let Lory go. He lunges, feels Lory pull away and clutches her again. He falls short. The hand is gone.

“Soli! Soli! Come back!” Her footsteps move on down the corridor. Dr. Aaron Kaye will be ashamed, ashamed; he knows it. “The EVA men were okay,” he mutters. Lory is weakening now, her eyes vague. “No, Arn,” she sighs, sighs deeply again. Aaron rolls her, gets a firm grip on her suit-belt and crawls out into the corridor.

As his head clears the shelter, the sweet pull grabs him again. There—down there is the goal! “I’m a doctor,” he groans, willing his limbs. A thick cable is under his hand. From miles away he recognizes it—the XB computer lead, running toward the inboard lock. If he can follow that across the corridor he will be at the ramp.

He clasps it, starts to shuffle on his knees, dragging Lory. The thing down there is pulling at the atoms of his soul, his head is filled with urgent radiance calling to him to drop the foolish cable and run to join his mates. “I’m a
doctor
,” he mumbles; it requires all his strength to slide his gloved hand along his lifeline, he is turning away from bliss beyond his dreams. Only meters to go. It is impossible. Why is he refusing, going the wrong way? He will turn. But something has changed. . . . He is at the lock, he sees; he must let go the cable and drag Lory over the sill.

Sobbing, he does so; it is almost more than he can bear to nudge the heavy port with his heel and send it swinging closed behind them.

As it closes, the longing lessens perceptibly. Metal, he thinks vacantly, it has blocked it a little, maybe it is some kind of EM field. He looks up. A figure is standing by the lock.

“Tiger! What are you doing here?” Aaron pulls himself upright with Lory huddled by his feet. Tighe looks at them uncertainly, says nothing.

“What’s in that boat, Tiger? The alien, did you see it? What is it?”

Tighe’s face wavers, crumples. “Mu . . . muh,” his mouth jerks. “Mother.”

No help here. Just in time, Aaron notices his own hands opening the port-lever. He takes Lory under the arms and drags her farther away up the ramp to the emergency intercom panel. Her eyes are still open, her hands are fumbling weakly at her suit-fastenings.

Aaron breaks out the caller. It’s an all-ship channel.

“Don! Commander Purcell, can you hear me? This is Dr. Kaye, I’m in ramp six, there’s been trouble down here.”

No answer. Aaron calls again, calls Coby, calls the Commo and Safety CQs, calls everybody he can think of, calls himself hoarse. No answer. Has everybody on
Centaur
gone into Corridor Gamma One, is the whole damned ship out there with that—

Except Tighe. Aaron frowns at the damaged man. He was in here, he didn’t join the stampede.

“Tiger, did you go out there?”

Tighe mouths, emits what could be a negative. He seems uninterested in the port. What does it take to stay sane near that thing, Aaron wonders, cortical suppressants? Or did one contact immunize him? Can we prepare drugs, can I lobotomize myself and still function? He notices he has drifted closer to the port, that Lory is crawling toward it, half out of her suit. He pulls her out of it, gets them both back up the ramp.

When he looks up there is a shadow on the port viewpanel.

For a terrified instant Aaron is sure it is the alien coming for him. Then he sees a human hand, slowly tapping. Somebody trying to get in—but he dare not go down there.

“Tiger! Open the port, let the man in.” He gestures wildly at Tighe. “The port, look! You remember, hit the latch, Tiger. Open up!”

Tighe hesitates, turns in place. Then an old reflex fires; he sidesteps and slaps double-handed at the latch with perfect coordination—and as quickly sags again. The port swings open. Captain Yellaston stands there. Deliberately he steps through.