Children of Hope (63 page)

“Can you get the boy out?”

“If I shoot it, sir. The … thing.”

“Only if it harms him.”
A pause.
“It means to leave. We can’t let it burn through our hatch. Randy, get out of the lock!”

“Prong yourself!”

A gasp, perhaps from Tolliver, or a middy on the bridge.

I echoed the gasp, to show the depth of my contempt. Officers thought they were so bloody high and mighty.

In our tiny compartment, Harry skittered from bulkhead to bulkhead. I prayed he wouldn’t try to go through me.

“Joeyboy, if it eats through the hatch, you die of decompression!”
Tolliver sounded grim.

“Better than burning.” I wasn’t sure why I said it. Fath and Corrine, not I, faced—

“What?”

“Send Janks away, I’ll come out.”

“I can’t.”

I said, “Why? You let Harry in the lock before. Janks wasn’t anywhere near.”

“But neither were you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“
I won’t.”
His tone was sober. I understood. The ship was his only concern.

Though it was a bit late, I tried to sound reasonable. “Sir, have Janks escort anyone who’s in section five through the corridor hatch to six. Then, if we decompress, no one will die.”

“Except you.”

“Except me.” I might care. I’d have to think about it.

“Why’d you sabotage the section four hatch?”

“To buy time. To keep Janks and Hostler busy so I could …” Talk to the outrider. It made no sense, and I didn’t say it aloud.

Harry’s movements in the airlock became more frenzied. I tried not to flinch.

Tolliver hesitated.
“Randy, if I withdraw Janks, will you decompress your section?”

“Not if I can help it.” Anyway, how could I? I wasn’t armed. And I couldn’t exactly ask Harry’s help. That was our problem.

A long pause.
“Very well. Mr Janks?”

“Sir, I might be able to stun him, without getting too close to the beast. And Hostler and I have lasers, if he gets too riled.” For a moment, I thought he meant me.

“No, send Hostler to clear five. Thanks to this young maniac, air seals are breached; I’ll set up six as your decon chamber. You stand guard in five, just beyond the damaged corridor hatch. Shoot if the alien tries to get past you. Otherwise, leave them alone.”

“For God’s sake, sir, why?”

Tolliver’s voice was bleak.
“Randy chose to put himself in harm’s way. I expect acid or virus will get him. But the fish Outside is quiescent. My goal’s to get the outrider off
Olympiad
with no further loss. I’ve got airlock hatch overrides on the bridge; I could release Harry to space right now, but I won’t kill the boy while the alien’s watching.”
His tone suggested he might well do so, after.
“Let Randy have his moment. But if Harry goes back into the lock, I’ll cycle and expel him. Randy, at that point, if you interfere, I’ll have Janks cut you down.”

“Understood, sir.” I licked my lips. “I agree.”

“I won’t ask your word, it’s worthless. Janks, withdraw.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The clump of boots.

“And Randy?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re on your own. If this goes wrong, I’ll make no effort to save you.”

“Thank you, sir.” At least I had my pride.

I slid my fingers to the inner hatch release, peered through the porthole at the corridor. I couldn’t see Janks, but he might be lying in wait. Could I risk it?

I’d have to. Another moment trapped in the airlock with an agitated outrider, inches from deadly vacuum, and I’d lose what was left of my mind.

I keyed the hatch release.

Nothing.

Panicked, I jabbed it again, but the hatch to the corridor didn’t budge. I moaned.

You idiot.
“Mr Tolliver? Open, please.” I’d forgotten about his overrides.

He didn’t deign to reply, but the inner hatch slid open. I took a step backward, toward the security of the corridor.
Wait.
Gritting my teeth, I thrust the clock under my arm, darted past Harry, grabbed the manual hatch rewind lever from its slot on the bulkhead, retreated again to the inner hatch, bent to the deck. Carefully, I wedged the lever against the airlock seal, preventing closure. Tolliver had no reason to trust me. I wasn’t sure I could trust him either. He might have let me stride out of the airlock, but slam it shut with Harry inside. Now, he couldn’t.

Janks was nowhere to be seen.

Sweaty, dizzy, I leaned against the bulkhead. Pull yourself together, Joey. You have your chance. You’re alone with Harry, you stopped him from leaving.

Now what are you supposed to do?

Save Fath. Communicate with this quivering blob of acid. Do what Anselm, Fath, Mikhael and Frand couldn’t.

The corridor holocam swiveled, fastened on me. Tolliver would be watching, pacing the bridge in mounting fury.

My mind was a muddy blank. In retrospect, drowning my troubles in Fath’s bottle didn’t seem so good an idea. “Come on, Harry. Out.”

He quivered, flowed from bulkhead to hatch, but didn’t leave the airlock.

I waved the clock, hoping to provoke a response, or at least get his attention. “Here, fishie, fishie, fishie!”

Nothing. I stamped my foot. “Come on, you frazzing …” I’d destroyed my life for nothing. What Tolliver would do to me didn’t bear imagining. The brig. Charges even Fath wouldn’t set aside, lest he carry favoritism to unheard of lengths. Fath would disown me, and I’d deserve it.

With no warning the outrider rocketed into the corridor, caromed off the far bulkhead. He raced toward section five, to the downed transplex barrier and Jess’s silent servos. At the last possible moment he veered aside. Jaw agape, I stood rooted in the center of the corridor, just outside the airlock.

Harry flew from bulkhead to bulkhead, abruptly careened back toward me. In the nick of time I dived into the airlock. Heart thudding against my ribs, I peered out.

Harry was perhaps two meters from my hatch.

Quivering.

It was too much.

I stormed out of the lock. “Stop that god-awful quivering!”

He paid no heed.

“What are you? Why do you hate us? Why’d you kill Kevin?” I wiped my eyes. “WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN?” With all my might I flung the clock at him.

He skittered aside, resumed his quivering.

“STOP IT!” My scream left me hoarse, but had no effect on the outrider. “Fine, want to quiver? Here!” I set my body to shaking, sidled as near to Harry as I dared. “Like it, you frazzing blob?”

If anything, he redoubled his fluttering. I did likewise.

Abruptly Harry veered to a bulkhead, skittered down the corridor, flowed a meter up the bulkhead from sheer momentum.

“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” I raced down the corridor, tried to run up the bulkhead, caromed off, managed not to fall. “Here, let’s do it again!” I ran back toward the lock, slammed into the bulkhead, but was too winded to get far off the deck.

“RANDY, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

“THERE’S NO GOD!” I set myself to quivering. Sweat poured down my face. “Fath’s wrong, you all are!” I let myself shake ever harder. In a moment, I would fly apart, and it would be over.

Harry rolled near.

“Sat … is … fied?” My breath came in labored gasps. “I c’n … do it … too!” At last, I could sustain my frenzy no longer. I stumbled to the lock, kicked free the hatch lever I’d used to jam the lock. “Go, you alien fuck!”

Harry didn’t move.

“Get in! You’ll be home in a minute!”

His colors pulsed.

I snatched up the clock! “A minute!” I jabbed at the second hand through shards of shattered glass. “See? That’s all we were trying to tell you!”

Harry quivered.

If I’d had two fists, I’d have beaten him to death, and his acid be damned. “Taste it!” I tossed the battered clock to the deck. He did nothing. I stood over it, squatted until my thighs touched it. “Taste the damn thing!” I stepped aside.

“Randy, it’s no use.”
Tolliver’s tone was almost compassionate. The holocam gazed with unblinking eye.

With shocking speed, Harry flowed over the clock.

A sizzle.

In a moment, he rolled off. Something in the clock smoked.

“A minute!” I scuffed a small “m” on the deck. Cautiously, I picked up the ruined clock. “The hand went like this.” I reached through the shards of glass, propelled the bent red pointer. I yanked back my hand, sucked blood from my fingers. Damn glass. I looked for a place to set down the ruined instrument.

The Bible, an old teapot, and the clock I’d smashed were all the mementos Fath had of his own father. More reason for him to hate me. “The hell with …”

My voice trailed off.

Harry drew near. His colors flowed. From the mass where his torso would be, if he’d had one, slowly, an appendage emerged.

I glanced down the corridor. A dash to safety, to … Where? The outrider moved ten times faster than I.

I shrank back against the bulkhead. Harry was a meter away. Half a meter. The appendage reached out.

I squeezed my eyes shut.
Dad, pray for me. I can’t; I don’t believe in
—

I opened one eye the tiniest iota. Harry had drawn himself up, to my height or more. The appendage loomed, inches from my face. I turned my head, pressed my cheek to the bulkhead, my only hand squeezed to my side. If I touched Harry, I’d die all the sooner. “Mr Tolliver, you were right.” My voice was unsteady. “It was stupid, I’m sorry, good-bye—”

The appendage touched my temple. My hair sizzled. White fire clawed my scalp. I shrieked. My gut wrenched. I waited for the final embrace of agony.

Slowly, the appendage withdrew.

Involuntarily quivering as if I were an outrider, I stood tight against the bulkhead, trying not to breathe. The throbbing pain was beyond belief.

I hadn’t thought it possible for Harry to edge closer, but he did. I didn’t move, because I couldn’t. Any motion, even a deep breath, and I’d touch him.

To my horror, another appendage began to form. Like the other, it grew from his central mass. Eyes tearing, temple throbbing unbearably, I awaited the inevitable.

A new voice, on the speaker. Mr Janks. Perhaps, in his excitement, he’d miskeyed his suit radio. “Sir, should I try—”

“No, Randy’s made his bed. After he’s dead we’ll let the alien go; clearly the boy provoked him. Perhaps we can salvage some sort of peace.”

As the appendage lengthened, its end narrowed to a fingerlike dimension. After a moment, it seemed to grow still. Its color changed in some subtle way I couldn’t describe. Its surface seemed to … what? Crust over. After a moment or two, the appendage was a dull, gunmetal-gray. It reached toward my cheek.

I whimpered. Courage. It’ll be over in a moment.

Summoning a resolve I’d not known I had, I watched the approach of my death.

The appendage touched my cheek.

I flinched, and gasped.

It was rough, like unpolished iron. It grated an inch or so along my cheek.

It didn’t burn.

Harry rolled back. For a moment, he quivered.

Fath, Dad, God help me, I can’t do this on my own.

Ever so slowly, battling myself every inch of the way, I forced my hand to rise, uncurled a finger. With glacial momentum, I moved it ever closer to the alien. My heart tried to leap clear of my chest.

Lips moving in what might have been prayer, I forced my finger to close the distance between us. At last, it touched the rough gray appendage.

I squealed, jerked back my hand, stared at the fingers. My unburnt fingers. After a time, I reached out, touched him again, made my forefinger slide down the appendage, about as far as the appendage had rasped on my cheek.

I straightened my knees, willed myself to stop trembling.

Harry and I stood inches apart.

Motionless, the both of us.

And he didn’t quiver.

It lasted a minute, or perhaps only seconds. My voice was hushed. “Mr Tolliver?”

“I saw.”

Harry skittered. My heart plunged. But he stopped meters away, above the clock. His form dissolved, and he lost half his height. The appendage drooped, touched the clock face. It found the still second hand, nudged it a few degrees.

With infinite caution, I crouched near. Carefully, trying not to cut myself, I worked the second hand around to its starting point. “Minute.” I began to scuff the deck, straightened abruptly. “Jess, a plate!”

“Communication requires the approval of an officer presiding over—”

The speaker crackled.
“Granted!”

“Very well.”

“An ‘m,’ Jess. Hurry.”

The servo’s etching tool drew the letter. Mechanically, the servo bent, dropped the plate on the deck.

Harry flowed over it. A hiss.

When he withdrew, another “m.” And a crude clock face. In any event, a circle with a stick radius.

“Oh, God, Jess, quick! Sixty circles like his, and a small ‘h.’” It seemed to take forever. At last, the circles were drawn.

“Now, twenty-four of the ‘h,’ and a small ‘d.’ Then—”

“Easy. Let him assimilate it.”

“What if he heads for the airlock? Hurry, Jess!” I paced, absently rubbed my cheek, recoiled from the stab of torment. “Then, thirty ‘d’s, with a small ‘m.’ No, that’s minutes, we can’t—try capital ‘MO,’ he shouldn’t confuse—”

“Anselm, Tamarov, Frand to section four. Flank!”

The outrider squatted busily over our plates.

“The clock’s broke, we need a working second hand. Can the Chief make a clock, any crude one will do—oh, please, hurry!” I ran about the corridor, ready to climb the bulkheads anew. My arm had a tremor.

“Mr McAndrews, send a party to reset the barrier. Anselm, you’re in charge. Keep him talking. Harry, that is. Bring Mr Carr to the bridge.”

Abruptly Harry broke off reading. His gray appendage extended, brushed my arm. To my amazement, it calmed me. My tremor dissipated.

I stared aghast at my wrist. “Holy Lord God in Heaven!”

“What’s wrong?”
Tolliver’s voice was sharp.
“Randy, answer!”

“Jess, a new symbol! Use … use a capital ‘E.’ It’s easy to draw, and …” Carelessly, I nudged the aliens appendage. I shook my arm, my legs, as much of my body as I could. “Look, Harry!” I whirled, wrenched the just-finished ‘E’ plate from the servo, dropped it before him. “Taste.” I made myself quiver even harder.