Requiem (74 page)

'I can't fit in
there, Seline. Not without dislocating my shoulders.'

'We don't even
know what will happen if we break open this vent.'

'No, but what
are our options?'

Ask Icarus
nicely to stop?

'Right,' she
said. She looked at her arm. There was a crack in one of the
pistons. It wasn't leaking. Not yet. She didn't tell Sear. She
approached the pipe and breathed in through her nose to calm
herself but still felt like she was suffocating.

She ran her
hand over the pipe. Coarse, like sandpaper against her glove. She
pulled herself under the pipe to see if there were any weak points
but found none. She placed her right hand on a randomly designated
spot. She imagined her hand bursting through the metal. Her arm was
cocked, loaded.

In an instant
her fist had punctured the metal. She peeled back the skin of the
pipe. A thick plume of heat forced its way out directly into her
face.

'I can feel the
heat through the suit. Are you sure the readings are right?' she
asked.

'The readings
don't lie.'

She read the
gauges on her optics.

'Oxygen at 48
percent,' she said. 'Thrusters at 41 percent.'

The crack in
the piston on her arm was bigger.

Still not
leaking.

She looked at
Sear.

'When you're
ready,' he said.

She waited at
the make-shift entrance. The torn edges of metal became the crooked
archway of some forbidden stairway.

Abandon hope
all who enter.

She poked her
head through the hole to get a view of what awaited. Heat rushed
past her face, pressing into the glass of her visor. The sides of
the pipe ran off, hand in hand, into the distance, circling closer
and closer to one another until they collapsed at the edge of her
vision. She pulled her head back out, dizzied by the hundred stages
of hell she'd just glimpsed.

'It just keeps
going,' she panted.

'You can't see
the end?'

'No.'

Sear gently
pushed Seline to the side and pocked his head through the hole.
After a few seconds he raised his hand to the side of his head,
waited, then pulled back out. 'There is an end,' he said. 'Try
turning your night-vision off.'

Seline did as
he said. When she pulled her head out again she felt no better for
having seen the tiny glowing speck at the end of the pipe.

'Did you see
it?'

'Yeah. I saw
it.'

'This is going
to be a delicate balancing act,' began Sear. 'You don't want to
expose yourself to the heat for too long but you don't want to
waste what's left of your thrusters. But... it'll be up to you once
you're up there. If you-'

'I'm not going
to spend any longer in there than I have to.' She looked at her
feet. 'It's thrusters all the way.'

'Alright. Just
make sure you slow down towards the end and watch the friction on
your shoulders. You don't want your suit ripping open.'

'Right.'

Sear pulled his
rifle off his back. 'Maintenance drones have probably been alerted
to the breach. I'll do what I can to keep this exit secure.'

'Alright,' said
Seline.

'Seline,' said
Sear. She could see the colour of his eyes through the visor. There
was an aching in his voice, 'You're our only chance. I can't follow
you. If we had more time then maybe we could've found another way
but right now, this is all we have, this is the path of least
resistance.'

If we had more
time.

She knew he
wasn't trying to convince her of anything, that he was convincing
himself of what needed to be done.

Too soon for
love. Too uncertain to pinpoint any feeling that might be more than
fleeting. She simply stared at him with the haunting feeling that
she was letting go of something she'd struggled her whole life just
to find. Still, she couldn't describe it. She'd pinned it down, was
staring directly at its face but couldn't distinguish more than the
twisting pain that had centred itself in her stomach like a
bloodied knot ringing itself clean.

The weight of a
dying planet pulled her eyes towards the opening in the pipe and
begged her to shove any and all sentiment from the highest point
she could find. There was no time, there was a job to do, they both
knew it, but this feeling that held her to him only grew stronger
the longer she waited.

She was
breathing heavily. Her eyes shifting from Sear's to the opening in
the pipe and back again. He lifted his hand and held it to the side
of her helmet. She imagined the warmth and the smoothness of his
palm against her cheek. There was desperation in his eyes, in his
voice, in the slope of his shoulders, in the way his head hung
down, and if she could feel the beat of his heart then she would
feel it there too.

'I don't want
to lose you...' he said.

'But there's no
other way.'

He nodded.
'Go,' he said, 'I'll be here when you get back.'

She closed her
eyes and placed her hand over his. She squeezed it, let go, and
pulled away. Her senses came rushing back to her. The stitch in her
stomach, the throbbing in her head, the taste of her own sweat and
the burning pain that had started in her legs but now spread to
every muscle in her body. She moved up to the pipe.

She removed her
rifle and placed it in first. Without looking back she pulled
herself into the hole up to her chest. She pulled her arms up and
held them against her chest and squeezed her shoulders inside. They
pressed against the sides of the tube but there was enough give for
her to wiggle forward and drag her legs in behind. The heat was
already hitting hard against her face.

She shuffled
forward on her elbows until she was certain she could fit. She
squeezed on the thrust. Her body lurched ahead several feet before
coming to a stop. She shifted her weight and pulled her arms
further towards her centre. She hit the thrust again and propelled
forward. One hand was gripping tightly to the front of her suit,
the other to her rifle. Her shoulders glanced against the sides of
the tube, her elbows scraped. She pulled them in even harder to her
chest.

The inside of
the tunnel was rushing past. Her eyes burned. Vertigo sunk its
claws into her skull. This was planetary re-entry, below the
surface. Blistering. Melting. She closed her eyes but the feeling
remained. The tunnel was pressing down against her, constricting,
the acidic heat trying to burn its way through her suit.

She could hear
a voice. She tried to speak but her entire body was locked,
mummified in heat and delirium. Sear was speaking but she couldn't
understand a word.

She opened her
eyes. She was almost at the light. With the light came the cold.
She released her grip, let her elbows and legs relax and scrape
against the insides of the pipe. The light wasn't bright but it was
enough. She slid to a stop almost at the end of the tunnel. She
crawled towards the opening which was perfectly flush with the
wall.

The chamber was
filled with a dark haze, a red luminescence similar to the violet
clouds they had already passed through. There was a shadow not far
in the distance but Seline couldn't make it out. Spires reached
confidently from the curvature of the chamber's walls towards the
shadow, obscured by the red cloud cover. She waited but there was
no movement, no indication of life. Nothing but the uneven cadence
of the swelling mist.

She crawled out
the end of the pipe, out of the heat into the much cooler
atmosphere of the inner chamber. The tightness in her chest unwound
somewhat. Even the pressure on her head relented. She still held
onto the lip of the tunnel with one hand, holding herself against
the wall in case retreat was necessary, however difficult that
might prove.

She tentatively
waved her free hand out in front of her. The mist was dense. It
wrapped around her arm as she moved it from left to right. As large
as the chamber was, it seemed much smaller than the rest of Icarus;
more limited, more comprehensible. As far as she could tell, the
mist filled the whole room.

There was a
crackling noise in her ear. She heard Sear's voice, tired and
worn.

'Seline?'

'I'm here,' she
whispered into the comm.

'Seline?'

'Sear, I'm
here.'

'Seline, can
you hear me?'

'Yes, Sear. I
made it through the pipe. I'm on the other-'

'Seline, are
you there?'

'Shit...'

'Seline?'

'There's some
kind of interference...'

'Seline?'

'Sear...
damnit.'

Sear's voice
continued to ring in her ear at regular intervals, repeating her
name. It no longer sounded like a question, just a word stuck on
loop. She moved to turn off the comm but her hand froze, lingered,
fell back to her waist. She didn't want to regret foregoing the
company.

She recovered
her senses somewhat and focused on the shadow, praying that it
wasn't just another layer, another border to cross. The red clouds,
hung like tasteless decorum. They would not rise or part for her.
She turned and peered down the pipe. She grabbed her rifle and
gently pushed herself from the wall and floated free. She said,
over the comm,

'Oxygen at 39
percent. Thrusters at 38 percent.'

She turned
towards the large, malevolent shadow and eased out a bit of thrust.
Her progress was steady. Slow, but steady. Not a trace of movement
or apparent danger but her heart kept throbbing in her chest all
the same. Looking all around the dense cloud, heavy and swollen
with moisture, she expected some kind of rain to start falling.

Finally, the
shadow began to darken on her approach and, out of the blood mist
emerged an enormous sphere. She continued unchecked towards the
cold, black surface, to the opaque mirror.

She saw her
reflection come into view, floating before her.

What the hell
are you doing here?

You tell
me.

The black
fibres of her arm were exposed through the rips and tears that ran
the length of her right sleeve. She could barely make out her own
face behind the dirt and grime that had collected on the inside of
her visor. The red mist was glowing behind her. A stark outline,
darkening the shadows cast by its own harsh light.

She waited for
a moment, expecting something to happen but nothing did. She stared
at herself in the mirror.

She raised her
hand. Her reflection did the same. She touched a finger to the
sphere and pressed against it. A thin ripple broke the reflection.
She pulled her hand away. The ripple spread out, wider and wider
until it disappeared over the small horizon, its size and speed
apparently undiminished. She touched her finger to the black sphere
again but this time pushed it further in. Her finger disappeared
through it without resistance. Her breathing had steadied as if
calmed by the sensation. She pushed her arm further in. She caught
a final image of herself – her eyes – not wild or panicked but calm
– peaceful almost.

She passed
through the opaque fluid without a sound and emerged on the other
side before a blinding white light. She shielded her eyes as best
she could, frantically searching for a way out. She'd left her
rifle on the other side.

Blindly, she
tried to move back through the sphere but it was solid. She turned
away from the light. Stifling her own panic for a moment she
managed to darken her optics. A little at first and then almost to
one hundred percent opacity. She waited for her eyes to adjust, for
the white to wash away. Eventually she could make out the shape of
her own hand in front of her face.

She turned to
confront the blinding light behind her. Like a star, it seethed and
churned. Plumes of light welled to the surface, spread themselves
out, broke apart and submerged themselves once again. Wisps of
faint, blue light arched from its surface and broke, fell, and
reformed again.

There was a
faint whisper in her ear. A thin line on the horizon. If words were
spoken then she had no idea what they might have been. She turned
back to the black wall she had passed through. Where she expected a
glassy reflection of light she saw an unlit screen of jet black.
She looked down at the cracked piston in her right arm which at
some point had finally given way. A dark, oily liquid was leaking
out. She turned back to the star. She had expected to have been
killed, burnt to microns of ash.

A wave of sound
was approaching, like a colossal tide dragging across the ocean
floor.

Very gently,
she pushed off the inside of the black sphere and reached out her
hand and held it above the tiny star. It burned cold and noiseless.
She touched the surface. Immediately, there was a voice,
reverberating inside her skull. The words were not her own. They
came as a cerebral itch deep within her brain, near top of her
spine. The voice was blunt and harsh. Its coarse tone echoed in her
eardrums. Each word seemed forced, struggling from a throat versed
in centuries of silence and disuse.

‘
No mind has
ever made it this far.'

She knew who
had spoken. The tone could belong to only one. She focused on the
words but they were slipping away. She could no longer feel her
hand upon the sphere of light, nor her feet, nor her chest, nor her
beating heart.

This is what
insanity feels like. This is what it means to lose your mind.

She was
surrounded by light. Her mind had been severed from her body and
submerged within the star's core. She tried to speak but couldn't
find the words. Everything she'd learned, experienced, lived, had
been cast into the void. She reached for the memories but they spun
further and further away. She closed her eyes, reached out again.
Something firm. Something familiar. Sanity in the form of a
question.