Eight - Last Of The Earth Men
Ernie put pen to paper, thenumbness in his wrist irritating, and wrote...
Last Of The Earth Men - issue 58.
(Spot-beam to Uncle Stylo, friendand illustrator: GO!)
In front of the Hightop building,Mugio, on the Spanish mainland, the harbour thick with water-bornetraffic, the Atlantic grey and restful.
‘So do we go in?’ Morgan askedhis dog.
She padded upthe steps. ‘Why not? They can only kill you - besides...’
‘What?’ he blurted, stridingafter, the darkened lobby deep and blind.
ButFrozen Hound didn't answer.
Nine - Triple Zero
Abdul climbedto the observation deck. He could see Earth's daylit crescent, Luna'ssteely globe. And fastened to the transparency's outer surface wasthe Research Section's ugly surveillance module, the malformed unit'sinvisible ears clued into each level of the ship's communications,life-support and utility systems. It stuck to the cornea-shapedwindow like some monstrous leech; silently watching, a spy in theircamp.
And it, they know, he thought,know everything...
It frightenedhim.
Heart poundingthe cook quickly descended to the bridge where he'd left SallyDroover, quiet and numbed at her pilot's station, the screen stillflashing red.
He touched her shoulder and sheturned. ‘What?’
‘Come on.’ Abdul took her handand led the way back to his cabin...the lights out, undressing.
‘Luke...’ She moved againsthim, trembling.
‘Ssh - it'sokay, Sal; we have to be close, talk, you and me, we have to make adecision.’ He held her.
‘Kate hasn't called,’ shesaid. ‘I think something's happened to her.’
Abdulconsidered what healready knew. ‘Maybe she has,’ he said, ‘and they blocked it.’
The co-pilot's eyes gleamed. ‘Youmean the warship?’
‘Right.’
‘I thought of that,’ she said.Then, ‘They could easily have picked her up on Luna, or after, atthe Bureau.’
‘Right again.’
They fell slowly to the bed,taking comfort in one another's proximity, warmth.
After a moment Sal continued, hermouth a damp presence abutting his cheek, whispering, ‘It'd makesense for them to grab Kate as soon as possible, and return her here,maybe, if they're serious about quarantining us...’
He agreed. ‘You any idea why?’
‘No. But if it killed thecaptain...’ She paused suddenly, hands either side of his thinface.
‘And Frank,’ said Abdul,putting it into words. ‘And Ernie; perhaps you or me next, orMonica.’
She froze. ‘Spritzer.’ Thename spilt like dust from her dry tongue, its throaty kennelinstantly starved of moisture.
Abdul rolled on top of her. ‘Goon,’ he encouraged, prompting, troubled, his own suspicions close,he thought, to hers.
‘Have you seen him sinceUpfront?’
‘No. You?’
‘No.’ She bit her lip. Theshadow-thick look she gave him was earnest. ‘He's responsible,isn't he, Luke?’
‘I think so.’
‘But why? How?’
‘Who knows?’Research Section Five, he answered himself. ‘He watches us, ordid,’ Abdul said quietly; ‘just as they watch us now.’
‘Yeah, Amy said something aboutit once. She seemed to believe he needed it; that it was harmless.’
He grinned,head shaking. ‘I can imagine - Jones always had an answer foreverything. As long as he did his job, eh? But it's strange, castingyour mind back days, weeks; no time at all really, yet so faraway...’
‘Don't,’said Sally.
‘What?’ He laughed softly,moving her hair.
‘Beginreminiscing,it's morbid.’
‘Sorry, Sal. We're not finished- sure. Only where do we go from here?’
She kissed him.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Isn't that why you dragged mein here?’
Abdul shrugged. ‘Yes; but notthe main reason.’
‘I'll bet.’
‘Okay,’ hemurmured, half submerged in pillow. ‘There's no way we can leavethe ship, that's for certain, and neither can we move Tomcatany significant distance.’
‘So?’ She felt sleepy, oddlyrational: the medicine had worked, strengthened her defences.
Abdul pondered a while.
Sally said, ‘We can leave theship.’
‘Huh?’
‘We can leave the ship,’ sherepeated, ‘and take the engine.’
‘Are you crazy?’ He wasintrigued, hopeful. ‘How?’
‘It's possible. If Friendly'shalf the engineer I think he is we could fly out of here without thehelp of the main computer.’
He liked the brightness, theoptimism in her muffled voice, its girlish, confident enthusiasm.‘Isn't that dangerous, flying blind?’
‘Very. But rather a gamble,Luke, a chance of survival, against certain death.’
‘Our repairman?’
‘Yeah...’
‘You're convinced then?’
‘That the threat is physical? Iam.’
Sally clambered over him andswitched on the lights. She was smiling, but underneath, hardlyvisible in the glare of yellow luminescence and white skin, laycoiled a potent fear, one he comprehended.
‘Let's go for a walk,’ shesaid, winking.
The two of them pulled on clothes.
*
Byron sighed dramatically as thelast digit vanished from the timer. 000 it read.
Decontamination always left himirritable and thirsty. He was eager to assuage the latter; the formerwould, he reckoned, take care of itself.
His comicdiscarded the engineer stalked a passage, climbed a ladder, entered alarge space. It was empty, to the eye. To the touch it containedcharged particles and the smell distended, warped and pungent atoms.
He walked through it, whistling.On the farther side connected ducts and channels, three possibleavenues. He took the centre, ascending its subtle curve, stroking itswalls, passing, as had other feet before...
The lock was awelcome sight. To his rear the engine seemed too quiet, its previousoccupier - as yet undiscovered - still hesitant, extant and reservingjudgement, a vague shape, a cloy static, not entirely prepared tohand over the reins...
And it wasmassive, his knowledge stretching to perhaps a tenth of it, the mazewhich housed him, gave him air. He felt he owed Ernie something andthat one day he might be called upon to pay.
Byron, key the lock, see somegenuine faces.
He did. They belonged to MonicaHat and the repairman, who waved.
She grabbed his sleeve, pressed afinger to his opening lips, its opposite to her own. His browknitted.
‘We lost Frank,’ she saidflatly, blunt nail slipping from his chin. ‘Come on, Luke'swaiting.’
Byron followedher to the lounge, its disarray reflecting that prevalent among thecrew. He kept quiet, sensing the renewed mystery, a tangle ofthreads.
Sitting,drawing, was Luke the cook; calledAbdul, he remembered, although not why.
Lucky unlucky,Byron said to himself, his mind fuzzy, rough at the edges,discomforted by the change of environment. And there were harshercrossings ahead.
Abdul folded, then handed him apiece of paper.
It was a crude plan of the ship,the main decks and bulkheads outlined, the engine a shaded mass belowand to one side, like a dog with a fly on its nose. Byron studied thediagram, hunted for clues, not glancing up, knowing they were underobservation from the Research Section - but not why...
Abdul, Sally, each was confused,as was Friendly. On the diagram were three circles in a boxrepresenting the lounge; in the machine-room a single triangle. Hetook a pencil and drew a fourth circle next to the triangle, placinga question-mark inside it, seeing how the strong light obliteratedthe fine lead traces.
Sally reached for the paper.
‘And Kate?’ queried theengineer, tired of games.
‘Ah, she's fine,’ the co-pilotinformed him. She crumpled the drawing. ‘Did you manage to findErnie?’
He shook his head. The other twoexchanged meaningful looks, a mutual shrug.
Abdul stood. ‘We've a plan,’he said airily. ‘Interested?’
Byron settled back in his couch.‘What can I say?’
‘Anything you like,’ Sal said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Whatever you want, Byron,’she added. ‘You're among friends here.’
The cook smirked. ‘Mostly,’ hecorrected.
The engineer decided he'd goalong. After all, what choice did he have? He appeared to haveprovided them with the desired information, the whereabouts ofMonica, but he still didn't understand their intentions; or for thatmatter, how much they were prepared to disclose: in front of theviewers... ‘Did you ever play charades?’ Sally asked him.
Byron pulled the makings from hisbreast pocket and began to roll a cigarette.
‘This way.’
‘Is that thing loaded?’
‘Of coursenot!’
They followed Sal to a little-usedcompartment high and to the rear of the ship. Byron suspected that,on board the warship or elsewhere, there'd be gathered a team ofeminent scientists scratching their heads and mumbling incoherentlyas they tried to decipher the apparently pointless actions of thisclowning threesome. Or maybe it was what they expected, he amended,the first in a long chain of symptoms, the effect of an alien ormutant virus.
‘Are you sure it's hisbirthday?’ inquired Abdul.
‘Positive,’ replied Sally.
The cook looked guilty. ‘I oughtto've baked him a cake.’
Byron thumbed out the lights.
From the floor climbed dust-ladenbeams of gold.
All was quiet.
Through thegrating the machine-room sparkled like a jewelled cave, its assortedcontents poised, colourful ogres and flashing gnomes, richly-dressedimps and sprites. Moving between them, swathed in a pale robe, aghostly mantle, danced the surviving co-ordinator, the tuneless notesshe expressed rising out of the tightly gathered crowd, its silenceunmusical, its presence manifold. There was a spell upon her, aweightless chain, one that allowed her to float. The machines seemednumberless, like each grew from and was part of its neighbour.
Byron rubbed his eyes.
‘No Spritzer,’ said Abdul.
Sal flicked his chest with theback of her hand, admonishing his blindness and impatience. The danceended, Monica froze, and a clanking shape rose amid the lugubriouscreatures, cloaked in copper and enamel, tossing a polished ball...
There was a hissing noise, that ofangry breath. The metal skull turned upward. ‘You're fools if youthink you can escape,’ a mouth said. ‘You're infected, all ofyou. Look at Monica and see.’ His voice was amplified, distorted bythe visor, but it was the repairman's.
The lights came back on inside thecompartment.
‘Come down, why don't you,’intoned Rich. ‘We can be together, eh, like in the old days?’
Sal frowned. Not in the leastconcerned, thought Byron. She pushed aside some empty containers andlevered open a hatch, dropping to the room below without so much as aglance at the two men.
‘Did you alter the code on theengine lock?’ questioned Abdul, straightening.
Friendly mumbled that he hadn't.Perplexed, he remained in the cramped space as the cook left via thedoor.
Was he deserting us? he askedhimself. A shot sounded from below. He turned quickly, fell to hisknees and peered through the hatch.
Spritzer lay dead, sprawled likesome fallen bird. Monica was nowhere to be seen.
‘What happened?’ All thecolours bled into Byron's mind. He squinted against the glare.
‘I shot him,’ said Sally.
‘I thoughtyou saidit wasn't loaded?’
‘It wasn't.’ She stared downat the metallic corpse.
‘What?’
‘It wasn't,’ she repeated,louder. ‘I don't know; he jumped, I fired, that's all...’ Sheplaced the gun aside. It appeared, to melt into the etherealmachinery.
Byron swung his legs round andlowered himself. Immediately the illusion lifted, and what had been afabulous cave became a steel-lined workshop, perfectly ordinary.
The bird was a man again, shroudedin copper solely from the right wrist to the tips of the fingers...
‘There's noblood,’ Sally piped, cheery. ‘Not a drop – but he's dead, Ikilled him.’
Byron searched for a pulse.Nothing. She was right, he was dead. He reached for the gun; it wasmissing.
‘Let's get out of here,’ hesaid.
So they unbolted the door andwalked slowly to the aft lock, where Abdul caught up with them.
‘Just a few essentials,’ thecook said, pushing past, entering the chamber.
Byron noted that these included awooden totem.
‘I couldn't be sure you'd makeit,’ explained Abdul, hurrying them forward.
The engineerignored him, sealed the entrance. Shyly, he keyed the inner lock,wishing he had thought to change the code, wondering at his own,mixed emotions, the dislike he was feeling for those who were closeto him. He was jealous; this was his place, the engine, his privateenclosure. Ernie would never have let them in here. And they lookedexcited, like children at Christmas, eager to get their presents,greedy for what items of worth and beauty were theirs to hold. Heswallowed, perturbed. The door edged open and a cool draught lickedabout his hand, drinking his sweat, binding his arm to the interior:a long wet tongue of probability, remote as only the near, yetpredictable can be...
Then it was later. He rememberedsomething. ‘What happened to Monica?’
Sal licked her lips, regarded himstrangely. ‘Didn't you...’ she began, eyes piercing. ‘Monicadisappeared,’ she said.