Steven McDonald - Event Horizon

Time code, and names had been overlaid in the lower right corner; the monitor for Miller’s video feed was directly in front of Weir.

At the moment, the feeds showed only the featureless interior of the umbilicus. Once in a while a figure would drift into range.

Next to Weir, Starck said, “Video feed is clear.”

Smith climbed down behind them, his eyes on the monitors.

“Are you with us, Dr. Weir?” Miller, made tinny and distant by the radio system.

Something looming up on the monitors now. Weir was beginning to react with excitement as Miller, Peters, and Justin closed on the Event Horizon. He should have been with them, but he could not win every battle. Perhaps it was to the good—let the professionals face any initial danger, and then go in to open up all the secrets hidden within the ship.

Weir focused intently on the monitors now. “I’m with you,” he said. “You’ve reached the outer airlock door.”

Miller did not waste time with the Event Horizon’s outer airlock door, motioning for Justin to get it open in a hurry. Justin quickly complied.

Peters pushed by him, then, getting a thumper up against the inner airlock door. The device emitted bursts of sound, measuring the return response.

Peters scanned over the readouts. “We’ve got pressure,” she said, putting the thumper away on her belt.

“Clear and open,” Miller said. He and Peters got out of Justin’s way.

Justin floated up to the inner airlock door, turning himself carefully. He reached to his utility belt, extracting a slim tool, inserting this into the airlock operations panel. The inner airlock door opened slightly. Particles swirled through the gap— crystals of ice, frozen dust, more that they would have needed additional equipment to identify. Atmosphere from the Event Horizon would fill the umbilicus, helping to keep it stable as long as the docking ring seal remained intact.

Justin continued working. The inner airlock door opened all the way, a doorway into pitch darkness.

Justin stowed his tool and checked his line as Miller led the way into the Event Horizon. Their helmet lights caught ice crystals whirling in the silent darkness, and light scattered around them, only to be swallowed in the darkness.

Miller glanced around, trying to get some sort of perspective. As far as he could tell, they had stepped into some kind of access corridor, but the corridor was seemingly endless, an immense pool of darkness broken once,in a while by a deep blue patch of light that he assumed resulted from windows filtering the light from Neptune.

He looked up. Somewhere far over his head, his helmet light reflected from a ceiling. He could have used a hundred times the candlepower, he realized.

The lights they had with them would show them almost nothing.

“Jesus,” Peters said, and he looked around at her. “It’s huge.”

Trying to wrench his mind away from the scale of the starship, he said,

“Ice crystals everywhere. This place is a deep freeze.” That was more for Weir’s benefit than anyone else’s.

Weir’s voice was in his head now, courtesy of the suit radio. “You’re in the central corridor. It connects the personnel areas to engineering.”

Miller was about to suggest they pick a direction when his attention was taken by something hovering just at the edge of his field of vision. “Hold on a second,” he said, quietly and firmly. He started to crane his head forward, around. “Everybody hold your position.”

Justin and Peters froze where they were. “What is it?” Justin said.

“I don’t know,” Miller said, edging around, trying not to move too fast.

Small objects afloat in microgravity tended to prove all three of Newton’s laws of motion. One too-quick move here and they would be chasing this particular mystery down the length of the corridor.

Miller edged down, closer, focusing on the object. It was small and white.

A human tooth, complete with the root.

Shocked, Miller said, “DJ?”

DJ was normally unflappable, but his voice was shaky now. “I, uh, think it’s a right, rear molar.”

Miller rolled his eyes. Time for the pragmatic voice. “Yeah, thanks, I can see it’s a tooth.” Yes, DJ, he thought, this is not what we were looking for here.

“Looks like it was pulled out by the root,” DJ added helpfully. This was not the sort of statement Miller wanted to have made dead-center in his head.

As it was, Miller’s spine was chilling, and he could feel the hair rising on his arms.

This was not getting off to a good start___

Come on,” Smith said, looking away from the monitors. “What is that all about?”

Weir and Starck were both staring at the bizarre image on the monitor displaying Miller’s video feed. The tooth floated there lazily in midair, flecked with frozen blood and little bits of flesh.

Weir felt as though he had entered a timeless place, one where the shadows lengthened and the light twisted all the images. His dreams came back to him, haunting. Whatever had happened to the Event Horizon seven years ago, it was beginning to seem that the end result was catastrophic and ugly-Cooper had arrived at the flight deck now, nudging Smith aside as he leaned between Starck and Weir to stare at the monitors. “This is some weird voodoo shit!” the rescue tech exclaimed, shaking his head. Weir looked at Cooper, then turned back to the monitor, wondering what sort of answer he could have given him.

Starck gave Cooper an annoyed glance. “Get back to your post, Cooper.”

Weir wondered whether it mattered if Cooper spent his time here on the bridge or down in the airlock bay playing doorman. Cooper did not stick around to debate the point, leaving the bridge after a curt nod to Starck.

The image on Miller’s monitor shifted.

Miller stood up straight, stretching his arms out, the motion sending the vagrant tooth spinning away down the corridor. This mission was beginning to give him the creeps, and that was just not acceptable.

“All right, all right,” he said, pushing his feelings aside and trying to regain his professional demeanor, “let’s move on. Peters and I will search the forward decks.” He turned to look at Justin, who was trying to follow the progress of the flying tooth. “Justin, take engineering. Don’t forget to breathe.”

Justin turned his head. Miller could just about see him smiling through the faceplate. “I won’t, sir.”

Miller and Peters started cautiously down the corridor. If Miller had his bearings right, they would eventually arrive at the bridge. In contrast, Justin tackled the travel issue by kicking off-hard, aiming for a wall, turning over in midflight, and kicking off from there to increase his momentum. He vanished down the corridor, trailing line.

Miller shook his head, smiling. Justin was good, but he was young and sometimes impetuous.

He passed through an archway, surprised at the suggestion of Gothic design here. It took him a moment to realize that the archway disguised a join in the corridor—sections of the main corridor had been joined together this way, rather than simply being welded or bolted. He stopped and turned carefully, inspecting the coupling.

Near the floor, a box caught his attention. There was an explosives symbol on the cover.

“Dr. Weir,” Miller said, slowly, “what’s this?”

Before Weir could answer, Peters said, “Here’s another one.” She was at another coupling, hovering over another of the boxes. She pointed towards the other side of the corridor. “They’re all over the place.”

Looking around, Miller could pick out those within range of his helmet light. They nestled into the couplings at floor or ceiling level, looking for all the world like mechanical molluscs.