Steven McDonald - Event Horizon

“They’re explosive charges,” Weir said, finally.

Miller sighed, shaking his head. “I can see that. What are they for?”

“In an emergency, they destroy the central corridor and separate the personnel areas from engineering. The crew could use the foredecks as a lifeboat.”

This made sense to Miller, though he had some difficulty seeing it from an aesthetic point of view—all this immensity, this grandeur, and the panic button led to a collection of explosives out in the open. The Event Horizon had been the prototype. Not everything gets covered up in a prototype.

Miller joined Peters and they began moving down the corridor again. “That means they didn’t abandon ship,” Peters said.

Miller was looking around again, trying to figure out what was really wrong here. “So where are they?” he asked.

No answers were forthcoming.

Weir scanned the monitors with an almost boyish enthusiasm, concentrating mainly on the feeds from Miller and Peters—right now, Justin’s progress was more dizzying than informative.

Miller and Peters had reached the Event Horizon’s Gravity Couch Bay. This would be one of the places they would find any crew members in suspended animation. Against all reason, Weir held out hope that they would find someone alive.

Peters said, “We found the Gravity Couches.” The radio link made her voice tinny.

There were eighteen Couches in the bay, nine on each of the two walls, all essentially the same in form, size, and function as those on the Lewis and Clark. The bay itself was considerably larger, of course, but everything aboard the Event Horizon was designed to be on the large side.

“Any crew?” Weir said, as Peters and Miller each walked along a row of Gravity Couches.

“Negative,” Miller said.

Weir sat back, drained, empty. It was hopeless, then. No one left alive, no easy route to the answers. They had to

know. There must be something aboard the ship….

The video monitor showed nothing but one empty Gravity Couch after another.

They gave no sign of having been used. Weir shook his head, trying to will something into being there.

“They’re empty, Dr. Weir,” Miller said.

Weir’s fists clenched. Hopeless. Everything he had done ended up in a condition of hopelessness. He looked up, looked into the darkness of the Event Horizon and tried to think of Claire, but he could not get the focus now, could not bring her back to mind.

“Starck,” Miller continued, “any luck with that scan?”

Starck’s hands were playing over the console in front of her. Weir turned his head to look at her and saw frustration written in lines and knots in her face.

“I’m running diagnostics now, Captain.” She shook her head again, glaring at the readouts. “Nothing’s wrong with the sensor pack. I’m still getting trace life readings all over the ship.”

That should have been impossible, Weir reflected. Miller knew that too, going by the tinny sigh over the radio link.

A change in the frantic movement on Justin’s monitor drew Weir’s attention away from Starck’s predicament. Justin had given up his fastball flying technique now, in favor of more considered movement. As Weir watched, the image from Justin’s camera stabilized and focused. Weir smiled, though it was an empty smile. Justin was about to encounter one of the truths of the Event Horizon.

Justin stood before an immense dark door, perhaps the biggest pressure door he had ever seen in his life. Despite himself, he was extremely impressed. If he had believed in such books of mythology, he might even have found something biblical about it.

As it was, it was big. Goddamned big. Huge, in fact.

Cheerfully, he said, “I’ve reached the First Containment door.”

“The engineering decks are on the other side,” Weir answered. Justin felt a flash of annoyance at the scientist. Weir might be one of the most brilliant minds ever to juggle an equation, but he was surely one condescending sonofabitch when he felt like it.

Justin did not bother to acknowledge Weir’s statement. He reached out and touched the access panel at his right hand side. The door opened with ponderous grace.

Justin was delighted to see yet more mystery revealed behind this First Containment door. He moved forward to see more clearly, and to give his camera a better chance to pick up what he was seeing. He was looking into a long corridor section, tube-shaped. The engineers who had built the ship had, for some arcane reason, set this section of corridor to spinning like a turbine, a shell outside the access tube whirling at dizzying speed. From Justin’s vantage point, it looked as though alternating sections were spinning in different directions. There was surprisingly little noise, but he figured most of it operated in vacuum to cut down on friction.

His head spun as he tried to focus on this weird assembly. Finally, he looked away, trying to get his bearings back. “Cool,” he said. “What’s all this do?”

Weir said, “It allows you to enter the Second Containment without compromising the magnetic fields.”

Okay, so you ‘re into big showy rigs. Justin suspected that the same result could have been achieved with half the equipment and a quarter of the power, but he wasn’t the one who had the brain the size of Betelgeuse.

“Looks like a meatgrinder,” he said, and stepped forward, his breath echoing in his helmet.

Dr. Weir, what’s this door?” Peters asked.

She had continued all the way down the main corridor until the corridor had ended in a pressure door. She played her helmet light over it, over the walls and floor nearby. Nothing to be seen.

“You’re at the bridge, Ms. Peters,” Weir said over the radio link.

She took a deep breath and started to reach for the door controls.

Miller passed through a hatchway into what appeared to be some kind of medical facility, either the operating theater or some kind of surgical lab.

All of the tables were empty, reflecting his helmet light, and as he turned his head he caught glimpses of surgical instruments and equipment floating aimlessly in the microgravity.

“I’m in Medical,” he said, ducking out of the way of a wandering forceps.

He continued his exploration, moving cautiously through the room, inspecting everything. “No casualties. It looks like this place hasn’t been used.”

Secured drug lockers, empty biohazard and sharps containers, just an ugly assortment of floating hardware to con-‘tend with. Miller’s skin was crawling with cold. He was beginning to think Smith was right, that they should not have come here.

Over the radio link, Weir said, “You still haven’t seen any crew?”

“If we saw any crew, Doctor, you’d know about it.” He turned his head, looked down at the floor, looking for clues and coming up with nothing. Under his breath he muttered, “This place is a tomb.”

He took a step forward.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Fuck!” Miller yelled, whirling, his hands coming up, ready to strike out.

An empty glove drifted past his faceplate, tumbling slowly. He stared at it as it floated away. His heart was thundering in his chest and his breathing was roaring in his ears.

“Miller?” Starck was demanding over the radio link. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, the words coming as a reflex. He slowed his breathing, tried to get his heart to slow down to a more normal rate. He could feel the clamminess of sweat on his skin, cooled by the air circulating through his suit.

“Your pulse is elevated,” DJ said over the radio link. “Are you sure you’re—”

“I’m fine,” Miller snapped, which put a stop to any further questions from DJ.