Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

He knelt down carefully, taking a closer look, then keyed his suit radio.

“Captain Miller, you copy?”

“I’m here, Smith,” Miller said. Jesus, Smith thought, am I sounding insecure or something? Miller’s tone was almost condescending. “How’s the ClarkT”

I’m fine, sir, doing okay out here. He bit his tongue. Miller was doing all he could. “I’ve found a two-meter fracture in the outer hull. We should be able to repair it and repressurize.” He paused for a moment. “It’s going to take some time.”

“We don’t have time, Smith. In twenty hours we run out of air.”

That certainly put things into perspective.

“Understood,” he said.

Out here all alone, then, which was fine, because he would rather be here than aboard that monstrosity of a spaceship. Neptune passed below him, a dizzying experience if he wanted to look in that direction. He kept his attention entirely on the Lewis and Clark.

He reached to his utility belt, extracting the basic patch applicator, emptying it into the tear. The compound went in almost as a gel, but quickly foamed and spread. Within moments it had hardened. The patch would be durable, though not pretty, and secure once it was riveted into place.

He tossed the empty applicator away, not watching to see it begin to fall in a decaying orbit toward Neptune. He reached down to the utility belt again, pulling out a zero-gravity nailgun. He began riveting the edges of the patch into place.

All tied to each other in one way or another, planet, man, and ships hurtled on through the darkness.

Justin had retreated somewhere deep inside himself, Peters thought. He had seen something, heard something, been somewhere that his conscious mind could not accept, and this condition was his best defense. Cooper had not been able to fill in many of the details—he had been in a mild state of shock himself.

She looked down at Justin, and her heart ached for him. He was too young, too kind, for this to have happened to him. Perhaps he should never have been assigned to this particular vessel in the first place—at this age people ought to be confined to milk runs. Let the grizzled old combat veterans fly the desperate missions.

Justin was stretched out on a diagnostic table, covered with a thermal blanket. Looking at him, it was hard to believe that there was anything seriously wrong.

She looked up from Justin. DJ stood at the other side of the bed, watching her. She found his studiously neutral expression to be irritating.

“How is he?” she said, trying to push her mind away from the annoyance. DJ

was doing everything he could. The mask he wore was nothing more than his way of coping with the situation.

“His vitals are stable,” DJ said, slowly, “but he’s unresponsive to stimuli. He might wake up in fifteen minutes. He might not wake up at all.”

Peters looked down at Justin again. He seemed to be sleeping.

She turned away abruptly, squeezing her eyes shut, willing the pain back.

There were things to be done. She headed for the bridge.

Miller had gone so far as to issue an “at ease” command, but even that edict could not overcome the tension and exhaustion in his crew. There was too much evidence of mayhem, too much debris, too much blood. Too much of everything except time, air, and answers.

Weir was the exception amongst them. He had taken up a position at the briefing table, lounging there as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Miller had expected the scientist to be falling apart by this point, given his earlier behavior. It could be that Weir was simply comfortable on board the Event Horizon, but that discounted the gory, battered state of the spacecraft.

Starck could barely sit still. Miller suspected that it was only the issue of their air supply that kept her from pacing about like a caged cat. Even so, she fidgeted constantly. More irritating was Cooper—he was bouncing that ball of his. Miller kept quiet about it; better he do that than come up with something wilder. DJ, meanwhile, sat quiet, sometimes glancing over at Peters, who was staring out of the bridge windows, hiding her emotions as best she could.

Miller turned to look at a video monitor. Smith was still working on the hull of the Lewis and Clark. Miller suspected that Smith could have been finished long ago—he just did not want to be back on board the Event Horizon.

Miller turned away from the monitor and faced his crew. He took a deep breath, wondering if he could get them out of this mess. He trusted them to pull together, and he figured Weir would pitch in, but the circumstances were wretched and their resources far too tight.

“Okay, people,” he said, pitching his voice low enough to avoid being threatening while still maintaining authority, “there’s been a change in the mission. In less than eighteen hours we will run out of breathable air. Our primary objective now is survival. That means we focus on repairing the Lewis and Clark and salvaging whatever will buy us more time.”

He looked around at his crew. Weir was staring at him, an unnerving focus.

Peters had turned around from the bridge windows to listen to him. This was not new information, but he was gratified that they could still follow the protocols.

“Our secondary objective,” he went on, “is finding out what happened to this ship and its crew. Two months from now I fully intend to be standing in front of the good Admiral giving my report, and I’d like to have more than my dick in my hands.” That brought a couple of weary smiles. No one was going to be cajoled by cheap humor, however. “DJ, take samples from these stains, compare them to medical records. I want to know whose blood this is. Peters, I want you to go through the ship’s log, see if we can’t find some answers.”

Peters straightened up, nodding. “I can use the station in Medical, keep an eye on Justin.”

“Fine,” Miller said. He looked at Starck. “Starck. I want you to repeat the bio-scan.”

Starck closed her eyes, sighing. “I’ll just get the same thing—”

“Not acceptable,” Miller snapped. He was not about to allow Starck to quit trying now. As soon as any of them quit trying, that person was as good as dead. “I want to know what’s causing those readings. If the crew is dead, I want the bodies. I want them faund.”

Starck sat for a few moments, thinking it through. Then she looked up at Miller, her expression determined. “I can reconfigure the scan for C-12, amylase proteins.”

“Do it.” Starck turned away, getting to work. Miller turned to the briefing table. “Dr. Weir.” Weir did not flinch away. “Yes.” “One of my men is down. I want to know what happened to him.”

Cooper grabbed his ball out of the air with a loud smacking sound. “I told you,” the rescue tech said anrgily. “He was inside the Core.”

Weir was shaking his head, the relaxed look lost now. The scientist looked confused, juist as he had looked confused when Cooper had tried to explain what had happened earlier. At that point all they had on hand was chaos; Miller had hoped to get something more out of Weir during the briefing. Cooper was silent for a few moments. Weir said nothing, intent on Cooper. Miller nodded at Cooper, giving his assent for Cooper to continue.

Cooper swallowed and tried to compose himself. “It was like… nothing was there.” Cooper looked up at Miller, but found no cure for his helplessness there. “And then Justin j appeared and then it… it was like…” Cooper was becoming unfocused, trying to find his way back into memory, putting words to the clutter of images. “… liquid. And then the rings started moving again and it froze solid.” “That’s not physically possible,” Weir snapped. Cooper stared at him, shocked at Weir’s tone. “Excuse me, Dr. Weir, you weren’t there. So don’t talk to me about physics.”