Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

Weir turned away from the console and opened a wall panel. To Miller’s surprise, there were tools and flashlights inside. Weir handed tools to Miller, and waved him over to an access panel on the wall. They set to work silently, removing bolts and magnetic clamps.

Behind the access panel was a cramped-looking duct. Miller could see circuitry and modules inside as he bent down to look. The duct seemed to go for quite a distance.

He looked at Weir, dubious. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Of course,” Weir said. To Miller, he sounded as though he believed it too.

Miller handed him a flashlight and a small, wrapped toolkit.

Weir tossed the flashlight and tools into the duct, then hauled himself inside. He almost filled the duct, but he seemed to have no trouble moving.

Miller shook his head. Weir was a walking contradiction.

Weir’s boots vanished from sight.

The air in the operations duct was even more stale than the air circulating in the main part of the Event Horizon. Weir managed to tolerate it with difficulty—there was a job to do, and the sooner he did it, the sooner he would be out of there. He wished he had had a chance to sample real Earth air once more before coming out here, but he had not been off Daylight Station for years.

He had found himself unable to conceive of taking a journey back down the length of Skyhook One.

His breathing echoed in the cramped duct.

He crept forward, counting off circuit panels for Miller’s benefit.

“E-Three… E-Five… E-Seven… where are you…?”

Starck had settled into a routine at the engineering board, trying to hammer the bio-scan into behaving itself. So far nothing had seemed to help.

A yellow light began flashing in the upper left corner of the console.

Starck stared, a feeling of dread stealing over her. New lights joined the first—more yellows, greens.

“What is—” she started.

The bio-scan flickered to life, the meters immediately pegging at the end of the scale on all readouts.

She hit the intercom switch. “Captain, the bio-scan just went off the scale.”

She shook her head.

Something bad was going on here.

DJ made it across the medical bay in record time, only to realize that there was little he could do at the moment. Justin was in the throes of an epileptic seizure, thrashing about on the examination table.

DJ leaned over him, ready to intervene if Justin’s seizure showed signs of being dangerous or of throwing him to the deck. This might be a breakthrough point too, a sign that Justin was coming out of the coma.

“Justin!” DJ said, on the off chance that his patient was regaining consciousness. “Can you hear me? Justin!”

There was something going on. Justin’s mouth was working as he tried to speak, and his eyes were open, albeit unfocused. DJ leaned in towards him, trying to hear.

Justin suddenly arched, all of his muscles becoming rigid, as though he were being electrocuted. DJ looked up, alarmed.

“He’s coming,” Justin hissed. His voice sounded broken, a remnant of the torturer’s art.

DJ felt cold. “Who? Who’s coming?”

“The dark!” Justin hissed. Something bubbled in his voice.

It might have been laughter.

There you are,” Weir said.

Module E-12 was making a curious spitting and fizzing sound, very faint, but enough to indicate a potentially serious problem.

Weir produced a screwdriver from the toolkit, opening up the module in a few moments. The cause of the problem was immediately evident—one of the circuit boards was quietly frying itself, a handful of sparks flying off. Weir reached into the module and yanked the board out.

He pulled more tools out of the kit, and set to work. These modules were triple-redundant throughout the Event Horizon, but the removal of a board meant installing a bypass so that the system would not go looking for the missing chunk of circuitry. Getting the bypass in place was a minute or two of cramped, uncomfortable work.

As he started to back up, readying himself to get out of the duct, his flashlight began to flicker. He grunted, annoyed at the timing, and banged it against the duct wall, making the metal boom. Miller had handed him one of the Event Horizon’s flashlights, which might explain why this one was dying now.

The flashlights had been equipped with lithium-ion batteries, but even those had limits when it came to their life.

The light dimmed again. He shook it, but it did not help. The flashlight gave a last fitful glow and went out, plunging him into darkness.

“Um, Captain Miller?” Weir said, slowly. “I seem to have a problem with my light.”

There was no answer from his radio, or along the duct.

Somewhere in the pitch darkness, far away and far too close, there was the sound of a single drip of water. Weir felt cold, alone, ready to panic.

“Captain Miller?” he whispered.

He felt as though he was falling. He knew that could not be so. The artificial gravity had been turned on.

Water dripped again, echoing in the darkness. Weir closed his eyes, his breathing difficult.

A woman’s voice, as though at the bottom of a cavern. Weir looked up, opening his eyes, seeing only darkness. He knew that voice, knew it all too well even now.

“Billy,” Claire said, her voice soft by his ear. “Come to me.”

She could not be here. His breath came in a ragged gasp. Claire could not be here.

The walls pressed in upon him.

“Claire?” he whispered. His voice echoed away into the darkness. He banged the flashlight against the side of the

duct, over and over, trying to make it work, giving in to desperation.

“Be with me,” Claire whispered, and he almost screamed.

The flashlight flickered to life.

Wet hair hanging like seaweed in her ashen face, Claire stared at him, inches away.

“Forever,” she said softly.

Miller bent down to look into the duct, wondering what was going on with Weir. The darkness inside the duct seemed to be total, which meant Weir had gone pretty far into the thing. The radio link had been silent for minutes, but he could not be sure if that was because Weir had not said anything since crawling into the duct, or if there was something in the duct that was blocking radio signals, He was about to straighten up when all of the lights went out. Even the main console had gone black.

He took a deep breath, focusing on calm, keeping the storm of panic away from himself. He bent down again, finding the edge of the duct with his fingers.

“We just lost all power in here,” he called into the duct. He heard his voice echo somewhere deep inside, but there was no answer. “Dr. Weir?”

Nothing.

He straightened up, trying to see something in the darkness. To his surprise, he was successful.

The surprise gave way to fear. He knew he was looking toward the Core, but the red glow that he was seeing was not something he would have expected from the Core in its normal state.

He took several steps back.

The glow at the Core resolved into a humanoid figure consumed by fire. The sounds of inferno filled the air, and Miller felt a wave of heat pass over him.

The figure lifted a blazing arm, fire dripping from it like water, pointing at Miller.

The holocaust whispered, “Don’t leave me….”

Miller squeezed his eyes shut, his chest hollow.

When he opened his eyes again, the burning man was gone.

Cooper was still outside, but everyone else had gathered back on the bridge. Miller figured he probably looked about as burned out as the rest of the crew by now. Even Weir, sitting back at the briefing table, looked thrashed, his easy manner gone away completely. Weir had emerged from the duct looking like death warmed over.