Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

DJ looked around, baffled. “The forward airlock.”

Starck keyed the radio. “Miller, Smith, Cooper, any of you in the airlock?”

Miller’s voice came back, distracted. “That’s a negative, Starck.”

Peters’ mind cleared for a moment, and she remembered, swearing at herself for forgetting in the first place.

“Justin,” she said.

There was a general scramble for the pressure door then, and to hell with whatever was out there. They left Weir standing in the middle of the bridge, forgotten.

Peters raced through the corridors, DJ and Starck trying to keep pace with her. She was growing frantic again, wondering just what was going on with Justin. If he had been affected the way that Weir had, there was no telling what he could be doing now.

They raced into the forward airlock bay.

Justin was there, moving slowly, sleepwalking. He stepped into an open airlock, turning. He was not wearing a suit.

Peters tried to increase her speed, running across the bay, screaming,

“Justin, no!” at the top of her lungs, feeling the lining of her throat inflaming with the force of her shout.

Justin stared at her, his eyes cold and dead. He reached out to the controls on the inside of the airlock.

The hatch hissed shut. Peters slammed into it, screaming at Justin, pounding her fists on the metal.

She slid to the floor.

It was getting to be crowded out here, Miller thought. He, Cooper, and Smith had ended up together on one section of the Lewis and Clark’s hull, surrounded by an assortment of zero-g tools.

Cooper and Smith unbolted an access panel. Together they lifted it, moving it aside, letting it float nearby while they attended to the job at hand. The compartment beneath the panel was a mess of scorched wiring and battered components.

“We’ll have to re-route through the port conduit to the APU,” Cooper said, shining a light down into the compartment.

Smith grunted. “What about the accumulator?”

The radio pinged, and then Starck was saying, “Come in, Miller.”

Miller looked up from the work at hand, annoyed at the interruption.

“What’s going on in there, Starck?”

“Justin’s in the airlock,” Stark said.

Miller froze. DJ had not been very hopeful about Justin, and Peters had basically entered a state of denial, hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

“What?” Miller said.

Cooper and Smith were watching him intently, their work forgotten.

Starck said, “He’s awake, he’s in the airlock, he’s not wearing a suit.”

Jesus Christ, Miller thought, it just gets crazier. He wanted the insanity to stop just long enough for them to get home.

Grabbing a handhold, he swung himself to face Cooper. “Stay here! Don’t stop working!”

“Captain,” Cooper snapped back, “you need me on this!”

The last thing Miller needed right now was for Cooper to start grandstanding over Justin. “Fix this ship, Cooper, or we’ll all die. I’ll get him.”

Miller changed his position, orienting himself towards the bulk of the Event Horizon. Taking a deep breath and cursing his fortunes in this world, he kicked off.

He was not about to lose anyone, not now, not on this mission.

Not Justin.

Starck worked frantically at the airlock control panel, trying everything she could think of, short of hammering on the panel with her fist. There was no response at all from the panel.

“He’s engaged the override,” she said, stepping back. Frustrated, she smacked her hand against the control panel.

“Can you shut it down?” Peters asked.

“I’ll try,” Starck said. She turned, took a step, went to work on the access panel for the airlock. She had it open in a matter of moments, digging into the circuitry. All she needed was some way to screw up the outer door mechanism. If she could stop the outer door cycle, they could take their time getting the inner door open again.

DJ was peering at Justin through the hatch window. Turning to Peters, he said, “He’s in some kind of trance. Try and make eye contact, talk him down.

I’ll be right back.”

DJ turned and ran out of the airlock bay.

Peters started hammering on the hatch, trying to snap Justin out of his trance, or to at least get his attention. “Justin!” she screamed, her throat feeling like liquid fire. “Open the door! Open the door!”

Justin’s expression did not change and he did not look at her. He reached out again, slowly, touching the control panel inside the airlock. He started to move, slowly, drifting sideways and up. He had executed a localized shutdown of the artificial gravity, a utility function that had been intended to help transition delicate cargo between zero-g and local gravity.

Justin looked like a man lost in a dream.

Coming to him, Starck,” Miller said, wishing he had a full EVA thruster pack on his suit. “Gimme status.”

He was using the Event Horizon as a means of propulsion, shoving himself from section to section. The huge ship was blurring by beneath him as he gained more and more velocity. He was going to have to shed some of that and change vectors sooner or later, and that was going to hurt.

“You better hurry,” Starck said, her voice urgent. “He’s engaged the override and we can’t open the inner door.”

Miller swore, pushed himself onward.

Peters was still hammering at the door, her hand hurting. “The door, Justin! Open the door!” She coughed, the effort of so much yelling taking its toll on her.

Justin turned slowly around, to stare at the outer door of the airlock.

There was nothing on the other side of that door but space.

“Did you hear it?” Justin said, suddenly, his voice carried through the airlock intercom. His voice was flat, the voice of someone dead.

The hair stood up on the back of Peters’ neck. Starck came over to stand beside her, staring at Justin.

“Yes,” she said, willing to lie, to do anything if it would save Justin.

“Yes, Justin, we heard it.”

“Keep him talking,” Starck whispered.

Peters nodded, sharply. “Do you know what it was?”

“It gets inside you,” Justin said, softly. There was no tension in his body. He hung in the microgravity like a mannequin. “It shows you things… horrible things…” A shuddering breath, almost a sob.

“Can’t describe it… there are no words….”

Weir, on the bridge, had moved to the communications, workstation, sitting unmoving. The intraship intercom system was open, tied into the radio. He had not missed a moment of the conversation.

He sat rigid, listening, trying to keep his mind blank and empty.

“What, Justin?” Peters was saying. “What shows you?”

Then Justin, almost crying: “It won’t stop, it goes on and on and on….”

“What does?” Peters said.

Weir closed his eyes.

“The dark inside me,” Justin said.

Weir moaned. The tension went out of him. He leaned forward onto the console, his head in his hands.

The darkness was coming.

Miller’s breath was coming in hard ragged gasps now as he made his way along the hull of the Event Horizon. He had made one vector change already, and had the aching arms to show for it.

He sailed onward.

“It’s inside and it eats and eats until there’s nothing left,” Justin was moaning.

“‘The dark inside’?” Peters said, her voice sounding remarkably calm. “I don’t understand.”

“From the Other Place,” Justin said.

Miller passed from shadow to light and back to shadow. Neptune turned beneath him, the Great Dark Spot malevolent at the edge of his vision.

The other crew,” Justin said, softly. He lifted an arm, the movement causing him to turn slowly in the microgravity. “They’re there, they’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for you. I won’t go back there… I won’t….”