Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

DJ continued watching Miller, his gaze unshakable. Damn you, Miller thought, you should be a shrink, not a trauma doc. “Maybe,” DJ said, “maybe not.”

DJ’s tone pulled Miller out of his misery for a moment, gave him the suggestion of hope. “You know something.”

DJ licked his lips. He nodded towards the Gravity Couch Bay workstation.

“I’ve… I’ve been listening to the transmission again.” DJ walked toward the workstation. Miller stood up and followed him. “And I think I made a mistake in the translation.”

“Go on,” Miller said.

DJ tapped in commands, pulling up the filtered version of the recording USAC had picked up. Partway through it, as Miller’s nerves were jangling from the unholy racket, DJ stopped the playback.

“I thought it said ‘liberate me,’” DJ said slowly. “‘Save me.’ But it’s not ‘me’… it’s ‘liberate Tu-temet.’” DJ glanced down at the console, up at Miller. “‘Save yourself.’”

Miller tried to untense, but he could not. “It’s not a distress call. It’s a warning.”

“It gets worse,” DJ said. Miller stared at him, saying nothing. How much worse could it get? “It’s very hard to make out, but listen to this final part.” DJ started the recording again, and Miller’s nerves tightened another notch. If they made it out of here, he was going to have nightmares for years to come. “Do you hear it? Right there.”

“Hear what?”

“The final words.” DJ hesitated for a moment, then plunged on. “They sound like ‘ex inferis.’ Inferis, the ablative case of inferi. ‘From Hell.’”

” ‘Save yourself from Hell.’ ” Miller shook his head, trying to work all of this into something coherent. “Starck’s telling me this ship is alive, now you’re saying… what are you saying? This ship is possessed?”

DJ was shaking his head. “No. I don’t… I can’t believe in that sort of thing.” He glanced at the workstation again. “But if Weir is right, this ship has passed beyond our universe, beyond reality. Who knows where it’s been…

what it’s seen.” He looked at Miller, his expression wavering, his mask starting to slip away. “And what it’s brought back with it.”

Miller had no answer for this and could find nothing to say that would make any sense. The things that had happened aboard the Event Horizon defied reason.

The intercom hissed as the circuit opened. Both Miller and DJ whirled at the sound.

“Captain Miller?” It was Cooper.

“Better be good news, Cooper,” Miller said.

“Yes, sir,” Cooper replied. There was a jovial tone to his voice. “We are ready to repressurize the Clark and get the hell out of here.”

Miller could have kissed him.

Cooper and Smith remained on station on the hull of the Lewis and Clark, keeping an eye on their patches. Miller suited up again and went down though the umbilicus, into the ship, heading for the bridge. All of the systems had been powered down, conserving energy until the repairs were complete.

Time to get on with it, Miller thought. He reached out and turned a manual valve, opening the surviving atmospheric tanks.

“All right, Cooper,” he said.

“Cross your fingers,” Cooper said, but Miller knew that was intended for Smith’s benefit.

Air arrived as a thin mist at first, fading away as the pressure increased and the air warmed up. Miller stood stock-still, watching the readout for the EVA suit’s exterior pressure sensor.

“It’s holding,” Smith said. “She’s holding!”

Calmly, a counterpoint to Smith’s excitement, Cooper said, “We’re still venting trace gasses. Gimme about twenty minutes to plug the hole.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Coop,” Miller said. Relief flooded him. “Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes,” he heard Smith say. “We’re going home.”

“About goddamn time,” Cooper said.

Miller smiled, undogged his helmet, lifting it off. He took a deep breath.

The air had a slight metallic tang to it, but it was nectar compared to the state of the Event Horizon’s air.

“Back in business,” Miller said to himself.

His ship. His rules.

The Event Horizon could go to hell.

They were running out of time and she was getting nowhere.

Peters frowned angrily at the sciences workstation display, tempted to smack the thing with her fist to see -if that would achieve anything. The log was stubbornly refusing to resolve into anything useful. She was tired and she hated spending her time doing this—she just wanted to get out of here and go home.

She might even resign from USAC, try and make her way as an groundhog.

Denny needed her.

Rapidly, she typed in another set of. instructions and smacked the enter key with more force than necessary. She stood up, stretched, not that this helped her aching back in any way, and turned to Starck, who was busy at the other side of the bridge.

“You got any coffee?” Peters said.

Starck looked around, nodded. “It’s cold.”

“I don’t care,” she said.

She went over to Starck, picked up a mug, filled it halfway. If it was intolerable, she could probably find some way of warming it up. The bridge had to have a microwave, she figured, considering how much other stuff had been crammed into it.

She turned back to her workstation. To her surprise, something was actually happening with the log video. The computer was finally managing to break through the signal noise, making something of the recording.

The process was rapid now. Colors blurred, changed, solidified. Images began to form. There was movement. There was…

Peters felt numb, boneless. The coffee mug slipped from her fingers, shattering on the deck, coffee spilling over her boots.

“Starck,” she whispered.

Starck turned, left her seat, stood by Peters, staring. “Sweet Jesus,” she said, her voice hushed. She turned again, got to the intercom. “Miller…

Miller!”

Peters somehow found a seat, sat down heavily, stared out of the bridge windows at Neptune. She tried to empty her mind and wash away the things she had seen, but she knew that would be impossible.

She closed her eyes. Tears streamed down her face.

Miller stood behind Starck, watching the screen.

Starck had not been particularly coherent in her message to him, but she had somehow managed to get the point across—Peters had managed to clear up the scrambled log entry.

Weir and DJ had arrived just after him and now stood to either side of him.

Peters was sitting in another bridge seat, not looking at the screen. She could not bear seeing the log playback.

He could not believe what he was seeing, did .not know quite how to react to it, other than with disgust and horror.

The image on the display was flickering and rolling still, despite the best efforts of the software. As far as Miller was concerned, it was too clear.

There were four of the Event Horizon’s crew in the image, including Captain Kilpack. To one side of Kilpack, a crew member was somehow contorting himself impossibly, his right arm twisted, his head tilting back. His features were unrecognizable.

Starck blanched and looked away.

Continuing the impossible motions, the man shoved his hand into his mouth.

There was a distant wet sound. Miller could see the man’s shoulder loosening, dislocating.

There was blood everywhere in the image. So much blood.

Beyond Kilpack, a man and a woman were engaged in frantic sex, she wrapped around him as he rammed himself into her. Both of them were covered in blood.

She had dug her fingernails into his back, tearing into the flesh, leaving gory tears that streamed blood down his back, though he seemed oblivious to either pain or injury.