Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

DJ had finished tidying up in Medical, downloading the med logs and getting his equipment in shape. Now he stood by the intercom, frozen, rage slowly rising as he considered Weir’s actions.

“Understood,” he said, finally. He was capable of killing, especially when the target was murderously insane.

“Be careful,” Miller said.

“I can take care of Weir,” DJ said.

He turned around, intending to look for a reasonable weapon.

Weir was waiting for him, smiling. His face was covered in dried blood, his eye sockets nothing more than two bloody holes, still oozing a little.

DJ started to scream, but Weir’s red right hand slammed into his throat, silencing him. Pain flared into his head.

There was an odd sound from DJ, muffled by the intercom.

Something crashing, like steel and glass falling to the deck.

Weir.

DJ kicked, fighting away from Weir, but it was no use. Weir tore at him with a terrifying strength, his lack of eyes no handicap. DJ was picked up, slammed into an examination table, picked up again, sent flying through the air, smashed helplessly into storage cabinets.

Weir strode through the carnage, bending down to pick DJ up. The doctor stared up at his tormenter, blood on his lips.

Weir smiled.

He turned DJ around, pulled back his head.

DJ closed his eyes.

In a swift, exact motion, Weir cut DJ’s throat from ear to ear, letting the blood spray for a few moments.

He released the corpse, putting aside the scalpel he had used, and turned his attention to cabinets filled with surgical instruments. From one he took surgical needles. From another he took thread.

Sitting down to work, he began threading a needle.

Miller was still trying to get a response over the intercom. Frantic, he changed the channel, keyed it again.

“DJ? DJ, come in.”

The intercom hissed.

“I told you,” Weir said, his voice soft and strange. “She won’t let you leave.”

Miller swore and ran out of the airlock bay.

Miller raced through the Event Horizon, driven beyond exhaustion, knowing that if he survived now, he would pay for his efforts.

He reached Medical, barely allowed the hatch time to open.

He stopped, staring.

“DJ,” he whispered, staring. “Oh God.”

There was blood everywhere, trays toppled, instruments scattered.

DJ had been suspended in a cocoon of bandages and surgical tape, hanging over an operating table at the far end of the medical bay. His throat gaped open.

Miller walked closer.

DJ’s midsection had been opened neatly. He had been eviscerated, his organs placed in an orderly fashion on the open surface of the table.

Miller fled from Medical, his mind blurring. Somewhere, he found a tool locker with a nailgun inside, a poor tool overall, but functional enough for killing Weir.

Resolution clearing his mind, he set off for the bridge.

Cooper figured he was either shaking off the panic and terror or falling into complete hysteria when it occurred to him that there were surfers back on Earth who would kill to get this sort of ride. Would have curled my hair if it wasn’t already.

Then he was back in the world, ready to deal with the problem at hand.

Smith was gone, that much he knew from the radio transmissions. The crazy bastard had tried to get the bomb off the ship, against Miller’s orders.

It was, Cooper decided, a mess.

The Event Horizon was in the distance now. The wreckage of the Lewis and Clark’s front section had passed over the starship and away from Neptune. The orbit would stabilize eventually and then start decaying. Given the location of the bomb, he figured that the drive section had been kicked back toward Neptune and was most likely vaporized by now.

Time to go.

He oriented himself carefully, trying to avoid pushing himself away from the wreckage. His boots clamped firmly to the hull plates. First step, or lack of it. He breathed out, hard, shaky.

He looked at the readout for his air tanks. This was the critical factor now. He was reading one tank full and one tank at half pressure. Relief flooded through him. He could do it.

Carefully, he got his backpack pulled around. This was the really tricky part. Working quickly but carefully, he closed one of the main valves, shutting off the full tank. The, readout nickered and told him he was on his reserve air supply.

He disconnected the hose from the main tank, unhooked it and pulled it out.

He eased his backpack into place again.

He wrapped himself around the full tank, reaching for the valve as he oriented himself to the receding Event Horizon. This trick had worked for some people in spaceside training, but not for others. It was popular in the Big Rock Range too, where assorted gasses were easy to extract from the asteroids.

He opened the valve, cutting his boot magnets off. Air puffed from the valve, misted, liquefied, froze. He began to move toward the Event Horizon, gathering speed, leaving a crystal trail pointing to where he had been.

The remains of the Lewis and Clark spun silently on.

Miller stalked toward the hatchway that led into the bridge, the nailgun feeling hot in his fist.

The hatch was open.

Slowly, he stepped inside, looking left and right.

Someone was sitting at the helm, apparently staring out of the main bridge windows. He raised the nailgun, ready to fire.

Hesitated.

“Weir,” he said. His voice was flat and dead.

No movement. He moved forward, slowly, ready to open fire with a hail of rivets. He could barely breathe.

He moved around the helm position, looking over the nailgun.

Not Weir. It was Starck, wired into the helm flight chair, legs pulled back, her wrists bound to them, wire wrapped around her throat to keep her head up though she was unconscious. Blood trickled from her throat where the wire was cutting in. Even in the gloom, Miller could see that she was becoming cyanotic from the slow strangulation.

“Hold on,” he whispered, kneeling down and putting the nailgun on the floor, within reach. “Get you out of these…”

He was going to space the crazy bastard, that he swore, shove him out of an airlock and watch him die in vacuum. Even that was better than he deserved.

He worked at the wire, cutting his fingers, but managing to undo the binding around her throat. Starck suddenly breathed in, a great painful gasping noise that startled him. He set to work on her arms and her ankles, freeing her, trying to stay aware of the bridge around him.

Starck opened her eyes, moved an arm, stared at him, stared past him, her eyes widening.

Miller turned, knowing he was too vulnerable.

Weir was behind him, appearing with the silence and skill of a ghost. His eyes had been sewn shut, black lines of thread clumsily zigzagging across his eyelids. Lines of dried blood coated his cheeks and chin, marred his flight suit. His hands were blood-red.

Starck lunged sideways, trying for the nailgun. Weir moved like greased lightning, hitting Starck so hard that the navigator was hurled across the bridge, into a bulkhead, stunning her. In the same move, before Miller could do anything about it, Weir snatched up the nailgun, aiming it at Miller’s head, then shifting his aim to Miller’s right eye.

Miller rose, backed away. “Your eyes…” he whispered.

“I don’t need them anymore,” Weir said. His voice was a cracked curiosity, light with perverse humor, the undertones dark and demonic. This was more than madness, Miller thought. Weir had taken the same road that Kilpack had gone down. “Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see.”

“What are you talking about?” Miller said.

“Do you know what a singularity is, Miller? Can your mind truly fathom what a black hole is?” Sightless, he watched Miller. He smiled slightly. “It is nothing. Absolute and eternal nothing. And if God is everything, then I have seen the Devil.” He grinned broadly, spreading his arms joyfully. “It’s a liberating experience.”