Les Johnson - Going Interstellar

The damn crawler! Tie Dye had launched the crawler. She thought of the thin blades of its legs opening, stretching, moving it along the ring. She shuddered, imagining those blades cutting through the soft soles of her shoes. He was serious this time, deadly serious. She was no stranger to trouble, but this had to be the worst.

Panicked, she wriggled further into the ring, feeling her way in the blackness. The crawler’s mechanical sounds were like the clicking of someone’s arthritic knees, and they came steadily closer, driving her forward. Was it her imagination, or did the ring narrow as it circled the lock? She could hardly move her shoulders, and only just find purchase with her feet and the tips of her fingers, pushing herself along. The maintenance tube of North America had lights, and room for her to move her elbows, bend her knees. This was a nightmare tunnel of blackness and constriction, a coffin indeed. If she were an inch wider, a pound heavier, she would be trapped. Her breathing quickened, and her mouth dried.

Shit, she thought. A rock and a hard place. There was no choice, nothing she could do but press on. It was all too much like the shelters, choosing between two or more evils every damn day of her life. When she got out of here, she promised herself—and she would get out of here—she was going to make Tie Dye’s life a living hell!

Anger served her better than fear. She scooted forward through the tube as quickly as her thrusting toes and scrabbling fingers could move her. She felt the chill as the tube arched above the lock, and she refused to think about the black, cold emptiness on the other side of the layers of plastic and rubber and metal. The ring grew even tighter, until she thought she might be stopped, but then, as she wiggled one shoulder and then the other past the most constricted part, she found there was room again. There was still no light, and the sound of her breathing filled her ears almost enough to shut out the gentle scrabbling of the crawler coming behind her. At least she was moving. She was gaining. She held her breath for a moment to listen. She was sure the sound of the crawler had diminished behind her.

It was then that she felt the slight movement, as if an infinitesimal breeze had touched her cheek. She froze for several heartbeats, holding her breath, trying to determine what it was. The sound of the crawler grew louder again as she paused.

The darkness seemed to accentuate the sensation, so subtle she could have imagined it. It was more a feeling than a fact. It was a bit like when she could feel the North America preparing to brake, a faint suggestion of something changing, something happening. It was subtle. But it was real.

It shouldn’t be there, but she had no doubt, as she began wriggling forward again, that she had felt it.

The crawler should, too. It should stop, and set up an alarm.

It didn’t. The damn thing really did need redesigning.

Gasping for air, praying she could reach the opening before the crawler did, she drove herself harder. For what seemed interminable moments, there was nothing in Isabet’s world but her own rasping breaths and the mechanical click and slither behind her. She wriggled, and wriggled, and wriggled, until she thought the skin of her hands and shoulders and knees must be raw. She peered forward, trying to see the glimmer of light that would mean she had reached the panel, and could escape this confining tube.

And face Tie Dye again. But there was something more important happening now, more at risk than just her problems with Tie Dye. She had a leak to report.

She sucked in a shocked breath when her hand struck a smooth surface and it suddenly glowed. She had found the instrument panel. She could see that immediately. It was mounted on the inside of the door that was her only means of escape. Tie Dye had shut her into this bloody tube, and she realized, as she struggled to push it open, that he must have secured the clamps on the exit, too.

He meant her to die in here. She knew he was angry, and mean, but murder ? How did he expect to get away with it?

She couldn’t give up now. There had to be a way to open the panel from inside, to release the clamps. The design couldn’t be that bad. She tried to think, but the crawler was coming up behind her, giving her no time.

She scrabbled with her fingers, and the touch screens came awake, one by one. She could barely lift her head enough to see them. She saw the temperature measurement, inside and out, she saw the maintenance records—stupid place for them—and the crawler’s interface. The screens faded when her fingers left them, and she frantically pushed with her palms, her fingertips, searching for the right one. If she could find it, if she could input a problem, a big problem, then the alarms would go. Someone would come. She could get out of here.

If the crawler hadn’t sliced her to ribbons first.

And then she found it. It looked familiar, measurements from pressure gauges set at regular intervals around the sealing tube. She found the alarm button at the bottom, the part of the screen she and the ring techs were never supposed to touch, and she pressed it as hard as she could with her thumb.

The screech of the alarm in the lock drowned out the approach of the crawler, but she knew it was coming. Her nerves burned with anticipation of its sharp metal blades cutting into her. She forced herself to focus on finding the crawler’s command screen. She ran her hands desperately across the panel to keep the screens awake, to keep the blue glow alive so she could—

There it was. Upper right corner, with a convenient little graphic that looked exactly like the grasshopper that had first come to her mind when she saw it. Finally, a design that made sense! She stabbed at it with her finger, and it lit up, showing her the buttons. With a gasp, she turned off the crawler. The sudden cessation of its movement, the end of the threat, left her weak and trembling.

She lay still in the tube for another half-minute, waiting for the pounding of her heart to slow. The glow of the screens on the instrument panel faded, one by one, until she was in complete darkness again. She listened to the alarm shrilling outside, imagining the running feet, the terror that alarm must strike into every heart aboard Starhold and the North America .

When the panel burst open, she found herself staring straight into Link’s eyes. His pupils swelled with shock at the sight of her. She said swiftly, “I know this is weird. I’ll explain everything in a minute, but first, there’s a leak in the sealing tube—not fatal now, but it’s going to get worse. Starhold needs to separate from North America , and right away.”

She was still in Link’s arms, her toes not yet on the floor, when Tie Dye came charging back into the lock, three other engineers hard on his heels. His face flamed at the sight of Isabet being extracted from the sealing tube. He shouted, “What were you doing in there? You’re going on report!”

Link, as if Tie Dye hadn’t said a word, set Isabet firmly on her feet, then turned her away from the crowd of engineers and technicians converging on the lock to begin the emergency disengage process. Tie Dye, nearly choking with fury, had an emergency protocol he had to follow. He was getting orders, and he was too busy obeying them to come after Isabet.

Link didn’t steer Isabet back toward the North America . He drew her in the opposite direction, into the habitat she had so longed to visit.

Isabet said, “It’s a slow leak. But your crawler should have detected it.”

Link said, “Add the sensors to its other problems. We’ll move the redesign up the priority list.”