Jack Chalker - Melchior's Fire

“So far, yes,” she told him.

“Good. The only place any of that goop is likely to find any chance of survival is against the inner wall of your unit. That’s why I wish you had a suit. As it is, we’re gonna have to risk bringing you one. Shouldn’t be a problem if I’m fully suited up— remember, it couldn’t get those last folks in the colony, or at least by the time it got to them it didn’t bother, and whatever’s left, if anything, in the base has got to be small bits, not something that can break or harm an e-suit. The problem’s not with me or Sark bringin’ you the suit, it’s you.”

“Huh? What?”

“Think of it, doll. We’re gonna have’ta use the emergency supplies to repressurize the interior or we’re gonna kill you when you open the door. Any environment safe enough to risk you in is an environment safe enough for any bits of that thing that are left to survive in as well. That’s not to say that there’s any of it left—I don’t think Achmed knew enough about the engineering behind the base quarters to do anything, and this thing’s not space savvy, but a risk’s a risk. You understand that?”

She let out a deep breath. “Yeah. So either I get safely into a suit and out of here or I get absorbed or liquefied or whatever and you burn me.”

“That’s about the size of it. I’ll be coming through with a torch. Sark and I will cover each other’s back. There’s no airlock to use into the base command center, so there’s no easy way to do this. You ready?”

“No, but if we don’t do this I’m never going to get out of here.”

“Not to mention the captain won’t allow us to dock with the Stanley . Okay, we’ll start repressurization in, oh, ten minutes, just to give Lucky’s paranoia a chance to get going. Then we’re coming down through the airlock from here. It’s still gonna be pretty damned cold, but it’ll only be for a few seconds if we’re lucky, and it won’t be absolute zero, anyway. You stand by and wait for instructions, but when I want you to act, you have to act, and fast. Still, we’re gonna take your pressure down during this period so breathe easy but don’t move around a lot. If anything of this thing’s left, the cold and low pressure might just make it slow and sick.”

“I’m ready,” she told him, but she wondered if she really was. Maybe it hadn’t been so smart to actually speak to that thing. Was this really Jerry? Was everything true or not? They were up there; she could see them, but she couldn’t see inside the very place where she was. Could this thing somehow anticipate and survive what had been done if it was as she’d heard? Even if Jerry and Sark came down, might they be taken on the way? How fast did it take to absorb a human and sort and classify and make use of his memories? There had been an awful lot of people in that colony, and they hadn’t had a prayer.

But she couldn’t stay here forever, either. The captain and An Li would rather they all died than not recover this huge and complex unit, but they were not about to let it dock with the Stanley nor anybody else to board, either, unless they were sure it was safe. To be sure, she’d have to be out of there.

She had to risk it. She knew that. And if some of that thing got to her, then Jerry or Sark would just have to take her out completely as quickly as possible.

“Stand by,” Jerry Nagel told her. “We’re repressurizing to a three-kilometer height, which is what we have you down to. Breathing all right?”

“It’s a little hard, but it’s tough to say if it’s the pressure or my nerves.”

“Good girl. We’re almost to you. Okay, we’re repressurizing the airlock to shuttle norm. All seals on the suits check out. Opening the hatch.”

There was a sudden terrible sound like a great wind, then a thump .

“Jerry? What was that?”

“Relax. We opened the hatch and Sark let a blast loose in there to take care of any surprises, even though there shouldn’t have been any. We’re okay now, let’s see if we did anything.”

He opened the airlock hatch full now and stepped inside. She could hear him and Sark breathing.

“Looks good. No sign of goop. A little ash where we burned the area before docking, nothing serious. Okay, closing lock, depressurizing to three klicks. Lights on full inside. Jeez! I feel like I’m breaking into my own house here! Ooookay… Guns charged, opening inner lock on green now .”

There was the sound of heavier double breathing, then Sark said, “Inner hatch closed and sealed, pressure back to normal inside. Nothing’s getting outta here through there unless it’s with us. Jeez! What a mess! Home Sweet Fridge!”

“Nothing useful in the lounge,” Jerry noted. “Want to burn it?”

“Maybe. If anything’s alive it’s gonna be against that bulkhead, though, or along the ceiling seams. I’ll settle for that.”

There was the same whooshing sound, longer this time, and then it cut off as Nagel yelled “Hold it! Hold it! We don’t want to start a fire! The cure would be worse than the disease at this temperature!”

“Doc, you still with us?” Sark called.

“Yes, I’m here. Let me get up and get to the— ungh! Suddenly I can’t move! I—oh, shit! Forget it.”

“What’s the matter, Randi?” Jerry Nagel called, uncharacteristically using her first name.

“I’m embarrassed. I had myself strapped in, right? Forgot to remove all the straps. Felt like somebody was pinning me down!”

“Just relax. Go up to the door panel. If you press the control on the right of the identipad you’ll be able to see through the door somewhat and that should give you a look at us. Don’t mind the look of the place, though. It’s a real mess.”

I never knew you could do that with this door, she thought to herself, but she tried it and discovered that he was right. So long as you kept your palm on the plate for more than ten seconds, a kind of see-through window opened in the door. Clever, and useful for the kinds of emergencies this room was really designed for.

She gasped when she saw the outer room, even though she’d been warned about it and even though the view “through” the door was less than ideal. The room had been a common meeting place, a place to relax, to plan, to just joke around. Kind of a living room for this communal base unit, really. Now it was all discolored, much of the furniture and wall decorations were oddly misshapen, and half the lights were either out or cocked at odd angles. Debris was all over the floor from the rapid decompression, and some very solid things had shattered from the cold.

She saw the two figures in the room, completely suited up. One was holding a heat rifle at the ready, the other had a similar weapon on its belt but was now fumbling with a standard e-suit.

“Got this one from the shuttle spares, so it should be okay,” Jerry told her. “Now comes the hard part. I’m coming right up to the door now, and I’ll turn on my internal light so you can see I’m not made of gelatin.” He came straight to the door, the light went on, and she was very relieved to see the old familiar face. Just to emphasize who was what, Jerry Nagel winked and stuck his tongue out at her.

“Satisfied?” he asked her.

“Yeah, okay, if it’s not you we’re all lost anyway. Now what?”

“This gets tricky. To unlock and unseal the door you’re going to have to do it manually and with the full palm authorization. The thing is, while we’ve got equalized pressure in here now with you, it’s still about forty below, and I’m not about to turn the heat on. The only way we can do this is for you to open the door, then get back and away from it as quickly as you can. It’ll still give you a real cold blast. I’ll toss in the suit and close the door again from this side. Turn on the suit’s internal heater from the outside and wait until you have something that won’t freeze at the touch, then get suited up fast, full seals—set it for ‘vacuum’ even though we’ve got air here—and make sure all the systems work. We’ll cover your exit here. Lucky’s gonna take this back down to a vacuum as soon as we’re all set, and that should do it. Then we go back up and ride the shuttle section in to Mother. Got that?”