David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

“Uh, yeah.” He shook his head. “Lintz to Spacer Vidor. We have lamps and goggles and fresh coffee for you guys. Come on in, boys.”

He turned and skip-launched himself back into the irregular, vaulted chamber. Through the frosted sides of the slots, the sleepers were still silhouettes. Status lights on each casket made the center of the dim hall glitter like some phosphorescent Christmas tree, or a giant, glimmering starfish at the bottom of the ocean.

Ninety packages, waiting to be opened. Someday. If we make it.

The several-times-delayed unslotting of emergency replacements was reaching a critical stage in sick bay, where Nick Malenkov was all alone, now. One med tech had died of a purple bite, and Peltier, the other, had succumbed to some raging infection yesterday. At this rate it was a good question whether the “unthawing” crew would find anyone alive to greet them when they awakened.

No. We will succeed. We must.

He passed the bench where Joao Quiverian still muttered to himself, piecing together lamps and bulbs with snaillike deliberation. Later, Saul knew, he would have to personally check all the lamps himself.

He made sure the coffee maker was full, then gathered up his own spacesuit.

They’ll be needing all the help they can get, even if Malenkov has declared me an invalid. I may not be able to fight as long and as hard as these youngsters, but even a middle-aged alter kocker like me can hold up a lamp and squeeze a spray bottle in a fight like this.

Funny thing about that. Although he was weary—and in a perpetual haze from the drugs that kept his sinuses clear—in some ways Saul had never felt better. His digestion, for instance—there were no faint twinges anymore, and his knee joints no longer grated and vibrated as he moved.

Weightlessness and calcium deconditioning, he decided… or maybe it’s just that somebody loves me again. Never, never underestimate the effects of morale.

He almost stopped to call Virginia then. But of course he would get his chance to talk to her when he joined the others at the power plant. She would be there, at least in surrogate, controlling up to a dozen mechs, doing the work of ten men.

Perhaps he would have a chance to wink at one of her video pickups, and make her smile.

He had just stepped into his suit—and was reaching for his tabard decorated with a DNA helix—when voices over by the entrance told of the arriving spacers.

Vidor and Ustinov shot through the opening in graceful tandem. Tired or not, pride wouldn’t let them skim walk or pull along the wall cables. The two men twisted in midair and landed in crouched unison not more than two meters in front of Saul.

“Where’s Ted?” Joseph Ustinov asked tersely. The bearded Russo-Canadian took quick note of the direction Saul indicated, and headed out past the stacked packing crates toward the dim corner where Spacer Garners electric blanket was a radiating ball of warmth.

“Got that Java, Doc?” Vidor asked Saul, grinning. The young Alabaman seemed to have thrived in the adversity of the last week. Days of combat in the halls had brought him out of the depression of having been the one to find Captain Cruz slumped over his sleep-webbing, almost dead.

“Sure, Jim.” Saul handed him a bulb of hot, black coffee, and began filling a thermos for Carl and the others. “There are fresh sandwiches over in that bag. I’ll help you fellows tote the lamps and goggles, and show Carl how—”

A shrill, horrified scream seem to curdle the air.

Hot coffee spilled out in globby spray as Saul whirled. Across the dimly lit chamber, Spacer Ustinov tumbled in midair, still rising toward the ceiling and sobbing as he shook a clublike object in one hand.

Someone or something had startled him into leaping skyward with all his might. Whatever it was had scared him half out of his wits, for the man was gibbering, transfixed on the thing he held.

As Saul and Vidor stared, Ustinov cried out again and threw it away. The object arced through the chilled air, curving over gently in Halley’s faint gravity, and struck a packing crate barely meters from Joao Quiverian’s workbench.

The Brazilian scientist jerked back, first in astonishment and then in revulsion when he saw what had bounced within close reach. A delicate bulb shattered into power in his left hand.

There, dripping ocher onto the lime-colored fibercloth floor, lay a dismembered human arm. Impossibly, the grisly limb seemed o be still twitching.

Things , Saul realized, sickly, were crawling out of the hunk of flesh and bone. Purple things.

He grabbed the wide-eyed Vidor by the collar and pushed him toward the stacked equipment. “Get goggles and a lamp!” he told the spacer quickly. “They’re our only weapons here. Joao! Rig an extension to that outlet! Quickly!”

This time the Brazilian didn’t argue. Vidor fumbled with the cords binding the lamps while Saul squeezed a spray of scalding coffee at a purple that was about to duck out of sight behind a sleep slot. A whistle escaped the thing as it retreated back into the open.

“Dammit, Doc!” Vidor cursed. “I gotta teach you how to tie proper knots!”

Saul started to answer when he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh damn,” he moaned. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you goin’?” Vidor cried out.

By then, though, the die was cast. Saul had crouched and leaped off into open space.

Vidor was really the one more qualified for this sort of thing. But right then he was tangled up in lamps and cords. Saul had been the one to see Ustinov begin to fall again, and realize that the man was still sobbing and unaware of where he was headed. Even Halley’s gravity wouldn’t allow any explanations or delay.

Ustinov ’s suit was a lot more sophisticated than Saul’s. But the incoherent spacer didn’t seem about to use his jets, or anything else, to keep from falling back toward the tattered ruins of Spacer Tech Garner’s electric blanket, now awrithe with waving purple forms.

Everything was happening in slow motion, or so it seemed to Saul, who spoke quickly into his communicator.

“Lintz routed to Osborn and Herbert. Mayday! Purples in sleep slot one! Garner’s dead. Mayday!”

The two floating men drew toward each other, one rising, the other descending microscopically faster with each passing moment. Saul turned away after one glance down at what awaited the falling spacer. It was more than his stomach could bear.

Oh God, please let me have done this right.

But no. Saul realized that his trajectory was too low! He would pass under Ustinov. It looked as if there was nothing in this world to prevent the man from dropping back into the spreading, pulpy mass.

Suddenly, he was as near as he was going to get. “Ustinov, wake up!” he shouted. “Stretch out!”

The man might have understood, or maybe it was just a spasm. But a booted foot kicked forth and struck Saul’s outstretched hand stingingly. He fumbled for a grip and the momentum exchange sent him rocking over. The cavern whirled as he held on for two seconds, three, and then was kicked free by Ustinov ’s next jerk.

Was that enough? Did I divert his course? Or am I Maybe on my way to meet a crowd of purples up close myself?

The floor came up toward him. Everything might seem to happen in slow motion; but he had to land with energy equivalent to his takeoff, and he had taken off in a hurry. His right shoulder struck hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs in a burst of pain.

He rolled over onto his hands and knees. It took a moment to blink away the dizzy whirling, and another to catch his breath. Then he saw Ustinov, lying only two meters away, moaning, shaking his head, and apparently unaware of the small, crawling things that wriggled toward his warmth from only a few feet away.