Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

" I feel much better now. Bob's just not himself without eight hours of shuteye. It's been nice talking to you, Lindal. Let's do it again real soon. I have to get back to work."

"Wait? !" Karr scribbled hastily, but Bob cut in.

"Time's a-wasting. Bye."

There was motion at the dreamchamber entrance. Karr watched in utter horror as chunks of fugueship flesh ripped out where he had injected qi needles. Blood gushed from the wounds and the dreamchamber shook with Long Reach's pain. Karr fell to his knees as the aperture opened with a spasm.

Dream capsules began popping open. Dreamers began disappearing. And the first dreamer to disappear was the one Karr had hauled all the way back from the airlock.

III

A human's first duty is to his other humans. A Pilot's first duty is to his fugueship. Any other consideration is distraction: without the ship, all is lost. A Pilot's execution of duty must become instinctive. Pilots whose training and discipline depend upon conscious thought become helpless in crisis. To train such Pilots is folly. To send them forth in fugueships is murder ? of the ship, the Pilot, and those entrusted to his care. In creating the Pilot, we must strive to instill proper instinctive reactions, so that in the midst of the extreme distraction, the Pilot will always function to preserve the ship.

? Major A. Vidun

Founder, Pilot Academy

Post Terran Interdiction

Bob had hurt Karr's ship. Karr saw red.

Karr rushed to the wounded portal, wishing he had the Gattler that Bob had stolen. Barrel number two dispensed molecular adhesive, intended to suture and dress wounds just like these, but all Karr could do was press the torn flesh back into some semblance of its original position. It helped, a little.

Searching around, Karr found two of the needles dug out by Bob and, carefully locating the nerve meridians, thrust them by hand into pain-killing qi points. The spasms of the chamber settled as Long Reach's pain subsided.

Karr pressed his palms against his temples, remembering Bob's words, "Don't worry. I'm taking steps." It was now clear to Karr that those steps were the cause of the fugueship's spreading sickness.

Bob was killing his cargo. Unchecked, Bob would obviously kill Long Reach, too.

Bob must die.

It was simple as that. Every fiber of every muscle in Karr's body desired to eliminate Bob. Long Reach must be preserved and Karr must use any and all measures to carry out that duty. But he must focus. Rage would do no good. Bob could act erratically, but for Karr every second counted. Karr forced himself to sacrifice a few hundred of those precious seconds and gather his thoughts. Soon Karr's steely calm returned and he strode out of the dream-chamber with the beginnings of a plan in his head.

Where he had to go and what he had to do was suddenly very clear, but not the crucial how he was going to do it.

Karr was out in the winding passages of Long Reach before he noticed his hands. The edges of his fingernails were yellow-brown.

Karr looked closer. It was foodyeast. Small amounts of it were everywhere in the fugueship, seeping from inner hull chambers next to Long Reach's fusion furnace. Foodyeast grew there in the waste heat.

Long Reach fed the foodyeast oxygen and basic organic building blocks from storage bladders, then ate

the yeast. That was how the cycle worked, just as Terran termites fed inedible wood chips to fungus cultivated in their lairs and then ate that fungus.

Karr had just become part of that food cycle.

Karr berated himself. He had lost track of time during the dialogue with Bob. He consulted his subdermal chronometer. He was overdue for decontamination. Very bad. Unchecked, foodyeast would drive Karr mad, as it had Bob. Very, very bad. Now he must make a fifteen minute detour. Bob would wreak a lot of havoc in that time and Long Reach would suffer for it.

Karr hastened to a lonely collection of cube modules, which were nestled between crimson pipelines of fugueship artery.

"Door open."

Nothing happened. Karr adjusted the voice-emulator at his throat and tried again. "Door open."

This time a crack formed on a blank cube wall, describing a man-high rectangle, then that rectangle shifted back and slid aside. Karr stepped into a small airlock.

"Door close. Airlock cycle."

Crisp, dry air replaced humid fugueship atmosphere, then the inner door formed and slid aside.

Impatient, Karr stepped through before it was fully open and he began unfastening the catches on his ghimpsuit as he strode down the sanitary white hall. Karr entered a cubicle at the end, unbuckling chest and waist straps while kicking off his left boot. Economy of motion was imperative. Every second was minutes less for Bob to do his dirty work. Karr peeled off a ghimpsock as he kicked off the other boot, then the other sock came off.

Ochre fur lined the cracks between his toes.

The rest of the ghimpsuit required full attention: wrist seals, ankle seals, neck seals. Karr looped his arms over support brackets in the stall and pulled the muscle-like bodysuit inside out in his rush to disrobe. Overtaxed muscles complained at the loss of support, but Karr ignored the pain. He wouldn't be unsuited long. A sweeping kick cleared his clothes into the hall.

"Door close." A frosted panel slid shut. Karr swabbed his mouth and nose with sterile fluid and fastened a rebreather over them.

"Shower on."

Stinging disinfectant sprayed from holes in the walls, ceiling, and floor. In the low gravity, the air quickly filled with unbreathable mist. Karr did not see the realtime droplets, only an eye-jangling stroboscope, like interference patterns on a viewscreen with no signal. He twisted around on the supports, careful to ensure that the disinfectant reached every part of his exposed skin. Twenty-four seconds was the minimum time to decontaminate if Karr did it just right. Arms up, arms down. Left leg up, down, right leg up.... Karr pegged the sequence without wasting a beat. The jets stopped. Different holes sucked the stall clear and three cycles of warm whirlwind tossed him dry. The stall door opened.

Karr stepped out rubbing his burning eyes. He had forgotten the protective goggles. It hurt, but he knew from experience that the burning would subside. Karr swallowed an antifungal pill, checked himself over? no sign of yellow fuzz? and slipped on a new ghimpsuit.

The hull shook and a windy groan rushed outside the walls of Karr's quarters. More of Bob's doing, no doubt.

"Hang on," Karr said to the ship. "Just a few more minutes." He crossed the small hall and unreeled two hoses from the fugue purifier, a large, clear globe filled with fugueship blood. Multicolored filter spheres floated in the vat, extracting and concentrating the vital fluid.

As Karr prepared to insert the hoses into his sinuses, inspiration struck him and the missing how of his plan to deal with Bob became clear. But it was risky.

Just then, the shower door mysteriously slid shut. The shower hissed. The door slid open again. A counter on the pill dispenser clicked down.

Bob had taken a disinfectant shower.

The airlock cycled him out.

Bob hadn't even waited for Karr to sleep this time. Karr felt violated. It was apparent that Bob could go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. No place in the fugueship was safe.

Karr bent over. The hoses went into his nostrils and his hand reached to open a spigot and start the procedure of dosing up. That uncomfortable necessity lasted another five subjective minutes.