Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Bob shoved the last dreamer into space long before Karr made it to the airlock. Bob slept (in Karr's bed), masturbated (wearing Karr's underwear), then spent several frustrating hours shooting needles into various parts of Long Reach. The fugueship wasn't doing what Bob wanted. The more needles he shot, the less result he got. Bob had a temper tantrum, slashing and stabbing Long Reach until the ship shook with pain around him. That would teach the stupid beast. Panting, Bob sat down and congratulated himself into a better mood. After all he had a lot to be proud of; all the backstabbers were gone. All of his problems were solved.

All except one.

There was one more body to heave out the airlock: Karr's. Karr was a really great guy; Bob loved Karr, but Karr was misinformed. Karr gave his loyalty to the wrong people. Just look what Karr went through for them: the endless workload, the fuguing up, the decontaminations. Bob had to admit that no matter how much he liked his buddy, Karr was not on his side. When they reached Evermore, Karr would turn Bob in to the authorities. That was certain. It tore Bob's heart out to think it, but his buddy had to go. Bob procrastinated a few hours, but the prospect of killing Karr only grew more intimidating,

so he reloaded his stolen Gattler and set off to find Karr.

Karr had made it all the way to the "malfunctioning" airlock when Bob caught up with him. Karr's motionless body was poised halfway through the open inner iris-portal.

What was his friend up to? Bob stepped around Karr and entered the lock to get a better look.

Karr's eyes were almost closed, or just opening, and showed only the merest of slits. In one hand Karr gripped what looked like a long, thin ice pick. In the other was the mindercard, held up for Bob to read. Bob didn't want to read the message. It probably said something really nice and that would make killing Karr all that much harder. But Bob was so starved for conversation that he couldn't resist leaning in for a peek.

Bob read aloud, "I'm sorry, Bob; but I have to kill you now."

Bob couldn't believe his eyes. Surely his buddy Karr had not written that! Bob double-checked. "You have to kill me now?" That's what the words said, plain as the stars in space. It irked Bob. "You have to kill me now?" With rising anger Bob realized he had been betrayed, again. First the backstabbers and now his friend.

"What are you going to do, poke me with that hop-stabber?" Bob circled, venting. "You can't kill me.

I can kill you, but you can't even think of killing me. You can't even see me!"

To prove his point, Bob pranced like a boxer, jabbing Karr in the ribs with the butt of his stolen Gattler. Ghimpsuit fibers tightened up, absorbing most of the impact.

"Do you like it? You do? Good, because I can do this all day long." Bob jabbed Karr again. "All day long? you traitor! I don't need you anymore. I figured out this Pilot-stuff. I can do it myself!" Bob worked himself into a frenzy. It was okay for Bob to plan to kill Karr. That was just necessity, but for Karr to contemplate killing Bob, that was far different. That meant Karr wasn't Bob's friend and that really hurt.

No one ever liked Bob. Everybody dumped on Bob. Bob felt powerless when people dumped on him.

"Where do you get off screwing me? After all I did. I kept you alive!"

Bob blustered in front of Karr. Bob should have killed Karr right away, but Bob was a coward. Bob needed an excuse.

"Come on statue-boy, I'll stand still." Bob stopped jumping around. "Take your best shot.

"Come on!

"What's the matter?

"Afraid?"

Bob ranted as minutes ticked by.

"Hurry up you bastard! I'm waiting for you!"

Imperceptibly at first, then ever so slowly, Karr drew back the hand with the ice pick, readying to plunge the steel spike into Bob's heart.

"That's it. Here I am!" Bob challenged.

He waited for the pick to start back down. He would wait until it almost reached his chest, then nail Karr with the Gattler, crucifying him to the walls of his own precious fugueship. Bob was in control and

he reveled in it, like a starving man revels in cookies. It never occurred to Bob that he was in danger.

That's when Karr sprung the trap.

To Bob's horror, the pick suddenly plunged down with deadly speed. Bob raised the Gattler to block, but the blow was not aimed for him. Karr's arm sliced past Bob, stabbing the qi pick into a critical nerve cluster in the wall.

Karr was not fugue -saturated!

Karr winked victoriously. His slow movements had been an evil masquerade to catch Bob off-guard.

Bob realized the trick as Karr kicked off of Bob's chest, falling back inside the ship. The inner door irised shut. Bob heard a building, rushing scream behind him, felt tearing wind and biting cold as he was sucked back and pitched out of the growing aperture in the outer airlock door. He clutched at the wrinkled skin, but it was too late. Bob shot free of the lock amid a spray of ice crystals, flash frozen from moist atmosphere hitting the vacuum. Expanding breath ruptured Bob's lungs. Relentless, absolute cold froze Bob's eyeballs open. His last views, as he tumbled further and further away from the airlock, were of the spinning arc of bodies outside, which glittered against eternal night like a string of pearls.

It was a nightmare. A chilling, breathless nightmare that ended, not with a bang or a flash, but with a frozen-solid fading into nothingness, never to awaken. Just like all the others he had killed.

Karr reclined on a seven-yard-wide dome of cerebral cortex in the brainroom, idly stroking warm pillows of tissue that puffed up around him like a great feather bed. He stared up, unfocused eyes not seeing the faintly glowing dome of cartilage overhead or the blinking of human control consoles around the edge of the pear-shaped room. It was this place that Karr liked best out of all the places in the ship and it was in that strange position that Karr felt the strongest bond between fugueship and Pilot. It calmed him. And he needed to be calm, because the tiny human and the great ship were in a lot of trouble.

It all centered around time.

Realtime. Slowtime. Fuguetime. How it slipped away, no matter what the subjective speed. How much had been wasted. How much Karr desperately needed. How terribly little was left.

Karr was in slowtime. He had not dosed up on fugue after ejecting Bob from the ship, just as he had not dosed up after noticing Bob take a disinfectant shower in his quarters. Karr had understood then that he could not fight Bob in the minutes and hours of fuguetime, only in the seconds. And those were too few. But Karr knew that if he got to Bob's speed, he had a chance. Karr had pressed the purifier hoses into his nose and even opened the spigot, just in case Bob was watching, but unseen in the palm of his hand he held the hoses crimped so that no fluid made the journey through his head. By the time Karr left his quarters he was dropping out of fuguetime. Soon he was suffering the agonies of withdrawal from one fugue state to another. By the time Karr met Bob at the airlock, they were moving at the same speed.

That had been the really hard part. It took every ounce of concentration Karr could muster, but he waited, holding himself immobile? difficult even in the low gravity and with the ghimpsuit's aid? praying that his opportunity would come before Bob caught on to the ruse.

The extermination had gone off like clockwork. Karr had won. Bob had lost.

Sort of.

Accusing voices rang in Karr's head.

Protect the ship. Keep the ship alive. It was his duty. His foremost duty, excluding all others. He must not fail. Instructors had hammered that into Karr at the Pilot Academy. His primary concern must always be for the ship. Karr came second. Cargo, a distant third. Outside concerns, which did not affect the ship, did not even register as problems. The instructors had gotten their point across. Horrible though the loss of thousands of human lives was, Karr was more terrified by Long Reach's intensifying sickness. A Pilot is nothing without his ship. If need be, a Pilot must lay down his life to save his ship. Without fugueships humanity was trapped in the gravity wells of far flung star systems. Without fugueships there was no Colonization, no Destiny. There were only three of the cherished creatures left in human space. Soon there might be only two.