Greg Bear: Hull Zero Three

Then an awful noise—the fistula tightens around the thing’s neck. Cartilage crunches, flesh is squeezed to bursting. The long snout shivers, and the lips pull back again, spasmodic, uncovering the beak and teeth. It squeals, then jerks and twists, and explodes a gassy breath just a hand-span from my kicking foot….

The fistula has closed.

The snout and a length of carcass writhe free inside the tube. The beak snaps off the tip of my little toe. I cry out at the pain. My feet slip in a spray of more black fluid. I’m drenched in the stuff. I finally give up and just fall to the floor, gasping.

Weight is returning. We’re sliding, pushing back along the tube. The severed toothy head seems to follow me. I kick it as hard as I can, again and again.

Then the writhing and snapping stops. It’s over. Heaviness is back. I’m alive, the little girl stands a few meters away… and behind her, gripping her arm and shoulders, three adults. At first, I think they’re like me. But they’re not. They’re not like either of us. Everyone seems frozen, as if this monster might come back to life—but the tooth-snout is decapitated. It’s dead.

Good name, that. Tooth-snout.

No end of surprises.

The girl looks at me with her big gray eyes. In a line behind her stand three tall figures dressed in ribbons and rags. They’re different colors, one Blue-Black with a flat, broad face; the second is brown, thin-headed, with reddish markings. The third, the tallest and skinniest, has pale pink mottled skin and a flat, knobby crest of bone reaching from where its nose might be to the other side of its head. The nose appears to be in the middle of its forehead.

It snorts.

All are damp, dripping. All smell sweaty, bitter. The girl seems to think they’re beneath her notice, even as they grip her shoulders.

Together, they seem to be waiting for someone to take a family portrait.

The girl turns her eyes away, resigned, and wipes her nose. “It’s going to get cold soon,” she says.

The three don’t hesitate. They grab her up and run along the length of the tube, away from me and the dead tooth-snout, with its exposed radula. I watch their backs for a moment, the flapping of their rags, not sure whether I have any astonishment left in me.

Radula. Where the hell does that word come from? I’d look it up if I were you….

“I guess this means you’re not worth eating,” I say to the tooth-snout. Then I get up. I can hear heavy slams. The bulkheads are going up. Best not to get left behind. Unless, of course, the three have snatched the little girl to make a meal of her. In any case, I have to follow, if only to save her—though I’m almost hungry enough to join in.

This is where madness begins. No water, no food, skin snatched away by freezing cold from my back, feet, knees, elbows—heavy exertion—nonstop terror. Missing tip of toe. Everything hurts.

I manage to run. I look back only once. Sure enough, the bulkheads aren’t far behind. The tooth-snout carcass is slammed to the top of the tube, split again, and hidden from view.

I seem to run forever. Second wind is nothing to third and fourth wind. Eventually, I expect, I’ll just fall over and die and not even notice the difference, because my seeing, my hearing, all that’s left of me , is totally isolated from what my body is doing.

It’s pretty monotonous. Makes being alive seem more of a boring burden than a promise of better things. Curved tube—hundreds of meters of it. Then more curved tube. And finally—still more curved tube!

And no sign of the three and the little girl. I can see pretty far ahead—maybe another hundred meters.

I begin to notice other variations. Glim lights in the wall form brighter broken lines. Occasional circular patches twenty centimeters or so wide, hard to make out, radiate striped designs.

Maybe these are road signs: stop, go, turn, die .

Behind me, the lights dim. Cold air is chapping my flying heels and pumping calves. Then, to my right, I see a door actually open—grow from a dark dot to a dimly lit oval. Smaller than the fistula but big enough to admit someone my size. There’s a room beyond, with corners and edges. I glimpse shapes inside, nothing moving….

My lungs let out a moan in the midst of the constant gasping.

No need to stop and investigate. Didn’t need to see that. Nothing but bodies scattered under a low ceiling. Maybe I’ve come full circle and this is where I started. Maybe this is all there is.

But I don’t think so.

This thing is big .

Meters, kilometers—length and measure are coming back to me. I’ve run at least three kilometers since being snatched out of my sleep sac. (I must have been sleeping, otherwise, why the Dreamtime?) Three kilometers, but I doubt I’ve made anything like a complete circuit, judging from the curvature of the tube. It could be a gigantic squirrel cage.

Something’s waiting for me to fall over, something that likes lean, tired, smelly meat—meat still scared shitless.

No shit. No pee.

No reason for either.

I see all four of them now. They’re far away—the length of a football field . Small but clear. They’re standing just as they were before, the girl held between them, and all watch me run. Everything behind is painfully cold, scary dark. The tiny surface lights under my pounding feet are dimming to that dead umber that will no doubt be the end of me, and before I can even remember my name.

If I have a name.

Not much strength left. I stumble, fall, get up, try to run again, then just fall over and lie there. Bulkheads slam. My skin is freezing to the surface. I almost don’t care, but with the last of my energy, I roll, a futile gesture….

Then hands grab me and tug me the rest of the necessary distance. More food for everybody, I guess—but might as well let the food carry itself as far as possible.

My head bobs from my neck.

Then… it doesn’t hang anymore. I feel the odd forward and backward wobble, the upward tug—the release of tensions in back and shoulders, followed by drifting—bumping. The three big ones release my legs and arms and resort to pushing me along, floating me into the new warmth.

“ Football ,” I say to them. “ Hell. Radula. Receding . Remember your new words, students—there’s going to be a quiz.”

The little girl shoves her face close to mine. She looks angry. “Shut up,” she says. “You don’t know anything yet.”

“We’re on a Ship,” I murmur, lips loose, head lolling. I point with both hands. “That’s fore. That’s aft .”

She slaps my face—hard.

Teacher is being a pain,” she says to the man with the bony ridge.

His voice in reply is a deep honk followed by a whistle. I’m floating between the four, waiting for them to try something. Wondering if I have enough strength left to defend myself.

“Who are they ?” I ask.

The girl wipes her nose again. “They came to the heap and took me from the cleaner. Then they killed the cleaner. The cleaner isn’t very dangerous—it’s a nuisance. It just wanted to collect me and leave me in the heap. I could have escaped.”

“Maybe they wanted to eat it.”

The girl makes a face. “Cleaners taste awful.”

The three pay little attention as we resume moving along. They leave me to push and kick in the weightlessness to keep up. Amazingly, I still have some strength, but my skin hurts like fury, and I keep shuddering with painful dry heaves.

They’re looking ahead, looking for something—something they lost, perhaps.