Brian Evenson - Dead Space - Martyr

“Two thousand meters,” said Dantec.

Yes, thought Hennessy, pay attention to that, to your job. Don’t think about the voices in your head, do your job. Pull yourself together, man, last thing you need is—

“Did you hear me, Hennessy?” Dantec asked.

“I heard you,” said Hennessy, shaking his head. “Two thousand meters. I’ll contact Tanner.”

He called up the link. There was Tanner, very pixilated now. “Two thousand meters,” said Hennessy.

There was a wait of about three seconds before Tanner replied. “Repeat that,” said Tanner, only it came out as a burst of static and then “—peat that.”

“Two thousand meters,” said Hennessy again, slower this time.

“Roger,” said Tanner, after the delay. “Proceed.”

· · ·

Another thousand meters, thought Hennessy. Maybe even a little less. They were more than halfway there. Once they were all the way down, he could occupy himself with running the drill. He’d have something to focus on. Everything would be okay. All he had to do was make it that much farther. Then they could bore down straight to the object as quickly as possible. They’d do as Tanner had asked and take a small sample of it and get back up to the surface immediately. And then — if whatever it was was worth taking — it would be out of his hands. He’d fly back to the North American sector, go back to his life, putting all this out of his mind. If Tanner and DredgerCorp wanted to put together a full crew and excavate the object completely before other organizations got wind of it, that was their business: he’d be long out of it, long gone. If he thought about it that way, things weren’t so bad.

Maybe if he took short breaths, it would be better. Then he wouldn’t use up the oxygen so quickly. He was still sweating, the sweat was still pouring off him, but he wasn’t giggling about it now: he was afraid. He was afraid of what was happening and afraid of Dantec.

Hennessy, get a grip on yourself, he thought. Or, rather, a part of him thought. Another part was screaming in his head, over and over. Another part of him was trying to force that part down belowdecks and then batten the hatch down. But then there were also the parts that were speaking, or rather whispering, all the whispering going on within his head that he didn’t even know for sure was him at all. Hennessy, the voices were whispering, Hennessy . As if trying to get his attention. They were both a part of him and not a part of him.

A wave of pain flashed through his head. He grunted and pushed his thumbs hard into his temples, and then looked back at Dantec to see if he’d noticed. Dantec, he saw, was clutching his head as well, his face pale and pearled with sweat. He was grimacing. After a moment his face slipped back into expressionlessness and he straightened, met Hennessy’s gaze.

“What are you looking at?” he growled.

Without a word, Hennessy turned back to his control panel, hoping it had been longer, but not sure if any time at all had gone by. Maybe they still had nine hundred meters to go.

“How many meters?” he asked in as flat and noncommittal a voice as possible.

He watched the distorted, ghostly reflection of Dantec’s face in the observation porthole. The man looked deranged.

“I’ll tell you when it’s time,” Dantec said. There was a slight tremor to his voice now, unless Hennessy was imagining it. Maybe, thought Hennessy, it’s as bad for him as it is for me.

On one level, the thought was comforting. On another, it made him realize that things might be much worse than he’d thought.

He kept looking out the observation porthole, sometimes watching the murky water, sometimes watching Dantec’s phantom reflection. How much longer, he thought, how much longer? He shook his head. Hennessy, the voices said, Hennessy . They were voices he recognized but he wasn’t sure from where, and then he realized they were the voices he’d heard in his dream. But one in particular was even more familiar. He knew who it was, he was certain, but couldn’t picture a face to go along with the voice. How could you hear a voice and know it was familiar and still not know who it was? They’ve gotten into my head, he thought. I must have done something to let them into my head. Something is wrong with me.

Oh, God — oh, God, he thought. Please help me.

If he started screaming again, Dantec would kill him. He’d said as much.

There was a flash of something outside the bathyscaphe, down below them.

No, wait, he thought, it’s just Dantec’s reflection. It’s nothing. But there it was again, coming out of the gray, something lighter, slightly textured. The ocean floor.

He slowed the bathyscaphe until it was moving at a snail’s pace.

“Three thousand meters,” said Dantec.

“We’re almost there,” he told Dantec, his voice suddenly confident again. “We’re almost at the bottom.”

He watched it approach. It was as barren as the moon, a thick layer of muck extending in all directions. They settled down very softly, raising almost no sediment. A flatfish that had been lying in the dust flicked its body and glided away, slowly settling again just outside the lights. In practice runs, there had been a fear that the craft would roll in landing and they’d have to struggle to right her, but she came down smooth and even.

“We’ve made it,” he said to Dantec. “Should be easy from here on out.”

Dantec just stared.

Hennessy contacted Tanner. Strangely enough, the signal here was better than it had been a thousand meters higher up, perhaps because of the new angle of the craft, though there were momentary pulses of energy that fuzzed everything out.

“We made it,” he said once Tanner was on.

“What’s it look like?” Tanner asked.

“Smooth, flat,” he said. “First layer anyway shouldn’t be too difficult to dig through.”

“It looks like the end of the world,” muttered Dantec from behind him.

Tanner nodded. “—say?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, I missed that first part,” said Hennessy.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Tanner. “Proceed when ready. And good luck.”

Hennessy put out the struts for stability and to elevate the back half of the craft. The drill angled down until it was touching the ocean floor. He readied the controls.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, turned to see Dantec there, out of his seat and swaying, his eyes glazed over.

“I’ll run the drill,” he said.

“But I’m the one—”

Dantec squeezed and a sharp pain shot to his shoulder and neck; one of his arms went suddenly numb.

“I’ll run the drill,” said Dantec again, voice like flint. “Move.”

It was a struggle to get the seat belt unbuckled with Dantec squeezing his shoulder, but in the end he managed. He stood up. Dantec was still holding on to him, but he made his way to the other seat. Only once he was sitting and buckled in did Dantec let go.

Hennessy breathed a sigh of relief and began massaging his shoulder with his fingers. Slowly feeling began to come back into his arm. He stared resentfully at Dantec.

“You hardly know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to get us both killed.”

“Shut up,” said Dantec, not even bothering to turn around to look at him. He powered up the drill and started it going. The whole craft shook. With a jerk, they slowly began to burrow into the muck.

· · ·

The F/7 performed better than expected, digging slowly but inexorably downward, the drill gouging a path forward and the pulverizers decreasing the debris. At first it was mainly mud and silt, particulate matter that had filtered downward over the years. It was easy to dig through, but also there was very little for the drill to grab, so the going was slow.