Brian Evenson - Dead Space - Martyr

The real question, thought Hennessy, looking out the back through the navigation porthole at the way the tunnel was already filling up, was how easy it would be to get out again. The pulverizers were definitely getting rid of some of the debris, but not all of it, and they could very well get stuck if they just tried to reverse out the way they’d gone in. They’d have to dig a circle and try to rejoin the tunnel. Either that or just dig a second tunnel going up. As long as Dantec was careful, it’d be okay.

“Dropship, can you read me?” he heard Dantec say. “Dropship?”

All Hennessy heard on his own earpiece was static. He assumed from the fact that Dantec didn’t continue speaking that he was hearing the same. Just the two of them, then, at least for the moment.

And me, said a voice within his head before scuttling away.

He groaned.

The F/7 lurched a bit. The sound the drill was making changed. They hit something harder — marl, he guessed, from what he’d seen of the geological maps. Calcium carbonate and mudstone. He’d be able to check the readings and the exact composition if he were in the chair he was supposed to be in.

He checked the readouts, looking over Dantec’s shoulder. They seemed to be on track. So far, nothing to worry about.

You’ll listen to me, said the voice in his head. Before you’re done, you’ll listen to me.

“I’m busy,” he said aloud. He shook his head. He bit the insides of his mouth until he tasted blood, hoping that would distract him from the voice he was hearing. For a moment, it did.

“What?” said Dantec.

“Pardon?”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, that,” Hennessy said. “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”

He held still, phasing out a little bit, listening to the hum of the drill, feeling the bathyscaphe shiver around him. I’m not here, he started telling himself at one point. This is all a dream. Nothing but a dream.

He leapt into awareness again as the craft jerked and the sound of the drill changed again. The F/7 slowed considerably. He turned and plastered his face to the rear navigation porthole, trying to see the side of the tunnel. Darker rock now, a breccia amalgam and andesite glass. Here and there traces of shocked quartz, due to an impact.

“We must be getting close,” he said to Dantec.

Dantec grunted. “Fifty or so meters to the tip of the target,” he said. “It’ll take some time still. You’ll have to be patient.”

Be patient, he thought. He couldn’t promise anything, but he would try. All they could ask of him was that he try.

Then suddenly the drill stopped and the oxygen recirculator died. The lights flickered out and the readouts on the control panels were reduced to lines of static. Not even the emergency lights were working. He heard in his ears, for just an instant, Tanner’s voice, his tone terse: “—do you read, co—” and then nothing but dead air.

In the silence he listened to the sound of Dantec pressing buttons, trying to work the controls. Nothing. His hands, he suddenly realized, were doing the same.

“What’s happened?” he asked, almost screaming it.

“I don’t know,” said Dantec. “It’s not working!”

Hennessy felt the porthole and started pounding on it.

“Stop it,” said Dantec. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it!”

The darkness was thick all around him, too thick. He could feel it tightening its fingers around his throat, the air already growing warm and then hot. It was more than he could stand.

And then suddenly it got worse. There, briefly illuminated, on the other side of the porthole, was a face. At first he thought it was his own face, but it was pitch dark. How could it be his own face? Or maybe a deepwater fish, something with its own luminescence. But no, it was a human face, not a fish, and he was sure it was not his own face. It was there, just on the other side of the glass, pressed between the glass and the wall of the tunnel they had just dug, glowing softly. And it was a face he knew — a puffy and slightly pudgy face, curly hair that floated in the water, a somewhat slack mouth, crooked teeth. He and the face shared the same eyes — their father’s eyes. It was his half brother, Shane.

Shane had been dead for years. He had died in college, a freak accident when he’d been driving down the highway and a restraint broke on an automobile transport vehicle in front of him, sending a car crashing off its top level to crush him. Hennessy was sure he was dead. He’d seen the body. Even seen, when the undertaker was looking the other way, how if you grabbed Shane’s hair and tilted the head, a huge bloodless gash opened up just under the collar. No, it was impossible.

And yet, here he was.

Hello, Jim, Shane mouthed. Hennessy heard the words sound aloud within his head.

“Hello, Shane,” he said. “What are you doing out there?”

“Shut up!” said Dantec. “What’s wrong with you? Shut up!”

It’s good to see you, Jim, said Shane.

Hennessy put his face very close to the glass. “I have to be quiet,” he whispered. “If I don’t, Dantec’s going to throw a conniption.”

Shane nodded and smiled, then pretended, as they had done when they were kids, to be zipping his mouth shut.

“I have to be honest, Shane,” Hennessy whispered. He couldn’t see his own face in the darkness, but he imagined his forehead to be wrinkled with worry. Hopefully Shane could see that and would take the question in the spirit it was intended. “I thought you were dead.”

Of course you did, Jim, said Shane. That’s what they wanted you to think.

Hennessy nodded. “Those bastards,” he whispered.

Shane nodded. They’re not that bad, he said. They just don’t know any better. But you know better, don’t you, Jim?

“I do now,” whispered Hennessy. “God, Shane, it’s really great to see you. But I have to ask you another question.”

Go ahead, said Shane. You can ask me anything.

“What are you doing out there?”

Well, said Shane, looking down shyly, to be frank, Jim, I was hoping you’d invite me in.

Hennessy looked around at the darkness, trying to picture in his mind what the cabin looked like. “Shane, it’s already pretty cramped in here. I don’t know if there’s room.”

Trust me, there’s more room than you think, said Shane. Invite me in and you’ll see.

“But what will Dantec think?” he asked.

“Stop whispering!” shouted Dantec. “Stop it now!”

Shane gave him a sleepy grin. He’s not the boss here, Jim. I know how things really are. You’re the boss. Dantec, he’s just a big bully. He needs someone to put him in his place. I’ll be quiet. I bet he won’t even notice me.

“You’re right, Shane,” whispered Hennessy. “He’s nothing more than a big bully.” He waited, pressing his face against the thick glass of the porthole. “Why not, then? Come on in, Shane. Come on in.”

With that, suddenly the lights flickered and went out again, then came on in full force. The readouts went live again. Hennessy heard crackling in his ear, saw Tanner’s ghost on his holoscreen before it was rubbed out by static.

The oxygen recirculators started up and the drill began to hum. Dantec gave a whoop. “We’re okay,” he said, casting a quick glance over his shoulder. His face, Hennessy saw, was slick with sweat. “We’re going to be okay.”

But Hennessy already knew it would be okay. His brother, good old Shane, was here now, sitting right beside him on a chair he hadn’t remembered being there before. Shane must have brought it with him. He was smiling, holding Hennessy’s hand in his own. Now that Shane was there, everything would work out.