Brian Evenson - Dead Space - Martyr

During the skirmishes, Tanner never realized that Dantec was not interested in saving him so much as stealing his air supply. Dantec had planned to kill him and take his oxygen tank, and he would have done it, too, except that, while looking for a safe place to kill Tanner, he’d stumbled onto a working transmitter, a technician’s severed and frozen arm still stuck to it. So, instead of killing Tanner, he called the dropship to pick them up. Tanner never understood that the reason he blacked out and almost died before the ship arrived was because Dantec had turned the airflow on his tank down. Just in case the ship didn’t come fast enough and he needed Tanner’s air after all.

But loyalty and guilt toward Tanner weren’t the only reasons that Dantec hadn’t killed Hennessy. He didn’t like the idea of killing someone in such a confined space, where he couldn’t dispose of the body. He just couldn’t imagine sitting there, knowing the body was behind him, feeling its dead eyes on his back. Add to that the fact that over the last six or so hours, he’d actually become a little afraid of Hennessy. Panicking, then whispering to himself, speaking to the bulkhead to his left as if there was actually someone sitting beside him. The man was out of his mind, and Dantec didn’t want to do anything to provoke him. He knew, from personal experience, that when people went out of their minds, they became unpredictable. They could do things you’d never expect and they’d do them with a strength you’d never expect them to have.

He just wanted to come through this alive. They’d made it halfway. They were here now, right beside the monolith, which, he had to admit, also scared the shit out of him. But it filled him with awe as well. It had been there more than fifty million years if the geological data was to be believed. Which meant it predated humankind. But it was clearly man-made — or made by some intelligent life. It was mind-boggling.

Hennessy was staring out the porthole at it, lost in contemplation of the thing, looking like his brain had been switched off.

Dantec had the core sampler primed. It was readied and partly extended. He’d tested the molecular cutters that would slice into the stone. Carefully he extended the arm until it was touching the monolith itself, and then he thrust it forward and started to cut.

Almost immediately his head was filled with a piercing pain, so intense that he felt he was going to pass out. His vision first seemed as though it had been coated in blood and then it vanished entirely, being replaced by an empty white expanse. He gripped the control panel, struggling to breathe. Hennessy was screaming behind him.

Very slowly, the pain began to ebb away. His vision crept back. Hennessy was moaning, all but passed out behind him. The core sampler had kept cutting — very slowly, but it was still cutting. All they needed was a little bit, just a little bit, and then he could turn the F/7 around and get the hell out of there.

One minute, Hennessy was sitting there, looking at his brother, everything fine, and the next there was a piercing noise and his head felt like it was going to burst. His brother began to shake all over. His head tilted to one side, his neck tearing open just where it did when Shane had been killed. He shook more and in a burst his body exploded, spattering everything with blood. Hennessy began to scream and suddenly couldn’t breathe. A moment later the ship around him was spinning, and then darkness.

When he came to, Shane was back, looking just as he had before he’d dissolved into a burst of blood, the same strange fixed expression on his face. He’d moved, though, and was now sitting next to Dantec, facing the other way, looking back at Hennessy. Or not next to Dantec exactly: he seemed to be sitting, so it seemed, partly on Dantec. But as Hennessy pulled himself up, he saw. Shane was partly in Dantec, their hips fused together, his legs somehow jutting through the back of the command chair.

“You’re all right?” asked Hennessy.

“Yes,” said Dantec. “Except for my head. And you?”

He shouldn’t be doing this, said Shane, his mouth moving soundlessly in the air, like a fish out of water. It’s dangerous. Looking’s bad enough, but touching is too much. Neither of you should be doing this. Jim, I thought you were better than that.

“Doing what?” asked Hennessy.

“I’m taking a core sample, of course,” said Dantec. “What did you expect me to be doing?”

This is not something to be examined, said Shane. This is not something to be understood. It needs to be left alone and untouched, where it’s been lying undisturbed for millions of years. Do you think they would have buried it this deep if it was meant to be found?

“What does it do?” Hennessy asked.

Dantec still wasn’t looking at him. “It’s a molecular cutter with a titanium cylinder behind it,” he said. “The circular cutter makes a round hole and pushes slowly in. Once the cylinder is far enough in, the cutters rotate to shear off the end of the sample. I thought you knew all that. Don’t worry, not much longer, we’re almost done.”

You don’t want to know what it does, said Shane. You shouldn’t try to destroy it. You shouldn’t listen to it. You should just leave it alone. You must resist Convergence, Jim.

“Convergence?”

“What?” said Dantec, half turning around. “I guess that yes, the molecular beams converge, in a manner of speaking. But why are you so interested?”

Not to mention the Convergence, said Shane. The last thing you want to do is get that started. He stretched uncomfortably in his chair.

“Be careful how you move,” said Hennessy to Dantec. “You don’t want to tear Shane apart.”

Oh, shit, thought Dantec. He turned fully around to face Hennessy, who immediately started screaming.

“Shane!” Hennessy screamed, “ Shane! The blood! The blood! He’s all over everything! He’s all over you!” Making gagging sounds, he started rubbing his hands up and down Dantec’s chest, a terrible expression on his face. “We have to get him off!” he said, and cast Dantec a desperate look. “Can’t you see it?” he asked. “Can’t you see the blood?”

Dantec slapped him hard enough to knock him down. “Just calm down,” said Dantec. He was shaking. “Just relax.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hennessy was muttering. “It isn’t your brother who just burst.”

“Hennessy,” said Dantec, “it wasn’t your brother either. It’s just you and me here.”

But Hennessy was shaking his head. “I saw him,” he was saying, “I saw him.” His voice was more and more hysterical. “He was here, I swear, right here, right there, where you’re sitting, there.”

“But that’s me,” said Dantec, starting to get really frightened. “How could he be sitting here if I was here the whole time?”

“He was,” said Hennessy. “He was halfway inside you. You tore him, and then he burst.”

Oh, shit, thought Dantec again. “Try to get a hold of yourself, Hennessy,” he said, keeping his voice level. “You’re imagining things.”

“We have to stop,” said Hennessy. “Shane told me — we have to leave it alone. We have to bury it and get the hell out of here. Stop the core sampler!” He was screaming now. “Put it back!”

“It’s okay,” said Dantec, “I’ll stop it,” he said. “I’m stopping it now,” he claimed. He reached out for the controls and then hesitated. It was nearly through, the sample nearly extracted. Just a few seconds more and they’d have it, and then they could get the hell out of there.