Brian Evenson - Dead Space - Martyr

“Stop it!” raved Hennessy. “Stop it!”

“I’m stopping it,” lied Dantec. “Don’t shout, you’re confusing me. It’s almost done, I swear.”

And it was done, for at that moment the molecular cutters finished and the core sampler began to withdraw with its sample in the extraction cylinder.

“There, you see?” said Dantec. “Everything’s okay.” He turned around, smiling, just in time to have his jaw broken by a metal bar. He raised his arm, felt the pain as the bar struck him there as well. He half slid, half fell out of the command chair. He saw the bar hit and crumple the armrest just above his head. It was a strut from the oxygen recirculator — he wondered how Hennessy had disassembled it so quickly. He kicked out, watched Hennessy lurch to one side and stumble against the bulkhead. Dantec started to scramble up, but his arm wouldn’t support him. Blood was pouring out of his mouth and down his chest. He managed to heave himself to his feet, but Hennessy had already recovered and was coming at him, bringing the bar down. He raised the broken arm and Hennessy struck it again, the pain this time so intense that his vision faded to a dark blur. He slipped in his own blood and was down again. And then Hennessy struck him in the head.

As he lay there, the life leaking out of him, he began to feel people crowding around him. It was impossible. Even though he was dying, he knew it wasn’t possible, it was only he and Hennessy there, and even if it were possible, there were too many people to fit. But even though he was sure it couldn’t be happening, it was unbearable that it was. Particularly when he recognized the faces. They were all men he had been with in the moon skirmishes, men who not only had died, but died by his hand, so that he could take their oxygen and survive. One by one, they came forward while Hennessy continued to batter him with the iron bar, kneeling beside him and then leaning over him to suck the breath out of his mouth. When the last one finally came, he died.

He dropped the iron bar, exhausted, and limped back to his chair. He wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve and closed his eyes.

It was only after sitting there like that for a few moments, his breath gradually slowing, that he started to realize what he’d just done.

He opened his eyes and saw the mess on the floor and retched. It was barely recognizable as a human form anymore, the limbs twisted and turned in the wrong directions, the head flattened out and split open on the top. It was much worse than when his brother had exploded. He looked away. Had he done that? How? Dantec was a skilled and seasoned fighter, much stronger than he was — when Dantec had grabbed his shoulder, he’d been paralyzed with pain. No, he couldn’t have done this, he couldn’t have gotten away with it.

But if not him, then who?

And where was his brother? Was this really happening or was it just what they wanted him to believe?

“Shane?” he said.

His comlink suddenly crackled. Tanner’s voice, unless it was someone pretending to be Tanner. “—eed me. Plea — spond. Hennes—”

He went to the screen, which was now spattered with blood.

“Tanner?” he said. “I’ve lost Shane.”

“—aa—” said Tanner. Hennessy saw his face for just a minute on the scanner, looking grim; then a startled expression crossed Tanner’s face and he was drowned out in static.

Hennessy turned away from the control panel to see, just behind him, his brother.

“Shane,” he said, and smiled. “You’re all right after all.”

Of course I am, Jim, he said. You don’t think a little thing like that could hurt me, do you?

It must have been a trick, Hennessy told himself.

His brother leaned against the control panel and stared down at him. I need to speak seriously with you, Jim, he said.

“What is it, Shane?” asked Hennessy. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

His dead brother looked straight at him, his face thoughtful, just as it had often been before, when they were younger.

You did good, brother, you stopped him, said Shane. But this is a very dangerous time, you are too close. Too close to be able to hear clearly. The whispers, they may take you. You mustn’t listen to them, Jim. Get free, stay clear, keep your mind to yourself. Or you may be no more. Tell all the others the same.

“But… I don’t…” Hennessey stuttered, groping for words. “I have to be honest, Shane. I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re talking about.”

Let them know, said Shane. The Marker is the past, and the past must remain undisturbed if we are to continue as we are. You have already awakened it. It calls out for you even now. But you must not obey. You must not listen. Tell them that.

“Who am I supposed to tell?” asked Hennessy.

Everybody, said Shane. Tell everybody.

“But why don’t you tell them, Shane?” he asked. “You know so much more about it than I do!”

But Shane just shook his head. It’s already begun, he said. He reached out and touched his thumb to Hennessy’s forehead. His touch burned like ice. And then, as Hennessy watched, his brother slowly faded and was gone.

He felt bereft, and very lonely. He went to the observation porthole, slipping on the carcass on the floor on the way. Somebody should move that, he thought. The whole cabin reeked of blood. Maybe Shane’s out there, he thought, like he was before, but all he could see was the murky water, cut through by the light, and the edge of the Marker. Yes, it was definitely glowing now, its light pulsing slightly.

He stared at it. It was trying to tell him something. What had Shane said? That it had to be left alone, that they didn’t need to understand it. But why, then, did he feel like he wanted to understand it, like he wanted to learn from it? Maybe Shane had been wrong.

He stared and stared. For a moment, he felt he could hear a voice again, maybe Shane’s voice, but then it grew softer and softer and was gone. And then suddenly the glow grew brighter and it was as if his head had been cracked open and filled with light. He whirled around, his eyes darting back and forth. He needed to get it all down. He needed to record everything it was telling him. He could type it all into the computer, but that wasn’t enough, there could be a power failure and then everything would be lost. No, he needed to write it, but he didn’t have a pen, a pencil, paper. He hadn’t used actual paper since he was a child. The computer would have to do.

On his way back to it, he slipped again, went partly down, soaking his knee and his hand in gore. He looked at his hand, dripping with blood, its bloody double inscribed right on the flesh of his thigh, and then he knew what to do.

He dipped his fingers in Dantec’s blood and approached the walls, waiting for his mind to crack open again. When it did, it flared with symbols. He could see them perfectly in his head, shimmering there. Frantically, he began to jot them on the walls, writing as quickly as he could, stopping only to dip his fingers in blood again. At first there was something like an N , but only backward, with a bead on the bottom of its leg. Then an L, but upside down, with its horizontal bar crimped. Then something that looked like the prow of a ship, moving left to right, a porthole just visible, and a circle within a circle. After that he was writing so furiously, trying to keep up with the figures streaming through his head, that he couldn’t keep track, could only let his fingers trace out the patterns and move on.