Brian Evenson - Dead Space - Martyr

He swam to the platform, climbed the ladder up onto it, and stumbled along the swaying platform to its far side. The facility now had started to settle strangely, listing in the water. There was the roar of water rushing into it, or maybe the roar was from something else, the whole structure creaking, too, as the change in buoyancy shifted its weight, putting pressure on girders and links.

“Harmon!” he called again.

But the man didn’t hear him, perhaps couldn’t hear him over the noise. Altman dived in, swam to him, touched him.

“Harmon,” he said, “come on!”

He was confused and seemed dizzy, in a state of shock. Altman slapped him, pulled him toward the platform. He got him swimming again, though somewhat lethargically, and had to practically drag him up onto the platform once they arrived.

The platform was already listing, half submerged in water, being dragged down by the sinking dome. He pulled Harmon over to the boat and dumped him in, and fell in himself. Then the dome behind them creaked noticeably lower and the platform was underwater, the mooring rope between it and the boat stretched taut, the boat listing hard to one side, threatening to turn over. His fingers shaking, he picked at the knot, but the pressure had tightened it too much for him to loosen it. His eyes cast desperately around for a knife but he didn’t see one. There was an anchor, though, and he grabbed it up and began striking the mooring with it as hard as he could, trying to break it free.

The boat tipped farther, very close to taking on water. “Get to the far side of the boat!” he cried at Harmon, but couldn’t look around to see if he did. He kept hitting the mooring with hard, smashing blows.

Suddenly the boat bobbed back and threw him to the boards. It was only after scrambling up again with the anchor that he realized the mooring and rope were gone, that he had succeeded.

The boat began to swirl. There was a sucking sound as the facility began to go down now in earnest. He leapt into the driver’s seat and started the craft, throwing the throttle down hard. The boat leapt forward, but it was heading wrong, directly toward the dome: he corrected it, but there was still something wrong. They were caught in a vortex, some sort of whirlpool that the facility was creating as it went down.

Instead of forcing the rudder against it, he turned and followed it, trying to edge carefully free. The last dome slipped all the way under and was gone. He felt the drag on the rudder but kept it steady, trying not to look to the side, trying not to panic. For an instant he felt the boat resisting him, threatening either to turn and plunge downward or to flip over, but then suddenly they were free.

He sped away, looking back over his shoulder. The inside of the compound, the little he could see of it through the waves, was flashing and sparking, the electrical systems and generator still in the process of shorting out. He had just a glimpse of it and then it was gone. He took the boat in a long curve then headed back toward Chicxulub.

He was just thinking he should check on Harmon when he realized that he was standing there behind him. He turned and was struck in the side of the head by the anchor, knocked out of his seat.

“You were lying, Altman,” Harmon said. “The Marker didn’t want to be sunk. You don’t love the Marker, you hate it.”

No, he tried to say, no . But nothing came out.

He saw Harmon bend over him. He roughly took hold of Altman’s hands, put them together, began to tie them.

“I thought you were my friend,” said Harmon. “I thought you were a believer. But if you were really a believer, why don’t you have one of these?” He touched the Marker pendant hanging from his neck. “I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

I saved you, Altman tried to say. I could have left you to die, but I saved your life.

“Now I’m going to get some real help,” said Harmon, and he stood and took the controls.

Altman lay there, eyes glazed. A warm fluid was puddling up against his cheek and his mouth. It was only when he tried to swallow that he realized it was blood. It took him another minute to realize it was his own.

Okay, he thought. I’ve been in worse situations. He tried to move his hands, but couldn’t feel them. It was as if his body had become disconnected from his head. I’ll just rest a moment, he told himself. I’ll just lie here and then, in a moment, I’ll wriggle free of these ropes.

His vision started to go dim, and then slowly faded away. He listened to the sound of the engine, then that slowly left him, too. He lay there, feeling the movement of the boat through the waves. After a while, it seemed to come only from a distance. A while longer and even that was lost. He lay in the boat, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing. The whole world had dissolved around him. He tried as long as he could to focus on the taste of blood in his mouth. But soon he couldn’t hold on to even that.

And then it began again. It started first with a pinprick of light in the darkness at a great distance. He watched it, trying to determine if it was getting closer or farther away, but was unable to say. He watched it a long time, or what felt like a long time, until it disappeared again.

Darkness. Plain and simple. But a sense, too, of a body. Of his body, the limits of it.

I’m dead, he thought. This is hell.

There was a long moment in which nothing happened. The pinprick of light came back again. He did not notice it reappear exactly, just knew that it was there, and knew it had been there for a while. He watched it. This time it grew slowly larger. It was moving slowing toward him. Suddenly, it became excruciatingly bright.

Things began to take shape around it. A thin silvery casing from which the light itself came. Something pinkish nestled around it, which he began, slowly, to realize was a human hand.

“A little response,” said a voice, flat, uninflected. “Up the dosage.”

He felt something, a stinging somewhere on his body. Suddenly he could move the muscles on his face.

Where am I? he tried to ask, but what came out was a dim, inarticulate sound.

“There we are,” said another voice. The light pulled back and he saw a face, half-hidden behind a surgical mask. Behind it were other faces, maybe a half dozen in all.

“Where am I?” he asked, and this time the words came out.

“You’re alive,” said the muffled voice through the surgeon’s mask. “That’s all you need to know.”

He tried to move his arm, found it strapped down. The other arm was strapped, too, his legs as well. He struggled against them, arched his back.

“There, there,” said the voice. “You won’t be able to break them. Just relax.” The surgeon’s mask turned to address someone behind him. “Go get Markoff,” it said. “Tell him that Altman is awake.”

He must have drifted off again. When he opened his eyes, there were three people over the bed, looking down at him: Krax, Markoff, and Stevens.

“Congratulations, Altman,” said Krax. “You still seem to be alive.”

When he opened his mouth and spoke, his voice was hoarse, his throat sore. “You killed Ada,” he said.

“No,” said Krax. “Ada killed herself. She started hallucinating and then cut her own throat. She wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t worthy.”

“Worthy?” Altman asked.

“We need to have a little talk,” said Markoff.

Altman narrowed his eyes. He watched him, warily.

“We’ve talked with your friend Harmon,” said Krax. “He told us everything that happened.”

“You sank the Marker,” said Stevens. “Why would you do that?”