A Murmuration of Opas, page 9
“Because something’s coming up. And whatever it is, it’s big.”
b
He saw Rohit react straight away. The man switched on the UV torch and stepped forward, washing waves of blue light over the dog-thing which smoldered and burned, the tentacles sloughing off as black ash, the head melting back towards the body, the rear end trying to back away even while the front end boiled.
Another movement caught his eye and he turned his attention to the view in the submersible. The first dog-thing was no longer a dog; the tissue was metamorphosing, growing, adding bulk from the food it had taken in, swelling to almost fill the sub’s small cockpit. The whole view danced with the blue-green aurora as the new thing clambered up out of the vessel.
On the far side of the dome Rohit was burning down the last remnant of the second dog. The third dog was also undergoing a change, thickening in the middle parts and legs.
The pool under the submersible started to glow blue-green.
“Whatever it is, it’s coming up fast,” Davide shouted. “Get out of there, right now.”
Rohit and Jodge made for the door. Something leapt out of the submersible, too fast for Davide to make out exactly what it was, only that it was upright, almost human-like in the torso, and with a mass of meter-long tentacles swirling above its head. Rohit aimed the UV lamp at it and switched it on. The bulb burst with a blinding flash and he was left with just a lump of plastic and metal. He threw it straight at the approaching figure. What was left of the lamp hit the thing’s chest and kept going, being immediately absorbed into the body.
Jodge stepped forward, wrench in one hand, blowtorch already lit in the other. The thing came forward fast. Behind it the dancing aurora around the pool was strengthening by the second.
“Get that door open,” Davide shouted to Anna.
“I’m trying. The system’s not responding.”
Jodge took a swing with the wrench as the thing came into his range. Davide got his first good look at it. The beast stood upright and was bipedal, thick in the chest like a gorilla but with four arms, each of which was tipped, not with fingers but with whip like tentacles, a dozen on each hand and all pencil-thin. The tentacles crowning the head were thicker and much more profuse, the whole mass of them concentrated on Jorge as the wrench came down. It hit the tentacles, mashing half a dozen of them to green pulp, but six more immediately sprung up in their place, wrapping themselves around the head of the wrench and dragging it forcibly out of Jodge’s hand.
The third creature, now looking the same as the new form taken by the first, was now also coming forward, albeit slowly, its arms still taking shape out of the protoplasmic matter of the Opas.
Davide saw Jodge bend and retrieve another of the blowtorches so that he had one in each hand, both alight. He showed them both to the advancing creature, but it didn’t slow.
“Got it,’ Anna shouted, and the door slid open at the men’s backs.
Rohit went through first. Jodge backed away from the taller creature, using the blowtorch to keep grasping tentacles at bay.
“Come on,” Rohit shouted.
Jodge threw one of the blowtorches against the chest of the approaching creature. It hit, stuck and started burning. It gave Jodge time to reach the door and slide through. Even as the door was closing the creature came forward again. It sloughed off the burning part, a blackened mass of Opas falling to the floor, taking the still burning blowtorch with it. The beast reached out, tentacles grabbing the edge of the door, but it was already sliding shut. The tips of three of the tentacles were caught against the doorjamb and fell to the floor as the door finally closed and locked.
Davide saw Anna and N’tini switch their view to where Jodge and Rohit stood outside the Drill Dome door, but his gaze was taken by the growing aurora in the pool under the submersible. The dancing light filled the whole dome as a globular mass of Opas emerged from the depths. Three tentacles, each as thick as a tree, reached for the submersible, wrapping around it and dragging it forcibly from its cradle to be swallowed inside the mass.
It kept coming, more tentacles rising from the body to slap on the dome floor and help to drag this new thing up out of the water. And still it came, a seemingly endless flow of shimmering Opas, gelling and solidifying as they met the air, a skin forming, warty and green and thick over the soft, slumping body that flowed across the floor. The two creatures that had faced up to the men only a minute earlier walked into the bulk of this new thing and were quickly absorbed. Long tentacles wafted, touching all parts of the dome, tasting.
Looking for food.
b
Davide was about to draw Anna’s attention to the new creature when the vids suddenly cut out, the holo fading slowly away into nothingness.
“We’ve lost all visuals,” Anna said. She spoke into her com. “Jodge, Rohit, can you hear me?”
There was no reply.
“Now can we please evacuate?” N’tini said.
“Not while I still breathe,” Anna said.
“We’ve lost the Drill Dome completely,” Davide said, and brought them up to date with what he’d seen before the vids had cut out.
“It’s showing signs of something remarkably close to intelligence,” N’tini said.
“Rubbish. It’s just a blob looking for food,” Anna replied. “Once we get the A.I. back online we’ll have this sorted out in no time.”
“Look, Anna,” Davide said. “I know you’re being gung-ho about this, and I know it’s your mission, but the A.I. is in there with that stuff. We can’t even get to it, never mind fix it.”
“Rohit will have a plan. He always does.”
The lights in the lab flickered and dimmed. They didn’t brighten again.
David checked the console. The fusion generator was down to forty percent efficiency.
And when that goes, we start to freeze.
CHAPTER 21
There was a splash of green slime where the door met the frame. Rohit stood back while Jodge burned it down to ash. Rohit triggered his com.
“Anna, did you get all of that?”
There was no reply. The lights in the corridor flickered, dimmed, and didn’t come back to full brightness.
“Comms are down. We should get back to the others,” Jodge said.
“We need to get back into the dome,” Rohit said. “I need to see to the fusion generator. If it goes, we’re screwed.”
“We can’t afford to open that door,” Jodge replied. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Rohit said. “What if we turn off the heat in the dome? Everything would freeze pretty fast. Then I could go in wearing a suit…”
“Anna wouldn’t go for that,” Jodge said.
“Best we don’t tell her then…” Rohit replied. “The panel’s just along the corridor. I can have it done, started at least, before she gets here if I start now.”
“As I said, this is your show, boss,” Jodge said with a smile. “And that’s what I’ll be telling Anna if she asks.”
Rohit clapped Jodge on the shoulder and headed for the dome’s main control panel. It was the work of a minute to close down the heating system. Anna and the others arrived as he was closing the panel.
“What are you doing?” Anna asked.
“Putting the dome in deep freeze,” Rohit replied. “It’s the only way I know to get to work on the Fusion Generator.”
“I didn’t authorize any such thing.”
“I made a judgment call. You weren’t here and the comms were down.”
“You should have waited.”
“What, until the green stuff started oozing out into the corridor? Come on, Anna. You know I’ve done the right thing.”
“Maybe,” Anna replied grudgingly. “So what’s the plan?”
“I’m going to get a suit. In ten minutes it’ll be a hundred and fifty below in there; that’s when I go in.”
“I’ll come with you,” Anna replied. “And that’s not negotiable.”
“What about us?” Jodges said. “Should we watch from the lab?”
“Everything’s down,” Davide said. “Vid, comms and control systems. I think the Fission Generator is closing things down in a bid to protect itself.”
Rohit nodded.
“That sounds likely. We’d best be getting to the suits,” he said to Anna.
Anna addressed the others.
“Head for the lander. You’ll be safe there until we’re done.”
“Just one thing,” Jodge said.
“What’s that?”
“If you’re in a suit, you won’t be able to use that blowtorch. Best give it to me. I’m likely to need it more than you in any case.”
Rohit watched as Anna shucked off the unit and handed it to Jodge, then made his way away along the corridor. He heard Anna coming along at his back.
The future of the mission depended on what they were going to have to do in the next hour.
b
The suits were stored in an airlock off the lab dome, the only egress to the plain outside the facility. Both Anna and Rohit were rated for their use, the only two of the remaining crew now that Mark was gone. The empty third suit only served to remind Rohit of what had already been lost. He turned his back on it as he climbed into his suit. It had been especially fitted to fit his body, and felt snug and secure. The waldos in the joints and fingers meant he’d not be losing too much in dexterity, and the suit was rated for function down to minus 200 celsius, more than good enough for what they were intending to do.
Rohit kept his visor open.
“Testing, testing,” he said into the con unit.
“Receiving loud and clear,” Anna replied.
“Well, at least something’s working. Are you ready to do this?”
“Yes,” Anna replied. “I’ll be following your lead and watching your back. Just holler if you need anything done.”
The walk back through the facility felt almost surreal; the suits were meant to be worn outside the facility, and all their training had been done externally with visors down in zero-oxygen conditions. Taking a walk inside with the visor up just didn’t feel right, and Rohit was almost glad when they reached the dome door and he could put the visor down. Before he did so he noticed there was a distinct chill in the air. Despite being fully insulated cold air was getting in from the dome beyond the door. He stepped over to the control panel.
“We’ll have ten seconds to get inside, than the door will shut behind us. I’ve just ensured I can control it from my suit, so stick close to me.”
“Will do,” Anna replied. They both stepped over to the door.
“Ready?” Rohit said.
“When you are.”
The door slid open and they walked into a frozen landscape of horror.
b
They had to step up onto what had been the amorphous body of the Opa colony. It had frozen to the floor more than a foot thick, tentacles thrust up like skeletal fingers at irregular intervals as if trying to escape their icy fate. The freezing process had given the warty surface a blue tinge, but there was no sign of any aurora, no indication there was any life left in the colony. Over by the drop tube Rohit saw that the pool’s surface also had a layer of ice over the top, although how thick it might be was impossible to tell. There was no sign of the submersible; it had been dragged below, and was probably still sinking even now.
The surface cracked underfoot but felt solid. Rohit went over to the A.I. unit first. The interior was a mass of slime frozen hard against the circuitry. He only needed one look to confirm what he already knew; this particular A.I. was never going to speak again.
Without speaking he strode quickly to the control panel for the Fission Generator and tapped in the security code. He thought for a second it wasn’t going to respond, but eventually the door swung open.
The Opas had gotten in here, too. The panel was coated in slime, the wiring, as it had been in the A.I. unit, was stripped of its coating, and at least one of the circuit boards had fused and blackened. He motioned for Anna to keep back, then removed the face of the control panel with a screwdriver.
It wasn’t quite so bad inside the unit itself. Several of the insect-things had gotten into it, but only a handful and they were lying frozen in the bottom of the box.
“I think I can get this cleaned up,” he said in the com. “But it’s going to take time.”
“We’ve got an hour of air each in the suits. Will that be enough?”
“It’s going to have to be,” Rohit said, and set to work.
CHAPTER 22
Jodge, Davide and N’tini had made a stop at the coffee machine on the way to the lander.
“It might be the last chance we get for a while,” Davide said. “Five minutes, that’s all I ask.”
Jodge hadn’t taken much persuasion. The events of the day were already taking on a dreamlike quality, as if everything had happened to someone else, and he was only too aware that he was running on fumes; he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
And a lot has happened since then.
There had been no sign of any Opa activity either in the corridor or the living quarters, and the mess was once again quiet, the only sound being a buzz from the lights as they flickered overhead.
“Is it just me, or is it getting colder?” N’tini said, and Jodge noticed the condensation on her breath.
“If Rohit doesn’t get it done, this whole place will be an ice-tomb in an hour,” Davide said.
“Then the lander it is,” Jodge said, and downed the last of his coffee.
He rose, expecting the others to follow him, but N’tini and Davide just sat at the table, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes.
“Do you have a better idea?” Jodge asked.
“We can’t take off,” Davide said. “It’s not safe to. What if we transport the organism Topside with us? That’s a whole new level of infection.”
“Who said anything about taking off?” Jodge said. “The lander’s safe, and what’s more, it’ll be warm.”
“And the organism will know that too,” N’tini said softly. “You asked before if we think it’s that smart. I’d say the evidence is clear. And if it’s smart, it’ll seek out the heat.” She smiled thinly. “Trust me, I’m a biologist.”
“All that’s as maybe,” Jodge said, “but our first priority is to ourselves right now, and that means keeping warm. Unless you’ve got a better plan, the lander’s our only option. Or do I have to pull rank?”
Davide sighed.
“He’s right,” he said. “Lander first, questions later. I’m not ready for noble sacrifice just yet.”
That finally got N’tini on the move, although Jodge could see she still wasn’t happy at the prospect.
Jodge took the lead; he was glad of the weight of the heavy duty blowtorch kit on his back; it gave him a sense of security that might otherwise be lacking. He led them slowly out of the mess, around the exterior corridor of the living quarters and on the approach to the corridor that led to the airlock out to the lander. They were halfway round the dome when the lights flickered, dimmed… and kept dimming until they went out completely. They didn’t have the benefit of a viewing window to let Jupiter’s light in. They were left in total darkness.
He felt a warm hand on his shoulder.
“N’tini?”
“Behind you. I’ve got Davide.”
“Right here,” Davide added from farther back.
“Okay. Stay real close. There’ll be power in the lander. We’ve just got to get there. Follow the outer wall. Slowly does it.”
They traveled ten steps round the perimeter wall, with Jodge feeling his way with every step. He was trying to calculate how much farther he still had to go when he realized it wasn’t fully dark farther along the corridor; a faint but distinctive blue-green aurora hung in the passageway ahead of them.
He brought the group to a halt and whispered, “Trouble ahead. But we’ve got to get past it. There should be a bedroom to your right. You two get in there and wait for me. I’ll be back.”
N’tini’s hand left his shoulder.
Thirty seconds later N’tini spoke from out of the darkness to his right.
“We’re in. Go do your thing. But don’t forget about us.”
Jodge waited until he heard the bedroom door slide shut then turned his attention to the aurora ahead.
b
It appeared to be static, and about as far away as where he’d expect to reach the airlock hatchway.
If it’s gotten into the lander, we really are screwed.
Jodge inched forward. He was able to make out a shape within the aurora now; a similar, burly, almost humanoid figure to the one he’d hit with the wrench in the Drill Dome. This one wasn’t paying any attention to Jodge. It had its head pressed against the airlock out to the lander, its long tentacles running over the door.
It’s looking for a weak point.
Jodge raised the blowtorch, intending to burn the thing down to ash, but it was too close to the door; if he damaged the locking mechanism they might never get out.
And while it just stood there, we’re not going to get out in any case.
There was only one thing for it.
“Hey, ugly?” he said.
The tentacles all swung to focus on him.
“You hungry? Want some of me?”
The tentacles waved in the air, the same tasting motion he was coming to recognize.
“Come and get me,” he said.
The thing took a step away from the door.
Jodge turned and ran, trying to guide himself in the dark with the fingertips of his hand brushing the left hand wall. He only glanced back once. The thing was coming on fast behind him; arms stretched out and long tentacles writhing like a nest of hungry snakes.
His left hand fingers met empty air; he had reached the corridor that led to the Mess. He turned quickly on his heel, raising the burner in the same move. The creature kept coming forward. Jodge waited until the grasping tentacles were only inches from his nose then sent a wash of flame over them.
They burned bright blue and what was left fell, black ash, to the floor. The creature backed away, already sprouting fresh tendrils to replace those that had been lost.
b
He saw Rohit react straight away. The man switched on the UV torch and stepped forward, washing waves of blue light over the dog-thing which smoldered and burned, the tentacles sloughing off as black ash, the head melting back towards the body, the rear end trying to back away even while the front end boiled.
Another movement caught his eye and he turned his attention to the view in the submersible. The first dog-thing was no longer a dog; the tissue was metamorphosing, growing, adding bulk from the food it had taken in, swelling to almost fill the sub’s small cockpit. The whole view danced with the blue-green aurora as the new thing clambered up out of the vessel.
On the far side of the dome Rohit was burning down the last remnant of the second dog. The third dog was also undergoing a change, thickening in the middle parts and legs.
The pool under the submersible started to glow blue-green.
“Whatever it is, it’s coming up fast,” Davide shouted. “Get out of there, right now.”
Rohit and Jodge made for the door. Something leapt out of the submersible, too fast for Davide to make out exactly what it was, only that it was upright, almost human-like in the torso, and with a mass of meter-long tentacles swirling above its head. Rohit aimed the UV lamp at it and switched it on. The bulb burst with a blinding flash and he was left with just a lump of plastic and metal. He threw it straight at the approaching figure. What was left of the lamp hit the thing’s chest and kept going, being immediately absorbed into the body.
Jodge stepped forward, wrench in one hand, blowtorch already lit in the other. The thing came forward fast. Behind it the dancing aurora around the pool was strengthening by the second.
“Get that door open,” Davide shouted to Anna.
“I’m trying. The system’s not responding.”
Jodge took a swing with the wrench as the thing came into his range. Davide got his first good look at it. The beast stood upright and was bipedal, thick in the chest like a gorilla but with four arms, each of which was tipped, not with fingers but with whip like tentacles, a dozen on each hand and all pencil-thin. The tentacles crowning the head were thicker and much more profuse, the whole mass of them concentrated on Jorge as the wrench came down. It hit the tentacles, mashing half a dozen of them to green pulp, but six more immediately sprung up in their place, wrapping themselves around the head of the wrench and dragging it forcibly out of Jodge’s hand.
The third creature, now looking the same as the new form taken by the first, was now also coming forward, albeit slowly, its arms still taking shape out of the protoplasmic matter of the Opas.
Davide saw Jodge bend and retrieve another of the blowtorches so that he had one in each hand, both alight. He showed them both to the advancing creature, but it didn’t slow.
“Got it,’ Anna shouted, and the door slid open at the men’s backs.
Rohit went through first. Jodge backed away from the taller creature, using the blowtorch to keep grasping tentacles at bay.
“Come on,” Rohit shouted.
Jodge threw one of the blowtorches against the chest of the approaching creature. It hit, stuck and started burning. It gave Jodge time to reach the door and slide through. Even as the door was closing the creature came forward again. It sloughed off the burning part, a blackened mass of Opas falling to the floor, taking the still burning blowtorch with it. The beast reached out, tentacles grabbing the edge of the door, but it was already sliding shut. The tips of three of the tentacles were caught against the doorjamb and fell to the floor as the door finally closed and locked.
Davide saw Anna and N’tini switch their view to where Jodge and Rohit stood outside the Drill Dome door, but his gaze was taken by the growing aurora in the pool under the submersible. The dancing light filled the whole dome as a globular mass of Opas emerged from the depths. Three tentacles, each as thick as a tree, reached for the submersible, wrapping around it and dragging it forcibly from its cradle to be swallowed inside the mass.
It kept coming, more tentacles rising from the body to slap on the dome floor and help to drag this new thing up out of the water. And still it came, a seemingly endless flow of shimmering Opas, gelling and solidifying as they met the air, a skin forming, warty and green and thick over the soft, slumping body that flowed across the floor. The two creatures that had faced up to the men only a minute earlier walked into the bulk of this new thing and were quickly absorbed. Long tentacles wafted, touching all parts of the dome, tasting.
Looking for food.
b
Davide was about to draw Anna’s attention to the new creature when the vids suddenly cut out, the holo fading slowly away into nothingness.
“We’ve lost all visuals,” Anna said. She spoke into her com. “Jodge, Rohit, can you hear me?”
There was no reply.
“Now can we please evacuate?” N’tini said.
“Not while I still breathe,” Anna said.
“We’ve lost the Drill Dome completely,” Davide said, and brought them up to date with what he’d seen before the vids had cut out.
“It’s showing signs of something remarkably close to intelligence,” N’tini said.
“Rubbish. It’s just a blob looking for food,” Anna replied. “Once we get the A.I. back online we’ll have this sorted out in no time.”
“Look, Anna,” Davide said. “I know you’re being gung-ho about this, and I know it’s your mission, but the A.I. is in there with that stuff. We can’t even get to it, never mind fix it.”
“Rohit will have a plan. He always does.”
The lights in the lab flickered and dimmed. They didn’t brighten again.
David checked the console. The fusion generator was down to forty percent efficiency.
And when that goes, we start to freeze.
CHAPTER 21
There was a splash of green slime where the door met the frame. Rohit stood back while Jodge burned it down to ash. Rohit triggered his com.
“Anna, did you get all of that?”
There was no reply. The lights in the corridor flickered, dimmed, and didn’t come back to full brightness.
“Comms are down. We should get back to the others,” Jodge said.
“We need to get back into the dome,” Rohit said. “I need to see to the fusion generator. If it goes, we’re screwed.”
“We can’t afford to open that door,” Jodge replied. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Rohit said. “What if we turn off the heat in the dome? Everything would freeze pretty fast. Then I could go in wearing a suit…”
“Anna wouldn’t go for that,” Jodge said.
“Best we don’t tell her then…” Rohit replied. “The panel’s just along the corridor. I can have it done, started at least, before she gets here if I start now.”
“As I said, this is your show, boss,” Jodge said with a smile. “And that’s what I’ll be telling Anna if she asks.”
Rohit clapped Jodge on the shoulder and headed for the dome’s main control panel. It was the work of a minute to close down the heating system. Anna and the others arrived as he was closing the panel.
“What are you doing?” Anna asked.
“Putting the dome in deep freeze,” Rohit replied. “It’s the only way I know to get to work on the Fusion Generator.”
“I didn’t authorize any such thing.”
“I made a judgment call. You weren’t here and the comms were down.”
“You should have waited.”
“What, until the green stuff started oozing out into the corridor? Come on, Anna. You know I’ve done the right thing.”
“Maybe,” Anna replied grudgingly. “So what’s the plan?”
“I’m going to get a suit. In ten minutes it’ll be a hundred and fifty below in there; that’s when I go in.”
“I’ll come with you,” Anna replied. “And that’s not negotiable.”
“What about us?” Jodges said. “Should we watch from the lab?”
“Everything’s down,” Davide said. “Vid, comms and control systems. I think the Fission Generator is closing things down in a bid to protect itself.”
Rohit nodded.
“That sounds likely. We’d best be getting to the suits,” he said to Anna.
Anna addressed the others.
“Head for the lander. You’ll be safe there until we’re done.”
“Just one thing,” Jodge said.
“What’s that?”
“If you’re in a suit, you won’t be able to use that blowtorch. Best give it to me. I’m likely to need it more than you in any case.”
Rohit watched as Anna shucked off the unit and handed it to Jodge, then made his way away along the corridor. He heard Anna coming along at his back.
The future of the mission depended on what they were going to have to do in the next hour.
b
The suits were stored in an airlock off the lab dome, the only egress to the plain outside the facility. Both Anna and Rohit were rated for their use, the only two of the remaining crew now that Mark was gone. The empty third suit only served to remind Rohit of what had already been lost. He turned his back on it as he climbed into his suit. It had been especially fitted to fit his body, and felt snug and secure. The waldos in the joints and fingers meant he’d not be losing too much in dexterity, and the suit was rated for function down to minus 200 celsius, more than good enough for what they were intending to do.
Rohit kept his visor open.
“Testing, testing,” he said into the con unit.
“Receiving loud and clear,” Anna replied.
“Well, at least something’s working. Are you ready to do this?”
“Yes,” Anna replied. “I’ll be following your lead and watching your back. Just holler if you need anything done.”
The walk back through the facility felt almost surreal; the suits were meant to be worn outside the facility, and all their training had been done externally with visors down in zero-oxygen conditions. Taking a walk inside with the visor up just didn’t feel right, and Rohit was almost glad when they reached the dome door and he could put the visor down. Before he did so he noticed there was a distinct chill in the air. Despite being fully insulated cold air was getting in from the dome beyond the door. He stepped over to the control panel.
“We’ll have ten seconds to get inside, than the door will shut behind us. I’ve just ensured I can control it from my suit, so stick close to me.”
“Will do,” Anna replied. They both stepped over to the door.
“Ready?” Rohit said.
“When you are.”
The door slid open and they walked into a frozen landscape of horror.
b
They had to step up onto what had been the amorphous body of the Opa colony. It had frozen to the floor more than a foot thick, tentacles thrust up like skeletal fingers at irregular intervals as if trying to escape their icy fate. The freezing process had given the warty surface a blue tinge, but there was no sign of any aurora, no indication there was any life left in the colony. Over by the drop tube Rohit saw that the pool’s surface also had a layer of ice over the top, although how thick it might be was impossible to tell. There was no sign of the submersible; it had been dragged below, and was probably still sinking even now.
The surface cracked underfoot but felt solid. Rohit went over to the A.I. unit first. The interior was a mass of slime frozen hard against the circuitry. He only needed one look to confirm what he already knew; this particular A.I. was never going to speak again.
Without speaking he strode quickly to the control panel for the Fission Generator and tapped in the security code. He thought for a second it wasn’t going to respond, but eventually the door swung open.
The Opas had gotten in here, too. The panel was coated in slime, the wiring, as it had been in the A.I. unit, was stripped of its coating, and at least one of the circuit boards had fused and blackened. He motioned for Anna to keep back, then removed the face of the control panel with a screwdriver.
It wasn’t quite so bad inside the unit itself. Several of the insect-things had gotten into it, but only a handful and they were lying frozen in the bottom of the box.
“I think I can get this cleaned up,” he said in the com. “But it’s going to take time.”
“We’ve got an hour of air each in the suits. Will that be enough?”
“It’s going to have to be,” Rohit said, and set to work.
CHAPTER 22
Jodge, Davide and N’tini had made a stop at the coffee machine on the way to the lander.
“It might be the last chance we get for a while,” Davide said. “Five minutes, that’s all I ask.”
Jodge hadn’t taken much persuasion. The events of the day were already taking on a dreamlike quality, as if everything had happened to someone else, and he was only too aware that he was running on fumes; he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
And a lot has happened since then.
There had been no sign of any Opa activity either in the corridor or the living quarters, and the mess was once again quiet, the only sound being a buzz from the lights as they flickered overhead.
“Is it just me, or is it getting colder?” N’tini said, and Jodge noticed the condensation on her breath.
“If Rohit doesn’t get it done, this whole place will be an ice-tomb in an hour,” Davide said.
“Then the lander it is,” Jodge said, and downed the last of his coffee.
He rose, expecting the others to follow him, but N’tini and Davide just sat at the table, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes.
“Do you have a better idea?” Jodge asked.
“We can’t take off,” Davide said. “It’s not safe to. What if we transport the organism Topside with us? That’s a whole new level of infection.”
“Who said anything about taking off?” Jodge said. “The lander’s safe, and what’s more, it’ll be warm.”
“And the organism will know that too,” N’tini said softly. “You asked before if we think it’s that smart. I’d say the evidence is clear. And if it’s smart, it’ll seek out the heat.” She smiled thinly. “Trust me, I’m a biologist.”
“All that’s as maybe,” Jodge said, “but our first priority is to ourselves right now, and that means keeping warm. Unless you’ve got a better plan, the lander’s our only option. Or do I have to pull rank?”
Davide sighed.
“He’s right,” he said. “Lander first, questions later. I’m not ready for noble sacrifice just yet.”
That finally got N’tini on the move, although Jodge could see she still wasn’t happy at the prospect.
Jodge took the lead; he was glad of the weight of the heavy duty blowtorch kit on his back; it gave him a sense of security that might otherwise be lacking. He led them slowly out of the mess, around the exterior corridor of the living quarters and on the approach to the corridor that led to the airlock out to the lander. They were halfway round the dome when the lights flickered, dimmed… and kept dimming until they went out completely. They didn’t have the benefit of a viewing window to let Jupiter’s light in. They were left in total darkness.
He felt a warm hand on his shoulder.
“N’tini?”
“Behind you. I’ve got Davide.”
“Right here,” Davide added from farther back.
“Okay. Stay real close. There’ll be power in the lander. We’ve just got to get there. Follow the outer wall. Slowly does it.”
They traveled ten steps round the perimeter wall, with Jodge feeling his way with every step. He was trying to calculate how much farther he still had to go when he realized it wasn’t fully dark farther along the corridor; a faint but distinctive blue-green aurora hung in the passageway ahead of them.
He brought the group to a halt and whispered, “Trouble ahead. But we’ve got to get past it. There should be a bedroom to your right. You two get in there and wait for me. I’ll be back.”
N’tini’s hand left his shoulder.
Thirty seconds later N’tini spoke from out of the darkness to his right.
“We’re in. Go do your thing. But don’t forget about us.”
Jodge waited until he heard the bedroom door slide shut then turned his attention to the aurora ahead.
b
It appeared to be static, and about as far away as where he’d expect to reach the airlock hatchway.
If it’s gotten into the lander, we really are screwed.
Jodge inched forward. He was able to make out a shape within the aurora now; a similar, burly, almost humanoid figure to the one he’d hit with the wrench in the Drill Dome. This one wasn’t paying any attention to Jodge. It had its head pressed against the airlock out to the lander, its long tentacles running over the door.
It’s looking for a weak point.
Jodge raised the blowtorch, intending to burn the thing down to ash, but it was too close to the door; if he damaged the locking mechanism they might never get out.
And while it just stood there, we’re not going to get out in any case.
There was only one thing for it.
“Hey, ugly?” he said.
The tentacles all swung to focus on him.
“You hungry? Want some of me?”
The tentacles waved in the air, the same tasting motion he was coming to recognize.
“Come and get me,” he said.
The thing took a step away from the door.
Jodge turned and ran, trying to guide himself in the dark with the fingertips of his hand brushing the left hand wall. He only glanced back once. The thing was coming on fast behind him; arms stretched out and long tentacles writhing like a nest of hungry snakes.
His left hand fingers met empty air; he had reached the corridor that led to the Mess. He turned quickly on his heel, raising the burner in the same move. The creature kept coming forward. Jodge waited until the grasping tentacles were only inches from his nose then sent a wash of flame over them.
They burned bright blue and what was left fell, black ash, to the floor. The creature backed away, already sprouting fresh tendrils to replace those that had been lost.
