Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space (27 page)

The resulting hiss was weak and lasted only a few
seconds.
Must not be vacuum outside. Guess we didn’t need suits after all.

He didn’t regret the excess caution. A good space worker
would rather be too cautious ten thousand times than not cautions enough so
much as once. Not cautious enough usually meant death.

Tripping the releases, he pulled the hatch door in and
swung it aside, then began pulling himself out through the hatch. But before
his belly ring cleared the opening two bare hands seized his shoulders and
tried to guide him. Instinctively, he grabbed a sooty handhold on the pod’s
exterior and swung himself out.

He was face-to-face with a man wearing a sky-blue
short-sleeved shirt with matching pants. Several confusing seconds passed
before he realized the man was wearing the flight uniform of Hyperbolic
Shipping.
Must be aboard one of the company’s ships. Probably inside a
maintenance hangar.

Fully out of the pod, but squinting and blinking, Mike
floated and waited for his eyes to adjust. The room seemed ridiculously bright;
brighter than Mike remembered any hangar ever having been. He counted six
blue-white lights too painful to look directly into.
The kind used by TV crews?

Partly hidden in their glare, he spotted three
professional quality video cameras mounted on tripods whose feet had all been
secured to the floor with long strips of silvery duct tape.

Either we’ve got reporters in here or the company’s
figuring to sell this footage to the networks itself to recoup part of their
loss on Corvus.
It wouldn’t be the first time Hyperbolic Shipping had
turned a little profit by covering its own news events, disastrous or
otherwise.

A second man—shadowy in the glare—moved from one camera
to another as though checking their images.
Doesn’t move like a reporter or
a camera operator, must be part of the ship’s crew: a company man.

Looking at his surroundings more carefully, Mike
discovered that he and the pod and these two men were all inside a perfect
replica of Corvus’s hangar number two as it appeared before the ordeal began.

A feeling of sluggishness overtook him, as though his
brain no longer ran at full speed.
Where are we?
he wondered.
What is
this place?

The first man ignored Mike’s confused expression and
reached past him to help Kim through the hatch. After she was out, this man
knocked lightly on hers and Mike’s helmets as though they were doors, and moved
his lips in an exaggerated fashion as though hoping they might read them.

Kim responded by unfastening her helmet.

Stupidly, Mike blinked several times in slow motion.
Must
want us to take our helmets off.
He smiled like a happy drunk.
Well, of
course, Einstein. There’s breathing air here.
He yawned wide and deep.
Why
do I feel so sleepy?

Fumbling his helmet off, Mike took a breath of fresh
warm air and immediately began to feel more alert and clear-headed. As he wiped
his greasy unwashed forehead, he realized why. Looking down at the lifesupport
indicators on his suit’s left forearm confirmed it. His breathing oxygen’s
pressure had dropped to zero. He was out.

“Welcome to Aquila,” said the first man, “one of
Corvus’s sister ships. We really didn’t expect anyone to survive but we had to
come look just in case.”

Mike didn’t hear that last sentence. He was busy
staring at a large black object about thirty feet away.

Secured to the hangar floor by two bright yellow nylon
straps stretched tightly up and over its top, the object was a pod. Or at least
it must have been a pod at one time. Burned worse than Corvus—if such a thing
was possible—it resembled the charred toothless skull of some grotesquely
deformed alien. The hull’s aluminum shell and insulation had been burned off,
leaving behind only those shapes formed of higher melting point metals: steel,
stainless and titanium. All the plastic and glass components were absent; the
front window was missing, probably melted; and every square inch was covered
with a thick velvety black fuzz. Mike couldn’t see the pilot’s seat from this
angle, but the co-pilot seat was now nothing but a metal frame with metal
springs.

Frank?

Mike wanted to move closer and check the pilot’s seat
for a velvety black skeleton. He wanted to, but was afraid there might be one.
It was easy to imagine a black skeleton wearing the ring joints of a vacuum
suit at its neck, wrists and waist. Most of a vacuum suit would be burned away;
even the helmet was mostly plastic.

But upon reflection, he realized that at the
temperatures involved the cartilage that held bones to other bones would burn
apart; and the bones themselves would splinter and crack into non-cohesive
fragments. This was Frank’s pod, clearly, but there would be no skeleton.

Something strong and hand-like grabbed Mike’s arms
below the shoulders. Feeling this to be rude, he tried to shake himself free
but the grip was much too firm. The gripper spun him around, bringing him
face-to-face with a medsys.

“Relax, Mister McCormack,” the huge machine said with
its deeply resonant voice. Its torso, for want of a better word, began to hum
and click—scanning him with high frequency sound waves, and radio waves of
frequencies even higher. “I will try to make this as painless as possible.” It
removed his right glove, and Mike felt a pin prick on the back of his wrist.
The machine was drawing blood and the inside of his elbow—the usual removal
site—was unavailable at the moment. “If you please; say, Ah.”

Mike knew what was coming. He complied, but
reluctantly.

A thin black snake-like tube slithered into his mouth,
sucked out saliva samples, then slithered down his throat and into his stomach
for samples of digestive juices. The skill with which it avoided touching the
walls of his throat in the back of his mouth—which would have triggered the gag
reflex—might have been more impressive had it not been universal of all medsys.

Glancing to his right—while being careful not to turn
his head too far with the snake down his throat—Mike saw that an identical
medsys had grabbed Kim and was giving her an identical emergency check-up.

A new voice spoke. “Please, don’t try to talk.”
Directing his eyes toward this voice, Mike saw an elderly gentleman with dark
gray hair and a thick, though neatly trimmed, dark gray beard. “There will be
plenty of time to talk after the medsys has determined the state of your
health.”

Mike was struck by the man’s appearance. Though
floating in zero-g, he seemed rooted and immovable; his eyes, deep-set and
alert, suggested intelligence; while his bearing indicated confident
professionalism. Most striking of all, however: he was so handsome he looked
positively out of place in a hangar deck.

This guy ought to be on TV.
Mike glanced at the
cameras.
I guess he will be. Could he have been picked for this job to make
the company look good?
Mike would have smiled if he hadn’t had a snake down
his throat.
Maybe.

“I am Captain William Ortega,” said the man. “I would
like to welcome you both aboard my ship, and to extend on behalf of Hyperbolic
Shipping and myself our congratulations to you on your amazing survival against
overwhelming odds.”

Thanks.

“Mister McCormack and Ms. Kirkland, I feel I should
warn you that you are now extremely famous.”

Huh?

“The message Captain Palmer sent to the SpaceGuard
Cutter Mandela was intercepted by four independent parties and, within minutes,
sold to four different news services. During the last three weeks, the names,
faces and life-stories of all those who were aboard Corvus have been shown and
re-shown on hundreds of televised news and discussion programs. Everyone in the
solar system has speculated on whether or not any of you could possibly
survive, and if so, by what means. Talk shows and call-in shows have covered
your predicament from every possible angle. Magazines and newspapers have also
done countless stories. By now, every reporter wants to interview you, every
movie producer wants to buy your story, and every publisher wants you to write
it into a book.”

Captain Ortega paused as though giving Mike or Kim the
opportunity to speak but, of course, that was still impossible. “The only
reason there is no crowd here to greet you is that, as captain, I’ve ordered
all passengers to stay in their rooms until our emergency docking with your pod
is completed and the health of all survivors can be verified as stable.” The
captain smiled and winked. “But, of course, I don’t mind holding them an hour
or so longer if you’d like a chance to shower and change clothes before you
face the curious.”

The man who had helped Mike and Kim out of the pod now
stuck his light brown-haired head out through the pod’s open hatch. “Captain,
there’s a woman tied-up in here!”

“What?”

The man’s voice became shrill. “She’s wearing a full
vacuum suit and is stretched across the cabin like a clothesline!”

The previously poised captain seemed at a loss. His
mouth moved but nothing came out.

“Captain? Should I untie her?”

Struggling within the medsys’s iron grip, Mike grunted
repeatedly as he tried to bite through the black snake in his mouth to clear
his vocal tract enough to yell, “No!”

Kim, too, squirmed violently.

Noticing their reactions, the captain regained his
composure. “No, Mister Marcus. Do not untie her. At least not yet.”

“Aye, aye.”

The captain looked at Mike with a slight frown.
“Medsys, how is Mister McCormack?”

“He is somewhat dehydrated. I am giving him a glucose
solution intravenously, and feeding nutrient rich fluids directly into his
stomach. When I finish I will provide him with a list of dietary guidelines to
follow for the next forty-eight hours.”

“And how is Ms. Kirkland?” The captain did not direct
this question to the other medsys since both were controlled by the same
artificially intelligent mind located inside a small closet-like room in the
medical office, several decks above.

“The damage to her parietal bone needs attention but is
not urgent. Its three main bone fragments are not properly aligned and so have
begun knitting incorrectly. Most of the bruising of the underlying brain tissue
has already healed and there doesn’t appear to be any permanent damage—which is
somewhat surprising, due to the scope of the wound. She is not dehydrated, nor
malnourished, so I’m releasing her for the moment and scheduling reconstructive
bone surgery for the day after tomorrow.”

The medsys withdrew its black snake from Kim’s throat
and removed its hand-like appendages from her arms. She floated free for a few
seconds, then spun her arms in tight circles to rotate her body on its vertical
axis through 180 degrees. She looked around the hangar as though confused by
all the bright lights.

“Ms. Kirkland,” the captain said, “how do you feel?”

Ignoring the question, she stared at Mister Marcus who
was once again floating outside the pod. She extended her arm toward him and
pointed an index finger straight at his face. “Do I know you?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. I’m Bob Marcus. Aquila’s chief
flight engi—”

“Bob Marcus? You’ve got to be kidding.”

He squinted and shook his head. “No, that’s my name.”

Kim used one leg to push-off, somewhat rudely, from the
center of the medsys’s chest. Grabbing Bob Marcus in a bear hug, she gave him
three long kisses on the cheek as the two of them coasted past the startled
captain and bumped gently to a stop against the black soot-covered hull of the
pod near its open hatch.

Bob Marcus protested, but even Mike could tell the
man’s desire to get free of Kim was weaker than her desire to hold him.
“Please, ma’am. It’s natural to be excited when someone rescues you, but this
really isn’t necessary.”

Releasing him from the hug, Kim shook both his
shoulders. “Uncle Bob, don’t you recognize me?”

The man looked confused. “Kimmie? Little Kimmie
Kirkland? What are you doing out here?”

She slapped his chest—a playful punishment. “I thought
your boss said we were famous?”

Bob shrugged. “You know I never watch TV.” He squinted.
“I thought you were on Earth.”

She giggled like a teenager. “I haven’t been on Earth
in eight years.” She raised her head and held it high in mock pride. “Uncle
Bob, I’m an engineer now. I hired-in to Hyperbolic Shipping five years ago and
last year was promoted to chief flight engineer of the spaceship Corvus.”

“Carol and Ted must be very proud.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, modestly. “I really think they
are.”

“So what’s the story?” Bob asked. “What went wrong with
Corvus?”

“Sabotage. Course we didn’t know that at first. It all
started when the engines went into auto-shutdown. Captain Palmer sent me out
to—” She stopped talking. Her mouth hung open and her eyes grew wide with fear.
Several seconds passed in silence.

Mike tried to turn his head to see better but the snake
tickled the gag reflex in the back of his throat.
What’s wrong with her?

She found her voice but it was softer and possessed a
flat, lifeless quality. Her eyes remained wide as though she were in some kind
of fear-based trance. “He sent me out to get the engines back on-line,” she
said. “I found a fuel filter clogged with human hair and an engine rigged with
plastic explosive.”

Her voice grew weaker, descending into a whisper. “The
bomb exploded, creating the fuel leak. There was snow everywhere: hydrogen snow.
That’s when I was slung.” Her voice was almost gone. “I was slung. I was…” And
her voice was gone. Her lips continued mouthing words but there was no sound,
not even a hiss of air between her teeth. Then she froze. Not a blink; not a
breath; not a twitch.