The Void (32 page)

She hesitated for a moment, but then she slumped in defeat. He was right, of course. There was no other choice. She reached up and pulled him close, hugging him tight. They had not known each other long and now she had a sinking feeling they never would. When she let him go, it seemed like it was for the last time.

“I'm staying till you make it across,” she said.

“Deal.”

He pulled the helmet down over his head. The suit pressurized itself and a light on Aidan's right hand turned green. He stepped into the airlock and hit a panel on the side. A force field ignited. Aidan waved at Rebecca. She held her hand up to return it.

It was time. Aidan turned toward the outer door. He kicked his feet against the floor as the magnetic locks engaged. He reached up with one hand and grabbed a metal loop that hung down from the ceiling. With the other hand, he tapped a panel and the airlock door opened.

He felt the rush of air as it escaped into outer space. When the roar subsided, he turned and looked at Rebecca one last time. Then he kicked his feet to the side, breaking the magnetic lock, and stepped to the edge of the
Chronos
. The
Singularity
floated below.

Aidan knelt down and grasped the sides of the ship. He engaged his heads-up display, and the computer calculated the proper trajectory that would lead to the
Singularity's
airlock. What it couldn't tell him was how hard to push off. Aidan took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, and threw himself into the emptiness beyond.

The airlock door slid closed, and Rebecca ran to the portal, slamming her hand against the console and lowering the force field. She peered out the small window in the airlock door, watching as Aidan disappeared below, toward the
Singularity
.

“Let him make it,” she murmured. “Let him make it.”

Aidan felt his stomach drop into his feet as he leaped from the platform. He floated toward the ship below, moving at no great speed, but nevertheless feeling completely out of control. The image on the heads-up display flashed red as his trajectory carried him away from the
Singularity's
airlock, a target that seemed far too small for his exceedingly imprecise effort.

He tapped the console on his arm, firing the compressed air thrusters strapped to his back, moving him left and right, up and down. The HUD flashed green for but a second before turning red again; he was overcompensating. The ship seemed to race toward him. He was too high, then too low. Then the HUD turned green again, and he let the thrusters go full blast. The only problem was he had no breaks. He slammed into the floor of the airlock, rolling with a painful thud into the doorway.

He almost floated away again, but at the last moment, he kicked his right foot hard against the door, locking him in place. Floating there upside down—one foot planted firmly on the outside of the ship, his heart beating and his breath racing like he'd just sprinted a hundred meters—he had the almost overwhelming desire to cry out in celebration.

He pulled himself up, locking himself in place, and finally standing on both feet. He looked up at the
Chronos
, and even though he couldn't see her, he knew Rebecca was watching. He held up his hand and waved and then turned back to the airlock doorway.

Unlike Aidan, Rebecca
had
cried out when he smashed into the
Singularity.
She didn't start breathing again until he stood up and waved. She watched him attach a computer to the console terminal of the ship. The door slid open. He turned around and looked back at her one last time and then disappeared inside. A moment later, grappling hooks fired from the
Singularity
, clanking against the
Chronos
and locking on. Rebecca smiled. One objective down. Now it was her turn. Gravely was waiting on her.

“I won't ask you if you're ready,” she said, “mostly because I know I'm not.”

The two women climbed into their stasis chambers. There would be no countdown this time. Instead, they would slip away into a normal, if chemically induced, sleep. The only way they would know that Aidan had begun his mission would be when the dreams started. And the only way they would know he had succeeded would be when those same dreams ended.

Otherwise, the experience was how she remembered it. The glass domes closed above them, the sweet-smelling breeze surrounded her. She didn't panic this time. Instead, she let the sleep take her. And then, Rebecca and Gravely floated away into an empty darkness, one far more pleasant than the dreams to come.

Chapter 27

When Aidan stepped onto the
Singularity
, the first thing he noticed was the lights. Before, the ship had been bathed in darkness. Now the metal walls sparkled in the dawning glow. Aidan shivered. Somehow, this was worse.

Aidan jumped as the door slid open in one silent whoosh. Everything was too normal now, too ordered. And quiet. The lights were on, but the engines were still dead. He stepped into the hallway and shivered. At least in the darkness, it had not looked like the ship he remembered, the one from his dreams. Now he couldn't deny it, even if he wanted to. Every hallway he knew intimately, every curve, every turn. But there was one difference.

Shadows remained, even though the light shone down upon him brilliantly and completely. Upon those blank spaces, where the darkness seemed to reign over the light, Aidan wondered. Saw and heard things that no longer surprised him, even if they did still frighten him. He walked through those hallways, just as he had in his dreams. Except this time, he carried a rifle with him that he held at the ready, jammed against his right shoulder.

He took his time, creeping down the hallways, peeking around corners, knowing that Cyrus could appear at any moment.

He stopped when he heard a rumble, felt a deep vibration rolling through the infrastructure of the ship, shaking him to his core. He started running then, knowing that he had no more time—Cyrus had fixed the engines.

As he ran, he stopped worrying about the whispers, about what walked around him. He didn't feel the burning in his legs or his lungs. He simply made a decision to go for the bridge. If Cyrus were waiting for him in one of these hallways, so be it. He would deal with that when it happened. But it was an empty fear. Aidan didn't see Cyrus, not until the great doors of the bridge sprang open.

He stood bent over the front of the control console, his back turned toward the door. Aidan raised his weapon and pointed it at Cyrus. As his finger tightened around the trigger, as he considered shooting him right then and right there, Cyrus raised his head.

“Hello, Aidan,” he said without turning. “Would you shoot an old friend?”

Aidan hadn't noticed at first, his attention had been so fixated on Cyrus, but this room was darker than others. The shadows seemed thicker here, much of the floor covered by inky puddles of night made manifest.

“You're not Cyrus,” Aidan said, “and we're not friends. Now, step away from the console or I will put you down.”

Cyrus turned and faced Aidan, the black, empty holes where his eyes should have been appraising him. Cyrus chuckled and Aidan shivered.

“Come now, Aidan. Don't you want to save the ship? Don't you want to redeem yourself? For what you did?”

A tremor ran down Aidan's spine, and the gun started to shake in his hands. He gripped it tighter, steadying himself lest his voice shake as well.

“It's just a ship, Cyrus. If I did what you say I did, then nothing will make up for that. It's the people that died that matter. Not the ship.”

The grin on Cyrus's face melted away and when he spoke, his voice had changed.

“So be it,” he said.

He outstretched his arms, bringing his hands together in a great clap. As he did, pure darkness erupted from the sides of the bridge, slamming together in front of where Cyrus stood, cloaking him behind it. The shadow wall from the dreams had appeared and now stood between Cyrus and Aidan, as thick and impenetrable as ever.

Aidan looked from side to side, but there was no opening. He raised his gun to his shoulder and fired. The bullets slammed into the wall like pebbles on the surface of a lake, little waves rippling along it, up to the ceiling and down to the floor, left and right to the walls, finally reverberating back on themselves. They did not rip the fabric of that black curtain and Aidan knew that the bullets, wherever they may have gone, did not pass through to Cyrus. There was only one way to stop him. He would have to pass through the wall, one more time.

“I guess he's forgotten,” Aidan thought to himself, lowering the rifle, “I've already done this once.”

Aidan took two long, leaping strides and threw himself into the wall. He passed through in only a moment. He did not find himself in some other world, did not travel to a mirror world were darkness held sway over the light. Apparently, he was free of that now. Instead, he slammed bodily into Cyrus, shocking them both.

Cyrus flipped over the back of the console, landing with a thud on the ground below. Aidan could have finished him then. But when he looked up, he froze. The room had changed. Or at least, what he could see in it had. No longer were there splashes of opaque shadow standing out against the light. The blinders from Aidan's eyes were gone, revealing the truth of what moved in the night.

The shadows were there, glaring down at Aidan, smoke-like tendrils rising from their thin, tall bodies. They roared at him, cursed him in words he could not understand. He felt their hatred, saw the rage in their empty eyes. They were the things he had feared all these years.

Aidan pulled himself to his feet and tapped the computer console. As the warp control appeared, the creatures around him howled. Aidan ignored them and engaged the warp bubble. The last thing he did before Cyrus grabbed him from behind and threw him to the ground was fire the warp engines.

*  *  *

Rebecca awoke on a cobblestone street that was more like a corridor—one that ran through a ruined town that she had only seen once before, in a dream not unlike this one. The only thing different was that Gravely was there with her.

“Thank God,” Rebecca said. “I don't know that I could have done this by myself.” Then confusion. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

Gravely glanced at the broken streets, the dead leaves blowing across the shattered cobblestones and wondered the same thing.

“I don't know,” she said. “But I think they want to scare us now, and that's never how my dream worked. They were always trying to coax me into something, to lull me into a sense of false comfort. Maybe they figured their strategy should change.”

“Yeah,” Rebecca said, “Maybe.”

The wind blew down the narrow streets, roaring through the tight corridor of the stores, just as it had the first time Rebecca had been there. Rebecca, dressed in her loose white dress and no shoes, shivered.

“I guess the cold and discomfort add to the fear,” Gravely said, thankful that she was wearing the same uniform as when she fell asleep. “Just try and remember. It's not real. It's all in your head. All of it.”

Rebecca rubbed her arms and nodded and both women wondered who Gravely was really trying to convince.

“Maybe we should just stay here,” Rebecca said, looking over her shoulder at the wall of darkness behind her. “Stay here and wait for Aidan to finish.”

“Maybe. I assume whatever is up there is not something we want to see.”

“No. No, not at all.”

Gravely peered at the diner to their left, split in half by the great black wall. She might have failed to notice the change were it not for the sign that read “Bottomless Coffee,” the price of which was hidden behind the wall. She watched as the last ‘e’ on coffee was swallowed up, followed by the other one and then the first f.

“Waiting's not an option,” she said. Gravely grabbed Rebecca's arm and pointed at the advance of the shadow wall. “Let's go.”

The two women started walking, the barrier moving slowly but inexorably down the street behind them.

“What's next?” Gravely asked. “I hate surprises.” And that was the truth, if only half so. Any conversation was better than the silence, the one broken only by the cool breeze and the whispered words that floated upon it, all of which sounded to Gravely like the calling of her name.

Rebecca answered, “The girl.”

Like clockwork, the
ting
ting
of a ringing bell met their ears. The girl rode by on her pink bike with the white streamers, pulled to the middle of the street and looked back. “Hurry up, silly!” she said, “You're gonna miss the festival!”

“The festival?” Gravely asked as the girl peddled away. For the first time, Rebecca noticed she cast no shadow.

“I don't know,” she said. “I didn't quite make it there last time.”

They followed her, passing broken-down storefronts and the collapsed stoops of abandoned apartment buildings.

“Do you recognize this place?” Gravely asked. “Have you ever been here before? Or did they create it themselves?”

“Fiddler's Green, or the image of it,” answered Rebecca. She whispered, as if they might be listening. As if they didn't already know. “The Exclusionary Zone. I spent some time there, when I was finishing my doctorate. They make us all go, so we always know what can happen if we aren't careful. If things go wrong.”

Gravely couldn't help but laugh. “I've gotta say, seems as though we didn't learn our lesson, did we?”

“No, I guess not. Anyway,” Rebecca continued as a half-broken bottle skittered across the ground, “I could never get this place out of my mind. Everything just abandoned. It gave me nightmares for a really long time. They never went away.”

“That explains it then.”

They continued on, up the curving path, Gravely beginning to wonder if the road would ever end. Then she noticed something, a scent carried on the breeze.

“Do you smell that?”

“Yeah,” Rebecca said as they turned the corner and emerged in the great open courtyard in which sat the abandoned fairgrounds. “It's a fire. A big one, it seems.”