He quickly examined the infirmary in search for scalpels or something similar, something capable of serving as a better weapon than a sharp piece of occipital bone. But alas it seemed that the majority of medical tools had also been destroyed by the vandals who were smashing the ship—or at least they were carried away somewhere. The saw with which the skulls had been cut open obviously did not suit for a fast effective blow. With a sigh he again took his bone tool, though he did not know whether he still believed there were murderers wandering the ship.
If only Eve were not succumbing to madness. Yet, it seems she is not so far from it.
He went out to the ring corridor, then beyond to the lift, and loudly called her several times. The silence of the dead ship was the only answer he received.
It was, however, not completely dead. The engine obviously was still working. And illumination—it was undoubtedly becoming brighter.
He reached the lift, almost running. Eve was not there. So where should he search for her now? All over the ship? “Eve!” he hopelessly shouted—with the same result.
He bypassed the lift shaft and glanced in the opposite corridor, which now shone from end to end. The dead man with ripped up stomach lay in his former place, and, as Adam could judge from such distance, in the same pose. The annulated creature, of course, had crept away long ago. He was curious about where it might have crept to now because it would be undesirable to step on such a thing unexpectedly.
“If I were a woman, flooded with despair and fear, would I run towards a corpse?” Adam asked himself and answered: “No. Then, all the same to the staircase.”
From an exit to staircase he called his companion again and had a depressing thought that if there were still someone else onboard, the two of them were doing everything to facilitate the enemy’s goal. Well, upward or downwards? She had unlikely decided to hide in the control room—though who knows what she can do in such a condition. After waiting a few more seconds, he moved downwards, without having the slightest idea what to do beyond that. Eve could have gone to any of compartments, in any of the premises.
He decided at first to pass all the staircases down to the end, continuing to call her. Then if that didn’t help, he would have to examine each level systematically. At the same time he would also learn what was going in places where he had not yet explored. However, he had no doubt any more that anything good was going on there.
He found Eve almost at the very bottom, near the entrance to the terrible level where the woman-hive hung on wires. Eve lay on steps, twisted in an unnatural pose, with her head down, as a person would never lie down of his own volition. The picture became clear to Adam at first glance: She had run, being beside herself, had stumbled on the steps, and had broken her neck.
Or maybe someone had helped her. Though if so, she had gotten off lightly, considering the condition of the other victims.
Anyhow, Adam was again alone. Face to face with this awful ship, and this thought filled him with such desperate anxiety that he might as well plunge his head downwards on the stairs.
Tramping heavily, he descended to the body, sat down nearby and put a blood-stained hand on Eve’s shoulder, hidden under dirty bandages—and immediately realized that he had jumped to a hasty conclusion. The woman was trembling, but alive. Or was it a shiver of agony?
But no, she, leaning her hands on a step, slowly raised her head and looked at her companion in misfortune with a look of a small animal tortured by children. Blood drooled from her mouth to the bound up chin.
“You are wounded?”
“No,” she said in the voice of indifference.
“And what is this?”
“This?” She mechanically licked a lip. “Looks like I bit my lip.” She grew silent again.
“I have found a map of the ship,” said Adam primarily just to say something. What this map was, he of course did not specify.
“So what?” Eve responded in the same impotent tone.
“Well… now we know where the generator is. It is necessary to go five levels up…”
“So what?” Eve repeated.
“Perhaps there is a duplicating control system there. As we can do nothing from the main control room… There should be an emergency switching-off on-site, for example, specially for carrying out a repair.”
“It won’t help,” Eve shook her head.
“Well, of course, we will fall out in the middle of interstellar space. But, at least, we will stop spending fuel or whatever our generator works on. Also, we will stop heading away from Earth. And then, maybe, we will manage to understand and repair something." The last phrase has sounded quite frankly false, and he understood it as such.
“Nothing will help us,” Eve wearily said. “Has it not dawned on you yet? My God, what a jackass you are.”
“All right then,” he resolutely stood up. “All your moaning irritates me to no end. I’ll go to deal with the generator. And you, if you want, can lie here on the staircase and wait, until the wormbugs crawl from there and make a nest in you.” With that he went up the staircase, without looking back. After a while from a splashing sound behind him he noticed that Eve was following him.
The scheme didn’t fail. The engine compartment turn out to be where expected. But the passage way to the generator was blocked by a tightly closed heavy door painted in diagonal black and yellow stripes. Instead of the usual handle this door had a matte image of a palm, gleaming red. On its smooth surface there were marks from an object hitting it with something sharp, but apparently the material appeared to be perfectly firm.
“A touch panel,” Adam guessed and bit his lip with disappointment. Obviously, access is granted not to just any crewman, but only to an engineer or someone like that. And how do they search for an engineer among all these corpses? And the most important, it would not work. Modern biometric scanners are smart enough not to work from a dead hand.
The only hope was that at least one of them had the admission. Adam still did not remember what his duties were onboard, but the probability wasn’t too great.
He put a hand on the panel, mentally preparing himself that it then would be necessary to ask Eve to do the same, and when it also would not work…
The melodious signal sounded, and he saw even through his hand how the panel was lit green. As soon as he moved his hand away, the door moved aside.
They entered an airlock beyond which was one more door, with the inscription “External Contour Authorized Personnel Only” and some annunciator which, however, didn’t light. And on the right, on a wall between two doors, there indeed was a reserve control panelboard.
Adam’s sight at once struck on the caption “Generator Emergency Turn-off” on the panel with a red button. But this button turned off nothing—it only removed the blocking from a protective casing. Without hesitation Adam pressed it. The casing folded back. Under it there was a big red handle—fully turned downwards.
Something was wrong. Adam could lose his memory, but something deeper than any intelligent memory—the reflex developed by uncountable repetition—told him that on any flying machine, from a glider to a starship, any switch “up” means “on,” “down” means “off.” Never vice versa.
Still without accepting it, he all the same flipped the switch to the top position—nothing changing—then returned it to the bottom one. Well, that’s right: near to the bottom position there were the letters “OFF.” And only then did Adam pay attention to the indicators on the board.
Main contour power : 0
Reserve contour power : 0
Remaining fueclass="underline" 0
System shut down