“With what!” Jack answers.
It leaps again.
They scatter.
It lands in the center of the room, quivers and sprouts centipede legs, and skitters lightning quick toward—
A helmet slams over it. Lana holds it firmly with both hands. Inside, the creature prods at the visor. For a long time, no one moves or says a word. They wait. For what, they aren’t sure. For the helmet to explode, maybe, or the thing in the hallway to get the doors open, or Dino to erupt. Something else to go terribly wrong. But there is only the thing under the helmet, the lasting silence, and the understanding that they are trapped.
Chapter 24
Jack and Lana sit with Dino in the side room. They have lain out extra blankets for a bed, and Lana found a med kit in the main chamber, complete with antiseptics, bandages, and enough pain meds to knock him out. The cut is not in an ideal place, Lana says, right through the top of the humerus. He’ll probably want a second surgery if they ever reach a hospital, and there they will take the arm cleanly off. He has lost a good amount of blood, but will survive if they stave off infection. He’d have transformed by now if any of the creature remained in his body. Probably.
“You can’t blame yourself,” she tells Jack.
Jack says nothing. He senses a presence in the doorway, turns to find the leader of the mercs, the guy with the scar. Gregorian. “This man save your lifes,” the merc says. “Very brave.”
Not long ago, this asshole was prepared to sacrifice Dino right alongside Jack and the rest of the crew for an expensive science experiment. Probably a lump sum. Now he wants to stand there and revere a fallen comrade. Jack never should have let them take the paintings in the first place. He should have defended his ship.
“Go to Hell,” he says.
After a short silence, Gregorian says, “I was soldier too once.”
“And I care?”
“This yours ship. No longer you are under occupations. I follow order of a captains.”
“Do you speak fucking English or what?”
“I speak it, yes.”
“Try harder.”
Gregorian thinks a moment. “I am your crews now. The other, his names is Tarziesch. What you say we do, we will. We is, are, uh, under your commands. You tell us, we will.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
“Your crews are, uh, respect for you. This no is true for the man who hire me. He will to kill my men by these thing out there, these hydra. I am do this for money. I rather to be living. I rather to not be dead. I kill him if you are saying so.”
“You’re offering to kill the Dandy?”
“If you are saying so.”
Jack understands that just fine. “I think I can handle it.”
They leave Dino to get some rest and enter the main pod chamber. Justin guards Tarziesch and Dandy and sits on the helmet with the creature beneath. It is like a bug in an overturned jar. What did Gregorian call it a minute ago? Hydra. They need a better container, but there’s nothing worth risking a failed transfer. There are some flimsy storage lockers, but they can’t lift the helmet from the floor without unleashing the thing. The other option is to open the pod and toss it into the hall, except the one out there won’t go five feet from the door. So under the helmet the hydra stays. They’ll sit on it in shifts.
Hunter calls Jack to the monitor. Stetson paces behind her, whispering to himself and leaning over her shoulder to stare and curse.
“Will you cut that out?” Hunter snaps at him. “You’re stressing me out.”
“What is it?” Jack says.
She pulls up surveillance of the second level. Two hydras float like sentinels. They vaguely resemble sea urchins, spiky balls. They throw limbs along the wall to steer. “These came out of the mainframe,” Hunter says. “Except there was only one at first.”
“You saw it multiply?”
“Multiply, split, whatever.”
“You think they’re breeding?”
“I sure as hell hope not.”
Jack leans back. This is not good news. “Belinda, are you listening?”
“I am.”
“What are your thoughts about these things?”
“They are very foreign. It’s difficult to formulate a theory.”
“Does it seem like they’re breeding to you?”
“I don’t know that such a term is appropriate. The combined mass of the creatures to which Hunter is referring equals the mass of the singular creature when it was inside the mainframe.”
“Meaning?”
“I believe the creatures Hunter is referring to are, in fact, a single creature. I do not believe any of them are distinct. I believe there is one creature that is capable of dividing itself. The divisions operate independently, so I cannot speak to their cognitive processes, if they have any. They may be conscious or they may not. And they only grow in size when they devour prey. In fact, the term devour does not seem appropriate to me. Convert seems a more fitting term.”
“Anything we can exploit? Apparent weaknesses?”
“Not that I can tell, Jack. Energy-based weapons cause no physical damage. This does not seem possible, yet my observations are accurate. As I said, it is difficult to make definitive statements, but I have to voice my concern, Jack, that this entity is more resilient than any life form humanity has encountered.”
Jack rubs his eyes. He could use a coffee. “How about the pod. Are we safe in here?”
“Safe is a relative term. Pod integrity is excellent. I see no way the entity can break through. I do not have surveillance cameras inside the pod, however, so I cannot comment on your current state. I understand you have a piece of the entity there with you. That is quite dangerous.”
“Thanks. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Okay, Jack.”
He reaches into his jacket and grips the ivory handle of Dino’s revolver. He decided to borrow it while Dino remains incapacitated. He slides the weapon from the holster and hefts its weight, studies it in his hand. Flecks of blood spot his fingers. He envisions Dino at a bar shooting liquor with his one remaining hand, people buying him sympathy drinks. Crippled for life. And for what? They have no business being in this predicament. Lana doesn’t want him to blame himself. Fine. He can think of someone better.
Dandy stiffens when he sees Jack coming. He squirms back but is already pressed against the wall. Jack grips him by the hair, but the wig tears off. Dandy pats his natural hair back in place, strings of orange. “Hey,” he whimpers. Jack twists the silk of his weird kimono dress in a fist and raises him up. He smacks him in the side of the head with the revolver. “Ach!” Dandy says. Jack slaps his other cheek and holds him against the wall by his throat, presses the barrel into his eye.
“I’m going to kill you,” Jack says.
Dandy’s face goes bright red.
Jack senses rather than sees his crew gathering behind him.
Dandy sneers, “You can’t.”
“I really can, though.”
“Jack,” Lana says, “he might know something.”
“He doesn’t.”
Dandy masks his fear with a grin, grips the gun with both hands, pulls it harder into his own eye. “Do it. You’d be killing your family, too.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Those men who kicked your ass on Earth, they’re still there, watching the clock. When it runs out, they’ll do more than give your wife and kid a beating.”
The curve of the trigger is so comfortable. So squeezable.
“Ex-wife,” Jack says.
“Gee, sorry.”
“What do you think is going to happen, Jim? You think we’ll eject the pod, float a million clicks to the inner limits and hope someone finds us? We’re trapped in a pod with no jump drive. Our mag shield will last another two weeks, tops. Then we’ll fry. This is your fault. You killed yourself.”