“Oh, my goodness. He wasn’t kidding. Slugs, indeed,” Ajaya panted.
Jane found herself saying, “They’re a pest. Like rats on the sailing ships of the 18th century. They’re commonly found on interstellar ships.” She shut her mouth. That hadn’t come 100 percent from her. The information Ei’Brai had put in her head was integrating with native thought and memory.
Ajaya just looked at her with a bewildered expression. Jane felt a light buzz as she turned to scan the room again. She wanted nothing more than to take off now. She had a general sense of where they must be, but running willy-nilly through the aisles wouldn’t be efficient. Ei’Brai had promised to help and she had to concentrate to hear his whispers.
“Jane—” Ajaya began.
Jane shook her head to silence her and closed her eyes.
From this point, 17 units left, 43 direct, will take you to them….
She sprinted, staying mentally disciplined, counting each tank as she passed it. The beeping from the oxygen monitors was getting louder. As she drew close, she pulled the bulky mask down and called out, “Bergen? Alan? Can you hear me?”
“Jane? Jane! We’re over here!” His voice sounded desperate. Finally, she could see him, probably 30 feet or more in the air, cradling Walsh in his arms. “Jane! Sorry, I couldn’t manage the strobe. I dropped the flashlight trying to turn it on. Where are Compton and Gibbs? We’re going to need help to get Walsh down!”
Jane hooked the flashlight to her flight suit, slung the two extra canisters over her shoulder, and started climbing. She pulled down her mask as she heaved her body up the next rung, the canisters and masks clanged together and slipped down her arm. Each canister, made from a lightweight fiberglass material, weighed less than ten pounds, but three of them were awkward to manage. She struggled to keep them from getting entangled with the ladder with each step. “Is he unconscious?”
“Yes! I can’t hold him much longer—the pack is tearing. I’m sorry, Jane. Beautiful Jane.”
“Do you have any air left?”
“Not much. Put yours back on, you nutcase!”
She did as she was told. She was already feeling dizzy. She didn’t know how he could have kept his head so long.
When she reached him, he started babbling about everything he’d been through thus far. She passed him one of the canisters and helped while he laboriously slipped the harness over his shoulders and clipped it around his waist, then together they got the other one affixed to Walsh.
Once he had the mask over his face, Bergen went quiet, and Jane studied the situation. He had a pack slung over Walsh’s shoulders, attached with a carabiner clip to a rung. That was supporting most of Walsh’s weight and Bergen was keeping him in place. One of the shoulder straps was tearing away from the pack, though. She immediately moved to support his weight.
Walsh was passed out, but she could see he was still breathing and when she felt his pulse, it was strong. She relayed that information to Ajaya.
How were they going to get Walsh down? She considered a few different options, but they all sounded dangerous to her.
A thought occurred to her. She closed her eyes to concentrate on a single thought, Please, if you can, turn off the gravity in this room.
Nothing happened. It didn’t work that way, apparently. Either he couldn’t hear her thoughts or he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do that for some reason. She let out a curse as she gave up on the idea.
She opened her eyes to find Alan watching her with narrowed eyes.
She pulled down her mask and pretended she hadn’t just been trying to communicate telepathically with an alien. “Alan? Feeling any better?”
He nodded.
“How do we get him down? I have rope in my pack. Can we make a harness and lower him?”
His eyes lit up and he seemed to consider the possibilities.
Ajaya shined a couple of flashlights on them from below and called out, “Jane? Shall I climb up there too? Do you need another pair of hands?”
“No room. Get on the radio and give Compton and Gibbs directions to this location, ok?” Jane carefully wedged her pack between herself and Walsh. If it took insanely long periods of time to do something in microgravity, it took even longer to accomplish anything whilst clinging to a ladder trying to keep an unconscious person from falling in the dark. She pulled out a bundle of paracord and passed it to Bergen. “Do you have any idea how to make a sling?”
He slipped his mask aside and grinned roguishly. “I can do one better. I’ve done some rock climbing. I’ll improvise a harness and then we’ll use the carabiner as a simple, moveable pulley. That will nearly halve the amount of force we’ll need to use to lower him.”
Jane smiled at his enthusiasm and reached over to push his face mask back in place, because he was already busying himself with the paracord. He methodically looped the cording around Walsh’s shoulders and legs, crisscrossing it around his back and groin.
As she watched him work, helping when she could, she noticed his hand was discolored, captured it in one of her own, and shone the flashlight directly on it. She gasped with dismay. “Alan—what happened to your hand?” It was red and splotchy, swollen, with some blistering in spots.
He pulled his hand from her grasp and kept working. “I’m feeling it now, but at least my hands are cooperating.” He jerked his head toward the storage tank. He must have touched one of the creatures or the slime trails they left behind.
“What have you done to treat it? Anything?”
“I cut open my water pouch and stuck my hand inside for a good five minutes. It’s fine. Ajaya will put some cream on it and I’ll be good as new.”
She knew it wasn’t fine. He had to be in incredible pain.
He connected the carabiner to the newly fashioned harness and cut the paracord with a multitool he fished out of a pocket. He securely knotted one end of the remaining paracord to the ladder, slipped the other end through the carabiner, and made another knot to tether Walsh temporarily.
He pulled his mask down. “I’m guessing Walsh is about 170 or 180. By using a movable pulley, it’ll feel like 90 to 100 pounds, roughly, ok? Between us, that should be a piece of cake. Let’s get a good hold on him and I’ll get him loose.” He put his mask back into place and got to work moving Walsh into position.
Alan got the carabiner loose of the torn pack. Walsh jerked in their arms. Jane cried out involuntarily as she was wrenched against the ladder. Bergen muttered what she guessed were some choice words, smothered by the mask. He wrapped the slack around one arm and slowly untied the tether.
Jane steadied herself by letting Walsh’s weight pull her forward into the rung that crossed her chest and reached out with her right hand to take the rope from Bergen.
His eyebrows drew together. His words were muffled by the mask, but she got the gist.
“Alan—your hand is badly injured. I can do this. You—you just back me up, ok? I can do it.” She tried to sound firmer than she felt. She should be able to do it. She had to do it. With his right hand in such a state, she had to bear the brunt of the weight or he would injure himself further and Walsh might literally slip through their fingers.
He reluctantly nodded assent.
She let go of Walsh’s makeshift harness and got a firm grip on the rope that would lower him by wrapping it around both fists. “Ok. You let him go and take the tail of the rope. Get ready, Ajaya! We’re going to let Walsh down!”
Bergen’s eyes were on her, not Walsh, as he slowly let go. The rope went taut and she grit her teeth. It wasn’t too bad. She was holding him on her own. She felt beads of sweat break out on her scalp and upper lip as she was pressed painfully into the rungs of the ladder.