“It’s a flight simulation. Werhner, this is a flight simulation.”
“A flight simulation? God, I’ve been so damned sick, I… But Rawley…”
“We’re being set up, Werhner.”
“A program in the hologram,” Collette says breathlessly. “It isn’t possible, they can’t do this….”
“Rawley, if she’s right. But the hulls are gone, the other hulls.”
I release the thruster safety, switch toggles for alternate readings from secondary and tertiary mag and grav systems, stare, my eyes widening, at the readings: zero, null, zero, null; rap meter faces with my knuckles.
A high-pitched laugh pierces the faint machine hum from across the dome.
A man. Collette screams. Cooper. Cooper is in the dome, moving from the amber light of the hatch to program our way, Cooper, blue flight suit disheveled, the bulk of his form backlit by the amber light, his snow-white hair glowing like spectral flames.
The hair on the back of my neck rises at the sight of him. Werhner’s turning slowly, I can see the awe of recognition on his face. Collette stumbles alongside me, a blur of brown and silver, clings; a thumping begins somewhere deep in the ship. The thumping of overloaded reactors and slipped vanes, I’ve heard it only once before.
“Cooper,” I say. “Stand fast.”
Cooper is supporting himself at a low tape rack, his laugh maniacal. “They’re all below,” he says, a whine to his voice. “We’re the only ones up here.”
“They told us you were dead, Cooper,” Werhner says. “They told us you’d committed suicide in Houston.”
Cooper’s high-pitched laugh starts again; he looks mad, insane. “Look at your instruments, Voorst.”
“Coming up again,” Werhner says firmly, wide-eyed at his instruments, his fork suspended above his plate. “I show a pulse on the port side. Fucker’s coming up again.”
My eyes are wide on the monitors before me, grav and mag sensors show a massive, swift front near the center of the inky field starboard, we’re still otherwise blind. Something catches my eye from the periphery of my vision. Red, the blind-sided panel going red across the dome, the red sweeping across the consoles this way, Cooper five meters away clutching a downhatch ladder, the strap of a liftoff rig. “Thrusters,” I call to Werhner, urge Collette to hang on, the panel’s red—my stomach heaves and folds, snaps into a knot. I am blacking out, moving my hand in an impossible slow motion for the thrusters, suspended, the panel entirely red, a jolt, a bone-shaking jolt is beginning to run through the ship…
ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM
EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS A & B SEQUENCE ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS A & B SEQUENCE ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS A & B SEQUENCE DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL
ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM
I’ve blacked out, or close to it—my consciousness swims with fragmented visions, a nightmare of deja vu and the momentary conviction that I am coming awake in my cabin, a woman kneeling at my side, the sweet odor and warm sight of her—I reach out my hand to touch her face, feel the throbbing pain, see the blood running crimson as Collette grasps my wrist and turns my hand palm upward.
There is a gash in the heel of my hand, a deep gash, bleeding steadily; I touch the spot, am startled by its sticky warmth.
At Collette’s knee is the dome’s first-aid kit, scattered contents. She quickly pulls a wide bandage around the heel of my hand, thin, translucent, medicated—the pain sears to the bone, bone numbed.
“Rawley,” she says, her eyes moist, her long hair loose on her shoulders.
The ship is screaming under power. I rise groggily, see blood splattered at the thrusters, turn to the sight of Cooper grinning horribly five meters away, hear him grunt. “Now you know,” I think he says; there is a thumping. The ship’s gone rocky, unstable; Werhner’s curry and rice smear the navigator’s table, he stands at a console intent on a monitor, curry smears the chest of his flight suit. I look to the dome, check for port pontoon—still there—look into a foggy white field of radiating lines on the starboard side, upward, and a void, an inky black void, where the other hulls should be. I feel as if I’m falling, feel in this flash of time as I felt when I blacked out and came to in the Ferrari during the race, falling.
“And we die,” Cooper says hoarsely. I see Collette’s hand rising to her mouth. “And we die, we always die.”
Instinctively I key in the auxiliary thrusters, wondering what, what, an electricity in my body like I’ve never known, look to Collette, her living, breathing body, thinking, Cooper… “Know what? Did they tell you to say that, Cooper? Do you remember?”
“Get into program,” Werhner says to him sharply. “We need—”
“Yaas, we die,” Cooper says. “The loop, the same nowhere and everywhere, we always die—look where we are, Voorst, you can’t believe it. If you’d known you’d have paid, I’ve been paying. The data was wrong, Voorst. We were never well off.”
… here before, I am thinking, overcome by a sense of both pure freedom and crushing oppression at the same time, recalling my own log: holding vane angle in the lull and watching Werhner eat… violently ill, I first thought it was from watching him; then focusing on the panel, I saw lull figures then everything red—instantly, I don’t know if it was a trick of vision, but the red seemed to sweep the panels right to left along with the first strong jolt…
Collette’s horror mirrors my own, her green eyes welling with tears. “No, no,” she says. “It’s all in the program, it’s your imagination. It’s this place, Rawley….”
“I’m flying the ship,” I say, the pain in my hand the throb of my pulse, my body’s blood oozing at the bandage, warm at my palm, the ship under my hands.
“Yes, you’re always flying the ship,” Cooper says, “that’s one of the languages. We die, Voorst….”
“Damn it, coming up,” Werhner says firmly.
“I’ll prove it to you,” Collette says, out of breath. “It’s all in the program. We won’t die, Rawley, no, not us. They’ve put it in the program. We live, Rawley, don’t listen to him. This is just what they wanted….”
ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM
EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS C & D SEQUENCE ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS C & D SEQUENCE ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS C & D SEQUENCE DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL
ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM
EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS C & D SEQUENCE ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS C & D SEQUENCE ALL AUXILIARY SYSTEMS C & D SEQUENCE
ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM
“Where’s the woman? Where is she, Werhner?”
“She’s in the port pontoon, she ran into program.” Cooper laughs hoarsely. “She’s right, Voorst, the loop is your imagination. She’s your imagination.”
The hatch is sealed, the wide, ribbed hatch to program slammed by the blow or by Collette. I shunt up program on the monitor, there’s nothing showing but gray snow on the screen. I bang the key with my fist, the monitor hissing, showing nothing but gray snow.
“Clear the port pontoon,” Werhner shouts. “We have stress markers, another pulse in fifteen. Cooper, get your ass…”
I push past Cooper, stumble across the dome, pull with all my strength at the hatch lock. The hatch will not turn; I hear Werhner saying sharply that it’s sealed and won’t respond. Cooper is laughing low and hoarse behind me. I make for the thrusters, but reaching Cooper, stop short and grab him by the throat, the muscles and sinews of his neck tight but giving in to my clenched hand, the blood through the bandage bright red against his windpipe, I am straining, holding his weight. “What do you know, you bastard? What did you tell that woman?’