“Watch the smell, now,” Ross said to Mickey who was reaching up for support. “We don’t want to get ourselves gassed.”
“I will,” Mickey said. He was climbing up, using one hand to pull his thick, powerful body up along the twisted ladder. He played the beam straight up.
“Cabin is all out of shape,” he said, shaking his head.
Ross followed him up. Mason was last, his flash moving around endlessly over the snapped joints, the wild jigsaw of destruction that had once been a powerful new ship. He kept hissing in disbelief to himself as his beam came across one violent distortion of metal after another.
“Door’s sealed,” Mickey said, standing on a pretzel-twisted catwalk, bracing himself against the inside rocket wall. He grabbed the handle again and tried to pull it open.
“Give me your light,” Ross said. He directed both beams at the door and Mickey tried to drag it open. His face grew red as he struggled. He puffed.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s stuck.”
Mason came up beside them. “Maybe the cabin is still pressurized,” he said softly. He didn’t like the echoing of his own voice.
“Doubt it,” Ross said, trying to think. “More than likely the jamb is twisted.” He gestured with his head again. “Help Carter.”
Mason grabbed one handle and Mickey the other. Then they braced their feet against the wall and pulled with all their strength. The door held fast. They shifted their grip, pulled harder.
“Hey, it slipped!” Mickey said. “I think we got it.”
They resumed footing on the tangled catwalk and pulled the door open. The frame was twisted, the door held in one corner. They could only open it enough to wedge themselves in sideways.
The cabin was dark as Mason edged in first. He played his light beam toward the pilot’s seat. It was empty. He heard Mickey squeeze in as he moved the light to the navigator’s seat.
There was no navigator’s seat. The bulkhead had been stove in there, the viewer, the table and the chair all crushed beneath the bent plates. There was a clicking in Mason’s throat as he thought of himself sitting at a table like that, in a chair like that, before a bulkhead like that.
Ross was in now. The three beams of light searched. They all had to stand, legs spraddled, because the deck slanted.
And the way it slanted made Mason think of something. Of shifting weights, of things sliding down …
Into the corner where he suddenly played his shaking beam.
And felt his heart jolt, felt the skin on him crawling, felt his unblinking eyes staring at the sight. Then felt his boots thud him down the incline as if he were driven.
“Here,” he said, his voice hoarse with shock.
He stood before the bodies. His foot had bumped into one of them as he held himself from going down any further, as he shifted his weight on the incline.
Now he heard Mickey’s footsteps, his voice. A whisper. A bated, horrified whisper.
“Mother of God.”
Nothing from Ross. Nothing from any of them then but stares and shuddering breaths.
Because the twisted bodies on the floor were theirs, all three of them. And all three … dead.
* * *
Mason didn’t know how long they stood there, wordlessly, looking down at the still, crumpled figures on the deck.
How does a man react when he is standing over his own corpse? The question plied unconsciously at his mind. What does a man say? What are his first words to be? A poser, he seemed to sense, a loaded question.
But it was happening. Here he stood – and there he lay dead at his own feet. He felt his hands grow numb and he rocked unsteadily on the tilted deck.
“God!”
Mickey again. He had his flash pointed down at his own face. His mouth twitched as he looked. All three of them had their flash beams directed at their own faces, and the bright ribbons of light connected their dual bodies.
Finally Ross took a shaking breath of the stale cabin air.
“Carter,” he said, “find the auxiliary light switch, see if it works.” His voice was husky and tightly restrained.
“The light switch – the light switch!” Ross snapped.
Mason and the captain stood there, motionless, as Mickey shuffled up the deck. They heard his boots kick metallic debris over the deck surface. Mason closed his eyes, but was unable to take his foot away from where it pressed against the body that was his. He felt bound.
“I don’t understand,” he said to himself.
“Hang on,” Ross said.
Mason couldn’t tell whether it was said to encourage him or the captain himself.
Then they heard the emergency generator begin its initial whining spin. The light flickered, went out. The generator coughed and began humming and the lights flashed on brightly.
They looked down now. Mickey slipped down the slight deck hill and stood beside them. He stared down at his own body. Its head was crushed in. Mickey drew back, his mouth a box of unbelieving terror.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “I don’t get it. What is this?”
“Carter,” Ross said.
“That’s me!” Mickey said. “God, it’s me!”
“Hold on!” Ross ordered.
“The three of us,” Mason said quietly, “and we’re all dead.”
There seemed nothing to be said. It was a speechless nightmare. The tilted cabin all bashed in and tangled. The three corpses all doubled over and tumbled into one corner, arms and legs flopped over each other. All they could do was stare.
Then Ross said, “Go get a tarp. Both of you.”
Mason turned. Quickly. Glad to fill his mind with simple command. Glad to crowd out tense horror with activity. He took long steps up the deck. Mickey backed up, unable to take his unblinking gaze off the heavy-set corpse with the green jumper and the caved-in, bloody head.
Mason dragged a heavy, folded tarp from the storage locker and carried it back into the cabin, legs and arms moving in robotlike sequence. He tried to numb his brain, not think at all until the first shock had dwindled.
Mickey and he opened up the heavy canvas sheet with wooden motions. They tossed it out and the thick, shiny material fluttered down over the bodies. It settled, outlining the heads, the torsos, the one arm that stood up stiffly like a spear, bent over wrist and hand like a grisly pennant.
Mason turned away with a shudder. He stumbled up to the pilot’s seat and slumped down. He stared at his outstretched legs, the heavy boots. He reached out and grabbed his leg and pinched it, feeling almost relief at the flaring pain.
“Come away,” he heard Ross saying to Mickey. “I said, come away!”
He looked down and saw Ross half dragging Mickey up from a crouching position over the bodies. He held Mickey’s arm and led him up the incline.
“We’re dead,” Mickey said hollowly. “That’s us on the deck. We’re dead!”
Ross pushed Mickey up to the cracked port and made him look out.
“There,” he said. “There’s our ship over there. Just as we left it. This ship isn’t ours. And those bodies. They … can’t be ours.”
He finished weakly. To a man of his sturdy opinionation, the words sounded flimsy and extravagant. His throat moved, his lower lip pushed out in defiance of this enigma. Ross didn’t like enigmas. He stood for decision and action. He wanted action now.
“You saw yourself down there,” Mason said to him. “Are you going to say it isn’t you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Ross bristled. “This may seem crazy, but there’s an explanation for it. There’s an explanation for everything.”
His face twitched as he punched his bulky arm.
“This is me,” he claimed. “I’m solid.” He glared at them as if daring opposition. “I’m alive,” he said.
They stared blankly at him.
“I don’t get it,” Mickey said weakly. He shook his head and his lips drew back over his teeth.