Inseminoid Page 5

  By the time Mark opened his eyes and regained his wind, Ricky was nowhere to be seen. He’d disappeared into the maze of corridors.

  At that moment the other crew members rushed toward Mark. He wiped the blood from his mouth. “The last I saw him he was heading down there,” he motioned with his hand.

  “We’d better find him before he hurts somebody badly or hurts himself,” Karl said.

  They moved cautiously, opening all doors as they went. There was a noise and each one froze. But it was Barbra. She was coming toward them.

  “Have you seen Ricky?” Karl asked her.

  She said she hadn’t.

  Then there was noise coming from behind them and Ricky was running away from them. He was moving into a part of the complex that had been closed off for the last hundred and fifty years.

  “Where does this lead to?” Sharon asked.

  “No way to know,” Mark said. “But I’m going in after him.”

  “Watch out,” Gary warned him. “It’s dangerous in there.”

  Mark opened the door and moved ahead very slowly. It was dark and he knew Ricky might be waiting for him in any number of places. He negotiated his way through the layers of dust and crumbling plaster and around objects discarded by that earlier expedition.

  The next step he took was almost his last. His foot went right through the floor. He grabbed on to a railing for support and narrowly averted disaster. Mark pulled his leg out of the hole. “That was a close one,” he muttered to himself.

  But the relief faded quickly with the sound of footsteps below him. He looked down a rickety stairwell and was just able to make out the glow from the light on Ricky’s helmet. Mark knew he had to follow, no matter how dangerous it might be. He was sub-commander and he really should have been the commander. He had something to prove—if not to others, then to himself.

  He climbed slowly down the steel ladder and finally reached the bottom. To his consternation he discovered that he was faced with three separate corridors. The deeper he went the less likely he would ever find his way out again.

  As soon as the alarm was sounded Holly watched the action on the internal monitors, but Ricky had gone off the screen when he entered the closed-off area. She took out the original blueprints of the complex and studied the layout of that section. There was one way, she figured, of cutting Ricky off. She had to try it.

  Ricky glanced behind him, not knowing where to go or why, yet driven blindly forward. He ran wildly and somehow found himself in the centre of a disused shaft. A single rail ran the length of the shaft and he began following it, stumbling over it as he went.

  That was what Holly had been counting on. She wanted to keep him trapped in that shaft until he could be controlled. She made her way to its far end and found an open car. She was surprised that the power pack still had juice left in it after all those years. “They don’t make ’em like they used to,” she said to herself and put the car in motion. In the darkened distance she was just able to make out a hazy form and a speck of light. She slowed the vehicle and called out, “Don’t be scared, Ricky. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Just stay where you are and I’ll help you. Don’t try anything foolish.”

  Then he wasn’t there any more. She’d lost sight of him. “Damn it!” she cursed. Either he’d slipped into another corridor leading from the shaft or he was hiding in wait in the shadows. “Come on, Ricky, let me see you.”

  She brought the speed down as low as she could to still keep moving. When the car turned a corner Ricky made his presence all too well known to the commander. He leaped into the car. Holly fought back as hard as she could. She lashed out at Ricky, catching his face with her nails and drawing blood.

  Somehow during their struggle for control, the speed lever was inadvertently pushed forward into high gear. The car quickly picked up speed, moving along its rail much too fast.

  Holly held on tightly with one hand while she tried to beat Ricky back with the other. He wanted to topple her over and out of the car, but she held her position. At the best of times, Holly would never have been a match for Ricky but now his crazed strength was completely overpowering her. Ricky applied more and more pressure to her neck.

  Holly began to choke. Her intake of air was being cut off and she realised she had only one choice. She had to give up the struggle and allow herself to fall backwards to the ground. It was a risk, but less of one than staying with Ricky and futilely trying to fight it out. Holly leaned back and dropped to the ground. She rolled to an abrupt stop against a wall of the shaft, fortunately uninjured.

  Just as soon as he was rid of her, Ricky slammed on the vehicle’s brakes and threw the car into reverse. He picked up speed and smashed his way into the mouth of yet another corridor. The others were sprinting along the track and were gaining on him but he made it through just ahead of them. Ricky opened the outer door and dashed on to the planet’s surface.

  The red light above the inner door flashed on. “Oh fuck!” Holly cursed.

  “He’s left the outer door open,” Mark said.

  But Karl wasn’t concerned. “Best thing that could have happened. He can’t stay out there for long.”

  Gail was halfway to the tomb when the thought hit, “Shit! I’ve forgotten Kate’s film.” She turned around and headed back to the complex.

  Gail approached the airlock unaware of all that’d been going on inside. When she got there, she was surprised to see the outer door wide open. She was sure it had shut behind her. She shrugged and figured it was just a malfunction. She made a mental note to mention it to Holly later. Gail had one foot in the airlock when Ricky pushed by her, knocking her to the ground. Stunned, she looked up to see that Ricky was stripping off his suit and hurling his helmet into the atmosphere.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” she yelled. “You’ll die out there!”

  But, amazingly, the change in atmosphere, the lack of oxygen and the freezing temperature didn’t affect Ricky. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He was free!

  Ricky stopped dead. Then he turned around slowly to face Gail. He had a calm, almost serene expression on his face. It was a look that chilled Gail to the bone. She was still half in and half out of the airlock. Before she could move inside, Ricky activated the control and the door shut on her right leg. She twisted her body to avoid being trapped but wasn’t quick enough in her bulky space gear. She couldn’t move her foot.

  Holly and the rest of the crew had retreated to the control room. There, they saw on the monitor what was happening.

  “It looks like she’s stuck,” Mark said. He checked the control panel and added, “We’re getting a constant open reading from the airlock.”

  Holly opened her communicator. “Can you hear me, Gail?”

  “I’ve really got myself into a fix now, haven’t I?” she replied. “My foot’s caught and I can’t move.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get you out.”

  Mark cut the switch to the communicator so Gail couldn’t hear what he had to say. “There’s no way we can help her. The inner door can’t be opened as long as the outer door is. There’s no way we can over-ride the failsafe. She’s got to do it herself.”

  “You’re right,” Holly conceded. “I’ve got to level with Gail.”

  She turned the communicator on again. “Gail, it appears as if there’s nothing we can do after all. You’ll have to free yourself but you can do it if you don’t lose your cool.”

  Gail managed to stand up. She tried to free her leg but the more she pulled the tighter the door jammed on her. “It’s hurting me,” she cried. “I can’t get it loose.”

  Like a drowning swimmer, the more Gail struggled the more desperate her position became. She fought but it was no use. Then suddenly her free leg buckled and she crashed to the floor. She landed on her hip and cried out in pain—but that was the least of her problems because two wires in her electrical backpack were torn loose in the fall.

  “Oh my God!” she screamed when
she realised what had happened.

  Gail looked up at the camera above her and pleaded, “You’ve got to help me. My thermo unit’s gone! I’m going to freeze. Please, Holly! Somebody! Help me before it’s too late!” Through the pain and the fear, tears of hysteria streamed from her eyes.

  Holly took the communicator microphone and steadied herself. Then as calmly as she was able she said, “We can’t get to you, Gail. We have no way of opening the inner door to the airlock until the outer door is shut. So, it’s up to you to help yourself. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Tell me what to do, but hurry. The temperature’s already dropping. It’s getting cold.”

  Holly quickly cupped her hand over the head of the microphone and whispered to Barbra, “Try to reach Kate on her personal communicator. If she can get to the airlock she just might be able to open the door from the outside.”

  Then Holly turned to Gary, the mission’s technical coordinator. “If she’s going to make it, you’ll have to tell her how to reconnect the thermo unit.”

  Gary nodded his head. His palms were moist and a line of perspiration had formed on his forehead. “Gail, can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was quivering.

  “All right, kid, this is what you’ll have to do if you want to make it out of there alive. We’re not playing games now. This is serious business.” His voice was steady and assertive.

  “Go ahead. I’m ready.”

  “Now, to bypass the thermostat, you’ve got to connect the blue leads. Got that? The blue leads.”

  “I’ll try,” Gail promised. She reached for the wires and pinched her fingers together. But she couldn’t hold on to them. Her gloves were just too thick to handle anything as small as a wire. Still, Gail wasn’t going to give up and she tried again and yet again. Time was running out, though, and she had to face the fact that she’d never be able to make the connection. “I can’t do it!” she cried. She was becoming colder. So much colder.

  “No! I won’t accept that!” Gary shouted. “You’ve got to keep trying until you do it. We’re not going to let you give up so goddam easy!”

  “But I’m going to die.”

  Sandy grabbed the microphone from Gary’s hand. “Gail, I don’t want to lose you. You’re my friend. We’ve suffered together, laughed and cried all through basic training. You’re my sister and I don’t want to lose you. So please try again. If not for yourself then do it for me.”

  Gail was shaking from the cold. She could hardly keep her body still yet she forced herself to acknowledge Sandy’s plea. She would give it one last shot.

  Gail flexed her hand, trying to get her fingers as nimble as possible. Then she reached for the elusive blue wires. Somehow she gripped one of them between her gloved thumb and forefinger. But she was shaking so severely that as she pulled on it she snapped the wire in two.

  The crew viewed that on the monitor and they each understood what it meant—that they were going to watch a friend and colleague die a slow and painful death. They were all so helpless. No one said a word.

  Then Holly remembered. “What about Kate? She’s our only hope. Did you get through to her?”

  Barbra shook her head. “I tried but she didn’t respond. Either her personal communicator isn’t working or she’s turned it off. Whatever the reason, she can’t have any idea what’s going on.”

  “Then it’s the end for Gail,” Holly said softly.

  “No! I won’t let her give up that way. Maybe her laser could cut through the door!” Gary argued.

  “It won’t,” Holly said. “The airlock doors are made to withstand low yield laser beams.”

  “But it’s worth a try,” Karl agreed. “At this point anything is.”

  Gary took over the microphone. “Gail, you’ve still got a chance. You must try to cut through the door with the laser.”

  “The laser?” she repeated, only half-aware.

  “Yes, hurry!”

  In slow motion, Gail removed her laser gun from its holster on her belt. She aimed it at the door, six inches above her trapped foot and let the beam go. It hit the door but didn’t even penetrate it.

  Frostbite had begun to set in. Even the visor shield of her helmet had become coated with particles of ice. Gail glanced at the camera above her, then back to the door. Ricky was staring at her through the small window in the door. Her eyes begged him for mercy. But Ricky wouldn’t respond. He seemed to find sadistic pleasure in her torment.

  She knew he couldn’t hear her words but she mouthed them anyway. “Please don’t let me die.”

  Ricky smiled and watched.

  It was all so far beyond Gail’s ability to comprehend. At last she forced her head upward towards the camera. “There’s no other way,” she explained to her fellow crew members in a failing, quivering voice.

  Then, gripping the laser gun with both hands, she aimed it at her ankle and squeezed the trigger. The suit burned away, then the flesh and finally the bone. Grey smoke rose from the operation. Then bright red blood poured from her leg and froze before hitting the ground. The gruesome tactic had worked. The foot dropped away and the outer door slammed shut. But Gail was dead. She’d frozen to death just after the laser hit the bone.

  Those watching on the monitor were horrified. Barbra grasped her stomach and couldn’t look any longer. She was very nearly sick. Mitch held her tightly against him, as much to find comfort for himself as to provide it for her. Sharon had nearly bitten through her lip and Sandy began to cry.

  Holly hadn’t yet recovered from the ordeal with Gail when she remembered Kate still working alone in the tomb. “We’ve got to get to her before Ricky does,” she said urgently. “He’s probably heading there now!”

  Holly spun around and looked over her crew. She ordered Mark and Gary to suit up and find Kate. If Ricky was going to die in the atmosphere there was no reason to take any more along with him. “Take your lasers,” she said. “You may have to use ’em.”

  Mark knew she was right. But—God! How it had all fallen apart. He was revolted by the thought of turning on a crew mate though he realised he didn’t have a choice any more. Ricky had changed so greatly that he wasn’t the same person. Something had gone very wrong with his mind. Mark and Gary left the control room for the Space Preparation Chamber. Within a quarter-hour they’d be at Kate’s side. They both wondered if that might not be too late.

  Kate was bored stiff. She’d taken her last roll of pictures and waited idly on a boulder in the tomb for Gail to return with more film.

  “I can’t imagine what’s taking her so long,” she muttered to herself. Gail had been gone a good hour. Kate checked her own oxygen supply as a matter of course. Her position wasn’t critical. There was still another forty-five minutes’ supply remaining.

  To pass the time, Kate surveyed the cavern for any camera angle she might have missed. She stood up and stretched her muscles. Her back was to the entrance and although she couldn’t hear a thing because of her helmet, she had the feeling she was being observed.

  She figured it was probably just Gail finally returning. But it wasn’t Gail, it was Ricky.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. She hadn’t at first realised he wasn’t wearing a suit. Then it dawned on her and she became riveted to the ground. She knew something was very wrong. There was no way he could adjust to the atmosphere and the cold without his protective gear.

  They stood across from each other and stared. Kate still found it hard to believe. She reached for her lantern and shone its light on to him. She was in trouble and she knew it. His cold blank expression, his torn clothing and his open sores were all the explanation she needed.

  Ricky opened his mouth to speak. “Where’s Dean. Have you seen Dean?”

  “Holy shit!” Kate said to herself. “He’s lost his mind!” A truer statement had never been spoken. For indeed Ricky no longer had a mind or brain as described in medical textbooks. He moved forward but not towards Kate. He was pulled to the spot wh
ere Dean had been buried by the explosion. Suddenly he fell to his knees and tore his clothes off. He fell face first to the ground and began covering himself with the rocks and gravel that had covered Dean. He writhed around like a naked snake in the grass.

  Kate had never seen anything like it in her life and she hoped she never would again. It was a horrifying sight—a grown man somehow turned into a driven animal.

  Then Ricky stopped. His body was blackened by dirt and dust. His attention turned to Kate. Her fear was growing and she now expected him to turn on her. The wait wasn’t long. Ricky lifted a boulder the size of a football above his head and came at her. Kate moved back as far as she could until she was pressed against the wall of the tomb. She could see he was about to bring the heavy rock down on her and she reached to her belt for her grappling pistol. It was loaded and primed. One shot would imbed its hook deep in him. “Don’t make me use it. Stay away from me.”

  Ricky kept moving closer to her.

  “Stay away, I’m warning you.”

  But he wasn’t listening. The boulder was about to come down on Kate. She had no choice. She fired. The hook blasted into his forehead and came out the back of his skull. At point-blank range the force had been tremendous. The rock fell behind him. Blood gushed from the wound washing the grime from his body. But inexplicably, Ricky remained standing. He seemed only stunned. “Where’s Dean?” he repeated.

  Then he dropped to one knee. His power was being drained. With all of his fading strength he pulled at the hook. His arm muscles flexed and the hook came out the way it had entered, except it took a solid chunk of his skull with it. The flow of blood increased from the cavity and Ricky dropped into the pool of muck surrounding him.

  Kate couldn’t move. She watched as all the life went out of Ricky. And she was still standing in a state of shock when Gary and Mark stormed in with lasers raised. They stopped short at Ricky’s fallen body. Mark side-stepped it and held Kate tightly. “You okay?” he asked through his communicator.