Bright Star (3 page)

All I can do is watch as my heart rumbles in my ears.

The creature is only vaguely reminiscent of a spider. The long jointed legs are eight, four for each side of the body, but then the similarity ends. The monster’s body is a kind of pale oval, translucent, in which its internal organs float in a sort of transparent liquid. No head nor eyes. The thing moves cautiously on the walkway on all its legs. Behind it, another similar monster peeps from the hole.

I yell, “Oh, Corp!”

Corp doesn’t listen to me. Rows and rows of green writing overlap the image.

“Danger identified. Seventh Sector isolated. Alien invasion. Warning. Alien invasion.”

Alien invasion.

The words are terrible, even though I don’t understand their meaning. The monsters penetrated Ship from Outside, but Blasius never told me other living creatures populated Outside. Perhaps he didn’t know this. How could he? He was just a poor clone.

I am just a poor clone too.

The image on the wall changes again with dizzying rapidity. Ship’s map, with Seventh Sector red and flashing, reappears. A white, pulsing dot shows the aliens advancing inside. I gasp in horror when the dot divides in two, then in three. The three dots branch out quickly into Ship in three different directions. The first toward Eighth Sector, the second toward the center, and the third toward Sixth Sector, stopping just on the edge.

“Sixth Sector under decompression,” the voice says.

“No, no, no!”

A handful of seconds, and the Sixth Sector’s slice starts flashing.

“Seventh Sector and Sixth Sector under decompression. Danger, danger, danger.”

“You idiot, tell me what the hell I have to do before they pierce all over Ship!”

“Danger, danger, danger. Emergency protocol recommended. Start the emergency protocol now?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Request accepted. Emergency protocol in progress. Please wait.”

My heart thumps so hard that it seems to explode through my ears. The dot moves across Sixth Sector in a diagonal line. I think the monster is walking on one of the suspended walkways. I guess it’ll take at least half an hour getting to Fifth Sector. If it doesn’t stop. But why should it? Ship’s empty. What is their purpose?

The horror makes me gasp. “Kidnap Prince!”

“Please wait, emergency protocol in progress. Cryosleep awakening started.”

“What?
What?”

I turn slowly on my heels.

I watch, in shock, while all the lights on the sarcophagus edge increase in intensity. I jump a step away.

The coffin shines like I’ve never seen. The lid exudes a thin veil of steam.

“What are you doing, Corp?”

“Subject condition: good. Twenty minutes to total awakening.”

It can’t be. Can’t be what I think.

The light from the row inside the lid grows in intensity and becomes white and blinding, while the ice on the external surface dissolves, smoking. I can see Prince, now, and he’s exactly the same as usual. But an awful lot of lights and signs I have never seen start blinking in the panels on the sides of Prince’s head, an area I have always mistaken for a kind of headrest.

“Temperature: four degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Plasma transfer in progress. Eighteen minutes to total awakening.”

“For Outside’s sake. Is that all? Is this the emergency protocol, Corp?”

Corp doesn’t respond.

“Can’t be. I’m dreaming.”

But I know it’s not true. I couldn’t dream things as complicated as those I have just witnessed.

The sarcophagus begins to buzz, and some frost on Prince’s chest and upper lip dissolves. Prince is changing color. His skin is turning from white and veined with blue to pale pink. I check the tubes of his refrigerant.

Two thin ducts slip into Prince’s neck, just below his left ear, carrying the refrigerant inside his system. They are usually frozen and light blue in color, but I realize that now one of them is bright red.

“Damn!”

I turn to check Ship’s map. The closest alien has traveled across half of Sixth Sector. Is it heading here? Do the aliens know where to find Prince?

“Temperature: five degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Plasma transfer in progress. Fifteen minutes to total awakening.”

“At least hurry up!”

If the alien continues to approach, I need to take Prince out of here. But where? And how? The idea of dealing with Prince is so absurd that I can’t understand how I should behave with him. Will he speak, walk as Blasius and me? Will he be able to understand what I say? Will I be able to understand him?

Meanwhile, the tube sticking into his neck has turned to a dark red, almost black, and an exclamation of astonishment escapes my lips, surprising even myself. I approach. A strange, unimaginable, rosy hue spreads on Prince’s complexion. His cheeks redden. His lips become juicy.

“Temperature: twelve degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Blood transfer in progress. Twelve minutes to total awakening.”

I consult the map. The white dot in the Sixth Sector approaches faster than I had guessed. Evidently the alien, with all those legs, can proceed quickly.

“Blood transfer completed. Temperature: twenty-two degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Start resuscitation procedure. First defibrillation.”

Suddenly, a terrible jolt shakes Prince’s inert body. A spasm raises him at least a palm from the padding, and then he falls down, sprawled, hair upon his face.

I shout and put my hands on the cover. “Corp, what are you doing to him? Stop it!”

“Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Temperature: twenty-nine degrees Celsius. Second defibrillation.”

“No!”

Prince’s body quakes again. When I imagined his awakening—and I imagined it many times—he just opened his eyes, the sarcophagus lid lifted, and there he was, smiling at me. Nothing like this. I’m not even sure Corp is really awakening him. It seems Corp’s torturing him.

“Heartbeat: irregular. EEG: minimal activity. Temperature: thirty-three degrees Celsius. Third defibrillation.”

“Stop it!”

But Corp doesn’t listen to me. He never listened. He created me in pain and He’s awakening Prince in pain. He has as little respect for Prince as for me. This angers me deeply.

Prince’s body jolts again.

“Heartbeat: irregular activity. EEG: irregular activity. Temperature: thirty-six degrees Celsius. Fourth defibrillation.”

I can’t do anything but watch, my hands clenched on the sarcophagus edge. Corp shakes and tortures Prince two more times. His body trembles, and at every violent shock his head falls back. I wonder what will happen if the tubes in his neck tear out. I realize Prince’s eyes are open to two white crescents. I can’t stand it anymore, and I look around for something to break the glass. But there’s nothing. Nothing.

“Fifth Sector under decompression.”

I swivel toward the map. The alien has entered our sector.

As in my whole stupid life, I don’t know what to do. “You’ll be damned, Corp. Could you provide me with something to use against them?”

I watch in horror as the dot approaches. I think the alien is moving in the levels above us, and perhaps uses some kind of equipment to sense our living bodies, as it travels directly toward us.

The aliens are here for Prince, I’m his guardian angel, and I don’t have a weapon to defend him with. I clench my fists.

A sound travels toward me. A faint echo inside this tiny, ridiculous metal shell, lost in the depths of Outside, that I always considered my whole world. Since I was born, I never questioned Ship’s safety. Ship seemed endless, indestructible and inalterable. What a stupid idea.

I hear the alien’s steps, several levels higher, approaching and then stopping above us.

I wait, fists so tight I hurt my palms with my fingernails.

A moment of deadly silence. Then Corp’s fake voice makes me jolt.

“Heart rate: 50 bpm. EEG: regular activity. Temperature: thirty-five degrees Celsius. Subject condition: good. Resuscitation completed.”

This catches me by surprise. I thought Prince was dying.

Another sound travels up to me through countless levels of bulkhead: the clink of metal against metal.

And behind my back, muffled by the heavy glass lid, a cough.

Incredulous, I turn to Prince, but the cover is fogged in condensation and I can’t see him.

Something moans behind me. I spin sharply on my heels, heart in my mouth. The little keypad on the wall beside the elevator’s door shines with a threatening green light. The main elevator comes to life with a huff.

I gasp.

The elevator exhales a dusty puff from the slot between the two sliding doors, unlocks with a groan, and begins to climb. The alien has called it from the level above us.

“No, can’t be….”

I wait as the sound of the rising elevator disappears in Ship’s depths.

Nothing happens.

Silence.

Silence again.

Then, slowly, the elevator begins to fall.

“No!”

“Total awakening completed.”

With a puff of steam, the sarcophagus lid unlocks behind my back. My eyes are glued to the elevator. The alien is coming down. The keypad beside the door goes crazy, showing strange green symbols changing wildly.

At my back, the sarcophagus cover rises with a squeaky sound. The cold gas flowing from the open coffin rolls around me in spirals, caressing my neck with chilling fingers. Prince coughs again, but I can’t turn around. I can’t look away from the elevator that slowly slips to our level and stops with a thud and a massive dusty whiffle.

My body acts on its own.

I turn, I bend under the sarcophagus lid, and grab Prince in my arms. He’s extraordinarily light and cold. I spring toward the service elevator. I put Prince in the narrow tube in a vertical position then crush myself against him.

The main elevator door opens rustily.

A glimpse of a tangle of white alien limbs reveals itself to me. I start the service elevator, shooting us down.

P
RINCE
IS
wet, cold. His eyes are open, but his gaze holds something glassy and he doesn’t seem conscious. As the pipe of the service elevator dumps us in the anteroom before the servants’ cubicles and then retreats, his legs fail and his head drops back.

I grab him under his armpit. He’s light, delicate. Too much, and my stomach knots. Is he okay? Did everything work properly? He’s not too scrawny? Weak? Shit, his skin is deadly cold. Did I take him out of the sarcophagus too soon? But the alien was coming—what the hell was I supposed to do?

I take Prince in my arms and listen, still. I’m two or three levels under the sarcophagus cocoon, but I can hear the alien anyway. Ship’s as silent as a tomb, and I sense the vibrations of footsteps as the alien moves inside the empty cocoon. Did it see us sneak out in the service elevator?

Silence, then more steps and bumps. I think the alien is way too big to squeeze itself into the service elevator, but I’m not totally sure, and a veil of sweat forms on my face. I have to take Prince away from here. Far away, where their instruments can’t perceive us.

I exit into the dark corridor and start to run.

Prince’s so thin I can carry him without effort. He’s even small. In the brief moment when he stood inside the service elevator his head barely reached my shoulder. Now his cold cheek rests on my collarbone, and a lot of wet hair covers his face. He’s no longer still, because he’s started to tremble convulsively. This scares me.

I reach the intersection with the main gallery on this level, and I stop, panting. I don’t know how many aliens are on board. I saw three dots on the map, but there may be more by now. Yes, they walk loudly on those spider legs, but the risk of finding one of them in front of me is too big, while the aliens probably have sophisticated instruments to run scans of Ship to sense us.

I have to go as far as possible, hoping to escape the reach of their instruments.

I crawl in another service elevator, and I stand Prince in front of me. His head dangles and his legs fail, all that wet hair stuck to his face. He remains upright only because we are squeezed into the tiny tube with no space to fall.

Where am I going? Lower levels or higher levels?

I consider for a moment hiding in the storerooms. But there are goods, and if the aliens are seeking goods, that’s where they’ll find them. And it seems like a bad idea to stress Prince with heavy gravity.

Okay. I shoot both of us to the higher levels. The farthest is level one, the one Blasius called Main Bridge.

Even though we move at high speed, the journey takes a long time, sending my stomach into my throat, and I’m worried about Prince’s condition. When the elevator vomits us out in a service area, I take him in my arms before he can fall to the floor.

I look around. I haven’t been here for years. We are in a dusty exchange hall, in which ten service elevators arranged in a ring come out. Gravity is lighter than I’m used to, but comfortable, with no danger of going flying in the air at every abrupt movement. This is the highest level I can reach before the Command Bridge. We could hide even in the Command Bridge, but it seems to be a bad idea. Gravity is almost absent there, plus the aliens could visit it searching for Captain.

Blasius said that once upon a time, in the Command Bridge, there was a deity called Captain. Captain sailed Ship through Outside under Corp’s orders. I visited the place, which is a ring platform on top of the reactor pit. I saw nothing, apart from empty consoles and broken pipes hanging from the ceiling and trails of debris sailing adrift in the air, like small constellations made of dust. And spiders. Their cobwebs become fantastic three-dimensional constructions in zero gravity. At the center of the platform, the reactor’s hole is scary. From the dark, huge pit comes a deep vibration that resonates in your bones. Down below are Ship’s nuclear reactors. Captain was able to dominate them.

Maybe we can hide in one of the officers’ quarters. They are full of servants’ cubicles, where there shouldn’t be anything interesting for aliens.