posted
The Captain peered through the tiny window, but there was still no sign of the return craft. For two weeks, this tiny pod had been home to both himself and the scientist. The sealed room had all the glamour and cheer of a pub toilet. When the captain had first recognised this, he had entertaining hinmself by scribing the walls with some appropriate designs. Now, he stared glumly at the results. "Science officer is a" had been scratched into the window some time over the last couple of days, but he wasn't sure exactly when. The increased oxygen rationing had been causing some holes to develop in his memories. That and the madness that grew around anybody spending more than just a few weeks on the surface of the moon.
The science officer was slumped underneath the single bunk, flicking a GSDA issue camera on and off. The whites of his eyes burned with a fierce scarlet, and his cheeks were smeared with blood. A thick red glue was oozing from his tear ducts, bubbling up around his eyelids. He had been infected.
"Anything?", the science officer croaked. "Yes. Space. Rock...". The Captain pressed a button to close the exterior shutters to the window. There is only so much space a man can take.
"Jesus."
"There's hope left", the Captain sighed, inspecting his own face in the reflection from his visor. It was a sight that had grown to haunt him. A second spectre in this prison - his own blank expression, floating inches from his face. "The signal is going out - they must know we're here. Surely your experiments must be worth something to them, even if we're not".
"No, I mean. Now I think I'm shitting blood. Christ."
The scientist held up his waste-pouch, and pointed to the inspection window. A viscous black liquid was clearly visible. The Captain turned away to hide a wince. Another indication of the infection. Chances were, only one of them would be returning to the "I.R.L. Perseus". If the damn return craft ever showed up.
The Captain didn't have clearance to know about the experiments that the scientist had been conducting. Something to do with reactions - bad reactions. Talk on the station had been about genetics, although the rumours often contradicted each other. All the Captain really knew is that somewhere along the line, the scientist had been exposed to something that was squeezing the blood from his body. A few days previously, the scientist had begun complaining about feeling dizzy, and during one of his giddy oxygen dips, he had admitted to becoming partially blind. Since then, the Captain had kept his lunar suit firmly locked about his body. This meant that for two hours a cycle, he had to go and plug into the exterior recharging port. It was nearly time again. Lights were blinking in his HUD, telling him that power was low.
The scientist rolled over and squeezed himself up against the wall, leaving a bloody trail across the yellowed walls of the pod. He wept. Death was sharing the pod with them now. The Captain had seen it stretching over the scientist as he slept, letting cold fingers patter delicately across the emaciated body It sighed within monotonous hum of the pod's life systems. It was all The Captain could do to decrease his own oxygen just enough to keep him as near to sleep as possible. Perhaps living so close to the state of death was the reason for his own sensitivity to it's presence. Right now, on the whole rock, they were the only living things. Like bacteria on a ping pong ball, suspended between two movements of the clock that loomed from the ceiling of the pod. Time only existed on the inside, which is why the Captain was so fearful as he stood on the dry grey dust, waiting for his suit to charge.
"Music....", the scientist groaned.
'Closer' by the Nine Inch Nails floated from a hole in the wall. The captain couldn't really abide classical, but seeing as the scientist was breaking up like a salted slug, it didn't seem right to take away his last pleasures. Gene therapy would surely save him though, if the craft returned. The Captain prayed that it would come soon. For the scientist was his only son.
This had been their first assignment together, and initially the administration had been unsure of the decision. Protocol would be continually breached, they had argued, and authority would be compromised. But the Captain had used his authority, and the two of them had spent two months as part of a ten man crew. The rest of the crew had returned to the station, but the scientist had insisted on another week or so, so they had stayed on in single habitation unit. The Captain had tried to treat it like an extended fishing trip, but as his son's condition deteriorated and the Captain had donned the suit, it had become more like a premature wake.
"I'm going to charge up. Keep the ob-hole open." The Captain pressed a button and opened the shutters a gain. He then tapped a second, and the door to the airlock clanked into life.
The Captain stepped out onto the surface of the moon, gripping the rail that ran around the exterior of the pod. Temperature and pressure system buzzed in his ears. The sounds seemed to go right through him and pulse in the centre of his brain. Two hours to go. He jacked the cord into the side of the pod. Two hours of utter emptiness.
For half an hour, The Captain stood motionless, scanning the impossibly huge void that surrounded them. He thought that he could make out the station, but he wasn't sure. For the most part, it was just stars. Millions of cold pin holes, all of them lifeless. At least, all that the naked eye could see. Death didn't even exist out there, as there had never been life. After half an hour, he turned to check that his son was okay. He brought his hand up to clear the dust from the window, forming a little peep hole in the powder. His son was not okay.
He had crawled from underneath the bunk, and was lying in the middle of the pod. The trail of blood was thick, indicating that it must have taken some time. But, the angles were wrong. His son's arms and legs seemed to be bent into impossible shapes. It looked like he had been rolled into a ball and back out again, leaving behind a mosaic of thick creases. His left arm was bent behind his back, underneath him. But it was bent horizontally, so that he was almost grasping his other elbow. This was not right at all. As the Captain watched, he noticed that blood was running from his son's face. His head was back, and his mouth was a pool of blood. The Captain unplugged his cord, and desperately clambered around the side of the pod. He was breathing hard as he opened the airlock, and his oxygen was rationing itself because he hadn't allowed for the full two hour charge. The door to the airlock opened, and The Captain saw that his son was now up on his feet. But not in a good way.
His son was standing on his tiptoes, with his head still back. Arms outstretched like Christ. The Captain went to grab him, but he found that his hand just passed though him, as if the man in front of him was just a projection. This was oxygen giddiness. The Captain had lost his sense of space, and his vision was slightly blurred. He fell to the floor, tripping over the chess board that had been erected earlier in the week. "Son!".
Blood was now oozing from the scientist's open mouth. It was the same liquid that he had found in his waste pouch only half an hour ago, and it ran in a slick down his naked neck, into his grimy grey t-shirt. His body was shaking fast, trembling so ferociously, that that the pool of blood in his mouth spat upwards, like a furious volcano. Training kicking in, The Captain shrank back against the door of airlock. His son was gone. His death throes were violent, yet not uncommon for a lunar death. There had been many reports of corpses even talking and walking minutes after the heart had either stopped, or exploded from a flimsy ribcage.
The tremors increased, and the scientist lowered his head, fixing his gory stare onto his father's visor. He began shuffling towards the Captain, using inhuman, awkward steps. The mouth opened, and the pool emptied onto the floor.
"FOR FUCKS SAKE! FOR THE LOVE OF-"
The silent scream of The Captain was cut short as his son reached forward and smashed through the visor of the lunar suit. That wasn't supposed to be possible, thought the Captain, as the plastic and glass pierced his eyes.
There wasn't even blackness. The Captain had often imagined that being blind must be something like looking out into empty space, but in fact, there was nothing at all. He just didn't have that sense any more. He could hear and feel that he was being lifted up by his son, being leaned up against the wall of the airlock. He struggled, or at least, he tried to struggle. He couldn't be sure of his body.
A sticky voice in his ear
"fa-ther...fa-ther.."
"fa...ther.."
"....I..I'm going to survive....n-n-n"
"natch...."
The Captain felt himself being pushed though the airlock. Had his eyes have been intact, he would have spotted the return craft as bright dot, far above the grey mountains of the lunar horizon.
[ 13.10.2004, 08:36: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]