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= NEBULA EXPRESS =

a DarkSF novel

by John Argo

Page 10.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Ridge slipped his gun into its holster. He rubbed his eyes with both hands. His sight was returning. He was in an irregular clearing under a high, curving roof that looked like a farm of stalactites. The cavern branched off in two side directions, but the central tunnel was blocked off by a mass of debris in which Ridge recognized a battered work cart, broken lights, torn canvas, glass, bent metal pipes, and shreds of cloth. Looking up, Ridge saw at least two dozen round spotlights in black metal canisters had been mounted in the ceiling all around, and those now winked out in batches. Ridge could hear the breakers cutting out as someone opened them. An elderly man in a ragged jumpsuit stepped out from the central tunnel onto the pile of debris. He looked pale and emaciated, dirty, with wind-blown white hair on a partially bald skull.

"Did the captain send you?"

"Yes. Captain Venable."

"Venable, that louse!" Caulfield wiped the back of a soiled hand across his mouth. "He has betrayed us all, more than once."

Ridge pressed: "What is this work we're supposed to do? We came to make repairs, but I don't remember the ship being this badly damaged."

Caulfield's eyes were wide as he stared into some memories Ridge couldn't imagine. "It must have been a terrible blast," Caulfield whispered in his broken voice, with spittle foaming from the corners of his mouth. "Melted the walls, burned out the catwalks, killed the astronics." His eyes were hollows of nightmarish vision within gaunt features. He looked as though he had gone through a cauldron of horror and come out transformed. He wore the remains of web gear: one canteen, one holster and gun, as dirty and dusty as the man himself. Ridge tried to press him for information, but the old man was in a world of his own. "You're too late," Caulfield said, still staring into the distance and hardly noticing Ridge. "They're all dead. I'm the only one left, and I have very little time. There is no time to sit and talk. We have to go."

For a moment they stood confronting each other, the old man ten feet up at the mouth of his refuge, and Ridge in the middle of the clearing. It looked like a defensive position. Ridge said: "I've got seven techs and engineers back there waiting to find out what we are supposed to do here."

"Do?" The old man laughed. "Do? Hah! Survive, if you are lucky. Get them out of here. Go back where you came from."

Ridge felt more puzzled than ever. "What is going on here? Is it the air in the ship?" He felt a bit faint, and shook his head sharply once or twice, tapping a palm against one temple. "I can't seem to remember."

"You'll figure it out soon enough," the man said, bounding down toward Ridge. "My name is Caulfield. WorkPod09." He held out a bony hand, and Ridge shook it. Caulfield's eyes had a tragic yellowish cast, and his face looked like a mask of irony. There was something he wasn't telling. Ridge could feel it. Why? "Get those people out of here," Caulfield said. "I'm coming with you." He grabbed Ridge roughly around the shoulders, turned him back the way he'd come, and pushed.

Ridge resisted, but with the other man pressing roughly on his back, he let himself be propelled along. "What happened to the rest of your work group? Did you send a man to warn us?" Seeing Caulfield’s opaque expression, he added: “We watched a man get torn to pieces banging on the window of WorkPod01. Any idea who?”

"No time, no time," Caulfield whispered, looking back over his shoulder. "Go go go," he urged. "See that on the ground?" Ridge looked down and saw what had given off the putrid smell: a corpse lay huddled against the wall. It was nearly hidden in the shadows by the track. It had a putty-gray color with a greenish-pink sheen of bacterial decay on its naked, stitched up skin. Ridge glimpsed something misshapen, off-center, a sightless face that was only vaguely human, with hands curled up on either side of sunken cheeks. The fingers on those hands were abnormally short, but it looked as though the creature had long claw-like fingernails. The claws were yellowish, almost birdlike or reptilian. Ridge froze a second, until Caulfield roughly shoved him on. "Don't worry. You'll see more of them."

"What are they?" Ridge said.

"Ridge?" Tomson called out in a worried voice.

"Coming. I've got someone with me." Even as Ridge responded, he felt Caulfield's hand drop away. Turning, he saw that the old man had pitched face-forward and lay gasping on the wood-like rail ties. Ridge called out: "Tomson! Medic!" he knelt down on the tracks, even as he heard scrambling feet coming close.

"Save yourselves," Caulfield gasped. His eyes were staring, and his body lay hunched and helpless. Suddenly he looked small and frail. Ridge saw dried blood on his back, and a dirtied rip in the fabric of Caulfield's jumpsuit. The feet running close were those of Tomson and Mughali, their booted soles pushing heavy, sandy dust aside with each fleeting stride. "What is this?" Tomson said. Mughali skidded to a halt kneeling beside Ridge. Her face looked worried and confused. Tomson looked more implacable as he started to open the first aid kit slung over his chest.

"Help him," Ridge said frantically. "He has information we need."

Tomson shook his head slowly. Mughali looked from Caulfield to Tomson to Ridge and back with wide eyes.

"We need to know what he was talking about," Ridge said. "Mudmen. Danger."

Tomson shook his head slowly. His big dark hands were frozen on the first aid kit, but he showed no sign of opening it. Mughali said: "Look at him, Ridge. The man won't need any help from us."

Ridge looked down at Caulfield. Ridge's eyes strained to take in the sight of Caulfield's face, from whose mouth and nose a thick black stream of gore had splashed. Tomson turned the old man on his back and used one hand to check the man's neck for a pulse. Tomson shook his head. Ridge stared at the body, whose eyes were already sinking inward and whose brown-spattered mouth gaped. Something about that face troubled Ridge, but he couldn't think what it might be, and there was no time to leisurely puzzle things through. Ridge heard Jerez's voice from a distance and looked up. Jerez seemed to be arguing with Brenna. "Some of us want to go back," Jerez said. Brenna replied: "We have to stick together, and Ridge is the one in charge." To which Jerez said: "The hell with Ridge. He doesn't know anything more than you or I do." To which Brenna replied with silence, bless her. Ridge held his head in his hands and shook it slowly. What to do? What to do?

Tomson shook Ridge's shoulder gently. "We can't leave our people scattered all over the place. Want to go back or dig in?"

Ridge looked up with sudden determination. He rose. "We came to do a job. That's what we'll do. Get the others assembled in the cave. I'll go in for a look at Caulfield's little hideout." Without stopping to answer questions or objections, he left Tomson to carry out the order, and strode back into the cave.

Ridge clambered over the rampart Caulfield and his compatriots had erected. He noted the strung lights, which appeared to be lined up to drive back whoever these creatures were. Ridge guessed that the mudmen did not like loud noises either. There had to be a way of reaching the Bridge. Congratulating himself on having made the best of possible bad choices, Ridge descended through a short shaft into what looked like a WorkPod, minus the luxurious living quarters, showers, weight training equipment, and so forth. Where had Caulfield's fellow technicians gone? Had Caulfield gone crazy and killed them all? Was the whole song and dance about mudmen the raving of a sick mind? Ridge remembered the body on the tracks. Could it really be the body of some being cobbled together with chemistry and stray body parts? Or was it part of some insanity of Caulfield's? Horrifying as the latter possibility might be, Ridge hoped it was the case, rather than even scarier and far murkier alternatives. Somehow, he had a bad feeling about the whole matter, and his feeling got worse as the minutes wore on. He found a series of concrete-like tunnels housing some of the electronic nerve centers of the ship. Room after room contained similar huge banks of lights, coils of cable, workstations, and generators. There was a bathroom with a toilet, and a single sink with one cold-water faucet. Ridge cautiously tested the sink and was able to draw a liberal supply of clean, fresh water. Satisfied, he stepped back. That was a major plus. He completed a quick tour of the facility. Noting tools strewn everywhere, he surmised that many work crews were working here around the clock, and had been for a long time, to restore functionality to the ship. How long had it been? The question nagged at him, fueled by the disturbing age and destruction of the ship. In the back he walked into a long, narrow greenhouse, the first of a bank of such greenhouses, easily two or three miles' worth of fruits and greens growing in hydroponics tanks. Somehow, Caulfield's and other work teams had kept strings of special lights working, which kept the plants going.

Did this have any relationship to the excellent functioning of WorkPod01 and its like? Filled more with questions than understanding, Ridge returned to the entrance of the work area. There he found that Tomson had assembled the other six staff members, whose expressions ranged from scared and unhappy to sullen. Tomson said: "We're ready to start work. What do you want us to do?"

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