Stocky sat down with Patterson for a short lunch after terminating Sci-Med’s biological reserve. She fried ten eggs, heated up some leftover escarole and beans, gave thanks to God, and they ate fast. They would take whatever food stores they didn’t use with them. Because they would not be coming back.
He enjoyed having another meal alone with her. It wasn’t a date, but it was nice. He let his mind wonder briefly about how it might have been on the outbound if they had never found Pazuzu. He would have had months of working with her like it was before, without the stress that was weighing her down. He remembered her smile and inviting play. She seemed so relaxed and happy then…emotions now mostly gone and weren’t likely to return.
God had been good to him though. For a short while he enjoyed what he was never meant to. He tuned his mind for the task at hand – she needed him to do that. Pazuzu was a living nightmare very different than the fantasy horrors she once enjoyed. His presence came in many forms and he was always nearby. He would come for them again soon.
They quickly cleaned up and he inspected their weapons. The two of them had to be always ready. The other team had disappointed him before when they had imprisoned them. Their minds were breaking under the terror and the stress, and they had never been very competent anyways. He looked at Patterson with a determined nod and she returned the same to him. And then he led her through the airlock toward Propulsion Three.
He walked ahead of her through the narrow central catwalk between the ship’s vast propulsion systems. The low rumbling of the of the ship’s past where they sabotaged Propulsion Three. He kept clear of that area, not wanting to risk Pazuzu learning of it. He reached Green Gate and was greeted with its smell of life. The lighting was somewhat dimmed. The Gate was in the morning cycle…or maybe the evening cycle. He hadn’t been keeping track of time.
“This ship is so empty,” Patterson said while looking around. Her voice carried a hint of wonder, even disbelief.
It did look that way. But it was probably dangerous to assume that it was true. She needed to always keep that in mind. “It’s not as empty as it looks.”
“It couldn’t have appreciably affected this Gate,” Patterson said, looking confidently. “Travel between Gates was restricted ever since I initiated the quarantine. Pazuzu’s infestation has only had free access to the ship after the fight in Habitation.”
He turned toward her and quickly glanced over her body. She had discarded her lab coat and now only wore a thin long-sleeved shirt which allowed him to admire her proportions. He tried to be discreet about it and kept any trace of desire out of his voice. “You sure about that?”
She proudly smiled. “One hundred percent.”
He knew she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. And why not take things a little further since she was happy with his attention. He grabbed her hand and stopped her in the place they watched a movie weeks ago.
She nervously looked all around. “What is it? There’s nothing…”
“Just stay here a minute.” He set their weapons down and pulled her in close. He reasoned that they could spend seven or eight minutes and still be on time for the meeting, and that was plenty of time. Holly’s team might feel better setting up first anyways. They were already afraid of losing control and it wouldn’t benefit anyone to press that sore spot.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking into his eyes. She put her hands on his chest to push him back but waited.
He raised his finger to his lips to silence her. “This is where we spent the night after wakeup.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I just want a moment. I won’t get another chance to remember it like this.” He leaned in and breathed her aroma while playing with her hair. The effects from the urticant were wearing off and he could smell as good as ever. Things became wonderfully dreamy. He looked around at the trees.
This had been a wonderful home for him. Leaving so much of it behind was a sad thing. But he would still be living better than he had during his mining days. He would be okay, but he worried about her.
She gently pushed herself away and she looked straight in his eyes. “We should get married.”
His heart skipped a beat. He was both instantly alert and he doubted his senses, and his throat tightened. He both knew he heard it but still couldn’t believe it. He wanted to say something – even though he had no idea what to say – but couldn’t speak. He grunted to clear his throat but was still at a loss for words.
“I know you’re thinking about it,” she said, taking hold of his hands.
“Yes.” I’ve thought about all kinds of things. He paused while his mind dragged up images of Berthing and talking in her office. “But it might not be love.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see. I don’t know if it matters now. And you’ve got to admit we’ve made a pretty good team. Can you keep a promise for a few days – weeks if we’re fortunate? You’ll have only me until death?”
He froze. He had wanted that. But now it sounded twisted and horrible. A tightness worked his way through all his muscles while his pulse began to surge, and he fought to restrain a simmering anger. He wasn’t prepared to embrace any fatalism.
But he couldn’t refuse her. He came up to her, working his fingers into her hair. “I’ll have only you until death.” But we’ll make it. He reached around her back and kissed her over and over. One, he knew, was obligatory, but why not take advantage of this situation? He lost track of time, all he knew was she smelled and felt so right.
She tilted her head out of his embrace and then whispered in his ear. “That settles it. You can do anything you want with me. But not here. There are needs that must come before wants.”
He kissed the side of her face while breathing her redolence. He could feel his penis swelling uncomfortably within his pants. He needed release, but she was right. They had things they needed to do now. He forced his mind to think about the water systems he would have to drain, and then he needed a way to start a large blaze. “You’re right,” he whispered. “Pick up your stuff and go. I’ll follow you.” He tried his best to appear calm. But he saw in her eyes that she knew something was up.
She took her weapon and began walking to Farm. She glanced back at him after several steps.
“Go! I’ll follow shortly.” I need a different kind of air. But I’ll take you later.
“Okay, James.” She turned and continued walking for the accessway to Farm.
He didn’t want her to die, and he didn’t want to either. He looked at the plants. They would harvest as much as they could. He would talk with Moussa to make an understanding to not work too quickly on the systems. Besides, he needed to save the water too. He was going to survive out here with her somehow. Hardship breeds strength after all.
He started walking toward the accessway to follow his new wife into Farm while thinking about what he saw back in Aux Two and how to hurt it. There was certainly a way to do so. The Pazuzu creature would have broke in and killed them all if it were invulnerable. It therefore wasn’t and it knew it wasn’t. It was waiting for something, and if he could hurt it before it found what it needed then they could still win.
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Holly had her group standing behind the masonry containers housing their snails. They would form a natural barrier between them, and she felt both groups could better trust the other that way. They also had weapons stashed behind them just in case. She was now pretty confident in both of them though. Their actions had proven their commitment to the Nineveh.
The earlier stims she took were beginning to wear off and she strained to keep her eyelids open as Stocky and Patterson approached. They looked far livelier and more energetic than most of her team. The darkening patches (soon to be scabs) on their skin was the only readily apparent proof that they were struggling too.
She knew they needed to make amends. Her group would continue to deteriorate at a faster rate than hers. It was impossible to stay divided like this, and so she would help Patterson. But she also hoped to allow another one of her team to rest while they all worked together with whatever was in mind. “Okay, we’re all here. What do you want to do?”
Patterson set her weapon down and stood about a dozen feet away. “We need to gather stores from Sci-Med, Farm, and Green,” she said. “We’ll still be holding Aux One, the Workshops, Propulsion One and Four, and Command, and so we can keep some separation if you like. But I want to burn everything in these Gates.”
Nieves’ eyes grew wide with shock. “Burn…as in fire,” she said.
“Why?” Moussa asked. He too stared in surprise. And Holly thought there was a little bit of fear in his eyes too.
She looked back at Patterson after watching the responses of her people. “Yes, why? The ship is in rough condition as it is.” Patterson needed to provide an exceptionally convincing reason to justify this extreme sacrifice.
“We’re the only ones left, and we’re getting tired,” Patterson said. “The Nineveh has a Gate architecture and, although it has aided us in containing the threat, Pazuzu will eventually spread further. Everything alive in these two Gates is a vehicle for its spread. Every living thing. We don’t have the resources to properly manage this with the chance for contamination.”
Holly felt all her energy drain away from shock. She had endured hours of a creeping terror that Pazuzu was waiting only because it knew of a way in that they hadn’t thought of. And this was certainly it. Neither of their groups could monitor Green and Farm Gates to verify they were free of infection. And they would all die if they couldn’t keep these Gates free of Pazuzu.
They would all die differently. One of her crew might cut themselves while butchering an infected chicken. And a slow, certain death would overtake them. Oh, but before they died, Pazuzu would corrupt their minds and use them to infect or kill others in the crew. But they would assure everyone that they were fine, and indeed even believe it while their mind crumbled. And they would fight anyone that doubted them.
And she too would die in her own way. Maybe it would be by sprinkling some Pazuzu-parsley on her stew to lift up the dish with that extra bit of color and freshness – and death. And then she would be the compromised individual accusing everyone else of being infected while working to infect them. She would love the creature and welcome it into their abode.
Oh God, how are we supposed to stand against this?
“And an infection here doesn’t just threaten us.,” Patterson said. “Everything in these Gates becomes a laboratory that Pazuzu will use to develop ways to destroy not just us but all Earth origin life. But the fire will raise the temperature to a thousand degrees, and maybe more. The heat can only dissipate slowly by radiation. It will take days or even weeks for the temperature to drop appreciably. But DNA and RNA breaks down into its constituent molecules under those conditions. There will be nothing for Pazuzu.”
Holly looked at her people. They looked back in the same terror she felt. Purging these Gates with fire would sacrifice four Gate effectively – because they would no longer have access to Propulsion Three and Sci-Med. And the loss of food sources could threaten their long-term survival. But the threat Patterson described could kill them all in a couple of days.
She tried to estimate their resources in her head. The ship departed Zeta Reticuli with a 200-day supply of emergency rations. Many of those supply lockers were now lost to Pazuzu (could they recover some?), but they were down to half a crew. Still, they still had most of the storage lockers (every Gate had a small supply though Command and Habitation had the largest share) and they could stretch calories even further though it would be unpleasant.
They should be able to sustain themselves for maybe around 500 days on rations. But they would starve then. She looked around at the greenery of Farm. Somehow, they had to keep and maintain some of this.
Moussa took the initiative to speak now that nobody else was talking. “I just want you to know, we have to get out of these Gates fast when that fire starts. We could kill ourselves if we do this wrong.”
“We could do that even if we do this right.”
“It’s got to be done,” Patterson said.
“I agree. I just don’t want to move hasty on it. We should first identify everything that we might possibly need. And I feel we need to keep some of the plants to supplement our stores and rations. We must try to survive!”
“We can’t leave Pazuzu much to work with,” Patterson said.
“Fine, then what can we afford to keep? We don’t need all of this anymore, anyhow. But we must decide what we keep and how we ensure that we can make it fit to eat. And we do need some of it or we will deplete our rations and then die. And that is not an option as long as there is another way, and I need you to find it.”
Patterson and Stocky looked at one another. And it was clear that neither of them could answer that question with certainty. “We haven’t had enough time to prove anything with experiments,” Patterson said. “But the many cell types comprising the Pazuzu contagion uses water as a solvent just as our cells do. So we should make any food – even contaminated food – safe by subjecting it to a lengthy rolling boil. We don’t eat anything raw or lightly cooked – ever! And we wear cut resistant gloves when preparing food.”
“That’s good.” She looked at all of them. “We’ll take a couple soil packs and all of a select number of species of plants. Plants which provide us with calories – like the root vegetables.”
“We can often eat the greens too,” Patterson said.
“Good, I’ll let you have final say in what we take. If we beat Pazuzu, I want to live. I don’t intend to starve to death.”
“Same here,” Samoylova said.
“If it beats us, it will use everything it finds to invent better ways to destroy humanity,” Patterson said. “We thus need a plan to scrap TURING too, if needed.”
It was good that Patterson was also thinking about that. “We’re definitely not doing that right now. I’ll direct TURING to wipe all files and initiate contingencies we’re preparing if contact is lost with us. We can discuss further actions after we do the job here.”
Even she had thought they had done sufficient planning for this mission. She still had uncertainties, but they were more about herself. But they hadn’t planned on this. “What is this thing?” she asked Patterson.
“At its core,” Patterson said, “it’s an artificial intelligence. It’s weaponized for reasons that we’ll probably never know.”
She sighed. She wished the Captain was with her even though she inwardly knew that this challenge was far beyond him too. He had known that even before he died. She turned around and looked at her crew. None even looked at her anymore. She couldn’t blame them for that.
“We need to save some of the food.” She turned back toward her, trying to look as authoritative as possible. Did she ever view me as an authority though?
“Let’s gather the eggs and butcher the hens,” Samoylova said. “Some fish too. We should prepare as much meat as we can before burning the rest.”
Holly and Patterson looked at one another and nodded in agreement.
“I’ll get our cookware from Hab,” Stocky said. He looked at Patterson. “We need to destroy the plants and stored food there anyways, right?”
“No.” It was too dangerous.
Patterson thought silently for a minute. “We could. The cookware is more important. And, yes, we can decontaminate the cookware. I’ll go with you.”
“Too dangerous,” Stocky said. “You get the equipment from Sci-Med, and I’ll do this alone.”
“I’ll go with you instead,” Samoylova said. “I’m better with the weapons, and I’m probably the best rested right now.”
“Okay, you two go. Moussa, you be thinking about how to align the water systems to get all the water out. Propulsion fuel too, if you can.” She looked back and forth at him and Stocky. “Where are we going to put it?”
“We’ll dump it in the other Gates,” Moussa said with a shrug. “We won’t put any in Command. We can 3dprint containers to store it long term, but that’s a job for later.”
She shook her head. But what else could they do? “Alright, let’s get a sleep rotation going while we work this.”
Samoylova picked up her weapons from behind the containers and nodded at Stocky. “Moussa made something in the Workshops that you might find useful in a knife fight. I promise it will pulverize the head of any creature like the ones we saw before.”
“Bring that back,” Moussa said.
Just come back safely. That alone is a win.
“I’ll run a blood test on everyone before we split up,” Patterson said.
Holly nodded. “Let’s do that now.” She walked over to Moussa while Patterson opened her bag to ready the test kits. “This isn’t going to damage the hull?” she whispered.
“It shouldn’t,” he whispered back. “The primary hull is separated from the habitation volume by an air gap and fiber insulation. The temperature in here will get to a thousand degrees or more. But the hull’s temperature will be half that tops.”
She nodded.
“If it makes you feel better,” he continued, “the ship’s operability lifetime calculations guarantee fifty years even in the event of a major Gate fire.”
They did have at least a possibility for survival and it made her feel better. “Let’s thank God they make these Ugarit ships durable.”
“We really do only have to worry about ourselves,” he said. He took a deep breath. “We have to be flawless, and there is still some chance it goes wrong. You know I don’t want to walk this road…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ll help you if you’re sure it’s right.”
She patted his shoulder and nodded, and she turned to nod at Nieves too. It was right. They couldn’t let Pazuzu win.