12.
The canister sailed through dark space inside the void hold, with its lid hanging open. It sailed through the air on some trajectory Ridge could not understand anymore than he could figure out the canister's purpose. "You okay?" he said, trying to separate his heavy male bulk from the longer but also heavy bulk of Tomson.
"Yeah," Tomson said. "I think I have a sprained ankle, that's all." His face looked ashen, but his eyes were alert and bright. "This thing wasn't meant to hold a couple of big bucks like us."
"More like a pair of little tiny elves or something," Ridge said. They both laughed. "Oh no," Ridge said, "here we go." The canister was sailing on its merry path, which had a slight curvature implanted by the ship's spin. The ship's inner hull curved inward at the rear half, and right about there the canister sailed through that faintly glowing coppery light and impacted near the base of a rocky looking mass of slag and rust and burned out carboniferous material. The canister hit, rolling, made a sound like that Victorian milk canister being tossed empty out the kitchen's back door, and it then rolled a bit and ended up stuck in a crack between two humps of shattered coal. Ridge and Tomson were bashed around inside, but gravity was light until the moment before impact, and the hit was a glancing one whose spin left them more dizzy than its shock made them stunned. After a moment, as he heaved himself out by pushing against the "Must be some old cargo transport tube," Ridge said. He reached in to help the other man out. "Can you make it?"
"I'm fine," Tomson said as he heaved himself out and lay on his side favoring his sprained leg. "This does hurt a bit. If we see any mudmen, just shoot me because I can't run."
Ridge looked worriedly about. "I'd shoot us both because I don't want to be alone with these freaks." He didn't want to say the other thing out loud, which was that, with Brenna gone, he really had little desire to live.
Tomson seemed to sense his feelings. "Don't give up on that woman yet, Ridge. If the mudmen ate them, then they are at peace. Otherwise if they are alive it's our duty to find them."
"Spoken like a great general," Ridge said.
Tomson grinned. "With all that crap Venable was talking, who knows what sort of stock we sprang from."
"Good stock," Ridge said. "They wouldn't have used weak stock." He helped Tomson up and together they clambered and crawled and inched their way up the wet surface. There was a lot of water in the ship's ecosphere, Ridge thought. The seals separating the ship from space must be really tight. Water hung in the atmosphere like a haze. Water made the rusty, slaggy, crushed-coal and onyx-glowing waves and ripples of the hull surface slick. Puddles like rusty milk lay in low spots. In the humid air, the decaying metal sweated moist rust. The air smelled of it. It was a smell much like wet human blood in an open wound. Like good fresh blood in a lung, it sucked oxygen molecules to itself until it was saturated like a full sponge.
"It's drier up here," Tomson said as Ridge pushed him on ahead, up the slope, toward the fine steel band of that their platform had traveled on. That seemed like a long time ago. By now, their jumpsuits were partially in shreds, though the stiff hoops around the necks were still in place. Those were for attaching helmets, if one had any. Luckily, Ridge thought, they had not needed helmets. The ship was still that much together. Venable might be right. Maybe there was hope, not for Ridge or Tomson but for some far-future thing made of flesh and coded memories. It was almost laughable, Ridge thought as he and Tomson crawled up the slope. The humans who would be born then, who were all that remained of mankind, would be constructs much like the denizens of WorkPod01. How were they any more or less human?
Ridge helped Tomson up the last few feet. They clambered onto the steel ribbon, which was about six feet wide, with railings on both sides. That was a lot better than they'd had coming out of the work area earlier, when they'd had to go one foot at a time.
"Where are we?" Tomson said as he hobbled painfully on one leg.
"I figure halfway between WorkPod01 and the work area. Which way do you want to go?"
Tomson turned and stared at him with a strange, haunted look. After a pause, Tomson said: "The work area. That's a lot easier, man."
"I hear you," Ridge said. "Okay, let's go." He hauled one of Tomson's long, hard arms over his shoulder and helped the other man hobble along. "Goes faster this way. Gets us away from any mudmen who may be chasing us."
"Maybe they all went to the nose," Tomson said. "Maybe we get to have a respite from them for a while."
"We can rest in the tunnels," Ridge said. Then he remembered that the mudmen had forced their way in there too, and Lantz and Jerez had fought them off with tools. "We need a miracle," he added non-sequitur.
"You're telling me," Tomson said bravely.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Ridge said. "We'll have to split up. You rest in the tunnels, and I'll work my way back to WorkPod01 and see if I can break in."
"Good plan," Tomson said with a tone of hollow courage. Ridge had the feeling there was something Tomson wasn't telling him, and it probably wasn't good. "I'll be just fine in the tunnels," Tomson said.
"Sure you will."
Slowly, they made their way to the work area. This was where their world had first started falling apart that morning (if the start of their long day could be called morning, Ridge thought).
One step at a time, they cautiously made their way along the narrow footpath that spanned the last little distance between where they'd caught the moving platform and where they'd left the ledge on which Ridge had first met Caulfield. Coming ashore on the ledge was an oddly dispassionate matter for Ridge. He was surprised he was not more taken by the ghosts of Jerez and the others, of Mughali who had died here, and especially of Brenna. He could still see her holding up that plant with the twisted roots, her face aglow as she related her theory about why the plants in the greenhouse area grew this way.
"No sign of any bodies," Tomson observed as Ridge helped him negotiate the last few hundred feet into the tunnel and then the living area where Caulfield and his WorkPod09 crew had grown old and died one by one.
"I'm not surprised," Ridge said. "The cleaners would have had a nice lunch here." They clambered up the pile of rubble, down into the clearing, and then toward the living quarters and greenhouse area in back. Mughali was gone, as was the mudman in the corridor, and Caulfield's cadaver was long gone.
"All gone to make more mudmen," Tomson surmised. "I'll sit here." He removed his arm from Ridge's shoulder and seated himself on the floor in the narrow little galley. There, he could easily get to the sink and the pantry, which still contained a few bottles of unknown content from the Caulfield era.
"All right," Ridge said. He found a cup that Tomson could use to drink from. He opened a few of the jars sitting around and found they contained nothing but dust. "Are you hungry at all?" he asked Tomson.
The man shook his head. "Not really. A little, but not seriously. Why?"
"Don't you think it's unusual we don't feel hunger or thirst or tiredness?"
"I feel tired."
"We should all feel tired." Ridge did not feel fatigued, which surprised him. He closed the jar and put it back, though its contents were worthless. "Well, I'll get ready now. Check your rifle and make sure you can defend yourself while I'm gone."
"Don't worry about me," Tomson said. He winced a bit as he shifted his leg about. "I'm going to putter with this rifle here a bit, and then I'm going to wander back into the greenhouse and look for a little cabbage or something."
"If you figure out how to cook any, let me know."
"I'll do that," Tomson said.
Ridge explored around the tunnels. He found that at least two of the back channels, by which the mudmen must have come in and surprised Jerez and Lantz, could be closed. The steel gates rolled on wheels and worked fine, once Ridge had figured out the lever mechanism for starting the heavy gates rolling. No mudmen would be coming through the back way, as far as he could see. He returned and found his friend sitting at a chair in the kitchen with the rifle. He led Tomson to the clearing just this side of the rubble area and told him: "If you could sit with your back to the wall, you could probably pick off any mudmen who make their way into the work area."
"I'll do that," Tomson said. "Come back here with me and I'll show you something." It was Ridge's turn to be surprised, and he let Tomson lead him to the greenhouse. They stepped down into the low, narrow stone paths amid the sagging plastic tables. The air smelled of sage and other herbs as they negotiated their way among hanging balls of various flowers and herbs. "Look what I found," Tomson said. He pointed to a table and chairs. The table was round, and the chairs were missing most of their upholstery, but the springs were intact. "Sit."
"Okay," Ridge said, sitting on one of the chairs while Tomson eased into the other. The springs were rusty but still had some life in them. "They maintained this stuff for a long time," Tomson said. "Nobody has sat here for a long time."
"Nice," Ridge said.
"Yeah, but that's not all. Look over there."
Ridge followed Tomson's pointing finger, which made a long oval sweep from left to right and back, pointing at the wall. Tomson said: "There is a window there. It must open at regular intervals and let in the light from somewhere. Maybe from outer space, maybe from some artificial sun, whatever they have that powers all this and keeps the ship alive."
Ridge gaped. "My God. That's what Brenna was trying to tell me. The roots get regular exposure to some form of external light."
Tomson laughed bitterly. "Don't get your hopes up. It's not all a bad dream. The sun isn't really shining on the other side. I'm thinking maybe there is enough starlight to make the plants think there is a full moon, if that. The plants have become so light-sensitive that they shoot out at the slightest sign of more light than this dim glow in here."
"And the dim glow?" Ridge said, sitting back and spreading his arms over the back of the chair. He felt a little tired now also. It was good to rest a bit.
"Bacterial lighting," Tomson guessed. He sat back like Ridge and put his arms over the back of the chair and folded his legs as if he were at some nightclub watching a fine dancer and enjoying himself. "Fluoros. Some combination of weird glowing sources that the engineers and thinkers built. Must have been a little time before they had to run, before the comets devastated the earth. Must have been like when the dinosaurs perished, hundreds of millions of years ago, only our kind got away and old T. Rex didn't."
"You daydream on," Ridge said. "I'm going to look for the gadget that calls the platform back. Must be hidden around here somewhere." He left Tomson to enjoy his view, should the window ever open.
Ridge carried his rifle loosely in one hand as he made his way through the narrow, glowing corridors of the work area. He sidled around stacked boxes, some of which crumbled at his touch. Dust flowed from their unknowable contents and dissolved in midair, making Ridge cough. He poured himself a cup of water in the kitchen and washed down the dust in his throat. He refilled the cup and took it to Tomson, who stood in the greenhouse pruning a few of the plants there. "Sure is a nice garden," Tomson said with a happy glow on his face. "Could use a gardener. Say, maybe I'll just move in here and settle down. Lock myself in like Venable over in his CP and get so I'd be talking to these little green fellas." He flicked his finger lovingly over some lush green leaves.
"Whatever turns your crank," Ridge said. "If you stick around and the shade slides open on that window, you might get the same treat those plants do."
"There can be nothing like the sunlight we enjoyed on Earth," Tomson said. "At least we are lucky enough that we inherited other people's memories of it."
Ridge found a tool shed lower down with lots of valuable equipment in it. The metal tools in particular had not aged significantly. Many objects with moving parts still had their packing grease intact, though it had changed colors and looked a rancid, bacterial white.
Ridge also found the small control room for the work platform. There was a little window overlooking the bleak light in the damaged areas. He had a clear view of that thread of the monorail as it ran parallel to the curving slag-surface of the hull and disappeared beyond the glimmering light globe formed by the ship's stray lighting. The controls were not much-some levers, a wheel, one or two gauges. He figured out how to send the signal that would make the platform roll back from the nose area to the ledge nearby. A green winking light in a steel plate suggested that the transfer was probably taking place.
Ridge stopped in to see Tomson. His friend sat at the table and chairs, pointing excitedly to the oblong in the wall. "It's a kind of steel curtain, and I heard all sorts of whirring and humming. It's going to open any time now and give the plants their little bit of daylight or starlight or whatever it is. Sit down and watch the show."
"I can't," Ridge said. "I have the platform rolling back here. Don't forget, we need to watch for mudmen or they'll come crawling up our backs when they figure out we aren't in the bow area anymore." He waited a little while with Tomson, and when nothing seemed to be happening, he went out to the ledge. On his way out he noticed how tired Tomson looked. Tomson's face was ashen, as if the mixture of pain and exhaustion were racking him.
Ridge walked out to the ledge and watched the platform rolling slowly back from the trolley stop in the bow. As he watched, he noticed an anomaly. For the first time ever, he had a clear view of the underside of the platform. In the dim light, with its high yellowish tones and mid-browns, and then the quick recession all around into black shadow, the underside of the platform was a tangle of girders and shadows. Ridge was able to see that the underside had a secondary platform, probably originally intended for carrying tools, tow motors, and other equipment. As he stared at the slowly and smoothly approaching work platform, he began to realize that the underside was filled with mudmen. Like some collection of worms, they filled the space under the floor. Ridge was sickened to think that he and his now-lost companions must have ridden that way, quite innocently, on their first trip to the ship's bow, without ever knowing that death was riding under their feet. With their dirty-white heads glimmering in the faint light, they hovered in the shadows like the predators they were. All the faces were turned expectantly his way, and that decided his next move.
The platform rolled more slowly as it approached the ledge. Any moment now, the mudmen would come silently pouring from underneath the platform and make their way to the work area in search of Tomson and Ridge. As the platform drew near, Ridge came out from a side service tunnel. He stepped onto a small steel bridge holding a funnel in one hand and towing an ancient red cart behind with his other hand. As the platform rolled by overhead, Ridge lit the nozzle on the welder and ran the mouthpiece from the hydrogen and oxygen tanks together over the flame. The entire platform was engulfed in a blaze of brilliant yellow-white flame. There was one continuous, pulsating globe of blinding light. The mudmen caught fire. Some melted together, holding each other, while others jumped. They did not do any fluting now, but formed their mouths into small trumpet shapes and brayed loudly like elephants. Several brayed all the way down until their body sacs splattered on the slag and rocks far below. In all, by the time Ridge turned off the gas and lowered the funnel, he estimated he had wiped out two dozen of the creatures. He left his new fire-cannon where it sat, shouldered his rifle, and separated the tanks. He pushed the tanks back into the shed where he'd found them, and hooked them up to the master bleeders to refill them. While he waited, he made his way back upstairs to tell Tomson. He was a bit thirsty now, and a little bit weary, and got himself a cup of metallic-tasting but cool water from the kitchen. Holding it in a dirty white plastic mug with child's cartoon figures on the side, he walked back into the greenhouse.
"Tomson! Guess what I did."
No answer.
He walked among the narrow passages, inhaling the fragrance of oats and parsley and just plain earth grass. He sipped his water as he went, and when he was done sipping, he threw the last into the flats of mint and oregano growing near that window where Tomson had been awaiting dawn with his plants. He found that the shade had risen, exposing a window filled with stars. The window was about eight feet across and four feet high. Already, the rolling steel curtain was slowly closing again, to await its next day cycle. The plants of course loved it and would be curling their little white feeler sprouts as frantically as possible for maximum growth. In the chair sat Tomson with his head back and his mouth open. He sat slumped a little bit to the left, resting on the back and arm rests. His right arm lay curled comfortably over the neck rest. His eyes were half-open and glazed. "Tomson! Don't go!" Ridge said and stepped close. He felt Tomson's neck and found no pulse. Already, Tomson's skin was growing cold since no more heat came from the heart of him, from the inside, to burn away the chill. All that had been inside Tomson, the nutrients with which he had been born into his short life-the very sun inside him, his soul-had burned itself out. "Ah geez," Ridge said out loud as he gently pressed his friend's eyelids shut. "You got away. You're past it. Wherever you are, I hope you are looking at New Earth. I hope it's pretty. I'd like to see it too." He sat opposite his friend until the steel shutters had closed and the plants were in their night again. He emptied the dented metal cup of water Tomson had been sipping.
He carried Tomson's body out on the bridge where the scorched platform still hung, some twenty feet above. He laid Tomson out on the slag beside the bridge and turned the funnel on him. He smelled burning cloth, hair, and flesh, and did not look until the smell was mostly of scorched paint and hot steel. When he looked, all that was left was a blackened skeleton that had twisted sideways a bit, corkscrewed while there were still muscles to contract, and its arms had risen to point toward WorkPod01. The skeleton's face, however, had sunken downward in the opposite direction as if signaling WorkPod01 was sadly beyond reach.
"I'll show you it's within reach," Ridge said. "I'll show you it can be done. I'll come back for you when it's all over." With that, he pulled his flame throwing device up on the platform. It took time and effort, and he was out of breath by the time he was done, but then he turned the platform on and while it rolled slowly to its destination, he sat with his rifle in his lap, resting his back against his flame thrower, and dozed a little bit.
While he dozed, he dreamt of walking in San Diego. He was on the sand, walking along the beach. The sea curled in. The breakers came in hard and white, foamy, but their heart was luminescent green like a bottle held to the sun. The sky was blue and wrapped all around. There were no children on the beach, just a woman. Brenna. She wore a white shawl over a yellow bikini that showed off her tall, lithe figure. Her hair was a dark ball with red highlights, like the blood boiling for her in the chambers of his heart. She smiled at him and waved, and the wind blew her hair while he ran toward her. He smelled the fog, the sea, the kelp drying on the sand.
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