It’s in my fucking suit. I feel it, the pressure of it—not in my compression layer, but between that and the external skin 3/16” thick protecting me from the vacuum, winding and slithering. How the fuck did it get in there? Oh Jesus. I have to finish with Melrose or it’ll all be for nothing.
I turn the ratcheting socket wrench clockwise, its teeth releasing when I reverse and then gripping again as I force it right-for-tight again.
“Thirty seconds,” Melrose says, his voice a sedative. How the fuck is he so calm? Is it in his suit, too, or only mine?
“Affirmative,” I say before remembering my coms are shot. Right. Only one fully operational suit. I flash a thumbs up and try not to make eye contact. If I look at him, he’ll know something is wrong with me, too.
I count down in my head to keep my focus where it has to be for this to have any shot. I tighten beyond where I probably ought to, but I don’t want to take any chances. Something came in this way, and we can’t risk anything else coming aboard.
When I took this gig, I can admit to you, I knew it was a bad idea. I don’t do well in open spaces. Agoraphobia. But the Whytecliff Group passed me through to operations, and pow. Here I am. A million miles from fucking nowhere, with no chance of an improved position anytime soon. Not that I’d live to see that chance were there one awaiting me back on Generation One. Thirty seconds exposed and I’ll be frozen through, including the inside of my lungs and my goddamned eyeballs. I can’t think about that or I won’t be able to finish fixing this panel.
I give it the fourth bolt one final tug and almost release the wrench, so glad am I to have finally accomplished something on this goddamned mission. I catch it before it tumbles away and allow myself an exhalation of relief. I’m unlikely to get another win, so I’ve got to take what I can get.
It’s not the tether wrapping around my leg. I can see it behind me.
“Sid, you good? Sid?”
I blink. Melrose must have been calling my name for some time, because now that I do look up—there’s no way around it now that we need to communicate to make our way back to Airlock 3—he is clearly worried. I shake my head, remembering all at once the pressure of the thing that was inside the ship that is now inside my suit.
I can’t take this thing off. I can’t let it back in. If I let go, I can do one more good deed before the end.
“Sid?” Melrose knows something is up. His tone speaks clearly.
I shake my head, slowly.
My eyes must tell more than I wanted them to, because he squawks at me in staccato: “Sid. Stay calm.”
What a thing to say!
“You have to remain calm. Remember what happens when it feels fear? You can’t let it win.”
I scream into my helmet. The sound, of course, goes nowhere beyond the glass protecting my face from the cold.
“It isn’t real, Sid. It isn’t real.”
The fuck it isn’t. My muscles in my left lower extremities begin spasming, my leg contorting under me. I release my right hand and reach down. I can almost reach the latch on my boot. Almost.
“Fuck! Stop, Sid.” Melrose grabs his clunky grab and closes the gap between us. “Look at me,” he says.
I look, but it’s nearly impossible not to shove him backwards, to pull off my helmet if that’s what it takes. I have to get this thing out of my suit. My leg tingles with pins and needles. I wince.
“Hold on. Just hold on.” He is yelling into his coms for an instant before he seems to realize at the same time I do that blowing out his audio levels will distort whatever he’s saying. The next thing he says is measured. “The other crew are dead, and you will be too if you don’t calm the fuck down. Remember what we found on those bodies?”
I nod.
“Self-inflicted wounds. That’s all. No creature. No fucking alien. Nothing but what they did to themselves.”
And it’s true. Hammond had given herself a tracheotomy with flexible conduit. Winneford removed his left hand and bled out while screaming about something inside his skin, his cries eventually dying with the slowing pace of his heart. And, Jesus fucking Christ, Weaver launched themselves out of Airlock Four after taping a note to their bunk—“I’m doing this for me” bullshit faux selfishness we all saw through. But Weaver was the first to go. We didn’t know.
I can’t die out here. I can’t live out here, either. I have to get back inside. If Melrose is wrong—if there is something in my suit—I must have ingested something. Something in the air or water, since I haven’t taken in anything else in the last 72 hours. And if he’s wrong, then it’s probably in the water supply, in which case me dying out here serves no one. And if he’s right… well, then I’m fine, and the pressure looping around my upper thigh is in my head. And we can get inside, get this fucking suit off, and dose me with enough benzodiazepines to force me to forget this whole EVA incident. If Melrose is wrong, none of this matters and he’s a dead man anyway. I nod, slowly, showing him I’m composed. I’m ready.
“You lead,” he says, pointing at my chest.
I agree with another head signal and turn to grab the tether and use it to steer me onto the hull ladder. Hand over hand, I try to keep my eyes down, intent on what I’m doing and consciously avoiding, as I always have to do, looking up (there is no “up” in space, dummy) and away from the ship. If I do, I’ll vomit. I know I will. Fuck this job.
Eons later, level with one another again, adjacent to either side of the airlock.
“Open the pod bay doors, HAL,” Melrose says.
I can practically hear him winking and give him a look that tells him that not a chance in this galaxy he’s getting a laugh out of me today. Instead, I reach for the manual lever and yank—as Melrose does the same on his side. The pod bay doors open, no problem. I give another shake of the head as we maneuver inside, swinging our legs around to meet the interior of the airlock.
“Clear,” he says, the chuckle dying in his throat. Maybe he remembered the condition in which we left our ship, blood spattered on mess table and empty of crew.
I yank the closure release, and the doors close behind us. Melrose engages the airlock equalization mechanism on the far side of the room as I continue to squirm. It is in my fucking suit, and I don’t care what Melrose says. What the fuck does he know, anyway?
And then the squirming, writhing thing is gone from my suit as Melrose shrieks. I track his expressions and know immediately that this behavior is no joke. I rush to him—well, rush as best I can in the low-G airlock. I’m halfway there when he chokes out a squeal that terrifies me almost as much as his face says it scares him.
“It’s in my fucking suit,” he screams. “It’s in my—” and he turns from me.
“It’s in your head,” I say, “and you’ve gotta remain cal—” I stop. He can’t hear me. I check the equalization process, and the light snaps to green. I unsnap and jerk my helmet from my head and shout, “It’s in your head, Melrose! There’s nothing in your suit.”
He’s talking again—the words spilling from his mouth—but with my helmet off, I don’t hear anything. We’re cut off, again. I reach for his helmet, and he shakes his head vigorously. I can read his lips this time.
“No,” he says. He repeats it.
I grab at him, but he pulls away and approaches the hatch to the corridor on the internal side of A3. “Melrose!” I call, but he doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. If he goes inside… what? The same thing true a moment ago is true now. If it’s in his head, then we’ll be fine, and there’s nothing going to infect the ship. If it’s a real thing really inside his suit, then the organism from Hammond, Winnefer, and Weaver is also inside him. And me. And then, too, it doesn’t matter whether or not we rejoin our posts on the bridge.
I back off. I breathe deeply, trying to calm myself. Still, there’s nothing in my suit pants. Remembering how it felt, though, I unbuckle and slide off one glove and then the other. I need to get out of here. Back inside, but out of my suit. I’m trapped in it.
My lone teammate must feel the same way, as he’s pulling off his helmet, too. He doesn’t speak. He’s breathing heavily.
I know how it feels.
I pull off my left boot with less grace than usual and drop it beside me. I’m reaching for my right one when I see what Melrose is doing next.
His helmet is gone, tossed somewhere and already out of my line of sight. One glove is off, too, and he’s shuttling again toward the interior door. He isn’t reaching for the dial to spin out the deadbolts. No. His ungloved hand is nearing the airlock release.
“Fuck, Melrose! Don’t!”
He pulls the lever down and the countdown initiates. Six seconds. I flail violently and pinwheel my arms trying to grab hold of one of the conduits running on each of the six sides of the cube that I had seen as my refuge. I grab one and hear the whoosh of air leaving the space. My helmet smacks against the bay doors, and I’m following. I look at what is now up (there’s no up in space, dummy) and watch as Melrose releases his grip from the handhold beside the door and hurtles toward me. We collide and hold one another’s shoulders.
“It’s in my suit, Sid,” he exhales. His eyes are damp, and as we are expelled into the most open space as there ever was, I watch them freeze. My lungs work to gather oxygen from my environment, but there’s nothing to take in. I begin counting backwards from thirty.
03/06/2025
11:10:22 AM