The Freezer Page 29

  “You’ve had the process,” he said. “It didn’t kill you.”

  “It was painful,” she snapped, “but you kept me alive.”

  “What does that mean? You’re nothing but a dissident, weak and deserving of death.”

  “Thoughts of killing you motivated me to endure the treatment! It’s the only thing I want right now!”

  He pushed himself to his feet. “Then let’s end this,” he growled. His voice was deep and throaty.

  They grappled in silence as each tried to gain the upper hand. It was incredible to watch the pure power behind each strike and block, the force behind their fury. Dinova was in her fifties, Lefave in his sixties, but each looked to be in the prime of their lives. Lefave seemed to have the advantage, however, and an opening presented itself for him. He swung hard, a right cross, and connected. Dinova sailed away from the strike and rolled across the ice. But in one fluid movement, she rose to her feet and sprinted away around Module B.

  Lefave roared in rage and followed. He had left us in order to press his attack.

  I gestured to Cray and Sato and motioned for us to leave. I grabbed the pistol and we bolted for the air lock, moving as fast as we could in the gravity. I knelt beside Snow on the way.

  Eyes fixed and dilated.

  Blood running from her ears and nose.

  I had to pull Cray up and drag him away. They had shared Aoki and there had clearly been no love lost between them.

  But they had also worked together for over two years, and it was difficult watching someone die.

  I led them through the air lock, the dome, and then into the long travel tube. We ran, our feet pounding the deck and our panting vapors whispering in our ears.

  “Where are we going?” Sato said.

  “Module A,” I huffed. The pain in my chest was escalating. “Hopefully those two will kill each other. At the very least, one will win and it’ll leave the other for us. But now there’s something else we have to do.”

  * * *

  There was still air pressure in Module A but the groans coming from the structure were a warning of imminent destruction. It dangled over the edge now and would soon plunge into the ever-widening fissure.

  “What are we doing here?” Cray asked, flabbergasted. Around us were the dim red emergency lighting and the flashing yellow warning lights that indicated pressure loss throughout the station.

  “Something we should have done a while ago.” I opened the hatch to the cavern below and lowered myself down the ladder. Within, the man pinned to the structure at the center hung limply, his withered and pale frame looking skeletal beneath taut skin. I stepped toward him and drew the pistol.

  Sato gasped. “What are you—”

  “We have to end this for him. He’s suffered for months like this.”

  “The module is going to collapse any minute.” He pointed at the southern wall of the chamber, where it was now noticeably lighter. The ice was thinning as the fracture continued to grow. “He’ll die when the module falls.”

  I shook my head. I had let this man suffer for over twenty-four hours since discovering him. His mind was clearly gone already, but his body lived on. “We have to do it, Ed. Each minute that passes is agonizing for him. I’m not sure if he understands, but it’s the right thing to do. End it in a second.”

  I lifted the pistol and took careful aim at his chest.

  And then Cray spoke up. “Wait.”

  I turned to him slowly, thinking he was going to try to stop me. But he was holding his hand out.

  Asking for the pistol.

  He was responsible for some of this. Better that he deal with the pain of doing it.

  I handed the weapon over. He stared at it for a long moment, then looked at the man. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for what we did to you.”

  “What the CCF did to you,” Sato said. His tone was harsh.

  Cray pulled the trigger and the blast hit center chest. The man shuddered for a moment as the skin blistered and peeled away, and then the surge of power through the central nervous system shut down his beating heart. He slumped, his chin on his smoking chest, dead.

  His ordeal was finally over.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The ice lab was trembling almost as if a quake were rumbling through the Europan ice. We had to pull ourselves away from the man at the center of that chamber, content at least that his suffering was now over. Hopefully Lefave would pay for what he had done, but in order for that to happen, we needed to survive the station’s imminent destruction. Ice was beginning to crumble into the cave, and the southern wall was weakening by the second. Outside The Freezer, large slices were calving from the fissure and collapsing into the canyon.

  I leapt for the ladder and took the rungs two at a time, Sato and Cray close on my heels. Above, on level one, the bulkheads moaned; tremendous forces had visibly warped and twisted them. They couldn’t take much more of this stress. It was almost as if a mouth with icy slivers for teeth had appeared on the face of Europa and it was opening to enclose and swallow us whole.

  The facility was shaking violently, and the deck was tilting visibly. Already the module protruded over open space, and the edges of the canyon were moving apart...

  I turned to the others and opened my mouth—

  And something hit my back and shoved me to the deck. I slid downward toward the hull that was over the chasm. I scrabbled for purchase, but couldn’t find any. The module lurched suddenly as a wave of vibrations surged through it. I hit the bulkhead and realized the dome was at a thirty-degree angle over the fracture.

  Lefave was next to the ladder, gripping the rail to maintain balance. He had been above, in level two, when we’d ascended from the cavern below. Dinova crossed my mind for just an instant—had he killed her already?—but other things were more important.

  “Go to the clinic!” I yelled at the others. “Marius is there!”

  And then without another thought I pulled the pistol and fired at Lefave. The pulse of energy lashed out at him, but the unstable dome made aiming nearly impossible. I fired three more times, but Lefave seemed to dodge each easily. In fact, he threw his head back and laughed at my frustrated expression.

  The others took the opportunity to pull themselves along lab equipment and consoles toward the travel tube. The hatch slid aside, and with a last look at me, they disappeared.

  I shot three more times at Lefave. The first two came close...

  And then finally the third hit him in the left thigh.

  He stopped suddenly, as if he did not understand what had just happened. His movement became jerky as signals in his nervous system were momentarily disrupted. Short-circuited. His thigh was smoking and the blast had ripped his white vacsuit open. Should we depressurize, he would be in trouble.

  And then it occurred to me.

  Despite the fact that my helmet was not up, I spun savagely to the large viewport I was leaning against—the view outside was now downward at the fissure directly underneath!—and fired. The port melted before the onslaught of the pistol blast and in a surge all the air in the module rushed toward the opening.

  My vacsuit system recognized the sudden decrease in air pressure and a penetrating alarm sounded from the collar-ring speaker and a yellow strobe flashed.

  The opening in the viewport was directly in front of me and despite knowing what was about to happen, I just couldn’t hold on to the weapon.

  It slipped from my grasp and blew out into the chasm.

  Damn! I had now lost two pistols into that fracture!

  Seating the helmet was the priority. I reached back and grabbed it with both hands. Clenching my teeth in effort and agony, I pulled the helmet off my shoulders and it fell around my collar with a thunk. Air hissed in as I rammed the latchi
ng mechanism.

  Lefave was in trouble. He was glaring at me across the dome now, and his lips were moving, but there was just too much noise to hear what he was saying. He had pressed his hand to his wound, but it was to prevent air loss, nothing more. The burn would have kept a normal man from walking for days, but he simply straightened and yelled something else at me. Rage twisted his face; he wanted nothing more than to kill me.

  I tried to straighten but it was impossible. The deck was at such a severe angle—perhaps fifty degrees—that I didn’t think I could get to the travel tube. It was on the opposite side of the module, well above where I was at that moment.

  Lefave’s workspace was nearby, so I lunged at it and just barely grasped the edge of a desk with my fingers. I held to it for dear life. Thankfully it was bolted to the deck, and I managed to pull myself along it. Soon I was on the other side of the desk, literally sitting on what would have been a vertical side.

  The dome shook mightily now, but all sounds from outside had ceased due to the pressure loss and lack of atmosphere. The red and yellow flashing lights were nearly blinding; I had to squint and try to filter out the onslaught of strobing images.

  I looked up at the ladder and was shocked to see that Lefave was gone.

  I was never going to make the travel tube. It was still across half the dome, and the tilt was now too severe. There were only minutes, perhaps seconds, left.

  There was only one way I could go.

  Up.

  The ladder was nearby and I jumped from the desk and reached for the rail. I closed my fingers around it and was startled to see that my legs now dangled underneath me.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered. “Move, Tanner! Move!” I urged myself on, understanding that death was just a moment or two away.

  Hand over hand, I yanked myself up the ladder into level two. Lefave was there—he had done the same thing, recognizing the danger before us. Crazy or not, he did not want to die.

  He was within an arm’s length, but he had turned from me as he watched the long viewport at the south and the growing chasm directly below us.

  While holding the rail with my right hand, I reached out with my left and with a practiced motion unlatched his helmet and yanked it back off his head.

  The air inside a vacsuit puts pressure on the helmet, pushing it up.

  It almost wanted to come off.

  And I just helped it a bit.

  In a flash Lefave jumped from me. He hadn’t expected me to follow him up the ladder, and I had caught him unprepared.

  He stumbled and slid down the deck toward the viewport. It was like being on a sinking ship at sea. There was nowhere to go but down.

  He fell against the curving viewport and stared into the darkness of the chasm for an instant. He closed his eyes and grimaced...

  Dissolved gases boiled from his blood and filled his lungs. The urge to release them could not be denied.

  He was reaching behind him to grab his helmet.

  He seemed to struggle in vain to find it.

  And then his palms slapped either side and in an instant the helmet was back on and sealed properly.

  I could hear him breathing heavily over the suit comm as he slumped to the deck and tried to catch his breath.

  “How do you expect to get off this moon?” I said, clutching the ladder rail to keep from falling toward the director. “You haven’t called for help!”

  A second later his growl came to me. “Why do you think I let Sato work on the array? I knew he was there...I waited for you to make contact before I attacked!”

  I thought back to the events. He was right. He had made his move right after I’d asked for help.

  But the static...

  I didn’t know if my call for a transport had actually gotten through, due to the poorly functioning equipment.

  The dome lurched again, and I realized I had to get out.

  Pulling myself hand over hand, I emerged in level three of the module. The control center. Charred and half-melted consoles. Papers and coffee mugs and framed photos piled against the south bulkhead as the dome continued to tilt into the canyon.

  I swore when I saw the chamber.

  No way out.

  No emergency air lock.

  The ceiling was a massive viewport. Before, it had provided a clear view of Jupiter, but now I could only see the white, rough wall of the fissure.

  I needed to break that viewport.

  I frantically searched the level.

  There! Leaning against the bulkhead, at the lowermost point along with all the debris, was a tool chest that Dyson had used to repair the communit controls before Lefave’s program had disabled the cooling units.

  Dyson’s habit of leaving his tools around the facility was actually helping me out.

  I rummaged through the chest and my hands shot to an electric handsaw without even really thinking about it. Reaching over my head, I triggered the tool and felt it vibrate with power. I pushed it to the transparent material with everything I had. It sliced through easily and I rapidly created a hole above my head three feet in diameter. When my cut met the starting point, it fell out easily and slid down the outside of the dome and into the crevasse.

  I swallowed.

  Reaching up, I grabbed the sharp edge and hauled myself out.

  The dome shifted again and I almost lost my grip. Things were moving quickly now...looking upward I realized that only the travel tubes to Modules C and F were keeping A from falling into the fissure.

  And the structure I was standing on was below the lip of the canyon.

  The outside of the dome had rungs on it for workers to conduct repairs from.

  I grabbed one and a sudden shudder sent my legs flying out from under me and to my horror I found myself dangling out over empty space and I clenched my teeth in despair and my arms had stretched to the breaking point and each lurch of the dome put more pressure on my grip and my legs were swinging wildly now as the dome continued to stutter downward—

  Pulling with everything I had, I managed to haul myself up to the next rung.

  Then the next.

  Finally my feet were under me and on a support.

  Still the dome slid downward; the hull beneath my feet was breaking to pieces now, cracking right under me. I glanced down and saw straight through all three levels, right to the deck of level one.

  I pushed myself along the rungs, frantically hauled myself over them toward the edge of the fissure...

  And as the dome slipped out from under my feet, I took one deep breath and leaped with everything I had.

  * * *

  Scrabbling at the ice, I managed to pull my legs up over the fracture and onto the solid surface. Swearing profusely, I fell to my back as Module A ripped away from the rest of the facility and fell into the crevasse. It tore apart, components and deck plates and equipment and tools spraying everywhere as it plummeted downward.

  It disappeared into the darkness. I had no idea when it would hit bottom.

  The clinic! My heart skipped a beat. Was it still here?

  I looked up and saw it nearby. It was intact, but it was close to the edge of the canyon.

  And then a thought suddenly blazed through my mind. Lefave. He had been in that module as it had slipped over the edge and plunged downward.

  Had he? I hadn’t actually seen him fall...but he definitely hadn’t gone up through the module the way I had. I’d ripped his suit as well.

  However, he was uncommonly strong and might have been able to get across the dome and into the travel tube before tension sheared it.

  I pressed a hand to my chest as I considered the ramifications. We couldn’t relax until we knew for sure if he was dead.

  There was that itch again, inside my chest. It really w
as annoying. An itch I couldn’t scratch...an itch that meant something was working toward my death.

  And it felt warm there. I frowned. I hadn’t been warm in days. What could—

  I surged to my feet and lurched toward the clinic. My footing was unsteady though—I was exhausted and drained from the experience in Module A—and I spent a moment balancing before I could really start moving. The dome was twenty meters away. Around me the landscape was vastly different from the way it had looked when I’d arrived.

  To the west the ice column had collapsed and a mound of ice boulders now marked the point of impact. To the south the three fractures had grown and merged into a massive canyon. Even as I watched, ice peeled from the edges and slid into the opening, shattering and crumbling as it fell. The facility itself was now only four modules. All travel tubes were in pieces; the force of ripping a module from them had split and broken each. To the north the jumpship remains spread over the landing pad and the communications array was in ruins.

  I was stumbling as I moved toward the clinic. I couldn’t quite keep my balance as I marched along...

  What was happening?

  It hadn’t occurred to me. Strange, that I wasn’t thinking about it. I should have gone straight to the clinic after signaling Lawrence for help. Instead I had gone to the secret lab to put the...the experiment out of its misery.

  That man had been on my mind since I’d first discovered him. I remembered thinking how shocking it had been. I, a homicide investigator who had seen some of the worst crime scenes imaginable and the gory results of some of the most horrible violence that one person can inflict upon another.

  And it had floored me.

  What that poor man had endured, at Lefave’s hands.

  If Lefave was truly dead, then it was a good thing.

  Finally I arrived at the emergency air lock. I spun the crank, but was fatigued and my strength had left me. I hauled on the lever until finally it began to turn. Once I was inside, the lock cycled and I staggered into the clinic. Marius, Cray and Sato were within, and their faces showed alarm when they saw me.

  My vision was blurred and I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.