Chapter 7

Cory approached two closely-spaced doors, finding the left one slightly ajar. Like all bay doors, it opened outward so a sudden loss of bay pressure would pull it shut rather than blow it open. He tested it cautiously, moving it just a fraction, listening for noise. To his relief, it moved silently. He pulled it back slowly, just far enough to slip through.

The lights inside the module were at quarter strength, giving enough light to define the room's contents, yet casting deep shadows against the grim walls. A smell like kerosene hung thick in the air. As the designated repair bay, it housed half a dozen medium to large transport engines in various stages of repair, and offered the sole place where they could be tested in vacuum. Once the bay was depressurized, technicians could monitor engine performance through the window of the adjoining control room.

Cory advanced slowly and listened. Again he heard a dull metallic ring, but its source was impossible to divine. He slipped behind a large engine-one Tyrell had wanted to attach to the last transport in another of his desperate schemes-and he slid along the wall toward the other end of the bay. A shadow moved in front of him and he stopped cold. Where was Jackknife? Would he return at all? Cory half-regretted coming in alone, but couldn't leave yet without first determining whether he had found their convict. He scanned what little of the room he could see, squinting into dark crevices in search of an intercom, and came up empty.

Once more a fleeting shadow brushed the wall, and Cory decided he would investigate it alone. He could always fall back to the corridor and call reinforcements if needed. Weaponless, he searched around him for something to fill his hand. The exposed engine in front of him offered a wealth of rods, pipes, and sharp edges, but nothing that could be pried loose. A nearby toolkit held promise, so he moved closer and opened it quietly. Empty.

He probed the underside of another engine without luck, and then chanced across the remains of an old antennae array. The central shaft was an aluminum rod about three centimeters in diameter, and he found that it easily unscrewed from the element, yielding a solid staff half a meter long.

Once armed, he returned his attention to the moving shadow. It played on the wall behind him, its source some distance beyond the huge engine he was using for cover. A few meters to his left, a support rod ran floor to ceiling, designed as a handhold for weightless mechanics moving equipment. He could use it to take a quick look over the top of the engine and then retreat quickly, but it lay within a bright shaft of light. The other option was to move a short distance to his right where, although there was no handhold, he would be cloaked in shadows. This he did.

He rose smoothly and silently from behind his cover and saw the light from the control room as it spread across the tops of engines and assorted containers. Through the room's window, Cory spotted an unknown figure. Dressed in dark gray pants and white undershirt, the man was no more than ten meters away, and was occupied with something below the window's lower edge. A quick comparison of simple mass indicated they were evenly matched.

As Cory assessed the man before him, he failed to note that he was still rising slowly. At length he realized he was fully exposed and the top of the engine was almost beyond reach. To be left helplessly drifting in the open was to be worse than a sitting duck.

A quick twist in mid-air sent his feet flying out behind him and crashing into an empty fuel tank strapped to the wall. The sudden noise broadcast his presence effectively. Once he caught a handhold, he looked up to find that the man across the glass had spotted him. Their eyes locked for a moment as each man's initial surprise quickly gave way to calculation. But the situation was clear-neither one could cross to the other room.

Cory noted that the audio system below the window was active. "You're Isaacson," he accused.

The other man paused, visibly processing Cory's words and tone with a slight grimace. He hung motionless in air, just a meter from the cloudy glass window, and finally nodded. "And you?"

"I'm Roger Cory. I want to know what you're doing on my station."

Isaacson cast a furtive glance one way and then the other, as if expecting the answer to lie somewhere within the control room. "Tell me this first: is the last transport still waiting to leave? I keep hearing announcements that it's ready, but never that it's left."

Cory remained true to Ramon's plan. "It's docked in bay D at the end of the corridor. They've just got a few more things to load. Why do you want to know?"

"How long until it leaves?" the man asked, unconsciously tugging at his open collar like a boy noosed with a Sunday tie.

"That's no concern of yours. It's full, and you're the last person they'd make room for. You have to know that. Unless you plan to take on an entire station of men all by yourself, I don't know what you're planning to do about it."

"But you're certain it's still here and he-the preacher-hasn't gotten off the station yet?" the man persisted.

"What is it with you and the preacher?" Cory demanded, sailing up to the glass planting his fists firmly on its cold surface. "What are you up to, and why are you so determined to keep him from leaving? I don't know what your plan was in coming up here, but I can just about guarantee that you signed your own death warrant by what you did on that shuttle. Once my crew catches you, there's not much I can do to hold them back. If you've got an explanation, you'd better give it to me now. They won't give you the chance."

"I've got my reasons."

Cory's eyes narrowed. "And what if I ordered that ship to leave right now and sealed your fate along with the rest of us? What would you do then? Waste the remaining few hours of your life carrying out a vendetta against my crew because of some stupid inmate/worker feud? Does life mean so little to you?"

Isaacson took a breath and glanced away thoughtfully for a moment. He turned back to Cory with just the hint of a wry grin. "Would you believe me if I told you that I'd find a nice quiet place to myself and prepare to meet my maker?"

Cory chuckled at the attempt. "No. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't. It's obvious that you had a plan in what you did-"

"A method in my madness, as it were."

"That's right. So I don't think you'll just fade out of sight now. Besides, you lost that option the second you laid a hand on the preacher."

"Along with a tooth, I'm afraid."

"You'll lose more than that before it's all over. I've got the entire crew scouring this ship, and they all want a piece of you. Whatever you're up to will fail."

He shook his head solemnly. "No, I don't think so, Mister Cory. I have it on good authority that it won't."

"If you're so certain of that, why don't you just tell me why you're here and what you're up to?"

"Not while that ship is still here."

"Again with the ship!" Cory exclaimed. "Do you really think you have a chance in a million of getting on-" He snapped as if slapped by a glove. "Or is it something else you're after? If you knew you never stood a chance of escaping yourself, maybe you wanted to make sure no one else did. Is that it? Did you plan to put a bomb on the transport?"

He smiled broadly. "Yes, I suppose you could say that. A bomb-of a sort."

Cory felt a cold sense of dread slip over him like a dead man's linens. "It was clear from the second I saw you that you were no ordinary con. Most of them are simple street thugs. Ninety-five percent, maybe, but not you. From your mannerisms, I'd guess you to be a practiced con man, but they don't lock people up on Golgotha for that. It takes something a whole lot worse. That makes my next guess some type of schizophrenic or psychopath. Is that it? Boyish charm, disarming smile, and smooth talk to mask a complete lack of conscience?"

"You give me far too much credit, Mr. Cory. I'm just your garden-variety sinner. A man much like you, with my own particular outlook and priorities. Let's just say that they may run counter to convention, and therein lies the rub."

Cory discreetly slid one foot up against a nearby engine housing, preparing to use it as a launch pad. He intensified his gaze into the convict's eyes, ensuring he would not look down and see any movement. "Is that all other people are to you? Is that all a man of the cloth was to you? An obstacle to your priorities?"

"I appreciate your devotion to justice, Mr. Cory, I truly do. But for reasons I can't discuss at the moment, I'm afraid this conversation needs to end."

"I couldn't agree more!" Cory sprang like a rattlesnake, his arms outstretched toward the door he had left ajar. He resisted an irrational urge to kick his feet and paddle his arms like a swimmer, realizing his speed was fixed at the moment he kicked forward; remaining streamlined would save him the fractions of a second he would need. He anticipated every motion needed to get through that door into the corridor, and around to the control room door before Isaacson could lock it.

At eight meters from the door, he twisted his body and narrowly skirted past a support rod. At six meters he took a deep breath in preparation. Then at four meters it happened, and he shuddered at the loud thunderclap behind him.

Red flashing lights engaged as Cory heard the unmistakable howl of air rushing out into space through the vents on the wall behind him. Within two seconds, the door ahead slammed shut against the growing vacuum. Cory swore an oath that was lost within the din of rushing air, and he reached the door a second later. He grasped the hand rails on each side of the doorway and planted both feet on the door, straining against it with all his might, but to no avail. The pressure difference made the task impossible.

He recalled that the module took about five minutes to depressurize, and figured he might remain conscious for half of that. Already he was struggling to keep his ears cleared, and the later effects of a perfect vacuum on the human body were best left to the imagination.

The door wouldn't open, that was certain. Was there another way out? He surveyed the room quickly and confirmed there was not. The internal wall had only one door, while the external wall had two narrow windows, a large hatch, and a row of vents. The wall opposite the control room hosted an array of panels, one of which he knew could save him.

He launched across the room, his destination a large, conspicuous sign posted amid the many control panels. It seemed impossibly far, and reaching it would deeply tax a dwindling supply of precious seconds. Cory knew the key lay in fighting the panic urge, like an airless diver who can't find the surface.

The pain in his left ear intensified as it failed to equalize with the plunging room pressure. He pinched his nose and blew. In desperation he struck the side of his head with the palm of his hand repeatedly and ineffectually. Only a few more seconds to reach the panels. He could almost make out the words on the sign. Unlike a drowning man, he was able to breathe, but his efforts were growing futile. Still he persisted, inhaling deeply, trying to capture every last air molecule before there were no more to be had.

As he sailed onward, something was overcoming him. Lightheadedness? Vertigo? Déjà vu? Some debilitating mental state encroached, and he was at a loss to identify or fight it. Time was flowing at a different rate, though he wasn't sure if it was faster or slower-it was just wrong. Notions of fact and fantasy merged as he fought to keep them separate. Sound was attenuating in the thinning air, and the flashing lights began exerting a hypnotic effect on him.

At last he reached the wall. It was called a wall, wasn't it? And why was he so eager to get to it? The reason eluded him for a moment as he pondered what caused the dull sense of urgency he felt. Then he looked up and saw the bright yellow sign with red block letters and it all gradually came back to him, like a man roused from a doze by a barking dog.

With rediscovered determination, he fought to maintain his focus as he read the sign:

It quickly decayed into a tangle of half-recognized letters and arcane symbols, withdrawing any offer of hope it had once given. Cory also realized that the sign was no longer yellow. The flashing lights were no longer red, either, and all sense of color had vanished as the oxygen-deprived cones in his eyes failed.

He was now vomiting air uncontrollably, and his waist had expanded beyond the limiting influence of his belt. The shooting pain in his sinuses was staggering. He knew the shutdown control was within reach, but couldn't guess where. A dozen levers and a hundred switches stared at him blankly, and there was no more air. As reality began to slip again, he grasped for something-anything-in a desperate, panicked attempt. The scene started collapsing as tunnel vision set in, and he scanned across the controls one small row at a time.

A familiar sight, an intercom panel passed into his narrowing field of vision. He felt an instinctive need to hit the white button under a metal grille, but wasn't sure why. He mashed it clumsily, having no idea what to do with next.

His eyes drifted to a large lever with some inane writing above it. He saw a pair of hands slowly reach up and fumble for it, waver, and then limply slide down the wall. It was unclear not only whose they were, but even what they were.

His failing vision settled on one of them, and he found it had an uncertain number of digits attached. One had a piece of metal wrapped around it. The metal had several shiny flat surfaces. One of them clearly reflected a light that was flashing slower and slower. And then the tunnel collapsed into darkness.