The Spheres of Heaven

32: ESCAPE TO NOWHERE

It was possible to sleep in a space suit; the manufacturers even claimed comfort in repose, asserting that the universal flexible joints and air cushions made their suit as relaxing as any bed.

Perhaps they were right — in free fall, where thermal balance was perfect and contact with walls or floor was gentle and infrequent; but for someone on a planetary surface, on a rock-hard floor sloshing in icy water that seemed every few minutes to become a little deeper and colder …

Chrissie switched on the tiny visor display and looked at the time. Half the night was gone, which was good; but also bad, because it meant that dawn still lay half a night away. She activated the shielded spotlight in her helmet and used it to stare enviously at Tarbush. He lay flat on his back, helmet open and snoring softly. Big ugly bruiser. It was tempting to wake him up, just to tell him how lucky he was.

She turned off the light, lay back, and stared into the darkness. Even the glitter of the ceiling had faded to nothing. The creatures beyond the inner wall had ceased their clatter and chatter. That at least was welcome. Except that when morning came they would waken, and the horrors would start all over again. The jungle of Limbo, which only a day ago had been filled with the alarms of a dangerous unknown, now felt like a sanctuary. Given a chance to escape from this building, Chrissie would fly to it in a bare moment. Up, outside, through the open gate of the fence …

Pure wishful thinking. She and Tarbush had poked and pried and hammered for three hours. The walls vibrated and boomed like a giant drum, but they remained impenetrable and they gave not a millimeter. They were sounding now, a low hum that rose and fell in pitch like a mournful siren. It was a rising wind, calling aloud as it swirled around the outside of the building. Back on Earth, in a childhood that seemed like a forgotten dream, she had always loved the sound of the surface wind. It soothed and calmed and sustained her.

Not tonight, though. Now she felt as pent and chained and restless as a trapped wild beast. Now the strengthening wind was finding its way into the building’s narrow air ducts, where it sobbed and wailed and cried as if it were a trapped animal itself.

She heard another noise, a low mmm — mmm — mmm. This one was closer. She concentrated, and at last realized that it was Tarbush muttering to himself in his sleep. Dreaming. Pleasant dreams, probably. He was far too placid in temperament for nightmares. Damn the man. He would sleep through Armageddon. How come they got along so well? The attraction of opposites? People had a phrase for everything.

The muttering stopped. Chrissie heard movement next to her and opened her eyes. Tarbush was awake. His helmet spotlight was on, and he was sitting up. Chrissie said, “What’s wrong?” and sat up herself.

“Listen.” He turned his head from side to side. “Where’s it coming from? It woke me up.”

“It’s the wind outside the building. I think another storm is on the way.”

“Not that. Higher pitched.”

“I don’t hear it.”

“You’re not tuned in the way that I am. Shh.” He held his hand up to silence her. “There. That.”

Chrissie heard all the same noises as before. “What?”

“It’s Scruffy. Whining. Can’t you hear her? But where is she?”

The high-pitched keening? Was that what he meant? “It’s coming from an air duct. I heard it when you were asleep.”

“You should have woken me. Which duct?” He was on his feet, moving to peer into the pipe from which they had cut the coarse covering mesh. “She’s not in here. It must be the other one.”

He went splashing away into the darkness, his progress marked by the bobbing beam of light from his helmet. “Damn.” She heard him grumbling to himself. “Covered with a filter. Have to cut it. Hold on, girl.” A remark not addressed to Chrissie. The beam of light steadied. A few seconds of silence, then, “Come on, sweetheart. Easy goes. You don’t want to be on the floor, you know how you hate getting your feet wet.”

Tarbush sloshed his way back toward Chrissie. She shone her own helmet light, and saw the ferret nestled against his chest. “Didn’t I tell you Deb and Danny would find us?” he said. “I’m sure they sent Scruffy here. She followed my scent as far as she could, then looked for another way to reach me. Isn’t that great?” He sat down, sending a surge of cold water over Chrissie.

She wiped her wet face. “Tarb, my dear, I hate to spoil your fun and your reunion, but we don’t really need Scruffy inside with us. We need ourselves outside with her. If Friday Indigo or the Malacostracans find her they’re more likely to kill her than appreciate her. Tell her to go back the way she came. Then she can lead the others to us.”

“All in good time.” He was fiddling with Scruffy’s collar. “Here we are. I thought there would be one.”

“Would be what?”

“A message from Deb and Danny. Hmm.” He had removed from the collar a broad silver ring a couple of inches across. He inspected it in the light of his helmet lamp. “Doesn’t look like a message. What is it?”

“Let’s have a peek. Maybe the ring opens up.” Chrissie held it close to her nose. “It’s from Deb all right — see the little entwined DB on the side? But I don’t think it can be a message. It’s a — I think—” There was a soft click. “The outside opens up. Not a message, though. A reel of twine? But this is so thin — you can only see it from really close up when the light is right. Oh!”

“What?” Tarbush craned forward.

“It’s a monofilament strand. Deb used one of these once to cut the head off a man who was trying to rape and kill her.”

“I remember. But why send this to us? If she knew we were in trouble, a gun or a batch of explosives would be more useful.”

“She had to send something small. Something that Scruffy could carry. She tried to give us a weapon, and she has. The problem is, we don’t know how to use it the way she would. And there’s hordes of Malacostracans, we could never take on all of them.” Chrissie was twisting the ring, which suddenly split in two. The thread, almost too fine to see, stretched between two matching circlets of silver. Chrissie took one ring carefully in each gloved hand and spread her arms.

“How long a length do you have?” Tarbush held Scruffy firmly, making sure that the ferret could not get near the danger zone between the two silver rings.

“I don’t know. But the thread is ratcheted inside the rings. I can make it longer or shorter, as I want. Hold something out to me — something we don’t need.”

“I’ll have to put Scruffy down. Do we want to keep her here?”

“I told you, we should let her go.”

“Then hold on a minute.” Tarbush stood and walked over to the air duct. “Go on, Scruff. Find Deb Bisson and Danny Casement.” The ferret hesitated, reluctant to enter the dark, narrow passage. “I said, go on. You found us, that was your job. It’s not safe here for you.”

He held the animal forward again toward the duct. She nuzzled his hand, then vanished in a sudden blur of brown fur.

“Hope she’ll be all right,” Tarbush said as he splashed back toward Chrissie. “Listen to that wind! It’s not nice out there.”

“Tarb, it’s not nice in here.” While he had been gone, Chrissie had removed the compass from the sleeve of her suit. The instrument had provided nothing but nonsense readings since their arrival on Limbo, and now she balanced it on the top of her boot and brought the silver rings carefully down, one held in each hand, so that the thread lay across the compass.

“Careful!” Tarbush said. “Don’t ruin your suit, you may need it again.”

“I know that.” Chrissie bent forward. All her attention was concentrated on the filament, thinner than gossamer, that spanned the distance between the rings. She was exerting hardly any pressure, but the thread was sinking effortlessly through the hardened plastic and metal of the compass. When she paused and delicately lifted the rings, the compass fell into two neat halves.

“Now I’ve got the feel of it. The question is, will the monofilament do the same thing to the wall?”