Beyond the Ice Limit

58

AS GARZA AND his team neared the engine room, he could feel and hear the vibration of the turbines coming through the ventilation duct. The focused beams of their headlamps cast a strong light down the duct to where it ended in a T. Beyond that T, and to the right, was the engine room duct. That was where they had initially encountered the nest of worms.

He felt fairly confident there were more.

He tapped the foot of the guy in front, and used hand signals to indicate they were to move up to the T and then pause. It was impossible to crawl through the ducts without generating a lot of noise and vibration, but Garza hoped that the worms would not be alerted, since plenty of noise and vibration was already traveling through the ductwork of the ship.

The ducts were of sturdy galvanized steel, and well attached, but even so they were not designed to carry the weight of four people, and as they moved the metal groaned in protest, swayed occasionally, even sagged a little. They had spread out to try to distribute the weight, but it still felt at times that the ductwork might just come loose and precipitate them to the floor of whatever room they were in.

As they neared the junction, Garza signaled another halt. He listened, straining to hear any scritching movements of shifting worms or the chalk-on-blackboard squealing sounds they made when excited. But there was nothing: just the humming of the engines and the whisper of moving air.

If there was a mass of them around the corner, there would be no running away. All four of them knew that. On their hands and knees in a confined space, with no possibility of turning around, they would have to stand their ground—stay and fight, like the defenders of Thermopylae.

The point man edged up to the T and, holding his camera out on its stick, eased it past the corner.

The image appeared on Garza’s tablet. It took a moment to wrap his mind around it: the duct was free and clear for perhaps twenty feet, but then it became totally blocked by a large, bubbling mass that looked like thick, gluey porridge, or perhaps a giant glistening fungus. The surface of the mass was covered with what appeared to be giant pustules, but as he watched, a pustule burst and from it dropped a worm, which crawled off. And then another pustule burst; another worm dropped out.

So the worms were breeding, but not at all in the way he’d assumed. It was a single entity, pumping out eggs. Fine—that made it all the more vulnerable.

In silence he passed the tablet around so everyone could see what lay ahead, and then gestured for them to move back a little. When they had done so, he whispered: “That mass is right above the main engine. Probably attracted to the heat.”

Nods.

“We can’t get into the engine room. So we have to attack it from here—inside the duct.”

“How?” asked one of his men.

Moncton, who was behind Garza, whispered, “We Tase it.” He held up his electrical prod. “I can set these to shock on contact, like a Taser. We throw them at the breeding mass.”

“The current from a couple of D batteries isn’t going to kill it,” one of Garza’s men said.

“The circuitry in here produces low current but high voltage,” Moncton said in a low voice. “Nine thousand volts, to be exact. So yes, it might kill it. It will kill it. That life-form conducts electricity better than copper.”

“We’re dead meat crammed into this ductwork. We can’t even turn around!”

“Pass me your zappers,” Garza said. “I’ll do it. I’ll toss two, keep one in reserve. Moncton, you take charge of the fourth zapper. Meanwhile, the three of you get back. And be ready to haul ass.”

There was just enough room at the T-junction for Garza to squeeze past the two forward men. Moncton quickly unscrewed each device, tinkered with it, screwed it back together. “Just turn the flashlight switch on,” he said, handing three of them up to Garza. “Then the current will flow between the prongs as soon as there’s a connection—which there will be, the moment these prongs make contact with that thing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Garza began to crawl forward, past the T-junction and to the right.

His headlamp illuminated the pulsing mass. The worms were very responsive to light, and the bloated mass also reacted. The pulsing suddenly stopped. The worms crawling around it froze, coiled up, and took a protective, striking position.

Garza braced himself, switched on the first zapper, and tossed it as easily as a horseshoe. It was a good throw and its two prongs struck the mass squarely; there was a flash of electricity and the thing contracted violently, with a flabby rush of air, most of its pustules bursting and releasing worms in various stages of development.

There was a moment of stasis. And then worms surrounding the thing came whipping down the duct toward him, keening and scrabbling, their black teeth poking out.

He tossed the second zapper and made another direct hit, with its attendant flash of electricity. At this the thing ruptured open, expelling a foul, jelly-like mass of half-formed worms.

Garza crawled backward as fast as he could go, but the worms coming at him were faster. As they caught up to him he zapped them with a third prod; as he did so, the worms would make a little screech, then contract into grotesque, pretzel-like shapes.

“Get going!” he shouted. “Retreat to the nearest opening!”

A worm reached him, slashed at him; Garza zapped it, then zapped another. One after the other after the other. But his zapper’s recovery time was slowing. The battery would soon be dead.

“Give me the other one!”

Moncton handed Garza the last prod.

“There’s a big vent here!” a voice called from behind.

“Exit!”

The men dropped out of the vent, Garza last, followed by a river of worms.

“Forget the worms!” he shouted. “Run!”

They had come out in the corridor beyond the engine room, and they all immediately took off, ducking beneath a bulkhead door. Garza slammed and dogged it behind them.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, leaning against the door and gasping for breath. He had cuts all over his hands from the slashing worms.

“You think there are more of those breeders?” Moncton asked.

“The way our luck is going, I sure as hell do,” Garza replied, pulling out his radio to call Bettances. “And at the rate those worms are being pumped out, I’ll lay you ten to one we’re all zombies by lunchtime.”