HYPERION

PART FOUR

Scott leaned back in his chair and rested one arm along the console, tapped the panel absent-mindedly with a finger. He stared hard at Gordon, met the challenge in his brother's eyes. You don't believe me, Gordon's expression said, and Scott's own expression admitted he was having a hard time doing so.

'Tell me,' Scott said, 'one more time, exactly what you saw.'

'Jesus, Scott, how many times do we have to go over this?' Gordon was still wearing his spacesuit, as was Scott, their helmets resting on the floor at their feet. The colour had returned to Gordon's cheeks, the tan of his face contrasting strongly with the pale silver of the suit.

'I agree.' Alan folded his arms and leaned back against the bulkhead. 'I'm gonna need to hear it again. That's one far out – '

Gordon looked up sharply. 'What are you doing? I told you to get us the hell out of here!'

'Get us the hell out to where?' Alan pushed himself away from the wall. 'Where do you want to go? What's got you so scared?'

'Al,' Scott said. 'You're not helping.'

Alan slumped back against the wall.

'Now.' Scott turned to Gordon. 'From the beginning.'

Gordon looked at Scott. Swallowed. Rubbed a hand against his thigh. 'After we separated on the Hyperion, I checked out the rest of the ship.' His eyes darted from Scott to Alan and back again. 'Because, you know, eight years is a long time out …' Gordon's hand halted in its movement, the fingers curling slowly into his palm. 'In what must have been their sleeping quarters,' Gordon's eyes fixed tight on Scott, 'I found Gunnar and Holman. The real Gunnar and Holman.'

'Their bodies, you mean.'

'Yes,' Gordon said. 'Their mummified remains. They probably died not long into the mission and – '

'What did they die from?' The question flew out of Alan's mouth before Gordon had a chance to finish his sentence.

'I don't know.' Gordon shot Alan a withering glare, said sarcastically, 'I didn't take the time to perform an autopsy.'

'Then how do you know the bodies were Gunnar and Holman?' Alan persisted.

'Because, genius, they were still wearing their uniforms. I saw the name tags on the suits. It had to be them.'

'How is that possible?' Scott searched Gordon's face. 'I saw them with my own eyes. Alive. You saw them.'

'It wasn't them!'

Silence fell in the tiny space. Scott leant forward in his chair, rested his head in his hands and exhaled heavily. He was remembering the expression in Holman's dead eyes, the fear he'd felt when those eyes had looked at him. Had looked through him. He raised his head. 'Gordon – '

'Scott, he's really going overboard.' Alan took a step away from the wall, waved a hand exasperated through the air. 'What do you think happened out there, Gordon? A pair of aliens got on board the Hyperion, killed the astronauts, then took it for a joyride to Mars?'

'I don't know what happened. All I know is that those men weren't – ' Gordon stopped. 'What was that?'

'What was what?' Alan asked.

'Shh.' Gordon held a hand up, cocked his head and listened intently. 'That. What was that?'

'I didn't hear anything. You're losing it.'

A faint ping sounded on the outside of Thunderbird Three.

'That,' Gordon said.

Alan shrugged. 'Space junk. A meteorite, probably. It happens. You haven't been in space enough times to – '

'There it is again.'

All three of them paused to listen as the faint sound of movement transferred through the hull.

Gordon rose from his seat. 'There's something out there.'

'Not possible,' Alan said.

'Quiet.' Scott strode to the bulkhead wall and leaned his head towards it, pressed against it with the tips of his fingers.

'I tell you, Scott,' Alan's voice was insistent, 'it's not possible!'

'Shut up!' barked Scott and Gordon in unison.

And then they heard it. The unmistakeable sound of scrabbling on the hull.

Scott's fingers snapped back from the bulkhead as though they had been burned. He backed away from the wall, turned and looked at his younger brothers.

Alan swallowed, eyes wide in his pale face. 'It's just not possible!'

'What the hell is it?' Alan leaned close to the external monitor, watched as what, by all rational measures, looked like a man crawled along the hull of Thunderbird Three. 'That can't be what it looks like.'

'Tell us, Al,' said Gordon, his attention fixed entirely on the monitor. 'What does it look like?'

Alan stared at the screen. It definitely looked like a man, feeling his way along Three's burnt orange skin like a blind man feeling his way through an unfamiliar room. 'What's it doing?'

'Looking for us.'

'Shit, Gordon. Don't say things like that.'

'I think he's right.' Scott leant closer to the monitor. 'Every time we speak, it scratches at the hull. Like it can hear us or – '

As if on cue, the scrabbling echoed loudly through the bulkhead, made them all jump.

'There's no way it can hear us out there,' Alan whispered.

Gordon turned on Alan. 'If you'd got us out of here when I told you to – '

'Keep your voice down,' Alan hissed.

'What for, if it can't hear us?'

'But – '

'But nothing!'

'Quiet!' Scott leaned in for a better look. 'However it's doing it, it knows exactly where we are. We need to get Three out of here, but we need to get that thing off the hull first.'

'Maybe it'll dislodge if we move?' Even as he said it, Alan knew it was a stupid idea.

'Are you serious?' Gordon said. 'Look at it!'

Alan looked at it. Gordon was right. There was no way they could dislodge it in the vacuum of space. If Thunderbird Three took off, the creature would cling to the hull like just another fixture.

'One of us is going to have to go out there.' Gordon retrieved his helmet from where it rested on the floor.

'What are you going to do – wrestle it off the hull?' Alan's voice had taken on a panicked edge. 'Jesus Christ, look at it. It doesn't even have a spacesuit on. We have no idea what that thing is capable of.'

'We need to get it off the hull, and we need to get it off now.' Gordon moved his hand to the weapon at his belt.

Alan looked at Gordon's fingers, curled around the butt of his pistol. 'And you think shooting it will work?'

'What else do you suggest?'

'Fellas.' Scott nodded at the screen, where the creature had vanished from the camera's field of view. 'It might not matter. It's gone.'

'Shit.' Gordon dropped his helmet onto the nearest chair and turned back to the monitor. 'It's not gone. Find it.'

Alan turned back to the console and tracked the camera across the hull. 'I don't see it.'

'It's out there somewhere,' Gordon said grimly, 'looking for a way in.'

It was only a matter of seconds, but it seemed like an eternity as Alan scanned methodically through Thunderbird Three's exterior camera array. 'Got it,' he said as he increased the magnification and zoomed in for a close-up on the dull and lifeless face.

'It's Holman,' Gordon said.

Illuminated faintly by the far-distant sun, Holman's face betrayed no emotion, his eyes focussed intently on what his hands were doing, somewhere outside the camera's field of view.

'What's he doing?' Scott leaned closer to the monitor. 'Pan down. Show me what he's doing.'

Alan obediently panned the camera downwards, focussed the lens on Holman's scrabbling fingers.

'Shit.' The word escaped from all three of them at once.

'It's at the airlock.' Alan's voice raised slightly in pitch. 'It's at the fucking airlock!'

'We should have got out of here when we had the chance.' Gordon's hand slammed against the panel as he spun angrily on Alan. 'I told you to get us the hell out of here!'

'Gordon.' Scott's voice was calm, low, but it held the slightest hint of anger, the slightest hint of murderous intent. He scooped up Gordon's helmet and shoved it at him. 'Suit up.'

Gordon's hands grasped reflexively at the helmet and held it where it had hit him, in the stomach. 'If we're doing what I think we're doing, then we're going to need a bigger gun.'

'Then get a bigger gun.' Scott bent down and scooped up his own helmet. 'Al, let it into the airlock.'

Alan's eyes opened just that bit wider. 'What?'

'We can't afford to let it damage the external mechanism,' Scott enunciated his words carefully, 'so open the airlock, and let it in.'

'You can't be serious.'

'Al.' Scott was fast losing patience. 'Either it gets in on its own, or we let it in and we deal with it. On our terms.'

Gordon hefted the laser rifle in his hands and disconnected the safety. He watched as his brother slid the pistol from his holster and did the same. 'So what's the plan?' he asked in the confined space of the elevator.

Scott's fingers opened and closed reflexively around the butt of his weapon. 'I don't know.'

Gordon snorted softly. 'Now is not the time to be telling me that.'

There was a faint chime as the elevator reached the airlock level and the door hissed softly open. Scott didn't move. He turned to look at Gordon as the door hissed closed again, shutting them in.

'You saw it, Gordon. When we were on board Hyperion, it understood what I was saying. There has to be an intelligence in there somewhere. If it's alien life, then it's the first alien life the human race has encountered, and we need to give it a chance.'

Gordon stared at Scott as though he had grown another head. 'But it killed those astronauts – '

'We don't know that.'

' – and it took on their form – '

'We don't know that.'

' – and quite probably that's what it wants to do to us, too.'

'Gordon's right.' Alan's voice interjected through the comms. 'Why else would it be trying so hard to get in?'

'I don't care.' Scott keyed open the elevator door. 'Whatever it's doing, whatever we think it's doing, I want to try and reason with it first.'

Gordon waited for Scott to pass through the door and into the short passageway beyond. 'And what if there's no reasoning with it?'

Scott didn't turn around. 'Then we kill it.'

Alan's disembodied voice floated through the comms. 'And what if it can't be killed?'

'Then you'd better lock the flight deck door.'

Scott leaned towards the airlock door and peered through the vapour-misted viewport.

Inside the confined space Holman waited with all the appearance of patience, arms hanging lifeless at his sides and a slight unsteadiness to his stance, as though he were readjusting to gravity after his stint clinging to the hull. He looked up slowly as Scott's face appeared in the tiny window, the pale eyes glinting sharply in the overhead lighting. Scott stared back, unflinching.

'Check your seals,' Scott said to Gordon, his eyes never leaving Holman's piercing gaze. 'I don't want this thing making skin-to-skin contact.'

'No chance of that.' Gordon had already checked his seals, but found his fingers reaching for the collar of his suit again. He had begun sweating inside the confines of the suit, and he felt suddenly claustrophobic. 'What's it doing?'

'Staring.' Scott studied the sallow face, the pale eyes, the barely perceptible twitching of the lips. 'Just staring.' With an effort he broke away from Holman's gaze and stepped away from the airlock door. 'Okay, this is the plan.' He turned to look at Gordon. 'Gordon, you stay exactly where you are. Alan?'

'Reading.' Alan's voice rang clear in their earpieces.

'When I give the signal, I want you to open the inner door remotely. I'll stay here and attempt to communicate with Holman when he comes out.'

'Understood. But… what if that doesn't work?'

'Then I pop him.' Gordon hefted the rifle in his hand.

Scott turned to face Gordon. 'Not until I give the signal. We need to give it a chance.'

'But Scott – '

'Listen, Gordon. They showed no signs of hostility aboard Hyperion. If they wanted to kill us, they would have done it then. We need to give them a chance.'

'But – '

'Just – ' Scott silenced Gordon with his eyes. ' – be ready.'

Gordon tightened his fingers around the rifle stock, spread his legs for stability and aimed the weapon towards the airlock door. He nodded. 'Ready.'

With a last look at his brother Scott raised his pistol, aimed it towards the door and took another step back. 'Alan,' he said, his voice as tight as corded steel. 'Open the airlock.'

If there was any response from Alan, it was drowned out by the pounding of blood in Scott's ears, the hard rasp of his breathing in the echoing spaces of his helmet. Reason told him he had nothing to fear, but the primeval core of him, that part of humanity that was afraid of ghosts and spiders and the dark, screamed incoherently at the back of his brain, urging him to run. Run!

Scott held his breath, a moment of suspended time as the airlock slid open with a muted whoosh and removed the last, the final, barrier between himself and the unknown. Scott's hand shifted around his weapon, the fingers inside his gloves slick with sweat.

'Holman,' he called into the open chamber. 'Holman?'

There was no response. No movement. Just a blank, yawning chasm into a universe of terror.

Scott inched his way towards the door, weapon held at the ready. 'Holman?'

The blank eyes stared back at him.

Scott edged closer. 'We just want to talk.'

'Too close,' Gordon warned through the comms.

Scott ignored the voice in his ear. 'Can you talk to me, Holman? Do you understand what I'm saying?'

Holman's head lifted, the lips working their way back from the yellow teeth.

'You understand me, don't you.' Scott glanced back at Gordon with the glimmer of triumph in his eyes. 'C'mon, buddy.' He turned back to Holman. 'Say something. Give me a sign – '

A sudden wail filled the airlock, bounced echoing from the metal walls and drowned out all thought and all sound. Before Scott's eyes Holman's mouth split wide on its hinges, the lips pulling back from the rotten teeth, the black tongue glistening in the yawning cavern of the mouth.

'Holy – ' Scott took a frantic step back, but it was too late. Holman launched at him, was on him, a seething bag of sinew and bone and gaping slathering mouth that slammed against him, winded him on impact and knocked him sprawling to the deck.

Gordon! Scott tried to shout, to scream, but his voice failed to engage, his lungs paralysed and empty of air, his chest pulsing with crushing pain. He gasped on nothing, tried to drag air into his unwilling lungs, pushed feebly at Holman as blackness danced at the edges of his vision.

An explosion of light filled the passageway, a hollow pop that muffled through his helmet, but instead of falling away from him Holman slammed harder against him, propelled forward by the impact from Gordon's shot. Scott caught a glimpse of Gordon over Holman's shoulder, rifle raised and aimed towards them. There was another flash of light, another thud that transferred from Holman's body into his, but the writhing, slavering creature on top of him continued its onslaught.

Somewhere somebody was screaming, and despite the fact that his lungs had frozen inside him, Scott feared it might have been him. Holman's face was butted up against the faceplate of his helmet, the teeth gnashing, the tongue slathering against the perspex and leaving gobbets of spit and slime draped across his field of view. Fingers like claws clamped around his arms, scrabbling wildly, trying to tear through his spacesuit and into his flesh. There was another flash of light, another pop, another thud, and still the jaws gnashed in his face, the fingers trying to rip their way through him.

Scott closed his eyes against the slavering face, sucked one hard, deep breath into his frozen chest as his nervous system finally responded to the adrenaline that filled his bloodstream, his brain re-engaging as air rushed at last into his lungs.

'Gordon,' he gasped, realised that it was Gordon who had been screaming in his ear all along.

'JesusChristthismotherfuckerwon'tdie!'

Scott worked his arms beneath Holman's chest, tried to push the creature bodily away from him. 'Kill it!

There was another pop, another thud, and another, and Gordon's voice filled his ears with the same repeated mantra, 'Jesus Christ, this fucker won't die!'

'Then get it the hell off me!'

Gordon's shadow fell on them, and he saw his brother's hands clamp around Holman's shoulders, heaving at him bodily. But it was no use, Holman was anchored hard against Scott, the legs clamped tight around him, the fingers clawing and twisting into the fabric of his suit. Any second now and the fabric would part, and Holman's fingers would be tearing into his skin.

'Get it off me,' he gasped again.

Scott felt rather than heard the toughened fabric tear, felt the pressure loss in his suit as the oxygen began to bleed out through the torn openings. It was getting hotter, harder to breathe, and he couldn't fight against Holman much longer. Desperately, Scott brought his knee up between them, buried his foot into Holman's groin and pushed with all his strength. The vestiges of his spacesuit gave way under the pressure, great handfuls of it separating into silver shreds that were carried away between Holman's grasping fingers as he went sailing clumsily backwards. Gordon ducked aside as the creature catapulted past him in a whirl of flailing limbs and sprawled writhing onto its back.

In an instant Gordon was poised over the seething mass of arms and legs, the rifle aimed, a volley of laser fire cracking in lightning bursts point-blank into Holman's stomach, his chest, his face.

'Nothing's happening,' Gordon shouted as his finger deployed again and again on the trigger. 'Why won't this bastard die?'

Scott scrambled back on his elbows, crab-walked clumsily away from the writhing Holman until he came up hard against the bulkhead, watched as Gordon fired shot after shot into Holman's gaping maw. With each burst Holman's head slammed back against the metal floor and raised up again, the eyes glaring and malevolent, the lips twisted and slavering over the bared teeth. It was as though the weapon's energy was being absorbed somehow, dissipating across Holman's pallid skin, the body rising higher and higher in each interval between bursts. Any moment now and Holman would be back on his feet…

Gordon stepped closer to the creature, pumped another round of laser fire right between Holman's eyes. 'Scott,' he panted into his comms. 'I don't know how much longer the power pack is going to last. We need more firepower – Alan!' he shouted into the helmet mic. 'Alan!'

'On my way.'

Scott barely heard Alan's voice over the roar of noise in his head. He staggered upright, leant breathless against the inner bulkhead, tried to stand on legs that seemed no longer capable of holding him up. He choked on the ebbing oxygen in his suit, realised that if Gordon was to have a chance, if any of them were to have a chance, he needed to breathe. His hands fumbled for the seals at his throat, and he closed his eyes as he slid the helmet over his head and dropped it to the floor, inhaling gratefully at the cool oxygen of Thunderbird Three's interior.

'Scott!'

Scott's eyes flew open at Gordon's shout, saw Holman lash a hand out and clamp it tight around his brother's ankle and heave with a strength that belied the sinewy, skeletal structure. Gordon toppled off-balance, fell crashing backwards, the rifle knocked from his grip and clattering noisily along the passageway.

'Gordon!' Scott launched forward from the bulkhead and scooped up the laser rifle from where it had gone spinning across the floor. 'Get away from it!'

'Get away from it?' Gordon sprawled on his back, lashing out with his free foot and kicking at the hand that grasped him. His fingers scrabbled futilely at the smooth metal of the deck as he tried to drag himself away from Holman. 'The fuck how?'

'Then just… hold on!'

In desperation Scott leapt onto the writhing, wriggling mass that was Holman, straddled the sinewy chest, spun the rifle in his hands and brought the butt down in a final, anguished attack into the socket of Holman's eye. There was a sickening crunch, brute force succeeding where the energy weapon had not, and Scott suppressed a grimace as the rifle stock sank past the gelatinous bulb of Holman's eye, parted the bone and speared deep into the dark, sticky mass of brain. Scott raised the rifle, slammed it down again into the gaping hole he'd made in Holman's skull, his knees tightening their grip around Holman's chest as the body bucked beneath him, the sinewy limbs twitching, the legs writhing violently and slamming loudly against the metal of the floor.

'Just… fucking… die!' Scott ignored the claw-like hands that flailed against him, raised the rifle high and smashed it down again and again and again. And again, not satisfied until the writhing body was still and Holman's head was a stinking, pulpy mass that stained the floor… the walls… and Scott.

'Son of a bitch!' Scott tasted metal in his mouth and spat, followed the gobbet of tainted saliva with his eyes. The rifle fell from his fingers, fell clattering into a pool of black blood.

'Scott?' Gordon's boots appeared in Scott's peripheral vision, paused just at the edge of the spreading pool. 'You okay?'

Scott sat back on his haunches, surrounded by the black morass of what was left of Holman's skull, and wiped a hand across his face. 'I don't know.' He stared at fingers covered with the pieces of Holman that stained his face. 'But I want that thing the hell off this ship.'