DEAD SPACE MARTYR Epilogue 1

 


And then it began again. It started first with a pinprick of

light in the darkness at a great distance. He watched it,

trying to determine if it was getting closer or farther away,

but was unable to say. He watched it a long time, or what

felt like a long time, until it disappeared again.

Darkness. Plain and simple. But a sense, too, of a body.

Of his body, the limits of it.

I’m dead, he thought. This is hell.

There was a long moment in which nothing happened.

The pinprick of light came back again. He did not notice it

reappear exactly, just knew that it was there, and knew it

had been there for a while. He watched it. This time it grew

slowly larger. It was moving slowing toward him. Suddenly,

it became excruciatingly bright.

Things began to take shape around it. A thin silvery

casing from which the light itself came. Something pinkish

nestled around it, which he began, slowly, to realize was a

human hand.

“A little response,” said a voice, flat, uninflected. “Up the

dosage.”

He felt something, a stinging somewhere on his body.

Suddenly he could move the muscles on his face.

Where am I? he tried to ask, but what came out was a

dim, inarticulate sound.

“There we are,” said another voice. The light pulled back

and he saw a face, half-hidden behind a surgical mask.

Behind it were other faces, maybe a half dozen in all.

“Where am I?” he asked, and this time the words came

out.

“You’re alive,” said the muffled voice through the

surgeon’s mask. “That’s all you need to know.”

He tried to move his arm, found it strapped down. The

other arm was strapped, too, his legs as well. He struggled

against them, arched his back.

“There, there,” said the voice. “You won’t be able to

break them. Just relax.” The surgeon’s mask turned to

address someone behind him. “Go get Markoff,” it said.

“Tell him that Altman is awake.”

He must have drifted off again. When he opened his eyes,

there were three people over the bed, looking down at him:

Krax, Markoff, and Stevens.

“Congratulations, Altman,” said Krax. “You still seem to

be alive.”

When he opened his mouth and spoke, his voice was

hoarse, his throat sore. “You killed Ada,” he said.

“No,” said Krax. “Ada killed herself. She started

hallucinating and then cut her own throat. She wasn’t strong

enough. She wasn’t worthy.”

“Worthy?” Altman asked.

“We need to have a little talk,” said Markoff.

Altman narrowed his eyes. He watched him, warily.

“We’ve talked with your friend Harmon,” said Krax. “He

told us everything that happened.”

“You sank the Marker,” said Stevens. “Why would you do

that?”

“It was dangerous,” said Altman, his voice barely above a

whisper.

“It’s not dangerous,” claimed Krax. “It’s divine.”

“You’re crazy,” said Altman.

“No, he’s right,” said Stevens. “I’m afraid that’s the

conclusion that all three of us have reached.”

Altman turned his head slightly in Markoff’s direction. It

hurt to move it. “You don’t believe this, do you? How can

you believe it’s divine now that you’ve seen what it’s

capable of?”

Markoff offered him a hard, glittering smile. “It created

life,” he said. “I saw that for myself, saw it take dead flesh

and bring it back to life.”

Maybe he doesn’t actually believe, thought Altman. Or

maybe he’s pretending as a way of bending the others to

his will. Just as I did with Harmon.

“But what kind of life?” asked Altman. “It was

monstruous.”

“There must have been a glitch,” said Stevens. “The

Marker must have gotten damaged somehow. But as a

principle, it’s sound. All we have to do is fix it.”

“Or if not fix it, make a new one,” said Markoff.

“After all,” said Stevens, “every indication is that when it

was originally working, millennia ago, it established life on

earth. Once we have one that’s working properly, it will

allow us to evolve beyond our mortal form. It will lead us into

eternal life.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s not that at all. You’re wrong,”

whispered Altman. “It wasn’t damaged; it was doing what it

was meant to do. It meant to destroy us.”

“Then why did it stop?” Stevens asked. “And why did it

stop when you began to broadcast its own code back to it,

showing that you’d figured out how to replicate it?”

“How do you know about that?”

“You don’t think we left the facility without making sure

that we could record everything that went on in it, do you?”

said Krax. “We watched the whole thing. We have footage

of everything.”

But Altman just shook his head. “You’re wrong,” he said.

“It’ll destroy us.”

“The Marker wants to help us,” Stevens claimed.

“Harmon has told us what you figured out: the Marker wants

to be replicated. It was broken and must have known it was

broken. It wants us to make it again so that it can help us.

But we’ll improve the technology, Altman. We’ll make one

that works and then make it even better.” He leaned in

closer. Altman could feel the man’s breath on his face,

could see in the man’s eyes traces of fanaticism that belied

his calm exterior. “There are sure to be other Marker s,

somewhere, on other worlds,” said Stevens. “They will lead

us forward. In the meantime, we’ll do our best to try to

understand this one and duplicate it.”

“You’ve done a lot to help with that,” Markoff said.

“But this one is sunk,” said Altman desperately.

“It was sunk before,” said Markoff, “and we got it up. You

know that as well as anyone. All you did was slow the

inevitable down slightly, by a few weeks, a few months.”

“You don’t have the research,” said Altman. “Everything

must have been destroyed by the water and the pressure.

You’ll have to start over.”

Krax shook his head. “Altman,” he said. “You’re so

naïve.”

“Remember Harmon?” said Markoff. “What do you think

Harmon was doing while he was in the Marker chamber?

He was recording everything, making sure that none of the

data would be lost. And then he carried it all away in his

pocket. If you’d thought to check his pockets or simply left

him to die, you might have set us back. But you didn’t.

You’re far too trusting, Altman. We have everything.”

“We also have all of Guthe’s research,” said Stevens.

“We can learn from it what went wrong with the Marker and

learn how to repair it. We ran our first experiments,

synthesizing and reproducing the creature’s DNA, while you

were still unconscious. Hermetically sealed labs, a variety

of fail-safes. We’re being a great deal more careful about it

than Guthe was, though most likely hallucinations were to

blame for his rashness.”

“And to be frank,” said Krax, “watching you struggle past

them taught us a great deal about how to control them. We

wouldn’t be nearly as far along without you.”

“You’re making a terrible mistake,” whispered Altman.

He was very tired. He was helpless, couldn’t do anything.

But maybe soon. All he had to do was regain his strength.

Once he regained his strength, he’d do everything he could

to stop them. “If you go ahead with this, it’ll mean the end of

humanity. Maybe not right away, but soon.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” said Stevens. “If we go

ahead with this, we’ll reach the next evolutionary stage. We

won’t be human; we’ll be better than human.”

“Good-bye, Altman,” said Markoff. “You’ve been a worthy

adversary. But this time you’ve lost.”

Once the three of them had left, a doctor who had

accompanied them to the door returned and whispered in

the surgeon’s ear. The surgeon nodded his head, and then

filled and primed a hypodermic. He pushed it into Altman’s

arm. The world grew gray, slowly faded away.

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