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aaaaaaaagh_skyNo more pipes. Oh, God, no more pipes. Ellen had worked in the twisty tunnelly bits of Vault 101 a time or two, helping Stanley out with the sanitation systems, but if she had to duck behind one more snaking chunk of pipe-work again- if there was one more alien lurking in the shadows waiting for her, or one more robot drone hiding behind the spewing steam-
Well, it could have been so much worse. At least she'd taken down the first three aliens with her electro-rod, and gotten their zap guns away from them. And at least Somah was looking after Sally now. They'd gotten separated in the first room of the steamworks (why did an alien spaceship have room after room of pipes spouting steam? WHY?), and Ellen had nearly had a heart attack trying to find her. ESPECIALLY since the first time she managed to hit one of the aliens with one of their own guns, the little green wretch had exploded in a cloud of atomized ashes. If Sally got hit by one of those-
Well, she just wasn't going to, that was all. Somah was staying close by her, and Ellen was on point, and that was that. And every time one of those little green figures came their way, Ellen signaled the people behind her to stop, and nobody went ANYWHERE until the situation was dealt with. Ellen was not bloodthirsty by nature, and didn't much fancy killing everything that crossed her path, but apart from a pair of red-suited aliens who looked skinnier and smaller than the rest, every single little green man who so much as caught a glimpse of the group whipped out some sort of weapon and opened fire. The carnage was appalling, but... well, it was for self-defense, wasn't it?
... she really missed Reverend Avellone.
"Hey!" Sally called out as she caught sight of a glowing blue design hovering in front of a door. "We're almost there!"
The little girl darted forward and tapped the door's controls. Its pieces slid apart, and Ellen's breath stopped. Beyond lay windows- huge ones, floor-to-ceiling-somewhere-out-of-sight- that opened onto a darkness deeper than any she'd ever seen before... and more stars than she'd ever seen, anywhere, even at Milliways. It was a spangled blackness of infinite depth, a space utterly without limitation or end. She'd found nights easier to bear since she learned to pretend the stars were only tiny lamps in a distant ceiling, but in the face of that immensity of darkness there could be no pretending, ever.
"I'll show you my favorite way to get around the ship," Sally was saying somewhere; Ellen shook her head rapidly. "If you want to get out of here, I think it'll help. Come on!"
Ellen nodded and forced herself to focus on the girl, following her to a set of stairs that led up to an alcove with a few benches and chairs. In one corner, a round, concave spot in the floor was marked off with a railing and an instrument panel. Sally poked at the instruments as if she knew them, then sighed. "Aw, nuts, they turned it off! Last time I was here, I used this to get to the top of the ship. It's kind of like an elevator, only it doesn't just go up and down. Feels sort of tingly, too."
Ellen glanced at Somah; she felt as skeptical as the older woman looked.
Sally scowled at the instrument panel, tapping one foot against the floor. "They must be pretty angry that we're exploring... oh! I know! Come on, I know another way up!"
"Up to where?" Ellen asked.
"The part of the ship we can escape from," said Sally. "I almost made it there once but they caught me first. Come on, this is gonna be good!"
There were two doors to the alcove, one close at hand. Sally ran for the other one. It opened onto a room the size of the marketplace in Rivet City, filled with glowing tubes and conduits that snaked every which way. Ellen glanced down; they were on a wide catwalk, about two or three stories above the ground. This was some kind of power core, by the look of it, or central engineering- at least if alien work was anything like what they had in the Vault, and that was really the ship's reactor. She had no chance to ask, though. Sally was all but dragging her and Somah through a door at the far end of the core area, into a smaller blue-lit room as chill as Alaska. There were several teardrop-shaped structures in the room- four of them, perhaps- and a bank of instrument panels down the middle. All of it was obstructed by the chill fog of condensation.
"So, this is it. Pretty neat, huh?" Sally beamed. "I never had the courage to wake them up, but I think you're gonna have to. The spaceman has a suit, and we need him to use it."
"Wait," said Ellen, raising one hand. "Wait. What? Wake up who?"
"The people," Sally said, as if it ought to be self-evident. "In the pods."
Ellen blinked, and moved very, very slowly over to the first of the teardrop-shaped things. The front was transparent, a fact hidden by the condensate fog before; she raised a hand to rub her sleeve against the glass. Inside was the still, slumped form of a man in- "This is some kind of cowboy," she said slowly. "Why is there a cowboy in here?"
"Oh, the aliens've got a lot of people in funny clothes," Sally said. "I've seen 'em. Usually asleep in things like this. They keep people in freezers so they can wake them up later to do things."
Ellen shuddered, a flicker of memory suggesting just what sort of things the girl meant, and turned away. As she did so her hand brushed against a glowing green patch on the side of the cowboy's pod, and the sound of alien voices could be heard.
She jumped away immediately, but she needn't have bothered; it was only a recording. An instant later a man's voice snarled, "Where's my wife? Where's my boy? What have you done with them? When I get free, so help me God I'm going to kill every last one of you!" The aliens babbled again, and there was a meaty-sounding thud. "Arrgh! What are you doing? What the hell do you want with us? LET ME GO!"
Ellen swallowed, feeling a little sick, and stepped away. "You, um... you mentioned a spaceman?" she said weakly.
"Him, right there." Sally nodded to the next pod over. "He's got a spacesuit, and you can't go out in space without one, right? And if we're going to escape, we need to get to the rest of the ship. It's in two parts, the big saucer part and the little ball part on the bottom. All the control stuff's in the big part, so we have to get there somehow. If they turned off the elevator thingies, that's the only other way to get anywhere really important. So we need a suit. See? Simple!"
"Just how long have you been here, anyway?" Ellen asked.
"I dunno." Sally shrugged. "I kinda lost track of time. You can't really tell when it's day or night, the aliens keep the lights on all the time. And sometimes they freeze you and then you really don't know anything."
Suppressing a shiver, Ellen looked over at Somah, but the dark woman held up both hands. "Oh no. I ain't touching any more equipment around here. Not after what happened with that field generator thing."
Ellen chewed her bottom lip a moment, glancing over the pods again. Eventually she nodded. "Okay. Sally? Let's talk to the astronaut."
"Yay!" Sally clapped her hands together. "This is going to be SO NEAT!!!"
There were too many controls in the middle of the room for Ellen to be sure which one controlled which pod, but the big, glowing Y-shaped button at the end of the instrument bank looked about right. Taking a deep breath, she pushed it. Steam began to billow into the room from overhead somewhere. The air filled with beeps and electronic whistles. She could just about make out the sound of sliding glass, and then there were voices-
"Oh my God, what the hell-"
"Sessha no ken! Sessha no ken wa dokoda?"
"Holee mother of pearl-"
Men's voices. Three men. Ellen could make out their figures now among the steam as they pushed themselves to their feet.
But there had been four pods.
"Oh, no! That poor astronaut! Those freezers must not've worked for him..." Sally had darted over to the last pod even as Somah moved forward to talk to the confused, boggled men. "That's so sad."
Ellen moved over to the pod and crouched down. After a few momentary fumbles she unlatched the man's helmet. It came off easily, revealing a dark-haired man of about forty. He looked for all the world as if he were only napping. It was a little too tranquil to bear; Ellen glanced away and her eyes fell on the same green spot that had been on the cowboy's pod. Almost hypnotized, she reached up and touched it.
"This is... this is incredible! I'm... I'm Colonel Hartigan, of the United States Air Force." The aliens' voices intruded. "I'm sorry, what? I don't understa... Oh, speak into this? Yes, I was saying, I'm Colonel Hartigan, United States Air Force. Our nation has been conducting manned spaceflight tests... I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me. Frankly we never expect to meet you all! I'm sure there's a great deal that our two species can learn from-" A vicious zapping noise ripped through his words. "Oww! What the Hell? What is this, what are you doing?"
Unable to bear any more, Ellen slapped the green spot again, and the voice went silent. Sally, who had been standing next to her, didn't seem particularly affected. "You'd better take his suit, lady."
"... what," said Ellen.
Sally shrugged. "We can't get out from here without the elevator thingers being on. And all of that's in the other part of the ship. Somebody has to go over to the other part of the ship and unlock all the important stuff for the rest of us."
"... what," repeated Ellen.
"I hate to say it, but the kid makes sense." It was Somah. "These guys aren't in any kind of condition to do it or I'd say to send them instead."
Ellen stared at her pleadingly.
"Don't look at me like that, kid, I got immune to puppy dog eyes a long time ago. I'm not riskin' my neck out there. You get to do it."
Outside. Outside. They wanted her to go outside of everything, ever. Completely, utterly, and totally outside, in the infinite black, alone...
Ellen whimpered and shoved her face into her hands, hard.
Well, it could have been so much worse. At least she'd taken down the first three aliens with her electro-rod, and gotten their zap guns away from them. And at least Somah was looking after Sally now. They'd gotten separated in the first room of the steamworks (why did an alien spaceship have room after room of pipes spouting steam? WHY?), and Ellen had nearly had a heart attack trying to find her. ESPECIALLY since the first time she managed to hit one of the aliens with one of their own guns, the little green wretch had exploded in a cloud of atomized ashes. If Sally got hit by one of those-
Well, she just wasn't going to, that was all. Somah was staying close by her, and Ellen was on point, and that was that. And every time one of those little green figures came their way, Ellen signaled the people behind her to stop, and nobody went ANYWHERE until the situation was dealt with. Ellen was not bloodthirsty by nature, and didn't much fancy killing everything that crossed her path, but apart from a pair of red-suited aliens who looked skinnier and smaller than the rest, every single little green man who so much as caught a glimpse of the group whipped out some sort of weapon and opened fire. The carnage was appalling, but... well, it was for self-defense, wasn't it?
... she really missed Reverend Avellone.
"Hey!" Sally called out as she caught sight of a glowing blue design hovering in front of a door. "We're almost there!"
The little girl darted forward and tapped the door's controls. Its pieces slid apart, and Ellen's breath stopped. Beyond lay windows- huge ones, floor-to-ceiling-somewhere-out-of-sight- that opened onto a darkness deeper than any she'd ever seen before... and more stars than she'd ever seen, anywhere, even at Milliways. It was a spangled blackness of infinite depth, a space utterly without limitation or end. She'd found nights easier to bear since she learned to pretend the stars were only tiny lamps in a distant ceiling, but in the face of that immensity of darkness there could be no pretending, ever.
"I'll show you my favorite way to get around the ship," Sally was saying somewhere; Ellen shook her head rapidly. "If you want to get out of here, I think it'll help. Come on!"
Ellen nodded and forced herself to focus on the girl, following her to a set of stairs that led up to an alcove with a few benches and chairs. In one corner, a round, concave spot in the floor was marked off with a railing and an instrument panel. Sally poked at the instruments as if she knew them, then sighed. "Aw, nuts, they turned it off! Last time I was here, I used this to get to the top of the ship. It's kind of like an elevator, only it doesn't just go up and down. Feels sort of tingly, too."
Ellen glanced at Somah; she felt as skeptical as the older woman looked.
Sally scowled at the instrument panel, tapping one foot against the floor. "They must be pretty angry that we're exploring... oh! I know! Come on, I know another way up!"
"Up to where?" Ellen asked.
"The part of the ship we can escape from," said Sally. "I almost made it there once but they caught me first. Come on, this is gonna be good!"
There were two doors to the alcove, one close at hand. Sally ran for the other one. It opened onto a room the size of the marketplace in Rivet City, filled with glowing tubes and conduits that snaked every which way. Ellen glanced down; they were on a wide catwalk, about two or three stories above the ground. This was some kind of power core, by the look of it, or central engineering- at least if alien work was anything like what they had in the Vault, and that was really the ship's reactor. She had no chance to ask, though. Sally was all but dragging her and Somah through a door at the far end of the core area, into a smaller blue-lit room as chill as Alaska. There were several teardrop-shaped structures in the room- four of them, perhaps- and a bank of instrument panels down the middle. All of it was obstructed by the chill fog of condensation.
"So, this is it. Pretty neat, huh?" Sally beamed. "I never had the courage to wake them up, but I think you're gonna have to. The spaceman has a suit, and we need him to use it."
"Wait," said Ellen, raising one hand. "Wait. What? Wake up who?"
"The people," Sally said, as if it ought to be self-evident. "In the pods."
Ellen blinked, and moved very, very slowly over to the first of the teardrop-shaped things. The front was transparent, a fact hidden by the condensate fog before; she raised a hand to rub her sleeve against the glass. Inside was the still, slumped form of a man in- "This is some kind of cowboy," she said slowly. "Why is there a cowboy in here?"
"Oh, the aliens've got a lot of people in funny clothes," Sally said. "I've seen 'em. Usually asleep in things like this. They keep people in freezers so they can wake them up later to do things."
Ellen shuddered, a flicker of memory suggesting just what sort of things the girl meant, and turned away. As she did so her hand brushed against a glowing green patch on the side of the cowboy's pod, and the sound of alien voices could be heard.
She jumped away immediately, but she needn't have bothered; it was only a recording. An instant later a man's voice snarled, "Where's my wife? Where's my boy? What have you done with them? When I get free, so help me God I'm going to kill every last one of you!" The aliens babbled again, and there was a meaty-sounding thud. "Arrgh! What are you doing? What the hell do you want with us? LET ME GO!"
Ellen swallowed, feeling a little sick, and stepped away. "You, um... you mentioned a spaceman?" she said weakly.
"Him, right there." Sally nodded to the next pod over. "He's got a spacesuit, and you can't go out in space without one, right? And if we're going to escape, we need to get to the rest of the ship. It's in two parts, the big saucer part and the little ball part on the bottom. All the control stuff's in the big part, so we have to get there somehow. If they turned off the elevator thingies, that's the only other way to get anywhere really important. So we need a suit. See? Simple!"
"Just how long have you been here, anyway?" Ellen asked.
"I dunno." Sally shrugged. "I kinda lost track of time. You can't really tell when it's day or night, the aliens keep the lights on all the time. And sometimes they freeze you and then you really don't know anything."
Suppressing a shiver, Ellen looked over at Somah, but the dark woman held up both hands. "Oh no. I ain't touching any more equipment around here. Not after what happened with that field generator thing."
Ellen chewed her bottom lip a moment, glancing over the pods again. Eventually she nodded. "Okay. Sally? Let's talk to the astronaut."
"Yay!" Sally clapped her hands together. "This is going to be SO NEAT!!!"
There were too many controls in the middle of the room for Ellen to be sure which one controlled which pod, but the big, glowing Y-shaped button at the end of the instrument bank looked about right. Taking a deep breath, she pushed it. Steam began to billow into the room from overhead somewhere. The air filled with beeps and electronic whistles. She could just about make out the sound of sliding glass, and then there were voices-
"Oh my God, what the hell-"
"Sessha no ken! Sessha no ken wa dokoda?"
"Holee mother of pearl-"
Men's voices. Three men. Ellen could make out their figures now among the steam as they pushed themselves to their feet.
But there had been four pods.
"Oh, no! That poor astronaut! Those freezers must not've worked for him..." Sally had darted over to the last pod even as Somah moved forward to talk to the confused, boggled men. "That's so sad."
Ellen moved over to the pod and crouched down. After a few momentary fumbles she unlatched the man's helmet. It came off easily, revealing a dark-haired man of about forty. He looked for all the world as if he were only napping. It was a little too tranquil to bear; Ellen glanced away and her eyes fell on the same green spot that had been on the cowboy's pod. Almost hypnotized, she reached up and touched it.
"This is... this is incredible! I'm... I'm Colonel Hartigan, of the United States Air Force." The aliens' voices intruded. "I'm sorry, what? I don't understa... Oh, speak into this? Yes, I was saying, I'm Colonel Hartigan, United States Air Force. Our nation has been conducting manned spaceflight tests... I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me. Frankly we never expect to meet you all! I'm sure there's a great deal that our two species can learn from-" A vicious zapping noise ripped through his words. "Oww! What the Hell? What is this, what are you doing?"
Unable to bear any more, Ellen slapped the green spot again, and the voice went silent. Sally, who had been standing next to her, didn't seem particularly affected. "You'd better take his suit, lady."
"... what," said Ellen.
Sally shrugged. "We can't get out from here without the elevator thingers being on. And all of that's in the other part of the ship. Somebody has to go over to the other part of the ship and unlock all the important stuff for the rest of us."
"... what," repeated Ellen.
"I hate to say it, but the kid makes sense." It was Somah. "These guys aren't in any kind of condition to do it or I'd say to send them instead."
Ellen stared at her pleadingly.
"Don't look at me like that, kid, I got immune to puppy dog eyes a long time ago. I'm not riskin' my neck out there. You get to do it."
Outside. Outside. They wanted her to go outside of everything, ever. Completely, utterly, and totally outside, in the infinite black, alone...
Ellen whimpered and shoved her face into her hands, hard.