Then he sighed and slipped inside his sleeping bag. For a moment he watched Joanne, who had pushed a table in front of the window, and was now settling herself down on it to keep watch. She checked her weapon and laid it on the table beside her. Then she dimmed the lamp so far that Jeff could only vaguely make out his surroundings. Somewhere next to him he could hear Finni snoring.
Jeff closed his eyes. Although he was utterly exhausted from the long day that had begun so horrendously, it took him a long time to relax. Again and again in his mind’s eye, he saw the major’s ravaged body lying on the bed, and couldn’t help wondering which of them would be next.
After what felt like an eternity, Jeff drifted off into a restless sleep.
18.
“Psst… wake up!”
Jeff was ripped out of a deep sleep when Joanne shook his shoulder. It was pitch black, and Jeff could hear but not see his companion.
“Turn on the light,” he husked, trying to shake himself awake.
“No,” Joanne hissed. “There’s something outside!”
Now Jeff was wide awake.
What the hell?
He sat up straight as a rod and hastily undid the zipper of his sleeping bag. “What do you mean?”
“Come with me,” Joanne whispered and grabbed his hand.
Rubbing his eyes, Jeff stood up and stumbled after her. He could just about see the window. On the other side, the corridor was illuminated by a pale light. Weak, but unmistakable. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. It started a few minutes ago and it’s been gradually getting brighter. But I can’t see anything out there.”
The light seemed to be coming from the left, from the center of the ship. Jeff pressed his cheek against the window but could only see a little way down the endless corridor. They should have set up a mirror on the other side of the pane. “I can’t see anything, either.”
“It’s as if someone had switched on a lamp at the end of the corridor,” Joanne murmured. “What the hell could it be?”
“We’ll have to go out,” Jeff said, and reached down for his gun. There was nothing he wanted to do less, but they had to find out what was going on outside.
Jeff fumbled his way to the door, weapon in hand, and moved the equipment sled aside with his boot. As he pushed against the door, he noticed that his hands were shaking. He opened the door a crack and peered around the corner. Nothing. He had no choice but to go out. With a deft movement, he opened the door all the way before stepping out into the corridor. He thought he could hear his heartbeat echoing in the corridor. He peered into the darkness—and then he saw the creature.
“Oh my god,” Joanne whispered from behind him. “What is that?”
It was at least three hundred feet away from Jeff and Joanne and was standing motionless in the middle of the corridor. It had the rough outline of a human being and appeared to consist entirely of light—a ghostly light. Like an angel of death that had returned from the hereafter to get them. Jeff’s hand was clenched on the handle of his pistol. He knew instinctively that the weapon would be useless if the creature decided to attack. That must be the alien being that had killed Fields—and maybe Irons. Or it was one of them, because of course there might be more.
Joanne clung to Jeff’s left arm. “It’s scary.”
Jeff nodded. He had never seen anything like it. It reminded him of the ghosts that had haunted his imagination as a child—and which he’d dismissed as a figment of the imagination long ago. He had been sorely mistaken.
He hardly dared to breathe. But the creature must have noticed them by now. He couldn’t recognize any details of the face, as the light was so dazzling, but the sinister being seemed to be looking directly at them. Jeff felt as if it was staring straight into his soul, plumbing the depths of his mind for the essence of his very being. He shook himself.
“It’s just standing there,” Joanne whispered. “Is it looking at us?”
“I… I think so,” Jeff stammered. His mouth was completely dry.
The light radiated by the creature was cool, almost chemical. In fact it was probably less bright than it seemed, because it didn’t light up the corridor very far. Although the creature appeared to lack any clear contours, it cast wave-like white shadows across the wall. The pretty patterns had an almost hypnotic effect, and Jeff suddenly had trouble focusing.
“I’m scared,” Joanne said, and Jeff flinched as she tightened her grip on his arm. They had to wake the others and prepare for an attack.
Then, suddenly, the creature began to glide toward them.
“Jeff!”
Open-mouthed, Jeff noticed that the ghostly figure wasn’t moving its legs. It hovered just above the ground and floated toward them noiselessly.
“Jeff!”
“Yes,” he croaked. He was unable to move, as if the light alien had cast a spell that rooted him to the spot.
Jeff began to tremble. The ghost had already moved around eighty feet in their direction and Jeff still couldn’t move. He wanted to run away, scream, pull his gun and shoot at the approaching danger, but he couldn’t. He had lost control of his body. Helplessly, he watched the creature approach, waited for it to reach him, to tear out his soul and ravage his body until it was left like the corpses of Fields and Major Irons.
“Jeff!” Joanne’s voice was no more than a whimper.
Jeff wanted to shut his eyes. He didn’t want to see this apparition coming toward him, but he was transfixed.
Then, all of a sudden, the creature changed direction, floated to the side of the corridor, and disappeared down a narrow passageway. For a brief moment, a shaft of pale light gleamed from the opening, then it was pitch black again, as if nothing had happened.
Gradually, the adrenalin leaked from his body, but Jeff was shivering as if he had a fever.
“I thought it was coming to get us,” Joanne whispered. She was still clutching Jeff’s arm.
“I thought so, too,” Jeff said. “I couldn’t move. It was like it had hypnotized me.” Tentatively, he took one step forward and one step back, to reassure himself that he had control over his limbs again.
“When Fields called in the last time, he sounded as if he were scared to death,” Joanne said. “Now I understand why.”
Jeff nodded. As his ability to think returned, his anxiety grew. He sensed they had no power over the aliens. Even if they could use their weapons against these creatures—which he doubted—that was of little use if they had the power to root them to the spot.
“I don’t get it,” Joanne said.
“What don’t you get?”
“We’ve got deflective shields in our combat gear that are meant to protect us from psychic influences. How was it able to put us under a spell like that?”
Jeff shook his head. “The deflectors protect us from telepathic or magneto-psychotic interventions, but they don’t work against visually produced hypnotic effects. And let’s be honest, maybe we were just paralyzed by fear.”
“So how can we protect ourselves against them?”
“No idea. And we still don’t know if our weapons would have any effect.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then all we can do is run.”
Joanne gave a desperate laugh. “And that worked really well just now.”
Jeff took a deep breath. He was as despondent as Joanne, but wasn’t it his job as commander to spread a little optimism? But where was he supposed to get that from? Just one thing reassured him a little. “It didn’t come closer, and in the end it disappeared.”