Mac had fallen backward and hit the wall. His hands were smoking.
Frank Austin screamed. His burning legs kicked like crazy.
“Dad!”
Jeff stumbled forward. He tried to put out the flames with his bare hands; they were blazing as if his father consisted of gelled gasoline.
Joanne and Green pulled him back.
Those screams!
He knew he would never be able to forget them.
Joanne placed a hand on his shoulder and together they watched as his father was reduced to a pile of ashes.
28.
Jeff opened his eyes, and stared at the black ceiling.
Joanne was immediately by his side. She knelt down and laid a hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?” she asked gently.
How was he supposed to feel? He had found his father, who he had believed to be dead, in this crazy and most unlikely of places—only to lose him again.
Jeff’s shipmates had carried him deeper into the ship’s interior after he collapsed. They had set up a camp for the night in the first suitable room they came across. He had been aware of Joanne treating the burns on his hand with an ointment, before drifting off into a fitful sleep.
“Jeff?”
“S’OK. I’m OK,” he said weakly.
“Do you want to talk?”
“Later maybe.”
Joanne nodded and handed him a concentrate bar and his water bottle.
It took a long time before he was able to get up and join the others, who were sitting in a semicircle around a spotlight on the floor of the dark room. Here again, the walls were made of the gray-black alloy of the ship. He sat down next to Joanne, who was sucking listlessly on her food.
“What next?” Shorty asked. His question was directed at Jeff.
Jeff looked around the faces of the others and tried to marshal his thoughts. He had no more energy. All he wanted to do was crawl back into the corner and close his eyes. Someone else could lead the group. What was the point of it all?
He shrugged. “No idea,” he said weakly.
Nobody spoke.
It was Mac who broke the silence. “No idea,” he repeated. “I don’t want to hear that from you, Captain!”
Jeff looked up.
“You dragged us down here into this hell,” Mac spoke quietly, but his voice was tight with anger. “Fields died as a result, and so did Owl. And now you’re kicking the can?”
“Mac!” Joanne raised a hand.
“No. I won’t accept it. We followed this bastard all the way to hell. He has no right to wallow in self pity just because he came across his dead daddy.”
Anger welled up in Jeff and brought him back to his senses a little. “Watch what you say about my father.”
Mac stuck his arms up in the air. They were wrapped in thick bandages. “See this, big shot? I burned my hands for you and your pop. I’ve earned the right to shoot you dead. And you know what?”
Jeff didn’t say anything.
“I told you I thought you were a mamma’s boy and an aristocratic asshole. But over the last few days I changed my mind about you. You brought us down here, which I never would have had the guts to do. You were convinced that our only chance of survival was to get to the center of this Satanic ship.” He squatted in front of Jeff so their faces were level. “And now move your ass, get us to the goddamn center, and prove to me you were right!”
Jeff closed his eyes. He knew that what Mac was saying was true. What would have been the point of all the deaths, the suffering, the fear, if he gave up now?
Jeff opened his eyes again and wiped Mac’s spit from his face. He pressed his lips together and stood up.
“All right,” he said hoarsely.
“Finally,” Mac said, and backed off.
“We’ll keep going,” Jeff commanded. “Get the equipment sled ready.”
“I’m afraid that won’t work,” Green said.
“And why not?”
“Because it’s still with the crazies down in the cavity,” Castle said. “We had to leave it behind when we fled.”
Jeff bit his tongue. All that was left was the medical kit that Joanne had on her back. Their supplies, water, and lots of useful equipment were all on the sled. On the other hand, Jeff had no desire to go back. The mob would probably attack them immediately.
“We’ll continue without it,” Jeff said. “We’ll activate our suits and rely on their supplies.”
Shorty suppressed a groan.
Jeff turned to Joanne. “How far still to the center, and what route do we need to take?”
Joanne took out her handheld. She swiped across the screen, then pointed to one of the exits. “If we go out that way, we’ll soon reach a corridor that’s about ten miles long and leads directly to the center of the ship.”
“Ten miles,” Jeff repeated. “That’s doable. And then we’re at our destination?”
Joanne hesitated. “That takes us to a large room directly bordering the central area. I can’t say what lies beyond it, because the hologram doesn’t show anything.”
“How big is the central area?” Castle asked.
“It’s got a diameter of sixty miles,” Joanne answered. “When we reach the border and find a way in, it’s thirty miles to the actual epicenter of the ship.”
God only knew what awaited them there.
They would find out soon enough. “Let’s go.”
As he led the way, Jeff activated his suit’s remaining systems. A hologram appeared in front of his face that only he could see. It consisted of a few displays and a series of status lights that alternately switched from red to yellow and finally to green. He shuddered as the catheters for urine and feces were activated.
The next room was round, and the door on the far side was much bigger than the other ones. Joanne led the way into the long, high, corridor.
“We need to go this way.”
They continued along the dark corridor in silence. Joanne marched alongside Jeff, but they didn’t speak. Jeff was lost in his own thoughts. The encounter with his father already seemed like a surreal dream. He and his mother had mourned deeply for his father. Then as the months passed, he had slowly come to terms with the fact that his father was dead and that he would never see him again. And now this unbelievable encounter—only to be immediately parted from him again. What power in the universe could be so cruel?
He tried hard to suppress his dark thoughts and to concentrate on what lay ahead. Today they would reach the center of the ship. What awaited them there? Would they finally learn something useful? Find some answers… some way of steering this ship back to where they wanted to go… or would they be confronted by a new catalog of horrors?
Jeff expected one of those pale light aliens to appear in front of them at any moment. Then it would all be over, in any case. There didn’t seem to be any turnoffs from this corridor down which they could escape.
But thankfully, none of the sinister creatures appeared.
As if in a trance, Jeff trudged on and barely noticed the time passing. Finally they were standing in front of a big, gray, metal gate. They waited for Joanne, who had fallen behind a little. She was pale and her eyes were bloodshot.
“Everything OK?” Jeff asked her.
She looked at him with glazed eyes, and Jeff was about to repeat his question when she answered. “I’m fine. Got a bit of a headache, that’s all. We can go on.”
Jeff hoped it was just a headache, and touched the square next to the door. The door slid up and retracted into the ceiling with a loud hissing noise. It opened into a large room.
Jeff wanted to go through the opening, but Green grabbed him by the arm and held him back. “What is it?” Jeff asked.
“Careful. Something’s not right here.”