Half a Life

by Kir Bulychev

translated by Bill Bowler

Chapter 5

part 2 of 2

Beyond the second door was a domed hall, like the top half of a sphere. They had made it through in time. Another large dummy was already rolling towards the doorway. Dola managed to rush towards it and disable it before it could go into action.

Before Nadezhda were several doors, completely identical. She turned towards Dola, so he could tell her which one to try.

He was already hurrying forward and quickly, bending himself like a frightened caterpillar, arching his back high, crawling past the doors, pausing a fraction of a second before each, as if sniffing to see what was behind each one.

“Here,” he said. “Find out how to enter.”

Nadezhda stood beside him. This door did not even have a lock. And a kind of dull desperation overwhelmed Nadezhda. She just shoved the door with her hand and, as if expecting this, the door slid down.

They stood facing the machine, the master of the ship, the thing that gave the orders to descend to alien planets and collect every specimen they came upon, the thing that maintained order on the ship, fed, punished, and preserved the prisoners and loot.

The machine turned out to be simply a wall with many small screens and lamps of different colors, grey and blue panels, and handles. It was a machine, and nothing more. It amazed Nadezhda. No, it did not disillusion her, it amazed her, because during the years spent here, Nadezhda had tried many times to present herself to the master of the ship and had ascribed to it a multitude of frightening characteristics. But the very facelessness of the machine had never occurred to her.

A small dummy that sat somewhere way up on the machine, slid down and rolled towards them. Nadezhda wanted to poke it with a rod, but Dola had it. He crawled to meet the dummy and disabled it.

“What next?” asked Nadezhda, catching her breath. Her skirt, resembling an oil cloth, sewn from materials found on the ship, was stuck to her knees and stained with blood. It turned out she had badly injured herself when she had jumped over the dummy.

Dola did not reply. He had already approached the machine, turned his worm head, and begun inspecting it.

She heard something crack, as if from Dola’s gaze, and the hall filled with a loud broken hissing. Nadezhda jumped back, but then realized this was the voice of another slug.

“Everything’s in order,” said Dola then. “Sit me up here. I’ll turn this handle.”

Nadezhda placed him a bit higher, and he did something to the machine.

“Our friends,” said Dola, lowering himself again and crawling along the machine, “are on the main deck. If everything remains in order, we’ll be able to steer the ship.”

Dola listened intently to the hissing that came from a dark circle, apparently some kind of communication device, and told Nadezhda what needed to be done if he himself couldn’t reach this or that lever or button. Nadezhda suddenly understood that they were in the engine room of the ship and the captain was on the bridge giving commands: “less power, full power.” Soon they would be heading home.

And a strange, sweet fatigue overcame her. Her legs refused to support her. She sat on the floor and said to Dola,

“I’ll rest just a bit.”

“All right,” said Dola, listening to the words of his comrades from the captain’s bridge.

“I’ll rest, and then I’ll help you.”

“They’re trying to switch the ship to manual control,” Dola said to her after a short time, and his voice reached her from far, far away.

And then Dola shrieked. She had never heard the slugs shriek. Something had happened that frightened him badly.

The little lamps on the face of the machine were going out, one by one, blinking more and more weakly, as if bidding each other farewell.

The hissing from the speaker turned into a weak cry, and Dola shouted out some separated sounds, that had no meaning, and yet did.

“Quickly,” said Dola. “To the escape launch.”

There was one thing they had not taken into account. Though apparently submitting to the rebellious prisoners, the machine’s brain contained cells that instructed it to shut down, to die, rather than serve others who were not its masters.

Nadezhda got to her feet. Dola was pushing her, hurrying, but she was not able to feel frightened the way she should have. Her entire body clung to the thought of rescue: “It’s all over, it’s all right, now we are going home.”

She ran behind Dola down the corridor, past the burned dummies. When they reached the deck, Dola told her to carry food to the escape launch quickly, along with some round, heavy objects resembling mines. As he helped her do it, she continued to soothe herself with the thought that everything was going to be fine. After all, they had overcome the machine.

At the hatch to the escape launch, Nadezhda dropped the food and ran back again because she still had to get water and the round objects, which turned out to be air tanks. Dola kept trying to explain to her, though he was forgetting words and got mixed up, that the machine had stopped providing air and heat, that soon the ship would die, and if they did not succeed in loading the escape launch now and preparing for flight, then nothing could save them.

The two other slugs crawled up from the captain’s bridge dragging some kind of equipment, and began to fuss around the launch. They did not even notice Nadezhda. Their movements were hectic but rapid, as if each of their arms — the slugs had twenty arms — was performing its own task.

How long this frantic rushing went on, Nadezhda could not say, but at some time around the tenth or even twentieth trip to the greenhouse, she suddenly realized that the ship had become noticeably colder and it was getting difficult to breathe.

She was amazed that Dola’s prediction had come true so quickly. The ship was air-tight. She did not know that the intake that cleaned and warmed the air continued to work, while the apparatus that was supposed to return this air to circulation in the ship was shut down. This ship was dying slowly, and several of its systems, about which Nadezhda could not even know, would continue to operate for a long time: months, years.

Nadezhda wanted to run to her room and gather her things, but Dola told her they had to take off in just a few moments. And then she decided she would just get one more oxygen tank, because they all needed air, while she could easily get by without her skirt or scarf, or her cup.

As she was dragging the oxygen tank to the launch, she saw on the floor her bag sewn from colored wire. “Lord,” she thought, “I completely forgot.” She ran to the launch and dropped the oxygen tank by the hatch.

“Get in quickly,” said Dola from inside the launch, rolling the heavy tank in.

“I’ll be right back,” said Nadezhda. “One minute.”

“Under no circumstances!” shouted Dola.

But Nadezhda was already racing along the corridor to her bag and to the glass cube where her little spheres were waiting for her. Or maybe, they weren’t waiting. Maybe she just imagined it.

At the sight of Nadezhda, the little spheres scattered in rays from the center as if forming a flower.

“Quickly,” Nadezhda told them, “or we’ll be late. The train is leaving.”

She held her bag inside the cube, and to her amazement, the little spheres obediently poured themselves in. She was even grateful to them for getting organized so quickly.

The full sack turned out to be heavy, heavier than the oxygen tanks. Nadezhda dragged it along the corridor floor and, despite the freezing cold in the ship, she was hot. And she was gasping for air.

If she had not been so preoccupied with getting herself and her bundle to the launch, she would have noticed the one last large dummy who, apparently, guarded some other part of the ship but, sensing disorder when the machine died, had rolled along the corridors to locate the source of the problem.

Nadezhda was already running up to the launch. She had only a few steps left to go, when the large dummy — who had also seen the launch and was aiming its flaming beam directly into the hatch to burn everything inside — saw her. It’s not known what it might have thought, or if it thought at all, but it turned and fired the beam. Nadezhda had time only to toss aside her sack with the little spheres.

But that extra second was enough for Dola to slam the hatch shut. The next blast of the beam only charred the side of the launch. Having used up its rounds, the dummy froze over the pile of ashes and shut itself off. The little spheres rolled out of the sack and scattered on the floor.

Dola re-opened the hatch and understood at once what had happened. But he could not delay. Maybe, if he had been a person, he would have gathered up the ashes that remained of Nadezhda, and buried them when he reached home. But the slugs had no such ceremonies.

Dola screwed the hatch shut. The launch separated from the dying ship and raced towards the stars, among which was the one the slugs needed to reach. They still did not know if they would make it home or not.

* * *

Pavlysh picked up the burned piece of material, all that remained of Nadezhda. Then he gathered up the little spheres. The story ends sadly, although there was still a small hope that he was mistaken, that Nadezhda still somehow managed reach the launch.

Pavlysh rose and walked to the cold, empty robot, which had done all that was required of it, which still stood here, after all these years, aiming into emptiness. The robot had fulfilled its duty, guarding the ship from potential danger.

“You’ve been silent for two hours,” said Dag. “Has something happened?”

“I’ll tell you later,” said Pavlysh. “Later.”

To be continued...

to Challenge 411...