Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead (33 page)

He went to Mr. Jacobs and patted his arm. “Almost over. You wanted to die, Mr. Jacobs, and I’m going to have to give you your wish. I don’t have time to evacuate anybody myself. There’ll be more of those bloodsuckers…”

Frank took an autotram along a back passage to the thruster casing. It wasn’t far.

The thruster’s engine room was a hangar-like structure, trussed with plasteel. On a metal table near the entrance to the control cockpit sat a coffee cup, the coffee untouched; near it was a half-used pack of Smoke Calms, and a clip from a razor gun.

Someone had left in a hurry. The other mercs had been here, guarding the engine, and Marv had gotten them out. With any luck, there should be no one but him and the vampires left on the Soulglobe.

“If you wanta call that luck,” he muttered, climbing up a metal ladder, through a hatch to the screen-lined cockpit of the thruster control.

Frank dropped into the control seat, flicked the switches to manual, and sealed the doors to the engine area with a high security setting:
No entry under any circumstances.
The thruster was engineered right into the Soulglobe’s stony shell — but if they tried to break into it, they’d risk an atmospheric breach. Maybe that’d keep them out. They’d bide their time, figure he was taking them to the authorities. They wouldn’t be too worried about that. If they didn’t get to him before then, they could tell the authorities he was insane.

Frank checked the surveillance screens — saw the shuttle was gone. Visitors and guards evacuated. They’d sent away the witnesses to his fight with the big guy in black. Figured they were safe to keep their operation going. Spin a terrorist story and send for some new blood.

He turned to the navigation screen. It was standard. Just pick the course, program it in, the ship did the rest. He used the locator, plotted the course, programmed the computer, and triggered ignition. The cockpit began to vibrate.

It would take awhile. He was tired, emotionally drained. If he was going to see this trip through, he’d need rest.

He leaned the control chair back and tried to sleep…

Frank was hovering over a river, looking down at Mella.

His wife was reclining against red silk cushions, on a long low royal barge painted gold and black in the Babylonian fashion. She was drifting down the Tigris away from him. She looked beautiful and young and strong, her hair shiny black, her eyes large and dark and luminous.

Frank — I want you to live.
Mella’s voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
Live, and find someone, and have children. That’s what I want. You know it is. There’s a time to go to death. This isn’t it. Live for me, Frank…

The boat spun about, caught in a whirlpool — and then suddenly sank away, vanishing like a chip of wood swirling down a drain, taking her with it…

From somewhere came a clanging sound … like a bell ringing in the depths…

“Mella!”

Frank sat up, sweating, hands clutching the arms of the control chair. His feeling of loss was gigantic, a thirsty void inside him; a vampiric suction.

Her body was still out there, lying on the cold stone floor.

The thruster hummed, the control room vibrated softly with it. They were still underway. He looked at the chronometer — he’d slept a long time. What had wakened him?

The clanging sound he’d heard in his dream — there it was again. He got up, climbed down through the hatch to the superstructure — and saw that the big metal door he’d sealed, across the big hangar-like room, was vibrating with the clanging. Shivering. Bits of powdered stone fell from the ceiling…

The vampires were breaking through. Maybe they’d worked out where he was going and they were risking the breach.

Frank shrugged, returned to the ladder, climbed into the control cockpit and checked the arrival time. Maybe they’d get through and stop him. Maybe not.

He removed the thruster control pad, ripping it from the console. The setting was fixed, now. He slid down the ladder, found another hatch in the back of the room, almost hidden in the deck. Another ladder here, down to another deck — he slid down that too, and located the lifeboats against the airlock.

Seven cylindrical escape vehicles — they were small, room for one passenger apiece.

Frank found a laser cutter, used it to slice through the propulsion packs for all the lifeboats but one.

That one was his. He opened it, climbed in — and hesitated. He didn’t want to live without Mella.

Live for me, Frank.

Frank sighed. Feeling a deep twinge of guilt, he activated the lifeboat. The airlock door slid back; the lifeboat was propelled through the airlock.

Frank watched through the viewport as the hot-yellow energies from the thruster tubes pushed the Soulglobe down into the atmosphere of the eighth planet from the sun. The crystalline orb struck the outer atmosphere and began to glow. In moments it was wrapped in a corona of blue flame. But he didn’t think it would burn up entirely.

It would fall into the churning storms of methane and ammonia. It would crash deep into poisoned plains, to be crushed by Neptune’s powerful gravitation into a small fist of stone. It would be locked forever in ice.

He stared at the indigo orb of Neptune and thought it beautiful. Fourteen times the mass of Earth, it curved gigantically against the night, truly a god. Lit by starlight, it was a pearly dark blue, a perfect sphere. It was said to be mostly ice. Just ice and rock and ceaseless hurricanes of toxic winds. But from here it looked gorgeous, even elegant. A fitting tomb…

Frank Zand lay back in his recliner and activated the beacon that would transmit a subspace mayday signal. He would probably be found, and rescued. Maybe he would be able to tell them he’d escaped from some terrorist who’d destroyed the Soulglobe. Possibly they’d believe it. Could be he’d go free. He’d go on living. Without her.

Yes. He would probably survive. It was what she wanted.

But not dying just didn’t feel right.

* * * * *

John Shirley’s books include the novels
Demons, Crawlers, City Come A-Walkin’, Eclipse, Cellars,
and
In Darkness Waiting;
his story collections include
Black Butterflies
(which won the Bram Stoker award),
Living Shadows, Really Really Really Really Weird Stories
and the forthcoming
In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories of John Shirley.
He has had stories in two Year’s Best collections, and is thought to be seminal in the cyberpunk movement. He was co-screenwriter of the film
The Crow,
and has written scripts for television. His newest novels are
Black Glass
from ESP, and
Bleak History
from Simon and Schuster.

Red Planet

By Bev Vincent

When Isaac awakens, he doesn’t know where he is. In the distance, there’s a muffled thrumming sound. Closer, an instrument chirps and a red dot blinks. It’s the only light, but Isaac has no trouble seeing.

His mouth is parched and his back stiff, like he’s been sleeping too long. He tries to sit up, but something is holding him down. Then it comes to him. For the past four months, he’s been in stasis aboard the
Ferdinand
, bound for Mars.

Their sister ship, the
Isabella
, is behind them, on the same course. The media dubbed the mission the Hundred Years Starship, despite the fact that there are two ships, neither of which is destined for the stars. Nothing like it has ever been attempted before: sending people on a one-way trip to colonize another planet. Isaac and his colleagues are pioneers, en route to a brave new world aboard a nuclear-powered wagon train.

The austere federal budget of 2088 made it clear that this was the only way NASA could reach Mars in the foreseeable future. It’s audacious and controversial, but the additional cost required to guarantee the safe return of the crew would eat up most of any other scheme’s budget. This way, the ships are lighter and can carry more provisions. Disposable unmanned craft delivered sophisticated robots in advance to establish the base camp and set up a fission reactor for power. Other drones will bring supplies on a regular basis. Within a decade, they hope to be completely self-sufficient.

Eight candidates were chosen from the hundreds of applicants. All underwent physical and psychological evaluation to ensure they were healthy and up to the rigors of the mission and its implications. None left behind family — that was one of the main selection criteria. They also understood that they would probably live only twenty or thirty years on Mars due to celestial radiation exposure.

Isaac was subjected to short periods of stasis during training, but emerging from that was nothing like this. Air doesn’t seem to fill his lungs when he inhales and he has a terrible thirst, unlike anything he’s experienced before. It’s specific and overwhelming: he craves blood instead of water. He also doesn’t understand why his vision is so acute. In total darkness, he can see every tube running along his body, every needle in his wrists, every sensor affixed to his chest. Could these be unanticipated side effects of prolonged stasis?

Dyer, the chief medical officer, should be attending his awakening, but there’s no sign that anyone else is up. For all he knows, he’s only been asleep for part of the journey. Perhaps a malfunction awoke him too soon. If so, he needs to rouse Dyer to put him under again — but not before he does something about this burning thirst.

He closes his eyes and tries to sigh, but his lungs won’t cooperate. He isn’t breathing, nor does he have any discernable pulse. He allows his thoughts to drift, searching for anything that might explain what’s happening. Some passing reference during their training — anything.

Instead, what flickers through his memories is a vision of frantic hands fumbling in a dark room. Clothing ripped off and cast aside. Passionate kisses. Groping. Teasing. Penetration. Blissful friction and release. Then nothingness.

He was supposed to be in quarantine, but it was his last day on Earth. Forever. His affairs were in order, his possessions sold or donated. The seven other people on the two NASA ships would be his only companions for the rest of his foreshortened life. After tomorrow, Earth would be nothing more than a minute speck in the sky, barely discernable from the stars.

Who could blame him for wanting one last fling? He was surprised NASA hadn’t arranged one for them, considering what he and his colleagues were sacrificing in the name of science. He used the cash he reserved for just such a purpose to bribe one of the flunkies keeping tabs on them into letting him out of the compound for the evening. The closest bar was dingy and dark, which suited Isaac just fine. No one gave him a second look when he strolled in. After a few drinks, he targeted a dark, exotic beauty sitting at a table near the back of the joint. Surprisingly, everyone seemed oblivious to her presence. Anywhere else, men would be swarming her.

He had enough money left to treat her to anything she wanted, but the only thing she wanted, she said, was him. She had a place nearby. After that, the night was a blur. He staggered back to the compound less than an hour before reveille. During their pre-launch checkout, the NASA doctor noticed a gash on his neck. “Won’t have to worry about shaving for a while, will you?” the man said with a snicker. The doctor also ignored Isaac’s bloodshot eyes and the reek of alcohol that a shower and mouthwash couldn’t eliminate. For all Isaac knew, his fellow crew members were in similar states. He hadn’t been the only one about to be strapped into a rocket and sent on a one-way trip into space.

He slips one hand free of the restraints that keep him from floating around in his stasis chamber. Near the tube that runs into his neck, his fingertips encounter swollen flesh and the rough edges of broken skin. If he’s been asleep for months, any injuries he sustained on Earth should have healed. Assuming he’s not dreaming, he needs to figure out what’s happening.

Isaac removes the mask from his face and the mantle of electronic sensors from his head, expecting alarms to go off.

Nothing happens.

The needles float away when he pulls the IVs from his hands. The monitoring equipment continues to chirp after he peels the patches from his chest.

He undoes the rest of his restraints and drifts to the entrance of his chamber, where he braces himself so he can open the door. There’s a hiss when the seal breaks, but he doesn’t sense any change in the air around him. He’s neither warm nor cold, and he still doesn’t seem to be breathing.

Shaking his head, he glides into the hall and examines the monitor outside his door. The mission clock reads T+128 days, which means they should gain Mars orbit in four days if they’re on schedule. He’s only a little early in waking. However, the display indicates that his vital signs all dropped to zero during the past twenty-four hours. He taps the monitor, but nothing changes.