Pilgrim (17 page)

“What about that village you were talking
about?” Aart asked.

Nova shrugged and rested her head back
against the wall. “They’re infected, maybe it’s a different colony
or something? But I can guarantee you they have one plan: to get
off of this planet. They must be the only slugs in the universe set
on planetary domination.”

“That’s a lot of ambition for a few slugs,”
said Gus.

“Well they’ve tried it before,” she pointed
out. “The Human Confederacy might not like to talk about it, but it
happened.”

“Bloody Confederacy,” Aart said.

“Thank you for the history lesson, but what
are we going to do right now?” asked Gus.

“I don’t think we can leave this planet
without taking them down,” said Orion.

“We don’t owe the Confederacy anything,”
said Aart.

“Maybe not, but what about whoever comes
here next? The next hunter or explorer or whoever it is?” Orion
said, staring at each of them in turn.

“He’s right, we can’t let them become slug
food,” Nova said.

“Fine, as long as we’re clear we’re not
doing it for the Confederacy,” Aart said, tapping his finger on the
metal wall.

“Screw the Confederacy,” replied Gus.

“Great. So all we have to do is break out of
this prison, fight our way through hundreds of the slug-slaves, and
somehow find the slug queen in this catacomb,” Nova said, her voice
dry.

“Easy peasy,” said Orion.

She rolled her eyes and they came to rest on
the dark light which sat above their heads. It was a simple globe,
based on the old-Earth design, but she knew it wasn’t powered by
primitive electricity.

She stood and climbed up onto the top bunk
to join the sightless teddy bear.

“I don’t think now’s the best time for a
nap,” said Orion, watching her.

She ignored him and from the top bunk
reached out and unscrewed the light, hoping she’d found the answer
they were looking for. She pulled the glass globe to her chest and
looked down into it.

Sure enough, a pile of grey-brown sludge at
the bottom told her that the globes had once run on
bioluminescence. Every globe was filled with an entire ecosystem of
bacteria that would glow. It was the same system which powered many
of the lights on Crusader.

“The creatures can’t stand light,” Nova
said, holding the globe in her hand and looking around at her
companions.

“Yes but all we’ve got are our little
glowballs,” Aart said, gesturing to the blue orbs at his belt.
“Unless you happened to pack a searchlight somewhere in those
pants?”

“No,” Nova said. “But look, the lights run
on bioluminescence. If we can find a way to get the bacteria
colonies back up and running then the whole ship will be lit
up.”

A flutter of hope surged in Nova’s
chest.

***

“If you can bring millions of bacteria back
from the dead then you’ve been holding out on us,” said Orion.

“They’re not dead,” Nova said, rolling her
eyes. “The colonies are always self-sustaining.”

“Then why aren’t they glowing now?” asked
Aart.

“They get fed a chemical which they then
turn into light. That chemical is made by a different colony. They
usually keep a vat of it on the ship.”

“Why bother separating the two colonies?
Seems like a lot of extra work,” said Orion.

“If they didn’t separate them, the lights
would be on all the time. In a colonisation ship like this, people
would want to sleep in the dark every now and then. So instead,
they just siphon off the chemical and then deliver it to the lights
when the switches are on.”

“So where’s this magical vat of glowing
stuff?” Gus said, getting to his feet.

Nova placed the light bulb on the bed next
to the bear and wiped her hands on her pants.

“Far from here, in the engine room
probably.”

“Nova, I appreciate you trying, but that
leaves us back at square one,” Aart said, slumping down onto the
bottom bunk.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The door to the sleeping pod rattled as the
creatures smashed their fists against it.

“I think they’ve finished with Freya,” Gus
said, his mouth twisting down.

Nova ignored the three men and strode to the
farthest wall from the door. She knelt down by the metal panels and
pulled a utility knife from her belt. She flicked it open and
worked at the screws holding the panel in place.

Aart, Orion, and Gus checked their guns and
levelled them at the door. The metal was buckling under the bodies
on the other side. The clanging echoed around the small sleeping
pod and made the walls vibrate.

Nova worked until the corner of the panel
popped open. She grabbed hold of it and ripped it off, tossing the
metal plate across the floor behind her. Beyond the panel was a
series of tubes and wires.

“What are you going to do with that?” Aart
asked over his shoulder as he watched her fling the metal
panel.

“I told you. The light bulbs turn on when
the bacteria crap from the other colony is mixed in; it’s delivered
through one of these pipes. The light switch won’t work anymore,
but if we can siphon it then we should be able to get enough of a
flow to deliver to all the lights.

“You know, you’re not so bad sometimes,”
Aart said, returning his attention to the door.

A warm glow filled her chest and melted some
of the icy horror. She bent closer to read the small labels stamped
onto each of the metal pipes. One of them was marked waste, the
other said water. Behind those ran a thinner red pipe. Smaller
branches ran away from the main line and disappeared further up the
wall.

She stood and took a deep breath before
slamming her foot down into the mass of pipes. They bent but didn’t
break under her weight.

“Here, let me. Which one do you want?” Gus
said, handing his massive gun to Nova.

She hefted the weight in both her hands and
even then it was hard not to drop.

“The red one,” she replied.

Gus knelt in front of the hole in the wall
and reached in with his meaty hand. He grabbed the red pipe and
yanked on it with his big shoulders. The section of pipe came away
in an instant.

The sudden release sent Gus flying backwards
onto his behind, a chunk of pipe still clutched in his hand.
Residue from the pipe flew through the air and a droplet landed on
Orion’s face.

“What the hell is that?” Orion said as his
eyebrows flew up to his hairline. His eyes strained to see his
cheek where the wet substance was sliding down to his chin.

Nova snorted and knelt down to inspect the
now-broken red pipe. “It’s harmless,” she said, “although if you
brush up against the right thing, you might just start
glowing.”

Orion wiped the glob from his cheek with his
finger and flicked it towards the corner of the sleeping pod. He
took a moment to glare at Nova and Gus before returning his
attention to the door and the pounding it was taking.

“Gus, once we’ve got this siphon going, I’m
going to need you to put the pipe back. Without that, the rest of
the ship will stay dark as night.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” Gus said as he got back
to his feet and dusted off; the pipe clutched in his fist.

She stared at the broken red pipe in the
wall. How was she going to create a siphon powerful enough to pull
through the whole ship? This wasn’t like Crusader’s engine which
she could siphon in the blink of an eye. This was much, much
bigger.

“Not to put stress on your large and
powerful mind,” Aart said, “but this door isn’t going to hold long.
Once they get in here, there’s not much we’ll be able to do.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m trying to work out how to
set up this siphon. If I had my bag of stuff, I could use my
pressure pump but I don’t.”

She chewed on her bottom lip as she stared
at the mass of pipes and wires.

“There’s only one way to do it. Aart, I’m
afraid you won’t be getting your gun back.”

She lifted the gun Aart had given her and
catalogued its components. She then went to work tearing it to
pieces. Her pocket knife came out once more as she pried open the
metal casing to reveal the inner workings.

The plasma rifle was relatively new and
worked with the new vacuum pump for maximum force.

She pried out the pump; it was smaller than
her fist. The input valve would be too small to fit over the red
pipe. She glanced around the sparse room for anything else she
could use.

As her eyes roamed around, they took in the
door. It was bent and twisted and dents marred its surface. A few
more good hits and it would cave straight in and then they would be
overrun by the swarm.

She turned the barrel of the gun over in her
hand a few times and then rammed it into the red pipe. The barrel
was narrower at one end and slid an inch into the pipe before the
wider base became stuck.

She forced the vacuum pump onto the end of
the barrel and pushed the whole thing together. It locked firmly in
place. It fit so well that the system could almost have been made
in a factory.

“Here we go,” she said.

“Whenever you’re free,” Aart said through
clenched teeth as another fist slammed into the metal door and left
a sizeable dent.

Nova flicked the switch on the vacuum pump
and it whirred into life. It vibrated on the end of the gun barrel
and hissed as it sucked air through the pipe and expelled it out
the other side.

Bang!

Nova’s head whipped around at the noise.
Orion’s gun was glowing from the recently fired shot. She turned to
look at the door, the corner had become detached and arms were
grasping around the jagged metal.

Bang!

Aart’s shot took out an arm, but when one
disappeared two more rose to take its place.

Nova spun back to the red pipe and the
vibrating vacuum pump. “C’mon, c’mon,” she said. “You owe me
one.”

As if in reply, the air pouring out of the
vacuum pump was suddenly replaced by grey liquid. It spurted out of
the pump and sprayed over the other pipes, floor, and walls.

“Gus. You’re up,” she said.

When the big man stepped up next to her
brandishing the red section of pipe, she stepped to the side,
taking the vacuum pump with her.

Gus shoved the red section back into place.
The grey liquid squirted through the gap and sprayed in an arc over
Gus’s face before he could seal the pipe. He cursed and shook his
head to get rid of the stuff.

“It stinks!” Gus said, using his free hand
to wipe it out of his eyes.

“It’s essentially bacteria crap. What did
you expect?” Nova said, brushing a hand across her forehead.

“I expected not to get any on me,” Gus
replied. “I don’t think this is going to hold.”

She knelt down beside him. He held the red
pipe in place and it shook with the force of the liquid flowing
through it.

“Okay, we just have to find a way to brace
–”

“What the hell was that?” Aart said, jumping
a foot into the air.

They all turned with weapons drawn to look
at Aart. Nova expected to see him covered in slugs or wrestling
with a grasping arm. He looked just fine.

“What?” Nova said, a mixture of annoyance
and concern in her voice.

“Something dripped on me,” Aart said,
rubbing furiously at his forehead.

Nova looked up at the ceiling and a smile
broke across her face.

“It’s working,” she said.

Another drop of grey liquid plopped from the
empty light socket and fell through the air. It caught the light
from their glowballs as it went and reflected onto the walls. It
fell from the ceiling and splattered onto the floor where Aart had
been standing moments before.

“It’s disgusting,” Aart said, wiping with
even more fervour at his forehead.

“Don’t even get me started,” Gus
replied.

“Alright, we get it. You’re all a bunch of
dandies who don’t like getting dirty,” Nova said, turning her
attention back to the red pipe in Gus’s hand.

If she could just make the pipe stay in
place, then she was sure part of their troubles would be over. With
the lights on, the creatures would leave the ship and at least
they’d have an escape route. Hell, if things got really bad, she’d
still be able to grab the warp converter, mushrooms be damned.

She looked down at the remnants of her gun
and her mind went to work. Not long after, she spotted the
solution. Her hands got busy. She used the handle and trigger
section of the gun wedged between the bigger water and waste pipes
to hold the small section of red pipe in place.

“I think you’ve got it, look,” Orion said,
pointing at the section of hallway visible through the bent
door.

Before, the hallway had been mostly dark,
made up of silhouettes, and the only light was the remnants of
Freya’s glowballs. Now there was a definite shine.

“Listen to them,” Nova said, standing
up.

They tilted their heads and listened.

“They’re screaming,” Aart said.

“And they’re leaving,” Orion added.

Sure enough, the creatures were running away
from the sleeping pods. Body after body ran past them on its way
down into the deeper caverns.

“How long do we have until this light gives
out?” asked Gus.

“Technically, it should stay on forever. But
there will be some broken bulbs and split piping where there won’t
be any light,” Nova replied.

“So are we going forward or heading back to
our ships?” Orion said.

“I’m not going back, I need my bag. You
sissies can do what you want,” Nova said, her feet spread wide on
either side of her body.

“Me neither. After getting a face-full of
that stuff, I’m going to need the mushroom money to buy me a tonne
of soap,” Gus said, using his dirt-stained shirt to wipe the worst
of the slime from his face.