Transplant (3 page)

The four of them staggered out of the room laden with an assortment of equipment that should fix just about anything, or so they thought.

Clanking and rattling their way along the corridor, they came to the first of the lifts they would have to use. It was a tight squeeze to get all four of them in, and the equipment, but they made it, just.

The lift was silent in its movement, and they only knew they had reached the lower level when the door hissed open to reveal a service tunnel.

‘I thought we were using the normal corridors.’ said Glyn.

‘So did I,’ Brendon added, ‘but it looks as if there is something wrong with the corridor we want or the lift doesn’t know what it’s doing.’

‘Let’s go back up and try coming down again, that should prove the point.’ Glyn suggested.

One of the team shuffled round, found the correct button and they returned to the corridor they had started from.

‘Right, now let’s see what happens.’ and the lift descended once more to stop at the service tunnel.

‘I didn’t know such tunnels existed.’ commented one member of the team.

‘I’ve never seen one, although I did hear about them some time ago,’ added Brendon, grumpily ‘and I don’t like the idea of going in. We would have to bend up double and with all this equipment, I don’t think we could make it.’

Glyn poked his head cautiously into the tunnel and looked up and down it. The light level was very low and it had a dry dusty smell about it, and then he spotted a very good reason for not entering.

‘It looks as if there are two rails sunk into the floor and that can only mean that something on wheels goes along it. If we are in the tunnel when whatever it is comes along......’ He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

‘Looks like we shall have to try and find another connection to the corridor we want, but is it above us or below?’ Arki, the tall one asked.

‘Damned if I know. Perhaps we should go back up again, go along the corridor and try another lift.’ Brendon offered.

‘Good idea.’ replied Glyn, and they all wriggled round so that one of them could reach the control button, their equipment making a cacophony of clanks and rattles in the confined space of the lift, and up they went.

The next lift was some way along the seemingly never ending maze of passageways in the Great Ship, and it was a disgruntled bunch of men who eventually piled into the box like space which had been designed for two in comfort, and three at a squeeze.

‘Let’s hope this one works correctly.’ said Glyn, thumbing the button a little more firmly than was necessary.

The lift dropped to the required level as far as they could tell, and when they emerged into the lower corridor, the number sequence on the doors corresponded with those they’d seen on the ship’s map back in the equipment room.

‘We shall have to go back up that way,’ indicated Glyn, ‘until we come to an intersection, and then turn off to the left.’

‘No, to the right.’ Arki said, but with little certainty.

‘I’ve got a bit of paper here somewhere, let’s draw out the route you memorized from the wall map, and then we can put in the diversion we’ve just made.’ Brendon said, looking at Arki.

Although they referred to it as paper, it was really a thin sheet of plastic material on which they could write, and then wipe off the writing in order to use the sheet again. Old names for commodities still stuck long after the materials from which they were made had been replaced with something else.

Arki drew out the map, made the corrections for the diversion, and apologized for his mistake.

‘One day someone is going to get lost in this labyrinth.’ he added, still not happy that he had made a mistake which could have caused even more problems for the group.

‘Never happened yet, as far as I know.’ Glyn added, trying to add a note of cheer to the proceedings.

They trudged on, coming at last to the door marked H223 and paused before it, putting down their equipment.

‘Better suit up, we can’t go in there without protection as there is a flashing red light on the door.’ Brendon commented, sourly.

‘How do you know that?’ asked Arki, still smarting from his mistake.

‘Don’t know really, must have heard it somewhere, anyway that light isn’t there just to make the door look pretty, it’s a warning.’

They struggled into their protection suits, locked the head pieces into place and checked their radio communications units. All seemed well.

‘OK, let’s do it.’ said Glyn, who seemed to have assumed leadership by default.

He pressed the pad to activate the door’s opening mechanism, and after a pause it obligingly slid to one side. The four of them crowded into the small space of the airlock, the outer door slid to and a green light came on to indicate that they could proceed into the problematic hydroponics chamber.

The chamber was vast, stretching upwards into a mist shrouded ceiling which they assumed was there, but couldn’t see. A long wide walkway stretched off into the distance, each side of it shrouded in banks of deep green foliage, some of which had decayed and drooped downwards to block the centre path in places, a general mistiness hung in the air adding to the sense of gloom.

‘What are we supposed to do?’ asked Brendon, looking around nervously as if expecting something nasty to come out of the foliage at them. They put their equipment down and looked around at the vast green jungle.

Glyn was just about to ask the same question when the ‘ping’ which heralded the voice of the Captain sounded, but with a strangely muffled sound to it.

‘Please look around you and tell what you see. The optics in this unit have malfunctioned and I am unable to observe the situation.’

They all looked at one another in astonishment, the captain didn’t usually ask questions or require their help, he, if it was a ‘he’, just gave orders and made announcements.

The other three looked at Glyn, Brendon raising his hands and shrugging his shoulders. Glyn realized that they had unanimously chosen him to be their spokesman on the subject of the chamber without saying a word.

He quickly looked around the vast cavern of greenery to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important, and said,

‘This end of the chamber is nearly normal, as far as I can see, with only a few clumps of leaves showing signs of decay, but further on down the line I can see whole branches laden with a dirty green brown mess of decayed vegetation, some of it has actually turned into a liquid and is dripping off the ends of the branches. Good thing we can’t smell it.

‘There is a blockage further on down the chamber, I will try to get past it so that I can see what the rest of the chamber looks like.’ He walked up to the first branch which had bent right down to ground level, the slime from the dripping end forming a small pool of disgusting bubbling liquid which he was very careful not to tread in or get on his suit.

Glyn went to push the blocking branch to one side, and as his hand touched it there was a soggy snapping sound and it fell to the ground, a thin drizzle of brown liquid oozing out of the broken end which was still attached to the main growth. The piece which had fallen split open along its length, adding more of the putrefying liquid to the slime pool in the middle of the path.

He bent as close to the ruptured branch as his stomach would allow to see if there were any signs of living creatures in the remains which might have caused the disintegration, but nothing moved except the turgid liquid still oozing out of the collapsed branch.

Carefully he stepped over the nauseous looking mess on the path and slowly walked on down between the towering ranks of plants, most of which showed signs of succumbing to the rot in varying degrees.

Brendon had followed him a few paces down the track way and was getting nervous, calling over the radio link

‘You are disappearing into the mist, I can only just make out your shape. Do you think it wise to be out of sight?’

Glyn hesitated for a moment, he didn’t like the idea of being out of sight just in case something went wrong, and no one knew about it.

‘OK, as the mist begins to hide me, come forward, keeping me just in sight, and then the others can do likewise as you begin to fade from sight. That way we shall all know what’s going on and can render help if necessary.’

Slowly Glyn edged his way past fallen branches and pools of slime, which were becoming more numerous as he proceeded down the pathway between the towering plant growth.

‘What do you see now?’ the voice of the Captain sounded uneasy, but Glyn put it down to his imagination as he felt sure the Captain wasn’t really human.

‘More of the same, except that it is getting worse, every plant is affected to some degree, some have collapsed completely.’

A few minutes later and the foursome had gone as far as they could, spread out along the pathway and keeping each other just in sight.

Glyn had reached a point where he thought he could see the end of the chamber wall in the now very steamy conditions, and called back on the radio that he wasn’t going any further as his way was blocked by too many fallen branches.

Again the attention getting ‘ping’ sounded, to be followed by the sonorous tones of the Captain.

‘Take the purple canister up to the end of the chamber, pull the tab on the top, the end will come off. This reveals a valve. Hold the canister vertically, turn the valve until the arrow points to the mark and then raise it up as high as you can. Turn to face the way back to the entrance port. Press the button next to the valve and walk back to the port.’

As the canister in question was back at the point where they had all come in, there were a few muttered curses as the foursome trouped back to recover it.

When the little group had reassembled at the pile of equipment they had dumped earlier, it was the fourth member of the team, Bolin, who volunteered to activate the canister which brought an audible sigh of relief from the other three.

This time they set off as a group to the far end of the chamber, helping each other over fallen branches and taking it in turns to carry the heavy canister.

As they made their way back to the far end of the chamber, Glyn gave the Captain a running commentary of their progress and the degree of increasing decay they observed as they went down the pathway, hoping the information would be of some use.

When they had gone as far as it was deemed safe to go and with what they thought was the end of the chamber in sight, they halted, informed the Captain that they were about to release whatever it was the canister held, and prepared to walk back the way they had come.

Bolin removed the end of the canister as instructed, turned the valve and held the canister as high as he could.

‘Someone else will have to press the release button, I can’t reach it and hold this damn thing at the same time.’

Brendon stepped forward a couple of paces, thought better of it, and stayed put.

‘OK, I’ll do it.’ said Glyn stepping up to the nervous looking Bolin. He pressed the button and stepped back in one fluid movement, as if expecting the canister to come alive. All that happened was a faint hissing sound and an almost invisible stream of vapour jetting high up into the air.

‘Looks harmless enough, but I wouldn’t count on it.’ Glyn felt something should be said, if only to ease the tension they all felt.

Slowly they made their way back towards the entrance point of the chamber, helping Bolin with his canister wherever a branch got in the way or a pool of slime had to be trodden in, as the fluid from the decaying vegetation dripped down from the rotting branches at an ever increasing rate.

Glyn kept the Captain informed of their progress as they went along until they neared the end of the pathway by the entrance, and then disaster struck.

A large branch fell from high above, knocking Bolin off his feet and sending the canister spinning into the slimy mass of decay at the side of the path. As he fell his arm caught on one of the steel posts which marked the edge of the path, ripping the suit open and exposing bare flesh.

As the others crowded around him, a thin trickle of blood appeared and a look of horror flashed across Bolin’s face.

Glyn quickly told the Captain what had happened, but there was no reply for a moment.

‘Come on Captain, what do we do now? Bolin’s been injured, what should we do?’

‘Recover the canister and go to the end of the chamber. It is vital that the operation be completed. Do it now.’

‘But what about Bolin?’

‘Recover the canister....’ the Captain just repeated his former order.

Arki squelched his way into the morass at the side of the path, recovered the canister, and holding it as high as he could walked on up the path, cursing under his breath.

Bolin was looking decidedly sick inside his face mask, his skin had taken on a pale grey colour and he was trembling.

‘Bolin, can you hear me? Stand up, come on, stand up.’ but Glyn was wasting his breath, Bolin slowly slipped into unconsciousness and slithered from their grasp to lie on the pathway in a crumpled heap.

‘Is he dead?’ asked an equally pale Brendon.

‘No, I don’t think so, but he’s very sick. We must try and get him back to our quarters as quickly as possible, someone may know what to do.’ although in all honesty, Glyn didn’t think anyone would.

‘Captain, what can we do for Bolin?’ asked Arki, returning to the group and not really expecting a reply.

‘What has happened to him?’ came back loud and clear.

‘He fell against a steel post and gashed his suit, he also cut his arm on it and now he’s unconscious, what should we do?’ Arki was getting irritated at having to repeat himself.

‘There is nothing anyone can do for him. The spray from the canister must have got into his blood stream. He will die very soon and his body will disintegrate. Please place his body on the side of the pathway and it will be disposed of along with the vegetation.’

They looked at one another in sheer disbelief that the Captain could be so callous and uncaring towards one of them, it was his duty to look after them, or so they thought.