The Pinnacle Read online

  He looked toward the hall of sleep and was pleased to see the familiar glow of the transparent capsules. He was tempted to take a quick stroll down the passage so he could make one last inspection before the Awakening, but suppressed the impulse. He was early; they were late. And then he understood; it was just another trick. Every moment he was awake he was getting older, but they were staying young. He nodded. It was unscrupulous, but he had to admire their duplicity. He must never underestimate them.

  Harsh laughter echoed around the bridge. It made the hairs on his arms stand erect. Mendoza. Mendoza was helping them. He stole a nervous glance toward the control chair; the head had not moved, but now he knew it was part of the game.

  He backed toward the down-tube, feeling for the edge with his foot. When he felt it, he took a step backward and was silently swallowed by the shaft. He smiled a tight little smile. They evidently thought they were playing with an amateur.

  He exited on the storage level and quickly climbed back into the land-shaper. He could hardly contain his glee. This time he set his cryo-capsule to open when the land-shaper’s sensors detected light in the Storage Deck for an uninterrupted hour. This time he wouldn’t be the first to awaken; he’d be the last. He was extremely pleased. He reentered his capsule and it took him once again into the timeless embrace of stasis.

  Chapter 2

  Casey awakened. His plan was fresh in his mind because, for him, no time had passed. He pushed against the smoothly curved, inner surface of the capsule and it opened soundlessly. He knew that his awakening meant that lights were on in the Storage Deck; the colonists had come back to life.

  He stepped onto the cabin floor of the land-shaper, naked except for his jeweled com-collar. Debris coated the deck, feathery soft against his feet as he walked over to the control console. He didn’t need the cabin lights to find the control plate and placed his palm flat against it. The hydraulics responded and the heavy hatch began to open, visible as a crescent-shaped crack of bright light in the darkness. His eyes were fixed on the growing opening. He was so excited he could hardly wait. He raced up the small ladder that led to the hatch, and then paused.

  He scolded himself. “Control yourself, Casey. Don’t underestimate them.”

  He waited until the hatch was fully open and then peeked over the rim, as crafty as an earthworm in sunlight. The Storage Deck was brightly lit and, not more than thirty meters away, he saw two men dressed in the pumpkin-orange of mechanical technicians. Both were bent at the waist while they inspected a drill press, but he wasn’t fooled. He knew they were pretending. They were trying to sneak up on him but they were too late. He had won! It started as a soft cackle, but quickly grew into belly-shaking, breath-taking laughter. He had won!

  The two men had started to walk away from the drill press, but the wild laughter immobilized them. They turned as if one to search out the source of the ghastly sound.

  Casey recognized them. The tall, slim man, the one with the pointed nose, thick lips and prominent cheekbones was Barracuda. The other was massive, the biggest man on the ship, other than the Unsmiling Buddha. He was Meat-Man. Barracuda and Meat-Man made brief eye contact with one another and then walked cautiously toward the land-shaper.

  Casey stopped laughing. They should have shouted their congratulations, but they hadn’t. Clearly, they were cheaters. A tear rolled down his cheek. He was so sad his chest ached. They were bad children, evil. They would never admit they had lost. They were going kill him.

  “It isn’t fair,” he whispered. He withdrew into the cabin and activated the lights. The light glinted off silvery tools he had used to construct his cryo-capsule. Among the tools he spotted a pick-like instrument. He grabbed it and concealed it in the palm of his hand.

  “Fair is fair,” he said and nodded in agreement with himself.

  He climbed the small ladder and his head and torso popped out of the hatch, like a jack-in-the-box. He smiled a decent smile. The two men paused in mid-stride.

  That confirms it, Casey thought as his head bobbed forward and back, they are assassins. He cleared his throat and maintained his smile. “Hello, Barracuda,” he said, and then nodded toward the body builder, “Meat-Man.” He kept his voice soft and smooth. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

  Barracuda whispered to Meat-Man and then reached up to activate his com-collar. Casey couldn’t hear what Barracuda was saying, but he was talking rapidly and waving his arms.

  From his vantage point, Casey felt secure, but he wasn’t comfortable with the secrets the two men passed back and forth. However, he knew how to play the game. He had his own secret. His smile was a taut slash of revealed teeth while he clutched the pick tightly.

  “Secrets cancel out secrets,” he whispered.

  Meat-Man looked up, directly at him. “Who are you?” His voice was weak and high pitched.

  “Wrong voice,” Casey said to himself, “and wrong words. They know exactly who I am.”

  Meat-Man took two steps closer. “Who are you?” he repeated.

  “You know who I am,” Casey replied and snorted in disgust. “I’m the one you left behind. Give up. You can’t fool me.”

  Barracuda’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  Casey could see double-edged thoughts behind those eyes, sharp and dangerous thoughts. He sensed that laughter would bubble up. “Not now!” he commanded, but the laughter burst forth anyway; it had a life of its own.

  The men stood rock still and stared up at him. When the laughter subsided, the Storage Deck was again silent.

  Casey expected them to come closer, but they stayed where they were. He tried to entice them into approaching. “Don’t worry,” he said in his most reassuring voice. “It was only Mendoza.” He blew them a kiss. A happy thought came to mind. Perhaps a timeout would be enough to set them straight.

  Barracuda spoke, his nasal voice escaping from every orifice on his face. “We are friends. Come down and join us.”

  “Friends.” Casey shook his head with disappointment. “How sad. Is that anyway to speak to your father?”

  Meat-Man shifted his eyes toward Barracuda.

  It was a secret message. Casey was certain of it, but he needed to get closer. It couldn’t be helped. He climbed the rest of the way out of the hatch and descended the ladder. The steel rungs were cold against the bare skin of his chest and thighs. He climbed down slowly, his head twisted so he could see them at all times. His confidence increased as he neared the bottom of the ladder. He could control them with his eyes; they hadn’t moved since he’d begun his descent. He stepped onto the deck and walked toward them. They were only a few strides away, but they still hadn’t moved, pinned in place by his power. His smile widened and filled in with teeth.

  “Now!” Meat-Man shouted. He lunged forward and wrapped his exaggerated arms around Casey.

  Casey couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating! He arched his back with the strength of sheer terror and gained a sliver of space. It was enough. Up came his hand with the concealed pick. He placed it with the precision of a surgeon. The needle-sharp point pierced Meat-Man’s larynx and passed upward and back, into his brain stem. Casey sliced the tip of the pick back and forth.

  Meat-Man remained standing for only a moment. His last breath was expelled by the mechanical elasticity of his thorax and gurgled out of his mouth as he collapsed.

  Casey was knocked to the deck, pinned beneath the lifeless hulk of Meat-Man. He struggled fiercely to escape, an animal caught in a trap. He had almost managed to free his hand, still gripping the pick, when his vision flashed brightly, followed by blackness.

  When Casey regained consciousness, he was secured to an examination table with straps around his wrists and ankles, and a belt across his chest. To him, it was a spider’s web. He pulled against the restraints and squirmed, but could not escape. A scream erupted from his mouth.

  “Silence that maniac,” the sharp-nosed man with the thin lips and blocky jaw snapped.

  Casey heard th
e spider and struggled with renewed strength, trying to break his bonds.

  “Help me! Please, help me!” Casey yelled.

  “I told you to silence him,” Slater demanded.

  A young man with soft brown eyes and shaggy brown hair approached Casey. He spoke in a gentle voice. “Casey, it’s me. You’re on the Starship Pinnacle. You’re safe.”

  Casey tilted his head quizzically. “Teddy Bear?”

  Jon reached tentatively toward Casey’s naked shoulder and touched him with his fingertips.

  Casey jerked as if stung. He stared in horror as the teddy bear split along its seams and a black, glistening spider emerged, with a bulbous body and long, black legs. He saw the spider’s mandibles, double sickles, clicking back and forth, and dripping with sticky, yellow venom. Terror broke through his skin as a soaking sweat that ran in rivulets onto the exam table. He was terrorized beyond speech, beyond sound.

  “Give it up, Jon,” Slater said. “He’s obviously suffered a complete psychotic break. I have duties that require my attention. Just make sure he doesn’t escape. He’s already killed one man.”

  The naked man strapped to the table became still and repeated in a small voice, “He’s already killed one man.”

  Slater continued, as if the restrained man didn’t exist. “Because of our unexpected difficulties, we can’t afford to lose another man, a healthy one that is.”

  “A healthy one,” Casey repeated.

  Jon looked down at the deck. He took a deep breath and released it as an audible sigh.

  “As I recall, he was your friend,” Slater said.

  Jon looked up and nodded. “We were roommates at Copper Mountain. He was the most considerate and kind person I ever met.”

  Casey began screeching, pausing only long enough to take another breath.

  “Come on. Let’s go into the passageway so we can hear ourselves think,” Slater said and put his hand on Jon’s back to guide him through the door.

  Chapter 3

  As soon as the portal swished shut, Jon turned to face it. In his mind, he could still see the man strapped to the examination table. That man was old, dirty and wrinkled. His skin was thin and shiny. And his eyes, they darted about and his tongue, it flicked in and out.

  “He was always so clean. I’m…I’m not certain it really is Casey.” Jon said and looked to Slater.

  “It’s him all right. He’s old and crazy, but it’s Conklin.”

  Jon shivered. “How can we help him?”

  Slater took hold of the smaller man and turned him, holding him firmly by the shoulders. “Jon,” he began, “we’re in a crisis situation that was never planned for, not in our wildest scenarios. We need to reach deeply and find the strength to do what must be done. There will be no help from Earth. We’re on our own.”

  Jon looked up, into the taller man’s eyes, eyes that were such a light blue they were almost colorless.

  “Casey was my friend,” Jon said. Tears glistened along his lower lids.

  Slater’s lips squeezed together and his grip tightened on Jon’s shoulders.

  Jon yelped. “You’re hurting me!” He tried to twist out of Slater’s grip, his eyes wide.

  Slater eased his hold and finally released it, patting Jon on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jon. This is a difficult time for all of us, but we must rise to the occasion. Your secondary training was as a paramedic, wasn’t it?”

  “I was trained to be our librarian.”

  “That’s not what I asked. You don’t honestly think I called you here because of your training as a librarian, do you?”

  “But…why me? I’m not a physician. It takes years to become a physician. Casey was older than the rest of us, twenty-eight....” He looked toward the door that hid the old man who was tied to the exam table. “And he had the benefit of computer assist.”

  Jon waited, but Slater merely stared at him.

  “I heard we’ve had a computer crash and all our stored data was lost.” Jon held his breath.

  “That is correct.”

  “Oh, my God! Our culture, all the literature, music, videos…all our knowledge. I’m ruined. We are”

  “Shut up, Jon.”

  Jon’s mouth hung open with unspoken words.

  “You will become chief medical officer.”

  “Me?” Jon shook his head. “That’s impossible. I’m not a doctor. What about Doctor Gupta and Doctor Ishak?”

  “Their capsules failed.”

  “But, there were other doctors, the other guardians.”

  “Dead. All of them dead, except one.”

  “Geoffrey,” Jon was nearly shouting. “We need Casey! I can’t take his place.” He wiped new tears from his eyes.

  “First of all, don’t call me Geoffrey. We are not friends. I am the Commander of this expedition and you will show me the respect I’m due. From now on you will address me as Commander Slater. Is that understood?”

  “But, Geoff…I mean Commander Slater, we need him.”

  “Listen to me and listen good. I knew Casey back on Earth. We all knew Casey. He was stubborn, disrespectful of authority. He never knew when to stop pushing or when to shut up. He was a sarcastic son of a bitch.”

  “But—”

  “But what? Mitchell Mason hated him. That should tell you a lot. If it hadn’t been for that asshole Nichols, he never would’ve been included in the crew, much less have been appointed chief medical officer. And now we see the proof of Mason’s judgment. When we really need Casey, where is he?”

  “He’s ill.”

  “I’ll give you this, he certainly looks crazy…but I wonder. Is he really? The more I think about it, the more I think he’s playacting. Hiding. Wallowing in there, feeling sorry for himself. It’s sickening to see such weakness in a man. Sickening.”

  “You can’t possibly believe this is an act. Anyone can see he’s in terrible shape.”

  “Grow up, Jon. If you were a better judge of people, you’d know the extent they’re willing to go to in order to avoid blame. I know what motivates people.”

  “But, he was the only physician to survive at all.”

  Under Slater’s glare, Jon stepped back until he was against the bulkhead. He raised his arms protectively, as if he expected to be struck.

  Slater’s response was unexpectedly mild. “Exactly...makes a person wonder doesn’t it? It wouldn’t surprise me if we find that Casey caused all the death and the computer crash too, for that matter, either out of cowardice or some kind of warped suicidal desire. It wasn’t enough to kill himself. He wanted to kill everyone. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.” His voice trailed off in thought and then his eyes refocused on Jon. “You have one week to turn him around. No longer. If you’re unable to talk some sense into him, I’ll jettison his worthless carcass into space. Furthermore”

  Jon opened his mouth but, before he could voice his objection, Slater reached out and grabbed a handful of Jon’s uniform, pulling Jon’s face close to his own.

  “Furthermore,” Slater continued, “you’ll take on the responsibilities of chief medical officer and, as such, you’ll be held accountable for any failure. There will be a meeting of all guild chiefs on the bridge at sixteen hundred. Be there.” He loosened his grip. “And, there’s one more thing, as I think of it. I want that monstrosity sitting in the control chair removed.” He released his grip on Jon’s tunic and eased away. He smiled and smoothed out the front of Jon’s uniform. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Just remember what I’ve told you and,” he paused, “remember, Jon, I’m counting on you. We’re all counting on you. I’ll be watching.” He smiled coldly for a moment and then abruptly squared his shoulders, turned, and marched off.

  Jon stared at Slater’s retreating back until he disappeared around the curve of the passageway. He leaned weak-legged against the bulkhead while he considered the impossible task that had been assigned to him. He punched in the code for all-call on his com-collar.

  “This is Jon Brent.
I need the immediate assistance of anyone with a secondary training as paramedic. This is a priority request. Contact me at once.”

  He unconsciously held his breath as he waited. The seconds ticked by without a response and he was forced to exhale. The lengthy silence told him that death had taken many of those he’d spent time with during training. A cold emptiness filled his chest and he began to lose all hope when his com-collar switched on.

  “Jon, this is Li Quon. Can I be of assistance?”

  “Li, thank God! Please come at once. I’m in the passageway outside the medical suite on Deck Two. I need your help right now!”

  Li’s voice was cool in contrast. “What’s the emergency?”

  “Just come!”

  “All right, Jon, I’ll be there in a few minutes, but remember, my primary is history.”

  “Please hurry!”

  “Sure, I’ll be there in a minute.” She broke off the connection.

  Jon felt unbearably alone again and began tapping his foot on the deck while he waited. It seemed like a particularly long minute before he saw her walking along the curve of the passage. She walked toward him with graceful self-assurance, not hurrying, not hesitant. Her shoulder length coal-black hair shimmered and her dark brown eyes glittered with reflected light. He fidgeted while he waited for her to walk the last few steps. When she was within reach, he lost all reserve and hugged her. She tolerated this for a moment and then gently, but firmly, pulled his arms from around her.

  “Why did you call me here?” she asked.

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  “If you’re talking about the capsule failures, I know of it first hand. I’ve been walking the decks. There are lines of pasty-white capsules, one after another, as if filled with milk.” Her eyebrows pulled together and she closed her eyes. “So much death.” She opened her eyes to meet his. “How could so many capsules have failed? How could any of them have failed? How the hell could this have happened?”