Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

When they landed on the small pad, Sav wasted no time in collecting the bag that held his scavenged equipment and clearing out of the dropship. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he hurried down the overgrown path to the main entrance, pausing when he reached the front door to look back at the dropship. Through the hatch he could see the Facilitator crouched in front of one of the ship’s tiny storage lockers; at his feet were four thin grey cases, and, as Sav watched, the Facilitator pulled out an object, roughly fist-sized, from the locker and added it to the pile. At this distance, he couldn’t see what it was.

Sav frowned, realizing he’d been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t thought to ask Hebuiza what he’d found. Chewing on his lip, he hesitated before the door, debating whether or not to return to the dropship. To hell with it, he thought. Ordering his helmet light on, he shoved his bag through the opening they’d cut and crawled after it. Clambering to his feet, he looped the bag through his suit’s harness, walked down the hall, then pulled himself into the dropshaft’s well of darkness.

When he passed the fifth sublevel, Sav initiated a transmission request to Liis. He wasn’t surprised to hear nothing but the hiss of static; he was still too far above her. Keeping the channel open, he descended; by the time he reached the eleventh sublevel and he’d still received no response he started to worry. Sav quickened his pace, dropping quickly to the fourteenth sublevel, his fatigued legs nearly giving out beneath him as they cushioned the shock of contact with the floor. Regaining his balance, Sav strode down the corridor, aware of the slight wobble of his light. He checked the connect indicator again, but it remained dark. There was still nothing on his headset but static. He reached Josua’s sickroom; the door was shut. Sav pushed it open.

Josua was still on the makeshift cot where they had left him, wrapped loosely in the emergency blankets. In the bright pool of light from Sav’s headlamp he seemed better, his skin less pale. His chest rose and fell at regular intervals. Then his eyes opened. He blinked furiously in the light, dark irises shrinking to points.

Startled, Sav took a step back.

Josua’s eyes focussed on him; they were filled with a cold, deliberate anger, a malevolence that seemed to freeze Sav’s heart in his chest. Then his gaze went blank, wandered mindlessly off into the dark corners of the room. He groaned and shut his eyes, muttering unintelligible words.

“He’s awake.”

The voice came to Sav as if from a vast distance. He swung his light up, away from Josua, illuminating Liis where she sat on a wide shelf a meter above the floor, her long legs drawn up against her chest.

Beside her lay her helmet.

Hebuiza stood near the dropshaft, staring at Liis through narrowed eyes. His thin face twitched through a range of emotions: anger, puzzlement, fear? Sav couldn’t be sure. Down the hall the door to Josua’s room stood open, though the Facilitator refused to go near it.

“The Ea,” Hebuiza said. “You cannot go back. Now that you carry the danger of infection.”

Liis shrugged. “One of us would have had to do it, sooner or later.” The scars on her face seemed incredibly vivid now, almost three-dimensional. A translucent food tube dangled over the throat of her suit, a single bead of liquid hanging from its tip. “How else were we going to feed him?”

“We could have brought back food from the ship, Liis,” Sav said tiredly. He leaned against the wall between the two of them.

Liis crossed her arms, her expression resolute. “I’ve only made it easier for everyone concerned,” she said, staring directly at Hebuiza, who looked away. “We haven’t enough food and water to last more than a few weeks, even with strict rationing. Now at least one of us is free from these suits. Free to get on with all the things we need to do.”

“She is right,” the Facilitator said, surprising Sav. “This will increase our chances of survival. It is a reasonable risk.”

Sav swung around and glared at Hebuiza. “Then why don’t you take off your suit?”

“One is sufficient. Two would be foolish.”

Liis laughed, but it was sharp and humourless. “For once we’re in agreement.”

“Dammit!” Sav’s shout seemed to rattle them both. Liis shifted her weight uneasily; Hebuiza crossed his arms. Sav blew out an exasperated breath. “We’ve got to get together on this,” he said, swinging his gaze from one to the other. “We need to do some serious planning. Or we all might as well take our suits off right now!”

For a moment there was silence. Then Liis said softly, “What do you suggest?”

“First, we need to sort some things out.” He hesitated. “The command situation, for one.”

“Yes.” Hebuiza pursed his lips. “Perhaps it is time for a new commander. Or at least someone to assume charge on the planet. As a Facilitator I am better equipped to deal with situations such as this. It is only natural-”

Sav stepped in front of the Facilitator, cutting him off. “On or off planet, I am still the senior officer,” he said, the depth of his anger surprising him. Sav was a full head shorter than Hebuiza. Although rotund, he was also well-muscled. He had no doubt that, if necessary, he could take the taller man.

The Facilitator stared down at him; his eyes flicked over Sav’s body, like he too was considering his chances in a physical confrontation. The Facilitator shrugged.

“No more solo excursions,” Sav said.

“Solo excursions?” Liis asked.

The Facilitator looked at Liis. Sav had no doubt he was weighing his options, trying to decide which way she’d throw her support. She’d been angry before at both of them. Perhaps more at Sav, since he’d let her down when she’d asked for support. And the Facilitator would have been blind not to notice this.

But Liis seemed to read the tension between the two of them and quashed any hopes Hebuiza might have had.

“I won’t take orders from you,” she said to him. “So there’s nothing open for debate.”

For a moment, Hebuiza’s eyes narrowed. Then he looked at Sav, shrugging as if none of this had the least importance to him. “I will request permission for use of the Ea‘s dropship if I have need of it in the future.” If nothing else, he knew when to back peddle.

“Fine,” Sav said, not really believing him, but accepting his concession as a minor vindication anyway. He turned to Liis. “How’s Josua doing?”

Liis frowned, chewing distractedly on her lower lip. “He’s feverish. Whenever I’ve tried to speak to him he stares past me. I don’t know think he hears me.”

Earlier, when he’d looked into Josua’s eerie, baleful eyes, Sav had thought, he’s insane. But he decided not to share his belief with Liis. Instead, he asked, “Do you think we should move him?”

She shrugged. “Maybe in a couple of days. Right now he’s pretty weak. He may still be in shock.”

“Then, Captain,” Hebuiza said, placing a sneering emphasis on the title, “what do you suggest we do in the meantime?”

Sav lowered himself onto an overturned crate. When he’d squared off with Hebuiza he’d felt a brief rush of adrenaline; but now the exhaustion of the last two days had come back to weigh down his limbs, to muddy his thoughts. “Return to the Ea and get out of these damn suits,” he said. “Rest before we make any more decisions.”

“Yes,” the Facilitator said. “I agree.” He turned and pulled himself into the dropshaft and before Liis or Sav could say anything else, disappeared up the ladder.

“You’d best go after him,” Liis said wearily.

Sav looked at her.

The scars couldn’t hide the redness of her eyes or the lines of exhaustion that had crept into her face. She pressed her lips together in an attempt at a smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. In a way I’m glad I don’t have to deal with him any more. In fact, I’ll probably sleep better knowing Hebuiza’s up there with you.”

Sav allowed himself a small smile. “Yeah. I know what you mean. You sure you’ll be okay?”

Something, a look of anguish perhaps, flickered across her face; it lasted only a second, then vanished. “Yes.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Liis nodded, her features indecipherable again. A mask behind the mask of scars.

Sav dragged himself over to the shaft. The Facilitator was already many levels far above, his light a distant fleck that appeared and disappeared with his movements. The top of the shaft seemed infinitely far away.

With leaden arms, Sav pulled himself onto the first rung.

The sun was low in the west, and Amerilus and Perimus-the two moons of Bh’Haret-were already rising in the south-west when Sav finally reached the dropship. With an effort he pulled himself over the lip of the hatch and inside the cramped cabin. To his surprise, Hebuiza was seated in the pilot’s chair, his cables connected to the control ports. Sav wanted to order him out of the seat-but was so exhausted he hadn’t the energy for the confrontation. Besides, it made sense to let the Facilitator learn more about handling the ship, especially outside the atmosphere. Sooner or later Sav might have to send him out on his own. And he’d rather have Hebuiza know what he was doing than chance losing the craft. So Sav slumped into the co-pilot’s seat without protest.

They made the trip back to the Ea with a minimum of talk, Sav pointing out the few things Hebuiza hadn’t picked up on his own. The Facilitator tensed at each instruction, but carried them all out in silence.

The return to zero-gee wasn’t as much of a relief as Sav had anticipated. His suit still seemed to weigh on him, to trap him in its suffocating layers. He tried to ignore it, but the closer they got to the Ea, the more impatient he became to free himself of its confinement. He began to imagine a multitude of itches impossible to scratch.

After a quick rundown by Sav, the Facilitator brought the dropship smartly into the hangar as if he’d been practising the manoeuvre for weeks. His deep-set eyes seemed to glitter, and the corners of his thin lips were turned upwards in a smug, triumphant smile. Without sealing the outer bay doors, he punched in the sequence to open the dropship hatch. It was crude, but it was the best decontamination procedure they could come up with: let the frigid vacuum kill whatever bugs that might have taken refuge in the outer folds of their suits. They waited ten minutes, then sealed the outer door.

Sav keyed in the command to start the compressors; the oxygen/nitrogen mix was pumped back into the hangar. Within thirty seconds the pressure had equalized. Sav began fumbling at the seals above his wrists. Before he had both gauntlets off, the Facilitator was already clipping his dark suit inside his locker. Hebuiza pulled off his undersuit, velcroed it in the bottom of the locker, and shut the door. The special lock he’d installed before the mission-and the only lock on the Ea-snicked into place, its glaring red LED’s spelling out SECURE. Twisting around, the Facilitator opened the inner bulwark door and propelled himself through, the antennae on his skull flowing behind him. He swam up and out of sight. A moment later, Sav heard water running in the tiny shower on the deck above.

His gloves off,