Endurance: The Complete Series Read online

  “Cool!”

  “But there’s no definite reason to believe they’re actually deceased, or if they are, that they’re, er ...”

  “Undead?”

  “Look, don’t inflate this, Habassa. There’s no such thing as the undead. It’s a mortal coil, not a mortal yo-yo.”

  Matthias’s smile shrank by approximately two millimeters before growing again. “But isn’t a coil a spring? And those bounce back when you squash them, so according to your metaphor—”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Stop.”

  “Sorry, Captain.”

  Thomas rose and paced toward the viewport currently revealing a metal wall of the warehouse where they’d hidden the Endurance. “The point is, we don’t know what we’re dealing with, and since the O&I people are here, I want to maintain professionalism.”

  Matthias nodded eagerly and tapped the pilfered stylus against the desk. “No problem. That’s actually why I came up here. See, if these aliens actually are zombies ...”

  Oh, good lord.

  “... then maybe we can cure them.”

  That ... was actually an interesting idea. Thomas turned from the window and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s probably some kind of disease that did this to them, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, diseases can be cured.”

  Thomas studied the engineer. Matthias had the energy and attention span of a caffeinated hamster, but the man was also a genius, single-handedly responsible for inventing interdimensional travel and deciphering the various technologies acquired from alien species. “Do you have any idea how to do that?”

  “Not yet. But if we could get a sample of their blood, we could analyze what’s in it.”

  “You’re a chemist now?”

  “I dabble, but the rest of my team can help. And Maureen’s the medic, so I’m sure she’d want to be a part of this. Don’t worry. She’s been taking correspondence courses. She’s learned a lot, I promise.” Maureen Habassa was Matthias’s sister, and where he built supercomputers out of spare parts for fun, she once diagnosed the entire ship with a dangerous contagion that turned out to be the common cold. She only held the chief medic’s position because Dispatch didn’t want to assign an actual physician to the ship.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” Thomas said. “No promises, though. If the search team doesn’t find evidence to suggest what caused this—”

  “Zombieism?”

  “—phenomenon, we’re going to leave and let Dispatch decide whether to send another ship. That’s procedure.”

  “Aw.” Matthias dropped the stylus back on the desk. “Procedure’s no fun.”

  Thomas smiled in spite of himself. Sometimes he was tempted to agree.

  * * *

  “This is a LOT of stairs,” Chris said.

  Viktor grunted and rounded the landing to continue up yet another flight. It really was a lot of stairs, though he’d never give Chris the pleasure of agreeing with him.

  A whole flight ahead of them, Areva scouted ahead, using the bannister to keep out of sight.

  “Couldn’t these people have invented elevators before dying off?” Chris asked.

  “We are almost there,” said Viktor.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Areva has stopped ahead. I can see her.”

  Areva squeaked in his earpiece. “Viktor, you should have said you could see me!” The exposed toe of her EV suit boot vanished behind the bannister to hide with the rest of her. “Better?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Next time tell me sooner.”

  “I will. Next time.” If there was a next time. If he could find the words to convince her to stay. Or even just to express how he felt.

  They found Areva half-secluded behind a decaying bookshelf on the top floor of the rotunda. They’d started out by searching each floor of the building for rooms containing important records, but after three floors of nothing but vacant offices, they left the two backup teams to do that and headed for the top floor, intending to meet the other teams in the middle. Viktor reasoned the records would be kept either on the bottom floor, for easy access, or the top, to be ignored.

  He was not disappointed. The third door on the left opened to a large room stacked floor-to-ceiling with shelves containing boxes of papers.

  He held the door open for Chris and Areva. “Here. Look for the most recent—”

  “Found it,” Chris said, pointing to a box that had been hastily re-shelved next to a writing desk opposite the door. The box had split, and half the papers had spilled onto the floor. “It looks new, and whoever put it back was in a hurry.”

  Viktor hauled the box out and spread its contents on the desk. It took a moment before anyone voiced the imminent problem.

  “How do we read it?” Chris asked.

  Viktor stared at the unintelligible markings that could be letters, but could also be pictographs, for all he knew. “I am uncertain.”

  “Maybe they made audio recordings,” Areva said. She’d taken refuge behind another stack of shelves.

  “How will that help?” asked Chris.

  “The talky box might be able to translate their verbal language.”

  Viktor shrugged. “It is worth a try.”

  They spent another several minutes wandering the room before they located a section of collections of light blue chips of glass. Beside each row of the glass sat a metal device with a slot the right size for the chips to be inserted. They retrieved one of the machines, picked a glass piece at random, and inserted it.

  A second later, vocal chattering sprang out of the machine. Chris yanked the chip out of the slot. “It works.”

  Viktor nodded and tapped his helmet to activate his intercom. “Ivanokoff to all teams, we have found the records room. Proceed toward the top floor and meet us in the open room halfway down the hall.”

  Affirmations sounded in his ear, though Viktor didn’t expect the other teams for quite a while.

  It really was a lot of stairs.

  “Prepare the talky box,” he told Chris.

  Chris retrieved the palm-sized cube from a pack strapped to his EV suit and set it down next to the audio player. Matthias Habassa had taken it apart and figured out how to duplicate the technology, but nobody was entirely sure how the software inside the talky box managed to translate between languages so rapidly and fluidly. But it worked, so they just copied the program to each new box and hoped for the best.

  Viktor picked another chip out of the tray and inserted it into the alien player. The chattering started up again, but this time the talky box provided a running translation through their intercoms.

  “Wogogo Palunu is a child and a fool! True citizens of Thassis will cast their vote for Pogogo Dulayu, a real patriot and protector of—”

  Viktor removed the chip. “Campaign ads.”

  “At least we know the name of their planet now,” said Chris. “Thassis. Sounds like the sort of place zombies would devour a team of explorers, doesn’t it? Thassssss-issssss. Like a snake. Hey, do you think they eat their victims alive, or—”

  Viktor inserted another chip.

  It was the same voice as before. “I told them, I did, that Wogogo would be the end of our society. Did anyone listen to me? No. Now his administration is keeping who knows what secrets from the Thassian public, but we have a right to know! If it is to be the end of our people, we must face it squarely.”

  He removed the chip.

  “Sounds like Wogogo screwed up,” said Areva.

  “You don’t know that,” said Chris. “Maybe Pogogo is just running a smear campaign. I didn’t hear him offering any better suggestions.”

  “I hope you realize you are taking sides in an alien political debate,” Viktor said. He picked the last chip in the tray and inserted it into the player.

  This time a different, deeper voice boomed out
of the speaker. “It is with great regret that I must announce that the recent plague is the direct result of government fallibility. For reasons I hope are clear to most of you, we had no choice. I apologize for those breathing in this air who do not understand why this is happening, but this is the way it must be. Do not resist; it will be easier that way. This is Chief Administrator Wogogo Palunu, wishing you a peaceful transition.”

  The recording ran out. A click announced the end of the data on the chip.

  All three humans were silent for a moment.

  “So it was the government,” Areva said softly.

  “Yes. Fish, for once your conspiracies were correct,” said Viktor.

  Chris frowned through his faceplate. “I’m not so sure.”

  “What?”

  “If it was a conspiracy, why go public with it? You don’t just expose all your secrets like that.”

  “They were all about to die,” said Viktor.

  “Which just means history doesn’t need to remember how badly you screwed up. If you’re hiding something, there’s no reason to admit it at the end. Especially when the people you hurt are about to become flesh-tearing monsters.”

  “Maybe he felt guilty,” said Areva.

  “A politician? Never.”

  Viktor snorted.

  “I’m just saying,” Chris said. “It doesn’t make sense. Play some of the ones in the middle. That might clear all of this up.”

  Viktor returned the last chip to its storage slot and was about to pick one a few rows before it when something thumped near the door.

  All three officers jumped to their feet. Areva disappeared behind a desk. Viktor knew she’d already have her service weapon out and armed.

  Chris slunk behind Viktor. “Oh no.”

  “Stay calm,” Viktor said. He tapped his intercom. “Backup teams, report your locations.”

  Nothing but static.

  He tried again, but the intercom had gone dead.

  Chris moaned. “We’re gonna die. I’m never going to kiss my wife again.”

  “Be glad you have kissed even once,” Viktor said, glancing toward Areva’s hiding place. “Now silence yourself. They may track their prey through sound.”

  He had no idea whether that was true, but it would make Chris shut up, which was motive enough to say it. The scientist clamped both hands over the faceplate on his helmet, for all the good that would do, and said nothing else.

  They held completely still as another thump sounded from the shelves one row over. Something was coming down the aisle, bumping into boxes of papers as it walked. Crash! Folders and files spilled. Smash! Audio chips flew into the air and shattered on the wooden floor. The cacophony was even with their position now, on the opposite side of the shelves.

  Viktor edged toward the dividing shelf. There was a small space between the boxes. If he could look through, he could see what they were facing.

  A flash of stringy hair, a pattering of bare feet as something flashed by the space.

  Viktor let out a slow breath. It was just one zombie.

  He turned to tell the others everything was all right.

  “Viktor!”

  Areva’s scream and pointed finger wrenched his attention behind himself.

  The bookshelf was falling. Boxes split and files flew in every direction as the enormous shelving unit leaned precariously over Viktor’s head, tipping slowly toward that point of inevitable collapse.

  He dove toward Chris and Areva. “Run!”

  They fled, hopping over fallen boxes and dodging shards of glass as the shelf crashed against its twin on their other side. The wooden beams groaned under the impact, and then planks of broken wood joined the rain of other detritus. Chris held the talky box over his head like a shield while Viktor grabbed the scientist by the arm and pulled him faster after Areva.

  The second shelf began to fall as well, and soon the entire room became a blur of thunder as everything broke and crumbled around them. The distance to the end of the aisle seemed longer than it had before, and Viktor risked a glance upward to see if they could make it out before being crushed to death.

  The zombie was on the ceiling.

  Unfair.

  It wasn’t just hanging onto the ceiling fixtures, but clinging to the decaying roof itself, apparently with the long-nailed extra digits of its hands and bare feet. It scrambled after them, vacant eyes staring down, mouth open to reveal rows of sharp incisors.

  Even more unfair.

  Tumbling boxes and trays of glass slips hailed around them, and the shelf loomed only a few feet overhead as Areva cleared the end of the aisle. Viktor shoved Chris stumbling after her. He dove forward, arms outstretched, and hoped his lower body cleared the wreckage before his legs were crushed.

  He overshot.

  As the bookshelf’s impact shook the floor, Viktor banged his helmet on the opposite wall and brought his flight to an abrupt and painful stop. He grunted, but he would not tarnish the impressiveness of what he’d just done by saying “ow.”

  Areva was there the moment he sat up, her gloved hands fussing about his helmet. “Are you all right, Viktor?”

  “Yes.”

  “You hit your head.”

  “Not badly.”

  “Too bad,” Chris muttered. “Might’ve given you a sense of humor.”

  Viktor ignored that and pushed himself up to survey the aftermath. Every shelf had fallen, and the shaking it gave the room had caused some of the ceiling to cave in on top of what was left. An enormous pile of scattered files, splintered wood, and broken glass blocked their way back to the stairs.

  “Huh,” said Chris. “I guess we have to find the emergency exit.”

  Viktor checked his EV suit’s monitors. One hour of air left.

  He lagged behind the others and chanced a second look at the ceiling. Only gouges in the wood remained. The fanged zombie was gone.

  * * *

  After reporting their predicament and ordering the other teams to return to the ship, they took the back exit from the library, which led to a maintenance catwalk. Rusted railings lined the metal mesh walkway, which was suspended a few feet above a damp concrete floor. A dull light filtered through cracks in the walls and ceiling.

  At the back of the group, Areva said, “Ooh.” Both men turned.

  “No, don’t look at me. Look up.”

  Viktor did.

  They were in the rotunda. Overhead, metal trusses crisscrossed to form a lattice supporting an enormous, high dome. Though a few patches had worn through from time and weather, the skin was mostly intact, and consisted of only four large sheets welded together over the superstructure. This planet’s industrial capacity had to have been enormous to create and move such large panels.

  Chris whistled. “How many people do you think it took to build that thing?”

  “Many,” said Viktor.

  “Bet some of them died in the process and haunt this building.”

  “If so, they are fortunate to have escaped the zombie plague.”

  Chris didn’t have an answer for that. Viktor smirked in his helmet.

  He led the way along the catwalk to a zigzagging set of metal stairs that ended about three floors up in another catwalk that circled the inside of the rotunda. He pointed across the space to the far side of the dome. “There. Another set of stairs. We will take the catwalk around and climb down those to return to the main building.”

  “Best hurry,” said Chris. “Forty-seven minutes.”

  They mounted the stairs in good time and circumnavigated a quarter of the dome before Viktor glanced back and saw that Areva had frozen. “What is it?”

  “I heard something,” she whispered.

  Chris leaned over the railing and peered at the murky floor below. “Rats? Ghosts?”

  “Footsteps.”

  Viktor’s heart skipped a beat. “The library. The corpses heard the shelves fall. Move faster.”

  They ran toward the escape stairs, spacesuits poundin
g the metal floor in rhythm—thump, thump, thump. Viktor’s heart beat the same tempo, and his eyes darted here and there, scanning for signs of danger. He made sure to check the rotunda roof as well; he would not be ambushed again.

  Halfway there, he slid to a halt, staring at the path ahead.

  A section of the catwalk had fallen away, corroded too badly to hold its own weight.

  Worse, he could now hear the footsteps, too.

  Chris spotted the broken flooring and swore. “Can we jump that?”

  “I can,” said Areva.

  “I do not know,” said Viktor.

  “If you can’t, I definitely can’t,” said Chris.

  Pound, pound went the footsteps behind them. Fearing what he’d see, Viktor glanced over his shoulder.

  Shadows moved near the base of the stairs from which they’d come.

  People.

  Lots of them.

  Viktor tried to ignore the dryness in his mouth and the fear hammering against his ribs, and peered into the darkness ahead. At the foot of their escape stairs, more shadows twisted and jumped.

  Both sides, cut off.

  His hands formed fists. “We are trapped.”

  Chris gulped and made a whimpering sound in the process. “Oh, come on! I’m not supposed to die like th—hey, what’s that?”

  Viktor turned toward the scientist’s voice and found him pushing against a door recessed into the skin of the rotunda.

  His heart leapt again. They had another way out. He whacked his intercom interface. “Ivanokoff to Endurance, engage engines and head toward us. We are going onto the roof.”

  The captain’s voice cracked through his ear. “Repeat, Ivanokoff?”

  “The zombies have cut us off. We are going outside. Pick us up atop the building.”

  He didn’t hear the captain’s reply, as Chris screamed a swear. “It’s locked! Quick, Areva, kick it down.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Sure you can! If you don’t, we’re going to be eaten alive, so at least try to—”

  Areva didn’t answer, but pointed at the hinges of the door. The interior-mounted hinges of the door.