"I don't see anything, Beth."
He heard a rapid sharp clicking sound. At first he thought it was static on the line, and then he realized it was her teeth chattering as she shivered. With this exertion she should be getting overheated, but instead she was getting cold. He didn't understand.
" - cold, Norman."
"Slow down, Beth."
"Can't - talking - close - "
She was slowing down, despite herself. She had come into the area of the habitat lights, and she was no more than ten yards from the hatch, but he could see her limbs moving slowly, clumsily.
And now at last he could see something swirling the muddy sediment behind her, in the darkness beyond the lights. It was like a tornado, a swirling cloud of muddy sediment. He couldn't see what was inside the cloud, but he sensed the power within it.
"Close - Nor - "
Beth stumbled, fell. The swirling cloud moved toward her.
I WILL KILL YOU NOW.
Beth got to her feet, looked back, saw the churning cloud bearing down on her. Something about it filled Norman with a deep horror, a horror from childhood, the stuff of nightmares.
"Normannnnnn ..."
Then Norman was running, not really knowing what he was going to do, but propelled by the vision he had seen, thinking only that he had to do something, he had to take some action, and he went through B into A and looked at his suit but there wasn't time and the black water in the open hatch was spitting and swirling and he saw Beth's gloved hand below the surface, flailing, she was right there beneath him, and she was the only other one, and without thinking he jumped into the black water and went down.
The shock of the cold made him want to scream; it tore at his lungs. His whole body was instantly numb, and he felt a second of hideous paralysis. The water churned and tossed him like a great wave; he was powerless to fight it; his head banged on the underside of the habitat. He could see nothing at all.
He reached for Beth, throwing his arms blindly in all directions. His lungs burned. The water spun him in circles, upended him.
He touched her, lost her. The water continued to spin him. He grabbed her. Something. An arm. He was already losing feeling, already feeling slower and stupider. He pulled. He saw a ring of light above him: the hatch. He kicked his legs but he did not seem to move. The circle came no closer.
He kicked again, dragging Beth like a dead weight. Perhaps she was dead. His lungs burned. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life. He fought the pain, and he fought the angry churning water and he kept kicking toward the light, that was his only thought, to kick to the light, to come closer to the light, to reach the light, the light, the light. ...
The light.
The images were confusing. Beth's suited body clanging on the metal, inside the airlock. His own knee bleeding on the metal of the hatch, the drops of blood spattering. Beth's shaking hands reaching for her helmet, twisting it, trying to get the helmet unlocked. Hands shaking. Water in the hatch, sucking, surging. Lights in his eyes. A terrible pain somewhere. Rust very close to his face, a sharp edge of metal. Cold metal. Cold air. Lights in his eyes, dimming. Fading. Blackness.
The sensation of warmth was pleasant. He heard a hissing roar in his ears. He looked up and saw Beth, out of her suit, looming large above him, adjusting the big space heater, turning the power up. She was still shivering, but she was turning up the heat. He closed his eyes. We made it, he thought. We're still together. We're still okay. We made it. He relaxed.
There was a crawly sensation over his body. From the cold, he thought, his body warming from the cold. The crawly sensation was not pleasant. And the hissing was not pleasant, either; it was sibilant, intermittent.
Something slithered softly under his chin as he lay on the deck. He opened his eyes and saw a silvery white tube, and then he focused and saw the tiny beady eyes, and the flicking tongue. It was a snake.
A sea snake.
He froze. He looked down, moving only his eyes. His entire body was covered with white snakes.
The crawly sensation came from dozens of snakes, coiling around his ankles, sliding between his legs, over his chest. He felt a cool slithering motion across his forehead. He closed his eyes, feeling horror as the snake body moved over his face, down his nose, brushed over his lips, then moved away.
Chapter 21
He listened to the hissing of the reptiles and thought of how poisonous Beth had said they were. Beth, he thought, where is Beth?
He did not move. He felt snakes coiling around his neck, slipping over his shoulder, sliding between the fingers of his hands. He did not want to open his eyes. He felt a surge of nausea.
God, he thought. I'm going to throw up.
He felt snakes under his armpit, and felt snakes slipping past his groin. He burst into a cold sweat. He fought nausea. Beth, he thought. He did not want to speak. Beth ...
He listened to the hissing and then, when he couldn't stand it any more, he opened his eyes and saw the mass of coiling, writhing white flesh, the tiny heads, the flicking forked tongues. He closed his eyes again.
He felt one crawling up the leg of his jumpsuit, moving against his bare skin.
"Don't move, Norman."
It was Beth. He could hear the tension in her voice. He looked up, could not see her, only her shadow.
He heard her say, "Oh God, what time is it?" and he thought, The hell with the time, who cares what time it is? It didn't make any sense to him. "I have to know the time," Beth was saying. He heard her feet moving on the deck. "The time ..."
She was moving away, leaving him!
The snakes slid over his ears, under his chin, past his nostrils, the bodies damp and slithering.
Then he heard her feet on the deck, and a metallic clang as she threw open the hatch. He opened his eyes to see her bending over him, grabbing the snakes in great handfuls, throwing them down the hatch into the water. Snakes writhed in her hands, twisted around her wrists, but she shook them off, tossed them aside. Some of the snakes didn't land in the water and coiled on the deck. But most of the snakes were off his body now.