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Part One
"Joel?"
"...hmn?" Fuzzily he focused on the angular silhouette in his doorway.
"I had a nightmare. Can I come in with you?"
"Crow, you can't've had a nightmare, it's not your downtime."
"Well, if it wasn't a nightmare, there really is a monster in my room."
Joel checked; sheesh, 0230 hours. He'd just barely gotten to sleep. "There is *yawn* no monster in your room."
"But I did see something! I did! And I think it's behind my comic books."
Joel pushed on the light and got out of bed. Why had he ever given the robots imagination? "Tell you what, you stay in here and I'll go check for monsters." He found his trouble-shooting kit and slung its strap over his shoulder.
"Oh, no you don't. If there's a monster on board I'm right behind you."
"Well, stay there, okay? I might have to blast it to atoms or somethin'."
"That would be neat."
The robots' quarters were in a remodeled storage bay two decks above Joel's, toward the rear of the upper bow pod. Preferring, however, to be on the bridge or wherever Joel was, they were there only randomly except for downtime. (Having to scavenge energy where he could find it, Joel had decided that a regular battery break would help conserve resources; each robot had an hour or two of "time off" every night.)
The one off right now, Joel knew, was Gypsy, and Tom Servo would be doing his nightly observation round of the stern pods. So any sound in here would be suspicious. They left the lift and headed for the bay door, Joel reaching for the light button as soon as they were inside.
The light came on slow and dim, a dull orange glow that left most of the bay in shadow. What the--?
Something shifted and hissed.
Crow yowled in terror and grabbed Joel, who detached him fast. "There is something in here!"
"Okay, okay, you're right." Joel dug a flashlight out of the kit and scanned the room. There was Gypsy, leaning motionless as a broom in the corner of her cubicle; there was Servo's space, there was the skeleton of their next invention exchange, and there was--
oh my gosh.
There was something the size of a car, roiling and swirling in the space between Crow's cubicle and the hatch. (Behind the comic book boxes, sure enough.) It was black and smoky with the iridescent sheen of an oil slick, and it hung there, coiling ceaselessly in on itself, lying in wait.
Joel kept the light on it. "Crow, get Gypsy and go back downstairs. I'll cover you."
"What about you?"
"Just do it!"
The brass 'bot -- passing up, for once, a potential cue -- scurried to Gypsy's room and headed for the corridor door, rolling her undignifiedly ahead of him like a shopping cart. Joel didn't move until he heard the lift door whoosh open and close; then he backed into the corridor.
As if sensing he was alone, it unrolled a tentacle of black fog and slid out of its corner toward him. Joel punched the activator to the lock panel in the wall. What was the combination to seal the door? It was so long since he'd had to use it....
It was still coming, fast and smooth as ink on glass, its leading edge almost transparent.
2678? No? oh, whillikers....
The black edge hazed the air two feet away.
2687. That was it.
The bay door rasped shut and clamped into place.
The Satellite's only human crew leaned on the wall and caught his breath. Whew. Too close.
What was that and how the heck had it gotten in? Was there a pinhole leak in the hatch seal? Or something worse?
If they were lucky, that would hold it until they had a clue. They'd better be lucky.
He returned the flashlight to his pack and headed back down to his quarters, where Crow was probably worrying himself into a migraine. All he wanted, himself, was to get back into bed.
It was much too cold up here....
"That's all I know, sirs. It chased me and I locked it in the deck nine storage bay." He rarely called Dr. Forrester and Frank, but this seemed like good reason.
"Hmm." For once his tousled boss seemed to take him seriously. "Can you get to the hatch from outside?"
"EVA? We could try." With the corridor door sealed, opening the outside hatch would dump the entire bay into space, which didn't sound like a bad idea. Joel punched up the Satellite's schematic and studied the screen. "We could get to it from the dorsal hatch on 6A, that's the closest point."
"We suggest you try that. Do keep us informed."
"Roger, sirs." Joel hit the button and sighed. As if they cared what happened to him and the 'bots, except two nights a week. He was about to summarize the conversation to Gypsy and Crow when a light blinked in the wall: intercom.
"Must be Servo wondering why he's locked out."
*beep* "Joel here, hi, Tom."
*beep* "Joel! What the heck is going on here? The ambient temp's down twenty, our bay door's jammed, and there seems to be a black hole on deck eight!"
*beep* "A what? Where?!"
*beep* "Look, can we discuss it somewhere else? Like, where you are? I don't like the looks of this. Or the smell, for that matter."
*beep* "Right, get out of there now, we're all down here."
*beep* "Roger, will--"
Silence.
*beep* "Servo? Come in, Tom, we didn't get that last part."
Silence.
*beep* "Tom Servo?"
Joel grabbed the kit back off the floor -- "You guys stay here!" -- and lit out for the lift at a flat run.
When he stepped out a wave of disorientation hit him so hard he nearly fell back in. Servo had been right, or nearly; there was a hole in the air on deck eight. It hung there shimmering like a heat-haze, except that it was cold down here, colder than it had been on nine. Silent, inert, a big wavering spot of utter nothing. Joel stood and stared at it without a clue.
What the sam-scratch was this thing and what was it doing?
The hole suddenly rippled in rings like still water hit by a stone, and Tom Servo fell out of it.
Joel gasped and scooped up the little robot -- his fingers stuck to the icy metal but he ignored that -- before he could hit the deck. Servo gave a grisly rattle. Cold enough almost to shatter. Where had he been?
The air stilled, but -- as if one of the ripples had been a sonar wave that had struck Joel, sending back its message -- there was an indefinable something different in it that made him feel as cold as Servo. Why had it thrown back the 'bot? unless it wanted something else....
The black thing had chased him across the loading bay.
The hole closed, neat as a seam.
Joel got out of there.
Part Two
A half-hour later everyone had given up on getting any more rest. Joel was poring over the Satellite's schematic on the room computer; Gypsy, primary maintenance technician after Joel, hovered anxiously over Servo, who was tucked into Joel's bed and hadn't yet responded to care. Crow, grouching and griping as usual but without much bite, alternated fetching whatever Gypsy needed and peering over Joel's shoulder.
Joel tapped the keys gingerly (he'd left some skin from his hands on Servo's supercooled surface) and squinted at the result. Definite breach of ship integrity, presence of a second life-form on board, but confined to a relatively small space -- that of the original invasion and a range of about twenty meters around it. He shivered to think what the inside of the bay was like now. And what about its scope? Could it open space anywhere on decks eight, nine or ten? It was lucky so much of the Satellite was empty.
The screen flickered and dimmed, then resumed. It had done that three times since he'd logged on. Joel frowned. Did the thing eat energy -- heat-energy, calories? That would explain the cold spot, and why it hadn't attacked the deactivated Gypsy. A worried glance at Servo; it must have sucked out his battery charge, maybe even damaged the storage cells.
What was it?
"Joel." That was Crow, in an unusually subdued tone. "Have you thought of checking where we are?"
"No. Does it matter?" It seldom mattered where in her geosynchronous orbit the Satellite physically was; as long as the orbit never decayed they were, well, where they were.
"Just for my peace of mind, or lack of it, would you?"
"Sure." Joel switched screen commands and ticked up a second request, fingers rattling over the keys. "There you are."
Crow looked at the grid for a good ten seconds.
"Um, Joel."
"Mmm?"
"This is where we picked up the Dark Spectre."
Why hadn't he guessed?
"Are you sure?"
Crow was already trotting toward the intercom. "I'll ask Cambot to send up the map."
Cambot brought up the gridlined star map from that eventful day and filed it to Joel's screen, superimposed over the current grid. Crow scrambled in between Joel's knees and the terminal for a better view. No question.
"A dimension of dark shapeless things scrapes up against ours here, and somewhere in this span of unmapped space the fabric of space is worn thin enough for them to slide through. And then we came along...like last time...."
Crow, seeing it, moved closer to him. Joel looked over at Servo and Gypsy, and put his arm around the gilded 'bot. None of them were ever going to forget last time.
"I hope this doesn't mean we've got a Dark Servo wandering around the ship," muttered Crow.
"I don't know. If that was true I would've expected to see it in the hall, but I didn't. That doesn't mean anything though." Joel rubbed his aching forehead. He was so tired he could hardly see straight; was he making sense? He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was more wiped-out than just having been wakened early should account for....
"Look, The Evil Empire had what sounds like a workable idea and I haven't got anything better. I'm going to have to go outside the ship, open the loading hatch and get it blown out of that bay."
"Joel, the odds on that one bite. Either (a) we'll never see you again or (b) if we do we'll also see a black quasi-Joel-thing. You really want to take their advice?"
Joel rested his chin on the 'bot's head and tried to concentrate on the screen. "I didn't say I wanted to do it, Crow, I said I have to do it."
"Oh," he said in some dismay.
"Could be worse, little friend. At least nobody has to come out with me."
"Uh-huh. Right. And if somebody comes in with you?"
Joel gave him a hug. "Don't worry. If a Dark Spectre of me shows up, we won't make the same mistake we did with Timmy -- we'll get rid of it right away. No one's in any danger."
"Nope." Crow rested his beak in Joel's elbow. "Just you."
He had no answer to that.
"Okay, one more time. We've checked the bay door and it's sealed, right?"
"Roger, Joel."
He was double-checking the suit. He'd had a few hours' sleep and felt marginally more alert, though not nearly as sharp as he'd have preferred; extra vigilance would probably cover his tracks. He just wished something could knock out this stubborn headache. "Cambot, constant contact; if I'm in any trouble I'll signal. Crow, you're on monitor duty and comlink. Keep an eye on me, OK? I might need you to move fast, especially on the way back in."
"Right-o, Joel."
"And don't bother Gypsy unless you really need help; I want her to stay with Servo. Arms feel all right?" They'd replaced Crow's usual limbs with the working versions; he'd probably need them.
"10-4, pal, you can count on me."
"I guess that's it." He started to put on his helmet, paused, lowered it. Crow looked at him and turned his head slowly away. Joel took a deep breath. "Crow?"
"Yep?" The voice trying so hard for jaunty confidence.
"I am counting on you. You're in charge, okay? If anything goes wrong, I want you to call Dr. Forrester and tell him everything, right away. Maybe they can do something and if they can't they can at least get you guys and the Satellite down in one piece."
"In one piece. Hah. Then they'll turn us into hat racks." Crow watched his monitor intently.
"Better that than staying up here by yourselves." Joel swallowed hard. "Just promise me you'll do that if, well, if you have to."
"Promise."
Joel nodded. He set the helmet on his shoulders and had just snapped down the first clamp when he was nearly knocked over by the sudden impact of a gold-toned missile. Crow had flung himself over the console, grabbed Joel with all his considerable strength, and was wrapped around his waist wailing inconsolably.
Joel pulled off the helmet and knelt down to eye level with the distraught 'bot. "Crow, hey, Crow, little pal, it's all right, it's gonna go fine. It's just a walk outside, we've done that before. It's nothing to be so scared of."
"Me scared?! You're the one that just left your last will and testament!"
"I just wanted you to have instructions--"
"Instructions! Oh, fine! You just wanted to tell me what to do in case you get killed and we have to be hauled to Earth and scrapped! Not to mention the fun we'd have dealing with a negative-energy version of you, considering that my little animus nearly killed Tom Servo in cold thirty-weight--" Crow hung onto him. "Look, I'm not coping very well with this! I don't want to be in charge, I don't want to go to Earth, I don't want to be at the mercy of Dr. Forrester, and even if I did put dead things in your pillowcase that time I don't especially want you to die!"
Joel held the thin robot as close as the bulky suit let him. "I don't want to do anything without you, either. All I want is to get this over with, get the ship back to normal, and go on with everything just the way it was. And that's why I have to do this, okay? So we can get on with our lives."
"You don't ever wish you were back on Earth and didn't have us and the Satellite to worry about?" Tiny confession.
"Aw, Crow, is that what you think? Here I am risking my life--"
"Waaah!"
"Shhh, shhh -- to save the ship and you really believe I'd rather be back pushing a broom at the Institute?" He took the 'bot's shoulders and held him away just enough to look at him. "I'll tell you the whole truth. When we first got sent up here, sure, I wasn't too happy about it. I was just kinda living my ordinary life and I thought I'd be living that way for a long time. But since I've been here, with you and the others, and the Satellite all to ourselves, I tell you, I've never been this happy." He pressed his nose against Crow's shiny beak, looking earnestly into the pinpoint receptors protected by masking tape. "This is my home and my family now. Scout's honor."
"Honest, you don't want to leave?"
"What, and lose you guys? C'mon, you know I love you."
Crow snuggled against his chest. "Love you too, Joel. Don't tell anyone."
"Aw, thanks. I won't." He gave Crow a squeeze, gently disentangled him and stood. "So let's get this mess over with and get back to work; I know it's only sixty hours till invention exchange."
"Aye aye, captain."
Crow's voice came thin and metallic through the comlink. "Bay sealed, Joel, clear to open dorsal hatch."
"Roger, Crow, give me hatch 6A." Last check of air supply hose and helmet seals.
"Hatch 6A, copy. --Boy, I love this space talk."
"It's pretty cool." Joel watched as the hatch popped and began to slide clear. "We get so many beatnik and biker movies sometimes I forget we're science fiction."
"Roger. Hatch operational, you're clear for EVA."
"Copy." He laughed and pushed himself over the threshold.
And was dazzled as always by the brilliant immensity, the astonishing hard vividness of starlight in space and the utter contrasting black. Ought to come out now and again just to look around, he thought as he locked his line to the outside toggle, it really gives you perspective....
He floated loose of the hatch and got his bearings. Up there, that was the one to open -- deck 9, upper pod. Gingerly managing the suit jets he maneuvered toward it.
"Ground Control to Major Joel, everything all right?"
"Roger, Ground Control, so far so good. Here I am, floating round my tin can, far above the world...Planet Earth is blue, but I guess you knew that." He was close enough to slap the pod wall with a magnetic glove and pull himself to it. "Okay, I've reached the 9A pod bay hatch. I'm going to fasten my line at the side of the pod--" he was hand-walking from the hatch across the pod's surface as he spoke -- "then come back to the hatch, blow it, and jet out of range."
"Roger, we copy, watching your every move."
"Major Joel to Ground Control, line's fastened. Here we go."
He made his way back toward the hatch's external controls. They were simple, made to be operable even by a forklift or a waldo: a big, round pushbutton and an equally large square one, under a small clear dome. Simple. He collected himself, popped the protective dome, got one hand on the jet control, and punched the round button with his gloved fist.
Inexperience caught him off guard; the seal cracked before he remembered he wouldn't hear the mechanism's cough and hiss. Blackness seeped out of the crack in a tendril that lifted itself, peered this way and that. Joel grabbed the jet and shot himself across the face of the pod so fast that the line yanked him in like a rubber band. He floundered at the end of the tether, praying it would hold, edging himself toward the pod wall. The seal must be fully retracted by now--
With a silent boom the hatch slid wide and the bay's contents blew clear of the ship, spiralling off into the darkness. Joel, flattened against the wall like a limpet, silently bade farewell to all the 'bots' trinkets and belongings -- sorry, guys -- this week's invention exchange, an assortment of renovating supplies and gear--
--Wrapped in a twisting veil of blackness denser than space.
If it would have made any difference, he'd have held his breath.
Go away, you don't see me.
The Spectre moved away from the ship, slowly, with an oddly hesitant, questing movement. Maybe it was blind? The solid matter blew through it and was gone on its long trajectory to wherever, but the black thing's pace was deliberate....
Could it sense him? smell him somehow?
"Crow to Joel, come in. It's awful quiet out there."
"Joel to Crow." He couldn't help whispering. "It's out, but I think it knows I'm here. I'm not sure whether or not to move back to the dorsal hatch."
"You're still at the pod?"
"Right. Have we lost visual contact?"
"Lost it when the hatch blew. On and off since."
Great. He tried to clear his head -- his headache had escalated to migraine status since the thing had appeared and he felt utterly exhausted, leaden. "Suit's air isn't long-term. I'm going to move. Keep talking, over and out."
Joel pushed out from the pod and crept, hand-over-hand, down the seventeen-meter line toward the dorsal hatch and safety. He forced himself to stay calm and concentrate on what he was doing, despite the nauseating pain and the vivid memory of just how fast the black thing could move. Just keep going. It's not far.
So far so good -- he chanced a nudge from the suit jets and gained some distance--
Then darkness like an icy smoke.
It was all around him. He hung onto the line and stared into it. At least he couldn't inhale it -- but so cold, cold, dense like deep water, surrounding him--
It didn't matter. He was numb, dizzy, too tired to fight it. He hung on the rope like a battered fighter and it sifted through him greedily, choosing what it wanted....
"Joel? Joel! Joel, come in!"
What? intruding on its pleasure -- annoyed, it commandeered his voice--
"Shut up, I'm dying in peace out here."
Part Three
It sampled, tasted, all the warmest places with the delicacy of an epicure. What he loved. What touched him. The memory of his heart. It pulled the sweetness from the tender spots...the finest, dearest energy....
"What?! Crow to Joel! Hey, answer me!"
"Shut the fuck up and leave me alone!"
Even through the feeding void his mind was filled with, Crow's silence sounded stunned. Fine. Whatever Crow was. It wasn't about to leave him that.
...what...
...wait...
Joel made the effort of his life.
"...joel to crow...talk to me..."
"Crow to Joel! What's going on?!"
"...talk to me. if i forget about you i think i'll die."
"Um, Mission Control to Friendship 7, we copy your message.... Joel, buddy, hold on! Remember everything we said before you left? Fight it or it's all over!"
Warmth; a memory of them all laughing over some dreadful pun. The black fog ate it.
"crow..."...drowning, fading...his hands tightened on the rope.
"Crow, shut up!" A Joel-voice that wasn't Joel's, cold as the void.
"Joel! It's only a week until Present Day!"
"crow...get me out of here...."
It was the black nightmare. It was that beyond a doubt and it had Joel.
Crow stood at the terminal in distress so keen it was pain, with no idea what to do. Call the Institute? They'd never move fast enough. Go out there himself? And do what? Even allowing that he didn't need a suit and could reach the height they were struggling at -- a good twelve meters above the ship's spine -- with ease, what would drive the horror away? Somehow he doubted it would recoil before some snappy repartee.
The horror, the horror.... He could never forget its icy touch or the thing it had made in his shape, what he had named Timmy but called to himself the Black Crow. A friend, he had thought, some company for me, and somehow the Spectre had sensed his idea and made that -- shadow, that photo-negative of his shiny self. Its silence, its coldness, its dark, heartless, hateful mind. It still walked in the positronic ghost-images he thought of as nightmares, staring with its blank eyes, lunging for Tom Servo's throat--
It would've killed Servo. It'll kill Joel. And then it'll send a Joel-shaped thing in here -- with that voice--
*Shiver* What could he do -- what? If he thought of something could he bear to do it? Could he face the monster? Was there even time?
...I am counting on you. You're in charge, okay?
For just one second he imagined himself calling Forrester with the news. SOS, SOS, the mission is toast; get us down, get some cuffs on this guy in the red suit, and then you can boil us down to Eric Clapton CDs for all we care...jeweler, we've failed....
He felt as empty as a box. Was it going to come to this? The experiments, all the crazed schemes and toys, the Satellite, the lab he'd been built in? All his stargazing time, his plans and ideas, the wonder of being able to think and observe from hour to timeless hour...his brilliant scriptwriting career and the really devastating prank he had planned for Tuesday next...was it all going to go down the existential tubes in a day?
And then Cambot marshaled his resources and got visual contact.
Crow made a sound no human throat could. It did have him. He stared at the nightmare slithering like a living shroud over the red shape--
Unless I do something real fast there's no Joel. The imperative flattened all fear. The Joel who had knelt here with him and promised that everything would be all right, that he loved the 'bots and the Satellite and never wanted to leave, would be gone like past time and what was left would tell Crow to shut the fuck up and leave him alone. Safe bet it wouldn't be much good in the theater either, and forget about bedtime stories....
Either they'd have to fight it and maybe die, or they'd have to call the Institute, get pulled down and probably die. Their lives would be over. Everything. Over and out.
Nope, I don't think that's an acceptable alternative. Especially only a week before Present Day. He studied the screen, ground his beak in frustration. How can I let this thing trash life as I know it?
Suddenly an idea. He hit the button. Unless I really need help, eh? Well, this is as really as it's gonna get.
"Crow to Gypsy! Emergency Red Alert! Meet you in 6A bay on the double!"
"Coming down!"
And in the minute's silence he turned to the flickering screen, and re-opened the still comlink.
"Ground Control to Major Joel, don't let go. Repeat, don't let go. The cavalry is on its way, ETA five minutes...if you've got that long...."
UNIX, he was so still. Crow fought back a clutch of fear that there was no one left to save.
(...your circuit's dead, there's something wrong...)
"...love ya, Joel. Hold on. Over and out."
A thinking brain is a complex device. Even those most skilled in its workings admit they know only a fraction of its subtle and myriad electromagnetics, its levels, its ways and means. The Spectre's food was energy from any source but its favorite was the delicate crackle of intelligence, and it would follow any lead and go any distance to get some. And when it had some, which was rarely, it would not be hurried; it would take all the time it needed to nibble and savor, because a thinking brain is a complex device.
So it had been indulging itself in gourmet appreciation of its treat, hanging in the void above the Satellite of Love, enjoying the smooth shift of its consciousness from outside affairs to serious feeding. Lost in satisfaction, off its guard, because it had been on board the ship long enough to know the thinking brain was alone; had there been more living minds on board, they too would be out here. It was not concerned with machine minds, mere copies of life. It was concerned only with what it was about to eat.
It suspected nothing. It certainly did not bother to look down.
It missed the bright gleam of starlight on gold....
In the far back of his skull he was hiding, clutching the things he loved best. Once he had been afraid of thunderstorms; he would crawl under the bed with his decoder ring and his bear, safe in the darkness, and wait and watch until the storm was gone. It was like that now. The storm raged, vast and black, but he was back here, with Crow and Tom and Gypsy and Cambot, just waiting for it to go.
Someone outside would have said he was catatonic, in complete psychotic break. But psychotic break is the last defense of a strong and resourceful mind; there are sound reasons for it and Joel was surrounded by one. Safe then, in the darkness....
...and through the darkness it came shining, starlight on gold....
...and it said something.
Joel, hold on.
Part of his mind was hiding, and part was under the fork and knife. But part of it was scientist, tyro robotechnician and spare-parts tinkerer, and mere fear couldn't black it out. It knew there was meaning in sound, and set about breaking the code.
Joel hid, waiting.
Crow's talon feet gripped the spine of the ship and he stared up at the nightmare. He had a cyber's perfect eyesight; he had the Doomblazer Death Ray, Tom Servo's most grandiosely beloved of all inventions (Tom, partner in crime, rival and sibling, also lying between here and nowhere thanks to that smog monster; Tom, buddy ol' pal, this one's for you too); and he had one shot. Just one.
And he had a dead bead on his target, which was the lock of Joel's line to the pod bay hatch, seventeen meters overhead.
...don't let it notice me don't let it notice me don't don't don't....
He notched one jointed finger around the trigger and squeezed.
The vivid green beam shot straight as an arrow. The line floated free.
Crow grabbed his end of the line, still clipped to the dorsal hatch, and hauled.
The Spectre got the shock of its long life as the immobile prey suddenly jolted away. Tranced, withdrawn, it took moments to register -- by now the food should be unable to move--
The food moved yet further, fastened by a ring and its extremities to the long tendril it had been creeping on when caught. The Spectre had assumed that tendril permanent but now it was loose and moving, pulling away its feast. In a slow fury it forced the painful reversal of awareness from inward bliss to external movement, reaction, defense--
It must not lose its prey!
Crow, reeling Joel in as fast as his metal arms would pull, sent an urgent message on the 'bots' internal frequency. **Gypsy, don't take your eye off that hatch button! When we want in, we want in pronto!**
**Roger, Crow!**
He didn't look up. He didn't dare. The nightmare was up there and he'd bet a RAMchip he was making it angry. A chocolate-chip RAMchip...eight meters. Nine. I better get a whole bag of RAMchips for thinking of this. If it works. If we live. Ten meters. Eleven--
There. The Spectre saw what it had missed. A machine-mind -- an offspring of the living one in a metal shell -- was to blame. A machine-mind was stealing its prey!
It was not ready to move but hunger and rage demanded it. Die, machine. Endless cold and emptiness. Die.
It drifted toward the ship's spine--
In Joel's brain a light broke like sunshine through stormclouds. Hold it! Hold everything! That's Crow out there!
He can't hear me -- the technical mind tried to connect. Comlink. Is it still on? Make a sound. The concept of speech was abstruse and distant but he remembered it from somewhere. Air -- idea -- words --
The light stayed, steady and warm. Love you, Joel. I know what that means. It means the storm's over.
"...joel to crow. joel to crow."
Fourteen meters -- what?! "Crow to Joel! Pal, am I glad to hear you! Hang onto that rope!"
"...joel to crow...um, what happened...?"
"Oh, for cryin' out loud, later!" Fifteen--
Pain. Hunger. It forced a thread of itself outward, a cord. Slow--
Oh no. No no no. It was moving -- it was coming down -- oh no, how fast could it move--
Sixteen -- Crow lunged forward and grabbed hold of Joel. **Gypsy, give me 6A hatch! NOW!**
**Hatch 6A, copy!**
Ropes of blackness groped downward and the 'bot tried not to scream. One second. Two. He gripped his unmoving burden. If that touched him he'd lose his mind--
**Hatch operational, you're clear for entry!**
Crow hurled Joel through, dove after him and scrambled to the far wall. **Lock it, Gypsy!**
**Locking!** Gypsy butted the panel with her nose and scooted to their side. **Are you all right? Is he--?**
Crow couldn't move, staring at the hatchway, forgetting for the moment even Joel. Had any of it gotten in? Even a wisp?
The hatch slid and popped shut with a vacuum hiss. No blackness. Nothing.
Crow dropped against the bay wall, shaking. Must be metal fatigue. Plus good old-fashioned terror.
After a moment -- Gypsy's actual voice. "Depressurization sequence complete. You can take off his helmet now, Crow."
Crow propped him against the wall, fumbled the toggles open and eased the helmet off. The young human blinked vaguely at the light as if he'd been asleep, and Crow steadied himself. Was he really there? Had he been in time?
"Gee, I feel weird," said Joel. "Can I come out now?"
"*whew* Yeah," the robot managed. "It's okay. Come on out."
Joel sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Crow, Gypsy, gosh. I was having the worst nightmare ever." He frowned. "I can't quite remember it -- there was some kind of monster in my room, or maybe it was a thunderstorm, I'm not sure--"
"There is," said Crow, "no monster in your room. Or mine either." He rubbed his polished beak against Joel's shoulder. "And you probably ought to get some sleep, or at least a root beer. It's been a long night."
"I think you're right." Joel got unsteadily to his feet and began to pry off the spacesuit. "Hey, are you still locked out of your room?"
"Our room! Yipe! Gypsy, did anyone remember to close the hatch door on 9A?"
"I did," replied the shebot calmly. "But I'm not sleeping in there tonight."
*Shiver* "Me neither. I may never read my comic books again."
"Come on, you two," Joel slung the suit over the console, "we're all going to sleep in my room. For a couple of days."
"Can I get a pillow?"
"You can get anything you want."
"How about a whole bag of chocolate-chip RAMchips?"
"Better settle for the pillow." They were waiting for the lift.
"Hmf. Wait till I tell you how I just saved your life, the Satellite of Love and our world as we know it. THEN I bet I get five flavors of RAMchips."
Joel turned to face him and his expression was a study. Words would not emerge.
"...that...um...wasn't a nightmare at all, was it?"
"Nope." Crow looked at the lift door. "All real. And nasty."
"I...oh, my gosh, Crow." The blue-grey eyes were very wide -- actually open, a rare occasion. Gee, he really is impressed.
"Yup. Your hero, Crow T. Robot."
The doors slid open and Joel leaned on Crow's shoulder as they trooped in.
"So, what flavors do you like besides chocolate-chip?"
"Crow?"
"You're supposed to be asleep."
"So are you."
"I told you first."
"I just keep thinking about what you did. Do you realize how really brave that was? A lot of human beings wouldn't have done that, you know."
"Not even for their homes, lives, and best friends, not necessarily in that order?"
"Maybe not even for all that. Crow, I am never gonna be able to thank you. I mean that."
"C'mon, Joel, you built me. I kinda think I owed you one."
"Well, if you want to look at it that way you can. But..." he was quiet a long minute. "It didn't just want to kill me. That would've been too simple. It wanted all the things that mean the most to me -- the things with the most life, the most of me in them. I'd still be alive if it had finished with me, probably. But there wouldn't be much left."
"Personally--" Crow let the wisecrack fall. "I know that. You didn't hear what it said to me. It wasn't anything you'd say ever."
"Don't tell me; I don't want to hear it."
"Never will." Crow settled into the pillow. "That's what counts: you're really here, you're really you, and you're in my debt for the rest of the experiment. If not longer."
"That's what you want?"
"You mean besides the RAMchips?"
Elaborate sigh. "Yes, of course, besides the RAMchips."
"I want Servo to be OK; new quarters for all three of us; something besides a Gamera movie this time; your eternal gratitude; and never to see that thing again."
"Gypsy says he seems a lot better since the Spectre got offboard, but he'll need a recharge and probably a memory download from the bank."
"Wait'll I tell him I used the Doomblazer. He'll love it."
"New quarters are easy and so's gratitude." Joel tucked an arm around him. "The movie's not in our hands, but I guess we could ask."
"Naaah, they won't do it."
"They won't, right. As for the last one, if there's a way we can reset our orbit, I move we do it first thing in the morning."
"Second the motion."
"Good. Now please go to sleep?"
"Nope. You didn't mention the RAMchips."
Joel stuffed a pillow in his beak and rolled over.
