Contagion by Erin Bowman

Author:Erin Bowman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

He leapt, landing on a narrow service walkway that roped around the ship.

It was hopelessly dark. A sunspot must have formed on F1, blocking the bulk of their light. That, or the storm had simply kicked up a horrendous amount of dust.

Still, he could see well enough. This was not the first bout of blackness he’d been forced to navigate on Achlys, and the lights on his helmet helped tremendously. With one mounted near each temple, a hazy, murky glow radiated around his head like a halo.

He squinted. To his right, the hull of the ship. To his left, nothing. Celestial Envoy dropped off like a cliff, the jagged earth waiting below. But straight ahead . . . if they followed the walkway toward the nose, the hull would extend gradually, allowing them to reach a height they could safely jump from.

Alone, he wouldn’t waste the time. He’d take his chances scaling the dangerously steep hull right here outside the medbay. The metal was stamped and sealed. There were sure to be hand- and footholds. But he couldn’t risk Thea taking a deadly plunge. Arriving at Odyssey without the doctor was one thing, but arriving without both women would only make the crew more suspicious of him. And the captain already distrusted him enough.

Thea hesitated on the lip of the air lock.

There was no time for hesitation.

The darkness was coming. As they delayed, it strengthened at the isolation chamber’s interior door—the bodies too excited to see the simple “open” switch, too long infected to use logic over brute force. That had been one of the first things he’d noticed about them when observing: they were smart immediately following infection. Cunning, even. That intelligence waned with time, until they became mindless, ambling corpses. Still, they’d find a way through. That was the second thing he’d learned: the things never quit.

“I’m right here,” he called out to Thea. “Below you. There’s a landing.”

She lowered herself over the edge, dangling a moment before dropping to the walkway. He put a hand out to steady her, and she gripped his forearm, fingers like thorns.

“I can barely see,” she said.

The isolation chamber door groaned. He would have to be her eyes.

“Keep your right hand on the hull”—he took her hand in his, extending them out until their fingertips grazed Celestial Envoy—“and follow me. Don’t think, just run. Understand?”

She nodded.

He took off like a bullet, remembering to slow after a few paces. He’d been running like this for months and had grown used to the everlasting darkness, to seeing only so far ahead. He now trusted his balance in a way he didn’t know possible before Black Quarry. But to Thea, it was all new. The weak glow of his helmet light was likely all she could see in the world. He couldn’t draw it out of her range.

It pained him to go so slowly, but he did.

When the walkway ended, he stepped onto the long nose of the ship. Thea followed, clumsy and sluggish.

The infected were probably through the isolation chamber now.

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