I consider what to say next. “I think you’re right, OS. I want to convince him to turn back. But it’s hard from down here. How about you get Rover to stand down, so that I can go bring Kodiak back.”
I hear a distant banging, and watery splashes. Dockyard sounds. “There’s a cistern of some sort back here,” Kodiakshouts. He’s far away indeed. A chill runs over me.
“You shouldn’t go any farther,” I call, softly enough that I hope Kodiak can’t hear me, loudly enough that OS shouldn’t find it suspicious.
“I want to bring him back,” I tell OS when Kodiak doesn’t reply. “Please let me.”
“You may go,” my mother’s voice says.
It gives me a surprising tremor of guilt, to lie to her voice like this. But here’s Rover zipping along the wall, heading out of the room. Leaving me alone.
The yellow portal opens.
I click on my headlamp and slither in, moving shoulder by shoulder and hip by hip. “I’m on my way, Kodiak!” I call. If he got his broad shoulders through here, I can pass.
“Take your time,” he calls back. “I don’t want you hurting yourself. And besides, there’s something...”
“Something what?” I call.
No answer.
I free myself of the wires, and by thinking about Kodiak waiting for me manage to continue floating forward instead of backing out.
“It’s pretty cold in here, huh?” I call.
There’s still no answer.
Whenever I pause in the open air, the chill draws down around me. I wish I could pull my body up alongside Kodiak’s. That we could keep each other warm.
As I float closer to the engine, I train my headlamp on its smooth surfaces. Deep in the center of the cylinder, shielded by its thick metal, is what looks almost like an old-fashioned dry cleaner’s rack, a circular rail with polycarb-wrapped bags draped along it. Each is filled with something bulbous and weighty. Meaty.
Kodiak’s in front, facing away from me. “Is everything okay?” I call.
“Don’t come any nearer,” he says. “Stop.”
“Why?” I ease closer.
My feet scuff against some object in the zero gravity. I’m surrounded by small globes of an oily fluid. I work my way forward cautiously, to Kodiak’s side.
A face.
“By the lords,” I exclaim. “What is that?”
“It’s . . . you,” Kodiak whispers.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. All the same, my hair stands on end as I look closer.
It’s a body wrapped in polycarb, sealed in its juices, mouth open and eyes sunken and closed. It is the exact size of me. Without Kodiak’s steady presence, I might have run screaming away. But he’s clearly been staring at this thing for a while and doesn’t show any sign of fear. Just horror.
Kodiak grips my upper arm, his eyes staring into mine. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I tug my arm free as I look closer.
It’s an uncanny likeness. If it weren’t for the pink juice covering the face, puckering the skin and matting the hair down to its head, it would be an exact version of me.
But why would anyone have copied Ambrose Cusk?
I shiver, from the cold and from some new thought that’s yawning under me. “I think I need to leave,” I say. “I promised OS I’d bring us out of here.”
