When I land, I spring to my feet and see him charging toward me, fists outstretched. I duck into the next room, press myself against the far wall.
Kodiak is soon beside me, his hands grasping for the screwdriver. It’s instantly gone; I don’t have the strength to resist him.
I lurch after him, hoping to stop him from destroying everything, but when he hears my footsteps he whirls, screwdriver over his head, ready to stab like a dagger.
From his expression, I have no doubt he’ll use it. I’ve never seen such desperate sadness. I imagine bleeding out all over the white polycarbonate floor, Kodiak standing over me with the bloody screwdriver, Rover hovering nearby, trying in vain to cauterize my wounds.
I retreat toward theEndeavor. Better the loss of a few helmets than the loss of my life.
I think.
Kodiak is unmoving as I shut the door. The last sight I have of him is the maniacal look in his eyes, staring at me and yet somehow unseeing, chest heaving as he prepares to attack. I might as well have been some faceless enemy soldier, judging from the level of disregard I saw in his eyes.
What has gone so terribly wrong?
I drop into a defensive crouch, ready for him to open the portal and stalk after me. But it doesn’t open. Instead I can hear, faintly, the sounds of the screwdriver gnashing against the hard synthetics of the helmet.
Once he’s done with the helmets, what will he destroy next?
“Spacefarer Cusk, it is urgent that I speak with you,” OS says.
I’m surprised by how much relief I feel at the sound of my mother’s voice. “Yes! Please help me,” I say, voice cracking.
“From his brain waves, Spacefarer Celius appears to have had a psychotic break. This makes me want to ask howyouare feeling.”
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not having a break, too. I want him to stop, OS. How do we make him stop?”
“Do not worry. I have protocols for most health crises, including mental health. I have determined that further human interaction will not help Kodiak in his current state. Our only recourse is to incapacitate. Rover is on his way to do so now.”
I still hear the awful screech of the polycarbonate fragmenting under the stabs of the screwdriver. Rover must not have arrived yet.
“Don’t hurt him too badly,” I cry.
“I need to do whatever it takes to prevent him from compromising the ship’s mission. The voltage will have to be significant.”
From the other side of the door, the scratching pauses. The walls are too thick for me to hear Rover’s ticking, but I can imagine the robot edging into the room.
I hear something like a chair being hurled against the floor, then OS’s voice, muffled in Kodiak’s chamber.
A scream. It’s shatteringly loud, even muffled by the wall, but it’s almost stripped of feeling, like it’s caused not by human will but by the physical process of air expelling from compressed lungs. Then the room is silent.
“The threat is neutralized,” OS announces.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 1799 *-_
Those words continue to play in my mind as I numbly wander theEndeavor. Threat. Neutralized.
I sit but can’t stay down, am immediately back on my feet. There’s just too much worry coursing through my body for me to find any stillness.
I want to go to Kodiak, to find out if he’s okay after Rover attacked him. But then I remember that image of himwith the screwdriver over his head, ready to stab me.
OS is right. Better I don’t stoke Kodiak back into a rage. If Rover has blocked him from damaging the ship for now, I should give him space to get calm.
To give my racing mind somewhere to be, I do a couple of tasks that OS had on its list, recalibrating sensors that had been giving faulty readings.
While I work, my mind spins back to Fédération and Dimokratía, our countries at war. They’d only come together for the Cusk projects—sending Minerva to Titan, and then sending us to rescue her. Because in each case it was something to hope for, something to long for. A way out of war.
That was the balm: hope. And that was what was taken away by the reveal of the true purpose of our mission. Can I give Kodiak some new source of hope?
