The Thin Thems of Underneath

George swallowed his breakfast again as the Shkettle wobbled on approach to the asteroid, and wobbled and wobbled. If he dared to close his eyes he could imagine himself at sea, rocked and pulled and pushed and spun, his feet sliding ....

He daren't though; daren't close his eyes.

A shudder at the very thought of smasheroooing out in the middle of nowhereville ran up his back. Like before ... on the Taklimakan Desert as he'd found out later. His breath came faster as his brain flashed images, the bang, the spiral down fighting the controls all the way. His last atmospheric flight, spying. What a waste.

George sucked sweat from his upper lip. He'd opted out of the service with full reconstruction rights afterwards, no wealth to be gained fighting someone else's war.

Nose rubbed against arm, George inhaled deeply and got control of his vital stats. Space was an atmosphere of sorts, tiny amounts of vapor, mostly solar plasma but ... look there, a blanket of white edging the asteroid's surface.

"There isn't any atmosphere on 'N-sell-a-duds'. A serious student would know that before making such a stupid comment." The narrow tipped tongue of Mad-Am Ramses his first astronomy teacher in his memory flipped spit rasping out the words once more.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he spoke out loud in the metal cavern of his space craft, "but look, there's snow, snow means precipitation and doesn't that mean atmosphere?" He shook his head, never understanding how the man responsible for getting him into space had never tolerated him.

George directed another jet of air, edging the Shkettle closer to bumping down on the orbiting rock. Not atmosphere if there were no trapped gases held in place by gravity. And that snow wasn't going anywhere. Not until he'd run samples through his lab.

Darkness surrounded him like the innards of some giant beast whose claw he would unfurl.

He activated his four shovels; their movement synchronized to his motion. Slowly the working arms uncurled from where they hooked into the base of the Shkettle and swung down. Huge metal teeth edging the shovel bit into the asteroid shaking the Shkettle then halted as George eased off the control. He half laughed thinking of the official procedure for anchoring. It was a dopey maneuver that once left him sucking his own smell for six months back to port and enduring freefall after a fragment of rock had mangled his life support exchange filter.

George leaned way back in his chair, closing his eyes after the half hour of hard maneuvering, scratching here and there on the dry patches of dead skin on his body, thinking of snow and snow ball fights and home and ...

That was it. Snow.

His eyes widened. Snow.

George flung his legs over and searched around the control center for his discarded foot protectors. Was he on the edge of a find? Until now he'd assumed this would be the same old same old trip out of port, long haul out, a bit of climbing and testing, hours crunching rock and loading it and another long haul home. But snow ... here in the asteroid belt past the no snow zone. Whoopee, somebody was finally looking out for his welfare.

In five minutes or less he'd geared up, putting on a fully tooled EvacSuit and heading to the work hatch. He never bothered with the fancy set of inner and outer locks and beeping bell but instead went out the workman's route and rode down one of his own shovels to the ground.

He set down on pale bare pitted rock bare of snow. Had his eyes failed him? He turned and realized he was 180 degrees off his sighting. No matter, he had work to do.

George lifted a chisel out of his belt and knocked off a sample of rock which he smashed and set inside a cube partition in his EnviroTest and snapped it closed, fully expecting to get back a report that listed silicate, iron and thorium, after all, that's what the head office purchased from UniMine.

Continuing in like manner, it took him fifteen minutes or so to reach the patch he'd deemed snow and sure enough, it looked like the real thing. He scraped it into another EnviroTest container, then moved around the edge and found ...

A cavern. It'd been a long long time since he smiled so much. He shoved off the rock in a backflip and air-expressed back to hang on.

Then his common sense kicked in and he dug in his kit finding the head lamp he snapped onto his EvacSuit helmet, checked the air meter and saw he had a good two hours time to play and feeling somewhat like one of the skittering squirrels he used for target practice back home, all hoppy and light-hearted, he pushed inward pulling and shoving on outcrops until he entered the large rocky hole blasted by an earlier impact. How early? He chipped pieces around the edges and put them into his test kit to find out.

The passage into the asteroids interior narrowed. George waited until he had to feel his way inside before snapping on the head lamp.

Mouth dropping open, he stopped. Floor to ceiling stalagmites shown pink and globular. This was it. Water source, limestone. Heart thumping loudly in his ears, George moved forward. Would he find life? Was he already touching life?

He took scrapings and loaded his test kit up. Life alone would pay more than any of the rock because the scientists would give him anything in order to be the one signed on to make the discovery. He licked off some of the excess spittle at the edge of his mouth. That would be too cool.

Or would this be the next space wonderland? Behind his eyes, UNCredit signs, round trip tours and leisure cruises and admission prices flashing before his eyes. And if not, maybe a precious energy stockpile or ... what if there were jewels? Or a geyser? He examined his suit and knew the rugged design would survive underwater but what if it froze immediately?

George took two chisels out and hoped he'd be prepared.

The passage turned. For a moment he didn't have enough light to see and something whizzed past his face shield. He twisted around examining above and below and saw nothing but still his arm hairs felt like he'd been zapped by static.

He continued downward and then after a twist or two the passage widened into a chamber at least twice his height. All around him crystals glittered in the walls and the walls folded and spiraled and clumped and made candles and looked like agonized people trapped forever in stone.

Something moved behind him just at the edge of his sight. He whirled. More of the same exotic creations seeming to move in the beam of his light. Oh, his body movement. He moved closer to one wall examining it closely. Dry.

No sign of water anywhere. Dry floor, walls even the ceiling. George turned and leaned back against the wall he'd examined, feeling there was not visible life and it was by far the ugliest.

Up at the top of the ceiling area, rock jutted from the wall forming a platform. Movement again. George was sure of it now. Up there. A shudder made his shoulders rise up on his neck, creepy. Those thin things up there. With tails. He never much liked thin things.

For the first time since his capture as a foreign spy, he wished he had a weapon. Something big, with lots of fire power. Something to make the memories go away. Something skittered, hit his helmet disappeared. He jumped. What was the matter with him? Weapons? He'd sworn he'd never kill another life again. Yet ... there it was. Again.

Beep bippity beep. What was that?

Oh. He sucked down a big gulp of air. The results from his test kit.

Ice. 343 million years. No life. A few amino acids. The basic rocks he'd expected. Recommendation to do a ionization test on the snow, just add a few drops of benzoate from a titer into the sample and ...

Pain. George flipped his hand but fire burned up his finger. Instinctively he grabbed for his knife and hacked it off. Ice burned the length of his arm, His suit clamped over the end. Air swishing self-seal. Hot burning. Ow. That thing. Underneath. Them.

Bursting from the ground. Thin things. All over his finger. Sucking at the blood no, water. They bloated, nearly fingernail thick now. Pale, flat, wormlike head, skin flap like bat, leech in behavior. Was the numb feeling around his hand from a toxin or his own act?

Slowly, George backed away into the wall. Hu-huff. Hu-huff. He stopped breathing again. What if ... ?

Best not to think of it. His mind felt frozen, his body reacting automatically, eyes scanning. Best to get out.

Eyes staring back. Thousands. Millions. Eyes. Awakened by him.

Lead settled in George's belly. Not. Please not that. He swallowed and began to edge toward the exit.

Cold calculating thought replaced his plea. He would escape. Nitro all of them to smithereens. He need not say a word. Not to the scientists. Not to the head office. Light or no light? What weapons now? He needed ...

Swirling at his boot captured his attention. Thin things boiling out of the dirt. Chewing through.

He kept his scream silent. Thoguht light activated?

George cut off the second piece of himself. No light. Brain intact. That was the key. In deciding that, he lost his lip to his teeth.

Pain. Bitter. Cold. Third piece at the ankle.

Hit autoreturn. Prepared to cut.

The EvacSuit remembered the way home. It was cold, no emotional reaction, just preset action to save life. Hollow cradle. Loving arms of life. Autosealed at ankle. Second foot.

#

What remained of George was his brain. How could he have forgotten? Pretended he had his animal strength back? Pretended he wouldn't kill?

He floated.

Between here and then and tomorrow. Bloody time. Time as soldier. Time as crash viction. Time as prisoner of war. Time as runner.

A howl burst from his lips. Why couldn't he let himself die? He wanted it. Wanted cold certainty and no thought.

He lived.

His run hadn't worked.

How long had he been running from himself? Money. Hadn't saved him in the end. What to replace it with?

He swallowed and found his throat still worked. Tears sacs dry though. Stomach empty. Would he have to feed it again? Didn't know. No nausea. Remorse.

How many cat lives would it be for him where he'd have to reassemble himself? Would it ever end?

Answer echoed in his brain. Not as long as he lived.

He sighed. And flipped on the lights.

The Shkettle was the same. Except for him. He was in the emergency medical tank. One hand. Chest. Heartbeat. Breath. Stomach tubing. Sex organ barely hanging on. Not much waist. No legs. No feet. He'd given up everything once again that he'd lost in war. He wouldn't revisit that experience. He wouldn't. He wouldn't.

But he had a decision to make, about the load for the Shkettle, about the cave, about his life, who would win?

The worst part was he liked his skin. The shivery touch of someone's hand on his body.

He'd cut out the parts where he'd had to see the barriers rise in another human's eyes as they took in his mechanical parts and made him squeeze his lips closed from saying what he wished to say.

And if he had it back? What would that mean? His human rights? Or his humanity?

No answers.

He needed his skin. He'd send the droid back for his metallic frame. Should he destroy them? As they'd tried to destroy him? George tapped the buttons that instructed the droid and sent it out on the first mission. The second...

They didn't think.

Had he?

They didn't love? His stomach lurched. Did he?

They needed to live. He didn't wish to but yet he did.

They'd waited an eternity for water. And him, what did he desire most of all?

To hold that nut of curiosity, that whatever of heat beating in his body, ah, the one thing he hadn't been able to cut out at all.

And so once more George reassembled, put the skin clone grafting to work, loaded the Shkettle with ore and prepared to wait upon the will of the universe, wishing to close his eyes, wishing to keep them open. Wishing he had the answers. Fated to have to endure their arrival.