Chapter 5
The lights were off in the main cargo bay when Jackknife arrived. He barked an order to Lopez who dutifully hugged the wall and felt his way toward the light panel in the thick darkness. Jackknife waited behind and searched his pockets for an unemployed cigarette.
“What’s taking so long?” he asked after a few minutes. “It’s on the back wall to the left of the air vent. Unless you got turned upside-down by now—then it’s on the right. You do know left from right, don’t you?” If Lopez answered, Jackknife didn’t hear it over the sound of his own laughter.
“Heckuva place to put a light panel, if you ask me. They musta had this module built south of the border where the labor’s cheap. Strong backs and weak minds, eh Lopez?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Hey, how many Mexicans does it take to screw in a light bulb, Lopez? Now’s a good time to find out, huh?” He hovered in the doorway, stroking his goatee and dragging on a stale cigarette as the shifting of crates echoed inside. “Haven’t you found it yet? What’s your problem?”
“There’s too much stuff in the way,” Lopez shouted back. “There’s all kinds of containers and things all bunched up in the back. I can’t get behind them.”
“I think you just got turned around and you’re scared to admit it.”
“Naw, I know where I am. There’s just all this junk piled up back here, is all. A bunch of freight containers and stuff. I think the panel’s back behind them. Can’t you give me a hand?”
Jackknife released a disgusted growl. Rather than feel his way along the wall as Lopez had done, he pushed off from the doorway and glided through the middle of the module, arms extended in front of him. He traveled about five meters before both hands hit a large obstruction. This was followed by the sounds of several cargo containers knocking into each other. Since microgravity precludes the stacking of containers, they were usually netted together with short cables to keep them closely grouped. Moving one translated the motion to all of its neighbors as well.
“Hang on a minute,” Jackknife said, “there’s some containers in the way. I don’t know whether to go around, over, or through. I could kill the idiot that shut off the lights. Can't you see anything yet?”
Lopez explained that he could see only a little light through the doorway and, by moving from side to side, he could see the silhouette of numerous crates that lay in-between. Jackknife grunted acknowledgment and continued fumbling his way through the dark maze, slipping through open areas and squeezing between tightly spaced containers the size of refrigerators.
“Lopez, you should have told me all this stuff was here. I’d have gone around the edge of the room if you’d have bothered to let me know. Next time try to think about somebody besides yourself. Now I’m all pinned in here, so I’ll have to find my way back to the door and follow the wall around to where you are. And just so I can find a light switch you’re too dumb to find on your own.”
Concealed behind several rows of containers and cloaked in darkness, Lopez allowed the slightest trace of irritation in his voice. “I ain’t dumb, Jackknife. I just can’t get past a bunch of containers all strapped together any more than you can. If I could just shove a couple out of the way without the rest—”
The sounds of numerous steel and plastic containers crashing against each other filled the room. Jackknife found himself far removed from whatever was happening on the far end of the module. “Lopez, what’s going on over there?”
The banging continued and Lopez shouted back, “Jackknife, get over here! There’s somebody back here. I’ve got a hold on him!” This was followed by more violent crashing of containers.
“Hang on to him, Lopez! Bash his freakin’ face in if you can, but don’t let him get away!” Jackknife looked in all directions, searching for the light from the doorway, but found himself completely surrounded by crates, uncertain where the door could be found. The wild thrashing and sporadic shouts from Lopez only served to whip Jackknife into a frenzy. Boxed in, disoriented, and separated from the one place he wanted to be most, he swore vilely and pounded every object around him with all his might. The entire network of connected containers swayed back and forth, each container repeatedly crashing against those around it.
Amid all the movement, Jackknife briefly glimpsed a sliver of light from the doorway and regained his bearings. He charged in its direction. “Hang on, Lopez, I’ll swing around!”
Several more crashes were heard from the far end of the room, and Lopez shouted back. “Hey man, I lost him!”
Jackknife ordered him to stay put, and said he’d be right there. They would sandwich the intruder between them if they could. He could already see the door clearly and had only to squeeze between two closely spaced crates and he’d be free. His shoulders were too wide, so he rotated 90 degrees and tried to squeeze through. The whole web of containers was heaving one way and then the other, compressing and expanding like a chain of railroad cars as the locomotive starts and stops. The space before him briefly widened and he pulled himself mostly through before it contracted again.
The two crates on either side of him closed on his leg and pinned him in place. As he stared at the open doorway less than ten meters away, he saw a black silhouette racing toward it. He told Lopez to follow as he raged at the fleeing figure. Just as it slipped through the door, the crates began to separate. He freed himself and kicked as hard as he could toward the doorway. Once he was in motion though, the door ahead of him slid shut, leaving the room in absolute darkness. Jackknife smashed into the closed door and collapsed in a crumpled heap.
He was uncommunicative beyond the level of groaning once Lopez arrived. Lopez tried to locate him in the dark and assess his condition, but once he got close enough to touch him, his efforts were rewarded with several reflex jabs from the angry dockman.
“Get away,” Jackknife ordered, and Lopez backed off.
“Okay, whatever you say. You wait here. I’ll get the lights turned on so we can find an intercom.”
Jackknife didn’t reply. He hung motionless in the air as he focused on overcoming the pain. Within a few minutes, Lopez shouted back that he had found the light panel and pushed every button on it. The familiar hum of the lighting system returned as it began charging the mercury vapor lights. Jackknife watched for the dim glow of the lights as they slowly began to warm. Before long, he could make out the faint outline of objects in the room.
Lopez returned with a triumphant air. “I told you I’d find it.”
Jackknife looked up scornfully at his shadowy form. “Lopez, you stupid fathead. How could you let him get away?”
“Hey, you try wrestling somebody in the dark with no gravity, nothing to hold onto, and things crashing all over. You might as well try to hold onto a greased pig. I did the best I could.”
“And it obviously wasn’t good enough,” Jackknife said. “You’ve always been sloppy, and now that I count on you to do one important thing, you blow it. Why, I ought to—”
Once again within arms’ length of Jackknife, Lopez assumed his usual deferential manner and tempered his tone to match. “Look, man, I really did try. I’m sorry. It was just tough, and I’m not as strong as you are.”
Jackknife grimaced, unable to decide which was worse: rank insolence or insincere praise. He looked down, rubbed his eye sockets with his fists, and gazed back up at Lopez. “So, was he punching you back pretty hard?”
“I don’t know. I guess. Everything was just happening so fast and things was banging into me from all over. I think he was probably just trying to get out of there 'cause he knew there was two of us. I had a hold on his belt for a while, and then his hair, and then all I could hang onto was his shirt. Look, he ripped clean out of it.”
Lopez handed the torn prison shirt to Jackknife, who examined it in the dim light. “Just like I told you dimwits, the preacher didn’t escape from any riot down there. If he’d still been down there when it started, he woulda been toast. This guy ambushe
d him and then got locked in when the shuttle took off. And here’s the evidence that it wasn’t no guard or miner that did it. The only question now is what kinda con he is. If he’s the regular kind, then he just saw a chance and took it, and he’ll probably hide out now that it didn’t pan out. But if he’s the other kind—”
“What’s the other kind?” Lopez asked hesitantly.
“A killer. If he’s the kind that enjoys killing, he’s gonna have a field day up here with the time he’s got time left. And there’s nothing more them cons would rather do that take shots at us. They hate us as much as we hate them. If that’s what’s going on, then you just lucked out. ‘Cause if it had been light in here, he’d have killed you before you knew what hit you.”
Lopez froze in place like a man who was told he just walked through a minefield unaware. “Is he a—a killer, Jackknife?”
Jackknife handed the shirt back to him. “No way of knowing from just a shirt, but I’d say you were lucky either way. If there’s a God, then he must spend time looking out for stupid people who can’t take care of themselves. And that’s you, Lopez.”
Jackknife turned his attention to the door, looking for any way to open it from the inside. It had several sliding bars, turn wheels, and release handles on it, but he couldn’t budge any of the moving parts. Like much of the station, they were corroded, and the gears could no longer be turned without an extraordinary effort. Both he and Lopez threw their backs into it, but couldn’t unfreeze the locks.
“This is gonna have to be opened from the outside,” Jackknife said. “There’s no point in us killing ourselves doing it this way when any wimp could unlock it with one hand from the other side. I hate to let them find us locked in here, but we’ve got to let everybody know we’ve run into the guy. Go find an intercom. Now.”
The lights had almost reached their full intensity, so Lopez had no trouble locating the small intercom panel on the other side of the module. He contacted Cory and informed him of their encounter, and asked for someone to open the door.
Jackknife remained in place, rebuilding his strength. Under the bright white floods, the bruises on his right brow and forehead were now nearly phosphorescent. His right eye squinted a bit, but he seemed as untroubled by his wounds as a stray mutt that takes frequent abuse with indifference. While he waited for Lopez to return, he occupied himself with injecting as much nicotine and alcohol into his system as possible. When Lopez returned, there were already two crumpled cigarette butts and a small whiskey flask lazily drifting toward an air vent several meters away.
Jackknife ignored him. He drew in a long, steady breath that brightened the end of his cigarette and burned down its length like the spark on a dynamite fuse. He held the breath inside for a span with his eyes tightly shut, and then expelled it in a long, smoky blast. This he repeated until nothing remained but a scorched filter.
He looked up at Lopez severely. “If there’s one thing in this life I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t trust nobody but yourself. Not your boss, not your woman, not your next-door neighbor, not even your old man. And every time you go out on a limb to help somebody, it always comes back to bite you.”
Lopez hesitated and then began in a self-conscious tone, “Sometimes I think…”
“I could name a couple dozen guys,” Jackknife continued, “that owe me for things I done, and not one of ‘em done me a good turn. After a while, you learn it just ain’t worth it to look after anybody but yourself, and that’s why I don’t. Not unless helping them helps me. And I’ll tell you God’s honest truth: there ain’t a man that ever lived that didn’t help somebody unless he knew it was going to help himself more.”
Jackknife searched his pockets for a certain alcohol flask and, once he located it, he took a large swig. He looked up as if to say more, but his eyes locked onto something, and a look of delayed recognition followed. “Lopez, you sorry sap. Give me that shirt.”
Lopez flashed him a bewildered expression, looked down at the prisoner’s shirt in his hands, and handed it over.
Jackknife shook his head incredulously. “Maybe God does look out for the stupid after all. You see this?” He pointed out a name tag sewn onto the shirt, now visible in the bright light.
Lopez looked at it but gave no sign of recognition.
“It’s Isaacson, the guy we were all talking about at the table a few hours ago. The death row con they were going to space next week. Isaacson is the guy that took out that miner a few months back. He’s a killer, Lopez.”