The Jesus Incident

"Keep an eye on them" Illuyank whispered. "They can't hurt us with that stuff, but all that blood out there will bring demons. There are holes all over our perimeter. If demons hit, they'll catch that bunch first."

Lewis nodded. He could hear some of the others pressing close for a better view.

Once more, there was that snap-snapping at the hatch.

Lewis glanced at Illuyank.

"They're just pounding at us with rocks," Illuyank said. "What we have to do is find that lasgun. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the courtyard. The bloo...."

The lower left-hand screen showed the clone mess hall, a shambles of security hatches broken open in the background, a turmoil of clones throughout the area. This screen suddenly went blank.

"Sensor's gone in the mess hall," Lewis said.

"Food will keep them busy there for a time," Illuyank said. He was busy searching through the Redoubt on the remaining screen. It showed a flash of the courtyard from a different angle, then a broken tangle of perimeter wall, cut to pieces by the lasgun and swarming with clones coming in from the outside where Lewis had ejected them, the action which had ignited this revolt.

We have to cull them somehow, Lewis told himself. The food will go only so far.

He turned his attention to the screen showing the courtyard. Ye.... there was a lot of blood. It made him aware that he was badly cut himself. Celltape stopped his major bleeding, but small cuts began to ache as he thought of his condition. None of them was without injury. Even Illuyank bled slightly from a rock cut above his ear.

"There," Illuyank said.

His voice coincided with a new thump and crackling agitation at the hatch. But the COA screen Illuyank had been using now showed the passage outside their hatch. It was filled with a mass of clone flesh: furred bodies, strange limbs, oddly shaped heads. At the hatch two of the strongest clones were trying to maneuver a plasteel cutter, but their actions were impeded by the press of others behind them.

"That'll get them in here for sure," someone said. "We're cooked."

Illuyank turned and barked orders, pointing, waving a hand until all fifteen were busy in the Facilities Roo...valve to control, a switch to throw; each had some particular responsibility.

Lewis keyed for sound in the screen and a confused babble came over the speakers.

Illuyank signaled to a man at the remote valve controls across the room. "Dump the brine tanks into level two! That'll flood the outer passage."

The man worked his controls, muttering as he followed the schematics at his position.

Illuyank touched Lewis on the elbow, pointed to the screen which showed the courtyard. The clones there were looking away from the sensor, all of them at full alert, their attention on a broken segment of wall which led to the perimeter. Abruptly, almost as one organism, they dropped their rocks and glass weapons and ran screaming off-screen.

"Ru

Lewis saw them then, a waving swarm of tiny pale worm shapes cresting the rubble. He could almost smell the burned acid and tasted acid in his throat. Automatically, he gave the orders.

"Seal off."

"We can't," a timid voice from the edge of the room began. "Some of our people are still out there. If we seal of.... if w.... they'll al...."

"They'll all die," Lewis finished for him. "And our perimeter's full of holes. Ru

He crossed to a valve-control panel, punched the proper sequence. Lights above the panel showed that the indicated valve was closing. He could hear others around him obeying. Illuyank's voice intruded with a quiet warning: "Check the surface shafts." This brought another bustle of activity.

Lewis glanced at the courtyard screen. A clone stumbled back into the sensor's range, screaming and beating at his eyes with the blunt knobs which passed for his hands. As he moved into range, he fell and lay twisting on the ground. A blur of writhing shadows swept over him. The courtyard filled with fleeing clones and tiny, eel-like bodies. Behind Lewis, one of their group could be heard vomiting.

"They're in the passage," Illuyank said. He gestured at the sensor where the view outside their hatch showed brine rising in the passage with a swarming mass of Nerve Ru

Lewis shot a frantic glance at the hatch. What the sensor revealed was happening right out there!

The brine stopped short of the passage ceiling, but not before it had shorted out the plasteel cutter.

Clones were thrashing in the water, Nerve Ru

Lewis felt his mind leaping from item to item. Item: brine. Item: electrical short.

"Chlorine," he whispered. Then louder: "Chlorine!"

"What?" Illuyank was clearly puzzled.

Lewis pointed at the screen. "Chlorine kills Nerve Ru

"What's chlorine?"

"A gas created when you throw an electrical charge through sodium chloride brine."

"Bu...."

"Chlorine kills Ru

The man at the pump console checked his keyboard, then: "Most of them."

"Sea water wherever we can put it," Lewis said. "We need a large container where we can dump it from here and throw an electrical charge through it."

"Water purification," Illuyank said. "The purification plant. We can pump almost everywhere from there."

"Wait a bit," Lewis said. "We want to attract as many Ru

He watched the screens, dragging it out, then: "All right, let's hit them."

Once more, Illuyank sca

Lewis fixed his attention on the sensor screens. The outer passage was quiet no...few dead E-clones floating on the surface of the brine, many dead Ru

Even as the last of them were dying, a milky cloud of gas had begun to sweep out of an open passage, drifting across the scene, blurring it.

"Watch their eyes," Illuyank said. "If we don't get all the Ru

All was quiet in the Facilities Room then as the survivors listened to their own precious breath, felt the comfort of their own live sweat and watched the eyes of the dead outside for some reflection of their own mortality.

Lewis leaned against the lip of the console, feeling cold metal under his fingers. Other screens showed more of the milky gas billowing through the Redoubt. There were even sensor eyes still alive to show the area outside their perimeter, the gas drifting across the open ground there. Illuyank sca

Someone behind Lewis heaved a shuddering sigh and Lewis echoed it.

"Chlorine," Illuyank muttered.

"We'll be able to sterilize the Ru

"A nasty way to learn," someone behind them said.

And someone else said: "It'll be a long wait."