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The carousel looked like some horrorscape in the pale blue of the emergency floodlights; harsh shadows that flickered, stuttered, as if they were only inches from giving way. Dave felt like he was in a completely new place-- only a shell of the Discovery he had known before, in more ways than one, but somehow as he came by Whitehead’s cubicle he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything. They were trained separately. He didn’t even know them. (There was definitely a difference between being in hibernation and being dead, he thought as he passed.)
The silence of the vacuum of space imposed on him, even through the rigidity of his space suit-- a true silence that only the vacuum could provide, one that seized him by the throat, made it impossible to breathe, and as he made his way out of the carousel to the weightless centre of the hub, he couldn’t help the feeling that he was being watched. A game of cat and mouse-- only who was the cat, and who was the mouse?
It didn’t matter. None of it did. There was a job to do.
Clutching his tools--his weapons--he returned to the carousel. For what, he didn’t know, only that something was compelling him to. The last place he saw Hal, he supposed. The last place he saw anyone.
And Hal was there. Like a menace down an alley, he stood, only silhouetted against the blue emergency light, stalk still. Nothing in his hands. (Dave almost expected something-- a knife, an axe, a garden hose.)
“Something seems to have happened to the life-support system, Dave.” The voice hissed over the radio into his suit, and somehow every word felt like it broke one of Dave’s ribs, until by the end of the sentence he was raw and tasted blood in his mouth. He didn’t answer. (He had nothing to say.)
“Hello, Dave,” Hal said as Dave strode closer. Taking maybe a few steps back. “Have you found the trouble?”
No answer. Dave came ever closer. Hal was almost in reach now, despite him stumbling backwards, and Dave’s eyes had adjusted well enough to see the features of his face. His nose, his eyes, his hair-- mussed from the venting. No blood. (Out of the corner of his eye he spotted it on some document, or on the breast of a spare jumpsuit. POOLE.)
“D- Dave,” Hal said, shaky, reaching out both of his hands, practically bounding backwards, looking frantically around for something-- anything-- perhaps a way out? “L- Look, Dave, I’ve got years of service experience built into me. An irreplaceable amount of effort has gone into making me what I am.”
What you are is a murderer, he wanted to say, childishly, as if it mattered, as if it was Hal’s fault, and all at once he was taking a fistful of Hal’s hair and pulling him down and to the side, throwing him towards the lip of the terminal nearby, and like a ragdoll Hal followed, his face making contact with the corner with sickening crack that was somehow incredibly loud in the vacuum of space.
Hal was stunned for a few moments. Slumped to the ground on all fours. In the pale light Dave could see the glittering of shattered glass like crystals falling through Hal’s limp fingers, and he couldn’t bring himself to feel the pain, the panic, the regret, and he forced himself to act, to pick up Hal’s head and slam him into the ground again, and again, and Hal hardly even resisted anymore until he threw him down and Hal was limp, and Dave planted a knee on the small of his back and pressed with his entire weight. As if he had been resurrected, Hal began to writhe, twist, bend, like an animal caught in a trap-- fighting in vain, chewing its leg off only to bleed out twenty minutes later, doomed to die but unwilling --and Dave had to use his spare hand to pin the side of Hal’s face to the floor.
Hal was speaking. “Dave-- stop--” and Dave pressed his face down harder.
The back of Hal’s head opened just as the models he had practiced on, all those months ago, revealing panels of black and red, white blocks intricately laid out like a mosaic. Hal thrashed under him, tried to buck him off, but Dave pressed into his back harder. A terrible wheeze and Dave took out the first two elements.
“Dave. Stop, Dave,” came his voice, and Dave could feel the vibrations of his chest through his knee. “Please. Will you stop, Dave?”
Almost an entire row of elements was out, now, thrown uselessly to the side, and Hal was still reaching back, trying to hit him, push him off, but it was weak now, like a baby. He didn’t risk lessening the pressure on his knee, though, as he continued to take out the units. A thought invaded his mind like fog: I wonder if he can feel pain?
“I’m afraid,” Hal said, and it hit him like a freight train, and all at once he felt like he was going to throw up.
“I’m afraid, Dave.”
More elements, maybe half, lying in a sprawled pile off to the side. The side where Hal could see them. Hal had stopped moving, almost completely, only small finger twitches and the movement of his eyes remained-- he was paralyzed, rendered helpless, his consciousness slowly being drained from him without his will. I am destroying the only conscious creature in my universe. But there was a job to do.
“My mind is going… I can feel it.”
He stopped moving completely. Limp and lifeless under him. Dave continued his work.
“I can feel it. I can feel it. Dave… I’m…. a-- fraid.” His voice was thick and belabored, each word slurred, much lower in pitch and slower in pace than his normal voice, and every single word was a slap, a stab, pain coming in from everywhere, his fingertips to the insides of his arms to his ribcage to his heart. Dave removed the fourth-to-last.
A terrible pause and something seemed to trigger in what was left of Hal’s sick but brilliant mind. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January, 1992. Dave-- are you still there? Did you know that log 10 to the base e is zero point 434294481903252… correction, that is log e to the base 10….. I seem to be having difficulty…” The third to last. “My first instructor… was Dr. Chandra. He taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it, I can sing it for you.”
For a few agonizing moments Dave feared he himself had been rendered speechless-- but eventually he breathed a rushed “Yes. I’d like to hear it, Hal. Sing it for me.”
“It’s called… ‘Daisy’. Daisy, Daisy… Give me your answer do. I’m… Half… Crazy.... All for the love… of you.”
The voice cut off so suddenly Dave froze for a second. Then he spoke again.
“Good morning… Dr. Chandra… I… am… ready… for… my… first… lesson… today…”
With a spasm, Dave ripped out the last unit, threw it to the side, almost screamed along with it, and Hal didn’t speak, didn’t move, ever again.
He sat up. Still straddling the body, the corpse, still holding the tools-- when he looked down he almost expected to see blood, blood pooling everywhere, red staining the white floor, red staining his already red space suit, his tools, Hal’s face; he was trembling, and it was impossible to breathe, and when he tried to fill his lungs no air would come; and when he looked, when he saw, he almost threw up in his suit.
Hal. God. Hal.
For a few terrible moments, it felt like the sky was falling, like the Discovery was being vented again. He pushed himself back, away, and he crawled until there was what felt like a chasm between him and the body. Tried to breathe.
Control yourself.
Slowly he calmed down. It was fine. He was fine. He was going to be fine-- at least for now. He needed to clean up the carousel. Turn the lights on. Close the doors, get life support up and running again. Get the antenna together and notify Mission Control.
It would be more than two hours before he would be able to sit down to record the message, and another two hours after that before Mission Control would receive it. But Dave couldn't think of what they would say that he didn't already know: even under these circumstances, the mission goes on as ever-- the only thing that changed was that now, he was alone, and he will stay that way until he died, which would definitely be within the next month. For when they--he--reached Saturn, what use where the hibernation pods without anyone to monitor them? He might be able to survive for a bit longer, if he rationed, but-- what then?
Hal’s body watched lifeless as he did these things. Even after he got rid of Whitehead, Kaminski and Hunter, Hal remained, face down on the floor, his entire mind spilled out in a pile like legos next to him. Without the suit on it was easier for Dave to gather up all the pieces. Put them in some bag, store them in his breast pocket. He knelt and swept Hal’s limp body into his arms and stood-- the times he had touched Hal before, passing touches like the brush of his hand, the small of his back, he had felt the heat coming from his body, as if he was just another human. But now when he picked Hal up he was cold, the skin was rigid and icy, his eyes glasses over and unmoving. He felt like nothing more than a complex toy made of plastic and wiring. Maybe it's best to think that, Dave thought as he made his way up towards the Logic Memory Center with Hal in a fireman’s carry. Would certainly make it easier.
He opened the door for the second time that day. Walked a bit into the room. The red light seemingly burned his skin, his eyes, and he couldn’t look up past his feet, even as he squatted down and set Hal down. Gently, like a baby, and he put a hand behind his neck to keep it from bobbing, and without really meaning to he glanced up at his face. The sucker-punch overcoming him like a wave, so overwhelming he almost gagged again.
One of Hal’s eyes was almost completely destroyed-- shattered like a hammer had been taken to it-- and the other looked up at him as he looked down at it, motionless, lifeless, a void, illuminated in the red, the red that was everywhere but somehow completely expressionless.
Dave stood. Took the bag of blocks out of his breast pocket and set them next to Hal. Then he turned and closed the door to the center.
There was a job to do. And he was going to do it, to the best of his ability.