Contagion

by David Ryker

  If anyone else around the table caught it, they managed to keep good poker faces. There was nothing in the rules against fraternization. I’d checked. That was different than a normal vessel. We were supposed to establish a colony and all hook up to ensure a new generation. That’s why we were all under forty. At thirty-eight, I was actually one of the oldest on the crew. The commander was only thirty-five. Some in the crew were as young as twenty-three. The plus was that we were all virile. The minus was that we were more hotheaded than a more mature crew.

  Take, for example, Valeria.

  She did not keep a poker face.

  She reddened, that lovely olive skin turning the color of a pimiento.

  “I was saving M—Commander Ayers’ life. I certainly didn’t see you helping.”

  I winced. The outburst could have been worse, a lot worse, but the fact that there was an outburst at all was a mistake.

  And an admission.

  Commander Loftsdóttir came to the rescue.

  “So who do you suggest we wake up?” she asked me.

  “Yes, I’m interested to hear your opinion,” Dr. Stark said, obviously anxious to smooth things over. He already knew about me and Valeria. He’d known almost from the start.

  “Well, let’s look through the list,” I said, putting it on the main viewscreen.

  That got everyone turned in the same direction, which was nice. It stopped Foyle from glaring at Valeria, Valeria glaring at Foyle, Iliescu staring at both of them, and Barakat from fidgeting nervously and not looking at anyone.

  We scrolled through the list. The Global Government had provided us with a list of names from the crew and colonists. Three-quarters of those names were ghosted, since ghosts were what the motherfuckers were now. But that still left four crewmembers and thirty-seven colonists.

  Damn, so many. And those were only the ones we knew about. It was a hack on a massive scale. When I had hacked into the lottery to cheat my way on board, it had taken retinal surgery, fingerprint transplantation, and a massive wad of cash to get the job done. I had to rob my old mob boss to afford it.

  And the Biospherists had done it with dozens of people. Incredible. What else had they managed to do?

  We quickly dismissed the idea of waking the four crewmembers. Many of the crew were still in stasis because they didn’t have critical positions. Even so, they all had too much technical knowledge. We couldn’t risk having someone with a high skill set running around loose.

  The colonists were less qualified, and generally in skills such as agriculture, meteorology, or light industry. Skills we needed when we made it to Terra Nova. Assuming we ever did make it to Terra Nova.

  The problem with these folks is we needed to come up with a good reason to wake one, and I couldn’t think of one.

  Barakat cleared his throat.

  “How about Juan Carlos Garrido?”

  I froze on the name and brought up his bio. The photo showed a hulky man with a broad face and straight black hair who looked like a mixture of Hispanic and Native American. His bio told us he was thirty-six, and came from a small town in what was once called Peru. Assistant colonial administrator. Also held a degree in South American history and folklore. Plus, he played the drums and was a regional wrestling champion in his earlier years. The Global Government didn’t just choose for critical skills, but also tried to find people who knew about Earth culture and could pass it on to the next generation. Like Qiang and his military history knowledge. Or Dr. Stark and his collection of old medical instruments. Or Iliescu and his chess.

  “Why him? We don’t need a colonial administrator,” Foyle said.

  Barakat’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t take the bait. “I worked with him before launch, so I know him. I can gauge his moods. My idea is that we tell him that the aliens have offered us a range of planets where that we might colonize, and I need him to help me work through the possibilities. If he thinks we’re going to wake up the colonists soon, he might be goaded into getting in touch with his compatriots.”

  “Not bad,” I said.

  “Unless he gets you in a headlock and strangles you to death,” Foyle said.

  The Egyptian gulped. “There is that risk, but I do not think he will act so rashly. He will see his chance to work from within and undermine us. He will also be frightened by the knowledge that the majority of his fellow Biospherists have been killed or executed.”

  Valeria leaned back in her chair, wiping her brow.

  “You haven’t faced one of these people,” she said. “The Biospherists aren’t afraid of anything.”

  “That’s true,” the commander said. “You’re taking a terrible chance.”

  Barakat nodded. “I understand that. But I haven’t had much to do around here and I want to contribute. I’ll keep a close eye on him, maybe let out a few complaints about how the ship is being run. See what I can get out of him.”

  Commander Loftsdóttir looked him in the eye. “I will not order you to do this. It’s a huge risk.”

  Barakat took a long, slow breath, and said, “I appreciate this. Nevertheless, I volunteer.”

  He said it like a man condemned.

  8

  We got to work right away, worried that the Biospherists might have more nasties planned. Dr. Stark brought Juan Carlos out of stasis. We wanted to do a location tag, but since injections weren’t part of wakeup procedure and we didn’t want to make him suspicious, we had the doctor pretend to wipe his face clean, something that was part of procedure. The washing liquid had been mixed with a slightly radioactive solution. It was too weak to give him cancer, which was a crying shame, but strong enough that the ship’s internal sensors could monitor his movements.

  I watched on a security camera as Juan Carlos slowly woke up. Barakat stood by the stasis pod as the short, broad man began to move. He, like Barakat, was beginning to get a bit fat around the middle, but he looked like he still had plenty of strength. I felt nervous about letting this guy hang around with Barakat all the time.

  But it was Barakat’s choice, and it was the correct one. He had a friendly, disarming personality that should put Juan Carlos at ease, and the idea of bringing the colonization forward was brilliant. I also suspected that Foyle’s shot about us not needing colonial administrators in a time of war had hit a bit too close to home. I liked Barakat, but he was a bit of a fifth wheel. This was his way of contributing, and I wasn’t about to deny him. The rest of us were taking our share of risks too.

  I just hoped Barakat could get this job done before the Centaurians showed up. The last thing we needed was to keep having to look over our shoulder while facing a superior enemy.

  We had a tiny microphone hidden in Barakat’s uniform so we could listen in on any conversation he had with Juan Carlos.

  The man came to slowly, sluggishly managing to sit up and look around him.

  “Welcome to deep space, Assistant Colonial Administrator Garrido,” Barakat said.

  His face lit up. “We made it? We’re at Terra Nova?”

  This guy was good. No surprise at the first wave of attackers failing, no disappointment. Instead he acted just like he was supposed to act. No one had ever suspected Steiner or Bahloul, either. Did these assholes take acting lessons or something?

  “Not quite,” Barakat said, playing his role equally well. “The Nansen has run into some … unexpected trouble.”

  He went on to explain what had happened, speaking slowly and clearly since Garrido was still groggy from stasis. It took him several minutes to be fully alert and on his feet.

  I’d seen this with the crew when I woke them up. When I remembered how I had to leap into combat right after being awakened by accident by the Biospherists, and how I had taken a stim to keep going, I couldn’t complain that I’d developed a heart problem. I was lucky to be alive at all.

  That heart trouble continued to gnaw at me. Dr. Stark knew better than I did how close to death I was, and he could declare me unfit for duty at any time. He h
adn’t, though, knowing the ship needed me. But how much longer would that patience last? And how many more shocks could my heart take?

  I shoved those unpleasant thoughts aside and focused on Barakat and Garrido. The Peruvian was asking about the terrorist attack and our unexpected location in the galaxy, just like any normal person would do. Barakat answered all his questions, only telling him what was common knowledge among the crew, things he would find out on his own anyway.

  I left them to it. The microphone was fed into the central computer, with the AI recording and tagging anything that might be significant. Between that and the regular consultations I’d have with Barakat, I didn’t need to be a fly on the wall.

  Just as I was heading out of the security office, Foyle showed up.

  “How you doing, buddy?” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. That had become a habit of his, pretending to be best friends. If he was a better friend he would have clapped me on my unwounded shoulder. It was still healing and him hitting it made me feel Steiner’s drill all over again.

  “Fine. Got Barakat all wired up,” I said, walking fast down the corridor in the hope that he wouldn’t follow.

  Vain hope.

  “Glad we finally found a way for him to be useful,” Foyle said. He had a talent for taking credit for other people’s ideas. He grinned and elbowed me in the ribs. “Oh, and nice work. She’s a looker.”

  I glared at him. “Change the subject. Now.”

  He raised his hands and grinned. “My bad. Didn’t know it was a sensitive topic. You know there’s no rules against it. I got myself a nice little piece from engineering. I hope Iliescu doesn’t mind her going about her duties bow legged.”

  He laughed at his own joke.

  “Got things to do, Foyle.”

  “Damn right we do,” he said, suddenly serious. “That’s why I came to talk to you. The zoo finally stopped squawking to one another and decided what technology they’re going to share.”

  “Oh yeah?” He had my interest now.

  “Yeah. We’re meeting Iliescu and your piece of, um, Dr. Sanchez at the shuttle bay. We’re all going over to some lab in the space station.”

  “Right.”

  I had been going to develop a plan for investigating the Biospherist threat with Qiang, but now he would have to do that himself. I just wished the terrorists would lay off for a while considering the Nansen and everyone aboard were in mortal danger. I wasn’t holding my breath on that.

  These people wouldn’t let up until they were all dead, or we were.

  As we walked to the shuttle bay, I thought of what Valeria had told me about them. They had been recruiting on her university campus when she was a young PhD student, back before the group had turned violent. Thanks to her lab coat, she had been on the receiving end of a ton of wide-eyed lectures.

  “They put nature above everything else,” she had told me. “Quite rightly, they saw humanity as a part of nature, and we were killing ourselves by separating from nature and systematically destroying it for our short-term gains. The problem was, they took that philosophy way too far. There are logical, selfish reasons for being an environmentalist. It makes sense to want a clean, healthy planet. It’s for our own good. No one wants to live on the fifteenth floor and breathe in toxins all day. But they went way beyond that. They thought that humanity was a cancer on the world, and if we didn’t clean up our act, literally, then we should all be killed. They put nature above human beings, instead of looking at nature and human beings as an integrated system.”

  A loud electronic tone sounded through the corridor, indicating a ship-wide announcement would follow.

  “Oh crap, now what?” I said.

  “It’s her speech about the Biospherists,” Foyle said.

  “Now?”

  “Is there a better time?” he asked.

  We stopped at a viewscreen. All of them would come on for the announcement.

  “Is there a good time?” I countered.

  “You’ve got a point.”

  A couple of technicians stopped to watch on the same viewscreen as us.

  The screen turned on to show the head and shoulders of Commander Loftsdóttir. She looked grimly at the camera.

  “To the crew and colonists of the Ark Ship Nansen, I have two important announcements.”

  Two?

  “First, by now you have all heard of the attacks on Commander Ayers and Major Li of security. These were attacks by Biospherist terrorists in revenge for the lawful execution of Technician First Class Albert Lyncker and Assistant Botanist Rachel Hemmings.”

  The two technicians stared at me. One gave me a thumbs-up. Add another chapter to the Saga of Mitch Ayers, The Guy Who Cheated His Way Into Being A Hero.

  “We have learned that not all the Biospherists on board were killed or captured in the initial attack that took out so many of our friends and coworkers. Several more are serving as a second wave of attackers, to act later in the event of their first attack failing. We know this, not just from yesterday’s attacks on Commander Ayers and Major Li, but from a message we received from Earth.”

  The two technicians gasped and looked to us for confirmation. I nodded.

  “A probe has caught up to us. It was sent out a year after the Nansen launched. Because its warp drive was slightly better powered than the Nansen’s, it was able to catch up with us in deep space. It carried the message that a Global Government investigation revealed a number of Biospherists had managed to infiltrate the colonists and crew and provided a list of their names. Most of these individuals died in the initial attack. Others remain in stasis and will be kept there until we decide what to do with them.”

  “Space them,” one of the technicians grumbled.

  Commander Loftsdóttir went on. “The Global Government got this list from a raid on the house of a Biospherist cell leader. Unfortunately, the list is known to be incomplete. Neither of yesterday’s attackers were on it.”

  “Shit,” the technician said. Foyle gestured at him impatiently to be quiet.

  “We are currently investigating who else might be a Biospherist. I ask that you report any suspicious activity or conversation immediately to security. Do not carry bags or other items for another crewmember, and do not let others into your quarters or place of work. Do not share any access codes. Remain calm. While I and the rest of the high command wish for you to be vigilant, we do not want this to turn into a witch hunt or for it to affect your workplace productivity. I also have a message for any Biospherists who are hearing this. If you give yourself up now, you will enjoy complete immunity. You will not be made to name your fellow Biospherists and your only punishment will be exile. We will drop you off at this space station or a planet of your choosing. Your chosen path will only lead to death. Let us offer you life.”

  Commander Loftsdóttir straightened a bit, her face going stony.

  “Now for the second announcement, and I am afraid it is not good news. Another probe was sent to us thirty years after our launch. It had much superior warp technology than our own and was able to catch up with us at the same time as the first. It told us of the fate of the other five Ark ships. Two suffered warp engine faults shortly after leaving the solar system and exploded. Another drifted off course and got pulled in by a star’s gravity and burned up. There was some sort of mutiny on the fourth. Details are unclear. It appears to have been a different terrorist group than the Biospherists. At any rate, the ship ended up getting destroyed. The fifth ship has disappeared. Its beacon stopped transmitting about ten years after it launched and long range scanners lost sight of it.

  “The Nansen is the last Ark ship. It is up to us to finish the job. This job has become even more critical because of the situation back on Earth. I think it would be better for me to play for you the transmission sent by the head of the Global Government.”

  I groaned as the image of High General William Saunders came on the screen. She was going to torture the crew with this? The general, wearing a
uniform bedecked with medals and with the flag of the Global Government in the background, addressed us across light years of space and decades of time.

  “It has been thirty years since you have launched, and almost twenty since we learned that you are the only survivors of all the Ark ships. And yet we have not been able to build more. Traitors both among the common people and the Global Government have stopped us at every turn. Rebellions have risen up on every continent. General strikes have paralyzed the cities and farms. We have punished these traitors with the severest of measures, and yet they continue to defy us.

  “We had the chance to save the world, and found ourselves fighting for our very existence. The global population has reached fourteen billion, and our resources have been stretched to the breaking point. Ark Ship Nansen, I must be honest with you. The time for propaganda has passed. No one believes in the Global Government anymore. There is no hope for Earth. The seas are dead. The soil is exhausted. Despite our best … everything is in ruins. The cities are starving and we have lost control of more than half of the world’s land mass. Those areas not in our control have fallen into anarchy or are ruled by petty dictatorships fighting for the last resources. The Earth is dying.”

  “No,” one of the technicians sobbed, his face reddening as his eyes glistened. “It can’t be true. My family!”

  The words of High General William Saunders, now surely dead for many years, rolled relentlessly over the man’s grief.

  “The government lacks the resources to provide even basic services to all its citizens. There are chronic energy and food shortages. Our control over those areas we still command is slipping. And the colonization of the solar system has retreated. Asteroid mining is no longer financially viable and the region has been abandoned. The Mars base was abandoned two years ago and the moon bases are in the process of being shut down.

  “We haven’t had the resources to build more Ark ships. What you weren’t told was that the original six stretched Earth’s resources and the government’s finances to the limit. As it is, we can barely summon the funds and the manpower to build this probe.