Wayfarer: AV494

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Heh. If anything breaches the hull, that trapdoor bed won’t help.”

  She’d packed her clothes away over two hours ago, but hadn’t felt much motivation to move since Don gave her the bad news: Captain Chen had ordered a hold on any of the new arrivals leaving the outpost for at least two days, pending medical evaluations. Sitting around inside, a half mile from making history, would be worse than three years in a cryo pod. At least for that, she’d been unconscious. Watching Will and the botany team head out to their research site in the forest hadn’t helped.

  Thinking of him got her nervously kneading her hands again. Aside from her time on ice, she’d been free of him for almost a year. Not having to validate herself, not having to worry if a lack of reply or a dish put down too hard meant he’d become angry with her. How long would he let her think she’d gotten away before he made a play to get her back?

  He can try all he wants. I know what he’s really like. I know all those fake faces he’ll make.

  She swiped her e-pad from the top of her desk, which folded down out of the wall below a hexagonal window the size of a dinner plate. It offered a meager view of the distant ‘trees’ shifting in wind strong enough to spin whorls of black dust off the ground into tiny tornados.

  “Two days… This is going to suck.”

  The e-pad screen flickered to life at her touch, displaying the map of the Wayfarer outpost she’d opened out of boredom. Two rectangular pods at the northwest held all the living quarters. Her room occupied the more distant one from the dome. Only three rooms separated her from the northern end. A corridor ran south from the exit of her pod straight to the hydroponics facility―the massive western structure she’d noticed on the flight in. The outpost’s power facility stood beyond the ‘greenhouse’ at the southwest corner, theoretically far enough away for the rest of the buildings to survive if it had a meltdown. To the southeast, two lab pods clustered together about a hundred meters from the start of the downhill grade leading to the excavation site. The vehicle garage, a square pod almost as big as the dome, but nowhere near as tall, sat to the east.

  Everything connected to the dome by a series of semi-flexible tubes. The central structure had a map unto itself. Its five stories held the command area, communications controls, infirmary, fitness center, offices, cafeteria, backup power reactor, additional lab space, and Captain Chen’s office at the top.

  Kerys tossed the e-pad back to the desk with a sigh. She could go walking around to familiarize herself with the place, but the disappointment of being stuck inside doing nothing for two days sapped her energy.

  After staring at the floor for some time, the idea of getting her medical check over with grew appealing enough to urge her into motion. Better to go wandering when Will had left to work in the forest so he couldn’t cross her path. As much as she told herself she’d stand up to him, she feared collapsing under pressure. For as long as she could get away with, she’d act as if she hadn’t run into the one person capable of sucking the joy out of a journey to a breathtaking planet with actual living alien plants. Smiling to herself, she put on her ‘inside shoes,’ which reminded her of armored black sneakers, and left her room.

  Strong overhead light glared at her from super-white walls. Frigid air carried a smell like hospital antiseptic. She shivered and tugged the zipper on her jumpsuit up a few inches. Silence in the hall made her feel like the only girl in the dorms who didn’t want to go home for a holiday. That feeling, she knew well. Of course, everyone else would be at work now, except for the overnight people and the rest of her team. She hadn’t a clue where any of them had gone.

  Kerys headed to the right and wandered past twenty or so plain white doors on either side until she reached the ladder to the ground floor recessed in a shaft. She climbed down past several signs urging her to be careful, since Avasar cared about its employees and didn’t want any injuries.

  A heavier door at the south end of the pod opened to a short section of modular tunnel that connected south to the hydroponics pod with a left turn at the halfway mark. The sight of a large red handle labeled ‘Do not pull – modular disconnect – Danger! Loss of atmosphere’ out in the open stalled the breath in her throat.

  No key? No code? Nothing? Just… sitting there? She shied away from it as if it would come to life and attack her.

  She crept into the tube, feeling like a hamster in a complex habitat, and hooked a left to head toward the primary dome. About fifty meters later, she passed an opening leading to the other residence pod, and continued past it another sixty meters to the dome. A six-inch-thick door had been locked open where the tube bolted to the hull. Aside from having only a little plastic between her and a fatal atmosphere, the place almost felt like a corporate office.

  She emerged in an open atrium with a few benches and chairs. Like most of Wayfarer, hospital-white walls surrounded her. Traces of food from the cafeteria muted the antiseptic smell that clung to everything. In the northeast, a corridor labeled ‘garage’ sat next to the cafeteria entrance. Another hallway led south from the atrium, with signs reading ‘operations,’ ‘stairs,’ ‘labs,’ and ‘power.’ Her e-pad map had put the infirmary on the third floor, so she turned to her right down the hallway toward operations. Near what she estimated to be the center of the dome, she found a stairwell going up as well as down.

  This place has a basement? Wow… Avasar went all out. Suppose they’re intent on staying here a long time.

  A few people passed with pleasant smiles as she made her way up six switchback flights to the third story. After a while of navigating corridors and peeking into office cubicles, she entered a hallway where the upper half of the walls were windows that peered into conference rooms and cube farms. Two hallways later, she spotted an area that reminded her of a military command and control center with people seated at multi-workstation desks. Kerys gazed at the operations center, watching them for a few minutes before her curiosity faded. She continued past the huge room to the next corner. A short distance to the left, an archway led to an immaculate white corridor.

  Much smaller than she expected, the infirmary consisted of two rooms: an unlit one with empty recovery beds, and a well-lit space where a dark-skinned man sat behind a desk with his feet up. Judging from the sounds of lasers and explosions on his terminal, he played a video game.

  Kerys crept up to the open doorway. Her first attempt to knock on the metal doorjamb didn’t make enough noise for him to notice, so she cleared her throat.

  The man shifted his eyes to her without moving his body. A second later, the game paused and he bounced out of his chair with a broad smile. “Hello! Come in, come in.” He gestured at a chair by his desk. “Please…”

  Kerys approached, gazing past his desk at a pair of bulky surgical tables that looked like a cross between the dentist chair from hell and a tiny spacecraft. Both sat below egg-shaped swells on the ceiling brimming with slender robotic arms, lenses, and squiggly wires.

  “I’m Doctor Sekhar, but please, call me Ravi if it’s more comfortable for you.” He smiled again, offering a hand.

  Kerys accepted the handshake and sat. “Kerys Loring. They said I had to come in for a routine check.”

  “Ahh, yes. You’re with the archaeology team that just arrived. They sent your files over.” He scooted his chair in, tapping his finger on the terminal. “Pardon the game―I love being bored. It means no one is hurt.”

  She let off a nervous laugh. “I suppose that is a good thing.”

  The greenish tint on his white jumpsuit faded as the contents of his screen changed. “Well then. Have you experienced anything unusual since being brought out of cryonic suspension? Muscle weakness? Cramps, tingles, soreness, headache, vertigo, numbness?” He leaned away from the monitor to smile at her.

  Kerys shook her head. “No. Just a little restlessness. I want to get out there and see what they found that made them want to ship us all out here.”

  Doctor Sekhar nodded. “I can understand
that. I haven’t heard specifics, but Commander Chen has refused to let anyone near the site since they saw the carving.”

  “Carving?” Kerys perked up. “What kind of carving?”

  “Oh.” He offered an apologetic smile. “I’m not sure. I heard someone mention a survey team stumbled across what appeared to be a hallway cut into the rock, and something about markings on the wall they assumed to be writing.”

  Dammit! She sat on her hands, trembling with anticipation. “I can’t wait to get out there and see for myself.”

  “It sounds exciting.” He grinned at her before leaning close to the monitor again. “Well, let’s see… They sent over your medical records. Everything looks good. No allergies, chronic conditions, anything of that nature?”

  “Nothing I know of.” She fidgeted.

  “All right. I see you’ve spent time on an outpost before… Copernicus? So you’re accustomed to tight quarters, not being able to go outside without a suit, the claustrophobia.”

  “This place is about ten times bigger than Cope was. Much less stressful.”

  He cringed. “Sorry to hear that. Most who come here show some signs of cabin fever within a month. There’s a relaxation spa on the second floor, east part. Holographic beach, forest, and so on if you feel the need for ‘fresh air.’”

  “Wow. They really held nothing back here. This place even has a basement? They excavated under the dome?”

  “They dug out a reservoir and ran an underground passage to the grow facility for more direct access to water.” He waved his hand about. “Moisture collectors extract water from the atmosphere, purify it, and it’s stored down there.” He put on a mock stern face while pointing at her. “No swimming, since that’s our drinking water.”

  “Right…”

  “Might as well get the technical bits out of the way then.” He stood and gestured at a flat white box on the ground against the wall. “Please come around the desk and stand on that.”

  She complied. As soon as she stepped up on the device, a blue dot appeared on the wall about even with the top of her head.

  “Hmm. Your weight seems a little low. Have you been eating properly?”

  “I’ve been frozen solid for three years and I’m all kinds of anxious.” She picked at her jumpsuit pocket. “Good anxious I mean. What’s sitting out in that cave could be one of the most significant finds in the history of humanity. I’m excited, and kinda nervous.”

  He tilted his head. “Is there something else? You look troubled.”

  Kerys sighed. Crap. I have a sign on my forehead, don’t I? “I, uhh… yeah.”

  Doctor Sekhar gestured at the nearer surgical table. “Please relax there.”

  She eyed it, twitching.

  “Only a routine scan.” He clasped the e-pad to his chest and grinned. “Nothing will draw blood.”

  “Right.” She hopped down off the scale and climbed up onto the medical station, reclining on black cushions much softer than they appeared. Staring up at the shiny white egg and all its robotic protrusions stirred an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, which worsened when a bright white seam lit up down the center. “So… what are you doing?”

  The egg split apart about an inch, exposing three glowing green dots, projectors that covered her in a grid of laser lines.

  “Body scan. Checking for injuries to bones, muscles, and vital organs… anything out of the ordinary. Please relax. This will only take a few minutes and requires no physical contact.”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes and tried to clear her thoughts.

  Doctor Sekhar remained quiet for a little while the machine thrummed and whirred. “You were about to mention something else contributing to your nervousness?”

  Busted. “Just about the most cosmically bad luck imaginable. My ex is here.”

  “Your ex?”

  Warmth tingled over her body, though she blamed the scanner. “I suppose it’s not really that surprising. Both of us work in rare fields, and Avasar has deep pockets. Will’s certainly driven enough to be near the top. I bet there’s not even a hundred xeno-botanists on Earth, and I chose a field that gets make fun of. It pisses me off how stupid so many people are. There’s literally more planets than we have numbers to be able to count, and they’re convinced that non-human life is a myth.”

  “And his presence here shocked you?”

  She let the comforting tone of the doctor’s voice settle her mind. “We met in school… Berkeley. Our majors had a lot of overlapping classes. Wound up getting an apartment together senior year. I suppose we had some good times, but after a while, it got harder and harder to ignore how much of an asshole he is.”

  The doctor pursed his lips and nodded, reading something on his e-pad. “I’m here to listen if you need an ear. Everything said in here is confidential. I hope he wasn’t abusive.”

  “Not physically. At first, it was comforting to have a man in my life who had the confidence to make decisions and didn’t need validation from anyone. I guess it started slow, a small disagreement about where to eat. I really wanted to go to this sushi place, but he had his mind set on Italian, and that was that. From there, I started to notice how everything was Will’s way or no way at all. I felt like just another fancy expensive toy in his collection. For almost a year, I argued with myself, coming up with excuses like he’s stressed out, or he’s not going to stay like that, but he never changed.”

  “You can get up. The scan’s done.”

  Kerys scratched at the side of her neck. “We dated for about two months before I decided to go to bed with him. Once I finally said yes that first time, I’d never told him no again when he wanted sex. The night I finally decided to leave him, I’d been let go from my first real job… I mean it wasn’t anything grandiose, some part time grunt work at the California Science Center, tending to their space rocks. They decided to downsize the staff, and being new, I was one of the first to get the ax. Anyway, I took it hard. He didn’t care I’d been crying on and off all day. His team had made some kind of breakthrough and he came home all revved up and wanted to go out for dinner. Of course, to him, I was jealous of his success and trying to ruin his day. When we got back to the apartment, he wanted dessert.”

  Doctor Sekhar sighed.

  “I wasn’t in the mood. He flipped out. Kicked the nightstand, shouted, threw stuff. He didn’t hit me though.”

  “He may as well have. Outbursts like that have almost the same effect.”

  She slid off the table to her feet, and shrugged. “That was the first time I really felt afraid of him. I knew it would only get worse, so I told him I couldn’t go on like that. He grabbed my arm when I tried to leave, started apologizing, but it felt so fake. Scripted like.”

  “It took a good deal of inner strength to get yourself out of that situation. Many suffer for years.”

  “Thanks.” She rubbed her arms. “I’m afraid he’s going to try something. He chased me for months. Phone calls, flowers, showing up unannounced. I almost trusted him again, but he always made me feel… I dunno, unclean. Like he was trying to sell me a bad used car. I thought he gave up when he just stopped cold, but now that I think about it… he’d probably taken the position here.”

  “I can’t really discuss other personnel records, but he has been here a while considering the age of the facility.” Doctor Sekhar offered a reassuring smile. “We strive to have a safe environment for everyone. If you feel threatened at any time, please let me know―or feel free to visit Captain Chen.”

  The worry that had been needling at her gut twisted deeper. She felt sure Will would do something sooner or later, and already, she could picture him shouting about her attempting to sabotage his career with bullshit. If she complained about him now before he even did anything, it would only make her look bad. She forced a weak smile. “Thanks. I’m okay. He saw me already and kept his distance. I’m sure he understands we’re done.”

  I can avoid him. He’s out in the forest and I’m in a c
ave. I’ll just keep to myself and stay out of his way. She nibbled on her lower lip, chiding herself for backing down before a conflict even started, but he’d been here for years. The crew of this place knew him, probably trusted him―he had that effect. She doubted anyone would believe her. Even the doctor, all smiles and warmth, might be jotting down comments that she’s ‘too sensitive’ or ‘not suited for deep space work.’

  “So… umm… how’d the scan go?”

  He looked up from the e-pad, smiling. “You’re healthy. I’ve just submitted your medical clearance. Once the rest of your team has been here, you should be able to get started rooting around the caverns.”

  She grinned. Not even Will could ruin that for her. Kerys took a few breaths to calm down. True, Avasar Biotech had hired a xenoarchaeology team and flown them out here, but that didn’t prove they’d stumbled across a career-making bonanza. Getting too excited wouldn’t help.

  The doctor made small talk for a little while, preferring human company to being alone in the infirmary with his video game. Eventually, a growl from her stomach gave her an excuse to get going, and the odd sensation of being hungry directed her course to the cafeteria at the eastern side of the dome’s ground floor. The entrance stood on the right side of the atrium where the hall to the residence pods connected at the west, and a northern tube led off to the garage.

  About two hours past lunchtime, she walked into an empty room with rows and rows of shiny steel benches in the middle. Smaller round tables lined the curving window at the outer wall. Rather than workers, a row of machines staffed a counter along the left next to stacks of plastic trays.

  An auto-attendant portioned out a plate of something masquerading as lasagna, which she carried to one of the window tables offering a view of the landscape between the lab pods on the right and the garage on the left.

  Willowy bands of luminous cyan drifted across a stormy sky of blue-violet, flashing with the occasional streak of amethyst lightning that reflected on the silicon-grey mountains. Kerys stared at the shimmery rocks, hoping they contained her future. Daydreams of speaking at universities, meeting celebrities, maybe even the president, flickered across her brain.