Gliese 581

by Christine D. Shuck

  “Yeah, but she won’t talk to us. She just sits there and cries.”

  All of Grace’s motherly alarms had sounded. “Simon, it will be okay. I’m coming over.”

  She had requested a car, biting her nails as the autocar slowly navigated the three short blocks to Lila’s house. The street was filled with chaotic scenes, people running, a house on fire, and several bodies lying in the streets.

  It had taken several minutes to convince the boys to open the door, but once inside Grace had just stared in shock.

  “Oh my.”

  Simon and Liam were both dressed in pajamas and their hair was greasy and stiff.

  “I tried to cook us something ‘cause Mama just sits there, but I made a mess.”

  A mess was an understatement. The house had looked like a war zone. In their attempts to stay fed they had melted one plastic dish to the stove top, filled the sink full of filthy, stinking dishes, and eradicated the cereal and pasta supplies.

  “What is that smell?” Grace asked as she caught a whiff from the hall.

  “Liam clogged the toilet. I told him he was using too much toilet paper!”

  Grace held her nose and headed for Lila’s bedroom. The boys’ mother looked like a ghost, hair dank and snarled, dressed in pajamas so filthy that they could probably stand up on their own.

  “Oh honey.”

  Lila looked up at Grace and her mouth crumpled, “He’s gone, Grace. He’s gone and I don’t...I can’t...” Her voice trailed off as tears welled up in her eyes, tracing a pathway down her gaunt face.

  Grace pulled the young woman into a hug, “Okay sweetie, it’s going to be okay. Let’s get you and the boys cleaned up, okay? And then you can come stay with us for a while.”

  Grace had guided her young friend into a shower, ordered the boys into a bathtub, packed a few changes of clothes and ushered them into the car an hour later.

  TJ had been furious of course.

  “We have our own problems, Grace.”

  Yes, she thought, it starts with the fact that you don’t give a damn for anyone except yourself. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were rich as kings, he would have used those very words. Having him home, restricted by the travel ban hadn’t helped. She felt herself wondering why she had ever stayed with him after he had lost yet another job due to his surly, negative behavior. She should have sent him packing. He treated her worse than a dog, spoke to her like she was the hired help, and couldn’t even be kind to their daughter.

  “It’s just until this blows over, TJ, they don’t have anyone else and Lila is devastated,” Grace tried to explain.

  She was doing her best to stay calm, but the world had become a rather frightening place. This morning she had tried to go out and buy some groceries, but there had been checkpoints, troops dressed in full riot gear with megaphones announcing that martial law was in place and that everyone was to return to their homes. No travel permitted. The stores had all been closed anyway. She had learned that after the fact upon returning home and listening to the newsvids.

  That was also when she had heard the first gunshots. But they weren’t the last. Through the morning and now in the late afternoon, the sounds of gunshots and other explosions had continued to pepper the air. They had drawn the curtains and forbidden the children from going outside, not even in the backyard after the newsvids had warned everyone to stay in their homes.

  Lila Mathers just sat in the kitchen, unmoving, white-faced and in shock. Grace couldn’t get her to eat and TJ just kept drinking and muttering whenever she walked by.

  “They aren’t family, Grace.”

  “We have to think of ourselves.”

  “This virus, we can’t be taking in others, who knows if they are carriers or not.”

  He had been nose-deep in The Examiner for weeks, reading the quasi-journalistic, hate-mongering site with regularity, posting comments, and parroting every hateful thing the reporters wrote. The Examiner specialized in spreading fear and isolationism and Grace had been disgusted at the headlines, which blamed the victims, suggesting the mystery virus was merely an excuse for greed or some such nonsense. When the meager facts were not enough, the paper often resorted to blatant lies.

  Grace had spent months trying to be patient and kind with TJ, rationalizing his latest job loss away. Her own work as a researcher had been put on hold, just so that TJ wouldn’t feel emasculated as he pursued his career and told her daily how important he was. And now, with the world crumbling around their ears, Grace had had more than enough.

  “You should tell them to leave, Grace.”

  “Why don’t you leave, TJ,” Grace said seething.

  “What?” he looked at her in shock. She had always taken it, the snide remarks, even the cutting ones, and said nothing. This Grace was a new bird, someone unfamiliar.

  “She is all alone TJ, and I won’t hear another word on how we have our own problems or need to take care of our own.”

  She picked up the bottle of scotch, it still had two inches of amber liquid sloshing about in the bottom of it.

  “What the hell?” TJ yelled as she marched into the kitchen and dumped the remaining scotch down the drain.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Grace whirled on him, “What is wrong with me, TJ? Well, let’s see. You are here. That’s one thing wrong. And then there is the world gone to shit around us. That’s two. I should be working right now, trying to help figure this virus out, that’s three. But instead, I’m here listening to your selfish bullshit.”

  She would have continued, but at that moment, the phone rang. Grace marched over to the table and picked it up.

  The voice on the other end sounded rather gruff, “Dr. Wilkes?”

  She had kept her maiden name, making sure it was on the certificate when she earned her doctorate, something that had raised the ire of TJ enough that she had considered having it amended and re-issued. Common sense had prevailed, however, and eventually, he had stopped sniping at her about it and how he had put her through medical school. He hadn’t, but revisionist history was his forte.

  “Yes, this is Dr. Wilkes.”

  Her voice was clear, strong and loud. TJ’s face pinched in anger.

  “Dr. Wilkes, Dr. Allen Lagunoff speaking. Dr. Brooks suggested I contact you.”

  Grace smiled for the first time in weeks. Janelle Brooks had been her mentor during her residency and was also the godmother of their daughter, Karen. She had made no bones of her opinion of TJ, calling him a pretentious ass on several occasions, once to his face. Grace shook her head, she had lost touch with Janelle a few years back after TJ had blown his top and smacked her, blackening her left eye. Janelle had offered to take Grace and Karen in if they needed a break. She should have taken her up on it. Instead, Grace had tried to save her marriage, convinced that Karen would be better off with her father in the picture rather than out of it.

  “What can I do for you Dr. Lagunoff?”

  The man did not beat around the bush, “We are putting together a group of researchers in a secure location to study the ESH virus, for both short-term response as well as examining its long-term effects. Since Dr. Brooks personally requested you, Dr. Wilkes, I hope you would be willing to join our team.”

  “Here in Massachusetts?” She asked.

  There was a small pause, “No, the location is in Pennsylvania.”

  “I can’t leave my family, and we have several people here with us, a young family that depends on us, that I can’t just abandon.”

  “We are prepared to take everyone, Dr. Wilkes, as long as you all pass screening and are not positive for the virus, we can evac you with a military unit that is near you.”

  “How near?”

  “They are approaching your front door now.” Dr. Lagunoff said, and simultaneously there was a loud knock.

  Grace jumped.

  The next hour was a flurry of activity. First the lone man in an isolation suit at their door who took everyone’s
temperatures and collected and ran blood tests. TJ looked rebellious, muttered and grumbled, but submitted to their tests. Lila just stared listlessly at Grace when she tried to explain what was happening.

  A few nerve-wracking moments followed while they waited for the results. Miraculously they were all clean. Between Karen being in school and TJ’s business travel, their exposure had been normal to high, but none of them showed the markers for the ESH virus. Granted, the test was pretty new. It had been in use for all of two weeks now, but there hadn’t been any progress of stopping the virus, only detecting it.

  The kids and Lila had been taken out and put into a large autocar. A crowd was growing. There were plenty of scared people, and the soldiers represented help and security. But they couldn’t help everyone, and the people that were stopped just a few houses away by the barricades would not stay still for long. The stores were empty, no travel meant no new food supplies, and the soldiers were eager to get moving before things turned ugly.

  The one in charge turned to Grace, “We have to go. Now.”

  Grace went back inside with one to fetch TJ, who was still sulking in the family room, ensconced in his easy chair and growing more belligerent.

  TJ flatly refused to be bundled into the autocar.

  “They haven’t even said where they are taking us,” his words slurred, and Grace wondered where he kept the other bottle hidden, “This isn’t some goddamn police state, Grace.”

  Grace didn’t have any patience left. Why hadn’t she left him years ago?

  “Janelle is there, she wouldn’t steer us wrong. It’s a chance to stop this thing, and to keep Karen safe, along with Lila and the boys. We’re going.” She began to walk towards the front door, turned around and glared at him, “Stay if you want.”

  His look of disbelief, of shock, that she wasn’t buckling under his will as she normally did, was evident on his face.

  On the heels of the shock came anger, “You are not taking our daughter into some disease-ridden place!” He staggered up from his seat and lurched towards them.

  The uniformed soldiers instantly reacted, one pulled Grace behind him, and the other aimed his gun straight at TJ. She had to do something, no matter how much of a shit her husband was, he didn’t deserve to die here. And she certainly didn’t want the soldier to shoot him, not here, not with his child just footsteps away.

  “TJ, it’s time to leave this place.” She stared at him, willing him to see reason, “It’s time to run. It isn’t safe here anymore.”

  Now that he was standing, she could see that the other liquor bottle had been hidden in a pocket of the easy chair. More scotch, and, at least, five fingers down on a full bottle. He stared at her, bloodshot eyes full of something indescribable.

  Perhaps it was his upbringing, full of at least two generations of angry, alcoholic, mean men. Perhaps it was an epiphany, standing there, realizing he wasn’t ever going to be the man she deserved, or perhaps he was too drunk to even listen to reason.

  TJ slowly turned his back on her, went back to the easy chair, sat down and pulled out the bottle. He swiveled in the chair, turned on the vidscreen with the remote, and ignored her.

  “We have to go, ma’am.”

  “Right.”

  And they left then without a further word. Karen asked only once about her dad. And when Grace told her TJ had needed to stay at home for a while, the child actually looked relieved.

  The autocar now loaded, turned and moved from the growing crowd into the gathering darkness.

  Forever Sleep

  “I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” –– Stephen Hawking

  Date: 01.27.2104

  Calypso Colony Ship

  The Cryo Deck was preternaturally quiet. Daniel Medry was running a little early and the shift change wasn’t for another fifteen minutes, but it had been a quiet day. The transmission packets were mainly medical in nature and included updates on the ESH virus and the now clear teratogenic nature of the organism. Even as the death rate leveled off, the birth rate had plummeted. Women were miscarrying at a phenomenal rate – and not just in the first trimester, but the second and third as well. That was pretty much all he had gotten out of the report before he forwarded it on to Carrie Schrader who headed the Medical Bay. She held more medical degrees than he could list and was studying the ESH virus in detail during this relatively quiet time before they achieved orbit and planetfall. Once there, everyone would find themselves occupied by the daily challenge of creating a civilization in their new world.

  Reading about the ESH virus often made Daniel’s stomach clench and roil uncomfortably. Perhaps it was the insanity of it all. How a company could design a virus and unleash it - without any concern for what would happen if it made the jump from swine to human. Who does that? And all in the name of profit.

  And look what it had done. Highly transmissible, nearly 100% fatal in humans, and now those who were still alive were facing the possibility of extinction. They were all carriers. They had seen their family and friends die horribly, and the survivors were now struggling with infertility and astronomical rates of fetal and infant death.

  He thought of Sam in Cryo. She wanted kids, and after the past six months without her, he had certainly had plenty of time to think. He had finally acknowledged that he wanted the same. He could never make it right, what had happened to Luke and Janine and Toby. He could never go back to Earth and hold his son in his arms. But he could have those children that Sam wanted so much. And now, after months of contemplation and introspection, along with what he considered an unhealthy length of abstinence, he was looking forward to their future life on Zarmina’s World. His dreams had been filled with children as of late – all black-haired children with deep blue eyes.

  Damn it, Sam, I miss you.

  He walked into the Cryo Deck. He needed a good poker game and maybe a nip or two of scotch, the diversion would help get those gloomy statistics from the transmission packet out of his head. He didn’t need to know that the human race might be doomed, might actually die off due to its own stupidity and capitalistic greed. Deeks would get him out of his rut and make him laugh – Deeks was good at that.

  It was quiet on the Cryo Deck. Too quiet.

  The space was large. It had to be. Over 200 of the occupants of Calypso were in the pods at any one time. Feeding 250 mouths while traveling 1.2 quadrillion miles for nearly five and a half years would have taken more space for food on the ship than was possible, hence the alternative. Most of the inhabitants of Calypso had gone into the pods before the ship even left Earth’s solar system and they would not be revived until after planetfall. For them, no time at all would have passed. Daniel himself was supposed to be there now. He would have been if Earth and its denizens hadn’t decided to die off in the hundreds of millions. All of the updates, the transmissions from Earth, they had multiplied exponentially. As a result, this had kept Daniel and Kevin far busier than anyone had ever planned.

  The deck held pods arrayed in multiple rows of twenty, stretching back on tracks built into the floor. On either side of Cryo were rooms designed to hold four padded tables each. These rooms were used to prep Calypso’s inhabitants and also serve as recovery rooms. There were four of them, two on each wall. At the far end of the deck were several offices and rooms. Here was the main control deck for the pods, workstations for the crew who worked the Cryo Deck, and storage of equipment and supplies.

  Usually, he could see Deeks or Evers in one of the front rooms once he passed through the blast doors. Evers was young, not even thirty years old, but he was already balding. The lights on the deck managed to light up his head like it was a lightbulb, but today, there was no telltale sign of the Tech.

  “Hey, Deeks! Evers! Where are you two troublemakers?” Daniel called.

  There was no answer.

  He headed toward the back of the deck. Maybe Deeks had his hea
dphones on and couldn’t hear.

  In front of Medry were two rooms along the back wall of Cryo. The one on the right, the control room, was dark. The lights were off and only a few of the control lights flickered through the half wall of tinted glass. Medry turned to the room on the left and walked towards it. Reaching the doorway, he felt for the switch and flipped it on. Light flooded the room.

  Lockers lined two of the walls of the room. The room also contained two workstations where Deeks and Evers typically sat. A work tablet lay on the floor, its screen cracked. But Daniel barely noticed. Instead, his eyes were riveted on the trail of blood leading to the lockers...a lot of blood.

  Like something out of a horror movie.

  “Deeks...Evers...if this is some kind of a prank,” Medry said slowly, “It isn’t funny.”

  He walked forward, stepping over the bloody drag marks. It certainly looked like blood.

  Any minute, one of those bastards is going to jump out and scare the living shit out of me, I just know it.

  But instead, his hand pulled on the lock and the door to the nearest locker swung open. And in true horror movie fashion, a body slumped out of it, eyes staring, a garish red slash forming a ghoulish death smile on the throat below.

  Daniel’s heart stuttered, Deeks, Daniel’s friend and poker buddy, was staring up at him. Worse, stuffed behind him and now also sagging out, was Evers, also sporting a horrifying scarlet slash across his throat. His windpipe was torn and hanging half out.

  A scream of horror rose in Daniel’s throat as he spun on his heel, straight into Nathan Zradce’s outraised arm, which was slashing down towards him with a bloody knife. His assailant’s knife sliced along Daniel’s scalp as he feinted to the left and shoved the man hard. This only resulted in Daniel slipping in the blood on the floor and falling, his head cracking twice against the deck, knocking him out with the second blow.

  It was the wail of the alarms that roused him moments later. That and the smell of burning electrical wires. Daniel forced his eyes open, wiped the blood from them. His head was bleeding profusely. He couldn’t see Nathan, where the hell had he gone? Maybe he had seen all the blood and thought Medry was dead. Maybe. Daniel struggled to sit up, his head was pounding.