The Madness Engine

by Paul B Spence

  Alarms were blaring, and several marines in powered armor held leveled weapons pointed at Deegan and him. He didn't see Shadovsky anywhere, and couldn't remember him leaving. Geoffrey's head felt as if he'd been out drinking all night and then been in a particularly nasty fight.

  "I'm Deegan," he heard. "My companion is Geoffrey Meeks. We were expected. At least I thought we were."

  A marine stepped forward. "I'm going to need genetic verification of your identity." Geoffrey wondered if there was a way to remove his gauntlet so he didn't have to get naked in front of all of these strangers.

  "Yeah, about that…," Deegan said. "I don't really do that."

  "Then you'll spend time in the brig until we can –"

  "That won't be necessary, Sergeant," a woman said from behind them.

  Geoffrey turned and looked at her. She was attractive: tall and lean and a bit exotic. Her black hair was cut short like that of most of the women he'd seen. Practical for anyone who wore spacesuits or powered armor often. She looked like she could be about his age.

  "But, sir..."

  She laughed. "Relax, Fletcher. Who else could it be? We were told how and when they'd arrive."

  "Of course, sir." The sergeant sounded reluctant, but a moment later the alarms silenced, and the pain in Geoffrey's head eased considerably.

  "I'm Lt. Commander Naomi Blue Horse. Welcome to the Vigilant."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Drake paced around the lab while he waited for the machine to make an antigen that he knew wasn't going to work. The virus he knew was adaptable, designed to overcome the biology of beings much more advanced than humans. Mary tried sample after sample, even pouring half of the antigen directly into a tube of Tom's blood, but nothing slowed or affected the virus.

  "It doesn't work, Tom."

  "What? What do you mean, it doesn't work? Why?" he demanded.

  "I don't know!"

  Mary broke down crying, and Tom sank slowly to the floor.

  Drake stood very still. His people were responsible for this. He was responsible for this. He was certain it was his interest in this world, his traveling in and out of this universe, that brought it to the attention of the Enemy. He had to do something; he just didn't know what.

  "Do you have a centrifuge in here?" he asked.

  "What?"

  "Do you have a centrifuge?"

  "What fucking good would that do?" said Tom. "We're fucking dead! We are all dead!"

  "You will be if you don't calm down and be quiet," Drake replied. "There are ferals in the lobby. Mary? Answer the question."

  "Yes, but running the antigen through a centrifuge isn't going to make it work."

  Drake took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. "Take a sample of my blood."

  "Why?" Tom asked. "We already know you're infected."

  "Maybe," Drake said. "Maybe not. This isn't the first time I've been exposed to the virus; that was months ago. I think I may be immune." Actually, he knew he was, but he couldn't explain that to them.

  "You think you're immune?" said Tom. "No one is immune."

  "No, Tom, he could be right," Mary said excitedly. "It would be a one in a million, a billion even, but some of the people exposed had to have survived unaffected. That's the way viruses are. They don't always kill everyone. No virus kills one hundred percent of the time."

  She drew an ampule of blood and placed some of it on a slide.

  "There's no trace of the virus!"

  "As I said."

  She quickly placed the tube in the centrifuge.

  "Make sure the serum is well separated," Drake said. "My blood is an exotic variant of O-negative, normally fatal if given to anyone else. I don't know if we have the means to filter those factors out, here."

  "We can try," said Mary. "What else can we do?"

  The power died as she was preparing to test the sample.

  "Damn it!"

  Tom quickly lit the candles.

  Mary tried to keep working for a few minutes and then gave up in frustration. "It's just too dark. I can't see anything with light this dim."

  "Do you think it will work?" Tom asked.

  "I have no idea," said Mary.

  "Test it on me."

  "You're crazy! It could kill you!"

  Tom pulled her close. "Mary, I'm dead anyway in a few days, or worse, I turn feral. Give me the injection. What have we got to lose?"

  Mary shrugged helplessly. "I don't even know how much to give you."

  "A little bit should work," said Drake.

  "So now you're an immunologist?" Tom asked sarcastically.

  "I'm the one who might provide the cure for your child, so show a little respect," Drake snapped.

  They glared at each other for a few minutes before Tom sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry. My temper is frayed. You're right, and we'll be in your debt forever if this works. Mary? Give me the injection. Just use a little bit, like he said."

  Mary drew up the syringe and said a quick prayer before injecting him.

  "How long before we know?" Tom asked.

  "I don't know. We need to get the power going again so I can use the microscope. Maybe a few hours?"

  "We need to wait until morning anyway," said Drake. "I'll see what I can do about the power."

  "It's out of gasoline," Tom said. His voice sounded slurred. "So unless you can conjure some out of thin air, we're aren't going to have any power."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  Θ

  "I'll take you in to see the captain," Blue Horse said. "You might want to take off your helmet."

  "I'd be happy to, if I could figure out how," Geoffrey replied.

  "You've been cleared for that armor, or you wouldn't have it." She gave him a suspicious look. "What’s your angle here? Antagonizing the captain isn’t going to gain you anything."

  "Honestly, I have no idea how to just take off the helmet. I can pop out of it, but nothing on the screens says anything about the helmet by itself."

  Blue Horse sighed. "Put you hand up here." She guided his hand under his jaw. "If the pressure sensors on your suit are working correctly, you should feel the locking ring. Feel that? Just rotate it counterclockwise."

  "That's it?" asked Geoffrey. "What's to keep someone else from taking my helmet off?"

  "You really are new at this, aren't you? Only a properly coded command sequence can remove the helmet. Your suit sends and acknowledges it automatically when you do it yourself. Only a ranking officer in your chain of command, or certain medical personnel, can override the lock."

  "Oh, that makes sense." He removed his helmet. "Is it standard protocol to take off your helmet when on a ship?"

  "It's not standard protocol for you to be wearing that armor around at all, much less have those weapons," she said. "But Archangel teams get some latitude. I'd love to know why you don't know all of this, but we mustn't keep the captain waiting."

  "Right, sorry."

  Blue Horse led them to the briefing room just off the bridge. The ship quite utilitarian, which Geoffrey hadn't expected. There wasn't any space or mass wasted on frivolous things like wall paneling or carpet. Decks were treaded, and there were handholds spaced on the bulkheads and overhead, no doubt for use when the ship was operating without gravity. Geoffrey wasn't looking forward to experiencing zero-gee.

  The captain was waiting for them.

  "Captain? Our, ah, guests."

  "Come in, gentlemen. You can stay as well, Naomi." The captain was a stern looking woman who had the expression of someone who didn't like surprise visitors. "I'm Captain Josephine Maxwell. You've met my marine commander. She'll escort you to Medical so you can report in with Commander Tebrey. Mr. Deegan, I understand that you will be staying with us for the Vesuvius mission."

  "That's right, Captain. I was asked to bring Geoffrey here for Admiral Shadovsky. I'll also be here as long as you need me. I may have to come and go unexpectedly, but I'll be here when you arrive at Vesuvius. I have
skills that may be useful if you encounter Theta entities."

  "So I've been led to believe. Thank you for assisting. You may come and go at your leisure. The MI has your bio-signature now; there won't the alarms next time."

  "I have someplace I need to go for now, but I'll be back soon. Thank you, Captain."

  Deegan gave Geoffrey a grin and vanished.

  "As for you, Mr. Meeks," the captain said after a moment, "I'm not entirely sure why you're here, or what your status is, but I don't like the idea of having civilians running around my ship armed. You can be certain that I'll be taking this up with the admiral the first chance I have. Until then, stay out of trouble. I don't want to hear about you wandering around the ship. If Commander Tebrey isn't with you, I expect you to be either in your quarters or with Lt. Commander Blue Horse. Do I make myself understood?"

  "Yes, Captain. I won't be any bother."

  "You already have been, young man. Dismissed."

  "Ah, Captain?" Geoffrey asked hesitantly. "Admiral Shadovsky wanted me to convey a message about redirecting the ship to –"

  "I know about that, Mr. Meeks. We're already in transit. Dismissed means you can leave, by the way."

  Geoffrey left quickly and let out a huge sigh of relief when they were in the corridor and the door was shut.

  "You really don't have any military rank?" asked Blue Horse.

  "If I do, nobody told me about it," Geoffrey said.

  "Call me Naomi, then."

  "Okay, I will. You'll call me Geoffrey?"

  "If you please."

  Geoffrey grinned. "So what's going on with Tebrey? Was he hurt? Why are we going to Medical?"

  "The commander was injured during his last mission."

  "Badly?"

  Naomi shrugged. "I'm sure he's had worse."

  "How big is this ship?" Geoffrey asked after they had been walking for a few minutes.

  "Twelve hundred meters, nose to engines. Have you ever been on a cruiser before?"

  "I was on some ship when I first got here, but I don't know what it was. They stuck me in quarantine immediately. From there, I don't remember much until my training on the station at Steinway."

  "Quarantine?"

  "I'd been exposed to some nasty bioweapons."

  "They must have really bad to overcome your implant," she said. "Or did you not have one?"

  "Implant?"

  "Surely you have one now."

  "I didn't have one then. We didn't have things like that where I'm from."

  "Hmm. Maybe we should wait until we can talk to Commander Tebrey."

  "Yeah, I get that a lot."

  Naomi laughed. "We're almost there. Medical is on the same deck as the bridge, here at the center of the ship."

  "The center of the ship? So the bridge isn't –?" He pantomimed a bridge perched on top of the ship, like he'd always seen in movies.

  "No! Why would anyone do that? It would be too easy to knock out the bridge. Where are you from?"

  "Maybe I shouldn't answer that just yet."

  "Oh, right. One of those things you need to talk to the commander about."

  "Yeah."

  Medical was clearly marked and looked extremely sterile. Naomi led Geoffrey to an observation room and buzzed to be admitted. Naomi gave him a pat on the shoulder as he passed her, and closed the door behind him.

  The man in the bed was big, bigger than Geoffrey had expected. He looked as tall as Drake, but more heavily built, more muscular. He had dark red-auburn hair and bright green eyes, but otherwise didn't look all that much like Drake. He was currently working his way through a large plate of food. His right arm had been amputated just below the shoulder.

  "You must be the new recruit Shadovsky sent out. I heard the intruder alert and figured Deegan must have delivered you. Come on in. Have a seat."

  Geoffrey was shocked to see the stump like that. "I'm sorry for your loss," he mumbled as he sat in the offered chair. It creaked under the weight of his armor but held him.

  "My what?" asked Tebrey. "Oh, my arm."

  "Does Drake know?"

  "Know what?"

  "About your arm."

  "What? Why the hell would I bother him with something like this. Even if I did know how to reach him, which I don't. What do you know of it?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm Geoffrey Meeks."

  "I know who you are."

  "Then you know that I'm a friend of Drake. He brought me here. Well, not here, but here. I mean this... universe. Sorry."

  "You say sorry a lot. Calm down. Take it from the top. Your name is Geoffrey Meeks?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm Commander Hrothgar Tebrey; most people just call me Tebrey or address me by my rank. You're a civilian, so you can call me Tebrey. I know my father brought you here after the Battle of Dawn. You were put in isolation, and he vanished again. You've been in training at Garm Station. Now, what brings you all the way out here wearing a suit of my team's armor?"

  "Drake contacted me while I was in training. He had a message for you but didn't want to bring attention to you by contacting you directly. He wanted me to warn you that something was coming, and things were about to get bad."

  Tebrey laughed. "We obviously have different definitions of bad."

  "He also said fear the giants."

  "What the hell does that mean?

  "He didn't say."

  "Did he say anything else?"

  "Only that he'd be here as soon as he could." Geoffrey didn't want to talk about the rest of Drake's message there in the medical bay. It was too open. Anyone could hear them.

  "So nothing new. Your armor?"

  "Admiral Shadovsky said I was to join your team as a consultant."

  "You've fought Thetas?"

  "Ah, no."

  "Then why would I want you?"

  Geoffrey shrugged helplessly. "He didn't give me a choice."

  Tebrey sighed. "Well, you're here. Why did you have such a strong reaction to seeing my arm? Have you never seen an amputee before?"

  "I have," said Geoffrey. "I just feel bad for you, but there is hope. It should grow back in a decade or so."

  "In a what?" Tebrey asked. "It'll be grown in two weeks. A few days for recovery after the surgery, and I'll be fine. Do you mean to say that you think I'd be able to grow back a limb without medical aid?"

  "Uh, yeah. Sorry. I don't know a lot about all of the current technology here. I knew a... a relative of your father who lost an arm. Took about twelve years to grow back."

  "Interesting. I see there are a lot of things we have to talk about. I don't know much about my family or my heritage. Maybe you could help out there."

  "I'll tell you what I know," said Geoffrey, "but I'm no expert. I just traveled with your father for a while. Getting into trouble. That sort of thing."

  "What was your relationship? If I may ask?"

  "We’re friends," Geoffrey said. "Why do I keep getting asked that?"

  "Why does it bother you?" Tebrey replied. He studied Geoffrey for a minute. "Anyway. It doesn’t matter. Where are we headed? I felt the ship jump."

  "The admiral sent along orders for this ship to go to Delta Pavonus and look for a missing ship."

  "Which ship?" Tebrey asked urgently.

  "I’m trying to remember," said Geoffrey. "I’m sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention. I'm sure he told the captain."

  "I’m asking you," Tebrey said. "If you can’t remember something as trivial as that, how can I rely on you to remember orders?"

  "I’m sorry. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with me," Geoffrey said. "Just give me a second. Let me try to remember."

  Tebrey got out of bed and dressed in a black jumpsuit while Geoffrey struggled to recall the name of the missing ship. He hated being put on the spot. The memory kept eluding him, though. The more he tried, the further it seemed.

  "I’m sorry. I can’t remember."

  "The Sycamore," Tebrey said; he sounded distressed. "You remembered it a few minu
tes ago. I'm checking to see when we’ll get there."

  "I didn’t remember it," said Geoffrey. He was confused by Tebrey's change in mood.

  "It was in your thoughts, even if it eluded you. I just picked it out. Alessa, how deep are we?"

  "Given the urgency of the mission, Commander, the captain has ordered us into the fourth layer of hyperspace. We will arrive at Delta Pavonus in fifty-four hours."

  Geoffrey jumped as the disembodied voice spoke. He hadn’t even known the ship had an MI.

  "We can’t get there any faster?"

  "This ship would not survive the transition to a deeper level."

  Tebrey growled in frustration.

  "I’m sorry," Geoffrey said. "Why the urgency?"

  "Two of my people were on that ship, as well as about two thousand others. Some of them may still be alive, but they're going to run out of air if we don’t get there soon."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Drake used the power pack from his pistol to restore power to the lab. It wasn't difficult to interface, although he had to regulate the power down to almost minute levels so it wouldn't overload the circuits. The light flickered back on as he finished.

  "I don't know what you did, but thanks," Mary said.

  "I feel... strange..." said Tom as he sagged to the floor.

  "Tom!"

  Drake knelt down and felt for his pulse. It was weak but present. His skin was damp and flushed. Heat radiated from his body.

  "Is he...?" Mary trailed off.

  "He's alive," said Drake. "His body is either fighting off the virus, or my serum is killing him. Either way, I think we need to let it run its course. Get me a large rubber stopper."

  "Why?"

  "So he doesn't bite his tongue off when he starts having convulsions."

  "When he what?" she exclaimed, but she handed Drake the tube stopper.

  Drake shoved the improvised guard into Tom's mouth and sat back on his heels. "This isn't the first time I've done this."

  "You said you'd been exposed before. Why didn't you tell us?"

  "You lied to me about why you were coming here. Can you think of how most people would react if I told them I'd been exposed to the feral virus, but I thought I was immune?"