Vessel

by Lisa A. Nichols

  Catherine remembered how Dr. Darzi pushed for her to let things go. “Yeah. She says I’m fine,” she said, with a trace of irony in her voice.

  “Then don’t worry about Cal Morganson. He’s terrible with people. Just ignore him and everything will be fine.”

  So many people were telling her that everything was fine. But how could she be fine if she was losing time? How could she be fine if she’d gone to JSC without realizing it?

  And how could she be fine not knowing what actually happened to her crewmates?

  What if Cal was right? What if she’d gotten everyone killed?

  Sagittarius I Mission

  DAY 1134, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT

  TRAPPIST-1F, TWILIGHT LANDING AREA HABITAT

  Tom was sitting in the command center of the Habitat when Catherine came in. The command center was a small room, made more crowded by all the system monitors and communications equipment. There were intercoms and suit comms, and the long-distance comms, which so far had remained silent. “Oh, hey,” she said.

  He made a noncommittal grunt. Since their talk, he’d been friendlier with the rest of the crew, but he still barely said two words to her.

  “Still no word from NASA?”

  “No. We knew it might be months.” He looked up at her. “Why are you here?”

  “Oh, uh. Richie needed a hand with some air-lock alarms.”

  Tom stood up. “I’ll get out of your way. Wouldn’t want anyone to gossip about us being alone together.”

  “Tom—” But he was already gone. Catherine sighed and sat down, turning her attention to the monitors Richie needed her to watch—and frowned at what she saw. Richie was in one of the air locks, checking the seals after some alarms had gone off.

  “Hey, Richie. You got a buddy out there you need to tell me about?” Catherine asked.

  “Just me and my shadow. Why?”

  “Your shadow’s got a fever then. Thermal monitoring is going bonkers in here.”

  “Nah, everything’s fine.”

  “That’s weird.” Catherine watched the numbers on the thermal scanner and eyed the outlines on the spectroscopic monitors, the skin on the back of her neck starting to crawl. “I’m getting localized readings of nearly forty-four degrees. Do you not feel that? You should be roasting.”

  “Nope, I’m cool as a cucumber. Damn it. The seals are fine out here, and now you’re getting weird readings. Looks like I’ve got two fucked-up monitors to try to fix.” Richie sounded as though he were just waiting for one more thing to go wrong.

  “Everything else is green across the board.” Catherine kept her voice neutral. “Are you sure there’s not a hot spot out there?”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing.”

  Richie was right. He had to be. That much heat couldn’t possibly remain in such a single tight area without dissipating. And a random warm spot in the Habitat wouldn’t have clean, well-defined edges. The monitors were glitchy. The rest was just her imagination.

  Later, she caught up with Ava in the corridor, still trying to put it out of her mind. “Are we getting any information through to NASA?”

  “Tom said he thought some of our information might be getting through, but we don’t know yet how long the transit time is for sure. The wormhole wreaks havoc on all the calculations. We haven’t received any communications at all from Houston.”

  “So we’re on our own out here.” They knew it was a possibility from the start, but it was the worst-case scenario.

  Ava looked at her more closely. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m just homesick.” Catherine smiled at her faintly. What she saw had spooked her; it would’ve been nice to know they could contact NASA if something went wrong. Not that NASA could do anything at this distance. “Richie and I found a couple of monitoring glitches, too. He can probably give you more information than I can.”

  “Ugh, this is what I hate about being the first to use new tech out in the field.” Ava rubbed her forehead. “All right. I’ll make sure it gets reported. Between this and the issues we’ve been having with the oxygenator, I’m tempted to send the testing department a very strongly worded letter.”

  The dry humor in Ava’s voice made her laugh. “ ‘Dear Sirs: Why were you not able to replicate working conditions precisely in a location no human had ever seen before?’ ”

  Ava grinned at her. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Maybe I’m not being fair.”

  Claire came down the corridor, suited up for going out. “Cath, are you ready?”

  “Oh shit, I’m running behind. Give me a few minutes and I will be.” She and Claire were going to take the rover out and explore the landscape around the terminator line. They were going to go deeper into the dark side of the planet than they ever had before, and Claire was chomping at the bit to see what changed across the border.

  Catherine pushed all her worries aside and went to get suited up.

  * * *

  Claire steered the rover slowly between some of the large rock formations that dotted TRAPPIST-1f’s landscape. With each EVA, the team was venturing farther and farther from the Habitat to gather data and samples. Full dark and full daylight were both too far from the Habitat to reach by rover, but they were going as far in either direction as they could. Catherine had initially volunteered for this EVA because she needed a break. A few hours away from the occasionally tense atmosphere of the Habitat sounded perfect.

  The more data they gathered on their current home, the more like Earth it seemed in many ways. After a lot of discussion with Izzy, Ava gave the okay to reduce pressure-suit protocol on EVAs. As a result, Catherine and Claire both wore oxygen masks instead of full pressure suits; although the planet’s atmosphere was breathable, it wasn’t optimal, and there was always the question of potentially harmful microbes. They kept their skin covered, but the lighter suits were much more comfortable in TRAPPIST’s intense heat.

  “Man, we really do need to get a botanist up here,” Claire said. “I’m not an expert, but the way the plant life changes as we get closer to the dark side . . . I feel like I’m watching evolution happen.”

  The wonder in Claire’s voice made Catherine a little envious. It wasn’t that things weren’t amazing here. They were. After the constant twilight of the Habitat’s surroundings, to drive deeper into the dark was exciting as hell. But no matter how exciting things were, Catherine was constantly aware that she was responsible for the friction that still lingered among the crew.

  “Look over there.” Claire pointed to one of the flatter rocks they were passing, caught in the rover’s ambient light. “See? That lichen is growing in similar patterns to the stuff that’s all over the place on the light side, but . . . it’s bigger.”

  Catherine could see what she meant. It seemed to be growing taller here in the dark, which given what little Catherine knew about plant life, didn’t seem possible. Lichen didn’t grow that way, did it? Something else caught her eye as well.

  “Hang on. It looks like it’s glinting. Do we have samples of that? Pull over and let me grab some.”

  “It’s a crystalline structure!” Claire said, now sounding even more excited. “Of course. It looks like . . . I don’t know, like it’s merging with the rock.” The rover started going faster as they moved down a small slope.

  At first, Catherine laughed. “Wrong pedal, kiddo; I said stop.”

  “I’m trying! Shit. Shit! Cath, the brakes are out!”

  “Try the emergency brake.” Catherine tried to keep her voice calm, glancing up to see a large cluster of rocks in the rover’s headlights, straight ahead. And the rover was picking up speed. She pinged the comms for the Habitat. “Wells to Twilight Base. Having a rover malfunction, do you read?”

  “The emergency brake’s out, too!” Claire cried.

  “Bail out,” Catherine ordered, watching the rocks get larger. “Get out, now!” She fumbled with her own door to do the same herself.

  “The belt’s stuck, hang on—”
/>
  Before Catherine could turn back to help her, there was a loud crunch and the rover lurched. Catherine, unsecured in preparation for bailing, was thrown against the windshield with a rattling crack of her head, leaving her stunned.

  “We read you.” Tom’s voice came over the comms. “Sensors went dead on the rover; are you there?”

  He sounded worried. Catherine tried to answer, but she couldn’t at first. Her head was spinning, and she was faintly aware of the sound of Claire groaning.

  “Colonel Wells.” Ava’s voice, her stern commander voice. “Mission Specialist Tomason. Status report.”

  “We . . . crashed. Into a rock,” Catherine managed to get out. Something warm was running down the side of her head, but at the same time she felt something a little cooler, a breeze against her skin. After a second or two, she realized why. There was a rip in her hood where she’d hit her head. “Suit breached. And I’m bleeding.”

  Panic tried to take over, but Catherine pushed it down savagely. If TRAPPIST-1f’s atmosphere weren’t similar to Earth’s, she’d be dead already. That didn’t mean she was safe. They still didn’t know what types of bacteria populated the air.

  “I’ve got an open cut exposed to the air,” she repeated, trying to keep her voice calm. She tried to hold her suit together at the tear, but it might have already been too late.

  “Hang on,” Ava said. “Richie and Dr. Izzy are on their way. We’ve got your last known about two klicks from the south ridge. Is that right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” The worst of the confusion was fading. She pulled herself back to a sitting position, ignoring the way her head tried to spin. “Claire. Claire, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” Claire was slumped in the driver’s seat, and sat up with a wince. Her eyes widened. “Cath, your head.”

  “I know. We’re gonna find out how friendly the microbes are here.” She’d have to go into quarantine for ten days while Dr. Izzy tried to figure out what she’d been exposed to, if anything.

  She should have been terrified. Something that could kill her might be invading her bloodstream right now through the cut on her head. She might never see Aimee and David again. The thought hurt, but it was a distant pain. More than fear or pain, she felt weirdly fatalistic. Not making it home had always been a possibility, and all she could do was wait and see.

  It didn’t take long before they heard the sound of the other rover approaching, and Richie hailed them over the comms. “You two okay?”

  “Some bruises,” Claire said, “but Cath’s suit is breached.”

  “All right,” Izzy’s voice came next. “We know the routine here. Sorry, Catherine. It’s gonna suck to be you for a little bit.”

  “Are you kidding?” Catherine forced a laugh, smiling so Claire could see her. “I was supposed to be on KP this week. Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

  When the other rover stopped next to them, Izzy jumped out. Catherine waved him over to Claire first, but he ignored her. “Okay, it’s not deep,” he said of the cut. “We’ll have to see about the rest. The sooner we can get you on prophylactic antibiotics the better I’ll feel.”

  “Working on it,” Richie said, hooking up the crashed rover to the working one so they could drag it back.

  Izzy repaired her suit breach then moved on to Claire, giving her a quick exam. Within ten minutes, they were headed back to the base, with Richie pushing their speed the whole way.

  Claire went to the infirmary for a more thorough exam while Catherine wound up in the base’s quarantine unit. It was stark; an empty bunk stood in one corner, and various monitors and bits of medical equipment sat in the other. The only real form of entertainment was a tablet. This was going to be a long ten days. Through the observation glass, she could see Ava and Richie, and after a short time Claire and Izzy. Where was Tom?

  She didn’t have time to ask before Izzy came through the decontamination air lock, still in his sealed suit. Catherine had taken hers off and was waiting on the bunk. He patched up the cut on her forehead and took some X-rays and an MRI before giving her a shot. “I’m gonna have you wired six ways to Sunday,” he said apologetically. “I’m going to keep track of all your vitals, and if I see so much as a hint of any sort of infection, we’ve got another collection of antibiotics to try.”

  “It had to happen to one of us, right?” Catherine wore the same smile she wore for Claire, determined to keep presenting a cheerful face. Her feelings were still a numb sort of mystery, and until they sorted themselves out, she would keep her best “okay” face on. “Besides, I know you were dying to see if the atmosphere was safe for us or not.”

  “Yeah, I just hope you’re not dying to get the answer.” Izzy was smiling, too, with a grim sort of humor. He attached one electrode after another, to her scalp, her chest, her back.

  “I’m not worried. As far as I’m concerned, I just got a ten-day vacation.” She looked up at the module’s observation glass and saw the others standing out there looking stricken. Especially Ava. Catherine gave them a wave. The room was miked, so she said, “Will you guys stop looking like you’re at a funeral? I’m fine.”

  “She is,” Izzy agreed. “I’m going to run some more tests to be sure, but I don’t think she even has a concussion.”

  “Claire told us what happened.” Ava still looked grave. “We’re going to check out the rover and see if we can figure out why it failed.”

  “Well, I can’t do much from in here, but I’ll help however I can.”

  Izzy gave Catherine a clean bill of health except for the cut and some bruises—and, of course, whatever organisms might have invaded through that cut. Eventually the others drifted away and Catherine settled in with the tablet. Her comment about being on vacation wasn’t accurate. There was still some work she could do in here, and the first job was to write up a report about the rover crash.

  She was halfway through the report when Ava’s voice interrupted her. “Catherine?” She looked up to see both Ava and Richie standing in the observation window. Richie’s eyes were dark with rage, and Ava didn’t exactly look happy either.

  “What happened?” Catherine put the tablet down and sat up.

  “The rover didn’t have a mishap. Richie says the controls were tampered with. The brakes in particular.”

  Catherine couldn’t believe it. “Richie, you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” His voice was unrecognizable, low and dark. “I saw the damage.”

  “But why would somebody do that?”

  “I can think of several reasons, all worse than the one before,” Ava said, folding her arms. “And it’s more than that. I had Richie dig deeper into the problems we’ve been having with the oxygenator. It looks as if it’s being tampered with, too.”

  “What? That— I mean, anyone who’s messing with that has to know they’re putting themselves in danger, too!” Catherine’s head spun. The oxygenator filtered the air and made sure the inside of the Habitat was as close to Earth’s atmosphere as possible. Anything that needed oxygen to survive needed the oxygenator. “What are we going to do?”

  Ava leaned closer to the mic. “You and I are going to go over the security footage and see what we find.”

  Catherine had never wanted so badly to be wrong, but only one person kept coming to mind, one person who had been quieter than usual, more withdrawn. God, she thought, hoping she was wrong.

  What about the shadow in the air lock?

  No way. That she pushed firmly out of her mind.

  Richie went to double-check the rest of their essential equipment while Catherine and Ava divided up the security footage for the twenty-four hours before Catherine and Claire took the rover out. The two of them painstakingly made their way through it, Catherine on her side of the observation glass, Ava on hers. Hours later, Catherine found the smoking gun. Early that morning, long before anyone else was up and about, the cameras showed Tom Wetherbee sneaking into the rover bay and opening a panel on the side.
Catherine told Ava the video time stamp, almost too shocked to speak, and they watched as he did something they couldn’t quite make out, then closed the panel.

  “Go back to Day 1033,” Ava said. “Check the footage around the equipment room.”

  “You didn’t do this before?”

  “No. I didn’t think it was sabotage.”

  The two women scrolled through the footage and Catherine drew a quiet breath when—again, in the middle of the Habitat’s night cycle—Tom showed up. He went straight to the oxygenator.

  It had failed for the first time the following day.

  “What are we going to do?” Catherine asked.

  “We’ll have to question him. Confine him to quarters while we try to figure this out. At least to start.” Ava’s brow creased. “I don’t know. I want to get a message to NASA. They may not be able to reply, but they at least should know what we’ve found.” She shook her head.

  “I take it they didn’t give you any contingencies in the case of a crew member trying to kill everybody?” Catherine meant for it to sound dry and sardonic, but the truth of the statement, once spoken, was unavoidable. Tom tried to kill us. Or at least hurt us.

  “Not . . . quite like this.” Ava rubbed her forehead. Catherine didn’t envy the position she was in. “Cath, I’m going to bring him in here to talk to him. Maybe he’ll say something in front of you that he wouldn’t in front of just me.”

  “And here I thought I was going to get bored in quarantine,” Catherine said.

  When Tom came in to the observation area, he rushed to the window. “I heard what happened. Are you all right?” Worry was written all over his face. It looked real to Catherine. “I’m fine for now.” She glanced over his shoulder at Ava, who looked equally nonplussed. “We’ll see if I come down with anything.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked, and now he looked between her and Ava. “Is there something I can do to help?”

  “Tom, sit down.” Ava gestured to a seat and took one herself. She’s calmer than I would be in her shoes, Catherine thought.