Adrift

by W. Michael Gear

  “Dek?”

  A hard swallow ran down his throat. Soundlessly, Dek’s lips worked, as though he was in dialog with himself.

  Only as she stepped wide did she see that he had his pistol up, the three rails braced on the side of his head.

  “Dek, you don’t want to do this.”

  “Can’t.”

  She barely heard his whisper over the thunder of the falls. “Can’t what, Dek? Hey, listen, we’ll find a way through this.” She lowered her rifle to the stone, hands out in a gesture of surrender.

  For the first time, his eyes flicked her direction. “It just keeps pulling horrible things out of my memory, Tal. I won’t live that shit. I won’t be that man!”

  “If you shoot yourself, Demon wins,” she told him in her best calm-the-situation voice. “Dek, there’s got to be another way.”

  “Yeah,” he told her. “There is.”

  “Okay, then let’s put the pistol down.” She was closer now. Just another couple of meters.

  “Can’t. Not my call. That son of a bitch knows what I’m trying to do.”

  “And what’s that?” She made another step.

  “Something you told me. Something Demon remembers.”

  “I’ve told you a lot of things.”

  A shattered smile crossed his lips. “Got me at an impasse, he does. I do this, or I’ll pull the trigger.”

  “He? Demon will make you shoot yourself?”

  “Says he won’t lose.” A dry swallow. “And I won’t let him win.”

  “Lose how?” Talina was a step away. “You’re sounding crazy.”

  She charged her muscles, had to move quetzal-fast to make this work. If she didn’t . . .

  “I won’t live like this,” Dek insisted, a trickle of sweat breaking from his hairline. “Not . . . your . . . fault . . . Tal.”

  She leaped, levered the pistol away from his head as it discharged into the air with a loud crack. She pulled his arm down, hammered it to stun the nerve, and pried the pistol from his fingers. Let it drop beside her rifle. As she did, to her horror, Dek pivoted on his heel. She grabbed for him as he started to fall. Tried to pull him back.

  As he overbalanced, he reached out, ripped her hand free of his sleeve.

  That instant fixed in her memory: Dek’s face, eyes alight with triumph, a victorious smile on his lips. The expression was jubilant as he toppled into the abyss. And then he was gone.

  Talina fought for balance, only to have one of the broken and cracked stones beneath her foot give way.

  And then she was falling, tumbling, twisting. The world spun, water oddly frozen in motion beside her. Paralyzed she watched the boiling water come close as she fell headfirst . . .

  53

  Michaela had barely slept. Kept reliving the horror of the entire day: from Toni’s paralysis, the fateful deployment of the submarines, the lobster monster, the loss of Varina Tam and Jaim Elvridge, and finally Kim Yee’s unnerving fate.

  How much more can we take? Michaela fought tears, wanted nothing more than to lock herself in her quarters and scream into the silence of her room. And, damn it, her fractured arm kept aching.

  My people need me.

  That one baseline had kept her sane through all those years aboard Ashanti. Now, like festering acid, it ate at her. Forced her to dress despite her broken arm, to gird herself, and open the door. She checked the monitors in her office. Still no sign of the second sub, no distress signal, no bobbing hull visible out among the swells. Even with full power, the sub’s oxygen regeneration was long depleted. Varina and Jaim were dead. No hope remained.

  Calling up all the dignity of a prisoner facing the gallows, she made herself enter the cafeteria.

  With the exception of Vik Lawrence, who was working in her lab, the older children who were doing “science club” in the observation dome, and Gabarron—the surly woman was up keeping an eye on Toni in the clinic—everyone who remained was seated behind the tables. At the sight of the empty chairs—so damn many of them—Michaela’s nerve almost broke. And then she had to meet their eyes, see the reflected confusion, grief, anger, and disbelief.

  Shinwua, Lara, Jaim and Varina, and now Kim Yee, all dead. Five of her people, killed in the most horrible of ways. And no telling what was wrong with little Toni, filled as he was with Donovanian TriNA.

  What do I tell them?

  “We had a tough day yesterday.” She tried to feel her way, the words sounding so hollow.

  “Tough doesn’t begin to cover it,” Jym Odinga called from where he was sitting beside Casey Stoner. “Any news about Varina and Jaim?”

  “Nothing on the scanners.”

  Yosh said, “I sent one of the drones up at first light. Flew all along the reef. Nothing’s floating. No wreckage from the sub. No sign of Kim’s body. There’s just . . . nothing.”

  “I say we leave,” Tobi Ruto muttered where he sat on Casey’s other side. “Get out while we still can.”

  “And do what?” Kel asked from across the room. “Remember what Supervisor Aguila said? There’s no way off this planet. We’re here for keeps.”

  “Then we go to Port Authority.” Odinga glanced at Casey, who was breastfeeding little Saleen. “Casey, Tobi, and I have two kids to think of. At Port Authority, they’ve got a school. Other kids. We’ve been asking ourselves, what it if had been Casey’s sub that was destroyed by the lobster monster yesterday? And then Kim’s grabbed up from behind? He never saw it coming. For our part, my family doesn’t want either of our kids to grow up without a parent.”

  “And what are you going to do at Port Authority?” Kel asked. “You were there, you saw. You’re an ichthyologist, Casey’s a marine botanist with a specialization in kelp-forest ecology and trophic systems. Given what I saw walking around that sorry collection of houses, the only one of you with skills is Tobi.”

  The guy was a Pod Technician Class I. He could fix things.

  Where they sat side-by-side, Iso Suzuki and Bryan Atumbo were nodding. Like Casey’s family, they, too, had their kids, Felicity and Vetch, to think about.

  “Where do you stand, Yosh?” Michaela asked. Might as well get all the parents on the record.

  “Mikoru and I think we ought to stay for the time being.” He glanced around. “As long as we’re inside the Pod, we’re safe. Nothing can get to us. And the Pod provides us with everything we need to survive. We’ve got the hydroponics, and we can import anything else from the mainland. Surely, if the animals on land are edible, we can supplement from the sea. We just need to do the necessary research in the lab to see what’s poisonous before we put it on the plate. I think we can survive here just fine. And when we begin to figure this place out, we can even thrive.”

  “We’ve got five dead!” Bill Martin almost exploded where he stood in the kitchen door. “What part of dead don’t you get? And that’s your boy up in the isolation tent.”

  “He’s going to be infected here or at Port Authority,” Mikoru shot back. “Anna says he’s starting to get some of his motor control back. Vik’s working on it. Yosh and I, we think there’s a better chance of us figuring out the infection here, with our lab equipment, than back at Port Authority, where they don’t even have a scanning electron microscope that still works.”

  Yosh added, “Come on, people. Think it through. We’re scientists. Our biggest assets don’t lie in the subs and UUVs, they lie in our brains. I have to believe that we’re smarter than Donovan.”

  Dik slapped a hand to the table. “I don’t want to piss on your pride, Yosh, but Donovan’s winning. What part of ‘we’re being picked off one by one’ don’t you get?’”

  Kevina, her eyes puffy from crying, flatly said, “If he were here, Kim would tell you to stay. Damn it all, I don’t believe this. He and I, we just had this conversation yesterday. ‘Kev,’ he said, ‘so, if something happens
to me, don’t let this place beat you. Nothing comes for free, and this place is the future.’”

  “And what if Felix turns out to be infected like Toni?” Bill Martin asked. “You still think that he’s—”

  “He is,” Vik Lawrence called as she walked into the room. “They all are.” She stopped by Michaela at the front table. “Every one of the children test positive for TriNA and prokaryotes in their blood and cells. And there’s a lot of it. Don’t ask me what it means, I still don’t have a clue. Neither does Raya Turnienko at the PA hospital. According to her, however, it’s highly unlikely that it’s life-threatening. So, I know this was a meeting to figure out what we’re going to do next, but if you’re thinking about leaving as a way to protect the kids from what Toni got, you’re too late.”

  “What about the infants?” Iso cried. “Vetch, Kayle, and Saleen?”

  “They’ve got it as well,” Vik admitted. “The reason, I’m guessing, is that it’s spread by contact. If I’m right it’s from an oily secretion generated by Donovanian bacteria in the skin and sebaceous glands.”

  “That means that the parents would have been exposed as well,” Michaela said, as a cold wave ran through her.

  “That’s next on my list,” Vik agreed. “I want each and every one of you upstairs. Now. I want a blood sample from everyone. We need to see how far this has gone.”

  “Any of you been feeling sick?” Michaela asked. “Fever? Nausea? Sweats? Vertigo?”

  Around the room, heads shook, another layer of anxiety brewing atop their previous discord. Bodies were shifting uncomfortably in the chairs.

  “Felix has been strange,” Kevina blurted. “I set my alarm for early. When it went off, he was sleepwalking.” She shook her head, as if to rid it of some unpleasant memory. “I couldn’t sleep. Just kept seeing that thing grabbing Kim off the landing pad . . . I took a pill. So, I don’t know if he was up all night.” She winced. “I was just lying there in bed, feeling miserable. And Felix gets up. Walks to the door. He reaches up and unlocks it.”

  She rubbed her grief-swollen eyes. “I asked where he was going. But Felix just froze in place with his hand on the door. I told him I knew what he was feeling. That I was just as horrified at Kim’s death. That Daddy would want us to go on. He never answered me. Like he wasn’t there. His eyes vacant.”

  Kevina stared emptily at her hands, as if there was some answer hidden there. “I got up and physically turned him around and marched him back to bed. It was as if he was putty. I just sort of bent him back onto the mattress, covered him up.

  “But the weirder thing was that when he got up again, he didn’t remember it. Wasn’t even concerned when I told him. Said it had nothing to do with his father’s death. He and Breez just sat there holding hands. Their faces . . . um, sort of blank.”

  Michaela walked over, stared down at Kevina. “The boy lost his father last night. It’s shock.” She took a breath, looked around at the room, at the jumble of expressions. Some with weary acceptance, others broken, some scared, all of them desperate.

  Michaela declared, “As far as deciding whether to stay or leave, let’s table that for now. Give it a couple of days to settle. In the meantime, everyone stays in. Nothing can get to us as long as we are protected by the Pod’s walls. Let’s see if we can get a handle on how the kids got infected, see if it’s spread to the adults.”

  And what if it has? she asked herself. What are we going to do if we’re all infected?

  At least—if Raya Turnienko was correct—it wasn’t deadly.

  Her thoughts returned to the image of Kim Yee being speared from behind and lifted into the night sky.

  There were far more dangerous threats on Donovan than just a sick little boy.

  54

  The adults said science club was a way to keep the children’s minds off the terrible things that kept happening. For Felix, it was a relief. The notion that his father had been carried off in the night still wasn’t real. Didn’t matter that Mother just kept weeping, that she wanted to lay in bed and clutch Daddy’s pillow to her stomach. Kim had always been there. His smile, the delight in Kim’s brown gaze, filled Felix’s memory. He only had to close his eyes, and Father wasn’t gone; he’d be bent down on one knee to be on Felix’s level. Mostly the memories were on Crew Deck on Ashanti. Father was just always there. Telling Felix things, making him better when he fell, or got in trouble.

  Or the times Father had taken him to Astrogation Control, or the hydroponics where they had to pass the horrifying hatch that kept the cannibals from eating people. Father had always made things better. More than Mother, he’d been a friend.

  “Don’t be sad.” The Voice came every time Felix wanted to cry. And it was like a warm rush would fill his body. Even when he wanted to bawl like Mother was doing, the warm rush would dry his tears. The terror would just go away. In its place, Felix would feel blank. Not hurt. Not happy. Just blank.

  Blank was okay. It was better than hurting, better than crying and feeling sorry that Father had been carried away by some flying thing in the night. Better than knowing he would never see Father again. Ever. Better than knowing Father was dead.

  Sheena, of course, was delighted as Vik Lawrence led Felix, Felicity, Tomaya, and Breez up the forbidden stairs to the upper floor with its laboratories, com, clinic, and offices. Like downstairs, a central hallway ran the length of the building. At the far end was Michaela’s office, then the radio room as they now called communications. After that came the various labs, specimen rooms, the clinic, and the shops.

  Vik led the way down the white hallway, the soles of her slippers tapping on the hard floor.

  The woman wore a lab coat with a pocket that held her pad. Underneath she had on common coveralls.

  Sheena walked proudly behind her mother, almost strutting, because, after all, science club was her idea. And now, just like she had said, they were going to actually do science. Not on the algae—that was a secret after Toni had spilled it all over—but on something the adults called a “tube.”

  Felix had overheard Michaela telling Vik Lawrence, “Can you take the kids up to your lab? Give them something to do except dwell on the situation?”

  “Sure. I’ve got one of the tubes Casey netted. Been meaning to dissect it, get a first look at the anatomy. Maybe it will take Breez and Felix’s mind off their parents.” A pause. “And I think Kevina needs time alone.”

  “Odd that Felix isn’t as torn up over his father’s death.”

  “He’s a kid. It’s probably still not real,” Vik had answered.

  Was that it? It still wasn’t real?

  Felix made a face. Something in the night had taken Father, flown off and eaten him. Something terrible like the cannibals on Deck Three. As the welling grief had started, the Voice just made it go away. That was all.

  And then they got to do science club.

  Vik led them to a door, tapped in a code too fast for Felix to see, and ushered them into the lab. The room was large, dominated by a central island full of all kinds of equipment, scopes, boxy-looking machines, lots of glass jars and test tubes, stuff made of pretty glass piping, and shiny metal gizmos. Each wall was packed with cabinets, desks, counters, monitors, and all kinds of fascinating things.

  “This is the most zambo room I’ve ever seen,” Felix whispered, feeling the Voice’s assent.

  “It’s my mom’s lab,” Sheena told him with authority. “It’s where microbiologists work.”

  “Yes, it is,” Vik told them, turning and lacing her fingers together before her. “The first rule in microbiology lab is that you don’t touch anything. Do you understand? If you want to see a piece of equipment or a specimen, I will explain it. All you have to do is ask. But first rule is keep your fingers to yourselves.”

  Felix and the rest all nodded. That wasn’t a hard rule to follow. They’d had to live that way the entir
e time on Ashanti.

  “Good. The second rule we have to follow is that we all stay together. No wandering around the lab by yourselves.”

  They nodded.

  “Good. Now, we’re going to have a very special day today. We’re going to do the very first dissection of a creature out of the ocean here. We call it a tube, because, well, that’s what it most reminds us of. It appears to be the most common organism to live in the water around us. Kel caught this one, and I have put it in a jar with preservative to keep it just like it was when it was alive.”

  Sheena put up her hand. “That’s to keep it like it was fresh forever.”

  “That’s right. Now, are we ready to begin?”

  At their eagerly nodding heads, she said, “Follow me” and walked over to one of the counters that folded down. This she lowered until even Breez could see.

  A large glass jar rested on the lowered countertop, and inside it held a blue, red, yellow, and silver creature that looked like a piece of hose with lines of fins on three sides. Felix could see the gaping, three-jawed mouth with teeth and lifeless gray eyes equally spaced around the head.

  “Let’s take it out,” Vik told them, removing the jar lid.

  With tongs she lifted the dripping specimen from the jar, let it drain, and laid it on an absorptive sheet on the counter. With long skewers she pinned it in place.

  “Zambo!” Felix whispered, amazed to see the thing up close.

  “Zambo twice!” Sheena agreed.

  Felicity just stared, but Felicity was never much fun.

  “What is it?” Breez wondered, lifting a finger to suck on it, her eyes big.

  “This,” Vik told her, “is the tube I told you about, but maybe today we’ll give it another name. One that you all think up. So, as you grow up, you’ll always think back to this day.”

  “What’s wrong with tube?” Felix asked.

  Vik shot him a glance. “Felix, if what we’re seeing in the films is correct, most of the life in Donovan’s oceans is tubular. We have to have a way to name them that allows us to keep all the kinds of tubes separate in a classificatory system.”