Contrary to Jonas’s wishes, Will continued unrolling the cloth, and the vial fell into his hand. “This is a serum that Stanzic sent me.”
“I honestly don’t care. I am not looking…OK, what is it?”
Will smiled, knowing Jonas’s curiosity would win the internal battle he was fighting. “It will leave her open to our questioning, and she won’t have any recollection that she told us anything. We have nothing to lose!”
Jonas cringed as he rubbed his right eye. “Nothing to lose, huh?”
“That’s right. All we have to do is think of a way to get her to drink a small amount of this, and we’ll find out everything. But first I want to know what she was doing tonight down to the smallest detail. How soon can you run the trace?”
“I could do it now,” said Jonas, looking at the time. “but she’s probably still there. If you could keep her from the lab in the morning, I can have it done in a few hours.”
“OK. I’ll have her running around the station in the morning. You’ll have all of the time you need.”
Will had barely slept in anticipation of finding out what Ileana had been doing the night before. As he opened the lab door, Ileana came up behind him.
“Oh, good morning, Dr. Karkovich.”
“Dr. O’Neil,” she said, nodding coldly.
“I’m glad you’re here. I have a few things I need you to start on ASAP. Captain Daniels needs a briefing of our project for his quarterly station report and is expecting you to report to his office on the command deck in ten minutes.”
“Dr. O’Neil, as you pointed out last week, wouldn’t another person be better equipped to answer—”
“That was equipment setup. You have proven that your knowledge of Telos is as thorough as anyone else here. You’re the perfect person for this. It’ll give you a chance to show what you’ve learned.”
Will’s intentional condescension irritated her, and she reacted just as Will had expected.
“I will certainly endeavor to be accurate in my account to the captain,” responded Ileana snidely.
“I would expect nothing less.”
Ileana walked away down the corridor, and Will couldn’t help but notice that Jonas was right: she did smell great.
He hit a button on the communication console, and Daniels came on the screen.
“Nigel, she’s on her way.”
“Not to worry Will, I’ll keep her busy. How much time do you need?”
“At least two hours. Any longer and she might get suspicious that we’re up to something. Oh, and Nigel, please give her some of that Sianese tea.”
Will relished the thought of Ileana having to drink what he thought was the worst tasting thing in the world.
“Will do, old friend, but don’t be surprised if unlike you, she can handle it.”
Will smiled as he clicked the button and Daniels disappeared from the view screen.
“Jonas, get to work.”
Jonas emerged from behind a series of optical storage units, where he’d been hiding in wait for Ileana to leave, and began working on the system.
“Boss, what are you going to do?”
“I’ll be in my office,” said Will rolling the vial between his fingers. “I’ve got to come up with a plan to make this thing work. Call me if you need anything. Hopefully after today we’ll have some answers and can get back to work.”
Up on the command deck, Ileana sat outside Captain Daniels’s office, waiting impatiently for him to arrive.
“Ah, Dr. Karkovich. Thanks for coming. Please come in and sit down. I look forward to hearing every detail of the Telos project from top to bottom.”
As Ileana began to speak, a junior officer knocked on the door, interrupting her attempt at making this report brief.
“Captain, the supply shuttle is having problems with their docking mechanism. They’re insisting that we assign a repair team immediately so they can keep on schedule.”
“I’ll be along straight away. Doctor, please excuse me. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
Ileana stood and began to leave the office. “Captain, perhaps this can be done at a later time when it is more convenient for both of us. I really have to get back—”
“Get back? Dr. O’Neil assured me that I would have your undivided attention this morning. Station report is a vital part of our internal functions, and I have to complete this today, which means that you have to stay until your report is completed. I won’t be long. Please sit down. Ensign, get the doctor some tea.”
He knew Will would be pleased.
As Will sat in his office with the lights dimmed, he thought about ways to get Ileana to drink the serum. His first concern was the color. How could he hide the bright yellow color of the serum when he mixed it with any drink? He removed the vial from his pocket and placed it on the desk next to a glass of water he’d been drinking. He unscrewed the top of the vial and put a drop of the liquid into his glass. As the bright yellow liquid hit the surface of the water, it immediately changed to match the transparent characteristics of the water. He then grabbed a can of juice from his drawer and put a drop of the serum into it. As before, the bright yellow changed immediately to match the red color of the juice.
“I should have known,” he muttered as he placed the vial back in its cloth and put it in his pocket.
As he leaned back and rocked in his chair, his thoughts jumped back to how he was going to pull this whole thing off. Ileana was no fool, and she would smell deception a mile away. It had to be something that would take advantage of her pride, which usually blinded her to the obvious. Thoughts swirled in his brain, and he began to doze off as the lack of sleep caught up with him.
Will was sitting in the cave, waiting for the right moment; he knew he had to get it, but it was so close to the river and he knew what happened this time of day. It didn’t matter; he had to try. He sprinted out of the cave and up the rocky hill that looked over the river. As he ran down the hill, he could hear the giant footsteps approaching. He felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest from the adrenaline and fear. He ran faster toward the river, and the sound of the approaching beast got louder as it closed on him. There it was. The vial lay on a rock thirty feet in front of him. He could feel the ground shaking as the beast was now right behind him. His hands closed around his prize as he rolled to the ground. He looked up to see the large clawed foot of the beast coming down upon him with a crushing force.
Will awoke with a jolt, sweating profusely as if the events in his dream had really happened. He went to wipe the sweat from his face and realized his arms and legs were bound to the chair, and he couldn’t move. He tried to pull his hands free with no luck and wondered if he had mistakenly drunk from the glass of water. That was the only possibility. How could he not know he was being bound, he thought. Then he remembered Stanzic’s words—that Ileana wouldn’t remember anything after the effects of the serum wore off. That had to be it.
He continued to try to break free and once again realized it was a futile effort. From out of the shadows in the room, he saw someone approaching.
“Dr. O’Neil, do you really think I was unaware of your pathetic attempt to keep me occupied? That fool Jonas couldn’t trace my activities, and besides, I warned him not to meddle in my affairs.”
Ileana lifted her right hand, and in between her thumb and index finger was Jonas’s disembodied eyeball.
Will gasped in horror. “Karkovich, what did you do?” he shouted.
Ileana walked over to him, and dropped the eyeball with the bloody nerve attached onto the desk, splattering blood onto his face. He cringed as he turned to look away feeling sick.
“Oh, not to worry, Dr. O’Neil. That’s nothing compared to what I did after this.”
Ileana knelt down in front of him, and slowly removed a large knife from its sheath. She ran the back edge lightly up the inside of his thigh.
Panic began to set in; he was helpless and knew she was ruthless.
“Dr. Karkovich…Ileana, please. Listen to me!”
She gripped the knife tighter while turning the blade toward his skin. He screamed, feeling the cold steel penetrate his body as she plunged the knife into his groin.
Will jumped up from his chair, realizing after a few seconds that they were both just dreams. He still felt the discomfort in his stomach from the night before and reached for the refuse can, vomiting several times. Jonas ran into the office hearing Will’s moans.
“Will, what’s the matter? Are you OK?”
He raised his head from the can looking paler than Jonas had ever seen him.
“I must have had a bit too much to drink last night with Captain Daniels. I’m OK.”
“All right, boss. I’ll get back to work then,” said Jonas, turning to leave.
“Oh, Jonas.”
Jonas turned back to face him. “Yeah, boss?”
“Sorry if I took Ileana’s threats to you lightly. It won’t happen again.”
Jonas wasn’t sure what prompted the apology, but he smiled and accepted it nonetheless.
13
ILEANA’S SECRET
Will emerged from his office still looking ragged and pale. He couldn’t get the images of the dream out of his head.
“Jonas, any luck in finding out what she was up to last night?”
“I’ve just about completed the trace. This is strange. Look here,” Jonas pulled up a diagram from all active Earth rovers and their recent activity showing a grid of the ground they’d covered. “It almost looks like she’s programmed them to do a systematic sweep of each area, like she’s searching for something.”
“Searching for what?” asked Will, looking perplexed. “What could she be looking for that we haven’t already found?”
“I don’t know, but look. She set the cameras on maximum magnification and did a three hundred sixty-degree sweep, looking as far on the horizon as possible. She also set it up so that the rovers are returned to their original locations within an hour of these sweeps, probably to keep us from knowing what she’s doing.”
“What can she gain by doing that? The rover’s visibility isn’t clear enough to see great detail the farther she looks out.”
“It gets even stranger; she set the high-gain antennas to search for radio signals.”
“Radio signals? From where, outer space?”
“Well, that’s the strange part,” answered Jonas. “searching outer space at least would make some scientific sense. She’s looking for radio signals on Earth. Each rover, as it did its sweep, actively searched for frequency 111.45, so it wasn’t even looking for random signals. She was after a specific signal frequency, and each rover had the same instructions. She even had rovers five and six, which as you know have no ability to be mobile, sweeping for these radio signals.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. Can you tell if she found any signal matching that frequency?”
“Apparently not, based on the data I can see here,” said Jonas, adjusting his glasses and scanning a long paper printout.
“Daniels should have her tied up for at least another half hour. See what else you can find. This proves she’s up to something, and I’m damn well going to find out what it is. I want you to meet me in the hallway by the black corridor later tonight when I confirm she’s in the lab. I’ll come up with a reason for us to be working late, and we’ll get her to drink the serum. It’s the only way we’re going to figure this out.”
He could see Jonas’s apprehension, which he now totally understood.
“I hope you know what you’re doing; I mean, why are we rocking the boat? We’re being funded at levels we would only have dreamed of a year ago. We have a chance to really do something with Telos. Isn’t that your dream? So what if the queen of darkness likes to play with rovers at night? She probably also howls at the moons when no one is watching her. That doesn’t mean—”
“Why are we being funded? Have you asked yourself that?” snapped Will. “They want something from me, something they can’t get without me. What happens when they get what they need? Two of their government cronies nearly killed us both. Have you forgotten that?”
“I try hard to forget that every night, boss,” said Jonas, shaking his head from side to side.
“Well, I don’t! Nearly getting thrown off of a one hundred and fifty-story building leaves a definite mental impression!”
“Theoretically he wouldn’t have thrown you; he was letting you fall—”
“It doesn’t make one damn bit of difference!” said Will enraged. “He was crushing my hand; I guess I should be grateful for that?”
Will initially failed to catch on to Jonas’s attempt at humorous revenge for all of the times he got worked up only to be brought back to his senses with some rationalized argument.
“OK, boss, we’ll play it your way. I’m just about finished here. I’ll keep the trace in place in case we don’t get what we need tonight.”
“About tonight. I’m going to assume she’ll be there about the same time, so I need you to meet me in my quarters around one o’clock.”
Jonas rolled his eyes in frustration. “Sure. Who needs sleep?”
You’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead,” said Will, to even up the score.
“Oh, Boss—that’s not even funny.”
Twenty minutes later, Ileana returned from her meeting with Daniels.
“Dr. Karkovich, I assume you filled Captain Daniels in on what we do around here?”
“Yes, Dr. O’Neil. Captain Daniels knows more about this project than he’ll ever need to know and likely won’t understand ninety-five percent of what I told him.”
“Great! I knew I picked the right person for the job. Please assist Walker in reconfiguring the sleep protocols for the rovers. We have to conserve battery power now more than ever if we want to get a few more years out of these things.”
Ileana glared at Will as she walked across the lab. As he looked into her eyes, his mind went back to the helpless feeling he’d had in his dream as she ran the knife up his leg. He wondered if she was indeed capable of such cruelty or if her cold demeanor was just a façade. It didn’t matter; she represented a government that had become corrupt, and he couldn’t afford to drop his guard to evaluate her psychological state of mind. She was the enemy in his mind until he had evidence that told him different.
The day ended with Ileana disappearing from the lab as she always did and heading for, what Will had assumed, was the black corridor. Walker and Davis left shortly after, leaving Will and Jonas to finalize their planning. After discussing their strategy, they both headed for their quarters. This was the time of day Will dreaded, when he was alone with nothing but his thoughts. Work had a way of keeping his mind off of how much he missed Edena, but the silence and emptiness of his quarters was a constant reminder that she was far below on the planet’s surface.
He reached for the button to call Edena, as he did every evening. Her image filled the screen almost immediately. She was always close by the com at this time of day, waiting for the call from Will.
“Daddy!”
“Hello, sweetheart. How are you?”
“I’m so excited. I applied to the science club last week in school, and I found out today that I was accepted.”
“Edena, that’s wonderful! Why didn’t you tell me you were trying to get in?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me if I didn’t make it.”
“As long as you try your best, I would never be disappointed in you. I miss you.”
“I miss you too, but I have to go now. Mommy is taking me out to celebrate, and she said we have to leave now or we’ll miss the transport. Bye, Daddy.”
“Edena!” called Will desper
ately, hoping she hadn’t disconnected.
If ever there was a day he needed to talk to her, it was today. He understood her excitement and knew she didn’t intentionally cut him short. It didn’t matter; he felt an emptiness that was always worse when he was alone and was that much worse with the uncertainty of the situation. He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling, expecting to doze off into some bizarre dream, which seemed to be a regular occurrence these days. He fell into a surprisingly uneventful sleep, and was awakened by the sound of a knock at his door. For an instant, he wondered if it was already time to meet Jonas, but to his relief he still had several hours. He jumped up from the bed to open the door, expecting to see Jonas on the other side.
“Dr. Karkovich! What a, um…surprise.”
“Dr. O’Neil, may I speak with you?”
“Ah…sure. Come in.” Will began picking up clothes that were strewn around the room and on a chair against the wall. “Please sit down,” he said, tossing the clothes onto a couch.
Ileana just stood, expressionless.
“Don’t mind the mess. I was just, uh…rearranging my closet.”
Ileana looked around the room, obviously repulsed at its disorder. “Dr. O’Neil, let me get right to the point so I can let you get back to your…rearranging. I chose not to discuss this with you in front of the others, which is why I am here.”
“Well, this sounds important. Please sit down.”
Ileana reluctantly sat down and almost immediately looked uncomfortable. She leaned to her left and pulled a sock out from under her backside. Her look of revulsion as she held the sock dangling in front of her amused Will to no end, and he couldn’t hide his smile.
“I’m sorry. I’ll take that,” He took the sock from her and placed it on the table.
“It has not escaped me that you are distrustful of my intentions. I suppose this is understandable under the current circumstances.”
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