Nobody.
To hell with him! She headed for the laboratory, taking large paces. She had to find a way to go back to Earth and she wouldn’t surely do that while watching a silly film. She walked through the station in silence. It almost felt like being in a cemetery. Death didn’t just hover on the crew members’ faces, but also the walls seemed soaked with it.
The light of the laboratory turned on as she entered. She grabbed a white coat.
“There’s a message from Aurélie Faty,” the AI’s voice announced.
The frozen image of a video had appeared on the screen.
“Play it.”
Aurélie’s grin lit up on the display. “Anna! What a pleasure to receive your message!” Her enthusiasm looked genuine. She was exactly the same as Anna remembered her, with her large white smile standing out on her dark complexion. Her hair was arranged in thin, little braids, the only ones able to tame it. “How’s life down there? Have you already discovered the little green men?” And she laughed out loud. She was bursting with cheerfulness.
Anna smiled back, whilst feeling a stab of nostalgia. She longed so much to be in the same room with people other than those of the crew. She would’ve never believed that she’d miss the crowds so much, the queues of traffic, even those odious children who escaped their parents and went romping about in a supermarket.
Green men? It was she who felt like an alien in that desert world. Just seeing a different face through a video changed her slant toward all the anxieties gripping her.
“The data you sent me are really extravagant.” Aurélie’s voice lowered into a conspiratorial tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll maintain maximum secrecy, I wouldn’t like those at NASA to fire you. Where would you find another job on Mars then?”
Anna burst into laughter in unison with the recorded image of the French woman.
“Joking aside. I think you are fixating on the wrong things. My opinion? There must be a reason why those intact crystals ended up inside the bacteria in the cultures you have prepared. Have you tried doing some cultures with the sample taken far from the crack, the one with degraded RNA?”
No, she hadn’t yet. Maybe it was a good idea to prepare it right away and put it under incubation to see its results on the following day.
“I bet that you won’t find more crystal fragments inside the bacteria than those outside them. Actually, I think they won’t be absorbed at all.”
She started sensing where her colleague was driving at.
“I don’t want to speculate, not yet.” She winked at Anna. “If I were you, however, I would try to observe the samples with the transmission electron microscope. You might be able to see some things eluding the three-dimensional vision of the scanning one, and moreover you’d have a higher resolution, which may open you to new … horizons.”
How come hadn’t she thought about that?
“Let me know how it goes. I must close now. I cannot transmit for too long without someone learning about it. They’re watching every step we make here. Give my regards to the Martians and be good.” The video stopped.
With renewed enthusiasm, Anna went and took the sample collected from the crack. She prepared it with extreme calmness, inside the sterile unit, and placed it into the transmission electron microscope.
It would take some time before the instrument was ready to play the images. So she sat down on a stool and laid both arms on the counter. Suddenly she felt tired. Her conviction of five minutes earlier was lessening. She was looking for a phantom, something nonexistent, the result of a weird phenomenon, which was making fun of her. It was the easiest answer and almost always that was the right one. She laid her head on her arm. She would close her eyes just for five minutes, until she heard the buzz from the microscope.
She fluttered her eyes open with difficulty. A repeating humming echoed in her ears. A dim light filtered from outside through the semi-transparent wall separating the laboratory from the greenhouse, and spread throughout the room, casting long shadows. The sunlight.
Anna raised her head, still dazed. She must have slept for hours. Shifting her gaze, it stopped on the screen. Uncertain, she rubbed her face with her hand, but the image didn’t change. A sound hammered inside her brain, but her whole attention was focused on what she was looking at: a circle with two layers; the external dark one was almost perfect and the other one was lighter and irregular, while inside it a thin, filamentous structure, wrapped in itself, stood out on a whitish background.
Her mouth opened for surprise. Aurélie was right. The adrenaline discharge finally woke her up and it was then that she heard it. It wasn’t the buzzer from the microscope. That had surely turned on for a few seconds, some hours earlier, while she was sleeping.
It was a general alarm.
She hadn’t heard one for months, not since their latest drill. As far as she could recall, there was none expected for that day.
She snapped to her feet, overturning a flask, which shattered on the floor, tossing splinters in every direction. A slight vertigo caught her. The alarm had woken her up, not the light. Something was happening. The control panel of the safety system indicated with a red spot the area from which the alarm had been activated. A sudden sense of anguish almost took her breath away, as she rushed out of the laboratory and along the corridor.
Someone came out of the gym and she bumped into him.
“Robert!”
“What the hell is happening?” he asked, agitated.
He was wearing a tracksuit and his shirt was soaked. The stink of his sweat ran over Anna.
“It’s coming from the area adjacent to airlock one.”
They exchanged concerned looks, then started running toward the origin of the emergency. When they reached it, they stopped abruptly.
Hassan was there, motionless. He was staring at the closed door of the airlock. The expression on his face was apathetic. He appeared to be in shock. As she saw him, Anna felt a sense of relief. Beside that annoying sound, it seemed nothing serious had happened, not to him at least.
“Why have you activated the alarm?” she asked him, as pace by pace she moved closer.
She wasn’t sure he’d realised they were there, and feared that, if frightened, he would react in a violent manner. His face was pale. Only now, did she notice that his gaze was blank, as if he could see beyond that door.
With caution, she placed a hand on his right arm. “Hassan,” she gently murmured.
His eyes turned to her. A glow of realisation lit them up. “I …” he babbled.
“What’s happened?” she pressed him.
“Christ!” Robert’s scared cry behind her made her start. She turned round. Now he was upset as well, looking at that door and backing off.
What was behind that door? What was in there?
Anna’s sight focused on a tiny stain, which broke the even surface of the little window on the door. She released Hassan’s arm and walked forward with some trepidation. Her gaze was drawn to the control panel of the airlock. The alarm lamp was blinking. The message ‘EXTERNAL DOOR OPEN’ cried out in very large letters.
The tiny stain.
She looked at it again. Now that she was just a few steps from it, she could see it better. It was red. Like blood. She rushed to the door and looked through the window.
And started screaming with all her breath.
“Oh God, no! Michelle!” she shouted in despair, hitting the panel. Then she drew back, aghast. She turned to Hassan, and met his gaze.
A horrible thought crossed her mind. Michelle, unlike Dennis, was indispensable. She had to be replaced.
“What have you done to her?” At first, it was just a whispered question.
Hassan’s face scowled, as if he hadn’t understood. Then he shook his head, looking incredulous. “I …” That babbling again.
“You!” She pointed a finger at him, menacing.
“She committed suicide,” he murmured.
“What?” Anna was beside hers
elf by now. “Why would she have done that?”
“Dennis is dead.”
As she heard that word, she lost her ardour. “Dead …?”
“I … think Michelle killed him …”
Killed?
“She euthanised him.” Hassan’s professional tone came out. It sounded like something foreign, aseptic, among the whirlwind of emotions invading Anna’s head.
“No!” She jumped on him, punching him on his chest. “You killed her! Just like you said, she was indispensable to the mission.” She was hysterical. “Damned bastard!” Her words were broken by the tears blurring her sight. Pain was all she was feeling.
His hands grabbed her wrists. “Anna, calm down! Anna!”
But she kept on struggling. “Murderer …” she whined.
Hassan extended his arms to hug her, but she reacted with violence to his attempt.
“Keep off,” she exclaimed, escaping his grip.
“He’s right.” Robert had spoken.
Upset, she turned to him. What was he talking about? Robert was typing something on the airlock control panel. Finally the alarm quieted.
“According to the log, Michelle locked this control panel and activated the emergency forced opening from the inside. She committed suicide.” He added the last words, while casting an incredulous gaze in her direction.
Anna was trembling. It was nonsense. Michelle would never have killed herself. She was a strong woman; she knew her. A dreadful sensation of cold ran along her spine. She backed off, so that she could see the other two in front of her clearly.
“You did it together …”
“Sister, you’re upset, calm down.”
“Anna, don’t talk rubbish.”
Why were they so controlled?
“You did it so that they would confirm the launch with a new crew.” It was such a horrible thing, but it made sense. “If I were dead, it would’ve been difficult to explain, but she … her husband dies and she kills herself. Very convenient.”
Now she was alone with them in a desert planet, alone with no place to escape. It was a fucking nightmare. Her breath was failing.
They moved a step towards her. What would they do to her now that she had understood?
She started moving back and then running, as fast as she could.
“Anna, stop!” Hassan’s voice echoed behind her.
They would reach her; they were faster. She felt her lungs burning, her heart going crazy as it tried to support her, and she pushed even harder. She just had to take cover, in a place where they wouldn’t be able to enter.
They were close.
With a last effort, she reached the entrance of her quarters and placed a hand on the opening control. As the door opened, she rushed inside, closing it just a moment before they arrived.
She could hear hands hitting the door.
“Open this door, Anna!” Hassan’s tone was imperious, but his order was also completely useless. Once she’d locked it from the inside, nobody could enter her room.
“Go away!” she shouted loudly so they could hear.
“You’re the only person accountable for this.” She heard Robert’s provoking tone through the door. “None of that would’ve happened if you’d avoided screwing all women in the crew.”
There was the dull sound of a bump. A punch? Then a rebound. Had someone fallen?
“You’re just a fucking junkie, Green.”
“You’re a dead man, Qabbani.”
A laugh from Hassan. Then some footsteps. And silence.
A sudden bump on the door made her start.
“Anna.” Hassan! He wouldn’t be able to break down the door, no. Oh God. “Please, Anna.” He kept on repeating her name. He was calm again. “Let me to talk to you.”
She crouched on the floor, with her shoulders against the wall and her eyes fixed on the door. She was trying to avoid making the slightest noise, even to avoid breathing.
“Please …”
He had to go sooner or later.
Silence, then some footsteps moving away.
It was hours before she found the courage to get out of there. While moving with caution through the station to find something to eat, it occurred to her that Hassan and Robert did not appear to be anywhere. She guessed where they were and, for some reason, she wanted to see, too.
She donned her suit and went out through airlock two. She walked around the building, until she reached the other entrance and there she stopped.
Robert’s helmet turned a bit toward her. She couldn’t say whether he had seen her.
“Anna …” Hassan’s hesitant voice instead called her in the earphones.
But she remained at least five paces away from them, while they opened completely the external door of airlock one, thus releasing Michelle’s body.
When she had looked at her corpse through the little window on the door, that morning, she could have recognised her only by her blonde hair. Her face was a shapeless, bloody mass. Her body wrapped by her clothes had swollen in an abnormal way. Watching her now, so rigid, frozen, she looked like a puppet in an old funhouse, not really the woman she recalled.
Yet it was her.
They lifted and laid her down inside the airlock, then they unlocked the door.
“I suppose you don’t fancy getting in with us,” Robert said.
Her reply was a step back. She got the impression there was a trace of irony in his voice, but she wasn’t sure.
Hassan turned a last time toward her. It was impossible to see the expression on his face because of the distance and the glares.
“Let her alone, Brother.” Robert patted him on a shoulder. “She’ll come to terms with it, sooner or later.” Then, with a click, he activated the closing mechanism of the door.
Anna started running to reach the other entrance right away. The thought that they could lock her outside, to get rid of her, crossed her mind for a second. There were moments when she thought she might be exaggerating, and that maybe Michelle really had committed suicide; she hoped so. There were other moments when she told herself it was nonsense; her friend would have never done that. But neither could she believe that one of guys had killed her, or even both of them.
Wavering between convictions, she entered the station again, got rid of the suit and headed for the other airlock, this time from inside. Only Robert was there when she arrived. Equipped with a cleaning device, he was trying to remove the remains of tissues and coagulated blood from the walls. There was no trace of Michelle’s body, nor of Hassan.
“He took her to the morgue,” he murmured. She couldn’t detect any irony in him now.
She hesitated for a moment. Unlike earlier, she didn’t feel menaced at all, but only oppressed by a huge sense of sadness. She took the other cleaning device and started working.
Robert stole a glance at her, but she said nothing.
Half an hour later, footsteps resounded from a distance. She wasn’t ready to confront him. He was still the one she feared the most. She wouldn’t have felt safe caged in such a narrow space with both of them.
She dropped the appliance and left the room, moving away in a hurry. She just caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye.
Some days passed, who knew how many? The perception of time had become something abstract. She would sleep at night, shut up in her quarters. She lazily worked in the greenhouse during daytime, keeping the door locked. There she obtained vegetable, fruits, and eggs for her nutrition. At most, she slipped into a warehouse in search for freeze-dried or canned food, something that was sealed and couldn’t be tampered with.
She knew she was paranoid, she knew she was suffering a serious form of depression, but wasn’t able to fight against those sensations. Thinking about feeding herself was already exhausting.
She tried to avoid any contact with the others, but they were keeping at a distance from her, too. She sensed it was so. One day in the greenhouse, she saw some shadows on the roof, near an Aeolian turbin
e. They were repairing it, just like Dennis had demanded. Save for the sorties, which were suspended, it seemed as if everything in the station was back to normal, at least where maintenance was concerned.
Once, she had secretly observed Hassan and Robert in the meeting room watching a video message from Houston and talking about the agenda, as though nothing had ever happened; save Hassan appeared perfectly at ease with the role of new commander, while Robert looked edgy. Some days later she had heard them discussing loudly, inveighing against each other, insulting each other. Since then, increasingly often she could hear classic music coming from Robert’s quarters, for hours and hours. She could figure out how he was spending his time.
That evening she was in her bed, slumbering, still dressed, when she heard knocking at her door. A sudden terror seized her. She curled up and remained silent.
“Anna, I know you are in there.” It was Hassan. “I haven’t seen you for days. I’d like to know how you are.” Again, that aseptic physician-like tone.
She breathed slowly and waited.
“Anna …” His voice softened. “I’m worried about you. Please, talk to me. I’m not saying open the door, but at least say something.”
“I’m fine, go away.” Maybe he would go now.
“I need to talk to you.” He was still there. “But not like that. I don’t want to shout.”
No, she wouldn’t open the door for no reason whatsoever.
“There’s something you have to see.”
Really.
“If you want to show me something, send me a file.”
“I’d rather let you see it with your own eyes. It concerns the autopsies of Dennis and Michelle.”
Anna shivered. He was trying to draw her out, taking advantage of her curiosity. She wouldn’t allow him.
“Go, please,” she replied dryly.
Then it was silence. She waited with her heart in her throat to hear him walk away. She got out of bed and moved closer to the door, placed her hands on it.
“Anna.”
She gave a start. He was just behind the thin panel, a few inches from her.
“Why do you behave like this? You know I would never hurt you …”
People of Mars Page 12