“You’d think so,” Manson agreed. “Yet other than Kearney, I don’t know of anyone in serious danger from this. I intend to keep him off work, well hydrated, and as well rested as possible, with good nutritional support. Other than him it’s simply a horrible inconvenience.”
“Inconvenience? It’s strained our sanitary system almost to collapse,” Schober told him. “I’ve had to issue orders about how to use the toilets that people resist, and are very hard to enforce. And it’s almost impossible to get any suit work done. We’ve had some accidents in suits that are disgusting, and they are hard to clean up and take a suit out of service for a couple days. It wouldn’t be impossible for a suit accident to be become life threatening. We’ve running out of cleaning supplies and laundry chemicals and having to improvise. It could kill us all if we don’t stay ahead of it and our environmental systems fail.”
“We’re just going to have to alter our mission and stop a great deal of the research and exploration,” Manson insisted. “We are either going to get some outside help to get this under control or we’re going to have to plan an evacuation, maybe both.”
“The sons of bitches,” Schober said, understanding dawning. “They don’t have to kill us. Just make us sick enough we can’t function in this sort of sealed delicate environment. They have to be downright evil to use the ship’s crew as a vector to infect us. They aren’t in our political camp at all, and they used them.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Manson said. “Since we can’t culture it we can’t really find a source, but the shuttle pilots who brought the supplies down from the Sandman swear they never so much as cracked a helmet faceplate open, and all the Sandman crew have remained up there in isolation. Nobody was allowed down from Deimos, although the shuttle took two people up. We were hoping to let it burn itself out up there. However, we had people sick with symptoms a day after bringing supplies down. I doubt this would survive even brief exposure to vacuum, so I suspect the delicate goods or foodstuffs riding in the pressure and temperature controlled holds was contaminated.”
“On purpose,” Schober said, angry.
It wasn’t a question, but Manson nodded affirmatively.
“Call and ask if anybody had any reason to go in that hold while they were in transit,” Schober demanded.
Manson looked thoughtful, pulled out his pad and called the Moon. It took a few minutes to track down somebody who could check the logs to answer who wasn’t busy throwing up or sitting on the toilet. They just waited.
Dr. Manson sighed and thumbed his pad off. “Well I have my patient zero.”
“Ask for help,” Schober said. “Send the details, the genome, the blood work, anything you think might get us some support. But what I don’t want you to say is that it is engineered. If what you say is true, your peers on Earth should figure that out all by themselves. I’m not willing to make accusations when I have no proof. That would just confuse and delay things. Better if third parties come to that conclusion, who won’t be accused of being paranoid like we would be. Send it all in the clear. Maybe whoever did this will sweat a little if the Earth experts come to the independent conclusion it is biological warfare without our suggesting it. Indeed seeing who feels free to step forward and say that publicly will help us. We are uncertain at this point, who are our friends, and who are our enemies.
“I’ll do that right now,” Manson agreed, “but, uh… may I use your restroom before returning to my office? I’m not sure I can make it.”
Schober gave him permission with a dismissive wave. It was something all of them had to make allowances for now, and they were way beyond mitigating it with dark humor, because they were all worn down by it.
* * *
Reporting everything that happened in the Virginis 61 system, Delores wrapped up their last actions. “We took a last survey sighting and retreated to the very edge of the system. We sat there, out near what I would call the start of their Oort cloud, with no significant planets beyond us, and watched a full day. We never did see the alien ship come around the star from their radar emissions and we never happened to be in the cone of their drive exhaust to see them leaving.”
“Our sensors and radar are pretty useless for covering an entire stellar system,” April complained.
“What April said,” Delores agreed. “When we jumped back around to our entry point we did a quick survey at each stop, trying to catch a clue which direction they could have exited, but saw nothing. A star system is just too big. The tools we have are sufficient to navigating around the Earth –Moon system, and that’s about it. We’re like the guys in early sailing ships who were out in the middle of the vast ocean and couldn’t see over the horizon.”
“So, we aren’t alone. I can’t say that surprises me,” Heather said. “The only thing that surprises me is running into them so close and so soon. If they pass through our neighborhood so near, I’m wondering why we having seen any transiting our own system in the last hundred years?”
Jeff made loud snort of derision. “If I made a few quiet passages of the Solar System recently, or set a watcher to record activity on the planet I’d give it a wide berth. There are billions of the crazy natives speaking a babble of languages and armed to the teeth. When things get nasty they occasionally nuke each other. Just the number of neutrino emitters on the planet would give me pause. If this is what they are like now, why become known to them and risk dealing with what they will be like in another hundred years?”
“We can be rather warlike, but I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t have anything to fear from our technology,” Heather suggested.
“Maybe, maybe not. Don’t forget Captain Cook with all his European tech and iron cannon died bleeding out in the Hawaiian surf, stabbed. April went along to man the weapons board,” Jeff reminded them. “Did you bring up the board live after you saw the alien? Or did you just figure it would be pointless against their superior tech?”
“I asked Delores to let me bring the board up running system checks,” April admitted. “I didn’t ask her to take it hot ready to launch or ever release control of the ship to me. We didn’t have anything with the range to shoot at this bogey even if I’d wanted, but if he saw us and came back to try to board or grapple us… Well, I can’t image anything that wouldn’t get dinged by a three hundred megaton warhead up close and personal.”
“Why do we need such a huge weapon?” Delores objected.
“It’s not that big in space with no ground or air to transmit the blast,” April insisted. “In vacuum, I’d want to get it within five hundred meters to feel sure it was going to kill the target. That’s well inside the fireball. That’s something I want to talk to Jeff about. I’ve read that you should be able to use a fusion device to pump a big x-ray laser. Now and then somebody suggests they already exist, but there are endless rumors about secret weapon systems. Is that science fiction or could such a thing really be made?”
“I’m pretty sure it could be done, but I’ll ask Chen and Papa-san if they know or can find out if somebody has done the actual engineering,” Jeff promised.
Delores said nothing, but her frown said she found the whole thing thoroughly distasteful. Kurt sat and took the whole report in without comment. He undoubtedly felt terrible April had to sub for him.
“So we’re all in agreement to not publicize this contact?” Heather asked.
“I believe I was the only one who initially assumed we’d be revealing it,” Delores said, “but Barak was very persuasive in describing how that would play out. I admit he has the right of it. They would believe and disbelieve the parts of our story according to all their preconceptions, and the likely outcome would be conflict when they made demands we couldn’t meet. Alice felt the same way. When I have literally everybody else I trust in my world telling me why I am wrong I’m not too stupid to listen.
“When we were laying low, hoping to see the aliens leave, both Barak and April pointed out we had no physical proof, nothing that couldn�
��t be faked by a ten year old kid playing with a CGI program on his pad. I agree, there is little upside to telling them and a potential world of hurt.”
“This should change how we explore and we need to hammer out some rules of engagement,” Barak insisted. Everyone perked up, interested, because Barak wasn’t usually so forceful and given to asserting himself. He took their silence and attention for leave to continue.
“We just got the jump technology. I don’t think we should assume that means we’re ahead or behind in any other tech. Who knows how their history saw technology progress? We saw these particular aliens likely have better radar, it certainly was more powerful. Even there, that isn’t to say that we might not have better signal processing, especially if our computers compare favorably with theirs. Maybe their receivers are so crude they need more power.
“Until we know where we stand we need to be cautious. If we run into aliens again I’d propose our orders be to avoid contact or guiding them back here. We should get better sensors, passive and active, as fast as we can, and better weapons like April asked if it’s possible. Until then let’s be especially careful.”
“We should have charges to destroy our computers and drive tech if we are captured, better yet a charge to vaporize the whole ship,” Alice said.
Delores looked at her like she was a stranger. “Could you flip the switch?”
“Absolutely,” Alice assured her.
“Maybe program the computer to go ahead and activate it if we are all dead,” April suggested. “It’s triply redundant. I’d trust it not to do it in error.”
“At least make it a two person command,” Delores said. “There will be other ships and crews and you don’t want one unstable person decide to take everybody with them like some aircraft pilots have done.”
“That seems reasonable,” Barak agreed.
“Let’s all think this over and meet again in a week,” Heather said. “In particular I want us to decide if we should go out again before we have our lifeboat built and any of the other systems we discussed. It might be the course of wisdom to wait until we make these important upgrades before going back. They are major enough to impact survivability. If you want take the time as a paid break, fine. If you want other duties assigned to keep you busy tell Dakota you are available.”
After the crew left for some rest, Heather and Jeff gave April a surround hug, brought out wine and snacks, and made themselves comfortable on the sofa. They couldn’t keep April up that much longer than the other crew, and coffee was a bad idea.
“I’m surprised Barak was so assertive,” April said, “both tonight and in the ship. He’s been sort of willingly subordinate to the ladies because they are a little older and more experienced, but he’s expressing himself more and is not always automatically in agreement with them.”
“Kurt doesn’t seem domineering either,” Heather noted. “I thought there’d be some Alpha male stuff happening, but I don’t see it. Barak is getting some experience of his own and has some real basis to have his own opinions.”
“That’s why we shouldn’t have a fourth,” Jeff said, dead-pan serious, “it wouldn’t be fair to some poor fellow to have to live in my shadow.”
Nobody should speak like that who is ticklish, and they showed him why.
* * *
“Adam,” the shift supervisor, Gene, said, taking a seat beside his bench, “we aren’t going to have the same volume of artifacts to work with, because suit work is so difficult right now, with the illness. We’re going to send you back to Mars Base because you have an excellent history with logistics and supply. Their work necessarily has a physical component, and they desperately need the help. If things get back to normal I’ll try to get you back, because you’ve done very good work for us. You have the patience to take things apart thoughtfully instead of forcing them or cutting them open. This is no reflection on you or a demotion.”
“I’ve enjoyed the work, but it’s true, this bug has not hit me as bad as some of the others. I understand. Maybe we’ll see each other again in a year or two.” That was Adam speaking, inside agent 71 was doing cartwheels and shouting for joy.
“Thank you, you’ll take the rover back sometime mid-day tomorrow, after it unloads. If you want to, leave any notes on your objects in process. Add them to the files when you close today.” He got up and left, a bit stiff and visibly cramped.
* * *
The next morning The Three had a late quiet breakfast together. Heather’s housekeeper was so happy that she was humming, pleased to see Heather briefly enjoy a tiny snippet of private life instead of working all day with no break. Amy also was delighted to list a day without oatmeal on the corner of the kitchen bulletin board. It was a pleasure to cook a buffet of sausage eggs and waffles, with fruit salad and real orange juice instead of the boringly efficient cereal her daily window tally mocked. It was copied after the form, font and all, of an industrial notice declaring how many days a shop had without an injury accident.
Amy asked if she should plan on three for dinner and went off duty until the evening even happier when Heather agreed that would be fine. The woman would be Heather’s social secretary if she allowed it, and had already had to be told bluntly that her matchmaking services were not needed.
April was checking her messages that were piled up from her absence. She was eating breakfast slowly and talking to Heather and Jeff too, switching back and forth, making progress on everything, when her pad dinged at her. The others pads alerted them too, so it had to be important enough to get past all their filters.
April being the only one actively working her pad saw it was from Chen and routed it to the wall screen. Chen twitched a bit when they came on his pickup. The girls were decent but Jeff was sitting at the table bare-chested. He had on long boxers, but they weren’t visible to Chen, and he was a bit of a straight laced dear. Boxers were practically formal wear for Jeff at home.
Chen was with Papa-san. That was unusual. They worked together but normally Chen as their man would be the conduit for Papa-san’s work. Papa-san wouldn’t have cared if they were painted blue with gold glitter.
“You are aware the Sandman had an outbreak of disease on the way to Mars and the entire crew was in gastric distress?” Chen inquired.
“Yes, it’s a European operation. I assumed they had some third world hire running the galley, like a cheap cruise ship operation,” Jeff snipped.
The corners of Chen’s mouth twitched but he refused to smile. “Well, they made Mars, and the entire outpost has the same thing now. They aren’t able to contain it and have called for help, not withholding any of the details from the public. It’s a bacterial organism to blame.”
“They didn’t keep the sick crew in isolation?” Heather asked amazed. “Somebody did something stupid to let it get away from them!”
“Somebody did something not at all stupid but very evil,” Chen assured her. “They did keep the crew on the moon, but it would appear the cargo, the supplies the Sandman was carrying, were contaminated. If they realize that, the Martians still haven’t accused anyone of deliberately infecting them. They detailed the organism however and Tetsuo here,” he nodded at Papa-san, “was made aware of the particular strain of Helicobacter some years ago, in the course of other intelligence work. You describe it to them,” Chen invited, and leaned back.
“The particular strain of Helicobacter was developed in Russia as an area denial weapon,” Tetsuo explained. “It was deliberately gene altered to be antibiotic resistant, because the western countries against which it might be directed depend heavily on antibiotics, but the Russians, indeed even back as far as the Soviets, went more for bacteriophages for infection control.
“It’s rather persistent on surfaces and easily applied as an aerosol. It can be misted from drones and aircraft very efficiently. If say, you want to deny a small town to an enemy, contaminating it with this will ensure people there either leave, or if they stubbornly remain they won’t be very effec
tive.”
“Well, if it is a known bioweapon, somebody will tell them shortly and their European agency will send the cure off to them, right?” April asked.
“I really doubt it,” Chen said, and Papa-san was shaking his head, agreeing with Chen. “They are in a state of rebellion. The agency was pressured to make this last supply run mostly because there are innocents stuck on Mars who were not associated with the rebellion. Indeed, one of the missions of this voyage was to return the majority of those who wished repatriated to Earth. I suspect they should have loaded and been on their way back before the Martians got into the supplies and got infected if things went by plan.”
“Neither is this the sort of thing anyone is going to want to admit they know about or possess,” Papa-san explained. “It’s one of many agents quite a few governments know about, and even have samples and the counter organism, but it would open a real can of worms and raise all sorts of uncomfortable questions to admit you know about it publicly. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the Europeans themselves who polluted the supplies to punish their rebellion. Likely the operation didn’t go quite the way it was planned. I’m no stranger to that happening.”
“So, what are you two suggesting?” Heather asked. “I doubt you called us to just impart this as interesting trivia and don’t have some course of action to suggest. Do you think we should inform the Martians of this? I’m not particularly fond of the Martians, neither are my partners. Rebellion is not always an improvement, and the Martians have done some of our own people dirty. Indeed, even if they were informed, could they get anyone to admit having the cure and provide it in a timely fashion?”
“No, the Sandman is returning with a reduced crew and none of their intended passengers, to reduce the burden on life support. In the European Union their return is being regarded by the public like a plague ship coming to port. There are already people asking to buy the Sandman since the Union has no use for it according to their thinking, and what they would intend to do with it isn’t at all clear. Even if they intend support for the Martians the base is basically in survival mode until they get relief,” Chen said.
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