Colony

by Leigh Matthews

  She was trapped in the solar shelter, her synapses firing at an incredible rate. As her thoughts moved faster than ever before, she kept seeing glimpses of memories and ideas that danced away before she could turn them into anything solid. She tried to hold onto the thought about the scientists in England, but the air in the bunker felt so thick and rich, and she was so hot. She was going to suffocate in this tiny box. She needed to get out, to breathe clearer air.

  She wiped the sweat from her brow and blinked. Her vision cleared, as if she had dislodged a film covering her eyes. She blinked again and reached out to the control panel. Her body felt heavy and stiff. Her limbs seemed to crack as she moved.

  A small voice inside Silver cried out, insisting that she should fight whatever was taking over her body and, increasingly, her mind. Part of her held onto the idea that what she was experiencing was a result of damage to her prefrontal cortex or other parts of her brain; but at a deeper level, she began to accept that she was now host to an extremophilic organism.

  She hadn't asked for this. And yet, as she examined the control panel and formed a clearer picture of what might be happening, Silver felt a growing sense of serenity and connection to something bigger than herself. She hadn't invited this process, nor had she expected it, none of them had, but she felt peaceful. In a way, this was what she had signed up for; another kind of exploration. She was on the precipice of something greater than herself or her life's work. Something greater than anything they had imagined when launching Project Arche. Infection with the organism felt less like a hostile takeover, and more like an emerging connection: symbiosis, not parasitism. Whatever was happening to her seemed organic, natural, desirable even.

  Silver tried to reflect on how her mind, her way of thinking, had changed, but recognized that the attempt was inherently flawed. The organism seemed to be communicating with her using her own consciousness. Could she still trust what she was thinking and feeling? Despite this ambiguity, Silver was not afraid of the organism, at least not in relation to her own body and mind. In a way, they were both explorers in strange lands: Silver on this new planet; the organism in a new body and mind.

  She thought about Aliyaah and Hadley. She should let them know how she had changed, but she wasn't sure how they would react and, anyway, comms were still down. She needed to stay in the bunker until this second storm passed. Without the SEV, there was no way to make it to Octavia safely. The radiation from the storm was too strong to attempt the journey in just her EV suit, and the EMS was too bulky.

  Silver checked the readout from the control panel. The numbers were frightening at first. The temperature was just fifteen Celsius and oxygen was at eighteen percent. She should be struggling, but instead she felt compelled to reduce the temperature to five degrees and the oxygen to fifteen percent. She stood in front of the air vent, breathing in the fresh, cool air. For a moment, this made her thoughts dizzyingly clear, but she soon lost the feeling and the air hung thickly in her lungs. The adaptation was rapid, and Silver tapped the buttons to toggle the oxygen down to ten percent. She lowered the temperature to zero.

  The air in the bunker cooled and the oxygen dropped. Silver's limbs relaxed and her thoughts regained the coherence and clarity she had felt moments before. She looked back up at the control panel and smiled. The current life support settings should have killed her, and yet her breath came easily and she wasn't cold. Silver felt better than she had in hours, sols even.

  Sitting back down on the bunk, Silver pulled out her canteen from the pocket of her overalls. She felt the familiar markings on its side and smiled as she lifted it to her lips. When Cooper gave her the canteen she had joked that the traditional gift list was redundant for astronauts: no paper or cotton. Instead, a branched carbon nanotube canteen coated with titanium dioxide nanoparticles represented real romance. If she was going to try to capture the stars, Cooper said, at least she could have a canteen that didn't grow biofilms when she neglected to clean it.

  Silver could see Cooper's face with a wonderful clarity as she remembered that anniversary dinner. They had been so happy then. If Cooper could only feel what she was feeling now, this connection to something greater than herself, maybe then she would understand why Silver had needed to leave.

  Silver let the memory go and instead recalled the content of her dream with an enjoyable lucidity. She felt each of her thoughts as it travelled from neuron to neuron, racing across the synaptic gaps. Her mind was reconstituting itself, clearing away unneeded pathways to create a cleaner, more efficient roadmap for consciousness.

  As Silver calmly observed the changes happening within her, she started to accept the symbiosis as inevitable. She still knew little about the organism, but felt entangled in its need to survive and grow. It had remained underground for so long, dormant and undetected. Now it was out in the open, having been unearthed by the machines, and Silver saw how symbiosis might be advantageous. With the organism's support, she might be able to stand on the surface of the planet. She smiled, thinking about how she might soon be able to breathe the thin, freezing Martian air, and feel a breeze against her skin again.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  On board Octavia, the half dozen engineers were getting restless. It had been several hours since they had identified an issue with the ship's landing gear, and quickly fixed the problem. As they were about to head back to the station they had received word of the incoming solar storm. Some of them had wanted to make a dash for the station, but Aliyaah decided the risk of being caught outside in the solar radiation was too high. They had been stranded aboard Octavia, waiting out one storm as they received warning of a second storm soon to hit. If they were lucky, there would be a big enough break to allow them to scramble back to the station.

  Not for the first time, Aliyaah was relieved that Octavia was such a large ship. This gave the crew enough space that they could keep out of each others’ way while they had little to do. Tensions had already been high when she arrived in the SEV; several junior engineers were itching to get flight-ready as soon as possible, and paid little heed to the more cautious approach of their senior officers.

  Two of the remaining engineers raised concerns with Aliyaah about launching the ship on an unscheduled mission with the possibility of an unwanted guest. Aliyaah was inclined to agree with them, but she held out hope that NASA would approve their launch so they could evacuate the planet and reduce their risk of further exposure.

  As Aliyaah tried to allay some of the crew's concerns, the residual effects of the first storm abated and Aliyaah saw that communications were back up, at least temporarily. She scanned the data on the incoming storm. There wouldn't be a long enough reprieve to allow for them to return to the station. She was about to tell the men when she saw a flashing light alerting her to a new transmission. There had been no radio contact with Hadley and the station for several hours, thanks to the storm's disruption. She opened a channel, but when the connection was made, it was not Hadley's voice that cut through the static.

  Someone whose voice she couldn't quite make out was mumbling intermittently, and Aliyaah tried to clean up the signal as she looked around at the crew. They fell silent as they, too, struggled to hear the transmission.

  "Who is that?" one of the engineers asked, and got shushed by his colleagues. The engineer threw his hands up and muttered to himself, "Jeez Louise."

  After a moment, the voice became a little clearer and one of the men said, "Is that Lars, maybe?"

  "Maybe. But what the devil is he saying?" asked one of the older engineers.

  The transmission got louder suddenly, and they could all hear a man shouting, "Gå ut! Gå ut! We must get out!"

  There were sounds of a scuffle, and other voices yelling, "Don't open the doors!"

  Aliyaah looked around at her team, who were wide-eyed as they listened to the ensuing struggle. The storm had scrambled the time code on the message so she couldn't tell if it had been sent seconds before or hours ago, when the first sto
rm hit. She assumed that the transmission had come from the hangar, and it seemed like someone had tried to open the hangar doors while the crew weren't suited up.

  After several seconds of silence Aliyaah moved to stop the message replay. But, before she flicked the switch, a scream shattered the silence and the man cried out, "I can't breathe! Jag brinner!"

  There was a loud crashing sound and the man's screams were muffled, then the transmission ended.

  Aliyaah avoided meeting the eyes of the men around her and instead scrambled to open a line to the station.

  "What did he say?" the men asked, turning to one of the few remaining Swedish-speaking engineers.

  The man swallowed hard and sniffled. "He said, he said, 'I am on fire. I burn'."

  Aliyaah looked over at the man, and they were all silent. She closed her eyes and tried to dissolve the image of catastrophe on the hangar deck. A beep drew her attention back to the console and she saw that the channel on which they had received the message was still open.

  "Hello?" Aliyaah said. "Is anyone there?"

  She waited and then heard Hadley's voice. He was commanding the men to stand down, and as the line stayed open she and her engineers heard Hadley ask, "Is he breathing? Is he conscious?" There was no audible reply and several of the engineers on Octavia lowered their heads.

  "Commander?" Aliyaah ventured. "I'm on an open line, with the engineers. What just happened?"

  "Chief Diambu?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Just a second. I… Doctor Schiff just arrived." Hadley cut the line. A minute or so later, Aliyaah heard the doctor's voice, followed by Hadley.

  "Chief, there's been another death. I suspect the same affliction as with Commander Marshall."

  "Symptoms of psychosis, paranoia, and aggression?" Aliyaah asked.

  "Yes. Leading to acute respiratory failure. At least, that's what it looks like," Hadley said. "Chief, do you have the second storm alert? Can you and the crew make it to the station between storms?"

  "There isn't enough of a window, Sir. At least not for all of us to get back," Aliyaah said.

  "Are you OK to wait out the second storm?" Hadley asked.

  "Yes, Sir. I wouldn't want anyone to get stuck out there when it hits."

  Hadley agreed and Aliyaah was about to close the line when one of the engineers asked quietly, "Chief, who died? Was it Lars?"

  Aliyaah knew that it was, but she relayed the question to Hadley anyway.

  "Groening, yes," Hadley confirmed. "I'm sorry. Yes, Lars is dead."

  One of the engineers slammed his fist against the nearest wall panel, shaking some nearby wires, but leaving no visible mark. The other men just sighed and shook their heads. Aliyaah felt her own fists clench, and wondered for a moment if there wasn't something to be said for the satisfying explosion of plaster and plywood when punching a hole through a wall. She caught the eye of the man now holding his hand against his chest. He looked away, his nostrils flared, then he took a breath and returned to his seat.

  "He shouldn't have gone out like that," he said.

  "No one should," Aliyaah agreed.

  "Lars would never hurt anybody," said another engineer, and the men nodded.

  Aliyaah took a deep breath and winced at the pain in her chest. She exhaled slowly and looked at the men.

  "Whatever this thing is, it makes even the gentlest of men… forget themselves." She put her hand to her neck, feeling the raised welts, and said, "Let's all remember Lars as he would want to be remembered."

  They were silent for a moment, and then Aliyaah forced herself to smile at the men and said, "Remember when he made that disgusting birthday cake for Bryce, from his entire sevensol's ration of protein bars and green juice?"

  A couple of the men laughed, and several shook their heads and groaned, smiling and clutching at their stomachs.

  The engineer who had asked if it was Lars who had died, said, "That thing was so gross."

  "But impressive as fuck!" said one of the youngest engineers.

  "No doubt," said Aliyaah, smiling at the crew.

  "Remember when we stole his ukulele?" another of the engineers asked, grinning. "Do you think it's still on the ship?"

  "Shit, yeah! I'd forgotten about that."

  "Where did that thing end up anyway?"

  Aliyaah watched the crew for a few moments, happy that she could help allay their grief, at least temporarily.

  She stood up and stretched, feeling an ache in her chest. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy, but the pain in her rib had lessened, which surprised her. She had had a broken rib before and it had taken months to heal. She wondered what was different this time. Perhaps the lower gravity made a difference, or it could be that her adrenaline was elevated and was helping to numb the pain.

  Aliyaah took a step away from her crew, intending to contact Hadley on a secure line, while communications were still possible. As she approached the ladder to climb up into the next section of the ship, one of the engineers mentioned a prank they had pulled on Lars.

  "Didn't we stash his uke in the medical bay?"

  The question threw Aliyaah's mind into turmoil, and she looked over at the engineer, seeing the black Crew Medical Officer band on his arm. She didn't understand how she could possibly have forgotten that Octavia had a fully stocked medical unit, complete with testing equipment.

  Aliyaah thought of Silver, alone in the biodome. She hoped that Silver had seen the solar storm alert and had made it safely to the bunker. Once the second storm lifted, she would make contact and ask Silver to send the data from the tests she had run. There were still nanobots in Aliyaah's blood, and in Silver's too if she had followed Aliyaah's order to test herself, but with the storms disrupting communications, there had been no way to see the data. She had assumed she would need to contact the doctor to get access to those results, but now that Aliyaah had remembered the on-board medical unit, she might be able to access the data herself. At least, that is, she could see the data from the nanobots in her own blood. What she didn't have was an isolated sample of the organism, so she was limited in the types of tests she could run. Still, the nanobots might turn up something useful. And, if she was infected she might be able to isolate the organism herself.

  The solar storms were also preventing communication with Earth. For all she knew, Mission Support could be trying to get a message to Hadley letting him know that they had a plan to deal with the organism. Or they might be sending instructions for the survivors to remain on Mars, instead of risking bringing the organism back to Earth.

  If she could run a sample of the organism through the lab on Octavia, they might be able to figure this thing out. First, though, Aliyaah needed to head to the medical unit to check if she was infected. She considered bringing the engineer with his black armband. It made sense to enlist his help in the laboratory, but as Lars's screams echoed in her mind, a quieter voice began to make itself heard, telling her that if she was infected, perhaps it was best to keep that information to herself. After all, she had to lead the crew to safety. If they thought she was infected, they might panic and defect.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Aliyaah climbed up ladder after ladder, through the centre of Octavia, heading to the medical unit. Her ribs ached, and her legs and arms felt leaden with fatigue. It was so much easier to traverse the ship in zero gravity. Aliyaah was craving some rack time, but with cabin fever already setting in with the crew, she knew it was safer to stay awake.

  Like all the astronauts on the Mars mission, Aliyaah had received at least thirty hours of basic medical training, including a crash course in the use of the diagnostic program Silver had used to assess Dominic. During her studies, Aliyaah had managed to avoid revealing her squeamishness, but the effort of hiding her disgust had detracted from the usefulness of the training.

  When she reached the medical bay, Aliyaah located the handheld device that ran the medical informatics software. She searched her memory, knowing that there was a way to tap into
the data stream, not only from the nanobots in her bloodstream, but also from those in Silver's blood.

  If there was any data, it would likely be several hours old by now, and it crossed Aliyaah's mind that Silver could already be dead. Until communications were fully restored, there was simply no way to know.

  Aliyaah tapped the screen and located the feed from the nanobots in her blood. She tried to remember the biomarkers Silver had found in Dominic's system, so she could see if any similar elevations were present in her own body. Her cortisol level was higher than normal, but not dangerously so, and Aliyaah knew she could probably get that in check with some basic meditation, if she got a chance. More worrying was the elevation in NSE, GFAP and S100β: the same three substances flagged as abnormally elevated in Dominic's blood just before he died.

  Aliyaah recognised that it was impossible for her to objectively assess her own behaviour, but she was fairly confident that she didn't display any of the symptoms she had seen in Dominic. She was tired and her thoughts were confused, her memory hazy, but there had been nothing normal about the last few sols, so she had no way to isolate causative factors for these symptoms. Mental and physical exhaustion could easily be to blame.

  Aliyaah slumped in her chair and wondered why, if she was infected, she wasn't displaying any other symptoms. She wasn't feeling paranoid or aggressive, unlike the Commander, Dom, and now Lars. Little differentiated her from them, aside from her sex. They ate the same food, drank the same water, and she and Dom had often shared sleeping quarters. With Dominic's work focused in the biodome, he had been exposed to different air than Aliyaah a lot of the time, and he would have had more exposure to radiation than those working mostly at the station or on the ship.