Colony

by Leigh Matthews

  This realisation got Aliyaah thinking about what Silver had said about GCRs and the solar storm. She had largely been shielded from GCRs courtesy of her time in the SEV, the station, and on Octavia. Aliyaah also knew that Dominic had sometimes been lax about taking his anti-rads, while Aliyaah was strict about her schedule. She had felt the effects of radiation sickness before and, as an experienced astronaut, had already accumulated years of exposure that meant she was not willing to risk more through sheer laziness or hubris.

  When communications were restored, she would ask Schiff to test the samples from the Commander, Lars, and the other deceased engineer. She would be able to assess if radiation affected the organism's growth. If so, that gave them something to work with, but Aliyaah wouldn't know until after the storm abated and they could return to the station. In the meantime, Aliyaah gave herself another anti-rad shot before working her way through the ship, ensuring that every member of her crew took their meds.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Once the storms abated and communications were fully restored, Aliyaah contacted the station and Hadley informed her of three more casualties. Several people had also gone missing, and Hadley was at a loss as to where they might have gone. He was reluctant to send out search parties and risk further deaths, but Aliyaah knew he was making the same calculations she was, working out how many more people they could lose before it became impossible to get Octavia off the ground.

  They had been trapped on Octavia for more than a sol, thanks to a series of intense back to back solar storms. Aliyaah insisted that she ferry the crew back in small groups using the SEV, to minimise radiation exposure. Hadley agreed, even though it would have been faster for the men to walk in their EV suits. It took several trips in the SEV, but they were all accounted for, and none of the men showed any symptoms of infection, so far. When all the engineers had returned to the station, the relief on Hadley's face was obvious. He told Aliyaah about the three most recent casualties. Two of the men had become confused, then aggressive, and had died from sudden cardiac arrest. Hadley suspected that the third man had taken his own life, and he asked Aliyaah to keep his assessment to herself. In a confined and isolated environment, and with a mounting sense of hopelessness, there was a significant risk of mass hysteria and suicide contagion.

  Aliyaah confided in Hadley how she was finding it increasingly difficult to determine if the crew's quick tempers were a symptom of infection or simply a reasonable reaction to their current situation. They had all been selected for the mission in part because of their ability to remain level headed. Now, though, after hours cooped up in the ship, with little to keep them occupied but thoughts of their dead colleagues, some of the crew were struggling to keep their emotions in check. They knew they needed to wait for clearance from Mission Support, but they desperately wanted to begin building the walkway to Octavia and making a start on pre-flight checks.

  When they were waiting on Octavia, Aliyaah had overheard the men muttering about Hadley wasting time. She had let it slide until one specialist began questioning Hadley's ability to handle the situation. Despite her fears, she projected a sense of calm, hoping to pull everyone together behind Hadley. The best way to get ready for launch was to do their jobs and work as a team.

  Once they were back at the station, Aliyaah summoned Doctor Schiff to the hangar. As she waited for the doctor to arrive, she sent a message to Mission Support to ask for further instruction. Aliyaah tapped her fingers on the communications console, willing the little green light to appear that indicated an incoming message. A growing hubbub drew her attention across the hangar. Hadley was waving his hands in what looked like a calming motion, trying to de-escalate the situation. He was standing close together with most of the remaining crew, including the men who had been with her on Octavia. Their voices grew louder as they vented their frustration. Being trapped on the ship and then returning to news of further deaths was trying even the most stoic among them.

  One of the younger officers, Corporal Adams, shouted at Hadley, adamant that he wouldn't spend another sol on the planet. He gestured towards the hangar door and said, "You're not doing a damn thing, and there's this... this thing killing us!"

  "Corporal Adams, take a breath and watch your tone," Hadley said. "Remember your rank. This colony is still under my command."

  The corporal scoffed, then looked around at his fellow specialists, assessing their level of support for an insurrection.

  Hadley's expression remained neutral, but Aliyaah observed a slight hesitation, almost imperceptible, before he continued. "Corporal, you were chosen for this mission, like all of us, because of your ability to handle stressful situations. Remember your training. Everyone needs to keep a cool head while we work this out as a team." Hadley paused, considering his next words carefully. "Until we know exactly what we are dealing with, and we get clearance from CapCom to launch, we will remain on Mars. We have to ensure we do not inadvertently transport this organism with us back to Earth. It is not just our lives at stake here, and we would all do well to remember that."

  Adams turned back to face Hadley, and Aliyaah watched as he shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "With all due respect, Sir," the corporal said with derision, "we all know what is at stake here, and that means getting off this goddamn planet as fast as Octavia can take us."

  Adams took another quick look at his colleagues and then walked out of the hangar. Four or five of the men followed him, avoiding eye contact with Hadley as they went.

  Hadley watched them leave, then turned to the remaining crew. "Those of you who would like to avoid being court martialled, get to work. You have all been assigned tasks. Go do them. I will let you know when anything changes." He looked over at Aliyaah, then back at his officers. They hadn't moved, so he clapped his hands and said, "Get to it."

  Hadley stood still for a few seconds, alone in the centre of a flurry of activity. Aliyaah wondered what he was thinking, and if he would go after Adams and the others who had walked out. Perhaps feeling her scrutiny, Hadley looked in her direction then walked her way.

  "Any changes, Chief?"

  "Still waiting for a response from Mission Support, Sir," Aliyaah said.

  "The crew is getting restless," Hadley said, and raised an eyebrow. "You may have noticed."

  "I know, Sir. Being confined to Octavia didn't help." Aliyaah glanced across at the hangar door, then said, "It's probably good to let the corporal cool off, Sir."

  Hadley nodded. "That was my thinking too, Chief. I don't know how he passed the Psych Eval, if I'm honest."

  "He can be quite hotheaded, yes," Aliyaah said, then added, "just like his father, General Adams." Aliyaah watched Hadley as he opened his mouth to respond and then promptly shut it again and nodded. She risked a small laugh and was relieved to see Hadley's flat expression crack a little.

  "Good old nepotism," he said, and they were both silent for a moment before Hadley inhaled sharply and asked, "Still no word from Flight Engineer Antara?"

  Aliyaah shook her head. It was now more than two sols since Aliyaah last heard from Silver. Their confinement on Octavia and subsequent return to the station had afforded Aliyaah no opportunity to return to the dome for Silver. Once communications had been restored, Aliyaah had tried to contact Silver, but had gotten no response.

  The nanobots stopped sending data as soon as the storm hit, and nothing new had come through even in the brief reprieve that allowed her to contact Hadley. The little information they received had been garbled by the storm, and none would have made it to Mission Support, so they remained unsure as to what they were really dealing with.

  Aliyaah held onto the idea that Silver had retreated to the safety of the storm shelter and was now camped out in the relative safety of the inner dome, where there was plenty of food and water. The storm could have knocked out communications and Silver might be working on fixing the problem, hoping that the Chief would come back for her as promised. Aliyaah knew that the longer they went without h
earing from Silver, the more likely it was that she had met the same fate as the others.

  After transporting the crew safely to the station, Aliyaah wanted to take the SEV to the dome, but on her final trip the SEV jammed as it locked into the station's dock. It took them hours to release the clamps manually. They needed two teams, one working inside and one outside the station, to coordinate a safe release of the SEV. Aliyaah made sure to rotate the two teams to reduce radiation exposure.

  As tempting as it was to use brute force to release the vehicle from the dock, the risk of damage was too great. Without the SEV there would be no easy way to get Silver safely back to the station.

  While Aliyaah had been stuck on Octavia, Hadley had assigned a team to restore the station's radiation shield back to full capacity. The damage from the explosions had weakened the station's magnetic field, so most of those remaining at the station had spent the storms confined to the emergency shelters. The latest casualties were those who had worked outside the shelters the longest during the storm. The missing crew had also spent considerable amounts of time outside the safety of the shelter, working to maintain essential systems at the station.

  With the shields almost back at full capacity, Aliyaah's focus was on working with the crew to build the walkway to Octavia. She had used her time on Octavia to come up with a way of using equipment she hoped was still in the hangar, and parts from a rover, to get around the shortage in construction materials. When she checked the inventory after getting back to the station, she was relieved to see that the equipment was still intact and functional, so she set the crew to work dismantling machinery and building the missing pieces.

  With construction underway, Aliyaah hoped she could convince Hadley to let her take the SEV over to the biodome. If nothing else, they could retrieve the samples and the data from the M-Lab.

  Aliyaah had only managed to sleep fitfully while on Octavia. She had grown wary of her bunkmates and wanted to be ready to move as soon as the storm abated. Patience was a necessity in space. It wasn't like in the movies where everything moved so quickly that you could barely keep up and always had something to keep you busy. Instead, the almost constant waiting and watching led to a restless kind of exhaustion, and as Aliyaah waited for the little green light to flicker she let the voices of her colleagues wash over her. Her head grew heavy in her hands. She desperately needed sleep, but the growing sense of mistrust among the crew made it hard to feel safe even when she was awake. Aliyaah was also worried about her own paranoia. Was it a reasonable reaction to the situation, or was she feeling the effects of .

  It was clear that Hadley also had concerns. He knew he was losing control of the crew, and the civilians were barely holding it together. They were all too aware that they were not being told the full story, and in the absence of clear information, rumours abounded. The story of the Commander's erratic and violent behaviour, and of the recent deaths, spread throughout the colony. Witnesses had enjoyed a brief and curious celebrity as they recounted the terror, confusion, and sudden demise of the men, but it wasn't long before the storytellers' proximity to the dead made them seem dangerous. If the deaths were related to an infection, then it might be spread through physical contact or breathing the same air, meaning that those closest to the Commander and other casualties might also be infected. Some of the crew insisted on setting up a quarantine zone, but after talking to Schiff, Hadley quashed the idea. He stressed to the remaining crew and civilians that now, more than ever, they needed to work together, not isolate one another.

  Aliyaah was relieved that only Hadley and Schiff knew what she and Silver had seen in the west wing and at the biodome. If the civilians had seen the state of those bodies there would be little Aliyaah and Hadley could do to allay their fears.

  Just before the storm hit, Schiff had told Hadley she wanted to begin testing the crew and civilians for signs of infection. Wary of causing widespread panic, Hadley initially opted to wait for a decision from Mission Support, until the doctor suggested running blood tests under the guise of assessing the negative effects of the unusually lengthy set of solar storms. With the shields down, those remaining at the station could have experienced significant radiation exposure. Schiff said she would take blood samples to test for radiation and infection, and would hand out additional anti-rads to anyone who needed them.

  The swabs that Aliyaah had taken from her own nose and mouth showed no signs of the crystalline formations she and Silver had seen in Dominic's samples. With the original data made incomprehensible by the storm, Schiff got to work analysing another source of material: the bodies of the deceased.

  When the doctor finally arrived in the hangar, she was suited up like the rest of the crew, so Aliyaah didn't pay her any special attention. It was only after a few minutes that Aliyaah realised the newest arrival in the hangar hadn't moved from the door. Instead, the figure seemed to be scrutinising the officers' movements. Aliyaah noticed the medical armband and waved Schiff over, breaking the doctor's focus.

  Schiff continued to observe the crew, even after reaching the communications console. She glanced at Aliyaah, keeping eye contact brief, and said, "Chief," before returning her attention to the crew.

  "What are you looking for?" Aliyaah asked, and Schiff narrowed her eyes but said nothing. "Can you tell? If they’re infected I mean?"

  "There are no visual signs in the early stages," Schiff said slowly, still scanning the hangar.

  Aliyaah followed the doctor's gaze, which settled on a group of engineers who were dismantling an old rover model to use its parts for their new walkway construction.

  The two women remained silent for thirty seconds, and Aliyaah considered Schiff, whose focus never strayed from the group of men. Aside from the medical assessments required by NASA, Aliyaah hadn't needed to see the doctor during their tenure on Mars. She didn't know Schiff well, but found it interesting that someone charged with looking after the wellbeing of everyone on the mission had such a cold and stiff demeanour. Perhaps her bedside manner was friendlier when she hadn’t been asked to cut open the body of her now deceased commanding officer.

  "Did your autopsy of the Commander reveal anything of interest?" Aliyaah asked, breaking the silence. She half hoped that the tests would show no effect of radiation on the tissue samples. But if that was the case, they would be back at square one, with little idea of how the organism caused such massive tissue destruction so rapidly.

  "No clear proliferation of the crystalline growths. Some evidence of the biomarkers you observed, and prefrontal cortex disintegration. That appears to be the most opportune tissue to colonise, and from there, one might assume, to begin to alter host behaviour."

  Aliyaah leaned back and fought off her inclination to let out a low, whistling screech through her teeth. This was something she had done as a child and had learnt to temper as an adult working with Americans. She shifted slightly in an attempt to meet Schiff's eye. "That's an interesting way to phrase things, Doctor: 'The most opportune tissue to colonise'." Aliyaah said.

  "Yes, well," Schiff said flatly.

  "Any signs that radiation affects this thing?"

  "My research is ongoing," Schiff said, turning her attention to Hadley and the other men as they moved a section of the walkway across the hangar.

  Aliyaah observed Schiff watching Hadley and the men for a few moments, then asked, "Are you OK, Doctor?"

  Schiff turned to look up at Aliyaah and blinked. Aliyaah saw her pupils narrow under the bright lights in the hangar. The doctor considered Aliyaah for a moment and then nodded, saying, "Yes. Everything's just fine."

  Aliyaah sucked her teeth then said, "I think things are far from fine, Doctor."

  "You're right, of course," Schiff said, continuing to look closely at Aliyaah, her scrutiny beginning to make Aliyaah feel uncomfortable. "Chief Diambu," she said, letting a smile slowly take over her features, "the tests on the crew would proceed more rapidly if I had an assistant."

  "You need an a
ssistant?" Aliyaah asked, finding the doctor's abrupt change in manner somewhat discombobulating.

  "Yes. I could assess the men more quickly with an assistant to process the samples."

  "So, you know what to look for in the blood to establish infection?" Aliyaah asked.

  Schiff paused, and her smile gave way for a moment. "We should have that information soon." She pointed at the group of men working on the rover. "Those men. Are any of them medically qualified?"

  "No," Aliyaah said slowly. "But there is a junior officer with a background in biochemistry. I could…"

  Schiff cut her off, saying, "Yes. A junior officer would be ideal."

  "OK," Aliyaah said. "If you're sure it's necessary."

  "It would expedite things, yes."

  "Of course. I can send him to the lab right away, Doctor. And please, once he arrives, can you stress that he keep his work confidential. He should only report to yourself, me, or Commander Hadley."

  "That won't be a problem, Chief," Schiff said, as she turned towards the hangar door.

  "Doctor?" Aliyaah said, reaching out her hand to touch the woman's shoulder. "Are you sure you're OK? Perhaps you should get some sleep."

  Schiff briefly looked at Aliyaah's hand on her shoulder and then half turned to face the Chief. "There's no time for that, Chief."

  Aliyaah watched the doctor walk away, marvelling at how even her gait was stiff and unfriendly. As she considered Schiff's behaviour, Aliyaah saw a green light on the communications console. She looked around for Hadley and saw that he was over by the hangar door talking to Schiff. Aliyaah waved him over and he nodded and held up a gloved finger to ask her to wait a moment.

  Aliyaah sat down and cued up the message from Mission Support. Once Hadley arrived, they listened to the message without comment. With a note of resignation, CapCom said, "It has been decided to further postpone the launch of Octavia II."

  "Until when?" Aliyaah thought, and when CapCom continued, she wasn't surprised.