“You get used to the spinning?” she asked him, pulling the sleeve of her flight suit over her elbow and buttoning it at the wrist.
“Pretty much, except when they rotate to hit one gee. I think my inner ear still balks at the spin rate.”
“That may be why you weren’t selected for the mission,” Julie said to the man, continuing to sit on the small gurney table that was firmly bolted to the floor.
“Ouch, Miss Monroe,” Hill said despite her married status, closing the cabinet door and latching it securely. “You know, there are three of us up here and only room for one medical professional on the mission. Two of us will stay, but I think I have a chance at the next one.”
Jules watched the younger doctor as he leaned against the cabinet and folded his arms. Despite the three-hundred-foot radius, she was sure she could detect a slight lean in the man’s posture relative to the opposite direction of the spinning structure. It gave a slight impression that he was leaning sideways as well as back toward the cabinet. Being a tall man, the optics were even more contrasting to her eye.
“So we’re moving at two revs per minute?” she asked.
“Yes, you know that. Standard rotation for us. We’ve got forty-eight percent of normal grav now. How do you feel?”
“I don’t feel anything with regards to the spin, but the extra time in zero gravity has loosened me up a bit. Even half a gee feels a tad heavy after floating for over a week.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, the crew of this ship will experience half a gee for the duration of the entire mission, well over a year. Imagine how they will feel Earth-side when they return.”
“If they return.” Jules looked at him carefully.
“Perhaps that was why they passed you over for commander as well,” Hill said, his expression flat.
“Now who’s hurting whom?” she responded. “I have a family with two young children. That damn psycho doc of theirs has wanted to ground me for the last year now.”
“Theirs or yours?” Hill asked.
“I don’t consider him one of us,” Jules explained. “Too much bureau in that man.”
Hill nodded and then sighed. “Perhaps you’re right, but as you said, you have a family.”
“They would understand, and I’ve had this discussion with my husband long ago.”
“All right, if you say so.”
“I do. Now what news on Sanchez’s replacement?” she asked.
“You’re all business, aren’t you?”
“I’m curious,” she clarified.
“You may be happy to know that this particular decision has not been made yet, or at least, it hasn’t been conveyed to us grunts up here. The crew tends to think either Carson or Thomas will get the nod. I don’t agree, however.”
“Oh, what are you thinking?” Jules leaned forward, eager to hear the doctor’s assessment.
“I actually think one of two things will happen.” The doctor folded his arms, relying on his skill with his stance acquired over time to hold him in position. “I think they will actually move Sullivan over to the junior seat and bring Craig back to command the mission.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Julie protested.
“What? Craig is the senior-most astronaut right now,” Hill said.
Jules narrowed her eyes at the man. “Second-most. I taught the man almost everything he knows.”
“Ah,” the doctor said, raising his head to look downward along his nose at her. “Perhaps the higher-ups want a commander who is, shall we say, less egocentric?”
“That’s pretty strong, Doc,” Jules said, giving the man an intense look.
“It’s true, though. They want more even-tempered nauts on this mission. It will be a long mission in close quarters, so the personality profiles are just as important as the other factors in determining suitable candidates.”
“Then you should know that Craig grounded himself. He won’t apply for this. He also has family,” Jules countered.
“Yes, but they are all grown, and his grounding had more to do with his wife’s illness. With her passing, he has nothing to risk now, really.”
“You call a man’s life nothing to risk? Doesn’t that go against your Hippocratic oath, good doctor?” Jules said, sarcasm in her voice.
“You exaggerate,” he said. “The truth sometimes is not . . . convenient. I understand that. It’s part of the risk we take even being here in space. Do you realize that the safety record for NASA was once estimated to be at only ninety-eight percent?”
“That’s not a bad percentage,” Jules countered.
“No, it isn’t. Not for one trip, one mission, or one incident. That’s why the crews were rotated, much like the bomber crews in World War Two. Twenty-five missions, and they were released despite their experience. Psychologically they had to have a goal to achieve, one that would indicate success for them. In our space program, we did the same, different crew for different missions. Each man, or woman, had to run the gauntlet only the one time, or twice at the most. It was a fair and equitable distribution of risk.”
Jules eyed the man closely. She had worked with him for years, and he had been easy to work with, until now. She didn’t know why he was saying what he was, but she didn’t like it. “So you think us old timers are expendable now?”
“Of course not. In fact, I just said that I think they will ask Commander Alders to return to space operations. Quite the opposite, I might add.”
“He’s rusty, hasn’t commanded a shuttle in over a year.”
“You sound hopeful.”
“Pragmatic.”
“Then you haven’t heard my second option,” Hill said, relaxing his arms and lowering them to the cabinet behind him and resting them on the small lip at waist level.
“What would that be?”
“Something major, and very unexpected.”
“That’s it? Major and unknown?” Jules’s eyes widened from their narrow position.
“Yes, but after hearing you, I won’t discuss this further. It will only agitate you.”
“You’re acting like a fool now, Ron,” Jules said, using the man’s first name, a breach of etiquette, even in space.
“Calm down, Miss Monroe,” the doctor said. “You know we all have our crosses to bear, and an aging woman with children isn’t exactly mission profile for what lies ahead. The execs have their reasoning for what they do, and we all must accept that.”
“Bullshit,” Julie cussed.
“Did I miss something?” a voice called from the cracked door. “May I enter, Doctor Hill?”
“Of course, Commander Sullivan,” Hill said.
A stocky man with close-cropped hair entered. He had pepper-grey hair and a gruff expression, though his eyes were bright blue and sparkled with intelligence and merriment. “Thank you. Did I interrupt you two?”
“No,” the doctor said. “We were just finishing up here. Did you need something?”
“Yes, the intel folks have a few questions for Commander Monroe, and it appears they can’t wait till she lands. They have a two way for her in the communications hub.”
Julie shifted her attention to the shorter man. “You could have used the com system for that, Neil.”
“I could have,” the man said, “but I wanted to see how you were doing. I know you and Sanchez were close, and I heard what happened to Tom McClain as well. I understand that you had a special working relationship with him too, so I decided to come down in person and check up on you.”
“Thank you, but I don’t need checking on. I’ll be fine,” Jules said, looking at the doctor with a look that asked are we finished yet?
“Yes, well,” Hill began. “We’re done here, so if Miss Monroe would like to, she can take that call from landside.”
Julie jumped up and walked gingerly over to the door where Sullivan opened it wider for her. “Let’s go,” she said.
Julie walked through the door and toward the small lift that would take them to the zer
o gee of main bulk of the ship where a coms station was located due to its stability on the non-rotating part of the ship. Sullivan looked at Hill, and the doctor could only shrug and frown.
“What did you do to her?” the commander asked, his voice low as he stepped back and prepared to close the airtight door, another safety procedure they had to follow.
“I didn’t do anything,” Doctor Hill said. “She’s still upset at what happened to her copilot and one of her mentors Earth-side.”
“Yeah, that was a damn shame. Neither deserved that.”
“None of us do,” Doctor Hill said, “but I fear there will be more deaths before this has played out.”
“You don’t sound like the doctor I know.”
Jules’s voice came across loud and clear from where she waited not far away for the commander to join her. It was a long trip in the lift, and they would travel together. “Sometime today, Commander.”
Sullivan started to close the door when Doctor Hill spoke one last time. “Take care, Commander. In this race, we’re all expendable.”
“Damn,” Sullivan said, and shut the door.
Chapter 8
Genetics
National Security Agency
Fort Meade, Maryland
In the near future, Year 2, Day 8
The first tour of the lab at NSA headquarters was heavy on tour and light on details. Marge asked for a chance to review the data, and since they weren’t scheduled to return to Houston till the next day, Mr. Smith made arrangements for her to use a secured laptop with the work done so far on the genetic code downloaded onto its hard drive. He also arranged for a security detail of undercover agents at their hotel nearby, one chosen by the agency and assumedly vetted for security issues.
Early the next morning, the shuttle vehicle arrived to pick them up and take them back to the laboratory where they met with Doctor Navari and Mr. Smith. An arrangement was also made for Rock to work with Admiral Nicholson’s chief of staff on their flight back in making the necessary modifications to Red Horizon to accommodate the military parameters of the mission.
“So have you had time to think about the work that we’ve done here so far?” Mr. Smith got right to the point.
“I hardly think one afternoon and evening warrants a question like that,” Rock said as the group stood around a lab table where several monitors lay flat, projecting their displays onto a flat glass table surface.
“It’s all right, Richard,” Marge said formally to her boss. “I’m sure Mr. Smith simply wants to know if there’s anything they could have overlooked.”
“Quite right,” Mr. Smith said.
Marge took a step closer to the table and moved one of the monitors with a specialized mouse wheel so that its display came up on the glass tabletop. “So, the basic genome is here.” She pointed at a miniature scale model of a human DNA strand. She zoomed in on one section and pointed to a pair of chromosomes. “Here is where we think the two genetic traits that differ significantly from a normal human genome occur, right?”
“Yes.” Doctor Navari moved to her side, looking down at the table. “Only a small percentage of any genome strand is considerably different, but that percentage makes us who we are. The part of the code that differed in any meaningful way was at chromosomes eighteen and nineteen as numbered on the Hoagbart scale.”
“Right, when I looked deeper at the protein coding in each chromosome, something interesting occurred to me,” Marge said, leaning back up and looking around at her companions. “The exact marker that was tagged most closely resembles that of fish DNA; however, when you look at the genetic order and structure of the amino acids within them, I saw something eerily similar to reptilian DNA.”
“We looked at all protein paring, to include reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. There were no similarities that registered as indicating a viable match,” Navari said, standing upright to face the taller Doctor Jones.
“Right, because reptiles are cold-blooded,” Marge said.
“So are fish,” Doctor Navari countered.
“That’s why your supercomputers came up with a blank,” Marge said.
“Wait a second,” Mr. Smith interrupted, “are you saying that a closer match for the DNA coding pulled from the alien signal is reptilian and not fish?”
“She already stated that the coding wasn’t really fish related,” Jack chimed in, looking at Rock for any objection.
“Yeah, why ask for her opinion if you’re not going to listen to it,” Lisa added, eager to defend their colleague.
“No one is disagreeing,” Mr. Smith stated, holding up both hands, motioning them to silence. Apparently his often-held portfolio found its way to a table behind him.
“You said cold-blooded?” Navari asked, looking at Marge.
“Yes,” Marge confirmed, and the rest of the group fell silent.
“Why cold-blooded? Both species are ectothermic, quite the opposite of us,” Navari said.
Marge nodded. “That is the entire point. The DNA sequencing can’t be looked at in a vacuum. At the chromosome level, it looks fish-like. At the amino acid level, it can look reptilian, but the key difference here is in the programming of your DNA analyzer or sequencer—”
“We use a sequencer,” Smith said.
“All right, then, the sequencer is parsing this genetic code from the alien data against the basic human genome, and it’s looking for a positive match. You haven’t programmed it to search for a positive mismatch.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Smith asked.
“It’s like trying to put a square block in a round hole,” Marge said.
Smith looked at her for a moment and then responded. “You know, I’m thinking I need to reassign Mrs. Brown to your group for the foreseeable future until we can work this out.”
The groans were audible, and an uninformed Doctor Navari asked, “Who is this Miss Brown, and is there a problem working with her?”
“It’s Mrs. Brown, and there is no problem working with her,” Rock said diplomatically, heading off any objection by Mr. Smith.
Navari looked at the expressions on Jack’s and Lisa’s faces and noted the same on Marge’s, but the man was intelligent enough not to pursue the matter any further. “I’d like for Doctor Jones to finish her thought.”
All eyes turned to Marge as she shifted her weight from one foot to another and folded her arms, a sign that Rock recognized as defensive in nature for the woman. She cleared her throat and began. “I don’t have any definitive answer. In fact, I think the issue of what the alien genetic code means needs to be analyzed in a more focused environment. By this, I mean we should first try to understand what the motives are behind the alien genetic coding and what the coding means from this construct.”
“I thought we were doing this,” Mr. Smith said.
“No, it appeared from the data I reviewed yesterday that the primary focus was solely scientific in nature. Chromosome X does this and Chromosome Y does that.”
“You would use the male makeup in a conversation like this, Marge,” Jack said, giving her a grin in the process.
“Well, if the XY combination didn’t make life so difficult, then maybe she wouldn’t have used it as her example,” Lisa chided.
A glance from Rock hushed them to silence. “Go on, Marge, finish your analogy?” Rock asked, hoping he guessed her intent with her explanation.
Marge nodded at him, and he barely noticed the corner of her upper lip curl up as she suppressed a smile, stealing a glance at Lisa before turning to face the NSA folks. Rock wondered if their relationship had improved more than he had assessed the past few years. They were all too busy to have spent much time outside of work, though Rock tried to have a BBQ every couple of months or so, a luxury even in winter when one lived in a subtropical clime.
“Yes, do finish,” Doctor Navari also urged her.
“The contextual question that begs asking here,” she began, “is why would this alien intelligence sha
re this specific genome data with us?”
“Obviously they want to help us, right?” Jack asked, looking for any approval.
“Doubtful,” Mr. Smith said. “Usually the end result of all scenarios played out in various think tanks has been that a meeting between our species and an extraterrestrial one can only end poorly for us.”
“So no ET phone home from these guys?” Jack asked.
“There’s no need to be pessimistic,” Lisa said. “I mean, we know that the genome sequence that we’ve managed to decode to date involves the proper sequencing of our genes that can eliminate cancer. That is why we have all undergone blood testing and genetic dispositioning, or has this all been a waste of time?”
“Not a waste of time,” Doctor Navari said, shaking his head. “Despite the fact that only about ten percent, or less, of all cancers have a genetic bases for risk, there are some, like the BRCA one and two genes, that definitely indicate that they are linked genetically.”
“Linked for what cancer?” Jack asked.
“Breast cancer,” both Navari and Marge said in unison.
“Sorry, please continue, Doctor Jones,” Navari said.
“Not a problem, Doctor Navari,” Marge said. “So the testing, as I understand it, is to screen us for potential issues, cancer being only but one of several, as compared to this . . . What should I call it?”
Rock almost stammered, as he wasn’t used to Marge ever being at a loss for words, especially with regards to scientific matters. “Master DNA?”
“Close enough.” Marge nodded, accepting the term. “So again, with my contextual question, I can widen its scope to ask why do we think that this DNA strand is a master prototype for humankind to strive to emulate?”
Marge waited while her audience pondered her question. The silence extended well past an acceptable wait, but she was a patient person . . . sometimes.
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