Star Noir

by Paul Bishop

  “Do you care to repeat that, Colonel? I’m asking about the deviations you saw in the arachnids.”

  “I said, it beats me.”

  “That’s your entire report? Three words?”

  Slade shrugged. “I really didn’t count ʼem.”

  “Computer, play back my timestamp from the cockpit recording in Colonel Slade’s spinner,” the man instructed.

  Lin Wu blinked, and Slade’s conversation with his flight played through the room’s audio system.

  “That’s a new one,” he said aloud.

  “What’s up, skipper?” said Simpson.

  “Will-o’-the-wisps,” Slade said. “Phantom spiders. They’re there, then they’re not.”

  “Share some of that locoweed with the rest of us, Slade.” Dak chuckled.

  “Rime Ice-3 reports ghosts on the periphery,” Jen said.

  “That’s enough.” Stevens leaned across the table and directed his questions to Slade alone. “What’s a will-o’-the-wisp?”

  “Carolina swamp gas. Balls of light presumed to be ghosts. Haints.”

  “Phantoms?”

  “Are you playing a game, Stevens?”

  “You tell me, Slade. Or was it only…ah”—he checked his notes—“loco weed?”

  “Okay,” he said coldly. “I’m not sure what the hell we saw out there. We were all under considerable strain. We’ve never had to herd ʼnids in the dark with those kinds of extreme temperatures. Readings were all over the place. We lost four people.”

  “At the moment, I’m not interested in your lost people or your excuses. I’m interested in your description of what you saw.”

  “You’ll get it in my written report after it’s gone through the chain of military command.”

  “You owe me an explanation,” said Stevens. “Computer, play the second audio clip.”

  The first voice Slade heard was Dak’s. Then he and Lin Wu chimed in.

  “Holy Christ, lookit their airspeed,” said Dak.

  “Lin Wu, clarify bug telemetry,” Slade said as the air exploded around him. “This can’t be right.”

  “Bugs are now transonic,” the AI informed him.

  The room was quiet for almost a full sixty seconds. Finally, Stevens broke the silence. “Spiders that fly faster than the speed of sound?”

  Slade held his hands out on the table, palms up. “You’ll get it in my written report.”

  “I want it now,” the man insisted. “I want you to tell me what you people are playing with out there.”

  “So that you can claim a patent on the discovery—whatever it turns out to be? So you can be the first one to log a research paper looking into the ghost spiders of Beacon Valley?” His voice grew louder the longer he talked. “No, sir. I’m telling you that you’ll get the details in my official report. Not before.”

  The scientist shrugged and tossed his pen on the legal pad. “Look,” he said. “We all know the military is here for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to test and develop whatever kind of weapon you can construct from the latest glop of Biodome goo.”

  “Funny, that’s what we think about you guys,” he retorted.

  “If you’re weaponizing the arachnids, say so.”

  “I have no knowledge of any program to weaponize anything on Antarctica. Can you say the same?”

  “Fair enough,” Stevens responded evenly. “But remember this—we’re not the ones withholding information. Every report we get from your higher-ups has more redactions than actual content. Meanwhile, every report you get from us comes with three layers of verification.”

  “And a thin film of bullshit,” Dak interjected.

  “Bullshit greases the wheels of progress, Captain,” the researcher said with a smile. “What you’re dumping on me today is a septic tank. Forgive me if I think it smells bad.”

  “You have access to Lin Wu’s transcript,” said Slade.

  Stevens rubbed his temples. “See that’s the thing,” he said and ignored the hologram to address Slade. “The minute your AI logged the encounters, our systems analyzed the data and determined the creatures you encountered can’t exist.”

  “As opposed to insects with hummingbird wings,” he countered.

  “Arachnids,” said Stevens. “Not ghosts who travel faster than sound.”

  “So what do you think we saw?”

  “We have zero workable theories for other types of life. Even with a complete bestiary from the Biodome, our computer models don’t recognize the possibility of non-arachnid patterns in Antarctica. There’s no physical connection to the dome facility in Africa and frankly, we’re working on theories that this may be a new phenomenon entirely.”

  “So since your computer doesn’t understand it—poof—it doesn’t exist.” He snapped his fingers. “Maybe our AI is simply smarter than yours.”

  “Your AI is an emotional bio-unit constructed for military benefit.”

  If Slade didn’t know better, he’d think he heard Lin Wu sniff.

  “Don’t let ʼem insult you,” he told her.

  She smiled reassuringly.

  The bastards.

  Without Lin Wu’s continued functioning, the base would be severely crippled, at best. Without the countless operations she controlled on a daily basis, they’d in all likelihood all be dead in a week.

  Slade stood, picked his comms-unit up, and nodded at Dak. “I will have a cup of coffee, after all, Captain. I’ll check in on the search and rescue efforts regarding Commander Morocco one more time. After that, please meet me at the fire. Say, in one hour.”

  She nodded with a knowing expression.

  “Meanwhile, Dr. Stevens, unless you know where our missing base commander is, I’ll ask you to leave me and my people alone. I’d tell you to go out and play in the snow, but I assume you’re about stupid enough to do it.”

  “I wouldn’t take that chance either, sir,” Lin Wu said with a smug expression on her face.

  “Was that a joke?” Stevens demanded and looked at the hologram for the first time. “Did she actually make a joke at my expense?”

  “You’d better run it past your computer models to find out,” Slade snarked. He cocked his finger at Dak like it was a gun. “One hour,” he said.

  “I’ll be there.”

  He knocked on the hatchway to her quarters exactly when he said he would.

  She let him in, handed him a warm cup, and kissed him on the mouth. “God-awful green tea, a portable electric heater dolled up to look like a fireplace, my great-aunt’s quilt, and a gorgeous blonde willing to jump your bones. What more can you ask for?”

  Dak wrinkled her nose and fell back onto a battered futon that served as one of two pieces of fancy furniture in her shoebox quarters. He sat in the guest chair, a torn vinyl upholstered recliner.

  It was better than the plastic conference room chairs.

  Slade sipped his tea and gazed into the fake fire. “I could ask for answers,” he said.

  “About the god-awful tea or the jumping-the-bones part?”

  His smile in the room’s dim light was warm and genuine.

  “I found the tea outside, frozen in a glacier,” she explained. “I think it dates back to Amundsen. As for the romp, I merely thought it sounded like fun. We have twenty more weeks until morning.”

  Dak was thirty years old, three years younger than him but a better pilot—a natural pilot with unerring instinct. A born warrior, she was muscular with long, curling torrents of blonde hair that splashed across her freckled shoulders and down her ample breasts. Her stomach was flat, her hips the right amount of round, and her legs could carry a man to eternity and back.

  She took his cup, refilled it from a stainless-steel thermos, and handed it back. “I suspect you’d rather talk about Commander Morocco.”

  Her green eyes were all about the emerald heartland and her lips about the breath of summer. She grew up hunting rabid coyotes on the prairie and later, heartland drug kingpins in the big Midwest ci
ties. She had been the best at her job until things got too hot.

  As a result, she was stationed at Endurance until things cooled down.

  “What do you think happened to her?” he asked. “Lin Wu lost track of Jennifer at the same time we did—immediately before the blister storm.”

  “The commander’s magnets were showing orange. Was she in the storm too?”

  “Yeah, right on top of me,” Slade confirmed. “For a minute anyway. We were both moving pretty fast.”

  Dak sipped her tea and made a face.

  “This stuff really is bad,” she said.

  He agreed.

  They sat in silence for a while before she said, “You need to rest. Tearing yourself up over the mission won’t help Jennifer.”

  “We saw them, didn’t we, Dak? We saw the spiders glow and fade from view?”

  “Rime Ice Three logged it. I didn’t see anything.”

  “Lin Wu did.”

  “About that,” she said. “Have you noticed something wonky about—”

  His comm unit buzzed to life. “Emergency alert, Colonel.”

  He identified the origin as the station guard at wing three.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?”

  “Somebody came knocking on the door. Literally.”

  “Spiders?”

  “It was Commander Morocco, sir.”

  Slade leapt to his feet. “Where is she?”

  “Medical space in lab four,” the soldier said. “She’s froze up pretty bad. I don’t think she’s gonna make it.”

  4

  He was finally able to see her on Monday evening.

  They were back from the mission and done with the debriefs around lunchtime. Slade’s ten-minute interlude with Dak had lasted long enough to get his feet warm and he now had three pairs of socks stuffed into his regulation boots and despite that, his toes were cold all over again.

  Seeing Jennifer blue and limp and finding her glass flight suit shattered and her green undersuit and black thermomesh torn chilled him to the core. He knew what the outside could do to people but he’d never seen it happen to a spinner pilot who should’ve been protected in the event of a bailout.

  He felt responsible for whatever had gone wrong out there.

  But at the same time, he held onto the one positive he had.

  She was alive.

  In the dark of the ICU, he stood helpless and stared while the medics wrapped and rewrapped her in a cocoon of electronic warming tissue. The entire time that they attached monitors and filled in charts on electronic tablets, a single question nagged at him. What would they find?

  “You ought to get some sleep now,” Dak said beside him and squeezed his hand.

  “It’s not that late.”

  “But you’ve had a hell of a day. We all have. And nothing’s going to change here until tomorrow.”

  “She might not make it,” he said.

  “You don’t need to be here for that.”

  “I’m squadron leader,” he said. “Up in the sky, I’m responsible for my flight.”

  “And here on the ground, she’s in charge,” she pointed out. “What do you think Jen would tell you to do?”

  Dak was right, as always. In all probability, it would be hours before Jennifer woke up. Until then, he needed to unwind and regroup. “There’s no way I can sleep.”

  “I have an idea,” she replied.

  He knew the playful look in her eye all too well. “All joking aside,” he said quickly.

  “Joking aside,” she said. “We’ll go for three throws out of five.”

  “Ha.” Slade threw his arm around her shoulders. “You have a deal.”

  The duo reconvened in the gymnasium, both wearing Rime Ice Squadron t-shirts and black karate gis.

  They worked out on the mat for an hour, tossed roundhouse kicks, twisted through armbars and hip rolls, and played a dozen round of push hands until their forearms smarted.

  It provided the outlet he needed for his frustration and tension. They sparred and rough-housed until they were out of breath, burned off the day’s strain, and worked their bodies until there was nothing left to do but collapse into a shower and fall into bed—each of them alone.

  He slept for ten hours before Lin Wu woke him.

  “Message from Doctor Stevens for you,” she said.

  Hadn’t he told that guy to leave him alone? But maybe there was news on Jen’s condition.

  Slade sat and answered too quickly. “What is it? Is she okay?”

  “Slade? It’s Stevens. Ron Stevens, with the science lab?”

  He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyelids and massaged the back of his head with his fingers. His body was wet with sweat.

  “Sure. Yes, of course. What can I do for you, doctor?”

  “Listen, I know we didn’t get off on the best foot yesterday.”

  “Why are you calling, Ron?”

  “Well, it’s complicated, but…”

  Slade sensed that the scientist was trying to be humble, something he likely didn’t have much experience with. He spared him the awkward fumbling.

  “Yesterday doesn’t matter. What can I do for you today?”

  Relief flooded Stevens’ voice. “It’s the ticks, Colonel. You were right about the ticks. There is something new on Endurance Base, and I guess I don’t blame you for being cautious. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I’ve worked the Sahara Desert dome for the past two years. Let me tell you, I’ve seen some weird stuff.”

  “And this qualifies as weird?”

  The look on the man’s face spoke volumes. “More than weird. In fact, I don’t even want to say it over the link. Meet me in Lab Space Four in half an hour?”

  “You’re in Jennifer’s wing?”

  “Jennifer? Oh, yeah. The commander. Yeah. Sorry, I—oh, hey. I’ll bet when I called you thought I had news about—oh, man. Sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  “From what I gather, things are stable with the commander. If that helps.”

  Slade closed his eyes, feeling the release of tension in his shoulders and back. He felt a surge of energy and realized he was hungry.

  “I’ll see you in Lab Space as soon as I have breakfast,” he said. “Slade out.”

  He walked to his half-filled water bottle and, after draining the contents, slipped into uniform.

  Whatever was bothering Ron Stevens would have to wait.

  After he grabbed coffee and one of the bakery’s zillion-calorie pastries to go, he would check in on Jen.

  He had no idea when he’d fallen in love with her.

  With his unopened sack of breakfast, he strode through the corridors of the base, checked in with the perimeter guards and utility reps, and worked through his morning routine but it all felt phony and contrived. He went through the motions, but his only real concern was a slender girl from Greece who wanted to be a veterinarian because she loved animals and who ended up working for the government because of the Biodome. He’d read her files. In some ways, he knew Jennifer Morocco better than she knew herself because he was fresh and up to date with things that she only vaguely remembered.

  Like when she was five and fell off her horse. She had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days.

  He planned to lead with that in mind. As soon as she woke up, he wanted to be there.

  But when he reached the Med Space cubicle, she was already seated and ate breakfast on a portable meal tray.

  Slade wheeled the tray gently away from her bed, careful not to bump the IV pole with its two plastic fluid bags and adjustable drip tubes that led to a strip of gauze taped to her arm.

  The room was barely big enough for the bed.

  With the food tray, electronic monitoring equipment, and miles of plastic tubing, it felt claustrophobic. The metal walls were layered with the thick pastel-green paint of his great-grandma’s bathroom, and the floor was an off-white laminate. The place smelled like every health care facility in the worl
d—a mixture of chemicals and urine, clean plastic, fresh rubber, hotel brand linens, and raw, unfiltered humanity.

  “It’s a wonder anyone gets well in a place like this,” Slade said. “I brought you real coffee. And a warm pastry if you can have it.”

  Jen dusted her hands on a napkin. “I can and will have it later. I just finished a bacon biscuit and orange juice.”

  “Has the doctor been in yet?”

  She shook her head. “Only an old physician’s assistant with a grumpy bedside manner. He said the doc is waiting on a couple of tests. But he did bring me the biscuit, so there you go.” She shrugged. “What are you gonna do?”

  “You look good,” he commented.

  It wasn’t a lie. Compared to the battered, frostbitten figure he’d seen carried in the night before, she seemed as healthy as a rose. Her hands were wrapped in gauze and she wore a white bandage on one cheek and across her nose. Someone had pulled her hair into a ponytail and her tired eyes had half the sparkle they usually did—a sparkle he hoped the ice would never quench for good.

  “Do you feel like talking?” he asked, opened his bakery sack, and popped the lid on his coffee.

  “I’d like that,” she said. “Maybe it’ll help me make sense out of what happened to me.”

  Slade parked his hip on the end of the bed and waited.

  “Do you need to be anywhere?”

  “Take your time.” He glanced at his watch. “For you, I have all the time in the world.”

  Jen closed her eyes and offered him a grim smile. “I wish I could remember more. I’ve run it through my head all morning and—well, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s a dream.”

  “Hypothermia’s tricky that way,” he said. “You go beyond cold to the point when, as your body shuts down, you actually feel warm and sleepy. The most frightening time is when you think about death and it’s no longer frightening. Many people hallucinate then.”

  “You sound like you’ve been there,” she said.

  “Only once.”