REAP 23

by J J Perry

  “Before you start,” Raul interrupted, “Maricia, did you read that REAP 22 lost communication abruptly about a month prior to schedule?”

  “No. That sounds bad.”

  “The mission is probably lost.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Destroyed.”

  She knew the crew, had said her farewells, and knew she would never see any of them again in this life. It was still a disappointment at the minimum. “Cyrus, how does that make you feel?”

  “We all know the risks.” His response was devoid of emotion.

  “We do. What we know is not how we feel.”

  He said nothing. Raul went to say something to his wife, but she shook her head.

  After an uncomfortable delay, Cyrus became hostile. “I’m not in the mood for a session on the couch. I’m the commander. My feelings, if I had the luxury of having some, are irrelevant. So let’s get on with your damn issues with running CAC and forget the emotional crap.”

  “Duly noted, Commander.” Maricia had the information about his emotional state she needed and didn’t like.

  Lucinda was relaxing in her quarters, lying on her bed, looking at the computer-generated changing patterns of colors on the ceiling. Nothing was scheduled for days. The medical section doldrums made her numb, listless. She got up and sat at her desk. She noted a new posting of news from Control and opened it. She knew all eight people on crew 22. Two of them she knew very well because they had been assigned first to crew 23, and both were from California. The man, another Asian American from Caltech, had been a close friend of Chen. Their target had been half as far and in a different direction, toward Cassiopeia. The report left her with an aura of oppression. The realities of idealism hit her with full force, bringing another monsoon of tears followed by fear.

  3.5

  LAUNCH + 121 DAYS

  “Commander, I think we have a problem on Science,” Lucinda called Cyrus using her communicator.

  “Now what?” His voice came with fidelity through the device.

  “Dr. Parambi has not left the fifth floor for almost twenty-four hours. He has spent over fourteen hours a day there for the last nine days. He will not answer his COM.”

  Cyrus cursed softly, a habit, as he pondered a response. “Meet me on CAC in five minutes.”

  Lucinda invited the remaining three people. She also brought the two med-bots, Ivanna and Lola. Each floor had a dominant color scheme. People trickled into the blue CAC.

  “Why is everyone here?” Cyrus asked. “I didn’t call a meeting.”

  “The medical division thought everyone should be aware of what’s going on,” Lucinda said. She explained the situation to everyone.

  “This is a potential crisis,” opined Dr. Einstein. “He needs medication, perhaps a more invasive intervention.

  “I just don’t see the need to intervene,” Cyrus said. “He is not harming anything.”

  “I wish I were so confident,” argued Savanna. “We don’t know what he is doing, since he is not logging much and no one else is in there.”

  “I’m not so worried about what he is doing,” Maricia said. “I worry about deterioration of his psychological state into something harmful to himself and the mission.”

  “He is usually quiet,” Raul offered.

  “We projected deterioration,” said Einstein. “We expected it sooner.”

  “Why didn’t I know about that?” Cyrus sat up, his attention piqued.

  “When was the last time you saw him, Raul?” Savanna asked.

  His mouth opened, but nothing came out, his brain searching for an answer. “I’m not sure. Maybe a week.”

  Lucinda called up a graph on the screen and pointed at it. “His locator log shows he leaves late and returns early, eating before he gets there and after he leaves. I assume he brings food into the lab. Looking at all the logs, I don’t see that he has been in the same room with anyone for a week.” She looked around for a dispute. Finding none, she resumed. “In the months we have been cooped up here, no one else has gone for a day without interaction. This is not normal.”

  Cyrus glanced over everyone. “Ivanna, what has he been doing?”

  “Indications are that he has been in chemistry, possibly working on tuphalonatide or something similar. He may also be working on another drug.”

  “That’s what he does,” Cyrus said. “Let a sleeping dog lie.”

  “Working day and night is not sleeping, Cy,” Raul said. “I don’t want to confront him. Maybe one of us could hang out as he leaves or returns and just see how he’s doing.”

  “Look at the graph, hon,” Maricia said. “Two weeks ago, he was spending twelve hours a day in there. A week ago, it was sixteen hours a day, and then eighteen hours, and today it’s been over twenty-four hours. It looks like this is getting worse.”

  “It’s been just about thirty hours,” Lucinda said.

  “He is dehydrated,” added Ivanna, the data transmitted from his locator. “Our assessment since departure indicates a disparity between his preselection psychological profile and our observations. We suspect chicanery.”

  “Speak English that a Dane can understand, Ivanna,” Maricia requested.

  “Someone has probably tampered with his premission records. They are inconsistent with all of our observations since mission initiation.”

  “We should blast in there, the entire crew, and see what’s going on,” Lucinda said.

  “Leave him alone,” countered Cyrus. The discussion went on, arguing about options.

  Two hours later, the debate ended, and, according to the agreed approach, Lucinda quietly climbed the single flight of stairs from Medical to the Science floor. The locator history of genius Dr. Parambi indicated he had not left the floor for over thirty-two hours. Behind Lucinda was Ivanna Gnawcoeur. One floor above, in Computing and Navigation, Cyrus waited, eyes on several screens and ears tuned. Maricia was waiting in Medical, the decision after hours of debate and compromise. She was irritated with and concerned about Cyrus. He had been difficult all day, and his arguments caused inordinate delays of a predefined crisis management protocol. She thought he had been a poor choice for commander, but the decision was computer generated.

  Of all the remaining crew, Lucinda was the least threatening. Ivanna Gnawcoeur was the strongest bot, and Parambi was strong and large. Gnawcoeur was smaller, but her mechanical and strength profile was more than double that of their current concern. His behavior had been erratic since the death of Leila. Even with the enormous computing power on board creating scenarios based on his psychological history, the best they could conclude was that he was unpredictable. He had been moving around the Science bay continuously but had slowed down slightly in the last few hours.

  Lucinda activated the entry portal. She and Ivanna entered. She called out fairly softly, “Suresh?”

  There was silence. She looked at her handheld. His locator was to her left in the chemistry section. The two women proceeded. She called out his name about every five or ten seconds. They saw the back of his head bobbing rhythmically above the cabinets. He was wearing earbuds, apparently listening to music. The sides of his head were shaved except for a thick strip of dark, oily hair running down the middle in Mohawk style. The women moved around the perimeter of the room to be in his line of sight, if he looked up. Lucinda called his name more loudly. He looked up with no expression, briefly examined the visitors, the entry, and the rest of the room and then went back to work.

  Lucinda knew everyone in the ship could see through Ivanna’s eyes, hear through her ears, and were watching and listening intently. Had someone wished, they could feel, smell, and taste what she did from the five cents booth since she was on full transmission mode. Lucinda thought she heard, through her earpiece, Maricia involuntarily gasp when Ivanna came in view of white and yellow paint on his brown face
, a mien now resembling a Maori warrior. With Ivanna three steps behind, Lucinda approached slowly with an open look. When she rounded the corner of the bench where he was working, she called out his name again.

  “Suresh.” He looked up. “We have missed you for meals. What’s up?” He was naked except for a makeshift loincloth. Lucinda’s hands went to her head and mimed the removal of earplugs when he looked at her.

  “Sorry,” he said as he took the headset down. “What did you say?”

  “We have not seen you for a while. What are you working on?”

  “Improving tuphalonatide.”

  Lucinda had an I-told-you-so moment. For a fraction of a second, she wanted to call out to the rest of crew and brag. Suresh glanced at her and then focused back on the bench and the screens before him. “So tell me about it,” she asked and then stole a look at her scope. His locator showed elevating heart rate.

  Suresh knew that, at some point, someone would try to coax or cajole him out of his domain. The visitors, therefore, were no surprise. It was, however, annoying that they sent in Lucinda. She attracted him, but he didn’t like her. It was a purely chemical reaction based mostly in his temporal lobes. He wanted to keep working, but he had to deal with this interruption in such a way that they would leave him alone for another week.

  “OK, let me think.” He blinked language into his mouth that simplified his project. “There are two phases of hibernation drugs we will take. As you know, one of them we start about a month out from sleepy time. It’s basically a tanning agent—makes our skin and organs tough. It also decreases cognitive function a little. The modification I am working on enhances neurological performance. We can be tough and smart, not durable and dumb.”

  “What have you changed?”

  “I’m moving a sulfonyl group to a different location on the peptide molecule. That modifies the shape slightly and should make it less able to block the acetylcholine receptors in the cortex.”

  “Did you research to see if that had been tried before?” Suresh turned his attention to the distractions. Ivanna moved forward and jabbed Lucinda with a finger, perhaps as a warning not to challenge him, with which he wholeheartedly agreed. “I’m sure you did, Suresh. I’m just curious.”

  “Actually, no, I didn’t. I never thought about it. It just seemed to make sense.”

  “Are you at a point where you can take a break and have some lunch?”

  “Not really. We only have a few months before we start taking this stuff. It may take that long.” His anger began to rise. “Why are you here?”

  “We have almost four months, Suresh. That’s a long time if you are going to do research by simulation. You could project thousands of subjects in a few weeks.”

  “But if it needs modifications, I’ll run out of time.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  The question made him realize that one of the feelings he was experiencing was famine. Another feeling was growing stronger. “Probably. Yeah, I think so. Is that why you’re here, to invite me to lunch?”

  “Let’s go eat.”

  “It’ll have to be quick. I should catch a quick visit with Lola.” He diverted his gaze to Gnawcoeur. “Hi, there. It’s been a week since I saw her.”

  “Do you want to get dressed before lunch?”

  He was dressed enough. His uniform had seemed constrictive. It kept him from seeing molecular configurations and interactions. This dress freed his mind as it felled the binding conformity, the oppression of societal oppression. He looked at Lucinda’s shape, the curve of her hips unsuccessfully hiding under khaki pants. Her chest was suppressed under layers of support and protection that man had wrongly imposed on her gender for thousands of years. He looked down at his loincloth as his feeling turned into a drive, a compulsion. “I love the flush, the tremble when arousal is just starting. You know. Lucinda darling, both of us are without mates.” He looked up and down, felt his arms, flexed his muscles. He moved his hands over his chest and abdomen. His gaze rose to Lucinda, taking a single step toward her. “Don’t you ever get the urge to mate?”

  He knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. It just came out and angered him. He wanted to be alone, working on his project, and then his disgusting neurotransmitters collided with neurons he thought were dormant.

  “Let’s go get lunch,” Lucinda said.

  “No. I need to focus here.” He willed himself to say those words, but his body was driving his mind out of control. “You need to leave. Now!” He didn’t want to raise his voice, and he didn’t want hormones or organs other than his brain driving his behavior. He was better than this—better than a woman, especially one that relied on robots to do the real medical work. She was a glorified nurse. Nurse. Mothers nurse, suckle infants from their breasts. Lucinda’s breasts were beautiful. He had seen them once.

  “You’re gonna starve, Suresh. Take a break.”

  He stared at her, his face flushing, heart racing, breathing accelerating. He stepped away from the work station and toward her. “This urge gets in the way of work. It is rather distracting. Compelling. Isaac Newton complained about it. He said it was vexatious.” His eyes drilled into Lucinda’s chest, boring through the Kevlar and steel fabric. She backed up a step. “But I would heartily disagree. You didn’t answer my question, Lucinda.”

  “About mating? The answer is no.”

  “That’s not natural.”

  “I thought you said you wanted lunch.”

  He looked at his screen and then back at Lucinda. Her face seemed bright, her hair lustrous, her arms beckoning, even though they were pushing up her mammary glandular masses. His thoughts collided and blended. The sizes of atoms with their electron fields and the shapes of molecular parts and bases, the complexity of peptides and organics began to morph into shapely women, like the one in front of him. When this happened, which was frequent, since he worked so much with the aphrodisiac, he knew he had to relieve his tension. His mouth uttered something stupid. “I’ve decided what I want is not on the menu. It’s standing right in front of me.”

  He knew it was a lame line, but he had nothing else in his repertoire at the moment, so he gave in to his instinct. He tugged at his loincloth and moved forward as Lucinda backed up past Ivanna, a coy move, to play with him. He’d have to work to have her. That was going to add to the experience. Lola always complied, nice but boring by this point.

  “Relax, Suresh. I just came up here to check on you, since no one had seen you in days.”

  “I would love to couple with you.” He advanced more quickly toward Lucinda, while Ivanna stepped forward to come between the two.

  Lucinda tasted the bitter bile of fear as she told him to relax. This was not going to end well for one of them, and her faith fell on the med-bot between her and the advancing stud.

  “Stop, Dr. Parambi,” Ivanna said, putting a hand out like a traffic cop.

  He slapped it away with force, a vicious grimace flitting across his face, replaced quickly by his manipulative smile as he tried to continue. Ivanna put her right hand on his chest, stopping him momentarily. He quickly cocked and fired a powerful left at her face. Her hand flew and hit him just above the wrist with a loud crack. Her right palm catapulted him up and onto his back as he shrieked in pain. He grasped his floppy hand below an anatomically incorrect forty-five-degree angle.

  “You broke my arm, you bitch! God!” He writhed in pain as Maricia and Cyrus flew into the room. Ivanna reached into a rear pocket, pulled out a small gun, and approached. Suresh kicked and screamed. She grabbed a kicking leg, hoisted it up to chest level, and put the gun on his flexing buttock, firing a sedative. He screamed louder.

  “There is one advantage of being naked, Dr. Parambi,” she said in her soft Danish voice, incongruent with the moment. “You don’t get clothing fibers injected with the dipronyl.” She caught his free leg and pinned him, reduci
ng his mobility and risk to the equipment nearby. His fighting quickly stopped.

  Ten minutes later, Suresh was in Medical, very mellow and delightfully incoherent. Maricia monitored his sedation, while doctors Gnawcoeur and Jekyll were about to start setting his fractured radius and ulna. Jekyll’s imaging enabled perfect realignment of the bones, tendons, vessels, and nerves. Forty-five minutes later, his left forearm was incased in a cast that both immobilized the limb as well as provided stimulation for bone growth and healing. In ten days or less, the fracture would be 80 percent healed. The lapse in sanity would take longer. Pharmaceuticals for common psychological issues were on board or could be created. Procedures and equipment that effectively managed severe psychiatric illness were millions of miles away and receding.

  3.6

  Dr. Lola Einstein, Savanna, and Lucinda sat on the other side of Medical, debriefing. “You remained very calm, stable vital signs and cardiac status throughout the process, Lucinda,” said Lola. “That was not predicted.”

  “I can compartmentalize when necessary.”

  “How do you feel now, Luc?” asked Savanna.

  “Like I should have been more afraid. At the time, I was dealing with what to do. Now I think about what might have happened.”

  “Frightening.”

  “As much time as I have spent around Lola and Ivanna, I have never seen them use that kind of speed and strength.”

  “As you know, the law enforcement algorithm is a routine part of the operating system in humanoid medical specialists,” added Lola. “It was unfortunate that I broke his arm. He is so strong it seemed like the best solution given the milliseconds available for decision analysis prior to a potential disruption of my operating system.”

  “Listen to you,” said Savanna. “You have lovely software.”

  “Thank you. That’s the nicest compliment I have heard in months.”

  “Well, it’s good for debriefing. Perhaps not so good for helping Lucinda at this moment.”

  “Point taken. I will adapt.”