by J J Perry
“I’m OK,” Lucinda interjected.
“I know you are,” said Savanna. “You’re emotionally tough. I’m still glad that Ivanna was there.”
“I think he would have raped me. If not that, beaten me bloody. Probably both.”
“Did it bother you that he was mostly undressed?”
“No. I’ve seen everything. I was worried mostly about his fists. Besides, for a large man, he is disproportionately small.”
Lola tilted her head in curiosity, and Savanna laughed. Lucinda joined in, adding, “And very tiny compared to his ego.” Merriment filled the small room along with more phallic humor for the next minute or two.
As it died down, Savanna asked, “So are you going to take Suresh up on his offer to link up, you two single people?”
Again the mirth rose. “Is it that I drive men crazy, or only crazies fall for me?” They continued until the two ladies had tears in their eyes.
“I haven’t had a good laugh for months,” said Lucinda. “God, it feels good. What do think, Lola?”
“I sense endorphins.” The glee dam burst again as Lola looked quizzically at these humans waving, heaving and crying at a remark that simply was not funny. It took minutes for the women to gain control. They tried. They could not look at each other without giggling like preteens in church.
“I am afraid that when I see Suresh again,” Lucinda finally said, “I won’t be able to keep a straight face.”
“You’ll have company, hon.”
Lucinda’s mood eased into serious. “I don’t feel alone anymore. I mean, I could have used my family here to help me get past the last couple of months, but the crew has been great, especially you, Savanna. Especially you.” Lucinda looked into Savanna’s eyes. “I don’t feel single.” She smiled. “I feel like I have some of the intimacy we hope to find in marriage and seldom do. At least, I didn’t and I know you don’t. I am closer to some of my crewmates than I ever was with Chen. There is a closeness that goes beyond those brief moments when a man and woman climax that has nothing to do with sex. It hovers there day after day. Some people find that in marriage, many do not. I loved and still love Chen as my husband. But I feel closer to you and Maricia as dear friends.”
The two women leaned forward and hugged. Lola left the room. Her input was clearly not needed.
After Suresh has been moved to Medical, Cyrus walked into CAC where Raul was monitoring the ship and the drama below. “How do you want me to cover this in the log, boss?”
Cyrus thought for a moment. “Good question. I see no advantage in hiding anything. What do you think?”
“You could make an argument that if people back home learn that our Oxford PhD had a psychotic break and was in a G-string and Mohawk in his lab cooking up molecules, they might be less enthusiastic about funding this whole program.”
“If we avoid full disclosure, this hampers the program’s ability to prevent the problem or treat it on ship. We don’t have one of those Psychotropions on board. We have no good way of treating his illness.”
“Psychosis has been reported on at least two other REAPs.”
Cyrus paused in thought. “I didn’t know that.”
There were several things Cyrus didn’t know. One was the prediction that two of the crew would come apart, one of which just had. “I think they skipped over that little detail in the briefings. I had to search the logs to find it. I found a few other missions that reported, quote, behavioral anomalies that were not classified as psychotic. None of this is mentioned in the executive summaries.”
“Well,” Cyrus said slowly, “I think that answers the question. We need to report it, bring attention to the two other missions where this has occurred, and recommend putting a treatment system on future missions. Are you OK with that?”
“I still think it could be a negative, especially if we point out the other events. It makes the program look like it was hiding something. Mental illness is such a black box.”
“That is not our problem. We need full disclosure. The next two missions depend on that. REAP 24 leaves fairly soon. It will take a long time to ask Control if they want us to report this event in entirety, get a reply, and send the data. I appreciate the political ramifications, but I would like you to write it up, append a little video from Gnawcoeur’s transmission, and let me see it before you send it.”
“Got it, chief. I’ve got another hour and some change on the bridge. When you relieve me, I’ll finish the report and get it to you priority.”
“How long will it take for the message to get there?”
“Days. It’s a long ways away.”
“It should get there in time, then. Savanna is going to take over from you, a schedule change. I’m doing the late shift after I catch a little sleep. Thanks, Raul.”
4.0
LAUNCH + 141
Maricia blinked the sleep away and stretched, warm and rested in satin sheets. The smell of coffee turned her head to Raul standing shirtless at the bedside, holding a steaming cup. It was a beautiful vision, once she could see. Bronze skin, enough muscle without looking like a body builder, just enough chest hair to be manly but not wooly. And his sleepy big brown eyes. Stretching again, she sat up slightly and reached for her drink with the words “Thank you, sweetie” croaking from her throat. “You are too nice to me.”
“Not nearly as nice as you deserve.”
A soft decrescendo “hmmm” was her reply as she sipped. It was one of the infrequent nights without other duties—a night that began with dinner and entertainment followed by sweet romance and then blissful sleep. Each of the personal quarters had two walls and a ceiling with programmable lighting and imaging. Raul called up an early Caribbean sunrise, pink frothy clouds, and a smell of ocean, ginger, and hibiscus filling the room.
“I wonder what the Paulsons are doing this morning i Danmark?” He knew a little Danish that was almost English.
“I bet my dad is fixing Sunday breakfast,” Maricia replied. They played this game often. They had no idea what day it was back home. “He probably has Jamaican coffee on, some cut fruit, and either muffins or eggs Benedict almost ready. My mom is probably looking at the news, reading glasses on with those silver chains dangling to frame her face. She is wearing her soft blue robe that is, I swear, a hundred years old. They are probably talking about my sister, Inge, or me or our lovely spouses. Or is it ‘spice’? Hmm. Maybe they’re talking about driving up to Skagen or down to Aalborg, if the weather is good. I love Skagen. I don’t think there is a prettier place in the world.”
“You really miss them.”
“How could you tell? What do you think the Trujillos are doing?”
“I imagine my parents are at the villa on Majorca, enjoying mellow guitar music between arguments and flying fry pans.”
“You dork.”
“Well, that’s reality.”
“I doubt it, Raul. I think you have selective memory.”
“Maybe.”
“Right now, I am happy and all is right. I want to think of things as they should be. This totally artificial sunrise is the way it should be, not what we are doing, approaching the speed of light like sardines in a tin.”
“Agreed.”
“I am well rested and satisfied, several times over I might add. I am at total peace in the moment.”
“Good. I’m going to pedal around the Pyrenees for a while before I go to work. Will you miss me?”
“Maybe.” She watched his him pull on a crew shirt and leave their small room. She lay semirecumbent, enjoying the coffee. She called up some images of her family that played on one of the walls, mixed in with the sunrise ambience. She watched them walk in the dunes and the tall, amber grass toward the Skagerrak and the Kattegat, the seas that collided at the tip of Jutland, shaping it to a fine point. The image zoomed from the family of happy Danes to the waves cr
ashing out in a giant V as far as the eye could see into the misty horizon. This was the picture from her childhood, one that could be seen for only half the year or less recently. The Seas were now choked with ice, sometimes frozen solid. The last few decades, people walked between Denmark and Sweden when the ice flow was too thick for breakers to keep the shipping lanes open, often more than a week. Her brother along with many other Scandinavians had moved to Australia. She hated the change. The future made her afraid as did the history of the pandemic. She felt powerless to change it. Her urge to help led her down the path to where she lay, speeding off from one fleck in the universe to another—on her way to almost certain death, which she did not fear. She was at least doing something. Her isolation and separation from her family was balanced by her desire to save them and so many others. It almost compensated. She turned over and cried.
After the cleansing release of the morning, Maricia reached to a shelf and clicked on her scanner to do a quick crew assessment as she did every morning. Five signals were on the second and third floors. Raul was moving around the Recreation room where the virtual reality exercise equipment was located. Lucinda was also there, probably on a treadmill. Savanna was on the seventh floor, on duty. Cyrus and Suresh were in quarters.
Problem detected.
Suresh’s signal was motionless in his bathroom without vital signs. Jerking naked out of bed, she hit history and saw that the locator signal had not moved in hours. Her immediate mental image was that he was dead on the floor, eyes partly open and glazed over, his skin cool as dough.
She slid into her pants and top as she hurried from her room to his around the circular corridor. His door was locked. She pounded and called out his name and then was about to activate the emergency access to enter.
“Yes, what is it?” he answered calmly through the door, the sound muffled, barely audible.
She was shocked. “Suresh, are you OK?”
He cracked the door open slightly. “Yes. Never been better, Maricia. So nice to see you. Why do you ask?”
“I was checking on your locator, and your vital signs were, uh, not good.”
“Yes. That damn locator is a nuisance, very intrusive and obviously very incorrect at the moment.” Only a sliver of his face was visible.
“Suresh, would you open the door?”
“Certainly. Give me a moment to get dressed.” The door latched and locked.
While waiting, Maricia hit a general scan on her handheld to relocate everyone, looking specifically for Einstein and Gnawcoeur. They were both one floor up, close enough for now, if she needed help. She saw Raul and Lucinda’s signals almost superimposed, heart rates high, exercising together one floor down, and she smiled. That was good, she thought, but they’re awfully close. She called Lucinda on the COM. She didn’t answer. Finally, the door opened.
Suresh stood in a dark-blue silk robe, open to just below his naval, smiling. His brown skin provided little contrast with the robe. “Would you like to come in?”
“Did you spill something on your robe?” Maricia looked at a glistening stain near the bottom of his ribs on the left.
“No.”
She reached out and touched it. Looking at her fingertip, she saw blood and backed away.
“I believe you were concerned with my locator. Perhaps, Maricia, my lovely, you would like to analyze it,” he said as he withdrew his left hand from the pocket of his robe and extended it. Opening his palm, the bloody locator appeared. “Please, take it. It seems like it’s a violation of my rights, my privacy. I deactivated its alarms, but I couldn’t turn it off completely, so I, well, here it is.” His hand remained extended. “Please.”
Maricia reached forward and took it, watching the expression on his face. His smile was genuine and unchanging. “Would you like to come in? I would enjoy the presence of a beautiful woman, a human.”
“No, I would not.” She took a step back.
“If there is nothing else, I need to back to my personal project.”
“Nothing, Suresh. Not a thing. Go ahead.”
As the door slid closed, he continued to smile at her. She walked back to her room, locked the door, and sat on the bed, looking at the locator in disbelief. She put Suresh’s locator on a counter and went to rinse off the blood. She was told once in her medical training—when things go wrong, go wash your hands. That seemed like a stupid joke at the time. It turned out to be great advice. The little pause gave you just a minute to think.
Her communicator chirped, startling her. Ivanna’s voice sounded, “I am on my way to your room. It appears that Dr. Parambi is dead in your room. Do you need help?”
“Yes, but it is not urgent.” She looked again at her scanner. It looked like she and Suresh were in her room, their signals superimposed. Everyone else was in the same place, working, sleeping, or exercising—like crazy.
She wanted to call Savanna for some emotional support and advice, but it could wait one minute. She took her scanner and walked one flight down to Recreation. The door was closed. She silently slid inside. She met the grunt and stench of passion. An exercise bra dangled from a bicycle. Raul’s T-shirt was on the floor. Lucinda’s head was moving to and fro, her face down, hair falling around it. She tossed her head back, pained ecstasy contorting her face, eyes closed, her loud, rhythmic moans a climbing crescendo into orgasmic screams. Raul growled unseen on the floor. Maricia could not breathe. Stifling a wail of pain, she flew back to her quarters.
Ivanna was waiting in the room, turning the bloody device around, examining. Maricia loosed a primal scream when the door was closed. She struggled to think and not to cry.
“You find this upsetting,” Ivanna said.
“I am more upset about something else.” She called to Savanna on the bridge. She answered promptly. Maricia spoke, “We have another problem with genius Parambi.” Maricia could tell Savanna was accessing a screen. “He removed his locator.”
“It looks like he is in your room.”
“His locator is sitting on a counter. He’s in his room, bleeding.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “That’s not good.”
“Apparently, our limited psyche resources are more of a problem than—Oh, shit, who would have thought we would need psychosurgical tools? This is his second serious relapse.”
“Calm down, Mar.”
“He’s completely gone! Looney as hell and, for all I know, homicidal.”
“What do you propose?”
I have called one of the med-bots down for help with the laceration and sedation as well as security. As for the psychiatric issue, I’m not sure how to proceed.”
“What does Lucinda think?
“I haven’t asked her. I tried. She was”—she swallowed hard and exhaled to keep what little control she possessed—“occupied. So I guess I’ll see what I get done with the med-bots.”
“What in the hell is going on in Rec?”
“Lonely woman and hot Spaniard. I can’t deal with two major disasters, and that one will need to wait. Come down here if you can, Sav. I really need you.”
“Look at that. Oh god. Mar, I’ll leave the bridge. Get both Einstein and Gnawcoeur down there. I would call Cyrus, but he has only had a couple of hours of sleep.”
In a few minutes, Einstein and Gnawcoeur stood together with Maricia and Savanna outside the lift on the quarters floor. They briefly coordinated the approach to subduing Suresh. They moved toward his door, Ivanna in the lead. She opened the door and called out his name. There was no response. The small room was silent. His bed was made, firm and taut in strict military style. There was perfect order in the room, with no clothing visible, looking like the place had never been used other than some blood drops on the floor, a trail leading from the bathroom. Following the trail, they found only a makeshift scalpel in the sink and a wad of bloodied cloth, ripped, it seemed from a shirt. Ther
e was no one in either room.
Savanna looked again at her locator display in wishful thinking. She watched frenetic movement of Raul and Lucinda, locators now separated. The pattern of movement struck her as odd. “Maybe Suresh has moved to the second floor. We should check it out.”
“I really don’t want to go to the second floor right now.” Maricia choked on her words.
“Raul and Lucinda are moving.”
“Tell me about it. We don’t need to deal with them now, Savanna.”
“I mean they split quickly apart and are now stationary, separated by quite a distance.”
“Slam, bam. Time for a cigarette.”
“Something’s not right. Maybe something to do with Suresh.”
“If you say so. I don’t want to go there.” She was emphatic, on the verge of tears.
Savanna squeezed Maricia’s arm. “I need your help if we find the big guy doing mischief.”
4.1
Lola was assigned to the elevator, to keep it on the second floor, locked down. Savanna stopped at a control panel and locked down Engineering to prevent entry. She closed the stair entry to floors above three. These measures could all be overridden, but it would cause a delay, perhaps the time they might need if the situation deteriorated further. They had to isolate Suresh and subdue him if needed. Ivanna and Maricia moved ahead, taking the single flight of stairs down. Ivanna in the lead, they exited the stairwell cautiously. Ivanna needed no display to find the locators and turned toward the Recreation area. Maricia called out, “Raul, Lucinda, where are you?”
There was no response for a long few seconds. “We are in Rec, having a discussion with Suresh,” Lucinda responded, a tremor in her voice.
Ivanna and Maricia entered. Lucinda stood naked in a corner, forearms crossed over her breasts, hyperventilating and dripping in sweat. They could barely see Raul behind Suresh. They were both trapped. “I found them together in blind passion,” said Suresh quietly. “I caught them in flagrante delicto.”