by Unknown
Frank Zand lay back in his recliner and activated the beacon that would transmit a subspace mayday signal. He would probably be found, and rescued. Maybe he would be able to tell them he’d escaped from some terrorist who’d destroyed the Soulglobe. Possibly they’d believe it. Could be he’d go free. He’d go on living. Without her.
Yes. He would probably survive. It was what she wanted.
But not dying just didn’t feel right.
* * * * *
John Shirley’s books include the novels Demons, Crawlers, City Come A-Walkin’, Eclipse, Cellars, and In Darkness Waiting; his story collections include Black Butterflies (which won the Bram Stoker award), Living Shadows, Really Really Really Really Weird Stories and the forthcoming In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories of John Shirley. He has had stories in two Year’s Best collections, and is thought to be seminal in the cyberpunk movement. He was co-screenwriter of the film The Crow, and has written scripts for television. His newest novels are Black Glass from ESP, and Bleak History from Simon and Schuster.
Red Planet
By Bev Vincent
When Isaac awakens, he doesn’t know where he is. In the distance, there’s a muffled thrumming sound. Closer, an instrument chirps and a red dot blinks. It’s the only light, but Isaac has no trouble seeing.
His mouth is parched and his back stiff, like he’s been sleeping too long. He tries to sit up, but something is holding him down. Then it comes to him. For the past four months, he’s been in stasis aboard the Ferdinand, bound for Mars.
Their sister ship, the Isabella, is behind them, on the same course. The media dubbed the mission the Hundred Years Starship, despite the fact that there are two ships, neither of which is destined for the stars. Nothing like it has ever been attempted before: sending people on a one-way trip to colonize another planet. Isaac and his colleagues are pioneers, en route to a brave new world aboard a nuclear-powered wagon train.
The austere federal budget of 2088 made it clear that this was the only way NASA could reach Mars in the foreseeable future. It’s audacious and controversial, but the additional cost required to guarantee the safe return of the crew would eat up most of any other scheme’s budget. This way, the ships are lighter and can carry more provisions. Disposable unmanned craft delivered sophisticated robots in advance to establish the base camp and set up a fission reactor for power. Other drones will bring supplies on a regular basis. Within a decade, they hope to be completely self-sufficient.
Eight candidates were chosen from the hundreds of applicants. All underwent physical and psychological evaluation to ensure they were healthy and up to the rigors of the mission and its implications. None left behind family — that was one of the main selection criteria. They also understood that they would probably live only twenty or thirty years on Mars due to celestial radiation exposure.
Isaac was subjected to short periods of stasis during training, but emerging from that was nothing like this. Air doesn’t seem to fill his lungs when he inhales and he has a terrible thirst, unlike anything he’s experienced before. It’s specific and overwhelming: he craves blood instead of water. He also doesn’t understand why his vision is so acute. In total darkness, he can see every tube running along his body, every needle in his wrists, every sensor affixed to his chest. Could these be unanticipated side effects of prolonged stasis?
Dyer, the chief medical officer, should be attending his awakening, but there’s no sign that anyone else is up. For all he knows, he’s only been asleep for part of the journey. Perhaps a malfunction awoke him too soon. If so, he needs to rouse Dyer to put him under again — but not before he does something about this burning thirst.
He closes his eyes and tries to sigh, but his lungs won’t cooperate. He isn’t breathing, nor does he have any discernable pulse. He allows his thoughts to drift, searching for anything that might explain what’s happening. Some passing reference during their training — anything.
Instead, what flickers through his memories is a vision of frantic hands fumbling in a dark room. Clothing ripped off and cast aside. Passionate kisses. Groping. Teasing. Penetration. Blissful friction and release. Then nothingness.
He was supposed to be in quarantine, but it was his last day on Earth. Forever. His affairs were in order, his possessions sold or donated. The seven other people on the two NASA ships would be his only companions for the rest of his foreshortened life. After tomorrow, Earth would be nothing more than a minute speck in the sky, barely discernable from the stars.
Who could blame him for wanting one last fling? He was surprised NASA hadn’t arranged one for them, considering what he and his colleagues were sacrificing in the name of science. He used the cash he reserved for just such a purpose to bribe one of the flunkies keeping tabs on them into letting him out of the compound for the evening. The closest bar was dingy and dark, which suited Isaac just fine. No one gave him a second look when he strolled in. After a few drinks, he targeted a dark, exotic beauty sitting at a table near the back of the joint. Surprisingly, everyone seemed oblivious to her presence. Anywhere else, men would be swarming her.
He had enough money left to treat her to anything she wanted, but the only thing she wanted, she said, was him. She had a place nearby. After that, the night was a blur. He staggered back to the compound less than an hour before reveille. During their pre-launch checkout, the NASA doctor noticed a gash on his neck. “Won’t have to worry about shaving for a while, will you?” the man said with a snicker. The doctor also ignored Isaac’s bloodshot eyes and the reek of alcohol that a shower and mouthwash couldn’t eliminate. For all Isaac knew, his fellow crew members were in similar states. He hadn’t been the only one about to be strapped into a rocket and sent on a one-way trip into space.
He slips one hand free of the restraints that keep him from floating around in his stasis chamber. Near the tube that runs into his neck, his fingertips encounter swollen flesh and the rough edges of broken skin. If he’s been asleep for months, any injuries he sustained on Earth should have healed. Assuming he’s not dreaming, he needs to figure out what’s happening.
Isaac removes the mask from his face and the mantle of electronic sensors from his head, expecting alarms to go off.
Nothing happens.
The needles float away when he pulls the IVs from his hands. The monitoring equipment continues to chirp after he peels the patches from his chest.
He undoes the rest of his restraints and drifts to the entrance of his chamber, where he braces himself so he can open the door. There’s a hiss when the seal breaks, but he doesn’t sense any change in the air around him. He’s neither warm nor cold, and he still doesn’t seem to be breathing.
Shaking his head, he glides into the hall and examines the monitor outside his door. The mission clock reads T+128 days, which means they should gain Mars orbit in four days if they’re on schedule. He’s only a little early in waking. However, the display indicates that his vital signs all dropped to zero during the past twenty-four hours. He taps the monitor, but nothing changes.
Isaac floats up the corridor to the next compartment, the one containing Willows, the flight engineer. Her vital signs are normal. He peers through the porthole. Willows is on her back with her hands clasped across her belly. Peaceful. As he watches, he becomes fixated on the tube running into her neck. If he pulled it out, droplets of blood would appear at the puncture site and form perfect globules as they drifted into the air. He runs his tongue across his upper lip and discovers, to his amazement, something pointed at either end of the traverse. His incisors are pronounced and razor sharp.
Spinning around, he seeks the closest washroom, presenting himself to the mirror for inspection. Though the room is dark, he can clearly see, in its reflection, the metallic grey wall behind him. No matter how long he floats before it, the mirror remains innocent of his presence.
His scientific mind processes the facts and arrives at two possible explanations. He prefers the stasis nightmare option. The
only alternative is too cruel. The woman in the dive. How the others shied away from her. They knew what she was — and said nothing.
The irony of his situation doesn’t escape him — he’s 200 million kilometers from Earth and his only source of sustenance is a handful of people. He’s the first vampire in space, but he’ll also be the first to perish in space unless he comes up with a plan — fast. Stasis must have slowed his transformation, but now that he’s awake he needs to feed. Needs in a way he’s never needed anything before. He flashes back to Willows, supine in her chamber, completely vulnerable for the next two days.
Then what?
He doesn’t have time to take in the magnitude of what has happened to him. He’s been altered, turned into a creature people fear and despise, but he can’t dwell on that. His life expectancy may have increased from a few decades to forever, theoretically, but only if he can figure out how to survive. He can contemplate the implications later.
Time to put to use the problem-solving abilities that helped get him selected for the Hundred Year Starship in the first place. He sabotages his monitors to make it look like they malfunctioned, explaining why he’s awake. Then he contemplates the food situation. There’s blood in cold storage in the sick bay. How long will it last? Depends on how much he needs to survive. He’s tempted to log a request for information via computer. What would they think at Mission Control if the first communiqué they received from the Ferdinand was a query about the dietary needs of vampires?
He navigates the narrow corridors by pushing off the walls until he reaches sickbay. The room is empty and immaculate. Isaac goes straight to the refrigerator. Rows of plastic bags of whole blood line several shelves. The crew has to be prepared for any eventuality. Almost any. No one foresaw what happened to him. He rummages through drawers until he finds a 14-gauge IV needle, inserts it into a bag, and drinks from the attached tubing. He knows the blood must be cold, but warmth permeates his body instead. He feels energized, powerful.
Dangerous.
When the bag is half empty, he stops. His thirst is quenched — for now. He reseals the bag and returns it to the shelf. This supply will sustain him for a while, but it will run out eventually. The others have provisions in the orbiting freighters, and the biosphere is already producing food. What’s he supposed to do? Hitch a ride on the Russian ship that arrived before them? The Russians, who opted for a more traditional round-trip mission, are scheduled to return to Earth shortly after the Ferdinand arrives. Even if he could convince them to take him along, which he doubts, there wouldn’t be enough blood for the journey. He needs to find a way to survive on Mars with the supplies at hand. That or perish.
He transmits a report to Mission Control, feeding them his cover story about faulty monitors. The response is a simple acknowledgement. It takes over twenty minutes for radio transmissions each way, so they can’t exactly have a conversation.
For the next two days, Isaac roams the ship. His compulsion seems quelled for the time being, but soon, he suspects, the bloodlust will overtake him again. If he feeds from the others, he might convert them, too. The competition for their limited blood supply would be too much. He considers draining them mechanically, but that would be short sighted. Each holds about five liters but, unlike the storage bank, they can replenish themselves as long as they’re properly nourished and healthy. He needs to keep them alive and producing, his own personal biospheres.
The main trick will be overpowering seven people, including the four aboard the Isabella. He can’t do anything until they’re on Mars — he needs them to land the ship. Will they notice anything about him when they awaken? Besides the whole lack-of-a-reflection thing, what might betray him — other than his compulsion to drink blood? A fact he intends to keep from them.
As he wanders the corridors, drifting past portholes that reveal blackest space outside and no hint of his reflection, he develops a plan. It will be risky, but it’s the only way he can imagine surviving this seemingly impossible situation.
Isaac uses his time alone to make preparations and cover his tracks. He stashes the open bag of blood in his quarters in case he needs to feed again prior to landing. He then tinkers with the equipment the medical officer will use to check their vital signs so it will register his non-existent pulse.
When the rest of the crew wakes, Isaac greets them at their pods and explains why he’s out of stasis early. No one questions his story or comments on his appearance. In the artificial light, they all look pale. Dyer’s review of their vitals is perfunctory — after all, they’ve been monitored constantly since launch. Because they don’t have a formal dining schedule, the others aren’t aware that Isaac isn’t eating or that he doesn’t need to sleep.
After the Ferdinand enters Mars orbit, Captain Morrell gets the green light from Mission Control to begin landing manoeuvres. Isaac takes his place, strapped into his seat behind and to the left of Morrell. His months of training kick in, despite the change he’s undergone, and he performs his assigned tasks as required. The Ferdinand breaks through the thin upper atmosphere at a predetermined angle of 14.8 degrees and, less than ten minutes later, they reach their designated landing zone near base camp.
The instant they touch down, Morrell flips the switch to kill the engines. While his fellow crewmembers are busy congratulating each other, Isaac produces three syringes filled with a powerful sedative he pilfered from sickbay. In quick succession he injects Willows, Dyer and Morrell through their flight suits. The drug acts so fast that no one has time to cry out. Their suits are designed to repair punctures automatically, so he doesn’t need to worry about compromising them. The drug should keep them out long enough for Isaac to transport them into their new home. He has more syringes in his pockets in case the move takes longer than anticipated.
Briefly, he considers destroying the ship’s com unit, but there are too many redundancies, including systems in the base camp and on the orbiting freighters. Instead, he sends a message to Mission Control and to the Isabella that cosmic radiation is interfering with communications. There’s nothing the people off-planet can do, but the longer he can keep them in the dark the better.
He drags the three unconscious crewmembers from the Ferdinand into their base camp. It’s hard work, but the reduced gravity — barely more than a third that of Earth’s — helps. Once inside, he strips them of their flight suits and restrains them.
When he’s finished, he returns to the Ferdinand for a well-deserved drink of blood. Apparently he can manage a few days without feeding, and he only needs a fraction of what he consumed after emerging from stasis. He files that bit of information away for future use.
For the time being, he decides to return the crew to stasis while he figures out what to do next. That way he won’t have to worry about them getting free while he’s dealing with the crew of the Isabella.
He transfers the equipment he needs from the Ferdinand and sets up a communal stasis center in what was supposed to be the biosphere’s lounge. He’s not a doctor, but he received medical training as part of preparations for the trip. While inserting IV lines into his crewmates’ wrists and necks, he has to stop for another quaff of blood to allay the temptation to sink his teeth into their succulent veins.
The supply of drugs required to keep the crew subdued and nourished will last no more than a few months. That’s how much time he has to come up with a way to keep them alive, restrained and docile for as long as possible. Though his muscles atrophied and he lost bone mass during the long trek from Earth, he feels strong. He’s probably a match for any one or two of his former colleagues, but if they all managed to get free at once, he’d be in trouble.
The Isabella arrives on schedule. Isaac communicates with the ship sporadically after it enters orbit, allowing the link to go in and out at random, filling the feed with bursts of static.
His most interesting discovery over the past two days is the fact that he doesn’t need to wear his flight suit outdoors — just his we
ighted boots to help keep him rooted to the planet’s surface. Though atmospheric pressure is only a few percent of what it is on Earth, he doesn’t require oxygen any more. An extra couple of hundred million kilometers apparently reduces his susceptibility to sunlight, too.
Without the suit, his mobility and range of vision are much greater than those of the arriving crew. He darts around their ship, hides beneath its struts and leaps out to overpower and sedate them one at a time. After they’re all unconscious, he drags them into the lounge and strips the stasis equipment and blood supplies from their ship. Soon he has seven ‘factories’ lined up in a neat row. He strolls among them, admiring his handiwork.
The biosphere’s computer has a database designed to supply the colonists with information. Though it can link to Mission Control computers, it needs to be self-reliant. For up to two weeks per year, communication with Earth will be impossible. He researches Total Parental Nutrition, the type of IV used to feed comatose patients. It requires inserting central lines into his subjects and maintaining the injection sites to prevent infection. He’ll have to spend a lot of time in the lab preparing the solutions, as well as mass producing the drugs required to keep them unconscious. He’s doomed to become both an extended caregiver to seven vegetables and a pharmaceutical factory. The life of a vampire never seemed less glamorous.
He remembers reading that pairs survive better in the wild. A companion would make his existence more tolerable. He has seven candidates, but he gravitates toward the one who tempted him first: former flight engineer Willows. He’s not sure of the process involved in converting her into a vampire, though. Their computer database offers no help. All he knows is what happened with him on that surreal night at the bar, and much of that is a blank. Does he need to feed on her just once, or are multiple feedings required?
When science fails him, Isaac turns to their extensive electronic library of literature. Even that is contradictory and vague. If biting Willows on the neck and sucking her blood doesn’t work, he’ll have to force her to drink some of his blood.