by Allen Steele
Slick Nick stops cold in his tracks, but the colonel keeps walking toward the dome. “Stand down, Corporal!” DeSoto snaps, and the gun-arm’s muzzle immediately falls. “Didn’t you hear me tell Sergeant Clay that we were coming over?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Swee’ Pea’s expression can’t be seen outside her CAS armor, but DeSoto imagines that the corporal is properly red-faced. “I’m sorry, Colonel. You startled me and…”
She doesn’t complete the thought, and DeSoto doesn’t push her. Bravo Squad is on edge and rightfully so, considering what they found inside the habitat. On the whole, DeSoto is grateful that Barnes is high-strung right now; at least it means she’s alert.
“Don’t worry about it,” DeSoto says. “No harm done.” She looks around. “Where’s Smoker? I thought he was out here with you?”
“Corporal Hernandez has cycled through the airlock,” Swee’ Pea replies. “Sergeant Clay asked him to come inside to assist with…”
Again she hesitates. “With what, soldier?” DeSoto demands.
“With the clean-up, ma’am.” Another pause. “I volunteered to stay outside, ma’am…to remain on guard duty.”
“What’s there to guard against, Corporal? There’s no one here but us.”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand.” Hesitation. “I preferred to remain at my post. That’s all.”
Now DeSoto understands. Corporal Patty Barnes—tough little Swee’ Pea, the PAM lifer who has stood up to the worst hazing her male squad mates could throw at her—is frightened out of her wits. She has heard all comlink crosstalk from within the base; she knows that Huygens Base is a slaughterhouse, and has found the limits of her courage. She doesn’t want to see what’s on the other side of the airlock.
On one hand, DeSoto is sympathetic. Were it not for the fact that she is the squad CO, she would just as soon let Power Chuck handle the nasty business of wrapping up the corpses. Yet she also knows that, just as she can’t let herself off the hook, nor can she allow Barnes the luxury of distancing herself. If Swee’ Pea remains outside, then eventually her squad mates will accuse her of wimping out. Their scorn, along with her own self-doubts, will eventually tear her apart. DeSoto has seen it happen before; it almost happened to her once, many years ago.
So the colonel compromises. She points toward the airlock. “Lieutenant Simms, cycle through and assist the others with the clean-up.” Slick Nick silently acknowledges her with a raised hand and steps toward the closed hatch, then DeSoto turns to Barnes. “Corporal, you’ll accompany me to the AEL airlock. I want to see what the lab looks like.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Barnes sounds relieved; escorting her squad leader isn’t as bad as picking up pieces of dead bodies.
DeSoto allows Swee’ Pea to lead the way to the Ambient Environment Lab on the other side of the habitat. The AEL is a small, unpressurized dome nestled against the pressurized habitat, connected to it by a sleeve containing the base’s secondary airlock. Barnes opens the outer hatch, then steps aside to let the colonel enter the dome before her.
“You first, Corporal,” DeSoto says. “Your lamp is brighter, and I’m unarmed.”
Swee’ Pea says nothing; to her credit, though, there is no hesitation this time. Bending her knees slightly so that the top of her bulky armor doesn’t hit the lintel, she ducks through the hatch and enters the darkened dome.
The overhead lights are off; their suit lamps cast long shadows off metal benches, stools and shelves. An island-table is in the center of the circular room. Spectrometers, microscopes, a vacuum chamber, photographic equipment, a computer terminal—DeSoto recognizes the usual apparatus one might find in a xenoscience lab.
Everything here is neat and tidy. That’s the first impression that strikes DeSoto as she and Swee’ Pea make their way through the lab. Clay had told her that the main dome had been totally trashed; even bunks had been slashed by a knife. However, the AEL seems to have been unmolested. A rack containing flasks near the airlock door is intact; even a glass sample jar perched on the edge of the island table is undisturbed.
“No bodies here,” Barnes says.
“Everyone in the science team has been accounted for already,” DeSoto reminds her, pointing toward the closed airlock hatch. “They found one guy in there, but I think Ballou has removed him already.”
“Yeah. Okay…yes, ma’am.” DeSoto hears an angry sigh over the comlink. “I’d sure like to get the guys who did this in my sights.”
Something about that jar…“I don’t know what you mean, Corporal. Who are you talking about?”
A reticent pause. “You know…the googles.”
DeSoto looks up at her. “I don’t recall anyone saying that the Superiors were under suspicion.”
A short, harsh laugh. “C’mon, Colonel…who else could it be? They’re the only ones who could get out this far. And they don’t seem to like the Pax very much, so…y’know, who else is there, right?”
DeSoto looks at the jar again. “Some Superiors we know might disagree with that opinion, Barnes.”
“Yeah, but they’re good googles. I mean, they’re different…”
DeSoto picks up the jar, examines it under her helmet lamp. It’s empty, save for a red-brown stain on its bottom. Yet someone had marked the label in black felt-tip pen: Spec. 51/Site 12. Org. Comp. SAVE!
She bends over to flash her helmet beam across the floor. No identical stains, no spilled substances. So what happened to the sample?
“It’s gotta be the googles, ma’am.” Swee’ Pea’s voice natters in her headset. “I know they’re your friends, but…”
DeSoto places the jar back on the table. “I don’t have any friends, Corporal,” she says, “and don’t you forget it.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
Enough of this. It’s time for her princess to come out of her shell, whether she likes it or not. “Let’s go,” she says, turning toward the airlock. “We’ve spent enough time in here, and we’ve got a job to do.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Barnes follows her to the airlock.
A/V LOG: PASS VS-29 HERSHEL EXPLORER
5.30.69/2346.01.46Z
A man floats peers into the camera lens: dark rings under his eyes, two-day beard, grey T-shirt mottled with sweat. He hovers weightless in a spaceship compartment, his right hand raised above his head, grasping a ceiling rung for support.
“I’m John Stephen Baylor, captain of the Pax Astra argosy Hershel Explorer. This is a supplemental log entry, recorded in Deck 2F, the hibernation bay. It is 30 May, 2069…Pax Independence Day, God save the Queen and all that…and it is now…uh, 2347 hours Greenwich…”
He glances past the lens. Someone out of camera range says something; Baylor nods slightly, then addresses the camera again.
“If you’re watching this, then you already know that half of my crew is dead and that all the ship’s decks and compartments, save for this one, have been deliberately decompressed. The only three known survivors…communications officer Sharlee Fulkerson, ship’s doctor Chang Tse, and myself…have sought refuge in the hibernation deck. Sharlee has shut down all the ship’s systems except for the nuclear reactor, the backup AI system, and life support for this deck only. Once this entry is complete, Dr. Chang will place us in biostasis, in hope that a rescue party will find us before the reactor gives out and the zombie tanks can’t sustain us any longer…”
Again, an unintelligible off-camera voice interrupts him. Baylor acknowledges the speaker with a curt nod.
“The most important thing is, do not…repeat, do not, under any circumstances…attempt to revive us until you have reached Highgate. Keep these tanks sealed until then. We don’t believe that we have contracted the contagion which led to the deaths of our crewmates or those on Titan, if they are indeed…”
He nervously wets his lips with the tip of tongue.
“Look, just keep the tanks shut until you reach Highgate, and only then open them under strict quarantine conditions. This is why we’ve—o
ne of the reasons, at any rate—why we’ve voided the rest of the ship. The contagion seems to be airborne. We don’t think we’ve contracted the contagion—the plague, the virus, whatever it is—but we can’t be too careful, and…um, whatever. Dr. Chang wishes to speak now.
Baylor moves aside. There is a momentary glimpse of the hibernation deck—three zombie tanks in the background, their lids open—then Chang moves into view. He looks just as exhausted as Baylor, but he speaks more rapidly.
“The contagion appears to be an aerobic virus that is native to Titan. It was brought into the ambient environment lab at Huygens Base as a sample of microbiological life forms discovered on the surface by the science team, from a tidal pool near the edge of the Galileo Planitia. I’m uncertain about the exact means of transmission, but I believe that members of the science team may have cycled through the AEL airlock with living samples which were then deliberately left unsterilized, in order to examine them more close in the habitat’s bio lab. In a rich oxygen-nitrogen environment, the life form quickly propagated and mutated until an aerobic strain found hosts in the expedition members…”
Chang pauses, taking a deep breath.
“So far as I can tell—and this is highly conjectural—once the contagion is metabolized by the lungs and enters the bloodstream, it attacks the central nervous system, specifically the frontal lobes and motor cortex through the thalamus and pituitary glands. It gradually wipes out everyone it infects, literally rotting out the brain, but as it does so, it drives the infected person insane. Before the plague kills its victims, it drives them into homicidal seizures.”
Chang glances at Baylor, then looks back at the camera.
“No one knew that Huygens Base was contaminated until sporadic quarrels, then fistfights, began to break out among members of the science team. At this time, two members of the ship’s crew were visiting the base. Then it got worse until…”
He shakes his head.
“Never mind. We now believe that they were contaminated, and when they returned to the Hershel they brought the contagion with them. By the time we lost contact with Huygens Base, the infected Hershel crewmembers had killed one uninfected member of our party, and the three of us sealed ourselves in Arm Two. We then—”
An angry voice off-camera stops Chang. He glances to the left, then reluctantly moves aside, allowing a third person to enter the picture: a bespectacled young woman, sweaty blond hair plastered against her face, her features distorted by her closeness to the lens.
“Look, bottom line…everyone down there is dead!”
Baylor’s arm comes into view, as if to grab Fulkerson’s shoulder.
“Fuck you, lemme finish!”
The captain retreats.
“I just wanna say…I just wanna say…fuck you, Captain! I just wanna say, I don’t believe we left six guys…six real good guys, I loved them all, but we left them down there to fuckin’ die because these assholes…these assholes here…and then they blew out the airlock when they could have saved Tim, but they just left him out there and—”
Chang and Baylor try to pull Fulkerson away, but she struggles against them as she screams at the camera.
“Get away from me, you pricks! I said I didn’t wanna transmit because I didn’t wanna—Okay? I just don’t wanna die, that’s all, I just don’t wanna…”
Chang gets Fulkerson in a headlock and hauls her away. A long pause, then Baylor reappears.
“I don’t think she’s infected. She’s just under stress…”
His gaze darts aside, then he jaunts away from the camera. For several minutes there is nothing to be seen except the open zombie tanks. Scuffling noises in the background. A high-pitched scream. Silence. Then Baylor reappears.
“Look, whatever else happens, you can’t let this thing get into the inner system. If it finds its way to the Pax, then everyone is screwed. This sucker thrives on oxygen and eats brain cells like candy. Just…”
He stops, glances away for a moment, then looks back at the camera.
“Just use your best judgment. I want to live, but…use your best judgment.”
His eyes rapidly blink, as if forcing back tears.
“Caitlin, Robert…I love you. Hershel Explorer signing off.”
Blank screen.
3.12.2070 0347Z—PARN Intrepid
“Huygens Base, this is Intrepid, do you copy? Over.”
Static. Jon Christ-Caswell waits a few moments, then tries again, adjusting the gain on the S-band transponder. On the third attempt a male voice comes over the comlink: “Intrepid, this is Huygens Base. We copy.”
Kinnard hovers above the comm station. “Huygens, this is Captain Kinnard. With whom am I speaking?”
A pause, then: “Intrepid, this is Sergeant Clay.”
“Sergeant Clay, we’ve been trying to get through to Excalibur, but there isn’t any response. Can you tell me where Colonel DeSoto is right now?”
A longer pause, then DeSoto’s voice comes over the line: “Captain, this is DeSoto. I’m here at the base with my people. There’s no one aboard Excalibur. Is there a problem?”
Kinnard and Christ-Caswell trade looks; this is not good. Kinnard hesitates. “Yes, Colonel, we may have a problem. I have to speak to you in private. Use channel B on the S-band transponder. Over.”
A few moments pass, then DeSoto’s voice returns: “Affirmative, Intrepid. Channel B on the S-band in sixty seconds. Huygens Base out.”
Jon switches the comlink to the new frequency as Kinnard pushes himself over to his seat and straps in. He checks the chronometer: forty-five seconds to go. DeSoto must be looking for some place in the habitat where she won’t be overheard by her team. At least he hopes she is…
“Tell her what, Marion?” Peter Christ-Webster has followed him to his chair; he floats upside down above Kinnard, clutching the ceiling rail with his feet.
Kinnard gazes up at this friend. “The truth,” he says. “Then we figure out where to go from there.”
Peter slowly nods his head. “May not have caught the contagion,” he says, “even if they’ve been breathing the air. Viruses cannot survive very long outside a living host. Everyone on Huygens and the Hershel dead a long time.”
“Most terrestrial viruses, you mean.” The contagion had evolved on Titan, a world whose environment was radically different from Earth’s: colder surface temperature, higher pressure, poisonous atmosphere. It was a miracle any form of life had developed there, let alone one which could propagate so quickly in an oxygen-nitrogen environment, spawning such lethal mutations. And yet it had…He looks up at Peter again. “Are you willing to take that chance?”
The physician says nothing. Kinnard glances at the chronometer, then glances over at the chief engineer. John silently nods to him, then Kinnard prods his jaw again. “Huygens base, this is Intrepid. Colonel DeSoto, do you copy?”
“I hear you, Captain. What’s going on up there?”
“We think…” Kinnard hesitates. “We think we know what killed everyone on Titan. Ditto for the Hershel.” He stops again. “Before I tell you, I’ve got to know one thing. Have you or any members or your squad opened your suits after cycling into the habitat?”
“Affirmative, Intrepid. The first three people popped their lids after they came through the airlock. So has everyone else. The base is completely pressurized.”
Kinnard purses his lips. “Does that include everyone in the landing party, Colonel? Who were the last ones to go into the base?”
“Lieutenant Simms, Corporal Barnes, and myself were the last ones to enter the base. Barnes opened her suit after she and I cycled through the AEL airlock five minutes ago. Simms and I have removed our helmets. Everyone is breathing the air inside the base. It smells bad, but that’s all that’s wrong with it.”
“Dear God,” Peter murmurs.
Kinnard hunches forward in his chair. “You said you came in through the AEL airlock?” He exchanges a dire look with Peter. “Did you discover anything unusual i
n the lab while you were in there?”
Before she can respond, Peter patches himself into the comlink. “Colonel, this is Peter Christ-Webster, ship’s physician.” Kinnard notices that he’s deliberately avoiding Superior patois. “Were there any biological samples missing from the AEL?”
For the first time she came on-line, there is a long pause before DeSoto replies. When she does, her voice is even harder than usual. “Look, whatever game you guys are playing, cut it out. You’re throwing questions at me, and when I give you answers, you throw more questions. You still haven’t answered the one I asked you. What’s going on up there?”
Kinnard looks at Peter, then at Jon. Their large blue eyes are locked on him, the expressions on their tattooed faces unfathomable. Just a few moments ago. Just a few moments ago, he had said to Peter that he would tell DeSoto the truth. Now the moment had come, and all he wants to do is lie.
“Intrepid, this is Huygens Base. Kinnard, what aren’t you telling me?”
He wishes he could tell her that she’s safe, that Bravo Squad is safe, that they can bag the bodies and load them into Excalibur’s cargo bay and come straight back to Intrepid. Ten bottles of wine await them in the ship’s stores; drinks on the house, gentlemen, while we refuel over Saturn. Then everyone goes below and snuggles into their zombie tanks. Nine months later, everyone arrives at Highgate. Mission accomplished.
That option is no longer available.
Kinnard takes a deep breath, silently curses himself and his job. Then he gets back on the comlink with DeSoto.
He tells her the truth, everything he has learned, and all the horrifying ramifications of that knowledge. As he speaks, Cayenne transmits a priority message to FLTCOM.
Long before they receive a reply, they’ve agreed upon a solution.