The Tau Ceti Diversion

by Chris McMahon

  “I’ll help you with Evelle,” said Andrai.

  CHAPTER 3

  The observation bubble was hot and confined. Mara watched the flickering display of the radiation meter anxiously, fearing another surge. The shielding on the starship’s hull would not help her here. If another X-ray burst arrived without warning, she would receive no protection from the thin transparent capsule.

  They had been out of suspension for weeks now, drifting in a crippled vessel. The habitat still rotated, providing artificial gravity, mimicking the distant hand of Earth now over eleven lightyears — a lifetime — away.

  Far out on either side of the ship, the bulky housings of the forward shield generators flanked her like an escort of squat industrial buildings, while stretching out ahead of the ship, like a needle, was the forward laser. Intended for use in prospecting operations, it could vaporize the surface of small comets and rocky asteroids so that the spectrographs on the Starburst could analyze their composition. From the forward laser and deflectors to the fusion drive at the rear Starburst was more than a kilometer long. It was built on a thin central axis with the rotating habitat in the center and the elegant, bell-shaped fusion drive trailing three hundred meters behind.

  Her body was covered in sweat, and her thin white shirt clung to her breasts. The cooling systems had been destroyed in the surge that killed the crew. Even in light clothes, the temperature of the powered-up ship was stifling, the heat leakage from equipment far exceeding the gradual radiative losses through the hull.

  As uncomfortable as she felt, there was beauty around her, and a welcome sense of peace. Within the observation dome, it seemed as though she was suspended alone amid all the vastness of space. Thousands of stars covered the dark blanket of the void with brilliant majesty. And one of these suns, amid the multitude, was more than a mere pin-prick, appearing instead as a small disk. Tau Ceti. It was this star and its progeny that she scrutinized through the small optical telescope, painstakingly recording astronomical data.

  Somewhere close by was the source of the X-rays. She had studied nearby space for long painful weeks with manual instruments, trying to find something, anything that could be emitting the radiation. At first, it seemed it must be the small yellow sun, but now she knew it was not. It was something close to the sun. But how could a stellar object leaking this sort of radiation stay hidden that close to Tau Ceti?

  As ship’s astronomer, it was her job to find out what had caused the radiation surge, and she was determined to unravel the mystery. She had joined the Starburst’s crew only months before the launch, after her mentor Professor James Montague — originally selected as the Starburst’s astronomer — died of a heart attack. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and Mara was determined to prove herself on her own terms. She did not want to think about the severe damage the ship had taken, their chances of survival … or Karic. She had been determined to keep everything neat and professional with the sub-commander, but she could never have anticipated the deaths, and the stresses this disaster had put them under.

  All through the long year spent in training together, and the months of commissioning that followed, Karic had inspired them with a sense of purpose and energy. His brilliance and drive were compelling. She had been drawn to him, and their spontaneous affair had quickly blossomed into a passionate relationship. Mara, a hardworking academic who had little time for romance, had been swept to dizzy heights by its intensity, experiencing a depth of feeling she had not thought possible. He had seemed unstoppable, and she had stepped inside that whirlwind. She had loved his dream, loved his ambition. Loved him, desperately. At that time, she was only a post-doc researcher on the mission, a lead scientist on the team led by Professor Montague.

  Then came the storm of publicity that led up to the launch of the mission. The ExploreCorp public relations gurus had gone into overdrive. With a married couple on the mission — Karic and Evelle — they had seized the opportunity to promote them as the New Age Robinsons, like the iconic pair from the 20th century classic, Lost in Space. Despite the fact that Karic’s marriage was a fiction, and that he and Evelle had been estranged since before the affair, despite the fact that it made a lie of Karic and Mara’s love.

  Mara had laughed at the idea when she first heard it. Then she had seen the look on Karic’s face. “Necessary” was the word he used. “It means nothing,” he said to reassure her. Just a publicity stunt. Yet it would make their love a hidden, dirty thing in the eyes of the public who wanted a fairy tale. Something to keep hidden lest it endanger the almighty ExploreCorp machine and its quest for financial backers. Mara had believed she was the center of Karic’s life. Instead she realized she was a fiction that could be moved into some hidden compartment when it suited Karic. Mara had learned the hard way that the mission was what he had really cared about. She had been nothing but a sweetener to highlight the completion of his true passion — the Starburst. It had made her feel worthless. A betrayal that ripped her to the core and made a wreck of her love. The long months while Karic and Evelle toured the world, feted by the high and mighty, were bitter times of isolation for her, when all the memories of their time together, revisited again and again in her loneliness, had become a torn minefield of conflicting emotions, a landscape of bittersweet pain. “It meant nothing?” She had meant nothing — to Karic. At first she had answered his messages and vidcalls with brief banalities, then angry outbursts. Then she had stopped responding at all. Her desire for him transformed into a hard conviction. She refused to be shunted aside when it was convenient. She had vowed never to give him a second chance, throwing herself into her work.

  Once more, she adjusted the optical instrument and meticulously recorded the position of the planet she was studying, entering another set of data through a manual keypad. Damn! Why did the computer have to fail? For the thousandth time she cursed Janzen for not giving them more time to study Tau Ceti before they set off from Epsilon Eridani. Mara stabbed at the buttons of her keypad. A vital clue was missing. The problem nagged at her, but the solution remained out of reach. She was dying to run her data through her astronomical programs, but that would have to wait until Ibri and Andrai had the Shipcom up and running again.

  A flash of light came from the left deflector — charged ions of interstellar gas fluorescing as they were shunted away from the bow of the ship. Behind her, the metallic bulk of the Starburst was impassive and silent.

  Sighing, Mara bent down toward the eyepiece of the telescope.

  The observation bubble was on the ship’s axis, remaining still as the habitat ring rotated. It was designed as a relaxation chamber, and Mara never would have imagined she would be taking manual observations here; not with the billion-dollar sensors arrayed along the hull and the powerful computer housed at the core of the ship.

  A harsh tone sounded through the bubble. The alarm on her comband. Her shift was up. She looked out into space, exhausted by the twelve-hour stint.

  Mara released the straps of the seat harness and propelled herself through the tiny space. As she moved, her hair spread out from her head like a dark Medusa’s mane. She tied it back with a swift, efficient movement, then pulled herself along the central accessway back toward the habitat. There were only two ways back into the rotating section — at either end of the central hold where the big seals were. She exited the accessway into the huge open space of the main docking bay, just forward of the central hold. The big hold doors — wide enough to accommodate a fully fuelled landing craft — were ahead of her, the big exit doors to space on her left. She fought disorientation, and just for a moment, the vast bay with its articulated docking arms spun around her. Mara fixed her gaze on the habitat access hatch and pushed off. She sailed through the zero-g of the docking bay to the rotating bulkhead above her and her palm slapped neatly onto a grip. She steadied herself and touched a sensor to open the hatch, swung herself around and dropped into the vertical shaft that led to the habitat levels. The hatchway thudded shut beh
ind her once she was inside, and she began her descent, the centrifugal force gripping her more with each rung.

  Nothing in the biodome had survived the accident. The harsh rattle and hum of the chemical purifiers now replaced the bio-filters, and the crew were living on borrowed time. Dealing with the dead had been a tough duty, but not as hard as being trapped in the lander and watching Karic hold Evelle as she died. Not as hard as listening to her dying words …

  At the bottom of the shaft, fatigue weighed on her unexpectedly as a full gee of artificial gravity took hold. When she reached the main deck, she could hear raised voices from the infirmary. Even muffled by the sealed door the tones were unmistakable. Karic and Janzen again. Idiots! Her weariness vanished. She clenched her jaw and closed the distance to the hatch in quick steps, triggering the sensor with a flick of her fingers and slipping inside, ready for anything.

  Karic sat in one of the infirmary chairs, his uniform jacket carelessly discarded over a nearby bed. His arm was tied off with a rubber tourniquet, just above the elbow, and he was carefully injecting himself, the plunger of the syringe descending slowly. An empty vial stood on the desk beside him.

  Janzen stood above him, his uniform coat sealed right to the neck despite the heat. His commander’s badge glittered gold in the bright infirmary lights. The thick yellow band of his retracted odin — data-glasses used almost exclusively by the corporate world — ruined the military image. His short hair had grown unruly in the weeks out of suspension, but he was still an imposing figure.

  “I am sure you are aware that I still need that analysis on the repair of the suspension equipment,” said Janzen, scrolling through the display of a handheld electronic reader.

  Karic’s eyes fixed on Janzen. They were dilated, the black pupils grown to dominate the normal deep brown of his irises. His face was white and drawn, the wavy brown hair even more disheveled than usual. Karic, more than any of them, had been working around the clock to get the ship running.

  “The sets are ruined, Janzen. We have to regain control of the drive. Then at least we can reach orbit.”

  “Of course, of course … I would agree that takes priority,” said Janzen reasonably. “However, I still need to understand the damage. I need to know exactly how bad things are.”

  Janzen’s insistence on detailed reports at every step was a drain on all of them, and at heart she supported Karic’s focus on restoring the ship’s systems. Yet to side with Karic openly against the commander would add another source of division when they could least afford it. She was furious at being put in this position. Her brief liaison with Janzen, the ExploreCorp executive playboy, before she met Karic was another complicating factor. It had been no-strings-attached, and at the time, she had no idea they would all end up on a mission together.

  Both of them were maddening.

  Mara snatched up the vial and read the label. Uppers. “What the fuck do think this is going to solve?” said Mara, shaking the vial in front of Karic’s face. “How soon before you can’t even think straight?”

  Janzen and Karic looked at Mara in surprise.

  ***

  Karic put down the empty syringe and took off the tourniquet. He watched Mara carefully. She looks exhausted. Karic felt new clarity sweeping through his mind. The stim-tabs were no longer enough to keep the fugue at bay. How could he explain that to Mara? To any of them?

  Ibri entered the room and stood just behind Janzen. His dark face was impassive, the deep-set eyes avoiding, yet his physical presence at Janzen’s shoulder provided tacit support, bolstering the commander’s authority. The lack of reaction from Janzen at Ibri’s stance unnerved Karic, implying some sort of unspoken agreement between them.

  Karic stood and rubbed his arm.

  Andrai swept in through the doorway, smiling at Mara as he walked across the room to stand next to Karic. The blond tech was out of breath, and must have run through the length of the ship, no doubt hot on Ibri’s heels. Karic felt the warmth of gratitude. If the lanky tech was in Janzen’s corner, than Andrai was definitely in Karic’s.

  “Maybe you can explain to me how I can write a report on the repair of the suspension equipment when they cannot be repaired? The suspension equipment is finished,” said Karic.

  Andrai helped Karic assess the damage and knew how bad it was. Ibri’s dark eyes met Karic’s, stunned. The empty vial slipped from Mara’s fingers to clatter on the floor. Her face grew ashen.

  Janzen seemed unmoved. This puzzled Karic. He would have thought the news would devastate him. It meant the end of any chance for a resounding success from the mission. Their hopes for survival now rested on the Tau Ceti target planet. If it could support life, then they had a chance — but there would be no return to Earth.

  Janzen scanned their faces, his penetrating blue eyes calculating, weighing. His voice was warm, resonant, pitched to fill a room twice the size of the infirmary. “We need to all pull together with a shared purpose — that’s the key to our survival. There is always a way if we can all put our minds to it. Always other options.”

  Karic shook his head in bewilderment. “What are you talking about, Janzen? What options?”

  Janzen tilted his head back in an unconscious gesture. “We all need to do our part. If you can deliver that report by the ten o’clock meeting, Karic, we can deal with all of this as a team.”

  With that thought lingering in the air, Janzen left the room, Ibri behind him. Karic understood Janzen, this demand for detailed reports was his way of trying to get control of the situation. Yet, since the incident, he had seen something else in the commander. A distance. A cool calculation. Was this something unnatural? A consequence of shock? Or had the crisis stripped away an outer layer of pretense revealing what was there all along? The thought was unsettling.

  Mara’s face twisted into an angry frown. “There are only five of us, Karic. We have to work together, or can’t that penetrate the drugs in your brain?” Mara turned and strode from the room, calling over her shoulder. “Some of us have work to do.”

  Andrai watched her walk away, his eyes drawn to her slim hips and the shapes of her legs in the form-fitting uniform. Sensing Karic watching him, the tech looked away quickly.

  The full force of the drug hit, then. His heart hammered. His mind was full of plans. New configurations for the jury-rigged fusion control system, ways to bring the fission reactor back out of a dangerous reaction zone. Karic started pacing the infirmary.

  “You OK, boss?” asked Andrai.

  “Yes, Andrai.” Karic smiled at the good-natured tech.

  “Listen. Over the last few weeks … Thanks for your help.”

  Andrai shrugged his shoulders. “I can read the writing on the wall as well as anyone. Janzen has no idea how to deal with this — even if he thinks he does.”

  “Janzen is doing what he knows. He is a good man, but he’s not the man for this, Andrai. I no longer trust his judgment.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We have to get control of the fusion drive. If we can’t decelerate we will pass right through the Tau Ceti system. Then we are finished.”

  “OK. Right. I’ll get back to the plant and pick up where we left off.”

  “Good. Thanks, Andrai. We’ll beat it. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Andrai sauntered out of the room, a slight smile on his face.

  Karic picked up the vial and syringe and dropped them into the secure disposal. He was shocked to see how many discarded vials were inside. All were his.

  “What are you trying to do, Karic?” he asked himself. He had told Andrai he was sleeping two to three hours a night. The truth was he had stopped sleeping at all. His body could not take much more of this. But with so much of the ship damaged, he could not afford to slip. He had to resist the fugue. Any sleep, even a short rest with his eyes closed, seemed to bring it on now. It was growing stranger too, the visions were increasing in complexity, clarity.

  He raised a hand to his
head. The pain was intense. But pain he could deal with.

  Karic walked swiftly to the door, giving vent to the restless energy released by the drug. He had to get to the fusion plant to help Andrai.

  He walked to the rear of the habitat section and climbed up the shaft to the axis. He sighed with relief as the pull of artificial gravity left his fatigued limbs. He pulled himself out through the top hatch and pushed off, sailing through the zero-g no-man’s-land between the rear end of the cylindrical central hold and the accessway that trailed out behind the ship to the fission reactor and the fusion drive. The air was hot and stale here, and he suppressed the sense of anxiety the space always provoked in him. A truncated cone with sides that sloped down to the diameter of the rear accessway, it was a place that said: be elsewhere. The spatial confusion did not help either. Karic felt a moment of disorientation as his frame of reference shifted. Above him the hatch to the access shaft now rotated with the motion of the habitat, while the big doors to the dock behind him and hatch he was drifting toward became stationary. Light gray metal bulkheads arched overhead, the stark struts and beams like illicit visions of the Starburst’s secret heart. The high-tech anti-corrosion coatings had held well in the dry environment, yet there was always some moisture. The red-orange blooms of rust tinted the gray paintwork on some of the welds. Time is the natural enemy of the works of man.

  He pushed through the hatch into the access tunnel. His stomach churned and his throat tightened. The burnt, rotten smell still lingered. This was where he found Ryal. There had been nothing left of the thin, energetic man he knew. Nothing but a burned corpse, tattered uniform hanging in strips, the close-cropped hair still horribly the same above a ruined face with glassy, withered eyes. Blood and fluids had surrounded him in a cloud, like some ghastly nebula.

  Karic shook off the memory and pulled himself along the accessway toward the bright lights of the reactor control room, going faster and faster — as though he could leave that memory, and the images of the other dead, behind him. The dead were all together now, in one chamber off the central hold, open to vacuum, slowly cooling to ice as the last of their warmth radiated inexorably into space. Karic began to sweat with the exertion. He cried out in sudden fear as he lost his grip on the rungs, slamming his head into the side of the shaft. He lay curled into a ball, bumping down the corridor under his own momentum.