by Joe Hart
They moved farther and farther into the maze of greenery, a sense of claustrophobia enveloping Gillian. She imagined this was what someone might experience wading through a wild rainforest with nature outnumbering humanity a hundred thousand to one. All that was missing were the whoops of monkeys and the chirps of hidden birds overhead.
Instead, the air was sterilized of sound, save for their footsteps.
“These silver aspen really took off in the last six months,” Vern said, patting one of the narrow trees lining the end of the pond as they passed. “Some of these were transplanted instead of sprouting from seeds. That’s why they’re so tall.”
Beyond the trees was an opening in the sphere’s sloping wall, a low-domed hallway leading away and turning out of sight.
Gillian nudged Carson as they neared it. “The tunnel,” she said quietly, and he nodded.
She inspected the walls and ceiling of the hall as they moved through it, but there was nothing damning or even interesting about its structure. It was made from the same material as the sphere, with thin light strips equidistant from one another overhead. If Mary Cranston had been referring to this tunnel, Gillian couldn’t see anything unique about it.
They emerged into another biosphere, a miniature version of the main area they’d left. Many of the same plants were represented as well as several potted ferns so thick and healthy she wondered if she would cut her finger by touching one of their sturdy fronds. A small, rounded pond sat in the very center of the rows.
“So same setup here in number two, just less life and maintenance,” Vern said. “Really, beyond keeping the proper mineral levels in the soil, there isn’t a whole lot to do besides record data while we’re here. Sometimes we watch reruns of old sitcoms to pass the time. Have you guys seen Seinfeld?”
Carson ignored the botanist and glanced at Gillian as he moved toward the pond, the look he gave her asking, Seen enough yet?
She had and hadn’t. The biospheres were impressive. Awe-inspiring almost, when considering what was outside of them: miles upon miles of nothing, no life, no real atmosphere. Just emptiness and the wax and wane of light from a distant sun. There wasn’t anything suggesting a threat she could see, something that might cause the symptoms the crew was suffering from. If they had made a discovery on the surface that put everyone at risk of infection, they were conspiring to keep it a complete secret.
There’s something wrong with them.
“Gillian. Ready to move on?” Carson asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
As they walked through the remaining space of the sphere, a droplet of water fell from the irrigation system into the pool, rippling its surface outward in ever-expanding rings.
She followed the two men to an airlock much like the one they’d entered through from the lander. The cart with their gear was to one side, and a viewing pane of reinforced glass looked out through the door at the far end. Gillian went to it and peered outside, getting her first real glimpse of the surface up close.
It was red, but not the bleeding color she’d seen from space. Up close it was muted, an orange-and-tan composite dotted with rocks. Past a house-size boulder twenty yards away was another biosphere half the dimensions of the one they stood in now, its rounded skin alabaster against the Martian landscape.
“Why don’t you have another tunnel linking the third biosphere?” Gillian asked, turning to face Carson and Vern.
The botanist rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “Technical error on our part when we began assembly. Construction placed both umbilicals together between numbers one and two. By the time we realized the mistake, setup was complete. So instead, we’ve been making the walk over to three via suits. It’s actually not as uncomfortable as you’d think, especially this time of day. The temp’s around zero Fahrenheit. Wait a few hours and it’ll be fifty below.”
Gillian looked out again at the panorama’s stark beauty, the thought of how quickly it could kill a person hovering at the back of her mind. And for the first time, she truly hoped the distant planet Ander’s spaceship was traveling toward would be the answer to humankind’s plight. She couldn’t imagine people surviving here, let alone thriving.
Vern snapped his fingers loudly. “Damn, just remembered I need to bring a couple trays of anthuriums over to three. Would you two be kind enough to carry them for me?”
Carson glanced at Gillian, who shrugged.
“Sure. We’re going anyway,” Carson said.
“Thank you. It’ll save me digging my suit out of storage. I’ll just run back to the station room and grab the trays.”
“Need help?” Carson asked.
“That would be great, the trays are a little bulky.”
“You wanna get suited up while you wait?” Carson asked Gillian, a hint of impatience in his eyes.
“Sure,” she said.
“Be back in a jiff,” Vern said as he and Carson moved into the biosphere and disappeared amongst the rows of plants.
Gillian walked to the cart against the wall and found her suit, pulling it free from beneath Carson’s. She moved to a bench farther down the wall, sat, and began drawing on the heavy material. As she was closing the first pressure seals over the suit’s main zipper, she heard the soft squeak of footfalls on the plastic flooring approaching the airlock entry.
“That was fast,” she said, standing up and bringing the zipper all the way to her neck. Glancing at the doorway, she expected to see Carson and Vern there holding the trays of flowers, but the area before the lock was empty.
Stillness.
She waited. Listening.
Another squeak. And something else.
The smell of the decon compound.
Her heart seized before double-timing.
“Carson?” she said.
There was a series of quiet beeps, and the overhead door descended quickly into place, cutting her off from the biosphere.
Gillian rushed forward. Her feet slipped and she fell hard against the barrier. She looked out through the small viewing pane, straining to see to either side of the door.
Nothing. No one.
A coolly mechanical female voice spoke from above.
Airlock decompression in ten seconds.
“No! No! Stop! I’m in here!” Gillian yelled, hammering her fist on the glass.
Nine. Eight. Seven.
Panic swallowed her whole. She spun, vision blurring as she looked at the opposite door leading outside. A green light blinked on a control panel beside it.
Six. Five.
She sprinted to the panel and began hitting buttons at random. Then, spotting the “Emergency Shutdown” option, she stabbed it with a finger.
Four. Three.
She hit the button again and again. No response.
Gillian turned, knowing there was only one option now: get her helmet on before decompression. She ran toward the cart but froze after three steps.
Her and Carson’s helmets were gone.
Two. One.
There was a hiss and pop as the outer door released its seal.
She sucked in two breaths and held the air as the door rose, Martian dust flitting inside on the floor. Frantically she searched the room and in one glance could see the helmets were nowhere inside.
Gillian hurried to the control panel and punched the “Seal” option again and again.
The door continued to rise.
Frigid cold consumed the airlock, trying to rip her breath away.
She turned, searching the biosphere’s entrance window for some sign of Carson or Vern, but it was empty.
Already her lungs were beginning to smolder.
The door clanged fully open, and she could hear a hollow hum of alien wind on the landscape outside.
She hammered the “Door Close” option three times.
Nothing.
Her vision shimmered, a strange prickling enveloping her eyes. She tried blinking it away, but it only worsened the sensat
ion. The last thing she saw before she had to close her eyes completely was the third biosphere’s entrance door across the red plain.
Gillian ran.
The cold was like January in Minnesota: relentless, unforgiving. The planet’s gravity difference made her feel as if she were running on a trampoline, and she stumbled on a loose rock, barely keeping her balance. The ground tried to trip her, make her fall. Was she still going in the right direction?
The air in her chest burned, lungs igniting as they hitched, crying out for oxygen.
But there was none.
Something slammed into her left arm, and she staggered away from it. The boulder she’d seen from the airlock, had to be. She was halfway to the biosphere. Nausea flooded her stomach, and she felt her consciousness flutter, the need for oxygen undeniable now.
Stale air blasted from her lungs, and she inhaled a shrieking breath, opening her eyes at the same time.
The biosphere was a dozen yards away, its door there and gone as her vision blurred, a rising heat in her eyes even as they became gritty and arid. It felt like she was swimming through sand. She coughed, the breath she’d taken doing almost nothing to ease the aching need for air.
Gillian tripped, her bad leg a tuning fork of pain. She sprawled into the dirt, a racking sob breaking free. She crawled forward, the edge of the biosphere appearing at the top of her vision that was darkening by the second. Her tongue was parchment, cracking as she drew in another worthless breath.
An image of Carrie at the beach in the sunlight flooded her mind as she lunged forward, the last of her strength evaporating like the moisture of her body.
Her hand thudded hard against something solid. She was cold. So cold.
Someone was yelling, screaming her name. But she couldn’t hold on anymore.
Forever. She thought the last word and held on to the picture of Carrie even as wings of darkness folded over her and she let them carry her away.
Transcript of recorded conversation between former NASA mission communications manager Duane Freeman and former UN operations support specialist Olivia LePit, eleven hours after Discovery VI disaster.
Logged evidence for federal investigation 100987, case 32. Also used as exhibit A12 by plaintiffs in class-action wrongful-death suit filed against NASA concerning Discovery VI disaster.
LePit: Hello?
Freeman: Have you been briefed yet?
LePit: Partially. What the hell happened?
Freeman: We’re not sure exactly, but from what we can tell, it’s catastrophic.
LePit: Catastrophic. Define that, please.
Freeman: Complete loss. Something to do with magnetic operations.
LePit: Fuck. What do we know so far?
Freeman: Several emergency transmissions that don’t make any sense. We’re combing through them now to try and narrow down what caused it.
LePit: Mechanical or human error?
Freeman: [Inaudible.]
LePit: What did you say?
Freeman: I don’t see how it can be mechanical. Not on this level.
LePit: We need someone on damage control. Find out who knows what, and keep this thing contained until we have a plan of action. If this gets to the press before we can come up with a briefing, we’re done, all of us. The entire project is probably going to be scrapped in any case.
Freeman: I think it’s over. There’s no coming back from this. Just remains to be seen if it was an accident or not.
THIRTY-THREE
Gillian could hear waves rushing onto the shore, their cascading sound triggering a deep calm that spread from her center outward.
She was home, back on the beach out in front of Katrina’s. She must’ve fallen asleep in the sun while Carrie was playing in the sand.
Something tightened around her arm, cinching to the point of pain.
Gillian cracked open her eyes.
What she thought was the sun at first dissolved into an overhead light. Sterile ceiling and walls. The blood-pressure cuff eased its grip on her arm as it deflated, and the ocean’s waves became the static hiss of oxygen flowing from the tubes inserted in her nostrils. And something else. A low voice speaking quietly.
Orrin sat in a chair to her left. He was reading from a book, the title on the cover blocked by one of his hands. He stopped, noticing the turn of her head, and set the book aside as he stood.
“Welcome back. How you feeling?”
She took an assessment of herself, licked her cracked lips. “Eyes and mouth are sore. Chest hurts a little too.” She winced, trying to move an arm. It felt like her joints were full of broken glass. “What happened?” Her voice was thick, and she felt the faint pull of painkillers, deliciously familiar.
“You took a walk outside without a suit on.”
Slowly the memory came back, easing into clarity like a sunrise. “Someone opened the airlock.”
Orrin frowned. “Who?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I . . .” She had to stop, the dryness of her mouth and throat killing the words.
“Here.” Orrin held out a container with a straw poking from its top.
She sipped, the water cold and heavenly. “Thank you.”
“You weren’t able to see who did it?”
“No. There was no one there. And . . . they took the helmets so I’d . . .” Her voice broke, and she shook her head.
“It’s okay now. Just rest. I volunteered to sit with you while Carson took a break. He’s been here almost constantly since you were brought back up.”
“How long?”
“About eighteen hours. But you were lucky. Easton saw you coming and was able to get you inside number three’s airlock right after you passed out. The doctor said there weren’t any signs of permanent damage. Your eyes and tongue hurt because the moisture in your body was boiling away without the atmospheric pressure. You also got a slight case of the bends. Joints hurt?”
“Yeah. Feel hungover.”
“I bet. I’ll let Carson know you’re awake.”
Orrin was almost to the door when she cleared her throat and said, “Thank you.”
He nodded. “No problem. Feel better.”
Then she was alone, listening to the faint sounds of people moving and speaking outside the infirmary room, the whir of a monitor fan beside the bed, the sluggish chug of her heart below it all. The lingering drug in her system tried pulling her back down into sleep, but she fought it, the knowledge that someone had tried to kill her and might not be far away even now keeping her awake.
It was only a few minutes before the door opened and Carson appeared with Leo close behind. She could see relief on Carson’s face as he approached, and something else indefinable.
“Hey, good to see you awake,” he said, stopping beside her bed. Leo gave her a warm smile and began studying her vitals on the digital readout.
“Good to be awake,” she replied, her voice smoother than before.
“Gave us quite a scare,” Leo said. “You remember who I am?”
She nodded. “You’re a King fan, like me.”
He smiled again. “I don’t think there’s been any permanent damage. You’ll be sore, and your mouth and eyes will be irritated for a few days, but you’ll heal up just fine.”
“Good to hear.”
“I’m sorry, they issued you a dose of morphine. They gave it to you before I could explain your situation. You can have ibuprofen from now on.”
She nodded and gave Carson a look.
“Leo, could you give us a few minutes?” Carson asked.
“Sure thing.” To her he said, “You hit that ‘Call’ button and I’ll come running.”
“Thanks, Leo.”
As the door closed behind the doctor, Carson drew the chair Orrin had been sitting in closer to the bed and settled onto its edge. What she’d seen in his expression before was clearer now. Unease, a nervous tension extending from his features down into his shoulders and posture.
“Believe me now?” she asked q
uietly.
He let a long breath out. “What happened?”
She relayed everything she could remember, fear coursing along her skin like a cold draft as she told him what it was like fleeing the open airlock and running blind to the third biosphere. “Thought I was going to die,” she finished. “And I gave up right at the end. Thought I had more fight in me than that.” A teardrop welled in her right eye, and she wiped it away.
“It’s a miracle you’re all right,” Carson said. “Most people wouldn’t have made it half as far as you did. I’m glad Easton was where he was, when he was.”
“Ditto.” She took a deep breath, siphoning off the anxiety as she cleared her mind of the memories. “Who was it? One of the botanists or Guthrie?”
He took his time answering. “None of them.”
“What?”
“When Vern and I got to the office, Guthrie was there chatting with the other two. We grabbed the trays of plants, and when we came back, the door was shut and you were gone, already inside the next biosphere.”
“That’s not possible. Someone closed the airlock and opened the outer door. Someone tried to kill me, Carson.” She could feel hysteria returning, the blip of her pulse revving on the monitor beside the bed.
“I know.”
She’d expected him to try rebuffing her, explaining to her or accusing her of what had happened. “You believe me?”
“Yes. We found the helmets hidden behind a stack of fertilizer halfway across the second sphere.”
She let the gravity of it all sink in as another memory returned to her, solidifying out of the darkness of her mind. “I smelled it again. The decon compound. Right before the door closed.”
He stiffened. “I think I know why.” When she said nothing and waited, he wet his lips and leaned forward. “The decontamination chamber isn’t the only place the compound is used. The insides of the teleportation units are coated in it too. It kills any bacteria or virus in the tube so there’s no chance of contamination when someone shifts. You’re covered in the stuff when you re-atomize.”
“Carson—”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, but you have to understand, you were the only one awake, and your blood was on the pry bar. Nothing else made sense. And the way Tinsel died . . .”