Paolio shrugged his good shoulder and smiled. “Research?”
“Greetings.” Gizmo whizzed in. “Nills has requested you join us in the common room for some breakfast—at your convenience, of course.”
Jann looked down at Paolio. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Come on then, Decker’s safe enough here for now. Let’s get some food.”
Nills and Gizmo had been busy. They had set out an array of food on the main table in the common area. Standard colony fare: fresh fruit, salads and fish. There was also a good supply of colony cider. Nills sat in a battered chair eating a bowl of porridge.
“Just so you know,” said Nills between mouthfuls of food, “The bodies of your deceased colleagues have been stored in an exterior unit, where it’s subzero.”
Jann sat down and put her head in her hands. Paolio leaned over and patted her back. She grabbed his hand with both of hers, pressed it against her cheek and sobbed. It had finally sunk in, the tragedy of it. She couldn’t control it, and it all came flooding over her and her body shook.
“Dr. Malbec?” Gizmo’s voice was surprisingly low, as if the little robot could somehow sense the emotion of the moment. Jann lifted her head, released Paolio’s hand and rubbed a moist eye. “Yes?”
“Would you like some tea?”
She managed a smile and nodded. “Sure, thanks.”
“Make that two,” said Paolio, he too was visibly emotional. The death of Lu was particularly hard for him. He patted Jann’s back one last time as the moment passed and they both regained some composure.
“Tell us what happened here, Nills. You’ve seen all this before, haven’t you?”
Nills put down the now empty bowl and scratched his chin. “I have, it seems a long time ago now. It’s what destroyed the colony—well almost.”
“So what the hell is it? We need to know. Two of us are dead and our commander is a raging psycho. What do we do?” Jann’s frustration was bubbling to the surface.
“There’s nothing you can do, except run and hide.”
Gizmo arrived with mugs of tea and Jann took a tentative sip. It was surprisingly good. She relaxed, got some control of her emotions. She needed to get the story out of Nills, but it was evident he would do it in his own time. There was nothing to be gained by pushing him. Nills sipped his tea, took a rolled up cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He blew the smoke out in a long satisfying plume. He offered it to the others. “Fancy a toke?”
Paolio reached over and took the joint. Jann looked over at him. He waved a hand and shrugged his good shoulder again. “Hey, pain, you know.”
Nills opened up. “It started after the second phase of the colony was built, after the research lab. We don’t know why it happened or what caused it. But some of us just started going off the rails. In the beginning it was like… just one or two people. The symptoms were a type of psychosis that affected just the individual. I mean, they had no desire to kill anybody. The first colonist to die was Peter Jensen. He suffered very badly from this illness. And then, one day, he just walked into the airlock without an EVA suit and depressurized it. It took us days to clean him off the walls.”
“Days, really?” said Jann.
“Well, no. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”
Paolio coughed and passed the joint back. Nills took another drag, blew out the smoke and continued. “COM knew all this, of course, but they were at a loss as to what was causing the colonists to go stark raving mad. Eventually it got so bad that a few of them decided to decamp to the mining outpost.”
“The one over at the far side of the crater?” said Jann
“Yeah.”
“But I thought that had only minimal life support?”
Nills scratched his chin again and looked from one to the other like he was considering something. “I don’t suppose it matters now, so I might as well tell you.” Nills waved a hand in a vague direction. “The mining outpost is around ten kilometers north east of here. At the base of a cliff over by the crater rim. It’s a vast, mineral rich cave system. It had a relatively small entrance so over time it was sealed with an airlock and pressurized. Once that happened, people began to stay there, and eventually we moved a lot of equipment and many of the modules over there. It was quite impressive. We also had this crazy idea that if anything happened to this place we could survive there.”
“How come we didn’t know about this?” said Jann. Paolio was coughing again as he passed the last of the joint back to Nills.
“We kept it secret.” Nills inspected the butt. “You have to understand, that back then, living here was like living in a fish bowl. Every single microscopic detail of our lives was broadcast to a million different digital media channels back on Earth—twenty-four seven. No one had a private life. So, we just kept it quiet. No cameras, no intrusion, it was our private space.”
“Are there still people there, maybe someone still alive?” said Jann.
“No, definitely not. They’re all dead.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“Look, I just do, okay? The outpost ran using solar panels so they would have run out of power during the storm. If there was someone still alive they would contact me here. No… they’re all dead. There’s just me and Gizmo left now.” He took a last drag of the joint and stubbed the butt out on a metal plate. Then he just sort of zoned out. Jann wasn’t sure if he was thinking or had simply stopped talking.
“So what happened during the sandstorm?” she prompted.
“Oh, eh… yes, the sandstorm. Well that was a total mess if ever there was one. It wasn’t a big deal at the start, we were used to them. But after the first month we had the bright idea to start conserving power. That’s when people really started to go nuts—like your commander. People were dying as we fought to get the crazies under control. But as soon as one was dealt with another would go nuts, then another and another. It was mayhem. We managed to get some contained in the far dome, that’s when the plutonium power source failed.” He clicked his fingers. “Just like that, bang, gone. Now we were in real trouble. If we didn’t get it back online then all we had for power was the solar array and that was worse than useless during the storm.”
“So what did you do?”
“We assumed it had been damaged or sabotaged by the crazies. Some of us ventured outside to try and trace the cables back out to the source—find where the problem was. But they never returned. Some got lost, some were killed… I don’t know. Meanwhile, the power was getting critical and more of us were succumbing to the illness. It was scary as you didn’t know who would be next. They destroyed the far dome, one of the tunnels and a whole bunch of other stuff.”
“How did you survive?”
“Back in the beginning of the colony, we used to process soil on the surface but we accidentally discovered caves,” he laughed, “right under us. It was just luck. Anyway, we sealed them up and started using them for soil processing. Much easier than outside on the surface. So, when everything went to rat shit it was a good place to hide.” He stopped and seemed to be thinking again.
“So you holed up down there, for how long?” Paolio had now progressed on to a mug of colony cider.
Nills had zoned out again. “Eh… where was I, oh yes, the cave. Three months we spent there. They couldn’t find us, too dumb. We would sneak up when they were asleep, when they had stopped trying to kill each other and wrecking the place. We’d grab stuff and bring it back down. Eventually, they all killed each other up top, there was only one left. So we blew him out the airlock.”
“And then what?” said Paolio.
“By now we were living off fumes. Very little power left and the facility was ripped apart. Life support was barely functioning. The storm still raged outside.”
“So... The windmills in the airlocks…” said Jann.
Nills laughed. “Yeah, that was my bright idea. It helped a bit. But what saved us
in the end was a power control system reboot.” He started laughing and shaking his head. “It was just so dumb. I was trying to conserve as much power as possible by hacking the software on the mainframe, switching things off that it regarded as essential. I took the risk of doing a cold reboot—and what do you know?” Nills was on the edge of his seat now, waving his hands. “The goddamn plutonium power source came back online.” He started laughing hysterically. “We were just a bunch of dumb idiots, we never thought to try it before, kept thinking it was the crazies that were causing it.” He collapsed back in his seat. “And that was that. We survived.”
“We?” said Jann
Nills went quiet for a time, eventually he spoke again. “I don’t want to talk about that… not now, some other time… maybe.”
“Why didn’t you contact Earth and let them know?”
“The storm destroyed the uplink antenna.”
“But you could have written an S.O.S on the sand or something.”
“And then what? What would happen?”
“Well Earth would send people and supplies.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what they would do. And look how that turned out.” He looked across at Jann and Paolio. “Not so good, don’t you think? Two of your crew are dead.” He sat back. “No, there was no way we wanted any more people up here. Not until we found out what was causing this psychosis.”
“So did you discover anything?”
“Not much. I suspect it’s some type of bacterial infection. It started a while after the research lab was built. New people came, geneticists. The rumor was COM was even going to return them to Earth. That didn’t go down well with the rest of us.” He waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I don’t know, maybe it was just crazy talk.”
“So what were they doing, these geneticists?” Jann kept prompting Nills, now that he was in talkative mood.
“Playing God, screwing with organisms, making money for the Colony One Mars consortium. Although, to be fair, without GM this place wouldn’t function.”
Jann stood up and started to pace. “There must be more to it than a rogue bacterium, how come only the commander was affected?”
“It only affects some people, and there’s no pattern that we could see. Nills downed the last of his tea.
“So, I’ve told you my story, what about you? You’re not COM people.”
Jann took up the question. “No, this is an International Space Agency mission. We’re here to investigate what happened, gather up a few rocks while we’re at it and return to Earth. It’s a three month mission.”
“Return to Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Where is COM in all of this? After all, this is technically their facility.”
“Not anymore. They handed it over to ISA.”
“That sounds uncharacteristically generous of them. Forgive me if I don’t believe it.”
“Well, nobody was going to come back here on a one-way ticket and COM didn’t have the resources to start all over again. So it made sense to do it this way.”
“Let me see if I have this straight. The COM consortium hands over all their assets up here to the ISA, which don’t amount to a hill of beans since they all thought it was derelict. And then, gets national space agencies to spend taxpayer money to get them back up here.”
“This is not a COM mission,” insisted Jann.
Nills laughed. “Want to know what I think? I think you’ve all been taken for a ride.” He stood up. “Look, do what you need to do. I really don’t give a shit anyway.” With that, Gizmo seemed to wake up.
“Earthling approaching airlock.”
A few moments later, First Officer Annis Romanov strode into the common room and straight over to Nills. “Our comms unit is dead in the HAB. We need you to fix it for us.”
Nills looked at her with eyes like laser beams. Yet it was Gizmo that spoke. “Nills does not go outside on the planet’s surface.”
Annis was not sure what to make of this response. She looked at the robot and then back at Nills. “Hey, this is a serious issue. We have no way to contact our mission control.
“Nills does not go out onto the planet’s surface,” repeated Gizmo.
Before Annis could react Jann interjected. “What if we brought it here, could you look at it for us?”
Nills nodded. “I could do that. No guarantees, though.”
“Forget it. I’ll fix it myself, said Annis.
“Can you do that?” said Paolio.
“I think so. It will be quicker than taking it apart and bringing it here.”
“Problem solved, then,” said Nills. “Now if you all don’t mind I have a garden that needs attending to.” With that, he and Gizmo headed off to the biodome.
Annis slumped down in a chair. “You’re all still alive, I see.”
“Sleep well, did we?” said Jann.
Annis scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed, Kevin and Lu are dead and Decker is a vegetable. As first officer that puts me in command of this mission now, and we need to keep it on track.”
“Eat some breakfast and chill out.”
She looked at the food with disgust. “How do you know he’s not trying to poison us?” I don’t trust him—or that goofy robot.”
“Actually, when I get back to Earth, I really want one of those things,” said Paolio.
“That’s assuming we get back,” said Jann.
“Look, we’ve had a major setback, but there’s no reason we can’t salvage what we can from the mission. The colony still functions and a survivor has been found. This is major and we need to get this information back to COM.”
“You mean ISA,” Jann was pouring herself some colony cider.
“Yes, yes, I mean ISA.” Annis paused for a minute, like she was considering something and looked from one to the other. “Just so we’re all up front,” she finally said, “if either of you start going off the rails… I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
“That’s nice of you, Annis. You’re such a sweetie,” replied Jann.
15
Bloods
Paolio felt extremely fatigued after the morning’s breakfast with Nills. No doubt, the two mugs of colony cider and the smoke had a lot to do with it. Nevertheless, he was still physically fragile after what Decker did to him, so he went back to the accommodation module to rest. Jann headed into the medlab to check on the commander. As for Annis… well Jann wasn’t really sure where she went.
There was no change in Decker. His breathing, heart rate and temperature were all still elevated. His skin was a heightened pink color and his body was drenched in sweat, like he was running a high fever. Earlier, Paolio had cleaned up the wound around his forehead. Jann leaned over to inspect the Italian doctor’s handiwork. The scratches that Decker had accumulated all over his face were healing fast. In fact, they were nearly gone. Perhaps the injuries weren’t as bad as she had originally thought. Lifting up the bandage covering Decker’s head wound, Jann was startled to find that it had also begun to heal. Better mention it to Paolio when he arrived. No doubt he would have an explanation for this seemingly remarkable healing power.
She let him be and turned her attention to the equipment in the medlab. Before embarking on any tests she first needed to do an audit of what was available to her. As a medical surgery it was well equipped and stocked. But for in-depth analysis, she would need something more sophisticated. Possibly the research lab on the other side of the facility had what she needed. But that was offline for the moment. Maybe Nills could be persuaded to get it back up and running. In the meantime, she had a reasonably good microscope at her disposal here, so she could start doing some preliminary investigations.
By late morning she had taken a blood sample from Decker, as well as a number of other swabs, and was now incubating a series of test cultures. If there were any invasive bacteria roaming around in the commander then these tests would go a long way to finding it. However, they needed hours, possibly days, in the incubator b
efore any conclusive results could be ascertained, so she had time to kill. Rather than waste it she made up several slides with a drop of Decker’s blood using different stains. She placed the first one under the scope and peered through the lens. She delicately moved and shifted the focus point around the sample, not really expecting to find anything out of the ordinary.
It contained the usual mix of healthy blood biology. She would try and get an approximation of cell count, giving her a base to chart any rise or fall over time. Then something caught her eye. A darkened area; she focused in. A cluster of elongated cells came into view. Jann marked the spot and continued with her visual scan. She found another, and another. She wouldn’t need the incubated cultures after all. Decker’s blood was teeming with bacteria.
Her first thought was it might be tetanus, a fairly typical blood infection, usually picked up from soil. But it didn’t have the right features for her to be certain, and this being Mars, it wasn’t in the soil up here. Yet, there was something very familiar about these cells, the elongated rod shape, the waxy surface… she had seen this before. Then it hit her. “Impossible… it can’t be.”
She sat back and contemplated this discovery. Was this the cause of Decker’s psychosis? She stood up and was about to go find Paolio, to give him the news, when another thought entered her head. Maybe she should check her own blood. She wrapped a tourniquet around her upper arm and bit down on the loose end to pull it tight. She clenched her fist, felt her forearm for a suitable vein and identified a candidate. She flicked the cap of a syringe with her thumb and jabbed it in. Jann retracted the plunger and drew up her own blood. Once the plunger could go no further she gently extracted the needle and released the tourniquet. She prepared a slide with a drop from the syringe and placed it under the microscope. After a few moments of searching she sat back in the chair and breathed a sigh of relief… she found nothing. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t infected. It might still be there in much lower levels. Too few for her to detect with such a tiny random sample. She considered making up another slide, but it would be better to incubate a culture. If there were any bacteria it would grow and multiply in the petri dish. But it would take a long time for a clear result—assuming this was what she thought it was.
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