Jann opened the door to the incubator and inspected the petri dish cultures. One from each of the remaining ISA crew and one from Nills. It was plainly obvious, from the multitude of blots populating the agar gel, that they were all infected. Yet, Jann checked them anyway, one by one, under the microscope just to be certain. And there it was, the same elongated bacterium that had infected Decker, and possibly morphed him into a deranged psychotic. It was present in all the crew samples. However, it was only Decker that had developed the devastating psychological transformation. The good news, if she could call it that, was their infection load was much lower. It seemed that all but Decker had some way of fighting the infection, fending off the biological invasion and keeping them sane.
Nills, on the other hand, was clear. Even though he had been exposed to this for years, his sample looked to Jann to be completely free of the bacteria. Perhaps she made some mistake in preparing it. She would need to check again to be absolutely sure.
The implications of these results began to percolate in Jann’s mind. The bacteria were highly virulent and once infected, you either went psychotic or your body figured out a way to live with it. This meant that there was only one option now—she had to find a way to kill it. And if she failed, then none of them could leave the planet. Ever.
The risk of carrying this plague back home and infecting Earth was unthinkable. It had the potential to devastate the human race. A pandemic bordering on apocalypse. Of course, she was assuming that this bacterium was in fact the cause. Jann had no real proof of that—as yet. She looked over at Decker. His chest rose and fell as the monitors drew out his life in luminescent peaks and troughs. He had been lying in stasis for a long time now. His consciousness held in check by the drip-drip of drugs. How long would he last like that? she wondered. A month, less? It was slow death by starvation. Perhaps Annis was right. Killing him might have been better—more humane. Yet, she had to try. It had gone beyond simply Decker now, they were all in this, all infected. If she was to ever see the blue planet again then she had to find a solution. A way to kill it.
Since it was a bacterium, it might be as simple as administering a course of the appropriate antibiotic, as Paolio had suggested. The lab was well stocked, although how much was in date would impact on its effectiveness. But they had others in the HAB. It would help if she knew more about the type of bacteria she was dealing with here. It was engineered, that much she was certain. But how and why she had no clue, unless she could dig deeper into its DNA. For the moment at least, she had no way to perform those kinds of test. Not that it mattered in reality. Decker would be the guinea pig. If the antibiotics worked on him they would work on the rest of them. In the meantime she would repeat the culture test on Nills. If it still proved negative then here at least was a potential source of biological answers—maybe even an antibody. But she was getting ahead of herself.
On the bench, beside the microscope, a red LED blinked on her comms headset. She picked it up, placed over her head and hit the receive button. It was Annis.
“Malbec, nice of you to answer. You’ll be happy to hear I managed to re-establish communications with Earth.”
“That’s great, you fixed it. What was wrong with it?”
“Eh… look I don’t have time to get into the technicalities. Suffice to say, I managed to send a report back to Earth.”
“And?”
“And the upshot is they want to get the research lab back online. They reckon it will help you in your investigations.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“Now listen. We need to get that hippie on board with this. I’ve been sent the boot-up routines and schematics, but it would be better if he and that goofy robot of his help us. He knows the systems better than anyone.”
“Okay, when are you coming back here?”
“I’m on my way.”
“Well bring some food… and coffee.”
“Malbec, we’ve got more important things to concern ourselves with than food.”
“If you want to get Nills on board then there is no better way than to come bearing gifts. He’s been living on a diet of fish and plants for years. He may well be in need of a change—even if it’s just for the novelty.”
“Fine, I get your point.”
“And Annis…”
“What?”
“When you get here, be nice.”
“Jesus, Malbec. Next you’ll be asking me to seduce him with my womanly charms.”
I wouldn’t worry about that. You don’t have any, thought Jann as she switched off the headset.
Annis dutifully brought back supplies. They consisted of some standard ISA food rations and a few pouches of ground coffee. Nills was tucking into a portion of Chicken Tikka Masala. “This is just amazing. I had forgotten how good it tastes.”
“Consider it an Indian takeout, with a 140 million mile delivery,” said Paolio. “To be honest, we’re pretty tired of it after three months.”
“And this coffee is simply ambrosial.” He sipped the thick black beverage. “You know, we tried to grow the Arabica plant up here. Not very successfully. It’s a difficult and temperamental plant to grow, even on Earth.”
“What did mission control have to say?” Jann was prompting Annis to get to the point now that Nills had been softened up.
“They want the research lab brought back online.”
Nills stopped eating and looked wide-eyed at Annis. “No way. It’s too dangerous. And besides, there’s every possibility that none of the equipment will work after all this time.”
“Well that’s what they want us to do—with or without your help,“ said Annis.
“What’s the difficulty in bringing the research lab back online?” asked Jann.
Nills sighed and sat back in the battered armchair. “There are lots. For one it’s a power suck. That’s the reason we shut it down back during the storm. It uses a whack load of juice. Two, it’s been sitting in deep-freeze for over three years so if things start shorting then it could cause more serious power problems back along the line, jeopardizing the main colony life support. Not something to take lightly.”
“But I thought parts of it are still up and running?”
“Yes, there are systems in there still powered up. They can’t be shut down, I don’t know why, but they were obviously important.”
“We could isolate all the ancillary equipment circuits, use a standalone power source, bring life support up first, then power up the machines one by one as needed,” offered Gizmo.
Nills gave him a look as if to say ‘traitor.’ He scratched his chin and then poked at the Indian takeout with his fork. “Maybe. But we would still need to recycle the air supply a few times to clean it out while keeping it isolated. That’s assuming there are no leaks, you know, that the modules can still hold one atmosphere of pressure. And the condensation buildup doesn’t short anything out.”
“We have to try. There’s probably a lot of specialist equipment in there that might help us find answers to this infection.”
“Assuming that’s what it is, an infection. Who’s to say it not related to the Martian gravity or contamination in the soil or a whole lot of other things?” said Nills.
“What were they doing in there anyway? We’ve got no record of it in our initial brief. In fact it doesn’t even show on anything we have.” Jann flicked through a sheaf of ISA notes and diagrams.
“Genetic research, at least that's what they said.” Nills was now biting into an apple. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaned in and looked at them intently. “Four of them… they were a breed apart. They came shortly after the biodome was built and started creating the research lab. Dr. Venji and three others. Said they were developing new bio-organisms for the colony. But there was something about them, kept themselves away from everyone else. They had their own accommodation module, ate their own food, seldom mixed with the rest of us. Rumors started that COM was planning to return them back to Earth after… whatever it was
they were doing was finished. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But one thing is for sure, they were up to lot more than they let on.” He sat back and waved the apple core in the air. “To be fair, they did bring a lot of advanced medical equipment and supplies with them.” He dumped the apple core into the remains of the Tikka Masala. “About six months into their stay here they started doing tests on all the colonists. Medical checks they called them. They got more frequent as time went on.”
“What sort of checks?” said Paolio.
Nills waved his hand. “Checks, I don’t know. They would lay us out in the medlab and wire us up. Told us we were in perfect health, and all that.”
“We need to get that lab back online, and then maybe we can find some answers,” said Jann
“I doubt that any of it will still work.” Nills shrugged his shoulders. “But hey… if you think it’s worth trying then Gizmo and I will give it a go.” He stood up. “We’ll have to run a lot of diagnostics first, so that’s going to take a bit of time.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know, several hours at least. Then we can try. But first, I have other work to attend to. What with all these extra mouths to feed.” He got up and moved off towards the biodome, Gizmo following faithfully behind.
Paolio sipped his coffee. “He’s probably right, you know.”
“About what?”
“About none of the equipment functioning.”
“Maybe.” Jann wondered if now would be a good time to break the news. “I’ve done some preliminary tests on our blood samples.”
“And?” said Annis, sitting forward.
“I’ve found traces of the same bacteria in Decker in all of us.”
“Shit,” said Annis. “You mean we’re all infected?”
“Except for Nills. He seems to be clear, as far as I can tell.”
“I knew it. Don’t you see, he’s infecting us?” Annis was standing up pointing back in the direction of the biodome.
“That’s crazy. He’s just built up an immunity to it. He probably doesn’t even know himself.” Jann was now also standing, facing off with Annis.
Annis seemed to back off a bit. “Maybe, but I still don’t trust him.” She started to pace. “Do you know what it is?”
Jann hesitated, she wasn’t sure how Annis was going to react. “It’s a genetically modified variant of Mycobacterium Leprae.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Leprosy,” said Paolio.
“Leprosy? You mean this is a goddamn leper colony?”
“No, it’s a derivative, not the same thing.”
“So how do you get rid of it? Annis was leaning into the table now.
“We’re trying some antibiotics, but none have worked so far,” said Paolio.
“Well that’s just great, just goddamn great.” She sat down again shaking her head.
“It’s impossible to know with what we’ve got in the medlab, Annis,” said Paolio. “That’s why we need the research lab up and running.”
“There’s one other thing,” said Jann. She might as well get it all out on the table, so to speak.
“What now?” said Annis.
“We can’t leave this planet until we find a cure.”
Annis was back on her feet again. “That’s bullshit.”
“No, seriously, we can’t afford to bring this back to Earth.”
“No way, I'm not staying on this rock any longer than I have to. I didn’t sign up for this crap.” She was moving around, waving her hands in the air. “Screw this,” she said, and stormed out of the common room.
Jann and Paolio sat in silence for a minute.
“I thought she took that pretty well, all things considered.” Paolio said finally.
“Where’s she off to? Back to the HAB?”
“I’ll talk to her later, once she settles down a bit.”
“She’s losing it,” said Jann.
“She’s just under a lot of stress, we all are.”
“There’s one other thing,” said Jann.
“I’m not sure if I can take any more. What now?”
“It’s Annis. Her infection load is much higher than the rest of us.”
Paolio picked up his coffee cup from the table and looked over at Jann. “You think she’s a risk?”
“I don’t know. It’s nowhere near Decker’s, but it’s much higher that than rest of us.”
Paolo looked into his empty cup. “I think I’m going to need a lot of strong coffee.” He swung his wheelchair in the direction of the galley.
“I’d better go and talk to Nills.” Jann stood up and headed for the biodome.
Paolio turned back to her with a smile, “Oh, and Jann…”
“What?”
“Remind me never to have dinner with you ever again.”
19
Bio-Dome
Jann went in search of Nills and found him deep inside the biodome. He was in an area where he had created the garden, as he liked to call it. It was a rustic vegetable patch, no hydroponics, no hi-tech lab equipment, no use of any twenty-first century technology. Of course, this belied the fact that all plants were bioengineered, the soil was treated with specially manufactured GM bacteria to cleanse it of Martian toxins and no pests would ever come to blight this crop. Nevertheless, it had the outward appearance of a typical kitchen garden, an oasis of low-tech simplicity in an environment of hi-tech engineering.
He was digging potatoes and piling them into containers. His fluid movements told of long practice at this very task. Jann watched him for a while from a distance, peering through the gaps in the overgrowth. His simple unhurried movements had a calming effect on her. Eventually, it was he that spoke first. “I won’t bite, you know.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to spy.” She came out from behind a large hanging vine. He stopped and rested an arm on the handle of his spade and gave her a bright smile. If it hadn’t been for the latticework of the domed roof in the background he looked just like any artisan gardener, working in his allotment back on Earth.
“Want to help? It’s good for the spirit.”
Jann considered this for a moment. Paolio was talking to Annis, getting her head straightened out—hopefully. Decker was going nowhere and there was not much else she could do until the research lab was brought back online. “Sure, why not.”
“Here, let me show you.” He picked up a short handled fork. “You dig in like this, not too hard, so you don’t skewer a spud. Then lift out the earth and give it a shake.” Four potatoes of varying sizes were resting on the fork. He leaned over to pick one up. “These bigger ones we store for eating, these smaller ones go into this container and we’ll keep them for replanting.” He handed her the fork. “Think you can manage it?”
“Hey, you’re talking to a farm girl here. I grew up tending vegetables.” She took the fork and went to work. Nills was right, it was good for the spirit. After a while they got into a rhythm. Nills went ahead and pulled up plants as Jann followed by digging out tubers. They harvested quite a bit in the time they were at it.
“Okay, I think that’s enough for now.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Let’s get these stored.” They carried the boxes between them as they traversed the biodome over to a processing room. It was small and crammed with machines, most of which seemed to be of Nills’ own making. They laid the boxes on a long bench. Jann watched him as he fiddled with one of the contraptions and started it up.
“Did you ever get lonely up here, all those years on your own?”
“Yea, sure. Well… at first there were three of us, after we got rid of the last crazy.”
“What happened to them?” Jann continued, now that Nills was ready to talk again.
“Jonathan… died of natural causes, not sure what exactly. He simply wasted away over a few months. It was hard to watch him go like that, after all he’d been through. That left myself and Bess.”
“Bess? Bess Keilly?”
“
Yes, did you know her?”
“No. We… eh… came across her… body, in the stone hut, out past the big dune.”
Nills stopped sorting the potatoes and hung his head. He said nothing for a while, then spoke in a soft tone, almost a whisper. “So that’s where she went. I should have known.” He looked up at Jann again. “We were close. But the isolation began to get to her. She became more and more depressed as each day passed. Eventually, she just went out the airlock one morning and never came back.”
“Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
Nills shrugged. “It’s okay.”
After a moment Jann continued. “Did you ever try to look for her?”
“Yes, but I started to get panic attacks when I went EVA. They got worse and worse each time I went out. Eventually I just stopped trying.”
“So that’s why you don’t go outside?”
“Yeah. Fortunately Gizmo can go out for me if something really needs to be done, like cleaning the solar panels, that sort of stuff.”
“It must have been hard on you.”
He waved a hand. “Ah… it’s just this place, what happened, everything. It tries very hard to kill you, one way or the other. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
“Do you ever miss Earth?”
“In the beginning I did. But after a while I realized what I really missed was the physical Earth, the natural beauty of it. What I didn’t miss was humanity’s desire to destroy it.” He turned back to the machine and adjusted some dials. “But tell me… would you miss Earth?”
Jann sighed. “If I don’t find an answer to this infection then I don’t think we’ll be going home. So, ask me again if we’re still here in a few months.”
“Ahh, I see. Sorry if I don’t look surprised. I could have told you that the first time we met.” He proceeded to empty the harvested potatoes into a hopper on the machine and started it up. It made a horrendous racket. He signaled to Jann with a nod of his head to move back into the biodome. Jann waited until they were in a quiet spot before telling him her news. “I’ve run some tests on the blood samples we took. We’re all infected, except you.”
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